Speaker 1: And welcome back everyone to a new episode of You're
Wrong with Molly Hemingway, editor in chief of the Federalist
and David Harsani, senior writer at The Washington Examiner. Just
as a reminder, if you'd like to email the show,
please do so at radio at the Federalist dot com. Molly,
I need you to explain something to me. Tell me
about Cracker Barrel and why I should care about all this.
I really this whole deal where they change their logo,
but I'm told it's much more than that. Explain the situation.
I am not a cracker barrel person. I think I've
been in one a few times, maybe once with you. Actually,
I think we were at a cracker Barrel once a
few years back. But I don't get it. It's a
big corporation. It's like a billion dollar corporation's trinkets from
Malaysia in the front. It's not an actual, down home
southern restaurant. I don't know why people get so emotional
about it.
Speaker 2: I'm also you're more Southern than I am. First of all, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know about that. I'm the least southern person I know.
Speaker 2: I remember the very first time I went into a
cracker barrel. It was the nineties. I ordered tea and
they then ensued a conversation about whether it should be
regular tea or sweet tea, and I explained that I
didn't really understand the distinction, and the waitress said, y'all
must be from the North. I wasn't from the North.
That's from Colorado, you know. I just was like, oh boy,
this was in by the way, on a trip to Williamsburg, Virginia,
so it wasn't like deep South. It was just Virginia.
Speaker 1: It's like when I ordered dumplings there, I expected something
that approximated something that was like a Chinese dumpling or something,
but no, it's just bits of flour in like this gelatine.
It's disgusting.
Speaker 2: I feel like, as a Jew, you should have had
something like that Jewishot's awful, but I disagree. Oh my gosh. Okay.
And now that's also reminding me that one time when
I was in Alabama, someone asked me if I wanted
my chicken frad or double frad, which was a very
exciting conversation. So I'm not really a cracker barrel of ficionado.
The last time I was there, I was with you.
We did it with the entire Federalist staff, but near
as I can tell from people who go there, there
has been a decline in the quality of the food
that has been causing a decrease in customer satisfaction. And
to address this, rather than like dealing with the food
issue properly, a very uncracker barrel style CEO decided to
rebrand the logo and redesign the interior of the stores.
So the way it used to look if you went
in was like you were entering your southern grandmother's house,
lots of knick knacks and chatchkes and very down home feeling,
and they've changed it into sort of like a slightly
southern village in or ihop type feel, which is just
not the thing that the customers are going for. And
so this tension between the customers and the CEO just
erupted over the redesign of the logo, which was objectively speaking,
a very bad redesign. The old one had an old
guy leaning against a barrel, and it just looked very
old timy, and the new one is boring and awful,
and it's just like a font saying cracker barrel on
a background. I mean, it could not be more boring.
I have a little thing I just want to say.
When I was at the Opry, I noticed that that
very they had like a very great old school logo
with the guitar for WSM, and it just looked so great.
And I was thinking about how everyone keeps changing awesome
design and logos into very easily like reproduced logos that
are boring, and I'm sick of it. It's not just
a cracker barrel thing. It's like an everybody thing. And
it makes me sad. We used to have really great,
unique design and now everything looks like it was designed
in Sweden by the same team of four people.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to be honest. I didn't get like,
I don't get it. That other logo seems kind of
with the old timy guy leaning against the barrel. I
think he's sitting maybe on a rocking chair or something.
Oh yeah, I it doesn't appeal to me, you know,
esthetically the.
Speaker 2: New logo appeal Now, No, it just it's so boring.
Speaker 1: I know, but I'm a boring guy. Like if you
if I could have my wed probably my house would
look like an Ikia warehouse. Type or Ikia showroom or
something which is not what you're going for when you're
like a Southern chain, right, you know, you want to
have a certain look. So I get that people are upset.
It just it didn't bother me.
Speaker 2: Ozre Nimani had a great piece in Fox Business about
the deeper problems at Cracker Barrel, and it's it's something
that we're just seeing with so many corporations. When the
Left took over institutions. One of the smartest things they
did was created these like quasi governmental structures that induce
corporations into like radical dei stuff, and so Cracker Barrel
in order to get good markings for investment, was leaning
into you know, just your basic make everything gay in
June kind of stuff. And one of their major investors
was very concerned about how they were. There was a
cleavage between their customer base and the corporate heads, and
he started causing problems by saying, like, you all seem
to be caring more about pleasing you know, gay men
in New York City, a place where we don't even
have any restaurants than our actual base, which is in
these southern states. And the black Rock part of the
board just hated this guy, and they really, I mean,
they were fighting. You can read it in the filings.
They're just going back and forth. He doesn't like the CEO.
They install this CEO who clearly doesn't care at all
about Cracker Barrel. And it's just interesting to see that
what what erupted publicly had been a battle going on
between stakeholders for years. And the guy who was saying, like,
we're moving away from our customer base could not have
been more right, Like he was absolutely right that they
were not upholding shareholder value with the way that they
were managing things, and so it all seemed to be
maybe possibly dying down a little bit. And then Trump
comes in this week and says Cracker Barrel messed up,
and within hours they sort of backtracked on their logo.
But the thing is, it's not just a logo issue.
It's like a management issue. And for communities that and
Cracker Barrel is frequently one of those chains like a
Walmart that came in and destroyed all the mom and
pop similar things. But then it becomes after decades of
dominating some of these towns, it becomes the communal place
where people get together and it becomes very important for
people that it, you know, they feel ownership to in
this thing that they have started spending decades at and
going to brunch after church and having family dinners at.
So you and I are not the target audience here,
because the last time we went was you know, maybe
one of the only times we'd gone, but it is.
It is a cautionary story for corporations who aim to
please their young, you know, marketing graduates more than their
customer base.
Speaker 1: I guess the change, the plane change didn't seem very
woke to me. It just seemed like kind of trendy
in a way where everything is plainer, I guess.
Speaker 2: But saying the logo, the logo, Yeah, it's not really
about the logo.
Speaker 1: I get that, and what you're saying. Yeah, but you know,
it's probably tough. It's a big court, it's a chain, right,
and it's a pretty successful one. So I guess there's
always this tension where you're trying to grow and move
into new markets and you want to appeal to different
sorts of people but still hold on to your market.
And obviously they seemed the base and obviously they lost
sight of that in a way. I also think that
it's dumb in the sense that New Yorkers probably if you,
let's say, started opening these restaurants there, would like something
that felt more authentic to them. I think people are
always trying to appeal to groups of people by trying
to be more like them, when maybe they're seeking out
something different. Sometimes. I'm not a marketing guy. I don't
sell anything except myself, but that's just how I feel. Anyway.
It was a nice break from more serious topics, which
we will get to now. Let's talk about Let's first
talk about Intel and the stake that the government took
in the company. A ten percent steak, just a significant stake.
This is a huge concern you Intel. I guess i'd
start with I don't like anything about it. I'll just
preface all this by saying that, but I will start
with the I. I think there's something seriously amiss when
presidents can just unilaterally take a giant steak in an
important company by again just unilaterally declaring that there's some
sort of emergency, and now it will be leading this company,
will this company will do what the president wants. I
don't care if the president says he's not going to
get involved. If he doesn't get involved, they're going to
do what he thinks the president wants because now they're
too big to fail. And I saw Howard Lutnick say
that they're going to do more of this, which I
think is terrible. And he says, if companies need help,
we will take stakes in them, which is the opposite
of what you should be doing. So what you're saying
is if a company is not run well, if a
company is not doing well, we're going to take a
steak in it to compete up against companies that are
doing it well. That is not the government's job, certainly
not the federal government's job. Anyway. What'd you make of it?
Speaker 2: Well, I largely agree with you. I for I should
say I didn't love this news, but more from the
angle that it's bad for the companies too, Like this
is not the first time that the government has been
involved in a big enterprise. It just usually doesn't go
very well. Like Amtrak, right, It's not nobody goes like, oh,
you know, what's a well run company Amtrak?
Speaker 1: No, no one does. It's an antiquated way of traveling
and most people don't want to do it, so it
would be very expensive, but yeah, and tar just to
quickly say, TARP was we took big stakes and a
few companies, but that was at least and I don't
I still think it was terrible, but at least it
was legislatively done. You know, it was done to Congress,
just unilaterally the presidency.
Speaker 2: So there is this issue that's a that's a problem,
and I don't I haven't really heard good ideas for
how to deal with it. So when you look at
economic adversaries or adversaries who affect the national security through
economic means. One of the advantages that China has is
that they've got sort of this best of both worlds
system of central control with large markets, and it makes
it very difficult for American companies to compete against when
they when these Chinese companies have strong government interest and
also access to the world's markets. It's whatever problems we
thought we had with the Soviet Union, they are so
much worse with China because of this issue. You know,
the Soviet companies were really more just government run without
strong emphasis on market response, and so it would be
good to you know, it is hard and also after
like decades of industrial policy not caring about that it
is difficult to figure out how to make sure that
American companies can fight against this. So I'm not like,
like completely hostile to the idea of doing something. I
just get nervous. Just like you just said. It's the
market is a wonderful means by which to an unfettered
market is a great means by which to allocate resources.
And when the government is saying we've got your back,
we've got your backstop, I don't love that. Now, I
don't hate the idea of you know, like Alaska has
a sovereign wealth fund, right, and that seems to actually
work out all right for Alaska. When other countries have
sovereign wealth funds where you're paying for government services through
the profits from some jointly held asset, it's not always awful,
and it's not always awful in a real world with
like mixed economies. But I am extremely nervous. And what
you pointed out with Howard Lutnik saying like this is
the first of many makes me even more nervous because
if you know, you can see the argument for chip
makers being central to national security, well sort defense companies, right,
So the more that we're involved with them you know,
like you can see it quickly spiraling into a pretty
bad situation with a lot of company, with the US
having a stake in a lot of companies, and just
moving toward, you know, sort of an embrace of socialism.
I think, I mean.
Speaker 1: It's more in a sense facistic. And I don't mean
to say that Donald Trump's a Nazi or anything, but yeah,
I mean, top down control of economic control using the
capitalistic means is more fascistic than socialistic. But I don't
the chip thing is is the top the problem with
the top. I think two chip makers, just market capitalization wise,
are American companies. The thing isn't that we don't make chips,
it's that where do we manufacture them. They're called fabs.
It's very expensive to make them. Those are in South
Korea and Taiwan, which are certainly not adversaries of the
United States in any way. And so I think that
the bill they passed under Biden Chips Act or whatever
it was called, that gave and Tel like, first of all,
we're picking a company that has been failing a lot,
and I'm talking about a decade, So essentially we're betting
on a company that hasn't been doing right. They lost
I forgot how many billions of dollars over the last
few years a ton. Essentially, it's a bailout. Everything's an
emergency that Donald Trump doesn't like, and he you know,
this chip thing, this chip thing is not an emergency.
It's not it's you're saying, it's there's national security problems
in China and it's hard to compete, but we do
compete very well with them. And even now incidentally, Taiwan,
I forget the name of the company TSMC, I think
and others have invested billions of dollars in America to
build these fabs to make them here. This intel bailout
stuff is just not necessary. That's just yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, it also reminds, you know, this sum is similar
to the arrangement that people came up with for how
to keep us involved in Ukraine for a long time
to come, which was taking a stake in their mineral interests.
It gets very complicated, and whenever the government is involved
in this level of business, it almost certainly will lead
to a massive amount of corruption.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this is cronyism. You know, what do you
think is going to happen when a Democrat becomes president.
It will happen one day. I know. People don't think so.
And they have a ten percent steak in Intel, and
then they make them do DII programs, They unionize it
even further, they tell them to do make everything green
and double its cost. Once you have a ten percent
steak in a company, you're never going to let it fail.
Can I just do you see this cat? Molly? Do
you see my cat? It is annoying the hell out
of me. Get out of here. Go Sorry, I have
a cat. I'm alone at my house and it is
annoying me. So anyway, also think about this. There is
no company you can tell me that as a major
government steak that actually does a better job than a
free market version of that company. There is just no
I asked people to give me an example, and they
can never do it. Oh that's what I want to say.
So another part of this is this, So if you
have a stake in a company, Let's say JD. Vance
as the next president. Right, it's a very populous guy.
He is not you know, he's a skeptic of corporate
power and all of that. Last year, Intel fired fifteen
thousand employees because it's going to and it's going to
cut another twenty thousand employees this year because it has
to reinvent itself in a way. Do you think that
the President of the United States, what is he going
to say when a US has a stake in a
company that's firing workers and automating is going to have
fewer workers. It's just political interests and business interests should
not be mixed. I'm against cronyism, I'm against corporatism, and
the best way to do that is to get government
out of the out of the business world, not further
into it anyway. So that's my major complaint with that.
Speaker 2: This is Molly Henningway encouraging you to listen to my
favorite podcast, Issues, et cetera. Every day you get in
depth interviews with host Todd Wilkin, asking expert guests substantive,
thought provoking questions on all of the important news and
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et cetera.
Speaker 1: Let's move on to the unless you have anything else
to say. I thought we were going to have more
to say. I guess we're just we agree too much.
Speaker 2: We'll figure out something else to fight over.
Speaker 1: Let's fight over a flag burning. I think I know,
we'll see. I think our gen X sensibility is probably
align on this. But Donald Trump signed in an executive order.
I wish I had the quota in front of me.
He said something like, anyone who burns a flag now
on is going to jail. Something very clear cut in
that way. The executive order is not clear cut in
that way at all. The burning of a flag as
of now was found to be a constitutional expression of speech.
Symbolism is speech. Scalia famously said, if it were up
to me, I would put in jail every sandal wearing,
scruffy bearded weirdo who burns an American flag. But I
am not king. He was talking about Texas Versus v.
Johnson nineteen eighty nine decision. Then I think it was
upheld on a federal level with the US v. Iikman
or something like that. I forget. Listen. I think most
people agree, or good Americans agree, that burning the flag
is despicable, but it is speech. And this executive order
actually instructs Attorney General Pamboni to prosecute those who burn
or descreate the American flag in ways that cause quote
harm unrelated to expression, consistent with the First Amendment. So
I think Donald Trump wants people to think that you
can't burn the flag anymore because it's a good political issue, clearly,
and also because the Left falls for this bait every
single time, and they're going to go out there and
defend this. They're going to go out of the flag
burning and many progressives, in fact, one was just arrested
in front of the White House, are going to burn flags.
Speaker 2: So I, you know, having been a fan of Skille
and all that, did not like the executive order when
it came out, and then when I read it, I
realized exactly what you just noted, which is there's nothing
in there that's in contradiction to Supreme Court rulings. Also,
I think people have over interpreted what the Supreme Court
has said about flag burnings, and it's not as protected
as people think. Frequently, including like it's pretty hard to
burn a flag in public without being in violation of
the law already, right, you're not allowed to go around
burning things, and yeah, you.
Speaker 1: Can't burns on public public grounds. You can burn something
in the middle of the street.
Speaker 2: And there's not some special If you're a communist, you
get to avoid responsibility because you're burning a flag kind
of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if I was burning anything in a protest where
there were a lot of people in a park or something,
that would be illegal.
Speaker 2: Also, and also frequently flag burners are are already like
committing acts of theft when they're burning the flag. But
to get back to the issue of whether this is
constitutionally protected free speech, I do think that's an interesting
question that it's worth revisiting. You know, what Rehnquist said
about it, and when you look at the country and
what happened as we entered decades of assault on the flag,
the meaning of the country, the history of the country.
I think there's a reason why societies have cared about
symbols not being victims of mobs, and I think people
are less should be less flippant about the destruction of
these things than they have been in that genic sensibility
that you just described, Like symbols are the means of carrying, well, sorry,
the means of carrying meaning of what it means to
be an American, of what it means to be part
of a functioning society, and this individualistic emphasis that just
doesn't care about that has not worked out very well
for us. I remember when Colin Kaepernick was kneeling at
the anthem because of how awful and racist the country
supposedly is. You had a bunch of people coming out
there and being like, well, he's it's a free country
and you can do this. Data and more people should
have spoken against. It's just not healthy. When that type
of stuff is normalized, it allows the furtherance of what's
already been happening in public education, which is to teach
absolute hatred of the country, hatred animosity. Hatred of the
country quickly leads to hatred of each other, obviously, and
it's been so it's been so horrific. I mean, as
a gen X kid, the eighties were pretty awesome with
how much how patriotic everybody was. You know, it was
not uncommon to see American flags everywhere and people being
like America. Yeah, And that has become a controversial position
in many parts of the country, in public schools in particular.
And patriotism is love and love of those nearest to you,
and the anti patriotic zeal of the left has been
just objectively a horrific thing for the country. We might
be able to get out of it, and I hope
we can. But the highest expression of love is not
burning a flag like I saw someone being like, the
coolest thing about being an American is we can burn
our own flag. No, that's not cool at all. It's awful.
And no community that loves itself should even pretend for
a minute that it's okay. There should be all sorts
of means, you know, including shunning and public ridicule for
people who do it.
Speaker 1: I think, well, there's a lot there or to unpack.
I think it's true what you're saying that let's just
call it a libertarian worldview that says you can do
something doesn't mean that you shouldn't say that it's wrong
to do it, and I think that often happens. Libertarians
often allow their their neutral view of principles to corrode
their morality into excessive non judgmentalism. So, but on the
other hand, we are losing our view of these neutral principles.
I see a lot of people have changed their mind
on this flag thing, and that's what bothers me. First
of all, it's another example of the president just saying
what you can do, what you can't do. It's not
really his job.
Speaker 2: It is. That's actually just not true. You already admitted
that the EO just calls for the faithful execution of
the laws they're on the books. That is literally the
president's job. That's what it says in the Constitution. So
there's nothing he did there. I mean, you can be
upset at how it led to a like increased discussion
of whether flag burning is okay or not, But he
didn't actually do anything illegal there.
Speaker 1: I don't think he did something illegal, but not everything
is that you do, even if it's legal as right
as we just noted, for instance, when Obama would sign
an EO on guns that didn't really do anything, but
he was trying to make people believe that certain things
could be change that couldn't be changed. Are certain things
that what he wanted to do in the long run
were constitutional when they weren't.
Speaker 2: Anyway, you seem to care more about burning the flag
than people such as the President of the United States
speaking against burning the flag.
Speaker 1: That's weird what they're speaking. No, it's not weird. It's
not the president's business to dictate what speech I'm allowed
to use or not use. I mean, he can have
an opinion, but executive orders are more than simply an opinion.
The president using his power in a way that Trump
has been doing lately is actually pretty corrosive itself more
important than some weirdo, scruffy weirdo burning a flag usually,
which I think is amporrent. But the thing is, as
far as speech goes with and I'm not exactly sure
what you were getting at with the individual part of
it and everything, but because it's a symbol and someone
burns it, that makes it even more explicitly a matter
of political speech. Person hates the cunt. He thinks that
we shouldn't. You can't force people to be patriotic. And
I think the problem is that people don't understand what
this country is about anymore. They aren't taught it in
school whatever. But I just don't understand where that goes.
If the flag the only way to change this and
give the flag special consideration, what did Renquist say? So
it's something like the flag is not a point of
view or an idea, right, It's like it's not in
competition in a marketplace with other ideas. It's the thing
that holds us together. Well, I mean people can disagree
with that. So one past constitutional amendment protecting the flag
from desecration, I will support it. I guess. Actually, I
don't know if that's if I would, but you know,
that's how you do it. That's the remedy. I felt
like maybe Trump wants this about that.
Speaker 2: There are two Supreme Court decisions on this. The first
one relates to, you know, whether it's constitutionally protected. Well,
they both relate to that issue. But after the Supreme
Court ruled that it was no problem to burn the flag,
Congress did pass legislation saying it was not allowed, and
the Supreme Court overruled that as well. I saw Christopher Scalia,
who I love, on Twitter saying that because Brennan, I
think no, who was the There was some lefty who
agreed that flagburning is not constitutional, and he was like,
you should never agree with him. But I'm kind of
more of the I don't know if you should disagree
with Ranquist. Camp and Scalia had was just so great.
It's so many things, including making originalism a publicly acceptable argument.
It's also pretty extreme in a way. That might not
have been in adherence, you know, ironically enough, with the
original meaning of the Constitution. I think it's very hard
to argue that the founders would have found a law
against flag burning constitutional or in compliance with the Constitution,
which really gets to the big issue, which is they
didn't need to have laws against flag burning in the
late eighteenth century because nobody would have thought to do
something that is such an attack on the country. And
rather than this being fixed with laws, you really have
to fix it. And I mean not that laws don't
help this, but the hearts and minds of men need
to be radically reformed and we need to have a
greater love of country. Ironically enough, the person who got
me off of my own autistic libertarianism on this topic
was Charles Murray. He gave a speech at AI on
how worried he was about how fleeting patriotism was becoming.
I don't remember when this was, like maybe twenty years ago,
and it really got me thinking about how I myself
was being not as patriotic as I should be.
Speaker 1: I don't understand how it's not patriotic to say that
we have the right to free speech on neutral grounds.
I think the founders would agreed. The thing. You know,
every European state virtually bans desecration of the flag every
you know, tons of Arab countries do and things like that,
because they placed the state over the individual, which is
the opposite of what we do here. I just don't
think flag burning is that. In fact, you're probably going
to make it more popular now. I don't not that
you shouldn't do things only because of how or you know,
because people might react poorly. I just don't think it's
this pervasive problem. I think this was a political a
political EO in the same way. And I don't think
this was wholly political. But Trump sends the National Guard
to DC completely within his perview, you know, and all that,
and immediately Democrats are on on TV and tell everyone
crime is not a problem, like they fall for it
every single time. I think this was that. I don't.
It's not a ration of I mean, I'm not saying
that I saw flag burning in front of Union station
by pro Palestinians not long I think, last year, But
it's not an irregular occurrence that people are burning flags.
In fact, I think it was far worse than the sixties.
On college campuses where people not only burn flag but
raise the flag like they do now of Hama. So
the Vietcong we're killing American soldiers. So this idea that
this is, you know that this is some new anti
patriotic strain. I think people are probably more patriotic in
the late sixties and hippies or the outlier than today.
Is a different kind of problem, but it's not anything new.
Speaker 2: So I don't disagree. But there's also this thing about
when you have power, using it, And from in twenty
twenty we saw well, really twenty sixteen through twenty twenty,
we saw some rampant anti americanism. The Colin Kaepernick thing
that I mentioned. I think that was twenty sixteen or
twenty seventeen, right, yeah, and it became a huge ordeal,
so that you would have national sports teams with all
these like lily white soccer lesbian out there kneeling to
show how much they hated the country, and that kind
of public tolerance of rampant disrespect. Like it's one thing
if dirty, stupid hippies on Ivy League campuses in the
sixties are doing it, that's not great, But that trickles
down and it gets to the point where you have
fourteen year old losers who haven't thought about anything, kneeling
to show that they're cool, just like Colin Kaepernick. And
it keeps going to the point that you have riots
that cause the most damage in the history of the
country in insurance claims like two billion dollars of damage
with tons of flag burning there. And at the time
that that was happening the summer of twenty twenty, Donald
Trump had no power to stop it. Tom Cotton suggested
bringing in the National Guard to restore order to Great
American cities, and it caused a meltdown at the New
York Times. We are in a different moment. I think
Trump is trying to take ground on this stuff so
that next time the Left is in charge, they actually
have rather than just saying, oh, well, we made it
through that there's nothing to be done. He's trying to like,
actually take some ground so that the next time Democrats
are in power and they want to destroy cities and
urinate on the flag and all that, they'll have to go.
They'll have to do it from a better position for
the country than if you just did nothing.
Speaker 1: I don't think executive actions take much ground because they
can be overturned so easily. You take ground by passing legislation,
which we're going to the Supreme Court to do things,
I think most of the time. But I agree, I agree,
we have a huge patriots some problem in this country.
I think part of that problem and the corrosion of
patriotism happens when you don't care about the founding documents.
Like you have this guy on the New York Time
righting in New York Times and other you know elsewhere
from the New Republic saying we should get rid of
the Senate, get rid of the electoral all this stuff
that he wants to do, pack the court because he's
a consequentialist. He only cares is about getting what he wants,
not the process, not the principles. And I think that's
a huge problem. So you say, yeah, there's this thing
about using power. I want to use power that's legitimate,
but sometimes I feel like people want to use power
that's not exactly legitimate to try to save the country.
But what are you saving then? I mean, you know,
I just worry about that, and I've been worried about
it for a long time. And this is just a
small drop in that bucket, right. I mean, it's not
a huge issue, but worried about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I worry about it too. And it's, you know,
a reminder of the early understanding that the constitution really
only works for a moral people. And then we've spent
many generations creating people who are not you know, not
that anyone's ever moral. We're all sinful, but the quality
of the people is not great, and it's a problem
that needs to be fixed again with personal reform.
Speaker 1: It's funny that Scale actually made that argument one time.
He was talking about constitutions and how all of them.
The Soviet Constitution has a First Amendment in it, you know,
but if the people don't want to uphold it and
they don't value that principle, then and listen, I'll give
you an example. The religious freedom of the First Amendment
is you'll have leftists say, well, it's different now. You know,
there are all these bigots out there and they have
to be stopped, so we can't you know. So it's
like when you're religious, like you're the little sisters of
the poor, you have to ask permission from the government
not to pay for contraception. The government should be asking
you if you want to do it and you say no,
not the other way around. Like we've we've turned it
around where the state now is above the individual, which
is exactly what the co And when we talk about
individual rights, and you know, people on the kind of
some of the people on the new right don't like
the individualism of it either. It doesn't mean that you
can't form groups and you're not part of a community.
It means that you, your rights as a person, are
above that at the state. I don't know that should
not be offensive. Everyone should, everyone should celebrate that. That's
what makes us unique. Literally, that is the idea that
makes us unique as far as our ideology goes.
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Speaker 1: Let's talk about Lisa Cook if you hadn't heard about
her before. She's a Federal Reserve governor. Seems to me
that when she was put on the board didn't really
belong there. Honestly, there were a lot of people critical
of that of her. Donald Trump fired her right through
an executive order the other day, and it sets up
a bunch of legal questions that are somewhat complicated.
Speaker 2: So I'm super interested in Lisa Cook's alleged mortgage fraud.
That's very interesting to me. And I just want to
say briefly on this, we had Democrats run a tyrannical
law fair campaign to take out Trump and every other
Republican during the interregnum between the first Trump administration the
second Trump administration, and one of the means that they
used was a completely ridiculous claim of mortgage fraud based
on the idea that when Trump assessed the value of
mar A Lago, he didn't use like a very ridiculously
low number that he could have used, which nobody believes
that loan number, and this led to I think a
thirty four count indictment. I get all the cases confused sometimes,
but that was the thirty four count indictment I believe, or.
Speaker 1: Was that a different one, I don't remember.
Speaker 2: Maybe that was the campaign. Anyway, they secured a conviction
of mortgage fraud with some absolutely acidine penalty, even though
the Niven.
Speaker 1: Appeal scorre to return that recently. The penalty I believe.
Speaker 2: Would have sort of not The lending institution said they
had no problem with what Trump had done. He repaid
the loan with interest in a manner that pleased him,
pleased them, and they said they would be happy to
loan money to him once more. It never should have
been brought to court. And it turns out that some
of the Democrats who led this or cheered this on
are them committing actual mortgage fraud, such as falsely alleging
that multiple residences are their primary residents that are not
at all failing to report income. When you're a Federal
Reserve board member and you're doing this, it's very bad.
Separate from that, I'm interested in this case because on
that short list or not so short list of worst
Supreme Court decisions there has to be. There's that one
for Humphrey's Executor. And Humphrey was a guy who was
fired by Roosevelt from the Federal Trade Commission. And Humphrey
alleged that Roosevelt didn't have the authority to hire or
fire or fire from the Federal Trade Commission because it
was a quasi legislative body. And so it goes to
the Supreme Court. But he dies in the time it
takes for it to go to the Supreme Court. And
that's why it's not called Humphreys but Humphrey's Executor, because
it's about whether he was owed the pay before he died.
And a lot of people view this as the case
that leads to the true launch of the administrative state,
this idea that there's a permanent bureaucracy that is not
accountable according to normal constitutional means, and that if Congress
says it's setting something up as a quasi legislative agency,
that it is not really in the executive branch, but
also not really in the legislative branch. It's horribly muddled thinking.
It has led to many catastrophes in terms of lack
of a constitutional accountability for these so called independent agencies
and the question of whether there really can be an
independent agency in a constitutional form of government such as ours.
So I'm just hoping that as it works its way
through the court, it does so in a way that
enables some of these questions to be assessed and hopefully
have this really awful worst era of the court kind
of or one of the world or stairs are the
court decisions overturned after nearly one hundred years?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, Humphrey's Executor seems to be a very
poorly decided decision. We have an executive branch, the president
runs it. Just because you've created some new entity doesn't
change the constitutional order, right. But I don't think this
is this has anything to do with Humphries executor because
he used a Federal Reserve Act, which says that he
can fire he can fire people from these FTC or
whatever or these quasi independent agencies for cause. And that's
why I think he used the word for cause. I
think isn't the debate over whether and his you know,
own administration is making a claim but it's unproven. Is
that enough cause? Like what does for cause mean? It
seems to me that for cause can be in this.
I mean it can mean anything, right the president. I
mean any kind of action or accusation, even that puts
there are a governorship in bad light, a governor in
bad light. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm not layoffs versus firing. If you're not fired for cause,
that just means you're downsizing. You can't really downsize the
the board of the FED. But you can't fire for
a reason. Whether this is a reason that's allowed by
the law, yeah, sure that can be discussed. But ultimately
I still think it's just an interesting question of who
has the authority here.
Speaker 1: This reminds me again of something where there are things
you can do, but maybe you shouldn't do so. I
don't think that the FTC or NLRB, Actually the NLRB
shouldn't exist at all, but the FED. I think presidents
should respect the fed's independence for the good of the
co mean country. But that doesn't mean that he has
no right to fire a governor if he wants. And
it seems to me at least that this person wasn't
very wasn't particularly qualified for this job to begin with,
and has done stuff that is shady that he should
be able to farm. I don't know the law will see.
Speaker 2: So I actually want to cut back to what you're
saying about the alleged independence of the FED and how
that's good for the country. I mean, the big debates
that you're seeing about control of the FED right now
is that they're making decisions with broad economic impact for
political reasons. So for instance, cutting rates right before the election,
the twenty twenty four election to kind of help out
the Democrats, they're not doing it when a lot of
truly independent economists thought that that should be done to
help the economy the course of the last year. What
does it mean to be independent? Independent from whom? And
what again? In a constitutional republic, what right do the
American people have to control this board that can affect
so much about the health of the economy and people's savings.
And are you literally saying that they're independent from accountability
to the American people? Because the way you have accountability
is if the president controls that board, he doesn't, you
just don't have accountability.
Speaker 1: What's the means of I don't think legally they have
much independence, but I think they should have independence from
the board. I don't believe that the act in a
explicitly part is in manner. Really, I'm not sure that
their part isn't at all. I've actually think the FED
is done a decent job. The the the inflation. So
they have they're two. They have two issues they deal with.
Maybe they should only have one, but one is to
keep been inflation lower or healthy and to try to
reach maximum employment. Maybe those two things sometimes are in conflict.
I don't know, but I guess I don't see any
explicit partis in actions from the FED, despite what people say,
at least just my opinion, and I think that for
the market place and for the Americans, they are the
idea of a FED that is constantly being that the president,
who is a far more who is up for reelection
often not this president probably, but as a far more
has far more incentive to act in a part as
a manner than the FED, which where they have fourteen
year terms or whatever it is. So I don't know,
I mean, I don't know what the question means. Does
the FED board know better than a bunch of politicians
who are driven by political concerns? I think so for
the most part, you.
Speaker 2: Are making the Roosevelt in argument for a massive bureaucracy
run by supposed experts over accountability of the people.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I don't the accountability of the
people part happens during elections. If you don't like what's going.
Speaker 2: On the FED, it doesn't mean anything. If the people
you put into power can't fire someone, it literally doesn't
mean anything. But the accountability, how does that even make sense?
You're saying these people cannot be fired by the present.
Speaker 1: You can fire them for cause if there's really something
there that they've done wrong, not because you think their
part is in I mean you could fire them maybe
for whatever reason, cause because I don't what why would
that not.
Speaker 2: Be a good cause? If you're manipulating the economy for
political ends, why would that not be a good reason
to fire someone.
Speaker 1: It would be a good reason. But like I said,
I don't think that's happening. I just think that politicians
want the FED to do things to help them in
the short term, where the FED things in longer term ways. Listen,
I think this is I am. I am not like
pro democracy, you know, I don't think that people.
Speaker 2: Have to know pro constitution.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pro constitutions, So the FED doesn't own one in.
Speaker 2: The Constitution is that there aren't lords over the people
who you can't fire through elections.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are. There's an entire branch of lords that
can't be fired through elections called the Supreme Court. I mean,
I don't think that the I do not think in
the executive branch.
Speaker 2: In the executive branch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, like I said, there are things you can do,
but you shouldn't do. I just think that the market
likes it if the FED is largely independent, because they
make decisions about the economy that are detached from immediate,
short term political goals. That's all I'm saying. So, I mean,
what would you So should he just Donald Trump just
fire everyone who doesn't do what he wants on the FED?
Do you think that would be good for the country.
Do you think he should fire, you know, the whole
board and put his own pronies in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah? Probably, I think that would be so. Then when
for presidents who are elected two have complete oversight over
the agencies.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean that goes both ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, That's why the next.
Speaker 1: Barack Obama whatever, he's going to fire the board every
instead of I just don't.
Speaker 2: Believe in permanent I don't believe in permanent lawmaking agencies
at all.
Speaker 1: The lawmaker is that a lawmakers.
Speaker 2: That's the argument for why they're independent, is that they're
quasi legislative. I mean, it's the problem with the administrative state.
It's sort of it's sort of parts of every branch.
It's permanent, it's untouchable. It has been made untouchable through
bad Supreme Court decisions, and it has led to this
massive government that rights laws, enforces the laws, you know,
administers the laws like it's everything, that's the whole. It's
like with the Obamacare thing you were just talking about,
with whether nuns should have to pay for abortions for
their employees, it's because Obamacare delegated part of the legislative,
the lawmaking to the agencies, and then allowed them to
enforce it. They were everything. And I just don't think
that's constitutional at all. I mean, we're pretty far down
this road, so it's hard to unravel, but we should.
Speaker 1: Well, Obamacare was a law that was passed and had
certain mandates in it, and that one of the mandates
that was upheld by the Constitution. The Supreme Court essentially
was that they could do this to the little sisters
of the poor. So that's the people acting because they
elected that Congress, they elected that president. So I think
that's different. I'm with you. I want to get rid
of most agencies. I don't think the FED is one
that we should get rid of because someone has to
deal with interest rates in this way, and I don't trust.
I just don't want Joe Biden or Donald Trump to
do it that.
Speaker 2: There have been multiple Supreme Court decisions affecting the Little
Sisters of the Poor, which is a religious order that
cares for poor older people, and they have actually I
think one.
Speaker 1: All of those, they've won two and now they're in
court again for a third because that the court ruled
that the federal government had no right to do this.
But now you have states Pennsylvania and New Jerseys suing
the nuns to buy essentially abortion drugs. Is I think that.
I mean, obviously contraception is part of it as well,
but abortion drugs also. I don't know. I guess like
every time you have a president coming in, and every
time he comes in, he's going to just get rid
of every you know, replace everyone in every agency. I
don't think that's great for the country. There has to
be some sort of stability going from administration to administration.
But I agree with you that the administrative state is
too powerful. I just don't know that the Fed's place
to start to dismantle it. Like what is Donald Trump
doing to dismantle other agencies? The Labor Board? Why doesn't
he go after I guess he has he fired someone
there as well, But I think there's plenty of places
to go before the FED.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's actually already won some of these issues with
other boards in a way that is setting up again
a potential overturn of Humphrey's executor. But it's all been
sort of limited and it's kind of depending on how
you interpret what's going on. But this is certainly not
the first board where he has let someone go.
Speaker 1: Well, And also, just I just said that, I don't
think that this concerns Humphrey's executor, but I am not
a lawyer, so someone may correct me.
Speaker 2: It very well could have nothing to do with that,
but it also it just depends on how it works
its way through through the courts, and it will be Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want to quickly say something on Lawfair that I
thought of when you were speaking about Donald Trump and
what's going on. Now, I obviously think that lawfair is
corrupt when you're using power just to sort of focus
on your political enemies. But that does not that does
not mean that the things you find aren't real. Right. Sometimes,
so if Adam Schiff, Letitia James, Robin Cook broke the law,
no one is above the law, right, I mean, they
should pay the price. I don't think administrations obviously they're
going down the list of all their political enemies right
now to see if they did this, if they had, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know if that's obvious.
Speaker 1: No, I mean it seems like why what would precipitate
them looking at the people that they have found have
have cheated on their mortgages.
Speaker 2: So I'm not saying that they haven't. I just don't
know if we have reason. I don't know. If I
don't know if we can say that they are doing that.
It could just be that, for instance, let's say you
go into office and the people who are in charge
of investigating mortgage fraud say, by the way, we had
the goods on Latitia James, but my supervisor said I
couldn't proceed with this, and they go, okay, you can proceed,
you know, like you don't know exactly how it's laying out,
or if they're going, OK, I'm going to give you
a list of people and you're going to find something
on them. And I think this is a good segue
to talk about the John Bolton situation because I saw
everybody saying this is vengeance against John Bolton, and I
am withholding opinion on that issue until I literally find
out what they rated his home over, right, Like, I
don't know anything about the case against him other than
the case that was brought during the first Trump administration,
and I know that a judge in that case. So
the first Trump administration was doing an investigation of him
over his sharing of classified information in an anti Trump
memoir that he wrote, but he ended up kind of
winning the day on that. But I think people should
go back and read what the judge said about it.
So the issue was that the Trump administration was trying
to get his book pulped because it shared classified information
that he should not have shared. And the judge said,
you are right that he did that, but it's too
late to pulp the book, like it's already out there.
All the information is out there. This is not like
a proper remedy for it, So I don't know if
the investigation is related to that, or if that's like
a settled issue, or if it's something else. There has
been a lot of chatter about him being kind of
brazen in some of his foreign work that might have
caused legal problems, so it could be related to that,
and everyone's like, this is vengeance for John Bolton, and
it's like could be or it could be that he
broke the law and they don't see a reason to
look the other way. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know either. Obviously, here's a theory. I have
a working theory if it was vengeance. It seems like
a guy to go after when you want to prove
a point that you can go after people on the
left without actually going after someone they actually care about
very much. It's not like Democrats care about John Bolton.
If you really wanted to nail someone and you go
after Adam Schiff, Right, he's a guy who clearly leak
things for instance, or you know.
Speaker 2: I mean admitted mortgage fraud.
Speaker 1: We now know, yeah, we now know, but that's I mean,
I mean something serious as far as classified information goes.
John Bolton's the kind of guy you go after where
Democrats will say it's vengeance and fascism's coming and all that,
But do they really care about John Bolton. I don't
think so. I think they dislike John Bolton on that.
Speaker 2: Remember during the first Trump administration when someone shot video
of him just like casually walking the streets of Cutter alone.
This I actually do, and everyone's like, what's he doing there?
It was very weird. But I think there's I think
there might be a lot there, so we'll have to
wait and find out. But I do also think that
the way to stop law fair is not to do
that thing where you go, Okay, you failed to imprison me,
bankrupt me, and destroy my life in the life of
every member of my family. We're just gonna let bygones
be bygones now. And I mean the proof of that
too is in the first Trump administration. Trump comes to
office promising Americans he will hold Hillary Clinton accountable for
her crimes, and within days after his election he's like,
I think we should all let these things go, like,
you know, let's just like move on. He kind of
does his end of the bargain of moving on not
being vindictive, and they're like, oh, by the way, we're
going to coop you with the Russia collusion hoax, and
we're going to destroy your first term in office. Then
when you get out of office, we're going to try
to murder every single Republican and metaphorically or in some
cases literally, and then if you beat us, we would
ask you to please return to your twenty sixteen twenty
seventeen posture of letting bygones be bygones. It clearly doesn't work,
so you have to make people hurt to make them stop.
It's that I've said it before, the Clarence Thomas thing
about how do you get a dog to stop eating
chickens on the farm. You take one of the dead
chickens that he's killed, and you wrap it around his
neck and you let it rot for days, and all
of a sudden he loses his taste for dead chicken. Right.
Speaker 1: Very graphic it is.
Speaker 2: And you can't say to people who have broken every
norm and have tried to destroy the country through their hatred,
would you please stop. We know you didn't do it
the last twenty times we asked, but would you please
stop like you actually have to show you absolutely must
show them that you could do it. Yourself. It's the
mutually assured destruction strategy. But it works for a reason. Okay,
I think if you don't, if you want to say more,
please do. But I want to move to culture because
I've got a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, you got a lot of stuff exciting. What
do we got?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Wait?
Speaker 2: I said that, and now I'm like, wait, what did
I watch? I actually tried to write it down some
of it. Okay, So first thing is, last week we
watched a family movie and Mark introduced it as being
done by the same guy who did F one and
Top Gun Maverick. So we're expecting like an F one,
Top Gun Maverick kind of movie. And it's called Only
the Brave and it's about firefighters. It's about this team
of firefighters that want to become what do it come like,
Hot Force or I don't know. There's like some name
for like the Elite Firefighting Crew and they're in Arizona
and it's kind of a group of misfits and they
all have interesting stories and we're just they're fighting fires
and they become the Elite Firefighting Crew and everything's great
and then they all.
Speaker 1: Die really and I was like, wait, spoiler well.
Speaker 2: Sorry, it's an old movie. I should speak.
Speaker 1: Enough to live with that. I'm not cutting it out.
I don't you saved me. I don't like movies like that.
So yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: Based on a true story. And the kids now we're
just like, what have you done to us? Like it
was so shocking and horrible and true, and it was
you know, I would say, it's a good movie, but
just you might read up on the real story before
you watch it.
Speaker 1: So that you're not shot only the brave, only the dead.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a it's a good story about heroism,
but may okay, okay, should I keep going?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Please?
Speaker 2: Then I watched the Devo documentary that you recommize.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about this, yeah.
Speaker 2: And I want to say I have this problem already
with documentary, which is they always make me hate the
thing that the documentaries designed.
Speaker 1: To It's literally what I wrote down on my notes.
This documentary made me hate Divo, which I used to
who I used to like, just hearing their dumb opinions,
the way they look down at everyone.
Speaker 2: They never grew ye like they're in mode age twenty
and they just never developed beyond it, like.
Speaker 1: They their whole shtick, right, is that everyone is dumb
and is easily brainwashed by religion and you know, and
politics and all of this. But they didn't sound very
bright to me at all, or anyone or they didn't
sound like people who actually thought about the world in
a serious way, learning about their music and where the
inspirations came from and everything. Made me dislike it a lot.
I thought it was silly, but it was actually trying
to you know, it's satirical. I guess if it's true,
unless this is like retroactively giving it meaning, though I
don't think it was. From what I saw, very stupid people,
very ridiculous, bigoted people, right, I mean that's what I
walked away with. I disliked them, the two main people,
quite a bit afterwards, and I don't know that can
listen to It's EVO the same way again. Anyway, I'm
happy that you watched it and agree with me. It
was hard for me to finish. I gotta be honest
with you. But like most documentaries, which I kind of
find interesting with these music documentaries, it didn't happen with
the Billy Joel one I once recently, but often they
will just spend a ton of time on the formation
of the band, the childhood, all that, and then they'll
whip through like twenty years you know, of albums or
whatever in like five minutes. And I'm actually interested in
how the bands fall apart, how they become you know,
they lose their creative mojo or whatever, And you don't
really get a lot of that in these in these
rock documentaries. He didn't with Devo.
Speaker 2: There was no challenge even of the hypocrisy of this
anti capitalist band thriving under capitalism and even desiring to
thrive under capitalism. Sorry, I'm still stuck on my deta.
Speaker 1: They're like, we didn't care about money. You didn't care
about money? Wy'd you sign with a major label? Like
if you didn't care about money, why did you keep
putting albums out and touring like only you only cared
about the art? Why did you make more commercial albums
and try to have hits as you got.
Speaker 2: You be true to your stupid beliefs. There, buddies, Okay,
I have more, but do you want to go?
Speaker 1: I just had one thing, so I throw it in
real quick. I had watched parts of this show, but
never just beginning to end, and I think it's so
well made mind Hunter mind Hunters Have you ever seen it?
It's about the first group of It's done by David
Fincher and a bunch of really good directors, so it
has a very like high quality television show as far
as the look of it. It's about the first FBI
agents who like formed this like the Behavioral Science Department
and like went after serial killers and had profiling and
all of that. And there's a at Kempner I think
was his name, or Kimper I forget. He was a
big murderer. He's the actor who plays Hims. Fantastic. They
have David Berkle, wh it's like all these things in
the seventies and eighties, and they interviewed these guys while
trying to use what they learned to find newer ones.
And really good show very dark. So it's actually very dark,
and it kind of have stuck with me a bit,
like maybe I should watchings like this, But if that
interests you, it's a pretty good show.
Speaker 2: Well that kind of reminds me of this book that
we were listening to. Mark and I had a long
drive this weekend and so we listened to hours of
a book that he's listening to when he works out
called I think his public enemies. And it's about that
period in the thirties when John Dillinger and the Barker Crew,
Clanya and Bonnie and Clyde are all engaging in their
bank robberies and acts of crime, and how it leads
to the development of the FBI, and how the were
the Texas Rangers, how they you know, how they are
involved in the whole thing. And it's really interesting as
a story of public criminals. But it's also interesting to
see that the FBI was always kind of idiotic in
how they accomplished some of their goals.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was run by one speaking of speaking
of an agency run by one guy as a dictatorship.
That's that's that's for sure. And it was interesting. I
love that period in the sense of the FBI being
formed because you had these you know, Bonnie and Clyde
or whoever, who would commit a bank rubber and they
just go over state lines and the shriff from the
other state couldn't follow them, you know what I mean.
It was very interesting that you could commit these interstate
crimes and get away with it so easily. So, I
mean the FBI was needed on some level, right, But but.
Speaker 2: Like when they're really on the tail of Dillinger and
they figure out that he's in this one in you know,
in Wisconsin or something like that, and they go to
surround him and they end up just killing a bunch
of innocent people, losing an agent and not getting Dillinger,
and then there's a public outcry over it, and Jay
Edgar Hoover sounded like word for word like Christopher Ray.
He's like, my guys did a great job. I see
no problem with anything we've done. I think that these
are people of exceptional I'm a paulled that anyone would
even complain. And I'm like, oh my gosh, they're all
like this. All FBI directors just lie about how awful,
you know, various FBI actions.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the opening scene in Team America.
Do you remember that movie yet? Where they destroyed, they
destroy they destroy all of Paris, chasing this terrorist, these terrorists,
and then the eightful Tower falls down everything and they're like,
you're welcome. The one thing about that book and the
people involved is how we romanticize all these kind of
like out They were a little more like the twentieth
century out outlaws of the Old West kind of reminds
me of And when I was writing my book on guns,
I realized just really looking into the outlaw culture and stuff,
which is way overstated, right, Like, there wasn't as much
criminality as you think, including there wasn't as much in
the thirties. Actually it was just a few. But these
people were psychopaths and they were serial killers. They were
not like that we romanticize. People were truly just the
worst scum you could imagine. And anyway, that's all I
have to say in that.
Speaker 2: So that is true. But I will say it did
kind of make me feel differently about the Luigi Mangioni stuff,
Like when you realize there's always been this aspect of
humanity that cheers for really bad guys. Maybe they weren't
cheering on any killings that happened by these public criminals.
They were cheering on the bank robberies.
Speaker 1: The view it is there's always going to be an
element of romanticism when it comes to anti heroes and outlaws,
in that they were populist heroes who wouldn't steal from
the working man and only take from the rich. And
from big banks and so on, but none of that's
actually true. They were hard in criminals and murderers who
can care less about civilians dying or you know, stealing
from them. So but anyway, so yeah, the book. It's
a good book, right Brian Burrows made I forgot who
wrote it, So I.
Speaker 2: Don't love the reader of the or like there's a mismatch.
The reader's fine, but I just feel like you can
tell he didn't write it.
Speaker 1: Maybe for me that's a big Sometimes I love a book,
but the reader's just not right, and it's very difficult
for me to listen to. When I got to choose
the readers for my book, you know, I really listened
to you know, I didn't have tons of choices, but
the person I picked I thought was really good.
Speaker 2: For my two books, Kerrie and I read. I wrote
the first book with Carrie Savarino, and so she and
I just alternated chapters and I loved it. She's in
addition to all of her other expertise, she's like a linguist.
Speaker 1: I have a voice for writing. So they didn't let
me do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was really fun process. And then for
the second one, it was during COVID, and they didn't
even give me an option. They just had someone read it.
And I think it was maybe a similar situation to
what I'm talking about. I never heard it, but I
got a lot of feedback on it. And then for
this next book, I don't think i'll have a choice either,
and I really wouldn't mind reading it. I think, yeah
you should if you can let you. You know, the
man won't let you. Okay. So then I have I
have two excellent movies to talk about. I had never
seen Happy Gilmore, okay, and so I saw it, and
I have to say, that's an excellent movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I thought the same thing in nineteen ninety six
when I saw it first, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right when it came out. Yeah, I've never seen it,
and I really enjoyed it. And the woman who plays
his girlfriend in it is the woman who's in Modern Family.
Speaker 1: Forget sure she looks I mean you could tell her,
but she she looks different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess, yeah, but she still looks like she
looks you know, Hollywood Young for whatever potions and magic.
Speaker 1: It's got Apollo Creed in that movie. Isn't Ben Stiller
in that? I always confuse Happy Wait, Happy Gilmour with
Billy Madison.
Speaker 2: Apollo Creed is not in that movie. No, I mean,
what role do you think he plays?
Speaker 1: Doesn't that have the guy with the hand with the
prosthetic hand.
Speaker 2: That is definitely not Apollo Creed.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think it is. It's Carl Weather's so that's
Apollo Creed. Oh, I don't what do you think I
was talking about.
Speaker 2: I don't know who Apollo Creed is, but it's not
Apollo Creed.
Speaker 1: I have to ask you because just with knowing our
history with the Godfather in this movie, I just have
to ask, have you ever seen Rocky Okay?
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, forgive me, but I thought he was fantastic
in this too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good movie. I'm happy you saw it.
Speaker 2: A really stupid, stupid movie, very stupid.
Speaker 1: And Ben Stillers in this one, right, isn't he at
the Nursing Home or whatever?
Speaker 2: It's great? Okay? And then on the other of the
spectrum is a movie that I would highly recommend called
The Ballad of Wallace Island. Have you heard of it?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Okay, I think it just came out this year. It's
definitely I thought it was hilarious and great it's the
people who wrote it, I think staring it, Tim Key
and Tom Basden. It's Steve Coogan was one of the producers.
And it kind of reminds me of like a Cougan
style film. So it's about this guy who brings in
his favorite musical artist to his remote island that doesn't
even have a harbor, like you just kind of row
up to it in Wales or whatever. And he brings
him there for a concert and he's paying him half
a million dollars for this, and it's just a one
night gig. And when the guy arrives, he realizes the
gig is just that guy, like the there's going to
be an audience of one and he's staying at his
house and he's really overly talkative. And then it turns
out that he's also invited the woman that he did
the early part of his career with in terms of songwriting,
and they were romantic partners. She shows up with her
husband and and then you know, it's just sort of
like about the development of what goes on, and it's
really a story about art and commercialization and why you
do art. And it was really beautiful and I loved it.
It's just great and a little goofy and I like that.
Speaker 1: Well, that's something I'll put on my list, the Ballad
of Wallace Island. Like I like these, like small British
films usually they have a heart. All right, that's it.
That's a lot.
Speaker 2: It's a lot, and I don't know how it got
to be so much, but I'm just but I was
excited by all that. I mean, there's more, but I'm
not even I'm going to save some stuff for later. Yes,
So I did watch a YouTube on I watched a
YouTube after the Devo documentary on Ramen that was really
good and it was like three guys and they're kind
of a weird group of guys, like I think the
cameraman is a visible Jew and then like an Asian
guy and a white guy evaluating Ramen in far flung locations.
And I found it very interesting.
Speaker 1: Like Ramen noodles, Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: High end Ramen, Ramen factories, Ramen with a twist like
it was. It was a well done documentary, but a
mini doc like a mini like a YouTube, you know what,
twenty minute thing.
Speaker 1: Well, my wife likes YouTube, Michelle. Watch like a guy
like building a like cabinet or watch someone like picking
up shells. I don't know. There's all kinds of stuff
and I look because I'm like, who would watch this
is the most boring thing on earth? And it'll have
like two million views, and I just think, like, we're
in the wrong business.
Speaker 2: I think I told you this previous, like years ago.
But I went to visit my brother once and he
was like, do you want to watch my favorite movie?
And I was like yeah, And then he put on
a YouTube of two guys building a cabin in Maine
or something or Canada, I don't know, and it's they
don't even talk. It's just two guys building a cabin
and it sounds great. You know, you can hear the
forest while they're doing it, but also power tools, and
it is a very like I'm not surprised it's his
favorite movie. It's a good movie, no plot really, but
building a cabin.
Speaker 1: There are that kids watch other kids play Minecraft, and
I look and it'll have ten million followers or something.
Speaker 2: Oh that's sad.
Speaker 1: I know, it's so weird. There's so much weird stuff
on there. I just like to watch dogs falling down
or whatever videos I did.
Speaker 2: Recently watch a bunch of YouTube because I have I
have a small house with small closets, so we have
reach in closets. You know what I mean by that.
We don't have walk in closets, we have reach in closets.
And also my husband is a large man and he
takes all the space, you know, so I need to
maximize the closet space. So what I was gonna do.
I had these big plans of like tearing down walls
or expanding the size of the door. The reaching closet
doesn't even have two doors. It just has one fairly
tiny door. And then it's dark in there. And then
where I live, you're not allowed to put lighting in
the closet. It's like it's all sorts of drama. But
I think what I'm gonna do is just raise the
pole higher and then put a pole underneath thereby doubling
nice the hanging length.
Speaker 1: And I think there's a YouTube video to help you.
Speaker 2: For sure, there are YouTube videos that show you how
to do it. And also, by the way, there are
YouTube videos that are awful. Like I'm not a I'm
not a construction person, but I saw someone do it
where they're just putting the pole directly into the drywall,
and I'm like, that's idiotic. Right, So you know it's
on YouTube doesn't mean that it's good.
Speaker 1: I had some I'm really like, I don't know what
to call it. I haven't. I bought an old house too,
and I had this old oven. I can't believe we're
talking about this. I have this old oven and I
had to like switch something in it. I'm like, no
one has this oven anymore. There's no way anyone will.
There was a YouTube video of some guy from like
ten years ago fixing the same thing. Do you notice
that in old houses they don't believe in closets or windows?
Like what was going on? Like they the windows are
all usually small, the closets like tiny. Did they not
have clothing? We must have a lot more than they did.
Speaker 2: They understood that you lose energy through windows and they
had far less clothing.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, that was interesting. So I'm happy that you
watched all those things. It's nice that your book is
done and now you're out there consuming culture again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great talking to people.
Speaker 1: It's great talking to people getting out there. We'll be
talking to you next week again. Until then, your Lovers
of Freedom, any f