Speaker 1: Well whiskey, come and take my pain, the moneys my way,
Speaker 1: o whiskey.
Speaker 2: Don't why think alone when you can drink it all
Speaker 2: in with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour.
Speaker 3: Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John, You and the international
Speaker 3: woman of Mystery, Lucretia.
Speaker 1: Where this laps it happen? David, ain't you easy on
Speaker 1: the should tap? Got to give me and let that
Speaker 1: whiskey bloon.
Speaker 4: Welcome everybody to this really super super special edition of
Speaker 4: the Three Whiskey Happy Hour. We are actually taping this
Speaker 4: at a time when all of us can drink whiskey.
Speaker 4: Is anybody drinking whiskey? I see that John has in
Speaker 4: his mouth a what kind of a cigar? Is as
Speaker 4: a Cuban?
Speaker 5: Okay, Dominican?
Speaker 4: Dominican? And Steve is drinking something out of a stemless
Speaker 4: wine glass? Yes, and what is that something? Steve?
Speaker 2: You know what it is?
Speaker 4: In a wine glass?
Speaker 2: You can drink whiskey out of glass like this.
Speaker 5: I had a Scotch. I just put it down something
Speaker 5: like it was a fifteen year killed Kenny. I don't
Speaker 5: know what I've had it before. Yeah, it comes from
Speaker 5: our unnamed host, from our secret undisclosed location where I
Speaker 5: have actually successfully kidnapped from the festivities. A secret, double
Speaker 5: secret probationary guest, And.
Speaker 4: That double secret probationary guest is our good friend and
Speaker 4: expert on all things religious freedom. Phil Munos from Notre
Speaker 4: Dame and Texas. Right.
Speaker 5: Great to be with you, guys.
Speaker 6: Yes, I'm a visiting professor at the University of Texas.
Speaker 6: My home school is the University of Notre Dame.
Speaker 4: And what are you drinking, mystery guests?
Speaker 6: I was drinking a very nice tenure port. I don't
Speaker 6: remember the name, but it was a tiny port.
Speaker 5: It was quite quite lovely.
Speaker 4: Yeah, women don't drink port. You know, it's not allowed,
Speaker 4: really really, yeah, it's a man thing. You're supposed to.
Speaker 4: Women are supposed to go do something, and the men
Speaker 4: go to the study, the library, whatever.
Speaker 5: You know, when the women, when the women leave in
Speaker 5: those British TV shows, where do they go and what
Speaker 5: are they doing?
Speaker 2: I'm not quite sure matter because they're not funny, and it.
Speaker 4: Doesn't it doesn't matter. Who cares is what it cans?
Speaker 3: Phil, You poor man the crossfire here. I hope you
Speaker 3: survive well.
Speaker 4: Phil has some complaints. We're going to get to momentarily.
Speaker 4: But the theme for tonight.
Speaker 5: But the but the complaints are all about Lucretia and reviews. Oh,
Speaker 5: get in the fox all that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm open. I am. I am so confident in
Speaker 4: the rightness of my views that I will take all comers.
Speaker 4: But before we get that far, I want to talk.
Speaker 4: So we thought, what a couple of weeks ago that
Speaker 4: we were done discussing the Judiciary and we could spend
Speaker 4: the summer discussing our favorite books and all that other
Speaker 4: nonsense that we talk about talking about over the summer
Speaker 4: when we had time.
Speaker 2: Progressive Rock. Don't forget the four No.
Speaker 4: I told you, Steve, I'm signing off if you say
Speaker 4: another word. Ugh, and anyway, So so Steve said, yeah,
Speaker 4: I think we need to talk about the Judiciary a
Speaker 4: little bit more. And I agree with him because some
Speaker 4: stuff has happened since we last got together.
Speaker 2: We thought we were done with the Supreme Court for
Speaker 2: the summer, but no.
Speaker 4: Thought and we were going to talk about our favorite books.
Speaker 4: But we're not. We're going to talk about the judiciary,
Speaker 4: and maybe next week we'll talk about our favorite books.
Speaker 4: So let's start with the really important one, just right
Speaker 4: off the top. That is important and isn't important at
Speaker 4: the same time, it's the eight to one decision by
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court that, as a matter of fact, it's
Speaker 4: probably the case that the president can indeed fire employees
Speaker 4: in the executive branch at work for him. Correct, John,
Speaker 4: They're likely to come out on the merits with that decision.
Speaker 5: So I think the case is actually less significant constitutionally,
Speaker 5: but maybe more significant politically than you would get if
Speaker 5: you're just reading the media reports. So the Court's decision
Speaker 5: is really about controlling these trial judges, right the seven
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty trial judges running around the country trying
Speaker 5: to stop the Trump agenda. The grounds, though, are not
Speaker 5: what we're hoping for, which is, oh, this is going
Speaker 5: to be the case where the Court says the president
Speaker 5: can fire every single person in the executive branch.
Speaker 4: And overturn Humphrey's executive Humphrey's executor.
Speaker 5: And you know what, we should ask Phil what he
Speaker 5: thinks about Humphrey's executor because he has so many unorthodox
Speaker 5: views from true conservative belief. You know the thing about
Speaker 5: this case, I think is this judge down below said
Speaker 5: Trump can't fire anyone in the entire executive branch I
Speaker 5: enjoying you from firing anyone. They lifted that, and so
Speaker 5: what can happen is Trump can fire somebody, but there's
Speaker 5: a legal process set out in a statute that says, okay,
Speaker 5: if you're a federal employee, then you file agrievments and
Speaker 5: one of the agreements is can be you were fired illegally.
Speaker 5: And there's this whole process, this whole judicial process created
Speaker 5: to hear those claims. And so all the Supreme Court
Speaker 5: could be doing because we don't know yet because all
Speaker 5: they did was lifted this injunction is just say okay,
Speaker 5: now you fired federal employees, go use this process and
Speaker 5: then once you're done, it can come to the Supreme Court, but.
Speaker 4: They remain fired, right or do most of it.
Speaker 5: Well, when you go through this process, you can get
Speaker 5: your job back at the end of it.
Speaker 4: If you are fired at any point.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it could take years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it could take but in the meantime, in the meantime.
Speaker 5: In the meantime, you're not coming to work, right.
Speaker 4: But if they if they win their case at the end,
Speaker 4: then they probably.
Speaker 5: Get better and they get reinstated. They can get reinstated
Speaker 5: even but that if that's all that happens. Then you
Speaker 5: don't get the constitutional challenge of Humphrey's executor. You just
Speaker 5: get the Supreme Court saying, Congress set up a process
Speaker 5: for you, just like you and I might have a right.
Speaker 5: You know, if Lucretia's fired to the mass you know,
Speaker 5: applause of all the professors in their department, Well, I
Speaker 5: get fired. Right. We have a procedure that's set up
Speaker 5: by the law where we you know, file our grievments
Speaker 5: and then.
Speaker 4: The court that I've been fired three times in the
Speaker 4: last month.
Speaker 5: That's all three times. That's all. Like I said, that's all.
Speaker 5: I never got fired Lucretia. Well, Ucritia, I, given all
Speaker 5: the things you say, I would have thought you've been
Speaker 5: fired at least once a year every year for the
Speaker 5: last twenty five years.
Speaker 4: I guess it finally caught up with say anyway, but
Speaker 4: anyway we can.
Speaker 5: I just add politically, it's more important because, as you're suggesting,
Speaker 5: it allows Trump's agenda to try to slim down the
Speaker 5: federal workforce to move forward. This is really the lesson
Speaker 5: from the nationwide in junction case. The Supreme Court is
Speaker 5: not going to tolerate single judges trying to control all
Speaker 5: policy throughout the executive branch. That's the real constitutional issue.
Speaker 6: But go ahead, phil Yeah, no, no, go ahead, please
Speaker 6: ye Phil.
Speaker 3: Well, I was going to say. The shocking thing to
Speaker 3: me is not the legal argument necessarily. It was this
Speaker 3: drama over Katanji Brown Jackson dissenting from the opinion and
Speaker 3: summoning so do.
Speaker 2: My or to say.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you're read between the lines of saying,
Speaker 3: do you even know what this case is about? I
Speaker 3: mean it was an eight to one decision, and so
Speaker 3: Jackson said, oh, I have to dissent because I you know,
Speaker 3: I have opinions, as she explained in some interview here recently,
Speaker 3: and I need to share my opinions with the world.
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking that.
Speaker 3: So, first of all, it was a stupid dissent. We'll
Speaker 3: just say that on the marriage. But secondly, talk about
Speaker 3: not reading the room and not knowing your audience and
Speaker 3: when you're losing Soda Mayor and having Soda Mayor publicly
Speaker 3: saying the issue you're complaining about are not before this court,
Speaker 3: which is like did you even.
Speaker 2: Go to law school?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's unbelievable, and you know it shows once
Speaker 3: again that Biden did us a oddly enough a backhanded
Speaker 3: favor by appointing someone who has no cloud even with
Speaker 3: the other liberal justices on the court.
Speaker 2: I mean, let's remember that back in the glory days.
Speaker 3: Of people like Tony Kennedy and David Souter, you know,
Speaker 3: people like Kagan. I guess you came after those guys
Speaker 3: are one of them anyway.
Speaker 4: But.
Speaker 3: Ginsburg and Briar and Kagan were very good at crafting
Speaker 3: arguments to try and pull the centrist Republicans toward the
Speaker 3: middle or even toward.
Speaker 2: The left, with some success.
Speaker 3: And instead you now have Jackson who not only is
Speaker 3: going to anger the Republicans, but she's clearly anchoring even
Speaker 3: the people from her own party. And that takes real talent,
Speaker 3: and for that I salute Joe Biden for his splendid pick.
Speaker 4: Bill.
Speaker 6: Can I ask a question here on Jackson, do you
Speaker 6: guys think she is has thought through why she's sticking
Speaker 6: out this ground by herself. Is she trying to be
Speaker 6: the far left justice that is just going to say
Speaker 6: and take positions in a way just to take them
Speaker 6: to set up the left side of the court.
Speaker 4: Yes, So let me Steve made reference to an interview
Speaker 4: we were talking about before you guys came on to
Speaker 4: This was an ABC interview she did July fifth, something
Speaker 4: like that, I am aware that people are watching. They
Speaker 4: want to know how I'm going to because she's the
Speaker 4: first black woman on the court, how I'm going to
Speaker 4: perform in this job. And I'm doing my best work
Speaker 4: as well as I can do, because i want people
Speaker 4: to see and know that I can do anything, just
Speaker 4: like anyone else. And then she says, when it's pointed
Speaker 4: out that she's been in descent the most often, we
Speaker 4: have very different opinions, and it's a tradition of the
Speaker 4: Court that justices get to voice their opinions in the
Speaker 4: context of their opinions and writings. She's chelling her camel
Speaker 4: Anda ding Dong there, right, But but there's a more
Speaker 4: serious point there based you know, back to what you said, Phil,
Speaker 4: She thinks that her role on the Supreme Court is
Speaker 4: just to promulgate leftist propaganda. Her opinion is the left
Speaker 4: is right, so therefore that's what she ought to be doing,
Speaker 4: and if she has to be in descent to do
Speaker 4: it and talk more than anybody else in oral arguments,
Speaker 4: that's what she's going to do well.
Speaker 3: I think there's also there's ginsburg syndrome has gone to
Speaker 3: her head. Remember how the Left made Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Speaker 3: is great celebrity, you know, notorious RBG. You know, they
Speaker 3: had movies about her and T shirts, and it was
Speaker 3: one of the reasons I think Ginsburg decided to hang
Speaker 3: on so long. You know, an ordinary justice. I think
Speaker 3: President Obama, as he tried to do with Ginsburg, an
Speaker 3: ordinary justice you could have could have persuaded to step down.
Speaker 3: But I think Ginsburgh thought she was this larger than
Speaker 3: life celebrity in a way that Kagan and Soda mayor
Speaker 3: never will be and probably don't want to be actually,
Speaker 3: And so I think Jackson's making the same mistake as Ginsburg,
Speaker 3: except she doesn't have even half of Ginsburg's intellectual firepower.
Speaker 6: So she's writing to be known, to have a brand,
Speaker 6: to be a personality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: Honestly, though, the Left is just so far gone and
Speaker 4: the people they are celebrating these days, Jasmine Crockett, AOC Mendammy,
Speaker 4: What the hell is his name? Why can't people have
Speaker 4: normal names that I can remember? I like Namesbreag Phil
Speaker 4: and Steve and John and Mark and Scott. I don't
Speaker 4: want to hear any more. Mendmid mom. What's that justice today, Judge?
Speaker 4: We saw mammy Wammy, Whammy, Sammy Dammy trimmed down.
Speaker 6: This is this is why Lucretia is gonna get fired
Speaker 6: next week.
Speaker 4: I don't care.
Speaker 5: Actually, I think she's been prospectively fired for what she
Speaker 5: will say. You have to listen.
Speaker 4: Wait a minute. Both my family and my husband's family,
Speaker 4: when they came over as immigrants, they made their names American. Okay,
Speaker 4: why can't these people come over and have American names?
Speaker 4: You know? Why can't they go for me, Bob Dylan.
Speaker 5: That's worse than that, Lucretia. They are Americans born and bred,
Speaker 5: and they deliberately make up weird fake names. Right, that's
Speaker 5: even worse is and then it's not like they came
Speaker 5: here and didn't anglicize their names.
Speaker 2: They ready had.
Speaker 3: For the listeners who aren't wondering what we're talking about,
Speaker 3: because this is something that broke late today Thursday. Federal
Speaker 3: judge who said something about can I arrest people outside
Speaker 3: home people or something like that, But the name of
Speaker 3: the federal judge is and again I a little bit
Speaker 3: with the cretia here is hard to pronounce. It looks
Speaker 3: like it's Mammy Woosie mensa fri so Judge I like
Speaker 3: it anyway.
Speaker 5: So still, did you ever what is.
Speaker 2: Who knows sounds? Is that a Filipino name?
Speaker 4: You look it up? While I asked Philip question, did
Speaker 4: you ever see on the big thing on social media
Speaker 4: somebody saying Who's who? Are you kidding that that the
Speaker 4: Apostles had name like names like Mark and Andrew? Those
Speaker 4: are white names.
Speaker 6: Who thinks.
Speaker 2: Reast?
Speaker 4: Someone wrote that, yes, okay, sorry that we just got
Speaker 4: way for Philip. I'm sorry, but there's the answer to
Speaker 4: your question. Phil I do think she wants to stake
Speaker 4: out a position and be be the be the unthinking
Speaker 4: leftist like AOC. I honestly think that the the left
Speaker 4: is celebrating people that are dumb on purpose. You know,
Speaker 4: AOC's dumb, Jasmine Crockett's dumb men Dommy day, Mommy couldn't
Speaker 4: get into Colombia.
Speaker 5: They're both they're the two women are undeniably attractive, that's
Speaker 5: part of it, isn't And they're undeniably racial minorities.
Speaker 4: Listen, fat.
Speaker 5: But but but they that's what they choose in their spokespeople.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: They want a kind of racial celebrity, right, I mean,
Speaker 5: like your favorite the what did you call her? I
Speaker 5: can't remember her name, Kareem Jean Paul Sartre's. I'm sorry,
Speaker 5: I forgot that. I shouldn't have actual you know what?
Speaker 2: This is?
Speaker 3: The old Lucretian has shown up tonight because the two
Speaker 3: three weeks ago she was saying nice things.
Speaker 2: About Kareem, John Pierre Paul, Right, that's.
Speaker 4: Just you know, I was saying nice things about about.
Speaker 2: Roberts You like you were like in a very good
Speaker 2: mood that night or something, because it.
Speaker 4: Was no unlike most people. I am. But I'll give
Speaker 4: John credit for this too. I am fair if I
Speaker 4: I somebody isn't right, because I usually agree with them
Speaker 4: or I'm on their side. If they make the right argument,
Speaker 4: I will support them. And if Jasmine Crockett or Kittie
Speaker 4: could ever actually articulate a thought, I might agree with it.
Speaker 4: It's not beyond the realm of possibility. But uh, I
Speaker 4: never I haven't heard one yet. I really like the
Speaker 4: name that the White House gave to Jasmine Crockett. Did
Speaker 4: you hear that? It's my favorite jasmine jellyfish because she
Speaker 4: has the brain of a jellyfish. Is that great? Okay?
Speaker 4: Our good friend Phil, who usually thinks I'm absolutely right
Speaker 4: about everything, has a bone to pick with something I
Speaker 4: said a couple of weeks ago. Of course, that's when
Speaker 4: he's right. He's probably not right here, but we're going
Speaker 4: to give him a chance to explain himself. He didn't
Speaker 4: like my explanation, or perhaps it was my analysis of
Speaker 4: the mood case having to deal with whether or not
Speaker 4: parents could opt out of having their children learn their
Speaker 4: their five year olds learn about sex transitions. And it's
Speaker 4: so awfully I can't even talk about it. But please
Speaker 4: explain to our listeners because it will make some of
Speaker 4: them very happy for them to hear somebody sam wrong
Speaker 4: what it was I got wrong on that? Phil?
Speaker 5: All right, So here here, here's my dick.
Speaker 6: And let me just say, usually, you guys and listening
Speaker 6: to you, have my earbuds in in my basement gym
Speaker 6: doing squats and deadlifts, and then John says something outrageous
Speaker 6: and I'm afraid I'm going to hurt my back, and
Speaker 6: so it's I notice.
Speaker 5: How Phil threw in there. There is an enormous body.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so it's great to be with you. I listen
Speaker 6: every week every week, so you.
Speaker 5: You and the other for Straussians who went to Claremont
Speaker 5: McKenna have wives.
Speaker 4: Okay, mood, my mood.
Speaker 6: So I actually think this was a defeat for social
Speaker 6: conservatives and no one agrees with me on this. And
Speaker 6: here's the thing. If you read the case, the books
Speaker 6: that were in these schools, and these are I have
Speaker 6: a second grader, Uh, these books are being talked to
Speaker 6: second graders, really young kids. They're terrible, and it's shocking
Speaker 6: if you actually go in and that. There's lots of
Speaker 6: details in the case, in the in the opinions they
Speaker 6: write about what these books are. And I think most
Speaker 6: most parents, most Americans would be shocked if they saw
Speaker 6: that these books were being taught or read to or
Speaker 6: made available to really young kids and the parents were objecting.
Speaker 6: In fact, so many parents were objecting that this too
Speaker 6: was in in the case that the reason they thought
Speaker 6: parent opt outs were unworkable is because so many parents
Speaker 6: were objecting. What I see going on is these parents saying,
Speaker 6: we don't want this stuff, this nonsense in our schools.
Speaker 5: And I think.
Speaker 6: If the court did not step in what would have happened?
Speaker 6: And I think justice so Tomor is right here.
Speaker 5: Say that again, did you know, get it under his breath?
Speaker 5: So I went that on the record.
Speaker 6: I think justice so too. My Or was right that
Speaker 6: these things are handled democratically, which means that the parents
Speaker 6: were outraged and they were going to go after control
Speaker 6: of these schools. And when I think is going to
Speaker 6: happen now that the parents won, Supposedly the parents can
Speaker 6: opt out, but these books are still going to be
Speaker 6: in the schools, and so like, what's going to happen
Speaker 6: next year?
Speaker 5: Okay, your kids, if.
Speaker 6: You don't want you your kids don't have to be
Speaker 6: exposed to these books, but all their friends are going
Speaker 6: to be exposed to their books.
Speaker 5: And these books are.
Speaker 6: Still going to be in the schools. And if winning
Speaker 6: is the books are still in the schools, that's not winning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see that point. You know, I've had a
Speaker 3: parallel argument. I think it's parallel argument over the years
Speaker 3: about California's initiative process going back forty years more than
Speaker 3: that of fifty years now. Conservatives have won at the
Speaker 3: ballot box, often Prop thirteen, most famously, But you'll Prop
Speaker 3: two oh nine, you can go down the list of them.
Speaker 3: You were around for some of those, you were in
Speaker 3: graduate school, right, And I often used to say, if
Speaker 3: you didn't have that safety valve, then maybe the people
Speaker 3: of California would have voted differently because they would have said,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, we don't want our governor, you know,
Speaker 3: to not give us our money back and so forth,
Speaker 3: and so it deludes political accountability.
Speaker 2: So the parallel here, I get your point.
Speaker 3: The parallel here is you've given a safety valve to
Speaker 3: parents to opt out, and good for them, and I
Speaker 3: guess they'll fill the asset. Sorry, I think I like
Speaker 3: the logic of your argument, and.
Speaker 2: I agree with it.
Speaker 3: The counterpoint would be, how did the education establishment react
Speaker 3: well with horror? Because they see this as an assault
Speaker 3: on their overwhelming control and compulsion of public schools. They
Speaker 3: see it as another step towards school choice and the
Speaker 3: disaggregation of the public schools.
Speaker 2: And the extent that's right.
Speaker 3: I think that's an argument in favor of the opt
Speaker 3: out as a baby step towards things.
Speaker 2: But I think that maybe you're right.
Speaker 3: So Di my or threw down a gauntlet that our
Speaker 3: team should have picked up and run with.
Speaker 4: So wait a minute, So my oarse said some dumb
Speaker 4: stuff about if they don't like their kids in school
Speaker 4: in public school, take them elsewhere. Well, right, let's not
Speaker 4: forget that. So let me make the counter argument that
Speaker 4: I think makes more sense, Steve. And counter argument is
Speaker 4: that everything, everything was moving in one direction having to
Speaker 4: do with transgender, transgender things in women's sports, and you know,
Speaker 4: across the board, the Biden administration was shoving it down
Speaker 4: our throats in every possible way. And then Trump comes
Speaker 4: along and he says, Kamala Harris is for they them,
Speaker 4: I'm for you, which you know everyone says. It is
Speaker 4: like one of the turning points in the campaign. I
Speaker 4: don't know, but since that time we have seen a
Speaker 4: steady erosion, or at least a stopping of the forward
Speaker 4: movement of the transgender initiative. And that I think is
Speaker 4: another step in saying, I mean, if the court had said,
Speaker 4: if the Court had taken the case and said something different,
Speaker 4: now you could be right that they never should have
Speaker 4: taken the case, but if they had said something different,
Speaker 4: it would have been another notch in favor of a
Speaker 4: permanent class protection for transgender what I don't even know
Speaker 4: to call them, you see my point. I see a
Speaker 4: sea change moving in the other direction now, and people
Speaker 4: are not afraid any longer to say I don't want
Speaker 4: my kids, I don't want my kids seeing that, I
Speaker 4: don't want my kids going to drag queen shows. I
Speaker 4: don't want my kids having, you know, drag queens at
Speaker 4: the library, and people are less afraid to push back
Speaker 4: on it.
Speaker 6: I think you got to think through what does what
Speaker 6: does winning look like? Does winning look like the books
Speaker 6: are in the school but my kid is excused to
Speaker 6: sort of awkward? Or is winning getting the books out
Speaker 6: of the schools? If winning is getting the books out
Speaker 6: of the schools, I don't think the case helps the
Speaker 6: decision helps because for all the reasons you just said,
Speaker 6: all moment, look, once the parents saw what was in
Speaker 6: these books, they don't.
Speaker 2: Want these books.
Speaker 6: And now if I'm if I'm a progressive, I'm realizing, Wow,
Speaker 6: they're not taking the books out of school, and we
Speaker 6: can just say to those parents who are objecting, Okay,
Speaker 6: your kids don't have to go, and we still control
Speaker 6: what books are in the school. So I don't think
Speaker 6: that's really winning.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just think it's a had it gone the
Speaker 4: other way, had it gone the other way, it would
Speaker 4: have been a defeat the idea that the court could
Speaker 4: have possibly decided that parents cannot opt out of what
Speaker 4: you know, that this kind of horror being taught to
Speaker 4: their children. I guess again, you can say that the
Speaker 4: court never should have taken up the issue, but once
Speaker 4: they took it up, they had to decide this way
Speaker 4: because the alternative is horrific. It's the kind of the
Speaker 4: same argument I've had with Hadley. It's not fairy is
Speaker 4: not here. But if the court had decided somehow that
Speaker 4: transsexuals were a suspect category and therefore deserved all the
Speaker 4: protection suspect categories, that would have been disastrous. The fact
Speaker 4: that they didn't go as far as they should have
Speaker 4: that wasn't before the case here, I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 4: My comment was, how is it possible that this wasn't
Speaker 4: a case about getting those damn books away from children
Speaker 4: all together? That's which the case should have been.
Speaker 2: Sure completing would have been.
Speaker 3: But also, aren't we mixing up the scir Many case
Speaker 3: a little bit, because that's the one that raised the
Speaker 3: question about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, no, a different case. Yeah, yeah, okay, not
Speaker 4: mixing it up. I was referring to a different case. Sorry,
Speaker 4: it didn't make that care anyway.
Speaker 5: I have one of the kind of different response to phil.
Speaker 5: That's more. I think the way a lawyer would think
Speaker 5: of it is, you know, why would religious freedom be
Speaker 5: the right amongst all the rights and the Bill of
Speaker 5: Rights that you would not judicially enforce. You could make
Speaker 5: a similar argument that you should rely on the legislature
Speaker 5: and expect them to enforce the Constitution for the other
Speaker 5: Bills of Rights too, rights there too. So I think
Speaker 5: the curious effect for me as a lawyer is, here's
Speaker 5: a right that's in a list, and all the other
Speaker 5: rights in the list are enforced by the court. Right,
Speaker 5: all the criminal procedure rights are enforced by the court.
Speaker 5: Why do we single out religious freedom as the one
Speaker 5: that the courts will not enforce and will expect political
Speaker 5: protection and resolution for. Why don't we apply that rule
Speaker 5: to all the other Bill of Rights protections too.
Speaker 6: It's a challenge to fail, I think, Well, I don't
Speaker 6: want to derail the show, but let me.
Speaker 3: Give it.
Speaker 5: Ready, just by being here, you've derailed the show.
Speaker 2: Do you rail away.
Speaker 5: When you're listening to yourself talking when you're lifting one
Speaker 5: hundred and thirty five pounds and break your knee or
Speaker 5: whatever you do down in your basement.
Speaker 6: All right, So the First Amendment, the religion clauses are
Speaker 6: doing different work, and they're prohibiting the State Congress and
Speaker 6: now the states from doing something else. With the free
Speaker 6: exercise clause is much more precise. It's the protection that
Speaker 6: says government can't tell you how to pray, that you
Speaker 6: must go to church, that you can't go to church.
Speaker 6: We're going to find you if you don't go to
Speaker 6: go to church. That's what it's doing. Its work is
Speaker 6: not to shield religious individuals from laws that everyone else.
Speaker 5: Are subject to.
Speaker 6: So I've never I mean, you guys know this. I
Speaker 6: don't think it's a blanket protection to protect anything religious
Speaker 6: people are interested in or feel that the religious beliefs
Speaker 6: are compel them to participate in this part the public square,
Speaker 6: or don't participate in this part of the public square.
Speaker 6: I just don't think that the religion clauses were originally
Speaker 6: designed to do.
Speaker 5: That broad work.
Speaker 6: Rather, they had a narrow function, which is to say
Speaker 6: that there's part of our natural liberty, are the way
Speaker 6: we worship, or if we even don't worship, and that's
Speaker 6: out of bounds for government to regulate.
Speaker 5: Yo, does it make sense from a lawyer's perspective about
Speaker 5: enforceability of rights?
Speaker 6: But well, so it's not a right, it's not part
Speaker 6: of the right. It's a question like what you're creating
Speaker 6: something that's not originally there.
Speaker 4: To a certain extent based upon the way you frame
Speaker 4: the question, John, which is that why are the criminal
Speaker 4: justice rights? Why do we expect the court to enforce
Speaker 4: those through judicial decision making on our behalf? But we shouldn't,
Speaker 4: according to Phil have the court enforce free exercise establishment
Speaker 4: clause and so forth. I mean, I can make an
Speaker 4: argument that because the courts made this argument. I mean,
Speaker 4: this is not my brilliance coming through here. This is
Speaker 4: the court's argument earlier on, which is that you know
Speaker 4: that the courts have to have the integrity of the courts,
Speaker 4: and so you know there is a stupid exclusionary rule
Speaker 4: argument that you can't expect us to take in evidence
Speaker 4: that was obtained unconstitutionally and illegally that would destroy the
Speaker 4: integrity of the courts. You can broaden that argument and
Speaker 4: maybe make it apply to the fourth, fifth, and sixth
Speaker 4: amendments At eighth amendments. I can see that argument. I'm
Speaker 4: of the opinion ever since forever that we shouldn't be
Speaker 4: depending upon the courts for our First Amendment rights. We
Speaker 4: should be depending upon ourselves to make sure we can
Speaker 4: exercise them. You know, they're not their rights that belong
Speaker 4: to us. We don't need the government to protect us,
Speaker 4: which the judiciary is the government in the exercise of
Speaker 4: our rights. We need somebody has to be us to
Speaker 4: protect our exercise of those rights, because there are natural rights.
Speaker 4: And I can see that argument. But practically speaking, I
Speaker 4: can see why a lawyer freaks out at it, honestly,
Speaker 4: and you're the lawyer.
Speaker 5: John, Yeah, I mean, the Constitution creates individual rights and so,
Speaker 5: and the Constitution is meant to be enforced in court.
Speaker 5: I do think that Hamilton was wrong in Federal's number
Speaker 5: eighty four. I think the anti Federals turned out to
Speaker 5: be right about the way the government would interpret its
Speaker 5: powers over time. It didn't. The government did not interpret
Speaker 5: its powers as not being able to affect free speech,
Speaker 5: for example, or free exercise of religion.
Speaker 3: Wrong.
Speaker 5: I think the intera Federal has predicted the future more accurately,
Speaker 5: and so if they did, then you do need to
Speaker 5: have judicially enforceable individual rights.
Speaker 4: Give me five cases, five examples of cases where we
Speaker 4: are better off because the Supreme Court came out in
Speaker 4: favor of a right that we as Americans possess that
Speaker 4: government didn't give us.
Speaker 5: That the free speech Almost all the free speech cases
Speaker 5: are disaster. No. I mean, look at all the ways
Speaker 5: that the local garments have tried to suppress speech. So
Speaker 5: here's one. What about the Nazis who paraded through skoky. Now,
Speaker 5: the government would have suppressed that parade if it could have, right,
Speaker 5: there's an argument I think they get. I think the
Speaker 5: Nazis get the right to parade and skokey or I mean,
Speaker 5: I'm just trying to think of like the worst free
Speaker 5: speech cases.
Speaker 6: The more you talk, the more I think Lucretia is right.
Speaker 5: Well, that's that's it. That's my general effect on you.
Speaker 5: Phil This is the point, This is.
Speaker 3: Why, this is why John, political philosophers are superior to
Speaker 3: political theorists, and are both are superior to lawyers.
Speaker 5: What what are you talking about? In this case, the
Speaker 5: market has ruled, and I make ten times more than you. You,
Speaker 5: I make ten times more than any political philosopher, any
Speaker 5: the worst lawyer makes ten times more than any political philosopher.
Speaker 5: The market has spoken in its infinite wisdom.
Speaker 4: Did I ever tell you don't by the time five
Speaker 4: or six years ago, it's been now at least. I
Speaker 4: was sitting in a bar with Harvey Mansfield. We're drinking
Speaker 4: in a bar, and I asked him, I said, can
Speaker 4: you give me a So it was kind of prior
Speaker 4: to all of these recent cases by the Roberts Court.
Speaker 4: I said, can you give me one single Supreme Court
Speaker 4: decision that was so profound in restoring constitutional separation powers,
Speaker 4: protecting critical individual rights, whatever, by whatever standard you want
Speaker 4: to do it, One Supreme Court case that undoes that
Speaker 4: is so critical that it undoes all the incredible harm
Speaker 4: done to our republic by most Supreme Court decisions. And
Speaker 4: he sat there for a minute and his answer was, no, Okay.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's a different question, but some decisions where
Speaker 5: so here's some other ones. I think that the court's
Speaker 5: striking down campaign finance laws like it did in Citizens
Speaker 5: United has been beneficial because, look, otherwise, the government would
Speaker 5: do things to suppress speech to favor incumbents in office.
Speaker 5: I personally think you're not going to like this Lucretia
Speaker 5: or Phil or Steve. But I think that burning the
Speaker 5: flags to be protected by free speech. I think that's
Speaker 5: a legitimate form of speech, and the government would love
Speaker 5: to suppress people from doing that.
Speaker 4: I actually agree with you, but I don't totally surprising.
Speaker 4: But if you live in a society, god damn it,
Speaker 4: I know you're going to no. But what I don't
Speaker 4: agree with is if you live in a society where
Speaker 4: you can burn the American flag but you can't burn
Speaker 4: the Pride flag. That's that's where we are to get what. Oh,
Speaker 4: just last week, so three kids were arrested and they
Speaker 4: faced twenty years in jail for deframing a Pride flag.
Speaker 5: Oh, they're gonna win. They'll win on free speech grounds.
Speaker 5: They can burn.
Speaker 4: My point is that that we are so confused about
Speaker 4: these things that those those kinds of you know, contradictions
Speaker 4: can actually happen in our society. But anyway, Phil, you're
Speaker 4: going to say something.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure why I'm on the flag burning, but
Speaker 6: I'm against the new dancing, and it seems to me
Speaker 6: that your free speech gets justifies a lot of really
Speaker 6: bad behavior that I think communities.
Speaker 5: Believe it the whites constitutes no dancing.
Speaker 4: All right, all right, Steve's gonna kill me if I don't.
Speaker 4: But that's actually brings me to a pretty good segue here. Uh.
Speaker 4: I do want to ask you guys really quickly, and
Speaker 4: probably John especially to explain to our listeners because I
Speaker 4: know they'll be interested in this question. How did we
Speaker 4: go from the Supreme Court issuing a decision just a
Speaker 4: couple of weeks ago, right, you know, saying that if
Speaker 4: it was even that long ago that no more universal injunctions,
Speaker 4: and there was the talk about okay, we should have
Speaker 4: gone further and said also no class action suits. But
Speaker 4: what was it yesterday? Yesterday the birthright citizenship decision by
Speaker 4: Judge Indy No, I don't even remember a Bush appointed judge.
Speaker 4: It was George W. Bush appointed judge saying that you know,
Speaker 4: these people, these infants create a class and I don't
Speaker 4: understand the rule explained to me if that's going to work.
Speaker 5: So this is let me just explain. So the niche
Speaker 5: wide injunction case, that court said there could be an
Speaker 5: exception to that which would be for class actions. And
Speaker 5: class actions are this device created in the thirties which
Speaker 5: allow a whole group of people potentially millions, to be
Speaker 5: represented in court even though they don't show up, and
Speaker 5: even though they may not even really approve of the lawsuit.
Speaker 5: But so they just there's a very complicated law set
Speaker 5: of laws about the class actions. But one thing about
Speaker 5: it is this creates a whole other set of issues
Speaker 5: that the Trump admission administration can win on, which is
Speaker 5: that this court below granted a class action, as you said,
Speaker 5: lucretia for infants who can't even consent to be represented
Speaker 5: in the class. So I think actually this class action
Speaker 5: thing might help the Trump administration. And the other thing though,
Speaker 5: is that one of these birthright citizenship cases is going
Speaker 5: to get to the Supreme Court in the next year anyway.
Speaker 5: In this district judge is just almost like flagrantly defying
Speaker 5: the Supreme Court by trying to find, like what the
Speaker 5: skilly said, an elephant in this mousehole of an exception
Speaker 5: for class actions. So I expect that this this case
Speaker 5: will be stayed and the Supreme Court will take either
Speaker 5: that case or some other case up about birthright citizenship
Speaker 5: pretty quickly.
Speaker 6: No, No, I I think that's it pains me to
Speaker 6: say this, but I think I agree with John yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Okay, let me follow on and give you a chance
Speaker 4: here to phil to to say something provocative. So another
Speaker 4: example of a universal injunction that makes even less sense
Speaker 4: to the average American was the Taliwane decision UH deciding
Speaker 4: that the AHHS cannot in fact stop funding planned parenthood. Right.
Speaker 4: I want to get into the merits of it, but
Speaker 4: I'm doing this for Steve. So Steve, I don't know
Speaker 4: if you saw this on X But Damon Linker, what
Speaker 4: do you call him? The mississink? Okay? Damon Linker says, missing. Look,
Speaker 4: I hate Trump, support abortion rights and all the rest,
Speaker 4: But how can there be an underlying violation of law
Speaker 4: or the constitution justifying a temporary restraining order from a
Speaker 4: duly enacted statute cutting funding for a private entity? Damon
Speaker 4: Linker says that so smart ass. Lucretia responds and says,
Speaker 4: it has obviously never occurred to you that the reason
Speaker 4: for being of the left is simply power, the rule
Speaker 4: of law, constitutional norms, democratic rule. These are tropes of
Speaker 4: the left, useful in only in so far as they
Speaker 4: advance leftist causes, like the right to murder an unborn child. Okay,
Speaker 4: because his answer to me back, You're right, he's very sarcastic.
Speaker 4: You're right, that's never occurred to me. Thanks for pointing
Speaker 4: it out. It also never occurred to me that the
Speaker 4: right also cares about winning and wielding power.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, so let me set up what I was
Speaker 5: gonna say. Let me set up for the discussion for
Speaker 5: you guys to wail on this. But the theory of
Speaker 5: the judged Inisian opinion. But I take it the theory
Speaker 5: is and I think there is an underlying substantive argument here,
Speaker 5: which is the government can't single out people are groups
Speaker 5: for disfavored treatment just because of their view because of
Speaker 5: their viewpoints. So imagine there's a case called Rosenberger, which
Speaker 5: is another case I was going to give you for
Speaker 5: where I think the government did the court did the
Speaker 5: right thing for first Ammogrounts. So here's a case involved
Speaker 5: in the University of Virginia. They give all student groups
Speaker 5: money to invite speakers except for the Christian group and
Speaker 5: because they say, we don't want to fund Christian speech.
Speaker 5: And so that's what planned parent who is saying is
Speaker 5: they're saying, you give money to everybody who performs women
Speaker 5: health medical services except us because we also believe in abortion.
Speaker 5: That's there, that's the argument.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, why.
Speaker 4: Don't we do this, Steve, I let's take a break
Speaker 4: and come back and feels got an answer, Okay.
Speaker 2: I met, I wanted to think about six minutes ago.
Speaker 4: I know, I'm sorry. It was my screen was covered.
Speaker 2: It doesn't work. It just takes too long. I mean,
Speaker 2: you stretch it out like.
Speaker 5: That and it's like mom and dad got divorced and
Speaker 5: they're still fighting.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, Steve, it was covered and I just wasn't
Speaker 4: paying attention. Yeah, I apologize.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I don't know. I'll have to figure it out.
Speaker 5: But anyway, there's probably a place you could throw in
Speaker 5: a brake six.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can probably squeeze one in there, because actually
Speaker 3: you're in your introduction to it was perfect, but it
Speaker 3: was there was no and it just it just makes edit.
Speaker 2: That's okay, I got an extraday to edit. So I think.
Speaker 4: So, okay, so we're back, and so Phil, what do
Speaker 4: you think about planned parenthood?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I mean the thought that we're we the taxpayers are
Speaker 6: funding planned parenthood is a travesty. It's an abomination. And
Speaker 6: now I don't but I don't I think John's right
Speaker 6: that I don't see how you can single out this
Speaker 6: one entity if the band has to be in general,
Speaker 6: we're not going to fund this type of activity. I
Speaker 6: think that's fine, but you can't fund the general.
Speaker 5: Type of activity.
Speaker 6: And to say well, no, this one organization can't receive funds,
Speaker 6: I mean that that strikes me as wrong. But I
Speaker 6: don't know enough about the actual law or the implementation
Speaker 6: of the law.
Speaker 5: So what the law says is it doesn't say planned parent,
Speaker 5: and I think it says federal medicaid funds can't go
Speaker 5: to any group that performs abortions, even if the federal
Speaker 5: funds themselves pay for something else. Right because plant Parenthet says,
Speaker 5: we also do like women's health checkups, but we're not
Speaker 5: using any federal money for abortions. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 5: that's nice.
Speaker 6: What the law does. That's that's yeah. I think that's fine.
Speaker 5: I mean, but they're saying what you're really but they
Speaker 5: saying way that you wrote the law deliberately just to
Speaker 5: apply to one class, which happens to be us. We're
Speaker 5: the only people who fall into the law. We're the
Speaker 5: only group that's going to get our funds cut off
Speaker 5: before this because of this, and it's only because we
Speaker 5: perform abortions and we and we believe in Roe versus
Speaker 5: we well.
Speaker 3: First of all, by the way, the pleading included calling
Speaker 3: this the clause a bill of a tainder, which I
Speaker 3: think only applies to individuals.
Speaker 2: I mean, it seems like an absurd argument, but I
Speaker 2: don't think they rule.
Speaker 5: And it's also only a criminal law, so it doesn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, second, I can't so I guess now now
Speaker 3: that you put it this way, they're saying there's a
Speaker 3: they're legend there's a drafting error here that's discriminatory against them.
Speaker 5: It's not an error. They're just saying it's written deliberately
Speaker 5: to only get them.
Speaker 3: So, by the way, I mean, how many hundreds of
Speaker 3: times a year in these budget bills are there general
Speaker 3: conditions written into tax law, for example, that in the
Speaker 3: real world we learn only applies to one company and
Speaker 3: sometimes only one individual. Now that's a benefit, right, That's
Speaker 3: something a lobbyist sneaks in the middle of the night.
Speaker 3: But we let that go by, and none of us
Speaker 3: are able, none of us have standing as supposed to
Speaker 3: oppose that right.
Speaker 2: By the way.
Speaker 3: I'll bet there's some tax changes that disfavor for specific
Speaker 3: companies in industries. And so you know, that's never been
Speaker 3: brought as a claim.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe it has in tax court, but and but no
Speaker 3: one ever noticed. Perhaps it has, but the idea, but look,
Speaker 3: I mean, ultimately it seems to me as a constitutionalist,
Speaker 3: what is the what does Article one say Congress has
Speaker 3: the power of the purse and they say we don't
Speaker 3: want to, uh, we don't want to fund planned parenthood.
Speaker 3: We can either do it by saying we want fund
Speaker 3: planned parenthood, or we can do it with a general
Speaker 3: condition so that some other organization can't say we're semi
Speaker 3: planned parenthood, right or something like that.
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: And well what about this though, guys? What well, yeah,
Speaker 4: but what about this? What if instead of this knee
Speaker 4: jerk reaction, because of course, abortion is in fact a
Speaker 4: sacred right according to the left, what if Planned Parenthood
Speaker 4: just stood back and said, Okay, we will in fact
Speaker 4: create two separate entities, and we're so committed to women's
Speaker 4: health and women's reproductive health minus abortion. What a joke
Speaker 4: that is. But anyway, and so what we'll do is
Speaker 4: we will, in fact I don't know if you need
Speaker 4: two separate corporations, however you do it, but we will
Speaker 4: separate our abortion activities from our supposed non existent health services.
Speaker 4: And then there's no issue, right that could have been
Speaker 4: a response to this, And I would guess if there
Speaker 4: are other entities out there that aren't quite as interested
Speaker 4: in killing babies as Planned Parenthood, they might do exactly that.
Speaker 4: So it seems to me that if Planned Parenthood is
Speaker 4: worried about not being able to use Medicaid funds for
Speaker 4: their other activities, there's an easy answer there, and it's
Speaker 4: not going back to the courts and demanding that Planned
Speaker 4: Parenthood be funded, because of course the funds that go
Speaker 4: for other things fund abortion. Right. It's just that simple, right,
Speaker 4: Am I wrong?
Speaker 6: That seems right to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems simple enough to me too, But I
Speaker 2: guess what.
Speaker 5: So one other way to put it, I think is
Speaker 5: also if this, if Planned Parenthood were right, and what
Speaker 5: this Republican Congress is doing is really punishing them because
Speaker 5: of their advocacy the belief for abortion, then Congress would
Speaker 5: have written the law to cut off a lot more
Speaker 5: groups than just Planned Parenthood. They would have just cut
Speaker 5: off groups that you know, support abortion. So it doesn't
Speaker 5: do there yet, but they're i mean support it, don't
Speaker 5: just practice it, but maybe just you know, advocate for it.
Speaker 5: So it seems that their claim of Congress's intent is
Speaker 5: not is too narrow because Congress didn't really have that intent,
Speaker 5: because if they did, they would have targeted more groups
Speaker 5: than just planned parenthood.
Speaker 3: Well, but it is the language a preempt you know,
Speaker 3: groups from springing up. Like I said, I mean my
Speaker 3: example was unplanned parenthood or semi planned parent Right, there's
Speaker 3: gotta be lots of women's health centers that do the
Speaker 3: same darn thing and would be the cutout for taking
Speaker 3: up the slack from Planned parenthood losing federal money. By
Speaker 3: the way, can we just say Planned parenthood said for years,
Speaker 3: oh the federal money. It's really like it's like NPR,
Speaker 3: it really isn't that much. And you know they lie
Speaker 3: about this stuff, right, it's you already hear stories of
Speaker 3: them having to close down a lot of clinics because
Speaker 3: of the perspective loss of federal funds, and that tells
Speaker 3: you all you need to know about the sincerity of
Speaker 3: these claims.
Speaker 5: You know, I think I'm much I'm not pro life
Speaker 5: the way you three are. I think you're all three
Speaker 5: pro life. But this is all sceinary where federalism should work.
Speaker 5: So if California wants to support planned parenthood, they can,
Speaker 5: you know, plan California, New York. If they really believe
Speaker 5: in abortion rights, they'll say that the way they say
Speaker 5: they do. Then they can just increase funding for planned
Speaker 5: parenthood in those states.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: And then one last question, you guys would have no
Speaker 5: problem with that if a state wants to fund abortion
Speaker 5: after Dobs, Right, there's nothing wrong with that, I take it,
Speaker 5: and your.
Speaker 4: Guys, I don't know about nothing wrong, but because.
Speaker 5: You would yeah, you would oppose it on policy grounds
Speaker 5: or moral grounds, but not.
Speaker 4: But we have something at the federal level called the
Speaker 4: Heighth Amendment, and one could argue that planned parenthood has
Speaker 4: skirted the intention of that law for decades, and that
Speaker 4: this particular bill, even if it did single out planned parenthood,
Speaker 4: which it doesn't, would actually be a way of assuring
Speaker 4: the American public several medicaid dollars are not going to abortion.
Speaker 4: And that seems to me not to be either a
Speaker 4: First Amendment issue or an equal protection issue, because the
Speaker 4: law is already on the books, and it's almost as
Speaker 4: long standing as Real versus Wade. Right, Okay, all right,
Speaker 4: So that being said, we'll move on to the Big
Speaker 4: Beautiful Bill in general. And I read a really interesting
Speaker 4: article this morning. I want to know what you guys
Speaker 4: think about. It was by a Democrat I don't know who,
Speaker 4: didn't know who she was, but it was a whiney article,
Speaker 4: as usual, because that's what the left does. But what
Speaker 4: she said was all of these Democrats that are celebrating
Speaker 4: the Big Beautiful Bill because it's a certainty that as
Speaker 4: a result of it, because it's so unpopular, they're going
Speaker 4: to just sweep the twenty twenty six mid terms. He says.
Speaker 4: You know, maybe, folks, it's probably not so true. And
Speaker 4: maybe after all that, people are not really all that
Speaker 4: happy about unhappy about Medicaid being stopped because they won't
Speaker 4: actually see it until after the twenty twenty six midterms.
Speaker 4: And you know, also other you know, rationalizations. But my
Speaker 4: question for you guys is are the Democrats in more
Speaker 4: trouble than they think they are?
Speaker 5: But isn't that so you can have two different views.
Speaker 5: I think the bill has terrible tax policy in it,
Speaker 5: but it all yes, it has the bad tax policy
Speaker 5: in it. But at the same time, that doesn't mean
Speaker 5: Democrats aren't in a lot.
Speaker 4: He's not eligible for Social Security, Steve like, we are
Speaker 4: not only that, but.
Speaker 5: You guys are going to use it all up in
Speaker 5: all your boomer activities, whatever those are. You know, Steve's
Speaker 5: going to be grilling God knows what poor confused to
Speaker 5: meet at double the price he ought to be paying
Speaker 5: with his Social Security check that he puts on Facebook.
Speaker 5: So look, look, it's a terrible tax bill in disrespect
Speaker 5: you know tax policy, right, you guys agree with this,
Speaker 5: don't you that the ideal tax policy should have no
Speaker 5: exceptions and low rates broadly applied. Why are we giving
Speaker 5: for tax breaks for tips, for social security payments, for
Speaker 5: auto loans? I mean, this is all terrible tax policy,
Speaker 5: isn't it. Oh God, Steve just put pictures of his
Speaker 5: favorite meat and there's people. There's only four pictures, and
Speaker 5: we know Steve has posted at least one hundred pictures
Speaker 5: of his stakes and various poor sign products that he's
Speaker 5: consumed Nober. The un point is, I like the part
Speaker 5: of the tax bill that keeps the tax cuts, but
Speaker 5: all these exceptions that Trump through in there I think
Speaker 5: are really bad toxifier, the one raising the salt deduction, right,
Speaker 5: the deduction for local taxes to forty thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's just bad tax policy. But it's also
Speaker 5: really bad tax policy. This is where Reagan, I think
Speaker 5: is different. Reagan showed real leadership in his second term.
Speaker 5: He you know, the eighty six tax actor is the
Speaker 5: most brilliant tax law we've had in our lifetimes. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and Trump Trump instead is just a whole Trump's tax
Speaker 5: policy is like liberal tax policy saw just a bunch
Speaker 5: of giveaways to special interest groups.
Speaker 3: First of all, John h. First of all, Trump didn't
Speaker 3: do all those things. That was the members of the
Speaker 3: House and the Senate.
Speaker 5: No, but they did it because but that's because Trump
Speaker 5: promised it in the primier in the general election, and
Speaker 5: they all felt like they had to didn't all of
Speaker 5: those Oh he did do salt, but he did all
Speaker 5: the other ones.
Speaker 2: Sault on the others. But look, the other thing is
Speaker 2: it's completely but this is important.
Speaker 3: It's actually quite mistaken to compare it to Reagan's eighty
Speaker 3: six tax reform. Why because that was a genuine bipartisan effort.
Speaker 3: The Democrats early on said, you know what, we're for
Speaker 3: tax reform, let's work together. It's a fascinating story. You
Speaker 3: had Republicans and Democrats working together to screw the lobbyists,
Speaker 3: and they did it by meeting on Saturdays. It still
Speaker 3: took a year and a half, and Reagan rolled up
Speaker 3: the sleeve was deeply involved.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 3: You had every Democrat saying, no, we don't care if
Speaker 3: any Democrat. And by the way, there are a bunch
Speaker 3: of Democrats like AOC who did not like raising assault limit.
Speaker 3: They could have offered a vote for something, and they
Speaker 3: could have horse traded and they could have made it
Speaker 3: a more sensible tax policy. But no, their view is
Speaker 3: we have to oppose whatever it is Republicans are doing.
Speaker 3: And so that meant that you could with such narrow
Speaker 3: more margins in the House.
Speaker 2: It meant that anybody from New.
Speaker 3: York, like you know, at least the phonic who I
Speaker 3: like otherwise and no, you can't have my vote unless
Speaker 3: you raise the salt limit.
Speaker 2: I agree with you.
Speaker 3: All those add ons are mostly bad policy, but you
Speaker 3: know what, they don't amount to that much. The important
Speaker 3: part is the parts you already mentioned, John, which is
Speaker 3: the main tax rates that are pro growth, and sometimes
Speaker 3: you have to take the rough with the smooth, and
Speaker 3: this is one of those times, and so you should
Speaker 3: just lump it and be quiet.
Speaker 4: I agree with them, I have a different take on
Speaker 4: John put this smooth business. So everything about finance and
Speaker 4: tax law is designed to benefit the rich. Okay, It's
Speaker 4: just that simple, even the salt. It's to benefit the rich.
Speaker 4: And who right now is the party of the rich
Speaker 4: and the elite. It's, of course, it's the Democrats. And
Speaker 4: Trump's appeal is to the middle and lower classes, the
Speaker 4: working middle and lower classes. And everything that he put
Speaker 4: in that bill that you don't like, the no tax
Speaker 4: on tips and the hunt, the thousand dollars savings account
Speaker 4: for you know, a newborn, and all of those things.
Speaker 4: One thousand dollars in a savings account is meaningless to
Speaker 4: a John you who makes billions every year. But it's
Speaker 4: not millions, I said, But it's not meaningless to the
Speaker 4: woman who's working two jobs, and one of those is
Speaker 4: working nights as a waitress. And the government right now
Speaker 4: takes a percentage of their tips, whether they make tips
Speaker 4: or not. And if you ask me, Trump's constituency is
Speaker 4: the middle class and the lower middle class that's gotten
Speaker 4: screwed over and over for the last forty years, and
Speaker 4: I'm all in favor of it. I don't like those
Speaker 4: giveaways either, but if that's what it takes to solidify
Speaker 4: the middle and lower classes in the Republican Party or
Speaker 4: the Trump Party or whatever we're gonna call it someday,
Speaker 4: I'm in favor of it. Because, again, what Steve was
Speaker 4: kind of saying with a different perspective is the tax
Speaker 4: policy has always done that. It just usually favors the rich.
Speaker 5: Sorry, just I feel like I'm in I feel like
Speaker 5: I'm in some kind of economic bizarre world where we
Speaker 5: have adopted the Democratic Parties approach.
Speaker 4: And the Democratic Parties adopted.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're giving away tax benefits to favorite interest groups,
Speaker 5: and then we have a tariff policy that's like an
Speaker 5: industrial policy, and we're spending lots of money. You know,
Speaker 5: we're actually not repealing all the Chipsack and the Inflation
Speaker 5: Reduction Act. We're still doing industrial policy too, just Biden's
Speaker 5: industrial policy. And you saw what happened when the Democrats
Speaker 5: pursued all these policies. They ruined the economy and you
Speaker 5: had to have Reagan come in and clean House.
Speaker 4: Yeah, your your analogies are too lame. Sorry, John, Steve
Speaker 4: won't let me. Steve won't let me take them up.
Speaker 4: Fill any closing thoughts on that before I moved to
Speaker 4: the final closing.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean.
Speaker 2: You're both right.
Speaker 6: I mean I I John is right. I think it's
Speaker 6: it has not been conservative.
Speaker 5: Phil Sussick, he's running for office. Here, everybody's right here.
Speaker 6: Look, the Republican Party has changed, right, It's become a
Speaker 6: lot more like the Democratic Party, and it's the party
Speaker 6: of the working class. And so we're abandoning the ideas
Speaker 6: of the old understanding was flat taxes and no exceptions
Speaker 6: and no giveaways to certain groups. And well it turns
Speaker 6: out when when your constituency is as as Lucretia just explained,
Speaker 6: working class people, and you can give working class breaks
Speaker 6: in these narrow ways to your benefit. I don't know.
Speaker 6: To me, it shows lack of principle, and I don't
Speaker 6: like it. I think taxes should be low and flat.
Speaker 6: I think that's best for everyone in the long term.
Speaker 6: But greed maybe, But I'm sympathetic to the idea, like,
Speaker 6: maybe you have to take this, maybe this is the
Speaker 6: only way you can you can win in today's America.
Speaker 6: I don't much like that, but that is politics.
Speaker 4: Okay. So the last thing I want to talk about
Speaker 4: as we end today is this whole concept of cover ups.
Speaker 4: I don't want to talk about Epstein. I'm going to
Speaker 4: leave that aside. I have nothing to say about it,
Speaker 4: but I think that there have been, in fact enough
Speaker 4: other kinds of cover ups that are actually serious. Never
Speaker 4: mind the conspiracy theories are on Epstein. No comment on
Speaker 4: that either way. But what we do know is that
Speaker 4: Biden was non compostmentus, that a lot of people covered
Speaker 4: it up, that his stupid ass doctor couldn't even come
Speaker 4: in and tell the truth about the most basic kind
Speaker 4: of questions and somehow managed to plead the fifth. I
Speaker 4: want to know exactly what criminal law he was afraid
Speaker 4: of being charged with when he plead the fifth, But
Speaker 4: we know that the more we find out, that's a
Speaker 4: huge cover up. They're now investigating, thank god, the scum
Speaker 4: of the earth, Brennan, Clapper and Comy, and I hope
Speaker 4: those guys get executed for treason, but that probably won't happen.
Speaker 4: But they are at least investigating them, and so is
Speaker 4: anything going to happen? What do you guys think is
Speaker 4: are we going to find out who actually ran the autopen?
Speaker 4: Are there going to be authorizations? Are we going to
Speaker 4: find out that As a matter of fact, what we
Speaker 4: know with anybody with any brains knew all along it
Speaker 4: Brendan was the most despicable creature on the planet and
Speaker 4: he was plotting against Trump from day one and using
Speaker 4: the intelligence services for his purposes and Obama's purposes. But
Speaker 4: will we get any closure on that? Guys? Predictions I'm
Speaker 4: gonna start with you, Phil, Let's.
Speaker 5: Have our guests.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I predict the past, so I don't know that
Speaker 6: I have any good predictions on this, but I tell
Speaker 6: you I don't like them. I don't like government officials
Speaker 6: using their power to go after past government officials just
Speaker 6: in general. I think that's very bad. But I am
Speaker 6: very curious what they're going to find out about Comy
Speaker 6: and Brennan. And it will be interesting if what we
Speaker 6: find out, And part of me hopes we don't find
Speaker 6: anything and it goes away because I don't like this
Speaker 6: criminalizing politics. But I do wonder if if there's something
Speaker 6: to be found, and if there is something to be found,
Speaker 6: it should be investigated.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm oh, go ahead.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm i I'm worried this may slip away. I
Speaker 3: think back to almost thirty years ago when you had
Speaker 3: all those shall we say, irregularities in the Clinton re
Speaker 3: election campaign in nineteen ninety six, there was a special
Speaker 3: committee appoint in the Senate. Remember Fred Thompson sheared it,
Speaker 3: the great Fred Thompson from you know, Hunt for Red
Speaker 3: October and all that great hope that they were going
Speaker 3: to be you know, a great Watergate like hearings that
Speaker 3: would unravel the corruption there, and it all fizzled out.
Speaker 3: I'll just mention, as in the side that I had
Speaker 3: a bit of an inside look at that because a
Speaker 3: certain musician who resides in my household was on the
Speaker 3: staff of that committee until this person resigned because of
Speaker 3: how feeble it was, and it came to nothing. Right,
Speaker 3: So Republicans are bad at this. On the other hand,
Speaker 3: it does seem there's more of a killer instinct than
Speaker 3: the Trump administration and the current Republican Congress. So maybe
Speaker 3: they will see it through and really not take no
Speaker 3: for an answer or Fifth Amendment pleadings and other kinds
Speaker 3: of subterfuges, because it certainly deserves it. I think, and so,
Speaker 3: as Trump likes to say, We'll just have to see
Speaker 3: what happens and thank you for your attention to this matter.
Speaker 5: That was supposed to be the tagline for the show.
Speaker 2: Now I got new one tonight.
Speaker 5: Oh you got a new one. Yeah, yeah, you got
Speaker 5: to have one that makes fun of Notre Dame in football,
Speaker 5: I hope. So you've got time to work on it.
Speaker 5: So you know, the congressional investigator, a former congressional investigator
Speaker 5: in me thinks that the reason why Biden's doctor took
Speaker 5: the fifth is because he doesn't want to have to
Speaker 5: be prosecuted for lying to Congress, because what they would
Speaker 5: do is say, okay, you signed all these things saying
Speaker 5: Biden was, you know, was in a fine state to
Speaker 5: be president? Is that really what you think? And if
Speaker 5: he says no thing, he's lying Congress right, well, either
Speaker 5: way he's going to get caught for lying to Congress.
Speaker 5: So I can see why he doesn't want to testify
Speaker 5: at all. But the congressional investigator in me that thinks
Speaker 5: the way to really get to the bottom of this
Speaker 5: is to find one person in Biden's inner circle and
Speaker 5: offer them immunity from prosecution. So they'll rat out all
Speaker 5: the other ones. And it seems to me to be
Speaker 5: able to keep this front up that they did for
Speaker 5: so long, involving so many issue areas that Biden was
Speaker 5: really in charge, meant that the circle of people who
Speaker 5: actually knew that there was a cover up has to
Speaker 5: be pretty large in the White House. Like it couldn't
Speaker 5: just be the chief of staff who could do this.
Speaker 5: It have to be several people. And so all you
Speaker 5: have to do to crack that is to get one
Speaker 5: of them. Maybe it's this doctor. Maybe the doctor would
Speaker 5: testify with given immunity that the National Security Advisor and
Speaker 5: the Chief of Staff told him to lie to the
Speaker 5: American people or to Congress that Biden was actually mentally competent.
Speaker 5: On Phil's example, I you know, I think you know,
Speaker 5: on this intelligence investigation, I'm not so sure prosecution will
Speaker 5: get us to the right answer, because these guys are
Speaker 5: all going to take the fifth two. And so if
Speaker 5: we really want to find out what happened, and I
Speaker 5: share Phil's view that we really want, it's important for
Speaker 5: us to know what happened with crossfire, Hurricane. Perhaps more
Speaker 5: important than is to see Jim Comey go to jail.
Speaker 5: Is we might give all of them immunity from prosecution
Speaker 5: if they promised to really tell the truth about what
Speaker 5: they did, and so they will have to live with
Speaker 5: so so assume that they really did do what Phil thinks,
Speaker 5: and they you know, you know, concocted all of this
Speaker 5: information to affect the outcome of the twenty I'm sorry,
Speaker 5: the twenty sixteen election. They will live with the shame
Speaker 5: of that for the rest of their careers, and it'll
Speaker 5: be part of their legacy. I think for these guys,
Speaker 5: that's going to be punishment. Maybe maybe it'll be punishment enough.
Speaker 5: I know a lot of people on our side would
Speaker 5: like to see them go to jail, but I don't
Speaker 5: think they ever for will end up going to jail.
Speaker 5: But I don't think that's ever really going to happen
Speaker 5: because I think it's too hard to prove. So maybe
Speaker 5: the better thing is for just the American people to
Speaker 5: learn the facts of what really happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the all I just want to slight editorial comment.
Speaker 4: The problem is is that those people live in such
Speaker 4: a self enforcing bubble. I'm not sure they're capable of
Speaker 4: feeling shame because they'll be celebrated, no matter what anything
Speaker 4: they did to try to keep Trump from office, all
Speaker 4: of their cocktail Washington, DC cocktail party friends are gonna
Speaker 4: stand by them in the same way that they did.
Speaker 4: When you know, you know, McCabe didn't lose any of
Speaker 4: his uh anything, He didn't lose his retirement anyway. That
Speaker 4: makes me sick. But that's the problem with your theory, John,
Speaker 4: that you have to be capable of shame, and you
Speaker 4: have to be capable of people willing to shame you
Speaker 4: in the circles that you run in before shame becomes
Speaker 4: any kind of punishment. But just this is my thought, Steve,
Speaker 4: no I already said mine, So okay, all right, and
Speaker 4: I'm done. I I would prefer firing squad if they're
Speaker 4: found guilty of any of this, because it would be treason.
Speaker 5: Wait, you know what we should We should have a
Speaker 5: feature next week Lucretia's firing squad. Who else is on
Speaker 5: that list, long, long list of people who are on
Speaker 5: the list for her firing squad?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 4: The only thing else say is I get what Phil's saying.
Speaker 4: But remember they put Vannon in jail. They put what's
Speaker 4: his name, the old guy, Peter Navarro in jail. You know,
Speaker 4: they they went after Trump, and so this I mean
Speaker 4: even John, even John of all people, mister equanimity and
Speaker 4: mister I want to be fair, said we got to
Speaker 4: play the game back to them for a while and
Speaker 4: teach him a lesson. Do you remember that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that I agree with. That I still agree with.
Speaker 5: But I would go after I would like to prosecute right,
Speaker 5: Alvin Bragg or Letitia James. They were the ones who
Speaker 5: really tried to affect your friend, what's your name.
Speaker 4: Big fan willis?
Speaker 5: You know this has been like a Greatest Hits episode.
Speaker 5: We got Big Fanny came out, Kareem whatever, Sartre whoever.
Speaker 5: They all made an encoreppearance today. I think for some reason,
Speaker 5: Phil brings out memories of the biting years. I don't
Speaker 5: know why.
Speaker 6: Wait one serious point here though, but how do you
Speaker 6: you're going to start a cycle of Okay, so they
Speaker 6: did bad things to Trump, use the criminal justice system
Speaker 6: in ways that are not good, broke from tradition. But
Speaker 6: if if Republicans now do that, Democrats are going to
Speaker 6: be back in power sooner or later, and they're gonna
Speaker 6: do it. We just I mean, that cycle has got in.
Speaker 5: They're gonna do it anyway. If we Yeah, if we
Speaker 5: let them get away with it, They're gonna do it
Speaker 5: any anyway. You got to deter them.
Speaker 4: I just I give you the Independent Council Law.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly right.
Speaker 3: Once Democrats figured out that the Independent Council Law could
Speaker 3: be used against Democrats, they decided they didn't like it,
Speaker 3: and we got rid of it.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I do think Trump creates this whole new
Speaker 4: category of things we don't quite understand, both from the
Speaker 4: point of view of Trump being different, but also Trump
Speaker 4: arrangement syndrome being just a totally irrational It makes it
Speaker 4: possible impossible to predict how people are going to behave
Speaker 4: because they are so irrational about their hatred of Trump.
Speaker 4: But anyway, so that being said, here's my Babylon b
Speaker 4: So get ready, guys. Furious Newsome says he won't stand
Speaker 4: silently by. Well, Trump fixes California.
Speaker 5: Love that that's true.
Speaker 4: Man wants, this is my favorite man wants. However, many
Speaker 4: deportions deportations are needed for him to no longer have
Speaker 4: to press one for English.
Speaker 5: Oh oh yeah, you're going to.
Speaker 4: Be all whatever. CSA announces. Passengers no longer have to
Speaker 4: remove their shoes before being fondled, Like, yeah, no, you know.
Speaker 4: The thing is, I have the TSA pre check thing,
Speaker 4: but I always have to remove my shoes because they
Speaker 4: put spikes in women's heels.
Speaker 5: And what Really there's metal in there.
Speaker 4: As we give them their their stability and strength. So
Speaker 4: I always have to take my shoes off anyway. So
Speaker 4: former White House doctor denies ever knowing a Joe Biden Republicans.
Speaker 4: You'll like this one. John Republicans unveiled debt plan transfer
Speaker 4: balance to capital one credit card was zero percent intro APR.
Speaker 5: Oh awesome. Can you imagine how many freaking fire miles
Speaker 5: I would get?
Speaker 4: Right? Would you get the government's frequent fire miles?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I checked.
Speaker 4: I've been such a loyal government servant.
Speaker 5: No, this is why I checked on when I was
Speaker 5: in the government, to make sure I get the frequent
Speaker 5: flyer miles. Not the government. Damn straight.
Speaker 4: They almost took that away, you.
Speaker 5: Know, I know I tried.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know they But see there's another there's an
Speaker 4: example of what I'm talking about. That's a that's a
Speaker 4: benefit that you get that rich people get and poor
Speaker 4: people don't. So there disaster liberal goes back in time
Speaker 4: to kill Hitler, but now has no one to compare
Speaker 4: people he disagrees with too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, unfinished, Steve, your turn, John, always drink your whiskey,
Speaker 5: meat and Steve, did you come up with a haikup
Speaker 5: attacking Notre Dame football?
Speaker 2: No? I didn't. I didn't think about.
Speaker 3: Oh I do have an AI couplet left over from
Speaker 3: a while ago, and it goes three whiskey Happy hour,
Speaker 3: Tilt your mind and take the dive. Logic burns like
Speaker 3: April Showers. That makes no sense in the hour? Not
Speaker 3: quite alive? Where forgotten thoughts revive? That was really logic
Speaker 3: burns like Aple Showers.
Speaker 2: That's that's that?
Speaker 5: Doesn't that one makes no sense? Sense?
Speaker 2: For a better one next week and maybe if I
Speaker 2: can find one for not.
Speaker 1: Was that was that?
Speaker 5: Wa? Wait? Did you was that? Were you using Rock?
Speaker 2: Nor?
Speaker 5: Was that? At the end of one of its anti
Speaker 5: semitic rants would.
Speaker 4: Reminds me one last Babylon B Sorry, I know it's
Speaker 4: out of order. Elon Omar announced his engagement to Grock.
Speaker 5: That's pretty good, all right, guys?
Speaker 4: By everyone legs everyone.
Speaker 6: Alonga blia after the ricochet
Speaker 5: Join the conversation.