Speaker 1: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask
what you can do for your country.
Speaker 2: Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
Speaker 1: It's the Ricochet Podcast with Charles C. W. Cook and
Stephen Haywood. I'm James Lilyx, and today we talked to
our old friend John, you about just everything. So let's
have ourselves a podcast.
Speaker 3: And I don't mind making this speech without a teleprompter
because the teleprompter is not working. I feel very happy
to be up here with you. Nevertheless, and that way
you speak more from the heart. I can only say
that whoever's operating this teleprompter is in big trouble.
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number seven hundred and
fifty nine. I'm James Lylyx in Minneapolis, which is absolutely
stunningly beautiful at the moment, just beginning to manifest itself
in the tips of the leaves and in those places
with the summer his eternal and nothing ever changes. California.
Stephen Hayward, Florida, Charlie Cook and as I say, we've
got the whole country covered. Greetings, gentlemen, how are you today?
Speaker 4: Doing well?
Speaker 2: Good?
Speaker 1: I'm good here, good, good, well. I assume now that
the escalator is moving and taking us up, and that
we may enter the hall and speak. And our teleprompters, well,
we don't have them, but if we did, do either
of you think that you could expostulate for forty minutes
or so. I tend to believe that the President could.
I don't know how long his teleprompter was after in
the UN address, I did read a good deal of it.
I saw a tweet from somebody who had characterized it
as a series of just, you know, sort of self
aggrandizing little me, me, me, me, me, give me award,
and I thought, well, that might be so, And then
I went and looked at the actual speech. There is
a lot of putting the stick to some of the
countries for various things that the President does not agree with.
But the end of it was a rather stirring call
and defensive Western civilization. It was the scripted part, you
can tell, but it was we have a beautiful thing
that we have inherited here, and it is our responsibility, duty,
and joy to maintain it. But but but, but but
but immigration. That was one of the things of which
the President spoke. And here's a quote. Not only is
the U and not solving the problems it should. Too
often it's actually creating new problems for us to solve.
The best example is the number one political issue of
our time, the crisis of uncontrolled migration. It's uncontrolled. Your
countries are being ruined. The United Nations is funding an
assault on Western countries and their borders. A lot in
there to parts whether or not it's the number one issue,
whether or not it's a crisis, whether or not it's uncontrolled,
and whether or not the U and it's funding it.
So I will let either one of you leap in
and tell me what you think.
Speaker 4: Well, you're in California, I feel, by definition get first
DIBs on this.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm actually in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: To day for the day.
Speaker 5: But you know, well, just quickly about the UN speech
and then that point is my first thought. Excuse me.
My first thought when I saw the elevator failed, the
teleprofter failed is I'll bet Trump's staff did that deliberately
so that he would just rough for an hour, right,
because the conspiracy people said, oh, this is the win
trying to monkey with Okay, the immigration thing, He's absolutely
right that and even the Economist magazine recently, which is
you know, that's the authoritarian centrist journal for you have
the greater euro world. I suppose they said Europe is
really blown out on migration. This really is out of
control of the asylum policies are wrongheaded and need to
be rethought. And what you see all over Europe is
that the ruling party simply refuse to heed the rising
public sentiment to say something needs to be done about this,
and some like Britain, are doubling down and making it worse.
There's a second aspect to this beyond just the recalcitrance
of the ruling parties. It is you also, because of
the European Union and the various international tribunals or human
rights and all the rest of that tell individual nations
will know you can't close your borders, you can't limit immigration.
So you know, Italy is having to continue to accept
asylum seekers even though the government would like to stop it.
Under Maloney, I think I forget all the menacing threats
to Hungary because Hungary ten years ago said no, no
one's coming here. We're going to put a fence up
on our border and we'll just tranship people to Germany
or whatever they did. And I think there's still under
sanctions and monetary penalties and all kinds of other menacing things.
So you know, to the extent that the United States
either follows or leads Europe, somebody's out of step here,
and I'm pretty sure it's Europe.
Speaker 1: That's for the economists to be centrist. It's centrist in
the European sense, I think is what we should say.
Speaker 4: Charles Well, I have a long winded take on this.
If you'll indulge me.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go get some coffee.
Speaker 4: The way in which dual citizenship worked changed dramatically after
World War Two. It still is something of a mixed bag.
But the Western countries that were on the right side
of World War Two, and in fact on the wrong
side because we conquered them and told them what to do,
changed their attitude toward citizenship such that if you now
become a citizen of the United States, the United States
does not carry the way whether you retain your citizenship
of birth. Some of those countries do care and will
strip you of it, but America doesn't, Britain doesn't, France doesn't.
And the reason for that is that there was a horror,
an understandable horror of people becoming stateless because of what
the Nazis had done, And this useful instinct has been
extrapolated out into a completely insane system that pertains to
immigration in general, in which any sort of enforcement or
desire to retain the characteristics of the West are conflated
with the horrors of the mid twentieth century. And I
think we are now coming up against that in a
really practical sense. The big problem the left has in
the United States and across the world on immigration is
that it has ceased to regard it as being a
quotidian political question. How many people should we have, on
what basis should they be admitted? What do we expect
of them? And they have come to see it as
a human rights question. We don't debate human rights per se.
We don't debate the worth of individuals, but we have
to debate immigration, and yet we can't. And what Trump said,
although it was haphazard and trumpion was correct in this
regard that there is a big difference between determining that
people aren't worthwhile or hating them for their national characteristics
or the color of their skin or a language they speak.
And setting immigration policy as a country that works for
the people who are already there, and the constitutions that
you already have. And I think that this confusion in
the mind of the people who have been the architects
of our post war order is crashing down now finally,
where the average person across the world is saying, no,
it is not the same thing as what the Nazis
did to say, we will make broad based determinations as
to who we want in our country. That is not
the same thing as we were trying to avoid with
the establishment of the United Nations and various declarations of
human rights in the European Union and so forth. And
the problem is that the people have got there, but
most governments have not.
Speaker 1: They you're right, then, what walks in by hand, hand
in hand and side by side with that sentiment is
the idea that when people say, well, our national character
is being changed or altered in ways in which we
do not approve, they're being told that the national character
is something of which they should be ashamed, and that
it's archaic, and it's based in a variety of isms
and sins. And therefore you're by defending the past by
wanting the past to have continuity of the present in
the future. You are defending ideas that now have fallen
out of favor, and that makes you subject to approbrium
in the public square. But what most people aren't buying it,
and I think, as Stephen said earlier, is that this
is a rising sentiment in Europe and we all know
what happens when those things are not addressed and not
even allowed to be spoken about. Well, that was one
of the things that the President talked about at the
U and the other was energy policy, which I really
didn't expect. Again, it's like, these are settled issues. Why
is he bringing this up talking about how the green
energy is driving Europe off a cliff and leading to
the industrialization and eye watering as they say, prices for
these things, the fake energy catastrophe. Is he correct? Is
he over emphasizing the importance of this, because I, you know,
I think of the bullets that we dodged, the inscribed
bullets that we dodged with a green new Deal not
being fully implemented, and I am grateful that petroleum continues
to be the wonderful Texas te ick or backbone that
it is of the country. Is there any hope for
Europe though in this respect, or are they just going
to continue to play green while importing all kinds of
dirty energy from elsewhere and claiming their hands are going
to be clean.
Speaker 5: Well, my perspective on it is that Trump was twisting
a knife because I perceive for a while now that
while Europe and to some extent our country still talks green,
they've been trying to beat a retreat from some of
their crazy energy targets and climate targets, and so, you know,
you know, over the last three four years, Germany has
had to ramp up coal fired electricity with some of
the dirtiest coal in the world because they have a
lot of the you know, the old I guess, lignite coal.
And here in this country, here's my favorite thing. First
of all, there was a long article in the New
York Times last week by Benjamin Wallace Wells, and essentially
it was the public declaration that the climate change crusade
is over. I said, we're giving up on climate politics,
and your Thomas Shotts, the very liberal senator from Hawaii,
said Democrats should quit talking about climate and talk about
inflation and affordability and things that people care about and
my favorite marker is out here Irati about here my
home state of California. A year ago, Gavin knew some
of the Democrats were all or maybe your year and
a half. They're all up in arms about our high
gas prices are the fault of the oil refiners. So
they set in motion an investigation for excess profits by
the refiners, and of course found out it's nonsense. And
then two of the largest refineries said Valeria. One other said,
we think we're going to close our last two refineries
in California, and credible predictions that could lead to eight
dollars gallon gasoline. And so the latest thing is, first
of all, the legislator just passed the bill that will
allow an expansion of oil production in Kern County in California.
I think in the last two years there have been
two hundred wills a drill. The state is now authorizing
two thousand new ones. And better, they're begging the refiners
not to leave, and they're now talking about subsidizing oil
refineries to stay open in California. So in eighteen months
in crazy California, we've gone from let's punish the oil
refiners because they're evil people to oh, can we give
you subsidies to make sure you stay open? That tells
me that in the real world this whole circus is
pretty much over now, the climate cult, as I call it.
They're going to keep yelling and screaming and blocking roads
and throwing tomato soup on artworks and so forth, and
lying down the road now and then, although even some
of them are starting to draw back from that, especially
as they're starting to get real jail sentences in several venues,
including even in Europe. But I think in the real world,
reality has finally caught up with this nonsense and is
reversing in a real way, in real time, right in
front of us.
Speaker 1: I won't be happy in until California resembled the movies
of the forties or the Two Jakes where you're driving
around and you actually see a little oil rig and
Soody's backyard pumping out a couple of gallons a day
back in the days when California did it. Charles, before
we go to our guest, anything on Europe and their
energy situation is Stephen Wright, is the green fervor finally
peaked in past?
Speaker 4: Yes, it's funny Steve, you mentioned this because this was
pointed out to me the other day as well, and
I realized that I hadn't noticed it because the people
who normally scream about it had stopped, and I don't
think about it, so I wasn't looking for them to
talk about it. And when I read my book ten
years ago, I got lots of rude letters from the
left saying, wow, you know, two hundred pages and you
didn't even mention climate. And I wouldn't respond to them.
But if anyone asked me in person, I would say
that's because I don't think it's remotely important, and they
would look at me like I had three heads. Well, now, yeah,
it's interesting that people they've just stopped in America, especially,
they've just stopped talking about it. You just don't hear
about this anymore. It's not the everything is Everything tweets
that you get from the left, and there are other
things that have replaced it. The important part of it.
I think it's just that it be eschatological. Whatever it is,
that is the issue of the day. It has to
be that if we don't do it, then the end
of the world will come, so something else will fill
that role. But it's been a fascinating couple of years
where that dog hasn't barked, Well.
Speaker 1: Something else already has and that's the imminent Hitlerism, the authoritarianism,
the jack boot that has descended on the throat and
the faces of all of us. And I get that,
of course from my social feet as well. I read
the other day one out of five people in America
get their news from TikTok, which which to me was
just stunning, and I instantly had a version of a
purple haired Walter Cronkite with a septum ring, yelling in
his car while he gesticulates like an electrocuted Italian. And yeah,
I mean everybody gets their news now from these sources.
And if that's the case, at this fire hose of
panic and end of the world nonsense coming at you
twenty four to seven, and yet we keep scrolling. Well,
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to the pie who we got? Oh, And now we
bring to the podcast John. You needs no introduction. John
knows law. John knows McDonald's, I knows the fluffya eagles,
and he's here mostly to talk about McDonald's and a
little law. Hey John, how are you great?
Speaker 2: James? How are you?
Speaker 1: Couldn't be better? Actually? I'm just firing on all cylinders technic,
but are.
Speaker 2: We're going to do our special star Tek science fiction
episode with Hell.
Speaker 1: We do have to do that. We absolutely got to
finish season three of Strange New Worlds first, which I
understand is a tad disappointment, but I love it anyway,
But yeah, we'll do that.
Speaker 2: Final episode was weak.
Speaker 1: I was, Yeah, they say they're going to do better
for the fourth episode. I think a little bit too
much on the comedy side, but I can deal with it.
I still love the ship and the crew and the.
Speaker 2: Rest of it.
Speaker 1: But James Comy, he said, grinding all the gears to
get to the topic. James Comy indicted by a grand
jury which may of course also looked at a ham
sand which we don't know, for alleged perjury and remarks
me for the Sener Judiciary Committee in September thirty of
twenty twenty. Now lying to Congress, misspeaking saying things, we
get the feeling if you're watching up clips that people
do it all the time, but there's never any a
penalty for it. Is that the case? And what is
your impression of the indictment of Comy at this moment?
Speaker 2: So people should realize the crime is not lying in Congress,
of which there would be many perpetrators lying to Congress,
so I probably would have agreed with the Attorney General
and the Deputy Attorney General and not brought these charges.
Not because I don't think Comy lied to Congress or not,
but because it would be too hard to prove. This
is essentially a he said, she said case about one
answer that Comy gave back almost five years ago to
Congress when he was asked whether he had authorized or
knew of the leaking of confidential law enforcement investigation material
to the press. Comy's subordinate leaked the information to the
press about the Hillary Clinton investigation, and he believed He
testified under oath that he believed Komy wanted him to,
but Komy said he didn't. So it's really she said
case really about that. A lot of people are going
to think, oh, no, Kobe's being indicted for all the
other terrible things he did. I mean, if you go
back and look at the record, Komy, right, if you remember,
tried to entrap President Trump while he was the FBI director,
tried to entrap President Trump into trying to block the
investigation into the Russia hoax because Trump and he turned
out to be right about this, knew the Russia hoax
was actually a hoax. And so remember Komy got it,
was talking to him about it, and then he was
running back to his car and typing into his laptop
secret memos, which he then had a friend leaked to
the New York Times. Or they might think Komy's going
to be investigated for all the shenanigans leading up to
the twenty sixteen election, where he uh right, Remember he
started an investigation into Clinton, then he closed it, then
he reopened it, then he closed it, and then he
announced in the without consulting with the Attorney General, that
the matter was closed and that Hilly was cleared just
a few days before the election. People are going to
think he's being indicted for all that he's not. He's
being indicted for this one statement he gave five years ago.
And I'm not sure that the jury is going to
convin I think it's enough. I think there's enough there
to bring a charge. But I think the Attorney General
of the Debuty turned Till Bondie must have thought, I
think rightly so, that it's not clear whether jury would convict,
and that it would be ultimately a waste of the
prestige of the Justice Department to lose in court on this.
Speaker 5: Okay, Well, John, First of all, three quick points for
you to respond to. One is it's hardly an unprecedented
to bring a perjury charge for congressional testimony. I give
you the case of Algerhiss, right, I mean that's right.
The statute limitations that expired on his espionage. So they
got him for perjury and that took two trials. And okay.
The second point is, and we've talked about this before,
you and I, is in some respects resembles I won't
say payback, but a parallel to the I think really
outrageous charges brought against Scooter Libby twenty years ago for
lying to the FBI when they knew that he was
not the leaker. They knew it was Richard Armitage, but
he was untouchable. Okay, we'll go through that whole history again.
And so maybe there's payback of the second kind, which
is you and I have said game theory would say,
if you want Democrats to stop lawfair, make them suffer
some of it themselves. And the final point in question
is who is the happiest about this indictment and why
is that person? Hillary Clinton?
Speaker 2: Oh, you're gonna have to explain why it's Hillary Clinton.
I would have thought it'd be Donald Trump, although I'm
sure Hillary thinks that all of the back and forth
that Comy engaged in on the Hillary investigation lost her
the election.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, no, I think she said that. I think
that's pretty much confirmed. And she blames Comy above everybody
else for her losing. So that's why I say she's
the happiest about her Oh yeah, right.
Speaker 2: Okay, Now, the Democrats have a I think it was
a hate love hate relationship with Comy because they hated
for the Hillary Clinton thing, but then they loved him
for trying to entrap Trump into obstruction of justice. Keep
in mind that Muller, as I thought he would completely
cleared Trump of any of these outrageous claims that there
was some kind of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The most investigation was these obstruction of justice charges that
really were triggered by Komy. I mean, Comy really had
set off the whole Muller investigation. That's all his fault.
And I totally by the point. I've mentioned it too
that the only way I think to stop the Democrats
from not just conducting law for it fair, but escalating
it next time they're in power, is to deter them
by giving them a taste of their own medicine. I
don't think prosecuting Comy is much retaliation against the likes
of Alvin Bragg or Letitia James for the cases they're
the ones who should be investigated. Maybe, you know, Komy is,
you know, not really part of that. He's not part
of the Democrat he's not part of the by in
our Obama machines. I think, actually I think, and I
don't know what Charlie, So, I think he's actually kind
of in a way of more worrisome figure. He's like
a boy scout who thinks he knows better than everybody
else and is willing to subordinate the Constitution, all our
normal rules of procedure because he thinks he knows better
than the American people or even the way that the
Congress and the President have designed our law enforcement system.
So you can see that throughout his career he just
acts out and does Oh, I think this is the
best thing to do for the country of the FBI.
I don't care what the President says or what Congress says.
He's like the ultimate bureaucrat in a way, he's more
worrisome than these partisan infighters, right that we're talking about now, all.
Speaker 5: Right, So John, I have one more thing for you,
and then I'll turn you over to Charles and back
to James. This is shift gears a little bit. I'm
reading your piece in the Washington Posts from a few
days ago about Trump's policy towards Venezuela, and I'm wondering,
when did you decide to start letting AI write your
columns for you?
Speaker 2: Because AI smarter than me. That's why I acknowledge the
root do better than me. I just said, please write
me a column under my name and my voice better
than my track.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, I mean no, I mean well, first
of all, I mean, listeners know that we're pals. But
this is the worst article you've ever written. And come on,
come on, well, oh, come on, all right, that's good.
I'm going to give you one sentence here and then
get to the serious part of it. But here's a sentence.
Americans have died in car wrecks at an annual rate
of about forty thousand in recent years. The nation does
not wage war on auto companies. I think that's what
magicians would call a category error. But the serious point
of your article is we're we're not clear on what
the dividing line is between criminal matter and war. In
a matter of war, and now you know I'll concede
to your You know more about the law that I do,
and you know you've been in the middle of it
from your time of Justice Department back after nine to eleven.
On the other hand, it does seem to me that
a Venezuela is a hostile nation to the United States.
And if it doesn't arise to the sort of clear
trip wires of being in a state of war, that's
because they're clever and avoid going that.
Speaker 2: But look, I can go through.
Speaker 5: All the list, I won't now why Venezuela is actively
hostile to the United States and why I think And
by the.
Speaker 2: Way, Steve, like a typical Straussian, you did not read
to the last paragraph of the text because you're searching
for hidden meetings throughout. You didn't make it. Remember the
last paragraph says we're at war with Venezuela. I mean,
I argue that what the only way this is legal
is if the drug cartels are arms of the Venezuelan
government are intertwined with Venezuela, and then this is all legitimate.
But then people should realize we are actually in open
war with Venezuela, and they should just know that.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, by the way, John, if you're really going
to throw the Straussian car at me, you will know
that what's at the beginning and what's at the end
doesn't count. You got to put it in the middle.
Speaker 2: I didn't see. Every time I talked to I learned
something new about Eucrazian Straussians. I suspected you didn't read
the beginning or the end, but I wasn't sure. Now
you know, I saw that.
Speaker 5: But it just seemed to me that, you know, your
logic in the middle was very wishy washing and at
the end you see. Yeah, but of course it seems
to me that that's a quite compelling case can be
made for that. And so what I mean, you're usually
very utilitarian. I always call you a grubby Benthamite right
when I really utilitarian about this, And it seems to
me that even that you know pleasure and pain and
all that, I mean, I don't know. It seems I'm
the most surprised that you wouldn't be saying, and also
your fondness for executive power in national events, that you
wouldn't be more on Trump's sight on this. That's all
I'm surprised about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: The simple line is, I don't think we can use
the military to wage war on something that's a social problem.
So drugs is a social problem. But a drug cartel
just dealing drugs, I don't think is an appropriate subject
for war. I think there's actually a utilitarian basis for this,
because I think actually it would cause a widespread social
unrest and overuse of force by the government and deprivation
of our Can I say natural rights, Steve, you am
I allowed to say natural rights on this podcast? No
you aren't, okay, But then you cross the line into
war when you have to me the line is an
organized entity with the power nation state that's trying to
attack us because of our political or foreign policy or
national security. I think drug cartels, drug dealers just out
to use to make money. They don't care what our
foreign policy is, our national security is. In fact, they
probably like it the country is more stable, it can
make more money out of us.
Speaker 1: If a knockoff effect of these drug dealers is increased
violence in the cities, does that into your equation at all,
because then it's not a social problem, it's it's actual
kinetic activity.
Speaker 2: But I think it's a I think crime, drugs, they're
these perennial social problems. We can't reduce them to zero.
The way you can. You have to use force against
an enemy that's trying to change our policies of harm
or national security. If China is really behind all this
fentanyl and they're really doing it on purpose to attack US,
I think that's something like an active war. But if
it's just like a drug cartel running drugs to satisfy
American demand for drugs, it's like it's just an illicit business.
I don't think that crosses the line into appropriate use
of military force. I think that's I mean, I would
think everyone would agree that just the question is what
these drug boats are? They on one side of the
line or the other.
Speaker 4: I have a question that is, in a sense the
inverse of this on the COMI matter, I of course
load the man. And I'm extremely irritated reading this morning
every newspaper that suggests that the Justice Department was perfect
and virtuous until yesterday and then introduced into our policys
these pretextual prosecutions. Have they not been alive for the
last ten years. But I think the case is extremely
weak and will probably be dismissed pre trial. So unless
you have a disagreement with that, John, I want to
ask you about groups that are engaged in domestic terrorism
and where the lines are. So we've had in the
last few weeks a number of examples of left wing violence,
or perhaps violence committed by people who have left wing
views for political ends. The assassination of Charlie Kirk is one.
Yesterday's attack on the ICE facility was another. And one
of the things that I've seen on the right is
we need to go after these people, and they point
to examples of our having done this in the sixties
and seventies with groups within the United States that were
engaged in terrorism. And then I see other people say, no,
you can't do that. There are First Amendment problems. These
people tend to be lone wolves, and so the networks
are too broad. What can the federal government do if
there are groups or ideological wings that are engaged in
sustained violence domestically.
Speaker 2: So the only thing I disagree with your view on
Comy is I don't think it's going to get dismissed
pre trial because it's so easy for prosecutors to get
to trial right, I don't. I don't. You know, judge
will just say, oh, this is a he said, she said.
It's just based on the facts, and that's up to
the jury. So I think fortunate, unfortunately, we're going to
be treated to the circus of a trial where, you know,
it'll just be like the Trump trials, like Comy will
come out after every day of proceedings make statements. I'm
envisioning Trump coming out too, standing outside of the courthouse
making statements too, every time Comy comes out. I mean,
it could be a complete circus. I'm sure the White
House is considering this on the I think on the
actually the more important question about you know, where the
line is between war and crime. I think the federal
government could do more in terms of domestic terrorism, but
Congress hasn't authorized it, so there's no statute like the
one against foreign terrorists. You know, you can designate a
foreign group a foreign terrorist organization, you can launch investigations,
you can convict people of what the crime is called
material support for foreign terrorism. Congress has chosen, I think,
Charlie because of your reason that the Congress was concerned
about free speech issues, so they've never passed those kinds
of laws for domestic groups, so even you know the
weather underground. The bombings we saw in the seventies and
even started in the late sixties, they were people were convicted,
but they were convicted for trying to kill federal officers,
trying to destroy federal property. And then they were convicted
that their time, and then we made them tenured professors
at the University of Chicago at the end of their
which is kind of like a sentence, I suppose if
you're in the education department, but there's no you know,
because of the first and actually what you say this
is very interesting. Another point you made is in prosecution,
there is a problem that always leads to most of
these cases getting pled out. It's called gray mail, because
what happens is when you go after people like these people,
they threaten to try to force a government to reveal
classified information like how did you know it was us?
How did you surveil us? And they try to force
a government to produce all this classified information about how
they're surveilling these kinds of groups. And so usually the
government would rather plead out these cases and have to
go to trial. And so I bet even if we
do have wide scale investigations of the kind that President
Trump is proposing. I'm not confident there's going to be
a lot of convictions. There might be some investigations about,
you know, are people really behind this funding these crazy people,
these crazy groups, But so far I don't see anything
really there to support any kind of charges against anybody.
Speaker 4: And my follow up question is where is the line then,
between investigation and prosecution, Because although that law that you
mentioned doesn't exist, Congress has never passed it. We have
had organizations in the United States infiltrated by federal agents
and they went after the Clan, and then in the seventies,
eighties and nineties they went after white supremacist groups in
the hills of Idaho and that was what caused Ruby Ridge,
and then they were pretty worried a few years later
Awaco about the huge whatever you want to call it, organization, cult,
religion dissenters there, and they had people who were occupying
buildings close by and watching them. So do you have
to have a law of the thought that you've described
as not existing to be able to just and that
investigators to look into domestic groups.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. But you have to I
think you need something tighter to justify the investigation first,
So to investigate versus prosecute, the line is to investigate.
You just need reasonable grounds to think that someone's engaging
in federal crimes, and so it depends what the federal
crimes are. We've actually seen cases of this in the
United States because there have been investigations of groups that
were thought to be supporting foreign terrorist groups. And actually
there's a case that went to the Supreme Court about this,
and the Supreme Court said that even groups connected to
foreign terrorists they're just using money for lawyers and using
money for media relations, if they're also helping the foreign
terrorist group, they can be investigated. I don't think you
could do that domestically. I think domestically you have to
have we think that they're planning to attack federal building,
we think they're in some of the cases you mentioned,
the crime was depriving people of their constitutional rights. So
it's hard to explain. But I think you need a
tighter link for domestic investigations because I think Congress was
worried after what came out about Hoover and all the investigations,
because he also he did some of those investigations. He
also launched investigations into what seemed to be legitimate activity,
like the civil rights movement. Congress never I think has
always been careful about and I think the courts have
been careful too. They I mean. The problem and here's
the thing about what's going on with bring it back
to Komy too, is even if Come's never convicted, right,
the investigation itself, in defending yourself could ruin him. And
maybe that's partially what Trump is after. Even if a
jury is almost certain to acquit him or to be hung,
just making Comy go under this is the punishment. And
that might be a worry here with your group's questions, Charlie,
is that if you have a First Amendment concern, even
being forced to defend yourself from these investigations can really
be harm chill speech. There's I don't think there's anything
that can be done about that until it gets to
the courts, when you present the charges and go to trial.
Speaker 1: Part of the problem maybe is that some of these
relationships seem both tentacular and amorphis and there's so much
plausible deniability. The Ties Foundation gives money to the Utah
Committee for doing all the good things, and the Utah
Committee for Doing All the Good Things gives money to
Queer Rifles Salt Lake City, whose founder espouses the overthrow
of the United States government and free Palace and the
rest of it. And then somebody who isn't connected to
the organization at all, but has been adjacent to it
online or hearing its ideas from other people and other
friends it goes decide to go and shoot somebody. So
you can't draw a line from a guy who shoots
somebody to George Sorows. But there is this sort of
money that spreads and flows throughout these organizations, and I
think that's what they're trying to look at.
Speaker 2: But again, you're right, exactly right, that's exactly right. That's
what we had to deal with when we were investigating
the groups responsible for nine to eleven and foreign Paris groups.
They would and actually you know he did this first.
The Irish, the Irish Republican Army would set up in
the United States these fundraising groups, right, they have clubs
and they would raise money and the government, the US
government could not do exactly what you're saying, James, prove
that there was a direct link to their fundraising and
community building. And then of course they were in some
ways getting money over to Ireland for their resistance to
the United Kingdom. But you can't just say giving the one,
you know, the grandma who gives five dollars in the
tip jar at, you know, O'Shaughnessy's Bar in the North
end of Boston is supporting terrorism. And so because of that,
the government gave a lot of leeway for First Amendment reasons.
Speaker 1: If we truly were a repressive, authoritative regime, they would
need no pretext whatsoever to go after all of these organizations,
shut them down, confiscate their assets, and kick them in
the huscau. But the people that are doing these things
are convinced, of course, that were were precisely the sort
of authoritarian regime that must be deposed, even though none
of our act, even though our actions permit them to
flourish and do what they wish. It is the damnedest thing.
I think Steven had something else on this, well, not really.
Speaker 5: I mean I mean Antifa, and that's the specific organization
being designated as a terrorist support or whatever. They're not
really engaged in free speech. They don't really do that
much speaking at all. I mean they exist to violently
disrupt things and damage things, and I mean they're really
nihilis and anarchists, right, So I don't think that line
is actually very hard to make out, and I think
that line's pretty bright. Now there may be a statutory
like you and I, as you say, but I don't
know if I went back. I got to think that
the way we went after, as you say, the Weather Underground,
but decades ago the Communist Party, where by the way,
we never did uncover all the different money flows and
all the rest of that wasn' until the Soviet Union
collapsed and we got into the archives that we found
out that there was lots of money coming in from
the KGB to America we never uncovered. So it seems
to me the case for vigorous action on these things
like the Venezuelan drug runners is pretty compelling. I agree.
Speaker 2: I think Antifa going after Antifa the group, although it'll
be very hard to because they're decentralized, right, they don't
really have a leadership in a conventional way. I don't
think going after them is a problem because they commit
the violence, they organize the violent that you know, they've
organized the protests, they occupy the buildings. They target officers.
But if you want to try to get at the
larger group of people who are just giving money, that's
the harder. But you know, James's point is that, I
think is that that's really the root of it. I mean,
if you could cut them off from the money and
the support, they couldn't do what they do. But I think, Charlie,
because the First Amendment reasons, you know, there's it's a
you know, we have free speech protections for money. Yeah,
give the donation of money. And that's the problem is
you over prosecute. Then you're going to suppress legitimate.
Speaker 4: Free speech protections for edition under brand Burgh right, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well well the only yeah, sorry, the only other thing
they add, John, because it's in my contract that I
have to is if we're in our green room, h
when we were doing the Cozy Earth spot and Charles
praised their breatheability. Their breatheability is of course the result
of lower small from the Clean Air Act. You must
know that.
Speaker 2: Oh you mentioned the clean Era and you've now ruined
two podcasts.
Speaker 5: I have to do that to you, John. You know it.
Speaker 2: From mentioning the Clean Air Act and other podcasts, because
then it's just it just descends into boredom in about
thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: If not, well, it's proof that speech is violence. In
this case violence of course speech. I too would want
to detail the minutia and the particulars of particulates in
the air, but we're not going to do that. Instead,
what we're going to note before we get onto the
next topic is John Is in Washington. I forget John.
I know that Charles is a football found you a
football fan.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I am an Eagles fan born and Brett, Well,
that's right. If you saw the greatest play of all
time last game three seconds to go, this three and
twenty five pound Eagles, the defensive lineman blocked a punt
and then ran in sixty yards for a touchdown, and people,
I mean the stadium went nuts. But one of the
announcers SAIDs saying it was very funny. It's like, I'm
not surprised he blocked a field goal. I'm surprised he
could run sixty yards.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean, but he died at the end
of that and they had to inter him in the
end zone. Well, here's the thing about it. I mean,
at that moment when that guy tip when he tipped
it and he caught it, and he looked at the
field ahead and he made the decision to run. And
you and I make decisions every day. But on Prize
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Speaker 4: Well, I'm a huge football fan. When that happened to
the Eagles, I was at the Jaguars stadium as I
usually am season ticket holder, that I am watching them
win for once against the Houston Texans for once.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they've lost almost every game at home against the
Texans for ten years. They didn't lose this one, but
I got to see them win, so that's great. And
I also do like betting on sports. I don't bet
a lot, I just bet a little bit. But I
like appsite prize picks because the more that you pay attention,
the more you win. And I've noticed that when I
first started getting into football, James, I didn't really know
anything about it and I didn't really know what was
going on. I didn't know who the players were, and
I didn't know how it worked. And now I know
a bit more, and now I'm doing better, and so
I'm a prize pick sort of guy.
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the Ricochet Podcast, Well, gentlemen, at the time we have left,
do we want to keep this you guy around or
is he? Is he? Oh that's right, I'm sorry, No, Steven,
you were saying clean Air Act. Do go on?
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, that was a very good way
to get me to sign off.
Speaker 1: No things are any intended. Let's see. Well, uh, John
you there, John you there, didn't mean that. Ah, he's gone.
Oh he wait he left. Oh and with that, John
just swanned off, so we'll talk to him later. We
didn't get to the Mike rib which I don't believe
is all courant, but when it is, of course you
know that he is the judge of it. Anything else, gentlemen,
In the week that we have seen, there's an interesting
titlan All all of a sudden in the news. I
imagine Thailand all doesn't want to be in the news
much because the last time they were didn't go well.
And in this instance, we have all of these discussions
about Thailand and autism, and people have been surfacing John
Hopkins and Harvard Studies and tweets from thailandol from six
years ago, emphasizing or underscoring the point that the administration
seems to be making about this. Now, I, as a
layman on these and under the ignorant of the matter,
I really find it hard to believe that what they
call an explosion in autism is to title and all
or vaccines. I think it just is simply due to
additional screening and wider definitions than the rest of it.
That's what I feel it coming as somebody who knows
absolutely nothing, But I kind of think there's a possibility
I might be right, gentleman.
Speaker 5: Well, well, I think that there's a parallel here. And
now I'm with you on this. I'm skeptical. Although I've
long been down on tile and all and some of
this research that suggests that there are risks we haven't
fully judged. I think there's something to it. I think
RFK Junior likely takes it too far, as he does
with most things. But yeah, the diagnosis has changed, and
the parallel there that I do know a lot about
is asthma and comes back to my whole Clean Air
Act fascination. You know, asper case has exploded, and it
turned out that we change the diagnostic procedure for detecting it,
and asthma is still somewhat mysterious. It's partly an autoimmune disease,
and the clauses are still somewhat obscure and contested. But
once we expanded the diagnosis of it, all of a
sudden we had more cases of it. And I think
that's also happened with autism, and some people in the
I guess there's an autism community have been complaining about
this for a while, that they're the lumping everything into
just the spectrum is right, it is not useful or
you know, has all kinds of problems with it, which
I think.
Speaker 1: Is right right because it tells you that the spectrum
is infinitely stretchable in either direction out I mean, so,
Charles your take on this, I think Stephen has said
at all. But of course you're always free to come
up with something else.
Speaker 5: I agree.
Speaker 4: I'm skeptical as well. What I do think is that
if there is indeed any link here, the way that
Trump and RFK Junior did this was not helpful. If
you find something that changes your conception of the consequences
of taking a particular drug, the only drug in this
case that pregnant women can take to manage pain. You
should not release the information in that manner. You should
not send out conflicting statements as Trump did, and you
should not scare people who are now going to have
to choose between this unproven link and managing the pain
that comes with pregnancy. So I am skeptical on the merits,
but I think irrespective of that, I really think they
got this one wrong.
Speaker 1: What's interesting, though, is that a week from now we
will completely forget this because there will be something else
of the of that ILK large statements, germ of truth
overreaction on both. It's it's frustrating these days to be caught,
as it seems, in this constant mailstrom of reaction. But
on the other hand, I suppose people say that, well,
it's a sign at the swamp is no longer having
its you know, it's baleful effect on people that things
are moving quicker than we would like. For example, we're
going to be getting judges approved much more quicker. But
there are there are there any knockoff effects of that
of changing rules in order to do that. Can't bite,
can't bite the right in the keyster in the future
cannon No.
Speaker 5: I don't think so. I mean, I think you had
an asymmetry here where Republicans they would vote no on
Democratic appointees, but they didn't filibuster and block final floor
votes except in very rare cases. And here you had
Democrats in the Senate blocking any votes on judges and
a lot of other lower level candate appointees. And I
think rightly Senate Republicans finally said nuts to that, and
so I don't think it actually. In other words, there
are other areas where you can say just wait till
Democrats are back in power, like abusing the FCC, but
this is not one of them.
Speaker 1: Oh, the FCC abuse, that is a that is a dandy.
That really is Charles. I mean, we spoke about this
last week, and now Jimmy Kimmel is back to two
great accolades. The Savior of our time is descended. But
do you think Kimmel is going to stick around or
are they just going to wait for the Brujaha to
die down and then just usher them off the stage again.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know what's going on Disney, but I
do know that they're not going to keep losing money
on Jimmy Kimmel to make a point. They may have
brought him back to make a point, but you don't
do it over multiple years, especially when the president has
now been set in the Colbert case. I do think
that it is extremely annoying. And I say this is
someone who's very critical of Brandon Carr for what he did,
and who doesn't want the federal government to wield that
sort of power that the Democrats. How long did they
wait until they started talking about going after Sinclair and
using the FCC themselves. Elizabeth Warren can't help herself, So
they don't believe in anything on this question. That doesn't
mean we shouldn't, and I do, but they don't believe
in anything on this Jimmy Kimmel is not a hero,
and Jimmy Kimmel is not the story of Charlie Cook's murder.
And it was thus not only a mistake legally for
Brandan Carr to do what he did, but it was
a political mistake because they managed to turn someone on
the left who is not good and I did something
wrong into a sympathetic figure. And when you have the
world's attention, you should avoid that.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I hate when people say I'm not going to listen
to you complain about this, because you didn't complain about
this thing over here that I think you should complain about.
But I am going to do exactly that, because this
week we got more confirmation exactly what the government was
doing to strong arm pressure Google, Facebook, every Twitter and
all the rest of them to take the COVID misinformation,
you know, like our good friend doctor Jay out of
the picture. And that is something to be irritated about.
It is something to be angry about, which you seemed
to have accepted it and sort of kind of moved along.
I'm not crazy about that.
Speaker 4: And that's fifty times worse. That story is fifty times worse,
and it got no coverage.
Speaker 1: It absolutely and I wonder why that could be. Well,
that's because the clock is reset every day. What was
done in the past doesn't matter unless it's a good
argument for why we should not do in the things
we did in the past. Before. Gentlemen, I think we've
solved the world, or at least wrapped it up to
our own satisfaction here and all I can say now
is a variety of things, the nature of which you
can entirely predict. One I am going to thank Price Picks,
and I am going to thank Cozy Earth for sponsoring
this show. Two I'm going to tell you that if
you support them a your life gets better. I mean
we're talking breathe ability. And of course you don't help
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I wouldn't because I've been maintaining a numerical order here.
I think that you should join ricoget because there's something
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It's a place where you have football leagues and movie
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How much is it, Charlie, What is the pot up
to now? I think it's up to three cents if
we actually find out that somebody did that and can
prove it, we're going to give them, you know, four
cents or something like what is it? What is why?
Speaker 4: Inflation's still with us, so it will over time change.
So if you're listening to this two years into the future,
then it's ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm kidding. That would be payola. And I
don't want to go all all that on you. I
was going to name somebody who was caught up in
that scandal, but you know what, you know, times are different.
Speaker 5: Let them be.
Speaker 1: I want to say thank you, and I want to
say that Ricochet is now up to what builds Charlie Goodness,
James Goodness. You knew I was going to ask.
Speaker 4: I did, and I thought about looking it up, and
then I thought, I'm just going to sit there and
say four point one point nine point tw twelve point
three point one point and I just you know, people.
Speaker 5: Got to be that.
Speaker 4: People who listen to me do it are going to
be begging us to return to the topic of the
Clean Air Act.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: Well, we're approaching now not just an irrational number like pie,
but we're approaching the singularity, right.
Speaker 1: I said, I only to remind you that the code
is constantly being improved, as is the site, as is
our contribution to the discourse of the Internet and the
world is Stephen Charlie. It's been great fun as ever,
and everybody will see you in the comments at Ricochet
four point, you know. Goodbye.