Speaker 1: Well whiskey, come and take my pain the moneys all ryn't.
Speaker 2: Why think alone when you can drink it all in
Speaker 2: with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour. Join your bartenders Steve Hayward,
Speaker 2: John U and the International Woman of Mystery, Lucretia. Well
Speaker 2: this lapped it up live. It ain't you easy on
Speaker 2: the should taps? Got to give me and let that whiskey.
Speaker 2: The Three Whiskey Happy Hour is back from a road
Speaker 2: trip over to Italy, now fully syncopated, polyphinous and angular,
Speaker 2: which I only say because I don't know what they
Speaker 2: mean and know it will annoy you guys. Are you
Speaker 2: guys over your jet lag yet? Are you back up
Speaker 2: in in the saddle? Eh?
Speaker 3: Right, yes, right, went dived at eight thirty last night.
Speaker 3: Does that count?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I've been doing that no long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is not.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, we are getting older. But and by the way, Lucretia,
Speaker 2: you'll appreciate I think appreciate this. James Lilax on the
Speaker 2: you know I often I usually post posted the podcast
Speaker 2: We're doing him back to back this morning and John
Speaker 2: was on in place of Charles C. W. Cook and
Speaker 2: James Lylac said, I can see it now. You guys
Speaker 2: in Italy are like that old cartoon of the two
Speaker 2: people working their way on the same spand with spaghetti.
Speaker 2: And he said, ah, I have our cover artwork for
Speaker 2: this week's episode, so we'll see what happens. But it
Speaker 2: could be bad. It could be really bad. I've got
Speaker 2: some jarnt you're you're looking into.
Speaker 1: Space yet again, another reason not to substitute for some
Speaker 1: Brett X pat Although you guys, I did a bad
Speaker 1: job trying to fill his share and join you in
Speaker 1: your love of the British monarchy and worship of King
Speaker 1: Charles and his discredible family and his leadership with this
Speaker 1: declining middle power which from which we properly declared ourselves
Speaker 1: independent two hundred and fifty years ago.
Speaker 2: Well we'll come back to that later.
Speaker 3: And I've decided, by the way, I just have to
Speaker 3: say this that I'm disgusted with the only English thing
Speaker 3: that I still have any contact with, which is the Spectator,
Speaker 3: and every day other than the occasional American guest writer,
Speaker 3: makes me angrier and angrier that I ever gave them
Speaker 3: a single penny of my money. Because this morning there
Speaker 3: was this awful, awful article about some of you who
Speaker 3: lived in Cuba for God's sakes, and talking about how
Speaker 3: great Cuba is. That the hell is wrong with those
Speaker 3: people anyway, Sorry, that was not on the agenda, and
Speaker 3: I'm sorry I said it, but yeah, made me crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I have noticed the Spectator has gotten very
Speaker 2: weird that way also, Chris, well, okay, but it's become
Speaker 2: I thought you were going to complain about some of
Speaker 2: their anti Trump articles that they have.
Speaker 3: Well this one was, believe it or not, they managed
Speaker 3: all of the problem in Cuba are caused by bad
Speaker 3: yellow man, orange man, orange man. Yes, sorry, go ahead, right,
Speaker 3: I'm done.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, but I do have some good news for you, John.
Speaker 2: While we were overseas, McDonald's announced that they're expanding their
Speaker 2: bargain meal pricing on their menu, so you know you'll
Speaker 2: be able to eat even more for less.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And their stock is up sharply this morning because it's
Speaker 2: been slumping the last six eight weeks, which I figure
Speaker 2: is your fault for under consuming.
Speaker 1: Well I will and while we are in Italy, unlike
Speaker 1: you guys who are such you know, hawk cuisine eaters,
Speaker 1: I actually went to McDonald's.
Speaker 3: I went to McCafe.
Speaker 1: Oh, that doesn't that's that's just a European invasion in McDonald's.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's that's their bending the knee to anyway,
Speaker 1: So I I they don't have budget meals over at
Speaker 1: McDonald's in Europe. I bought a It was so painful.
Speaker 1: It was a world class meal, which was a chicken
Speaker 1: fried chicken sandwich, which I think was a good start,
Speaker 1: which they claim was Japanese. So they poured kariaki sauce
Speaker 1: all over it, and fries and a soft guess how
Speaker 1: much it costs fifteen euros.
Speaker 2: That's I know.
Speaker 1: That's like, I mean, I should have just gone to
Speaker 1: the Olive Garden, bottomless bowl of pasta and REDSTI got all.
Speaker 3: Over, basically, and I pointed out to John that Steve,
Speaker 3: his wife and I went to this obscure little place
Speaker 3: recommended to them by one of their tour guides. And
Speaker 3: I can't even remember the name Steve will I can remember.
Speaker 3: I can't say. It just not a tourist trap. It
Speaker 3: took a bit of a drive to get up to
Speaker 3: the mountain to get to it, but we went and
Speaker 3: had lunch at this lovely little place, and it wasn't
Speaker 3: a huge lunch, but because none of us were all
Speaker 3: that hungry. But it was lunch, you know, Urncini and
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of things like that beer each for
Speaker 3: the Haywards, and a glass of wine for Lucretia. Of
Speaker 3: course you knew the ubiquitous sparkling water. You have to
Speaker 3: purchase nineteen euros for three people to have lunch and drinks.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was a non tourist chap, so much
Speaker 3: so that we were getting nasty looks from people for
Speaker 3: being there. Yeah, I mean people were.
Speaker 2: Just kind of that was it was Chen. It was
Speaker 2: Chen to Repay. Was that name of the place. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's lap High, you know, and it's one of those, yeah,
Speaker 2: one of those mountain towns in Sicily that they seem
Speaker 2: to have a lot of those, they have a surplus.
Speaker 1: I'm still offended. I can't paign dollars. I mean, who
Speaker 1: these people think they are? We already put well tek
Speaker 1: to them since nineteen forty five. The least they can
Speaker 1: do is let us use good American money and not
Speaker 1: this euros with all these have you ever looked at
Speaker 1: the euro with all these like people they put on it.
Speaker 1: It's not play money designs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't. It's moknopoly money. Yeah. So you know,
Speaker 2: Milton Freeman thought it wouldn't last, and it's still here,
Speaker 2: but we'll see. But one last footnote on McDonald's story.
Speaker 2: I read a story here somewhere in the last week
Speaker 2: or so, and I wish I kept it because it's
Speaker 2: your kind of story, John. But it was about some
Speaker 2: scheme that some beat some loopholes the people have figured
Speaker 2: out in McDonald's when you order on their order the
Speaker 2: computerized boards they have now the app the kiosk well, okay,
Speaker 2: but if you go to the kioskin side, apparently, and
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if this was America or overseas what
Speaker 2: this happened, but somebody figured out that you could customize
Speaker 2: a burger order where you remove the meat and that
Speaker 2: lowered the that lowered the price. And the thing was
Speaker 2: if you if you ordered nine.
Speaker 1: That's called you know what that's called bread? Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: the order bread.
Speaker 2: But well, the way this worked is you'd order nine
Speaker 2: burgers with the meat taken out, and then the ten
Speaker 2: you'd order like a regular one, and it pants you
Speaker 2: got it for free, and and the other nine pieces
Speaker 2: of bread with you know, condiments on them were, you know,
Speaker 2: almost nothing, so you you actually got a free something
Speaker 2: like that. It was very strange, and I thought, you
Speaker 2: need to know about that scheme if it's can be replicated.
Speaker 1: I mean, why not just eat ten burgers? Who was
Speaker 1: the point of this?
Speaker 2: Because that would cost a lot more than fifteen eurosohn,
Speaker 2: they're only two bucks each in America.
Speaker 3: I will tell you the problem with never mind McDonald's
Speaker 3: real Italian food in their seventeen thousand courses. I mean
Speaker 3: even Steve after the third course was like, I can't
Speaker 3: eat anymore. And then of course they bring the lovely
Speaker 3: veal as the very last course, and you're struggling to
Speaker 3: even get a bite down, so instead you just keep drinking.
Speaker 3: You weren't.
Speaker 1: I had no problem. The only time I had trouble
Speaker 1: keeping my food din was when Steve started doing magic
Speaker 1: tricks in front of some of the highest ranking professors
Speaker 1: in Sicily. He I mean, this was a national humiliation
Speaker 1: that Alex has to think so poorly United States now.
Speaker 3: But David Copperfield.
Speaker 1: I still can't figeret how he does the damn truck
Speaker 1: with the ropes.
Speaker 2: It's really easy, and it's called professor's nightmare, by the way,
Speaker 2: so it's perfect for us. Okay, all right. One other,
Speaker 2: not entirely silly item, Happy Pride Month. You guys, it's
Speaker 2: June again. It's Pride month. Did you know that? May
Speaker 2: I learned this only the other day was National Barbecue Month,
Speaker 2: and naturally the news media ignored it and suppressed that
Speaker 2: news because that would have been worth celebrating. I do, though,
Speaker 2: think that Trump has the chance to do the funniest
Speaker 2: thing ever. I think he should lean into Pride Month,
Speaker 2: but change the name to Pride in America Month ahead
Speaker 2: of July fourth, a month from now, just to watch
Speaker 2: liberals go out of their mind. I think that would
Speaker 2: be fine.
Speaker 3: I've seen quite a few of those things at the
Speaker 3: at the much lower level, people talking about what we
Speaker 3: really need to be proud of, which is America. Not right,
Speaker 3: because I actually saw an interesting one really quickly that
Speaker 3: first of all, talked about all the reasons why pride
Speaker 3: in in LGBTQ stuff was very shall we say, unbiblical,
Speaker 3: but that that that that patriari pride in your fatherland.
Speaker 3: There's a certain amount of biblical support for that kind
Speaker 3: of pride, because it is not self serving and all
Speaker 3: of those things. So so I think we should make
Speaker 3: it a religious revival, to make the month of June
Speaker 3: patriotic pride month.
Speaker 1: There you go, right still, the side month. If they
Speaker 1: want to have parades, why not, I mean, what mat parades?
Speaker 1: So we watched one, honestly one. Actually I never get invited, strangely,
Speaker 1: but I've got no we what do we want to
Speaker 1: stop people from having parades?
Speaker 2: No, in an odd way that will scandalize the Christia.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm kind of with you, John and wanting to
Speaker 2: stage war parades. And because you know, well, here's why.
Speaker 2: I went to the nineteen eighty four Democratic National Convention
Speaker 2: in San Francisco as a reporter. The the day before
Speaker 2: the convention opened, there was a huge gay pride parade
Speaker 2: down Market Street and it was the total freak show.
Speaker 2: Now they're everywhere, right, but then it was the total
Speaker 2: freak show. Sister Boom Boom and the Sisters of Perpetual
Speaker 2: Indulgence and all these other weird people, and you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of people with not much clothing on. Somehow
Speaker 2: I was standing next to some Republican operative who was there,
Speaker 2: and I don't know how we figured out that we
Speaker 2: were simpatico, but he said, you know, back in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy two when McGovern was was the nominee, we pay
Speaker 2: people to do this. Now they're doing it for us
Speaker 2: for free. So I think they're doing these crazy things
Speaker 2: for free. Latest survey data from Gallup shows at public
Speaker 2: sympathy for the whole identity politics, but especially the LGBTQ
Speaker 2: plus stuff, including same sex marriage, by the way, is
Speaker 2: now on the decline after deadly rising, you.
Speaker 3: Know, only among Republicans.
Speaker 2: Well, but that's still you know, Republicans are going along
Speaker 2: with it, and now they're saying, well maybe not so okay,
Speaker 2: all right, look at taking a first quick ad break,
Speaker 2: and then we'll be back and start doing our quick
Speaker 2: hits on the news highlights of the week. So we'll
Speaker 2: be right back. We're back with a couple of news
Speaker 2: highlights in this week. I think it's been a sensationally
Speaker 2: good week, starting with Scott Pelly getting a boot from
Speaker 2: CBS News. I don't know how much time we want
Speaker 2: to spend doing a sack dance on that. The Obama
Speaker 2: Library opening is I think worth commenting on. We'll keep
Speaker 2: that in some order. Is there anything to be said?
Speaker 2: About this, the crazy business of British policing their George
Speaker 2: Floyd moment in reverse. I mean, it's pretty obvious what's
Speaker 2: wrong there.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I think really quickly. I know you want
Speaker 3: to keep this short, but if you add to that
Speaker 3: the the crimes committed by police and public servants in.
Speaker 2: Rocklingham, Rodingham, Rodingham, Yeah, Rotherham, Rotherham, Roderham, Rotherham.
Speaker 3: Sorry that, you know, allowing them to rape and groom
Speaker 3: little girls who were orphans and orphanages and not saying
Speaker 3: anything about it for decades because or at least years
Speaker 3: because they were afraid of being called racist. I mean,
Speaker 3: that is so insidious and evil. And this, I think
Speaker 3: is just you know, it's a carry on of that
Speaker 3: whole attitude that the most important thing is to have
Speaker 3: the right views about minorities and not be racist. And
Speaker 3: I think that they should. I think that those police
Speaker 3: officers should face the death penalty, which they won't, just
Speaker 3: like I thought every person involved in the gang grooming
Speaker 3: should have faced the death penalty. Let's get the I mean,
Speaker 3: every time I see anything in America that even hints
Speaker 3: of that sort of thing, which, believe it or not,
Speaker 3: I'm finding is also evident in the trial of the
Speaker 3: kid in Texas who stabbed the black kid who stabbed
Speaker 3: the white kid. The idea that we are still playing
Speaker 3: this game that somehow white people deserve to die because
Speaker 3: it was a minority who killed them. That's what's going
Speaker 3: on in England. That's what's going on in Texas. It's ugly.
Speaker 3: It's ugly if it's the opposite way too, you know,
Speaker 3: if white people are killing black people or any other minority,
Speaker 3: because if that's who they are, it's ugly. Let's stop.
Speaker 3: Let's have a color blind attitude about these things. Oh sorry,
Speaker 3: I'm done.
Speaker 2: Well, well, we'll come back to that point too. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I missed the old you know, I think
Speaker 2: maybe the well who knows the exact origin of the problem.
Speaker 2: There's several roots to it. But I do remember the
Speaker 2: episode famous in you know, British literature of the colonialism
Speaker 2: once written a band of the Empire was all downhill
Speaker 2: ever since, right, And so there's that famous scene. I
Speaker 2: don't quite remember it exactly right, but it was where
Speaker 2: the British banned the custom of what did they call it?
Speaker 2: When they burned the widow after the husband died in
Speaker 2: parts of India. Right, No, it wasn't this different.
Speaker 3: Well that's not it, that's yeah, you're right, you're right it.
Speaker 2: But they used to they used to like burn the
Speaker 2: widow at the at the funeral of a man, a
Speaker 2: husband who died, and who knows how that started. But
Speaker 2: the British put a stop to it, and they said,
Speaker 2: and and they I think they executed a couple of
Speaker 2: people who carried on with the practice. And I forget
Speaker 2: the name of the British colonel, but they the Indians
Speaker 2: said to him, hey, this is our custom. And and
Speaker 2: they said, well, okay, you carry on your custom and
Speaker 2: we'll carry on ours. And our custom is we execute
Speaker 2: people who who burn innocent people at the state.
Speaker 3: So can you resurrect that colonel and put him in charge?
Speaker 2: Well that's my point, right exactly, Yeah, okay, okay, So
Speaker 2: John Bolton is agreeing to a plead deal. And I
Speaker 2: have to say, I mean, I have complicated views about
Speaker 2: the guy. Since I knew him and liked him, I
Speaker 2: like him, and I do think, well, I think it's
Speaker 2: great tragedy, really right. I think he was undone by
Speaker 2: his ambition when I think he should have known he
Speaker 2: was not a good fit for Trump, but you know,
Speaker 2: he was ambitious to be national security advisor. I think
Speaker 2: there's quite a contrast between his behavior and say hr McMaster,
Speaker 2: who also didn't get along with Trump, wrote a critical book,
Speaker 2: but not one with the same pitch to it as
Speaker 2: a Bolton's book. And I think, okay, so there you go.
Speaker 2: I have more thoughts than that. But John, oh wow,
Speaker 2: I thought you were going to.
Speaker 1: I thought time was for Lucretia gloating is at a
Speaker 1: set time of each show where we do Lucretia gloating.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm not happy that he's taking a plea deal.
Speaker 1: I wish he would fight to it. I'm not convinced
Speaker 1: that he violated the law. The facts are very different,
Speaker 1: I think than say Sandy Berger, the Clinton National secure
Speaker 1: advisor who tried to steal documents from the National Archives
Speaker 1: in his underwear and got off with a fine and
Speaker 1: no jail time probation.
Speaker 2: I think he got probation, but yeah, very small information. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I think it sounds like the plea deal.
Speaker 2: Uh that they're friendly yet is up to sixty months
Speaker 2: in prison? I'm sure you know two. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: we think Burger's fine was twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: It was, uh, the bunch of yeah, there's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of other people too, like David Petreez who was
Speaker 1: the CIA director. He did. And then of course you've
Speaker 1: got you know, Biden Trump and uh, you know, but
Speaker 1: you know, we both had classified information. But it's usually
Speaker 1: shindn't was a children but Trump didn't, I mean sorry,
Speaker 1: Bolton didn't take any documents. What he did was he
Speaker 1: right wrote a diary and he sent these diary everyday
Speaker 1: diary entries to his wife and daughter who were helping.
Speaker 3: Him with the book, and then got them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. His mistake if he and this would have been
Speaker 1: what would have been the dispute effects at court was
Speaker 1: whether those diary entries contained classified and information themselves that
Speaker 1: he learned from his day, you know, working as naturally,
Speaker 1: whether he had properly sanitized them. And that's the question.
Speaker 1: I don't think that he would ever have the mental
Speaker 1: state to actually try to violate the law. So I
Speaker 1: don't know whether he would have been convicted because he
Speaker 1: would have just said I did not think there was
Speaker 1: class side information. I wrote them in a way that
Speaker 1: they didn't contain that information, but we won't know, so
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that he actually violated the law. But
Speaker 1: I also see why he would want to plead out
Speaker 1: because he doesn't want to die in jail given his age.
Speaker 1: He's in his late seventies, I think, and he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to spend millions of dollars engaged in criminal defense.
Speaker 1: But I think John's one of the I think he's
Speaker 1: one of the people we want to have in government.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's a true patriot. He didn't do this
Speaker 1: because he wanted to make money off it, and I
Speaker 1: don't think he did it. I think he thinks of himself.
Speaker 1: I think he thinks himself as a that he thought
Speaker 1: Trump was too dangerous and unstable a character to have
Speaker 1: in charge of our national security. And he wrote that
Speaker 1: book because he wanted to warn the country.
Speaker 3: Well, and I am not going to gloat as much
Speaker 3: as I would, because I know that you guys are
Speaker 3: both of that you are friends with him. I don't
Speaker 3: know him, I've never met him, but I will tell
Speaker 3: you that I look at a similar situation with somebody
Speaker 3: I do know, no well, have tremendous respect for, and
Speaker 3: that was Michael Flynn and Michael Flynn did not do
Speaker 3: anything wrong. He absolutely did not do anything wrong. And
Speaker 3: his reason for finally giving in and you know, getting
Speaker 3: a deal was because they were ruining him and then
Speaker 3: they threatened his kids. It was just the most despicable
Speaker 3: thing ever what happened to Michael Flynn. And I get
Speaker 3: what you're saying, John, I'm sorry. When I talked to
Speaker 3: mister Lucretia, Lucretio will stop and say, I can't talk
Speaker 3: about that. I can't show you the document that I
Speaker 3: stole from. I can't talk about that because it's a
Speaker 3: violation of federal law to write anything down, to send
Speaker 3: any kind of information, no matter how close you are
Speaker 3: to a person. And my guess is he could have
Speaker 3: probably gotten a pretty decent legal representation for two point
Speaker 3: two five million dollars. I think he knows he's guilty
Speaker 3: as hell. That's my belief. I think he knows he's
Speaker 3: guilty as hell, and he he probably started off not
Speaker 3: thinking that what he was doing was so terrible, but
Speaker 3: he was blind to what he was actually doing. He
Speaker 3: led his narcissism and his belief that he was right
Speaker 3: and the elected president of the world of the country
Speaker 3: was wrong blind him to his ethical duties and his
Speaker 3: patriotic duties and his legal duties. There's I'm done gloating,
Speaker 3: But again I don't. I mean, I look at that
Speaker 3: as I compare that situation to Michael Flynn, who did
Speaker 3: nothing wrong.
Speaker 1: And first Flynn, Flynn didn't release classified information. He was
Speaker 1: prosecuted for lying to the FBI agents, and I agree
Speaker 1: with you that the underlying facts of that didn't support
Speaker 1: the prosecution. But it's very different. I mean, he's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just a different crime.
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 3: But he was ruined. He was ruined.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't do it Bolton. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: just no comparison to Bolton.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so much more serious. I get it. But
Speaker 3: my point is Michael Flynn was my friend, and I
Speaker 3: know what it felt like to see what they did
Speaker 3: to him, and so I have sympathy for you guys.
Speaker 3: That's my point comparing them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think there is a broader rob information
Speaker 2: to be made about Trump one to Trump two, which
Speaker 2: is the knock on him, is Trump's just picking loyalists
Speaker 2: for Trump. You know this administration, right, this is Bill
Speaker 2: Poulty to be the new Director of National Intelligence, in yeah, right, yeah, but.
Speaker 1: It's only going to harden the administration.
Speaker 2: But see the point, he could have put a stop
Speaker 2: to the Flynn prosecution. And if that happened now, I
Speaker 2: think he would if in other words, if the Flynn
Speaker 2: circumstances are happening now, Trump would squash it. Trump is
Speaker 2: much more I think, perceptive of how deep the problem
Speaker 2: is and be more assertive in his power. Maybe he's
Speaker 2: taking it too far. I think some of his pardons
Speaker 2: have been pretty dodgy too. But that said, I think
Speaker 2: Trump learned a lot from that first term, and so
Speaker 2: he would never have considered Bolton to be National security
Speaker 2: advisor in Trump too. And then the thought experiment is,
Speaker 2: this is maybe a challenge for you, Lucretia, is if
Speaker 2: Bolton had written a book, I'll say, I suppose he
Speaker 2: written a book saying Trump's the greatest thing since slice bread,
Speaker 2: or if it had been more equivocal like HR McMaster's book,
Speaker 2: which was much more measured. I mean, it was critical
Speaker 2: but still also supportive of Trump in many ways. And
Speaker 2: hr has been very measured in the way he talks
Speaker 2: about Trump. He wouldn't tell you how he was going
Speaker 2: to vote in twenty twenty four, but added up his statements,
Speaker 2: it was pretty clearly thought. This binary choice is clear.
Speaker 2: You got to vote for Trump. Okay. I think if
Speaker 2: if Bolton had done something more in that vein, I
Speaker 2: think I don't think this prosecution would have been brought.
Speaker 2: I don't know. And then also John fight Remember the.
Speaker 3: Biden administration brought it initially, Well.
Speaker 2: They brought the investigation, yes, and then the Trump people
Speaker 2: they didn't prosecute him. And John, I mean, I know
Speaker 2: what you're saying about it. He should have fought the charges.
Speaker 2: He might have won. Look, the Justice Department was demanding
Speaker 2: something like an eight year sentence, essentially the rest of
Speaker 2: his life in prison if he's convicted. And I am
Speaker 2: not convinced that a Washington d c. Jury wouldn't have
Speaker 2: wanted to convict him because he's with the wrong party, right,
Speaker 2: And that, by the way, there's the dog that's not
Speaker 2: barking everyone about screaming from the rooftops on the left
Speaker 2: about Trump selectively prosecuting people. I haven't heard a boo
Speaker 2: from anybody saying it's terrible what they're doing to John Bolton.
Speaker 2: Not a word, because of course the left hates John Bolton.
Speaker 2: So they're going to keep their mouth shut here.
Speaker 3: Okay, I think the left will the enemy of my
Speaker 3: enemy is my friend, even though yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, okay, Well, I don't know. Let's do another
Speaker 2: quick break and we will come back with a couple
Speaker 2: more news items from the week that are important, I think,
Speaker 2: and then a long read into the Supreme Court. Don't
Speaker 2: go away, Okay. One of the happier things that happened
Speaker 2: this week, I think, keep your fingers crossed, knock on wood,
Speaker 2: is the results of the primary elections, especially in California,
Speaker 2: where Steve Hilton has come in first. I think he's
Speaker 2: going to hang on to his first place position. That
Speaker 2: was not to be assumed that there are a lot
Speaker 2: of late polls showing that two Democrats might go one
Speaker 2: and two. Instead, Tom Steyer has wasted two undred and
Speaker 2: fifty million dollars, making a bunch of campaign consultants and
Speaker 2: ad makers very rich. And then it looks like Spencer
Speaker 2: Pratt is going to make the run off in LA.
Speaker 2: Although this is a knock on wood part, a lot
Speaker 2: of ballots still sitting out there, and he's got a
Speaker 2: pretty good margin over the third place progressive Wacko lady.
Speaker 2: But it looks like he'll make it, and that will
Speaker 2: be an interesting thing. But it's going to take us
Speaker 2: forever to count all the votes, which ought to be
Speaker 2: a scandal. And I don't either one of you want to. Oh,
Speaker 2: I've said.
Speaker 3: This before, just shows we need to save act, which
Speaker 3: well yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, well okay, I'm not I guess that would affect
Speaker 2: state elections. I haven't I've forgotten the details. Now, the
Speaker 2: Pratt campaign, such as it is, I say such as
Speaker 2: it is. It's the first crowdsource campaign of this scale.
Speaker 2: I think we've ever seen people making these videos and
Speaker 2: posting them on Instagram. It's going to drive the regulators
Speaker 2: out of their mind because it looks like campaign speech.
Speaker 2: But of course, the way this racket runs is you
Speaker 2: can't regulate speech. You can only regulate money spent. If
Speaker 2: you spend over it's a very low threshold, just a
Speaker 2: few hundred dollars, you have to report it. But if
Speaker 2: you just make a video as a volunteer and you
Speaker 2: post on Instagram, you haven't spent any money. The regulators
Speaker 2: are going to hate this at this spreads to other
Speaker 2: races around the country, which I think it will, and
Speaker 2: I hope it will so.
Speaker 3: Jesse, we have had a lovely discussion with Steve's wife
Speaker 3: about this. Who is the expert, at least among this crowd.
Speaker 3: She's the expert, and she did explain Yet, yes, you
Speaker 3: can regulate money, you can't regulate speech. And when it
Speaker 3: comes to AI, this I didn't know. I think our
Speaker 3: listeners will find interesting. She explained that you can you
Speaker 3: can regulate AI if it purports to be actual. Actually, like, so,
Speaker 3: go back to my example of John when when when
Speaker 3: I had people in my office make some AI videos
Speaker 3: of the three Whiskey happy hour. The only way to
Speaker 3: do it with the software we had, the software that
Speaker 3: companies themselves have certain rules to make babies. Why because
Speaker 3: John is a celebrity. He's a very famous public person,
Speaker 3: and it would have required not just his permission, but
Speaker 3: all sorts of blah blah blah blah blah. If we
Speaker 3: made it seem like it was really John, if it's
Speaker 3: a baby, everybody else that's not joy.
Speaker 1: Protects me because they know who's really in charge around
Speaker 1: exactly AI.
Speaker 3: You need that AI. But here's the point. There was
Speaker 3: no campaign finance kind of regulation, very little regulation at
Speaker 3: all of electoral activities for several almost several centuries, right
Speaker 3: for decades, until money became such a big deal, because
Speaker 3: it used to be to stand out on the street
Speaker 3: corner and you could say anything you wanted and they
Speaker 3: couldn't do anything about it, and you could do it
Speaker 3: as a candidate, and you could do it as a supporter.
Speaker 3: With AI and the Internet, we're back at that situation
Speaker 3: right where I can say I can make my own
Speaker 3: AI video about Spencer Pratt and Karen Bass and put
Speaker 3: it on the Internet, and as long as I don't
Speaker 3: pretend that it's actually them saying what they're saying, then
Speaker 3: there's absolutely no regulation against what I do. Am I correct?
Speaker 2: Well, I think so. I think. I do think the
Speaker 2: problem of deep fakes, which they're going to get better
Speaker 2: and better was the technology evolves, it is a serious problem.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure regulation. I mean, I think California has
Speaker 2: passed the law against using deep fakes for a lot
Speaker 2: of purposes, not just political and campaign speech. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure in the campaign context if regulation is the right remedy.
Speaker 2: I think it has always been the case. In fact,
Speaker 2: I can remember one race from thirty years ago where
Speaker 2: a campaign had put up a TV ad that had
Speaker 2: incorrect information, and the person that was directed against threatened
Speaker 2: to sue the TV stations that were running it in
Speaker 2: the campaign for putting it up and got them take
Speaker 2: and down. I'm not exactly sure how the law worked
Speaker 2: in that particular case, but I think the remedy should be,
Speaker 2: at least in the campaign context, you know, some kind
Speaker 2: of claim, a false information, slander something love That kind
Speaker 2: hard to do in politics, right, because you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: what can what can we say about Graham Plattner that's
Speaker 2: not going to turn out to be true? Oh?
Speaker 3: Anyway, things I could have never thought of turned out
Speaker 3: to be true, So I guess you're right.
Speaker 2: Well, the other thing is, I mean, there's also the
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of the Spencer Pratt videos have
Speaker 2: got caricatures of Karen Bass and Governor Knew some but
Speaker 2: they're obviously caricatures, so they're not represented as real representations.
Speaker 2: So I don't and there's got to be an artistic
Speaker 2: license there. It seems to me otherwise every political cartoonist
Speaker 2: in the newspaper would be out of business.
Speaker 1: Help us out, John, I'm not sure what the question
Speaker 1: is anymore.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I mean is there a problem
Speaker 2: or if there is a problem with.
Speaker 1: I mean, so, I think one thing that you're talking
Speaker 1: about is that the social media makes an AI make
Speaker 1: possible decentralized campaigning where you have a huge effect without
Speaker 1: spending hardly any money, and you're relying on these kind
Speaker 1: of you just citizen supporters to make ads and videos
Speaker 1: and yeah, since the campaign laws are based on contributions
Speaker 1: and money, this is just going to fall completely. It's
Speaker 1: not even really First Amendment issue yet because the statutes
Speaker 1: they've written that these legislats have writ to control campaigning
Speaker 1: don't cover this kind of activity. So Lucretia's right, we're
Speaker 1: getting back to the world before there was a bottlenecks
Speaker 1: control created by the control of the media, where just
Speaker 1: anybody could print leaflets and say what they wanted, and
Speaker 1: that's that's going to be outside campaign finance on if
Speaker 1: they did, if the legislatures did try to cover it,
Speaker 1: which would be a mistake, then you'd have First Amendment
Speaker 1: free speech problems. So I don't I don't see how
Speaker 1: the government's going to be able to keep up with these,
Speaker 1: you know, rapid fire developments because of social media and AI,
Speaker 1: which I think is another example why AI to me
Speaker 1: and social media are a good thing not a bad
Speaker 1: thing to be regulated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, so believe it or not. In nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: five I wrote my master's thesis on the subject of
Speaker 3: campaign finance reform, and ultimately the conclusion was is that
Speaker 3: it was the law of unintended consequences. Every single time,
Speaker 3: every single attempt to regulate campaign finance financing the money
Speaker 3: in politics ended up benefiting those who did the regulating.
Speaker 3: And that's what it comes down to. So I find
Speaker 3: this whole thing very enticing. I guess you could say,
Speaker 3: just to see if we can actually destroy the entire
Speaker 3: call it the campaign consultant complex. If all of these
Speaker 3: people soon will be out of business instead of getting
Speaker 3: their millions of dollars from Tom Steyer, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 3: who needs them. They're still putting TV ads on television
Speaker 3: that nobody watches anymore. I mean, if you look at
Speaker 3: anything about television, the most popular programs, you had something
Speaker 3: on substack about this Steve whatever it was. Sixty minutes
Speaker 3: used to be like, you know, everybody what, I don't
Speaker 3: know what sixty minutes and forty years, you know? And
Speaker 3: I don't know anybody who has. I don't know anybody
Speaker 3: who would watch sixty minutes, and you know, I really don't.
Speaker 3: I guess you guys probably do because you're you know,
Speaker 3: those Aragal snobs. But I don't, and so they're not.
Speaker 3: Well anyway, that's my might. My thought is maybe this
Speaker 3: is a really good thing.
Speaker 2: Well, at the broader point about campaign finance regulation, which
Speaker 2: is goes back to fifty years now, the seventies with FACO,
Speaker 2: isn't that the first and the act is that it
Speaker 2: has helped erode and destroy political parties and it centralized
Speaker 2: our politics more. Those are broader subjects to pass along.
Speaker 2: I just will mention in passing because it's too much
Speaker 2: fun not to that. One of the heroes of resisting
Speaker 2: all that early on, in one of the early key
Speaker 2: cases was a guy named oh yeah. That guy's name
Speaker 2: was John Bolton. He did a lot of the principal
Speaker 2: legal work of the Buckley be Balo case.
Speaker 3: He's probably guy yeah.
Speaker 1: The giant of the Federal Society, a guy named Ralph Winter.
Speaker 1: It was my professor of corporate law and at Yale
Speaker 1: and became a judge and a Pella judge and Connecticut
Speaker 1: and was a great figure, and he argued he was
Speaker 1: a great figure of the conservative legal movement, and.
Speaker 2: He's the one who won the case a question. And
Speaker 2: it's a longer story than I tell in my biography
Speaker 2: of Stan Evans, but that decision is what allowed independent
Speaker 2: expenditures to help revive Ronald Reagan's campaign in nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: six when it looked.
Speaker 3: Doomed their ad noll that was eighty four.
Speaker 2: No, this is seventy six, when it was challenging Ford
Speaker 2: and Reagan was down and about out, it was preparing
Speaker 2: to drop out, and then a bunch of people's you know,
Speaker 2: my mentor Stan Evans said hey, you know what this
Speaker 2: court decision says, we can spend money on your behalf.
Speaker 2: We're going to go do it and it'll turn around
Speaker 2: in North Carolina and became a very close race. Right.
Speaker 2: So anyway, I do think I've happening.
Speaker 1: I think with Lucretia's right that inevitably campaign finance laws,
Speaker 1: efforts to regulate politics themselves, so inevitably is used by
Speaker 1: incumbents to keep themselves in power. So any of this
Speaker 1: decentralization is just to be welcome because it'll help, it'll
Speaker 1: help reduce the incumbent advantage in these elections. One other
Speaker 1: point about the Save Act I think Lucretia mentioned it
Speaker 1: is I don't think the Save Act would apply to
Speaker 1: these California races because the Constitution's election Clause, which the
Speaker 1: Congress is acting under, only applies to federal elections. So
Speaker 1: states are allowed. You know, California is allowed to right
Speaker 1: screw up.
Speaker 2: It's right.
Speaker 1: That's why we have this crazy jungle primary where you're allowed.
Speaker 1: I mean, Congress couldn't overrule that because that applies if
Speaker 1: they could overrule it as applies to election of federal officers.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to like the state governor, to
Speaker 1: state legislators, to the mayor here in San Francisco, you know,
Speaker 1: the state's allowed to screw up its elections as much
Speaker 1: as it once. There's no the election clause doesn't cover it.
Speaker 4: Well, true enough, but what about the fact that that
Speaker 4: would mean having two entirely separate electoral systems going on
Speaker 4: and eventually what I mean, okay, this time it doesn't, well, no,
Speaker 4: because you've got in November, you'll have federal elections, So
Speaker 4: you're going to have two separate electoral systems to elect
Speaker 4: your members of Congress's Senate, and you're.
Speaker 3: President and then you're I mean, I know that it's
Speaker 3: done on city councils. There are city councils that allow
Speaker 3: that allow illegals to vote.
Speaker 1: It's just that Congress can't. Congress can't regulate the state
Speaker 1: of options even if they're used. You know, the process
Speaker 1: is the same for the.
Speaker 2: Well. But also I mean, I mean, does this mean
Speaker 2: you're gonna like some parts of the bout are not
Speaker 2: going to be counted first? I mean that just seems
Speaker 2: like a codal god awful mess to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Administratively, it would be a pain in the neck,
Speaker 1: and most states would probably just conform to the federal standards,
Speaker 1: but they don't have to.
Speaker 3: Again, I totally get it.
Speaker 2: All right, let's let's have another quick break for a
Speaker 2: sponsor and we'll be right back. Oh. I did mention
Speaker 2: the Obama Library opening and that thing that looks like, uh,
Speaker 2: the Guardian describe it as looking like a kling on prison.
Speaker 2: And when the Guardian is dumping on your choices, that's
Speaker 2: really something.
Speaker 1: British don't understand America, because there's no such thing as
Speaker 1: cling on prisons. Now, they don't take prisoners, they just
Speaker 1: have work camps, like in Star Trek Sex where they
Speaker 1: sent them to slave labor camps. British once another example
Speaker 1: of why we should throw off this, your guys, bizarre
Speaker 1: idolatry of the British just because of their funny.
Speaker 2: Your example, John shows why William Shatner, as much as
Speaker 2: I adore him, should never be allowed to direct a
Speaker 2: movie because he's terrible at it. But that's the subject
Speaker 2: for another.
Speaker 1: That's Star Trek five.
Speaker 3: Okay, So here's here. So here's my quick wrap up
Speaker 3: of this. And I started to tell Steve this when
Speaker 3: we were in Italy in this absolutely beautiful church. We
Speaker 3: went in so many churches that were so old and
Speaker 3: so beautiful. I don't remember which, but it reminded me
Speaker 3: of what my old professor told me many many years
Speaker 3: ago about the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism and why
Speaker 3: Protestant churches. And I spent my early years in Protestant
Speaker 3: churches with their hard benches and the you know, very
Speaker 3: plane walls, and maybe there's a maybe, you know, there's
Speaker 3: a single crew to fix somewhere, but there's certainly no
Speaker 3: beautiful artwork or any of those things, at least not
Speaker 3: in in uh newer Protestant and and his argument was
Speaker 3: this that that Protestantism, especially this sort of evangelical product,
Speaker 3: it becomes a very personalized thing. And if you're I'll
Speaker 3: try my best, and I'm going to relate it back
Speaker 3: to Obama's library. If you're in a in a you know,
Speaker 3: bare bones Protestant church, you're thinking about you. If you're
Speaker 3: in a very ornate Catholics, uh, you know, any kind
Speaker 3: of beautiful church, you're you're overtaken the awe inspiring artwork
Speaker 3: and you know all of that. So it's it's it's
Speaker 3: just a difference in perspective that one looks to versus
Speaker 3: the other. Back to the library. The reason that Obama
Speaker 3: designed that ugly monstrosity the way he did, and the
Speaker 3: reason Steve actually brought it up and said, what can
Speaker 3: we relate this to Rutalist architecture in general, is yes,
Speaker 3: you know what, we don't want people looking beyond that.
Speaker 3: We don't want people looking to beauty. We want them
Speaker 3: looking at us. And if it was a beautiful library,
Speaker 3: people would be in there talking about how, you know,
Speaker 3: the how beautiful it is and all of those. Instead
Speaker 3: who's the king of the library. It's Obama, and you're
Speaker 3: never going to forget that, because what else is there
Speaker 3: to think about if it's so damn ugly. I'm not
Speaker 3: doing a really great job of explaining it because architecture
Speaker 3: is not my thing. But you get the point that
Speaker 3: it's all a kind of narcissistic all about me and
Speaker 3: denying aesthetic beauty altogether, because aesthetic beauty takes you outside
Speaker 3: of yourself.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, just as political philosophy has disappeared from
Speaker 2: political science or least sensible ones, aesthetics, which used to
Speaker 2: be a major sub field in philosophy, has nearly vanished
Speaker 2: from academic philosophy. Why it's too subjective and unscientific. And
Speaker 2: I actually think that the what do you say, the
Speaker 2: worldview of the left, however, whichever ways you want to
Speaker 2: describe it, is connected in some level to this architectural question.
Speaker 2: So Trump in his first term without an executive order
Speaker 2: saying federal buildings should be designed on the classical model
Speaker 2: that Washingt d c. Was built out with, right, you know,
Speaker 2: very roman asque for a Greek. Biden repealed that executive
Speaker 2: order on day one. You would have thought that would
Speaker 2: have been, you know, something to do on week three,
Speaker 2: but now it was important enough for the left that
Speaker 2: they wanted to rescind that on day one, because who
Speaker 2: knows how many federal buildings were in the process of
Speaker 2: being planned. Federal courthouses are often the worst. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you paid attention to this, John, but a
Speaker 2: lot of them are very very expensive, lots of blasts
Speaker 2: and weird stuff and designed to be They look like
Speaker 2: the Obama Library in some cases. I mean, they're really
Speaker 2: really awful. So I don't know, there's this just shows
Speaker 2: you the problem is comprehensive.
Speaker 1: You guys take a long time just to say something's ugly.
Speaker 1: But I'm a fan of presidential libraries. I actually have
Speaker 1: visited a large of them. They're just a few I
Speaker 1: haven't visited. And as you say, the newer ones get
Speaker 1: uglier over time because they're the I guess the people
Speaker 1: who plan these museums, and they're usually archives as well.
Speaker 1: I tend to be taken by, you know, the latest
Speaker 1: architectural feds. I liked the one, for example, the more
Speaker 1: traditional ones. For example, you go to FDRs, which I
Speaker 1: don't think is probably a lot of visitors. It's basically
Speaker 1: is how the house he was living. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: there's like another building that's the archive, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: you would never mention it's not meant to make an
Speaker 1: architectural statement or the other ones I mean, for example,
Speaker 1: Eisenhowers I think is similar. It's not some grand architectural
Speaker 1: statement in Abilene, Kansas. But then you get to more
Speaker 1: resents like Clinton's, which if you go to Little Road
Speaker 1: is like it's like a l upside down and it yeah,
Speaker 1: gets along the river and it kind of sticks out
Speaker 1: over the river and people, I just don't know this
Speaker 1: true joke that where he's starting to do is bridge.
Speaker 1: You remember his phrase was building a bridge to the
Speaker 1: twenty first century. I'm sure Clinton wishes he didn't cross
Speaker 1: that bridge actually now all the trouble they're in, but
Speaker 1: it's unfinished, like a lot of things that they did, right,
Speaker 1: it's like not even close to halfway across that river. Right,
Speaker 1: maybe they had some grandiose plan to put a bridge
Speaker 1: or across the bridge over the whole thing. Another I
Speaker 1: don't know if the Obama administration will have this problem
Speaker 1: with their museum. But another just great tidbit about going
Speaker 1: to the Clinton Library and museum. I did a debate
Speaker 1: there at the library, and so I got to take
Speaker 1: a tour with the curator of the museum. And the
Speaker 1: first thing he says, when you need hi, miss, he says,
Speaker 1: before you even ask, I'm going to tell you we
Speaker 1: don't have it.
Speaker 2: Oh the blue dress, right yeah, And he says.
Speaker 1: Every single person comes as where's the blue dress?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Then it's interesting, he said, John, you're a lawyer. You
Speaker 1: know where the dress is, don't you. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I guess right, because it's evidence in a criminal trial.
Speaker 1: And so after the trial's over, you give it back
Speaker 1: to the owner. So Nicolowski must have this stress. And
Speaker 1: I was like, I can't wait till she puts it
Speaker 1: up on eBay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. Oh what I would sell for
Speaker 2: a lot, wouldn't it? All right?
Speaker 3: Let's wait, wait, wait, before you go, I just want
Speaker 3: to make one further point about the left and ugliness.
Speaker 3: I this is not lookism. This is I think that
Speaker 3: the the the human equivalent of the Obama Library is
Speaker 3: your average leftist. I'm at the pharmacist the other day.
Speaker 3: I'm standing beside behind these two people, and one's a man,
Speaker 3: one's a woman, barely barely capable of noticing that covered
Speaker 3: in tattoos. Their hair is shaved up to hear both
Speaker 3: of them, huge gauges, you know, making their ear lobes
Speaker 3: this big multiple you know this, and that purple hair
Speaker 3: or no more like truce hair. And you know you
Speaker 3: could not have made yourself uglier if you tried.
Speaker 2: Well wait a minute, okay, no, you really.
Speaker 3: Couldn't overweight dumpy the clothes they were wearing, and they couldn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was weird. You stood up.
Speaker 3: The clothes they were wearing were designed to be ugly,
Speaker 3: like they had holes in them and they had runs,
Speaker 3: and I was just standing there sort of in awe
Speaker 3: about you know, some of this stuff is expensive, like
Speaker 3: lots of tattoos. That's expensive.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, now that you say you couldn't make yourself uglier,
Speaker 2: have you seen Jane Fonda lately?
Speaker 3: Now, Oh, Eugene Fonda is.
Speaker 2: Just a freak now, I mean she's approaching Michael Jackson
Speaker 2: levels of freakishness and all the look. She's been getting
Speaker 2: debt and fender work done for forty fifty years, the
Speaker 2: Collier Horowitz book about her hazard from you know, forty
Speaker 2: years ago. But lately she just had so much facial work.
Speaker 2: I get it that women want to preserve their looks
Speaker 2: as they age.
Speaker 3: That's working toward beauty, not against it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but but but yes, but the impulse to do
Speaker 2: what she's been doing to herself isn't that connected idiologically
Speaker 2: the same phenomenon we're talking about with the Obama Library,
Speaker 2: the conquest of nature? Right, okay, yeah, yeah right, And
Speaker 2: it's just it's astounding to me. I mean, what, she
Speaker 2: looks much worse now if she let herself age more naturally,
Speaker 2: I'll put it that way, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tough. Trust, it's tough.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: One last to look in the mirror and see those wrinkles.
Speaker 2: But one last footnote from where we kind of began, John,
Speaker 2: I think, are you still nominally episcopalian? John? Why? What?
Speaker 1: Model?
Speaker 2: Nominal? Nominal? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I am.
Speaker 2: Why because because you know, the nineteen seventy nine Prayer book,
Speaker 2: which was very controversial, because replace the twenty eight prayer
Speaker 2: book that was much more classical. It has as one
Speaker 2: of its youth buristic prayers what has long been known
Speaker 2: as the Star Trek prayer. Do you not know this? No,
Speaker 2: here's how this is the it's one of the collects.
Speaker 2: It's it's eucharistic prayer. See in the prayer book. Here's
Speaker 2: a little of it. You'll see why. It's called the
Speaker 2: star Trek prayer. God of all Power, Ruler of the universe,
Speaker 2: You are worthy of glory and praise Lord to you,
Speaker 2: forever and ever. At your command, all things came to be,
Speaker 2: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxy, suns, the planets
Speaker 2: in their courses, and this fragile Earth are island home.
Speaker 2: It starts to sound like an Anthony Kennedy opinion.
Speaker 1: This is not book in the Book of common it is.
Speaker 2: I'm not making it in some kind of immense it's
Speaker 2: and it's in right to eucharistic prayer. See you can
Speaker 2: look it up. As they say, Oh, I know it's pretty.
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone uses it, but it's there. And
Speaker 2: all right, all right, quick break and we'll we'll get
Speaker 2: out with a few words about the Supreme Court. Since
Speaker 2: as usual we have run long, but this commercial break
Speaker 2: will not run long. Don't go away. Well, it's been
Speaker 2: another busy week of the Supreme Court. But I think
Speaker 2: we want to hold a lot of stuff until the
Speaker 2: term ends here at the end of the month or
Speaker 2: early July, as it's been doing lately. I did think
Speaker 2: the best article I read this week was Paul Marino
Speaker 2: of Hillsdale College, who's a historian there. I've never met him,
Speaker 2: but I's written some really good stuff in an article
Speaker 2: on law and liberty. That was a review of the
Speaker 2: Sarah Isger book, which is what the Last Branch Standing.
Speaker 2: That's she's getting lots of press and everybody's falling all
Speaker 2: over how great it is. And I'm gonna skip over it.
Speaker 2: For the most part. I think it's overdone. For one thing,
Speaker 2: Lucretia Sarah Is I don't know her, but she does
Speaker 2: a podcast with David French, and that's all you need
Speaker 2: to know, right, I mean.
Speaker 3: Okay, but come on, what is it with people that
Speaker 3: think they have to be scatological in what purports to
Speaker 3: be a scholarly work. I am just so tired of
Speaker 3: standing just being absolutely abandoned.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, well, well, Lucretia's referring to is some really
Speaker 2: stupid lines in the book that quotes in his review
Speaker 2: that I will skip over. I will say one thing
Speaker 2: I like about the review. So he gave me a
Speaker 2: new German word that I'd never heard before, geffousturisprudens, which
Speaker 2: he says is a jurisprudence of emotion and sentiment. The
Speaker 2: Warren Court approach, right, it goes a lot with my
Speaker 2: favorite German term I got from Albert Herschmann Velt for schlecktorer,
Speaker 2: which means world worsener, and that describes almost every progressive
Speaker 2: I like that world worsener veal for schlecturer. Look, the
Speaker 2: Marino article talks about how we really have seen I mean, okay,
Speaker 2: are the items on our minds. We have the major
Speaker 2: Questions doctrine, we repealed, the Chevron doctrine. Originalism is writing
Speaker 2: in the saddle in the various forms that it has.
Speaker 2: But he says we've now getting rid of judicial supremacy
Speaker 2: by degree. At least he thinks that's what's happening. We
Speaker 2: are abandoning the idea that the Supreme Court should be
Speaker 2: the avatar of progress in the terms that Alexander Bickel
Speaker 2: laid out in that really terrific book of his from
Speaker 2: the early seventies I think, which I dusted off after
Speaker 2: Paul's article. So what do you think is that overly
Speaker 2: brought I mean, is that really the outline of sanity
Speaker 2: at the moment from our courts or let's start with you, John,
Speaker 2: since you know I want to pull you out of
Speaker 2: the weeds, to get you up with the limbs of
Speaker 2: the trees a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well, I haven't read Sarah's book. You should realize Sarah
Speaker 1: is a kind of Well, is a Claremont a student
Speaker 1: and a fellow at one of the Claremont Institute summer programs,
Speaker 1: which is where I first met her. And she's a conservative,
Speaker 1: and I think she was writing the Trump first term.
Speaker 1: She was the press secretary for Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Speaker 1: That's how she got her star. So she's no liberal,
Speaker 1: but she is basically a journalist. And so I think
Speaker 1: Marino and other people like guess we might be expecting
Speaker 1: too much from her book because it is more, from
Speaker 1: what I can tell, a kind of journalistic account, and
Speaker 1: UH is going to praise. The main subject of what
Speaker 1: she covers is the Supreme Court. That's not no surprise.
Speaker 1: But then you know she's going to fall into the
Speaker 1: traps of the way the media covers the Supreme Court right,
Speaker 1: which is, as you say, judicial supremacy. Steve has let
Speaker 1: the dogs out as usual.
Speaker 2: It's Lucretius dogs. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, the camera is showing that the chaos. That's that's
Speaker 1: that we see in Lucretious cave that she calls us.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, there's like a puppy.
Speaker 2: Well we heard about this last week. There it is.
Speaker 2: There's a puppy.
Speaker 1: Oh what a cute dog.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, I wasn't on the podcast last week, but I
Speaker 1: did listen to that's you guys, and are Jay engaging
Speaker 1: in your self self referential Claremont cheer session? From what
Speaker 1: I could tell, Oh, there you go again, right, But
Speaker 1: just to go back to the book and the review,
Speaker 1: you know, she's just, you know, she's going to follow
Speaker 1: the conventional wisdom on the court, which is, oh, judicial
Speaker 1: supremacy is fine, and why isn't the Supreme Court and
Speaker 1: more to save America? And aren't the other branches so terrible?
Speaker 1: And we love the Supreme Court because it is the
Speaker 1: you know, the only institution that seems to be working.
Speaker 1: You'd expect her to do more. I think defending the
Speaker 1: Court is an institution from the attacks.
Speaker 2: Of the left exactly, yes, but you know I think.
Speaker 1: That, yeah, to the extent that Marino's review is corrected,
Speaker 1: it sort of slides over this very important debate that
Speaker 1: we're all familiar with about judicial supremacy versus departmentalism, which
Speaker 1: is each branch interprets and constitution for itself. You know. Again,
Speaker 1: she's writing a more journalistic account, and so we can't
Speaker 1: expect her to have delved into that important issue. But
Speaker 1: to the extent she believes in judicial supremacy, she's going
Speaker 1: to be wrong, right, Like, that's inconsistent with the original
Speaker 1: understanding and the basic structure of the Constitution.
Speaker 2: Well, you just laid your finger on a key point
Speaker 2: I want to draw Lucretia out on, which is, Look,
Speaker 2: it's pretty clear that the left's next target to delegitimize
Speaker 2: as the Supreme Court. If they can't pack it and
Speaker 2: own it, they're gonna attack it. They're already doing it.
Speaker 2: They say it's an illegitimate court. That's the phrase that
Speaker 2: they use because they don't control it. And it seems
Speaker 2: to me that a book about the last branch standing
Speaker 2: ought to have some serious arrows aimed at that problem.
Speaker 2: And I think all can gather she's really kind of
Speaker 2: dodged all that, and I think that is a failure
Speaker 2: of nerve.
Speaker 3: I think I would say she dodges it too by
Speaker 3: sort of embracing that silly nonsense about the three three three.
Speaker 3: So what I mean by that is there a three
Speaker 3: in her opinion. There's not six conservatives and three liberals.
Speaker 3: There's six excuse me, three liberals, three conservatives, and she
Speaker 3: really despises Clarence Thomas, it's obvious. And in the middle
Speaker 3: you've got the great people Kavanaugh, Roberts and what's her name,
Speaker 3: Amy Cony Barrett and are the people who care about
Speaker 3: the institution and care about preserving what I always say
Speaker 3: about John Roberts, which is he cares more about the
Speaker 3: integrity of the court than he does the integrity of
Speaker 3: the Constitution. And you know, so I get from a
Speaker 3: call it as John does a journalistic point of view,
Speaker 3: I prefer it more as a as a typical millennial
Speaker 3: political I'm going to be middle way support of point
Speaker 3: of view. Yeah, you've got to overturn all of those
Speaker 3: horrible things that the war in court did. You don't
Speaker 3: have a choice that you would do it slowly, that
Speaker 3: you would do it incrementally. It's it's absolutely fine, But
Speaker 3: you know, I just it's it's it's really awful that
Speaker 3: something like that is becoming such a you know, causleb
Speaker 3: for everyone. Because I guess I should write it. A
Speaker 3: better book needs to be written.
Speaker 2: All right, So I want while you queue up your
Speaker 2: Babylon bees, to take us to the end. Do you
Speaker 2: see some questions in the chat? Is the new dog
Speaker 2: named Baron like Baron von Richtover or Baron after the
Speaker 2: b e r e and the No?
Speaker 1: No, of course, Lucretia named it after President Trump's son.
Speaker 3: No, no, I didn't name it President. I didn't name
Speaker 3: it because it's really not my dog. It's my dog,
Speaker 3: my son's dog. And he named it Baron b e
Speaker 3: r E. N Oh, yeah from the silk. I can't
Speaker 3: even say the word, much less to spell it.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: And he had a different name in mind, but some
Speaker 3: sort of wolf dog, but it was too hard to say,
Speaker 3: and it ended up sounding like we were calling.
Speaker 2: Him wan oh bayorn Byorn was the was the big
Speaker 2: sort of wolf bear character in the Hobbit.
Speaker 3: I think, I think, I don't know, I'm not I
Speaker 3: am not the expert, so anyway, so he's But I
Speaker 3: have one quick thing for everybody who's followed my dog
Speaker 3: life Kaiser, who's about one hundred one hundred and five
Speaker 3: pounds very you know, stuck and is scary looking. That's
Speaker 3: my dog at this age weighed eight pounds. This is
Speaker 3: a dog from the same line of German shepherds. He
Speaker 3: had his eight week and so it would be not
Speaker 3: he was nine weeks old. At his appointment yesterday with
Speaker 3: the vet. He weighs eighteen pounds. Oh he's going to
Speaker 3: be huge. Oh boy, I could barely pick him up
Speaker 3: because he weighs eighteen pounds at nine weeks old. So anyway, sorry,
Speaker 3: and he's grown two pounds since we've had him in
Speaker 3: a week.
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, got some bees, I.
Speaker 3: Do I do much sorry about that for people who
Speaker 3: for all our Muslims listeners out there, I apologize, not really, Okay.
Speaker 3: California announces they have finished counting the votes and Ronald
Speaker 3: Reagan has won the nineteen sixty six governors.
Speaker 2: I like that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I know. There's a lot of good ones.
Speaker 3: I'll keep it short. Sixty minutes begin search for new
Speaker 3: pompous blowhard. That was one of my favorites. Uh kure
Speaker 3: Starmer warns uk about rise of murder murderer phobia. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I can't even say it, Grandplatt, and we didn't talk
Speaker 3: about it much. It'll be interesting to see how this
Speaker 3: thing all falls out. I do want to mention that
Speaker 3: I think that the Times story really was an attempt
Speaker 3: to uh A, get ahead of everything. But b they
Speaker 3: are pushing a certain pushing for a certain uh part
Speaker 3: of the electorate that that is not bothered by the
Speaker 3: fact that this guy is just a vile scumbag of
Speaker 3: a human.
Speaker 2: You're talking about, Graham Platina.
Speaker 3: Now, oh sorry, So yeah, I'm looking at it. That's
Speaker 3: my I apologize. Graham Platner reassures voters that there are
Speaker 3: probably only fourteen or fifteen more horrific revelations to come.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know it's bad. I'll end it with this,
Speaker 3: just when this one's just for John Silton pleads guilty,
Speaker 3: sentenced to five year imprisonment at SeaWorld, and he's sitting
Speaker 3: on a rock with a bunch of Walruses.
Speaker 2: What's so bad about Sueworld?
Speaker 3: Nothing bad about it. He'd probably be happy to be
Speaker 3: hanging out with the Walruses at SeaWorld if he does
Speaker 3: actually get those sixty month in jail, he won't I
Speaker 3: don't think. But anyway, I'm done.
Speaker 1: Okay, always drink your whiskey, neat buy more books than
Speaker 1: Steve your new sign.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, We'll just do a generic one for now
Speaker 2: because I'm behind on everything. You've been listening to Three
Speaker 2: Whiskey Happy Hour. We thank our sponsors at the Civitas Institute,
Speaker 2: where we're all three of us happy fellows. Now. We
Speaker 2: appreciate our hosts at Ricochet for hosting and producing our podcast,
Speaker 2: and we'll be back next week. We hope we'll be
Speaker 2: scattered again around the world, it turns out, with another
Speaker 2: edition of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, and we're going
Speaker 2: to go out at the end of the month with
Speaker 2: a big Supreme Court roundup. So for that, enjoy your weekend, everybody.
Speaker 2: Ricochet joined the conversation.