Speaker 1: Well, Whiskey coming game, pay money, Molly, Oh Whiskey, don't
Speaker 1: you Leave Me?
Speaker 2: From Powerline blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot Com.
Speaker 2: This is the Three Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders
Speaker 2: Steve Hayward, John You and power Lines International Woman of
Speaker 2: Mystery Lucretia.
Speaker 1: Has gotta giving. Let that whiskey bloon where you're being
Speaker 1: in loud down in loon. Well, Hi everybody, and welcome
Speaker 1: to what is in fact a very special holiday midweek
Speaker 1: edition of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour. Uh if you
Speaker 1: listened last weekend, we weren't able to get together, but
Speaker 1: now we are here midweek and I am joined as
Speaker 1: always been, the obstreperous John You and the only irascible Lucretiev.
Speaker 1: I call you eppers John, because I am working on
Speaker 1: a reply I keep getting diverted to your latest entry
Speaker 1: in our Natural Laws series on Substack.
Speaker 3: I thought you'd just given up by now.
Speaker 4: No I knew you were going to say that it's
Speaker 4: been months, it's been months, weeks, whatever it's been.
Speaker 1: But also there's some there's some fresh new outrages from you, John,
Speaker 1: which will will turn to you presently. But first of all,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons we couldn't get together is you know,
Speaker 1: you were traveling back and forth from Zurich. Supposedly I
Speaker 1: alleged you are really hunting down mcribs.
Speaker 4: But did you really go to Zurich? And what did
Speaker 4: you say there? And I think I have a hint,
Speaker 4: it's what's in your article for Cimitas. Am I right
Speaker 4: about that?
Speaker 3: Actually this was different. So I went to Zurich to
Speaker 3: participate in a conference pulled together by something called the
Speaker 3: Global Liberty Institute, which was set up by Scott Atlas
Speaker 3: at the Hoover Institution, who was one of the great
Speaker 3: critics of the COVID show downs, and so he he
Speaker 3: had us to do a panel on civil liberties during
Speaker 3: the COVID emergency, which I've written. Yes, I mean, so,
Speaker 3: the one interesting thing I think a lot of people
Speaker 3: in the world don't know about is that Switzerland didn't
Speaker 3: lock down very long, and so there's actually a lot
Speaker 3: of interesting comparative data. I think Sweden also, So you
Speaker 3: look at Sweden and Switzerland compared to the United States,
Speaker 3: and they I think Switzerland was like that lockdown for
Speaker 3: just like three weeks maybe, and then their economy fully
Speaker 3: reopened and they had no worse outcomes in terms of
Speaker 3: public health than we did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 5: Sweden was much much better.
Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, and Sweden was better. Yeah right, absolutely, So,
Speaker 3: I mean the evidence is now in. I think that
Speaker 3: now there's all kinds of things you got to do
Speaker 3: about the statistics because a Swiss population is different, and
Speaker 3: all kinds of stuff like that. But it really shows
Speaker 3: you what a huge mistake it was to follow. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know the views of doctor Fauci and all the
Speaker 3: other science you know, technocracy and that Scott Atless and
Speaker 3: Jay Bichario right all along.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now, mister science, to you, John Well, I have
Speaker 1: to say that, you know, we're big Scott Atlas fans,
Speaker 1: Lucretian and I had Scott on for podcast one time
Speaker 1: when you were not available. But I have to say
Speaker 1: global liberty is almost an oxymoron.
Speaker 4: I think just.
Speaker 1: Getting back to the old principles that liberty is vindicated
Speaker 1: at the nation state level, which will bring us to
Speaker 1: your article presently.
Speaker 4: But I don't agree.
Speaker 1: I mean, I get why they're doing it, naming it that,
Speaker 1: but I just want to I just want to put
Speaker 1: in that point that normally I leave lucretia to be
Speaker 1: punctilious about how we use these terms.
Speaker 5: Right, Okay, So before you go on with substance here,
Speaker 5: I just want to tell you John, John kind of
Speaker 5: got a little mixed up on the time and was
Speaker 5: unavailable to start at our scheduled time. And in the
Speaker 5: meantime I finished an entire bottle of scott Watch and
Speaker 5: I'm on the second one and that's.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, yeah, bottle. Let's see it. Well, I didn't
Speaker 3: Steve get you, Steve, get your camera ready, because I got.
Speaker 5: For the camera. I get a better thing for camera.
Speaker 5: I have a new I have a better one. Because
Speaker 5: can you see it? This is.
Speaker 4: It's the it's not focusing in very well? Oh there
Speaker 4: it is. Okay, hold on a second. That is the
Speaker 4: maybe it is that is the that's the kind of tower.
Speaker 4: Oh come on, John, that.
Speaker 1: Is the Knokotomy tower. Advent calendar. That is Hans Screwber
Speaker 1: descending down to know it's fine, it's working fine, okay, yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, really the calendar is an event calendar. Yes, it's wonderful.
Speaker 5: So today is the seventeenth on the Advent. Yes, So anyway, John,
Speaker 5: it's your fault if I'm over the top because you
Speaker 5: were a little bit delayed.
Speaker 3: What about all the other podcast episodes, That's not your fault.
Speaker 3: I do for those.
Speaker 4: I'm knocking back some talent.
Speaker 5: Actually, they have three whiskies. I had the one I finished,
Speaker 5: then this fourteen year old, and then just in case
Speaker 5: you I always get accused of not being an American enough.
Speaker 5: And this is a This one I just opened is
Speaker 5: actually aged in bourbon barrels. But this one, I don't
Speaker 5: know if I've ever had this before. You can't see
Speaker 5: it now. It's Hoot and young you guys know who
Speaker 5: that is.
Speaker 3: No, it is.
Speaker 5: It is Hoot, the real Hoot from black Hawk Down
Speaker 5: And he has this is his all right, teen year
Speaker 5: old barrel proof bourbon. And he also, I guess, sells cigars,
Speaker 5: but I'm not much of a cigar.
Speaker 3: Well, it's just like those guys who sell the coffee.
Speaker 3: I can't remember what it's called, like fifteen coffee.
Speaker 4: Black rifle coffee.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why didn't they just call it ar fifteen coffee?
Speaker 3: And anything I don't get is these drones in New Jersey.
Speaker 3: Everyone's freaking out. I understand, Like I grew up in
Speaker 3: that part of the world. I can't believe that these
Speaker 3: drones flying over overhead, that people just aren't shooting down
Speaker 3: with the AR fifteens. I were like, how are they
Speaker 3: really own?
Speaker 5: AR fifteen's are not allowed there.
Speaker 3: New Jersey in Pennsylvania they are. We can shoot them by.
Speaker 5: Them over Arizona and see what happens.
Speaker 3: I know. This is why I don't understand people how
Speaker 3: people not shot these down. Ukrainians shoot them down all
Speaker 3: the time.
Speaker 1: I have some theories, a couple of theories about the
Speaker 1: drones that I want to want to put up second, well,
Speaker 1: except that we're all teed up for John's article, because
Speaker 1: since you mentioned Diehard and John mcclan, I want to
Speaker 1: say John, to you, welcome to the party pal as
Speaker 1: the client says in the movie, because you sent to
Speaker 1: us your article for the Cimatas Institute, their brand new site.
Speaker 4: By the way, it looks very nice on what's this thing.
Speaker 1: Called Challenges Global Challenges to American Constitutionalism?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Yes, And I'm all for this because I'm thinking, yeah,
Speaker 1: but then you know what happened, John is about five
Speaker 1: paragraphs in both Lucretian and I started to choke because
Speaker 1: what it reveals is is you're not simply a positivist,
Speaker 1: you're also a closet progressive.
Speaker 3: No law.
Speaker 4: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't want to nit pick too much, except
Speaker 1: the you have a paragraph that includes the sentence, and
Speaker 1: you talk about some of those new deal in earlier
Speaker 1: cases like Hammer vy Dagenheart that was the child labor case.
Speaker 1: And then check your poultry a nine zero decision, by
Speaker 1: the way, that's still good luck. And then your next
Speaker 1: sentence is constitutional law had failed to keep up with
Speaker 1: the demands of the twentieth century.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, with no evidence whatsoever.
Speaker 1: What I mean that seems to me like you somebody
Speaker 1: got into your computer and hacked you and put in
Speaker 1: some unsound ideas.
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean, I think the circumstances changed, and so
Speaker 3: I think the court was too narrow.
Speaker 1: Well, stay, commerce, let me let me give you.
Speaker 3: Well, that's why they had the confrontation, because they they
Speaker 3: constricted the government's powers too much. I'm not saying they
Speaker 3: should have said they've done now, which is the powers
Speaker 3: are limitless. Yeah, well, that means go too far in
Speaker 3: trying to keep it to pre industrial revolution.
Speaker 1: Let me get your first sentence of that paragraph out
Speaker 1: for listeners, because I think it's equally important. You said,
Speaker 1: the political branches and the judiciary reached a confrontation over
Speaker 1: the constitution because the existing doctrine could not grapple the
Speaker 1: effects of economic and social nationalization.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: I think that is a problematic formulation. I understand what's
Speaker 1: behind it. But look, uh yeah, Okay, you were partially
Speaker 1: redeem yourself by saying it's gone too far. I always
Speaker 1: liked old Joe Sobrand's line about just imagine what Stalin
Speaker 1: could have done if only he'd had a commerce clause
Speaker 1: because the commerce claus how's everything these days?
Speaker 4: But look, I mean, I.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get nipicking abut particular decisions. But
Speaker 1: like your view on Lockner, which sadly Lucretia agrees with,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid I think you're way too making way too
Speaker 1: many concessions to the progressive premises of the way the
Speaker 1: constitutional law went.
Speaker 4: That's all.
Speaker 5: I just want to be a little more serious than that.
Speaker 5: I don't want to talk about Lockner. I don't think
Speaker 5: that's the point. The point is this, John, I don't
Speaker 5: believe that constitutional law failed to keep up with the
Speaker 5: demands of the twentieth century. I don't believe that we
Speaker 5: needed a larger, more bureaucratic, expert driven federal government to
Speaker 5: deal with the demands of the twentieth century. And what
Speaker 5: I would go one step further, then we'll give you
Speaker 5: an opportunity to defend yourself. I'll go one step further
Speaker 5: and say, if that's your premise, then your conclusion is
Speaker 5: also completely wrong that somehow we need a different constitutional
Speaker 5: law to deal with globalization. We didn't need a different
Speaker 5: constitutional law, in my opinion, to deal with nationalization, and
Speaker 5: we don't need a different one to deal with globalization
Speaker 5: because human nature hasn't changed. And the basic This is
Speaker 5: where your refusal to understand natural law gets you in trouble.
Speaker 5: The basic principles of the Constitution are rooted in their
Speaker 5: understanding of an unchanging human nature, and human beings are
Speaker 5: no different today than they were in seventeen eighty seven.
Speaker 5: That's my argument.
Speaker 3: I don't see what human nature actually has to do
Speaker 3: with my argument. It's so Here's the point is that
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court doctrine leading up through the big confrontation
Speaker 3: with FDR was that much of the economy could not
Speaker 3: be regulated by the federal government through the Commerce Clause.
Speaker 3: I just think that was mistaken. I think because the
Speaker 3: economy changed at the time of the founding. Yeahs, you
Speaker 3: know most economics, most was regional and even within a state.
Speaker 3: But by the time of the Great Depression, you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of the economy. That's what I mean, it's nationalized.
Speaker 3: Products are crossing borders.
Speaker 4: All the time.
Speaker 3: And so the Court I think was wrong in saying
Speaker 3: as it did in Hammer versus Dagonhart or are these
Speaker 3: cases that you know, we're still going to infuse the
Speaker 3: rules of the pre Industrial Revolution commerce clause when the
Speaker 3: country is stitched together into one giant market. I don't
Speaker 3: see what that has to do with human nature at all.
Speaker 3: This is just a description of the how the economy changed.
Speaker 3: May I see the commerce clause follows it. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: it's a Scott's human nature.
Speaker 5: It has everything to do with human nature. So the
Speaker 5: commerce clause, the interstate commerce clause as the founders envisioned it,
Speaker 5: leaving intrast state most commerce actually to the states to regulate.
Speaker 5: Was because they believed that closer to home was where
Speaker 5: it was necessary to make laws that dealt with things
Speaker 5: like economic issues. Tell me it, just give me one
Speaker 5: example of where it wouldn't be better for states to
Speaker 5: make laws dealing with the things happening intrast state and
Speaker 5: circumscribing to a very great extent, interstate commerce powers under Congress,
Speaker 5: because Congress has misused those powers. Congress has used those power,
Speaker 5: those specific lines in the Constitution, to grandize power to themselves,
Speaker 5: to extend it to things it was never intended to be.
Speaker 5: That's what Madison warns about in Federalist number fifty one
Speaker 5: forty seven through fifty one. That's why human nature matters,
Speaker 5: because if you give that power to Congress, it's going
Speaker 5: to abuse it, and it did. And now if you
Speaker 5: give that power to a global government, they'll abuse it,
Speaker 5: and they did.
Speaker 2: Put it.
Speaker 3: Hold on between put aside the global stuff for a second.
Speaker 3: The question is who's going to be more abusive towards
Speaker 3: the national economy, Congress or the States. Is you can't
Speaker 3: just say Congress abuses the power. If the question is
Speaker 3: do states abuse it more? I would say that the
Speaker 3: bigger threat at that time was from saying, oh, we're
Speaker 3: just going to have intrastate regulation of the economy when
Speaker 3: most products that we buy and sell right now don't
Speaker 3: come from within our same states. I would bet actually
Speaker 3: there's very few products that you buy or services that
Speaker 3: you use that involve no interstate activity at all. Right, Like,
Speaker 3: so you're you know, Lucretia's, and I guess you admitted
Speaker 3: you're in Arizona. I don't know if that, but mysterious
Speaker 3: Lucretia's in Arizona. How many products do you actually buy
Speaker 3: are wholly made and only traverse Arizona.
Speaker 5: Well, it's an unfair questioning for me because I buy
Speaker 5: a lot of things here, because I buy farm fresh
Speaker 5: and you know, that sort of thing, because I don't
Speaker 5: want I don't want the kind of crap that is
Speaker 5: sold on the national food market. But I get that
Speaker 5: your point is well taken. But my argument is this,
Speaker 5: so what if my so this is the one the
Speaker 5: famous thing I do with my students I talk about
Speaker 5: and I know I've told you this before on my
Speaker 5: my early criminal career, bootlegging margarine to my grandparents in
Speaker 5: Minnesota where they could not they could not buy margin
Speaker 5: margin in the state of Ara of Minnesota because it
Speaker 5: was a dairy state. And believe it or not, for
Speaker 5: some reason, I was not a dairy state. They grow
Speaker 5: pigs there. Anyway, we would take cases of bluebonnet margarine
Speaker 5: to my grandparents. Why they wanted it, I don't know,
Speaker 5: but that's what we did. Why because the legislature of
Speaker 5: Minnesota was was, you know, tyrannized over them. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: But guess we're no, I'm exactly saying the opposite. They
Speaker 5: knew that would happen. That's fine. We know that there's
Speaker 5: no way to get around lobbyists and protectionism, and you know,
Speaker 5: the whole argument of federalists ten but the but the
Speaker 5: beauty of a federal system is that a you could move.
Speaker 5: It's easier to change legislative policy at the state level
Speaker 5: than it is at the federal level. There's all these
Speaker 5: arguments that say you're never going to have perfection. The
Speaker 5: question is which ways better putting power in the hands
Speaker 5: of a federal government that creates a nationwide policy that
Speaker 5: nobody can get around, or allowing special interests to dominate
Speaker 5: a state government. But there are lots more alternatives to
Speaker 5: undoing the tyranny of those lobbyists or those interests at
Speaker 5: the state government than there are the national So you're.
Speaker 3: Saying we shouldn't have a unified national market in the
Speaker 3: United States. I think it's actually one of the great
Speaker 3: achievements I think the Constitution is to create a single
Speaker 3: national market where you can buy and sell products relatively
Speaker 3: free from local protectionism. I mean, that's just that is,
Speaker 3: it's not just America. That's a great benefit wherever it's
Speaker 3: been achieved. I mean, the larger than the internet sales.
Speaker 1: I'm not done.
Speaker 3: Like, the larger the market is, the more standardization you have,
Speaker 3: the better the economy will be. I'm not saying that's perfect.
Speaker 3: Obviously the federal government has used this power sometimes to
Speaker 3: go too far. But it's a bigger economic failure to
Speaker 3: have states that under my national market and favor protectionism.
Speaker 3: That's why the yearpe Union has done so well. Now
Speaker 3: they again they went too far, but when they created
Speaker 3: just a single European market, that was way better than
Speaker 3: but the constant trade flights they used to have. And
Speaker 3: I think that's true the United States too.
Speaker 1: Of course, the two examples to just give is our
Speaker 1: government going too far and the European Union government has
Speaker 1: gone too far are both powerful data points that centralized
Speaker 1: government will always go too far. Now, was the old
Speaker 1: commerce clause jurisprudence that you're criticizing here, was that an
Speaker 1: effective bulwark against it the way it would play out
Speaker 1: in cases now here. I'm a little skull by the
Speaker 1: way you're argu about a unified market. I'll just mention
Speaker 1: for listeners. That's essentially the argument of Michael Greeb is
Speaker 1: terrific but very dense book, The Upside Down Constitution, right, is,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, we have national power through the
Speaker 1: commerce clause jurisprudence, and we have given in too much
Speaker 1: to special interests in carsualization by states because we got
Speaker 1: rid of the federal common law under the what was
Speaker 1: the case Erie Railroad v.
Speaker 4: Tompkins, Right. You may or may not agree with that
Speaker 4: aspect of his argument. I don't agree with.
Speaker 3: That part of his agreement. I don't. I don'tgree with
Speaker 3: that part of his argument about the the I mean,
Speaker 3: I think that's tearing federalism national pal too far out.
Speaker 3: Was the danger that the national market is like I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm speechless again, I'm speechless, But like a national if
Speaker 3: not is one of the greatest public goods that nation
Speaker 3: states provide, why would you want to break it up?
Speaker 5: Just I don't see it that way. I don't see
Speaker 5: it that way.
Speaker 3: I mean, just it's just like a big basic thing
Speaker 3: of public economics is the broader you can make a
Speaker 3: free trade area, the better it is for the economy.
Speaker 3: I wait a minute, it's better than it was before
Speaker 3: free trade, but it was closer to free trade than
Speaker 3: was before. We don't have perfect free trade, but the
Speaker 3: unit units dates is close to. You know, it's almost
Speaker 3: as close to a pure free market as anywhere in
Speaker 3: the world. And it's been a huge fag for us.
Speaker 4: You've just double.
Speaker 3: The drones from out of space taken over already. I mean,
Speaker 3: I can't believe this.
Speaker 4: Oh, by the way, John, you're.
Speaker 3: About the benefits of a national market.
Speaker 4: You've just doubly contradicted yourself.
Speaker 1: Because, first of all, John, you and speechless should not
Speaker 1: ever go in the same sentence together, as you've just demonstrated. Second,
Speaker 1: the beauty of a unified national market is in part
Speaker 1: why the court in Hammervy Dagenhardt said, you know, we
Speaker 1: can't be striking down child labor laws. I would interfere
Speaker 1: with interstate commerce. Now I think that ruling was wrongheaded.
Speaker 1: I think the best argument so the point is is
Speaker 1: that the constitutional power was there, and the court makes
Speaker 1: mistakes sometimes. I think one of the best arguments about
Speaker 1: this was made way back in nineteen oh seven by
Speaker 1: Albert Beveridge, the smartest of the progressives, and he held
Speaker 1: forth for three days in the Senate about why child
Speaker 1: this is before Hammer. By the way, the Hammer case
Speaker 1: came up, So which is what nineteen eighteen I think,
Speaker 1: wasn't it?
Speaker 3: Or something like that, Steve, you're losing it.
Speaker 1: No, I'll get to it if you'll be patient, please.
Speaker 1: He had a whole lot of arguments, very interesting, drawing
Speaker 1: from as far back as John Marshall, from lots of
Speaker 1: particular cases on the federal and state level to argue
Speaker 1: why federal child labor restrictions were constitutional. The most powerful one,
Speaker 1: I think was the observation he says, hey, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate foreign commerce
Speaker 1: and products from foreign governments. And he points to examples
Speaker 1: of where we'd ban certain products during the yellow fever outbreak.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why that was the reason for it,
Speaker 1: but and he says, how is that power any different
Speaker 1: from a regular interstate commerce, including products made by child labor.
Speaker 1: I think that's not a bad argument. The court didn't
Speaker 1: buy it, but the arguments were there. And maybe so
Speaker 1: being a little equivocal here would have been better off
Speaker 1: if we followed those moderate progressives rather than giving into
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court in the thirties surrendering completely.
Speaker 4: No whatever you want to with that.
Speaker 3: No, No, I think, Steve, you agree with me shockingly.
Speaker 3: But look so I think, I think, but so I
Speaker 3: think some things that the Supreme Court struck down were
Speaker 3: correctly held to beyond constitutional, like say social security there's something.
Speaker 3: But the regulation of the economy as it proceeded, I
Speaker 3: would say through the fifties. I think a lot of things.
Speaker 3: We think where they went too far. We're not all
Speaker 3: blessed by the Supreme Court as part of nationalization in
Speaker 3: the thirties and forties, so they we're talking about, like,
Speaker 3: you know, basic standards. You're regulating workplace, regulating production, regulating
Speaker 3: product quality, things like things that were there. You need
Speaker 3: to have a uniform standard in the country. I think
Speaker 3: where they went too far was then the here's Steve's
Speaker 3: going to love this, the Clean Air and Clean Water
Speaker 3: Acts and the environmental Wause of the seventies. This is
Speaker 3: that's what you're the late six season seventies is when
Speaker 3: they took that commerce Clause power and then used it
Speaker 3: to try to achieve ends which were not really economic
Speaker 3: and we can we can, Everhart, we could. You know,
Speaker 3: the the great contest about this was about the sixty
Speaker 3: four Civil Rights Act because right four, So that's but
Speaker 3: that's not that's not what I'm talking I'm talking about
Speaker 3: nationalization of the economy. Lucretia's point as well, if you
Speaker 3: give the federal government or any government that kind of power,
Speaker 3: they're going to abuse it.
Speaker 5: And they did, and they did in the Civil Rights Act.
Speaker 5: Because if they had grounded civil rights, genuine civil rights
Speaker 5: legislation in the principles of the fourteenth Amendment, rather than
Speaker 5: some crappy, uh you know, third rate argument about the
Speaker 5: commerce Clause and that the heart of Atlanta Motel, if
Speaker 5: you don't let somebody who's black stay in the heart
Speaker 5: of Atlanta motel, somebody in Mississippi might not travel to Georgia,
Speaker 5: and just dumb stuff like that, just reaching making a
Speaker 5: mockery of constitutional law and the Commerce Clause for that matter.
Speaker 5: You would have been able to say it's wrong to
Speaker 5: discriminate on the basis of race, if you'd have had
Speaker 5: a court the way back into civil rights cases But
Speaker 5: that's just one example of over and.
Speaker 3: Over and over knowing that you get rid of the
Speaker 3: commerce clause because of that. That's what I do.
Speaker 5: You remember the Court saying that that you know the
Speaker 5: commerce clause. Our interpretation of the commerce clause actually trump's
Speaker 5: the Tenth Amendment, and it does.
Speaker 3: When they come into conflict, I would think.
Speaker 5: Only as defined by the Supreme Court wrongly, absolutely wrongly.
Speaker 5: I mean I grew up in a in a state
Speaker 5: where I where the drinking age was eighteen and there
Speaker 5: were on open roads there were no speed limits.
Speaker 3: That's a different clause. Was a spending clause. That's a
Speaker 3: spending clause. That's not the commerce clause. That's a spending clause.
Speaker 3: That's also.
Speaker 5: Take away.
Speaker 3: Look, the point is, I agree with you about the
Speaker 3: sixty four Act. It should have been done under Section
Speaker 3: five of the fourteenth Amendment. Right, it could have been
Speaker 3: done as where forcing civil rights through the natural place
Speaker 3: it would be. But no, the courts hadn't upheld that
Speaker 3: power at that time, so they switched it to the
Speaker 3: commerce clause. Just because that's a mistake. Yeah, But that
Speaker 3: just because that's a mistake doesn't mean logically therefore we
Speaker 3: should get rid of a national market under the Commerce clause.
Speaker 3: We wish that they didn't go too far and try
Speaker 3: to use the you know, this economic power to achieve
Speaker 3: non economic ends.
Speaker 5: I'm saying. I'm not saying you don't have a national market.
Speaker 5: What I'm saying is just to say expanse no, I
Speaker 5: just I don't think it's the good you think it is.
Speaker 5: But the expansive interpretation of the Commerce clause that embrace
Speaker 5: things like looking for versus Philburn, all the way to
Speaker 5: Heart of Atlanta versus Mottel and katsim Back and all
Speaker 5: those awful things. All of those things are of a
Speaker 5: piece where I mean, we remember before nfib versus Sibelius,
Speaker 5: the argument made by people that if the if the
Speaker 5: national government wanted to force you to broccoli, and all
Speaker 5: those stupid kinds of things, that became possible because the
Speaker 5: Court refused to recognize that the Commerce Clause was limited
Speaker 5: in its scope. That's what I would argue, not that
Speaker 5: there isn't such a thing as interstate commerce powers for Congress.
Speaker 3: Of course there is, but.
Speaker 5: The court, when you say constitution law, failed to keep
Speaker 5: up with it. They were right to reign in Congress
Speaker 5: on its expansive interpretations of the interstate Commerce clause. That's
Speaker 5: what I would argue. And I don't think you provide
Speaker 5: any any examples of where they were wrong.
Speaker 4: Well or who was wrong court?
Speaker 1: Well, the court and then by implication you John, I
Speaker 1: propose that rather than droning on about the subject and
Speaker 1: your other deficiencies, John, it seems to listenings to grow.
Speaker 4: I think we should talk about drones and come back
Speaker 4: to this later. I may.
Speaker 3: I guess your answer to drones is to let the
Speaker 3: confederates that we would allow to exist under this system
Speaker 3: that shoot at them with their own state based anti
Speaker 3: aircraft defense systems. You would also allow under this a
Speaker 3: tarcic system where all the states are free to discriminate
Speaker 3: against the federal government's powers as they like.
Speaker 4: Go ahead, Steve Well.
Speaker 1: I have two theories about the drones that are not
Speaker 1: mutually exclusive, but they're very different. One is uh a
Speaker 1: theory that has been leaking out on social media by
Speaker 1: some people who seem to be decently informed and their
Speaker 1: view as plausible, which is the drones are many of them,
Speaker 1: not all of them. Many of them are in fact
Speaker 1: US government drones that are being tested, and some of them.
Speaker 1: Some of these stories are they're being tested for a
Speaker 1: specific purpose, which is supposedly radiation detection or detection of
Speaker 1: weapons of mass destruction, and that the government is concealing
Speaker 1: this of these tests from us because they don't want
Speaker 1: to start a panic in the population. I'm skeptical of
Speaker 1: a couple of aspects of this story, but who knows.
Speaker 1: I mean, the distrust in our government is so deep
Speaker 1: that you actually saw a meme today that says it
Speaker 1: turns out that people who wore tinfoil hats turned out
Speaker 1: to be more right than people who said you need
Speaker 1: to wear masks four years ago. Sounds about right.
Speaker 5: Let me just remind you that I was one of
Speaker 5: those wearing a tinfoil hat.
Speaker 4: I know right now.
Speaker 3: Why is that in the past tense?
Speaker 5: Because I'm not wearing it at the moment.
Speaker 1: One of the odd things about these least some of
Speaker 1: the videos you've seen people post from their cell phones,
Speaker 1: is you see all these drones flying through the skies
Speaker 1: of New Jersey and elsewhere with all their lights on. Now,
Speaker 1: if I'm doing a clandestine drone from an Irandian spyship
Speaker 1: or Chinese, You're gonna have drones without lights who has lights,
Speaker 1: the people who have lights, or people with consumer drones
Speaker 1: like I have. I've flown my Dji Mayvic three pro
Speaker 1: at night. You can do that at night because you
Speaker 1: can program a consumer drone. You can now program for
Speaker 1: a route. You can also I can fly my drone
Speaker 1: five miles if I have a line of sight and
Speaker 1: which's way out of sight and I can't hear it,
Speaker 1: but I can punch one button and it flies automatically
Speaker 1: back to where I've launched it from. And you can
Speaker 1: get some pretty big consumer drones if you're willing to
Speaker 1: shell out five thousand dollars. I think some of these
Speaker 1: are pranksters. There are people who decided, you know, just
Speaker 1: all those public plus I'm gonna launch my drone at
Speaker 1: night and have some fun, and you're.
Speaker 3: Going of these people. He's like a Steve Hayward on
Speaker 3: the East Coast. We don't know.
Speaker 1: About well, I never told you my UFO punkin stories
Speaker 1: from million years ago.
Speaker 4: I can't remember if I have or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, my dad, his engineers used
Speaker 1: to prank this UFO convention out.
Speaker 4: In the California desert. This is the late sixties.
Speaker 3: No, dude, did they really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never told this story. God, there used to
Speaker 1: be a big UFO convention. I mean they get like
Speaker 1: ten thousand people would come to this remote desert location.
Speaker 1: And my dad thought it'd be fun to launch a
Speaker 1: phony UFO invasion at night. And he has engineers because
Speaker 1: my dad in those days used to have the big
Speaker 1: industrial sized tanks of helium which he used for testing
Speaker 1: some components.
Speaker 4: I forget what.
Speaker 1: So he had a supply of helium. He ragged a
Speaker 1: couple of weather balloons with lights around the bottom. Another
Speaker 1: time they did this three years in a row. Another
Speaker 1: time they did an invasion where they ran a light
Speaker 1: inside sort of party size balloons that would blink and
Speaker 1: watch these things up with you know the place.
Speaker 3: How many people your dad must have sent to a
Speaker 3: psychiatrist in the metal hospital?
Speaker 4: Oh well, you know.
Speaker 1: But look, I mean, I'm thinking, you know, this is
Speaker 1: my otherwise very staid, sober and serious dad, you know,
Speaker 1: drinking Martiniz with his engineer pals and laughing their butts off.
Speaker 1: And I got to think there's lots of people in
Speaker 1: New Jersey who said, you know, it'd be fun. I'm
Speaker 1: going to add to the chaos and confusion and fly
Speaker 1: my drone because you can't turn your lights off on on.
Speaker 1: You know, my dji is very bright. You can see
Speaker 1: it from a long way off that night when the
Speaker 1: lights are blinking.
Speaker 3: It's in New Jersey where wore the World's exactly the
Speaker 3: great Great Wells.
Speaker 1: That's right, that was a documentary, right, Lakehurst, New Jersey.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised that both things are true. There's
Speaker 1: some funny business going on with somebody testing drones and
Speaker 1: then a.
Speaker 3: Bunch force base and location in New Jersey.
Speaker 4: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: Probably one to approve your theory.
Speaker 1: But supposedly Donald Trump has canceled his weekend plans to
Speaker 1: go to his country club in Westminster, New Jersey or whatever, Betminster,
Speaker 1: So who knows.
Speaker 5: I don't think one, go ahead, go ahead. I was
Speaker 5: just gonna tell you I have a different one. I
Speaker 5: don't necessarily believe it's true, but I think it's fit.
Speaker 5: It's a fitting lucretia conspiracy theory that it's actually the
Speaker 5: because the Biden administration has been so duplicitous, disingenuous, downright
Speaker 5: stupid in their responses to this. I mean, John Kirby,
Speaker 5: I know people who used to have respect for them
Speaker 5: for him. I never did, but that everybody's lost respect
Speaker 5: for John Kirby now because he's just a moarn. But anyway,
Speaker 5: my theory is this, John, and I told Steve before
Speaker 5: you came on that I went back and listened to
Speaker 5: our podcast before the one right before the election, and
Speaker 5: all three of us, in different in different degrees, predicted
Speaker 5: that Trump would win. You predicted by the tiniest margin.
Speaker 5: I predicted by a landslide. Steve was, of course in
Speaker 5: the squishy middle. But we all predicted that there would
Speaker 5: be riding on the left when Trump won, and You
Speaker 5: predicted the more likely to be the case the closer
Speaker 5: the election was. There's been none. And my theory is
Speaker 5: this is a syop on the part of the Biden
Speaker 5: administration to get people all freaked out and be willing
Speaker 5: to In fact, my orchis did ask say, I have
Speaker 5: no authority from Congress to do anything about these drones,
Speaker 5: so I can't do anything. So I think it's a
Speaker 5: sy op by the Biden administration to try to amass
Speaker 5: get granted another big dose of power before they actually
Speaker 5: have to turn the administration over to Trump. What they
Speaker 5: do with that power. I don't know exactly know, but
Speaker 5: there's my conspiracy theory, which I only partly disavow. What
Speaker 5: do you think where's the John I don't know what.
Speaker 3: I don't know what power they would get that they
Speaker 3: already have. I don't think it's the Iranians because, like
Speaker 3: right now, the last thing they want to do is
Speaker 3: right to offend us in any way and give us
Speaker 3: any excuse to bomb them. They are right, they are
Speaker 3: so worried about what Trump was going to do to them.
Speaker 3: The last thing they would do is fly drones. And
Speaker 3: they're right right, fly drones near Trump's country club. Ye argument, yeah, no, No,
Speaker 3: that's yeah. So I don't think I don't think Biden
Speaker 3: and his administration are really gonna benefit at all from this.
Speaker 3: If anything, they look at they're looking worse and worse.
Speaker 3: So I think it's a combination. I agree with Steve. Actually,
Speaker 3: I think it's a combination of you know, research and
Speaker 3: development doesn't even have to be military. It could be
Speaker 3: you know, perhaps it's civilian corporations doing it, and then
Speaker 3: a lot of pranksters in New Jersey who are putting
Speaker 3: up drones and screwing around with people now, yeah, you
Speaker 3: know there wasn't. It wasn't. New Jersey Congressman is like, oh,
Speaker 3: there's some kind of Iranian mother shift right coast of
Speaker 3: New Jersey. Would I mean, I wish that were true,
Speaker 3: because then we would have the excuse to sink the
Speaker 3: Iranian Navy. I mean, I just I just don't think
Speaker 3: the Iranians are that would risk something that would.
Speaker 5: Here's a major air Force base in New Jersey. It
Speaker 5: used to be Fort Dix. It's now joint based McGuire
Speaker 5: Dix Lakehurst, and it is a major air Force base
Speaker 5: in New Jersey.
Speaker 3: Just so you know, maybe it's the air Force testing drones.
Speaker 5: Maybe you had no.
Speaker 4: Sense, but you would think that, you know, they would Okay,
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: But here's my only answer to what John said earlier.
Speaker 5: What Majorcis was talking about actually is true. Because drones
Speaker 5: are considered aircraft. It is illegal for state, localities, local
Speaker 5: law enforcement, state law enforcement, really most agencies, even of
Speaker 5: the DoD to shoot them down because they're considered civilian aircraft.
Speaker 5: I actually lived next to the largest drone training base,
Speaker 5: and I mean drones are over my house more often
Speaker 5: than they are over New Jersey. We just don't think
Speaker 5: anything of it because it's very, very common, because they're
Speaker 5: the largest, the largest landing strip in the whole country
Speaker 5: is located a few miles away from my house, and
Speaker 5: so there's a lot of that activity going on here.
Speaker 5: But yeah, nobody worries about it, and we don't shoot
Speaker 5: them down here and believe it or not, even though
Speaker 5: we could it before.
Speaker 1: To be continue with that little interlude, I do want
Speaker 1: to return to the law a little bit, not the
Speaker 1: deep dish constitutional law, but two things in the news
Speaker 1: in the last few days. One, John is, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you're following this, this ABC News settlement with
Speaker 1: Trump's libel suit where they're going to pay, uh, they're
Speaker 1: going to I love this. ABC News is going to
Speaker 1: be the anchored donor to the Trump Presidential Library. They're
Speaker 1: gonna cough up fifteen million dollars to settle this suit.
Speaker 1: And well, the first pass of this is ABC's worried
Speaker 1: about what discovery, which they've been ordered to do or
Speaker 1: had been ordered to do by judge, would reveal in
Speaker 1: terms of the malice standard, you know, the old New
Speaker 1: York Times versus settlement is you know, I think they
Speaker 1: could find lots of malicious uh emails and things, right, and.
Speaker 3: That's what almost that's what almost brought down Fox News
Speaker 3: voting machine companies. Yeah, and I got Discovery and then
Speaker 3: it was a disaster for Fox.
Speaker 1: And once you'd gone through Discovery, the settlement them mount
Speaker 1: went up to what seven hundred and fifty million dollars,
Speaker 1: So maybe ABC News got off cheaply.
Speaker 4: However, that's what I was going to say.
Speaker 3: I don't know why Trump let them off the hook. Well,
Speaker 3: because they just did something which was factually untrue. They
Speaker 3: said Trump had raped a woman, right, and the court
Speaker 3: had found no, there's nobody found. There was no prosecution
Speaker 3: for rape. So it was like actually untrue and it
Speaker 3: was everyone because it was a judicial decision. So I
Speaker 3: think Trump had them, you know, right, why let them off?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 4: Also, I mean ABC is now owned by Disney, and.
Speaker 1: Look, I mean we know this going back to the
Speaker 1: Westmoreland suit against CBS forty years ago.
Speaker 4: Now you can draw these suits out for years.
Speaker 1: I mean, if Disney and ABC wanted to, they could
Speaker 1: make this case take five six years to finally get
Speaker 1: to trial. And they decided to settle quickly before Discovery.
Speaker 1: I wonder if ABC in addition to worrying about their
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities in discovery, was worrying that this case was going
Speaker 1: to reopen New York Times versus Sullivan and given the
Speaker 1: hints of people like Justice Thomas that maybe it's time
Speaker 1: to revisit the standards there, the entire elite media is
Speaker 1: terrified that they really be under assault if that the court,
Speaker 1: so they want to prevent the case from being heard,
Speaker 1: the same way the civil rights groups tried to get
Speaker 1: forty Amendment cases from being heard. You remember those cases
Speaker 1: twenty thirty years ago with the woman in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: Sharon Taxman, and the NAAS settled with hers so she
Speaker 1: wouldn't bring her case to the Supreme Court for racial discrimination.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if that's in their mind. And but by
Speaker 1: the way, Trump Scott lawsuits filed apparently against CNN and
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other people for saying the same
Speaker 1: things that George Stephanopoulos said. So I don't know that's
Speaker 1: my conspiracy theory is there? The media is terrified that
Speaker 1: New York Times v. Sullivan might fall.
Speaker 3: I don't think they're terrified of it. I mean, there
Speaker 3: are some justices clearly who'd like to re examine it.
Speaker 3: But I think they're taking just the point I made earlier.
Speaker 3: They're taking their cue from when they saw what happened
Speaker 3: to Fox. You don't even you know, it even need
Speaker 3: to get to trial for the reputation of your network
Speaker 3: to be destroyed depending on what's in discovery. And look
Speaker 3: at what Fox so in the you know, the case
Speaker 3: against Fox. I mean, you got some emails and texts
Speaker 3: back and forth between Fox personalities like Tucker Carlson, Right,
Speaker 3: he's probably the biggest figure that was brought down by this,
Speaker 3: you know, basically making fun. They're saying, you know, inappropriate
Speaker 3: things about Trump or about Fox leadership. Really but I
Speaker 3: think ABC, if you got the texts and emails with ABC,
Speaker 3: CBS and NBC people, it would be far worse because
Speaker 3: it would be about how much they hate Trump, how
Speaker 3: Trump's are racist. It would provide all the evidence of
Speaker 3: malicious intent that Trump would need to win, but it
Speaker 3: would just destroy the reputation of the networks. So I
Speaker 3: don't I think, like New York Times songs so far
Speaker 3: down you know, down the road, they're just they just
Speaker 3: saw what a little thing happened with Fox, and it really,
Speaker 3: you know, really wrong.
Speaker 5: Doesn't probably likely to be much worse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think Fox is Trump friendly. Thought, what
Speaker 3: do you think the discovery would show about what right
Speaker 3: these networks are actually antagonistic with Trump? What they might
Speaker 3: be saying in emails and texts.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: My favorite part of it is, though there's a story
Speaker 5: just on from the New York Post about Stephanopoulos is
Speaker 5: fear us. He is demoralized, he's not speaking to anyone,
Speaker 5: he has no friends left, He doesn't want them to
Speaker 5: do this settlement. He still believes that everything he said
Speaker 5: is true. I mean, these people are just Steve says
Speaker 5: it all the time. They believe that their version of
Speaker 5: the truth is truth, and he can't believe nor you know,
Speaker 5: all the commentary by the leftist media about this whole
Speaker 5: case is is it's appalling. It's laughably appalling, but appalling.
Speaker 5: You know, Oh my god, this journalistic icon has been
Speaker 5: brought down by god icon. The guy is a bimbo eruption,
Speaker 5: media's hack. That's that was his claim to fame, is
Speaker 5: that he put down bimbo eruptions for Bill Clinton. I mean, God,
Speaker 5: the guy's style.
Speaker 1: He's Yeah, he's deleted his Twitter account, which I think
Speaker 1: is funny.
Speaker 5: Two point three million followers. How many idiots are there
Speaker 5: out there? Right?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it could be a lot, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's pretty funny. If you go to the ABC
Speaker 1: News this Week a Twitter account, it says, ah, this
Speaker 1: is the homepage of this week on ABC hosted by then,
Speaker 1: it has uh Stephanoppels's Twitter handle still on their feet,
Speaker 1: and then you click on that and says this account's
Speaker 1: been deleted, which I think is pretty funny.
Speaker 3: You know what's odd about it too, is like he
Speaker 3: could have always said I misspoke, right, that would be okay.
Speaker 5: She said, yeah, you can't accup.
Speaker 3: Trump did lose a civil case for sexual harassment, right,
Speaker 3: but he wasn't. It wasn't rape, and he could just said, look,
Speaker 3: I just misspoke in the heat of the moment. I
Speaker 3: didn't mean anything by it, and and maybe it would
Speaker 3: have been okay. But as Linda has described me, he
Speaker 3: really thinks that Trump committed rape and wanted to stand
Speaker 3: by you know what he actually said. Then you're you
Speaker 3: deserved to lose. I mean, that's just misrepresenting what the
Speaker 3: courts found. And then then why the court found wasn't
Speaker 3: all that great? Why do you have to go to
Speaker 3: another right, go another length and say, oh, no, he
Speaker 3: committed rape when he did.
Speaker 1: By the way, you know, I didn't follow that whole
Speaker 1: story very closely because I just had other things to
Speaker 1: do and better things to do. And uh, and it
Speaker 1: was obviously a weak case. But the more I think
Speaker 1: about it, the more I think it was completely made up.
Speaker 5: Uh have you seen that woman? Well, look at Melia.
Speaker 5: I look at that when she was young. Come on,
Speaker 5: well nice.
Speaker 1: But the real telling detail to me is, now, Okay,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's Trump Tower is just down the street from
Speaker 1: Burgdorf Goodman, and you could see Trump shopping there maybe,
Speaker 1: But that the fact that he's wandering through Burgdorf Goodman
Speaker 1: and he sees her. Wait a minute, that didn't happen.
Speaker 4: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure he shopped at Bergdorff good but
Speaker 1: I think he has private tailors and all the rest
Speaker 1: of that. It's just the whole circumstances of it doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense.
Speaker 4: It's completely unbelievable.
Speaker 5: Claim to be wearing a dress that hadn't even been
Speaker 5: made yet, on and on and on. I mean's just
Speaker 5: believe all women.
Speaker 1: That's all women, well, including believe all women, Lucretia just
Speaker 1: change gears again.
Speaker 4: Do you believe that there's a justice of the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court who all this time was a secret Broadway actress
Speaker 4: who knew.
Speaker 5: Okay, So, John, I have to ask you. My tweet
Speaker 5: about this was Congress needs to impeach her immediately for
Speaker 5: her lack of dignity, her appalling bad taste, and you know,
Speaker 5: for being part of this trite. There aren't enough words
Speaker 5: to describe how bad that Broadway play is. Worse than
Speaker 5: the Malan A Trip to the Tempest. John, Oh God,
Speaker 5: that was horrible, because well, you know what this one is. Sorry, Steve,
Speaker 5: I have to tell him what it is, and then
Speaker 5: I'll be quietly.
Speaker 4: I was going to ask you to just tell listeners
Speaker 4: what we're talking about.
Speaker 5: In case Teaingy decided to go on Broadway and star
Speaker 5: for one night in this horrendous production of a modern
Speaker 5: interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. It's just juliette exclamation point
Speaker 5: or something stupid like that. And the plot is that
Speaker 5: Juliet doesn't die after poisoning herself and she becomes a
Speaker 5: feminist icon and her best friend is some transsexual. That's
Speaker 5: the plot. Yeah's transgender whatever you call it, some freak,
Speaker 5: some mentally ill freak. Anyway, so she stars in it
Speaker 5: for one night in just the worst I mean, remember
Speaker 5: Jill's Doctor, Jill's Christmas circus decorations. That's what this looked like.
Speaker 5: It just so atrocious. Everything about it was appallingly bad taste.
Speaker 5: Rite John. I can't even describe it what I'm describing
Speaker 5: what I was telling John about so he could frame
Speaker 5: a reference around it. Don and I and Steve while
Speaker 5: we were in Milan, not this last time, but a
Speaker 5: few times before. We're taken by our good friend who's
Speaker 5: an opera fanatic, to see The Tempest at a very
Speaker 5: famous an opera house in Milan. We were all very
Speaker 5: excited about it, The Tempest. It was an American libretto,
Speaker 5: and it was the worst. We left. John and I left.
Speaker 5: I don't know, Steve, did you stay?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 5: I left too, Okay, we left. It was so awful.
Speaker 3: It was so part was that during the intermission I
Speaker 3: went around to all the Italians and I said, on
Speaker 3: behalf of the United States of America. I apologize because
Speaker 3: we went all the way Lascala and we saw an
Speaker 3: American opera, a bad American opera in English. I don't
Speaker 3: know why they were showing it, but if this was worse,
Speaker 3: then she should be impeached for a bad taste, because
Speaker 3: that was really a bad opera. This is worse, I said.
Speaker 3: I read somewhere that they're only putting it all once.
Speaker 4: Is that truth too?
Speaker 5: She was only going to start.
Speaker 3: Oh, she's only doing.
Speaker 1: It once, they wrote, they wrote some custom lines just
Speaker 1: for her for her special rehearsal. And and by the way,
Speaker 1: I mean you can see well, you can see the
Speaker 1: clips all over social media. I didn't realize how tiny
Speaker 1: she is. I ken't think, wait, that's Justice Jackson, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean she's like Milton Friedman size, which you know anyway,
Speaker 1: that surprised me.
Speaker 3: And I have to confess I don't like any of
Speaker 3: these popular culture efforts by the justices. I mean, Ruth
Speaker 3: Bader Ginsburg I think was the worst defender with all
Speaker 3: this like notorious RBG stuff and you know, you know,
Speaker 3: interview shows, videos. But I got to say, on this
Speaker 3: performance bit, Justice Scalia himself was a small violator because
Speaker 3: I think that Scleia and Ginsburg was such fans of
Speaker 3: the opera that they showed up in the chorus of
Speaker 3: the Washington National Opera and some show once just As
Speaker 3: because they were such fans. Well, I generally don't think
Speaker 3: they're justice. I think justices should be heard and never seen.
Speaker 3: That would be my preference. It's but I think they've
Speaker 3: become I think the younger justice is a particular They're
Speaker 3: going to be like their generation and think that they should,
Speaker 3: you know, engage public outreach and engage in public acts
Speaker 3: like this, which I wish they wouldn't.
Speaker 5: My comment John was sorry, Steve. My comment on Twitter
Speaker 5: that was well received, shall we say, was that John
Speaker 5: Marshall isn't turning over in his grave, he's vomiting. I mean,
Speaker 5: can you imagine even thirty years ago, Justice is doing
Speaker 5: something like this.
Speaker 4: I just can't, So I don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm familiar with the with
Speaker 1: the Scalia and Ginsburg appearing in the chorus of One
Speaker 1: of the Way. I used to go to Washington Opera
Speaker 1: twenty some years ago when I lived in town, and
Speaker 1: I remember writing a couple of reviews online and then
Speaker 1: I'd get emails from friends.
Speaker 4: Of mine, people you would know in Washington. If I
Speaker 4: mentioned names, you'd know them.
Speaker 1: Who were you know they weren't paid, but there are
Speaker 1: people in the chorus or in the sort of the
Speaker 1: you know, when they need an ensemble on.
Speaker 4: Stage and they're not. And so that's something that's not
Speaker 4: unusual in Washington.
Speaker 1: For people to want to be on stage in the
Speaker 1: opera just throw the fun of it and say they
Speaker 1: got to do it.
Speaker 3: They actually like appeer in roles that were like their
Speaker 3: washing because I think Lucretia to show up as she
Speaker 3: shows like the Furies or something, or the Vales and
Speaker 3: take vengeance on everybody. Right.
Speaker 1: But the point is there's a distinction between what was
Speaker 1: done with Jackson and making it a big production and
Speaker 1: putting her front stage star the show. By the way,
Speaker 1: I'll bet almost nobody in the audience at the Kennedy
Speaker 1: Center recognized Scalia and Ginsburg in the crowd. I think
Speaker 1: that was just they thought it'd be need to do
Speaker 1: because they were friends. By the way, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a bipartisan think.
Speaker 4: This is totally different.
Speaker 1: This is Jackson throwing herself in with what is an
Speaker 1: ideological project this, you know, but Broadway is going that way.
Speaker 4: I can go through other examples, they'll skip over them.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: Woke Broadway is something that we'll see if it persists
Speaker 1: in our new post elections.
Speaker 3: A thing to do if you I didn't look at
Speaker 3: the plot, Lucretia says that you know, the transgenderism is
Speaker 3: an important part of the storyline. The court's hearing the
Speaker 3: most important transgender her case ever right now. Like this
Speaker 3: is like, even if it's not really a reason for
Speaker 3: conflict of interest, it shows a lot of stupidity to
Speaker 3: go out and act in a play where that's a
Speaker 3: big part of this. If you're almost approving, you're certainly
Speaker 3: not disapproving of.
Speaker 5: It, right exactly. I wouldn't.
Speaker 3: I would not be interested on a case that's going
Speaker 3: to call that calls on whether transgenderism should be entitled
Speaker 3: to special protection like racial minorities and gender. That's really
Speaker 3: really poor judgment.
Speaker 5: So I'm talking about this with my with my son,
Speaker 5: and my son asks me if I've seen what we're
Speaker 5: making fun of it, and if I've seen the chart
Speaker 5: that shows how much Catangy talks compared to all other
Speaker 5: justices when they have oral arguments. And I said, yeah,
Speaker 5: I've seen the try don't remember what it is. He said, yeah,
Speaker 5: And that's just when she's in a movie theater. I
Speaker 5: thought you'd like that. Okay, I told him I'd give
Speaker 5: him credit if I got you are bad, all right,
Speaker 5: I don't know what else to say about.
Speaker 1: Okay, well we got We've got time for a couple
Speaker 1: I agree, Yeah, all right, we have time for a
Speaker 1: couple more quick things to mention. One is is the
Speaker 1: era dead at last? Did you see this business?
Speaker 3: John? You know? You know I thought this was so.
Speaker 3: I actually think this is really an interesting constitutional question.
Speaker 3: I mean, you have a constitutional amendment right the e
Speaker 3: which sought to add uh, you know, women or gender
Speaker 3: in addition to the other categories of the fourteenth Amendment essentially, which.
Speaker 4: Is race not gender. That's important, Okay, yes, sex.
Speaker 3: So the interesting question, one interesting question is when the
Speaker 3: Congress sent the amendment out so past Congress by two thirds,
Speaker 3: which it probably could now, but it did back then
Speaker 3: in the seventies, and went to the states, Right, you
Speaker 3: need three quarters of the states to legislatures to ratify.
Speaker 3: They placed a time limit on it. You have to
Speaker 3: ratify it by a certain date, which I think is
Speaker 3: like nineteen eighty seven years.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the interesting thing is one question is can Congress
Speaker 3: actually do that? Can can you have a time limited
Speaker 3: constitutional moment. And then the second interesting constitutional question is
Speaker 3: some states that initially ratified have changed their minds and
Speaker 3: pulled back their ratification. Are states allowed to do that?
Speaker 3: Kind of state actually withdraw of ratification once done. You know,
Speaker 3: these are questions that have always been up to the
Speaker 3: It's actually interesting, they've always been up to the political branches.
Speaker 3: So during the last case was in the nineties. This
Speaker 3: interesting There was an amendment that was part of the
Speaker 3: original Bill of Rights, right, and it was about Congress
Speaker 3: not being able to increase their pay during the time
Speaker 3: that they were you know, they're elected. And it was
Speaker 3: never ratified until until Clinton. So it took over one
Speaker 3: hundred years for two hundred years missing to be ratified.
Speaker 3: And so there were questions like is can amendment be
Speaker 3: out there forever waiting to be ratified? Who gets to decide?
Speaker 3: And so the Clint administration just did it. They ordered
Speaker 3: the archivist to recognize it as a valid constitutional amendment,
Speaker 3: and the court said they wouldn't hear any cases about it,
Speaker 3: that it was a political question. So here in this
Speaker 3: case the archivist. I got to give the archivist credit
Speaker 3: because you know, this is pressure being put on Biden
Speaker 3: right to recognize this er amendment. The archivist said, no,
Speaker 3: it's it's not a valid constitutional amendment because the time
Speaker 3: limits up never gets the court. There's I think there
Speaker 3: actually was a trial court decision out there, a child
Speaker 3: court challenge, and the judgement turned it away and said
Speaker 3: it's not up to the courts to decide.
Speaker 5: It's interesting we did get the twenty seventh Amendment, you
Speaker 5: know what, two hundred years later.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I was talking about about the Congressional
Speaker 3: pay Amendment. Yeah, okay, so interesting. I also think I'm
Speaker 3: not sure. I mean, it would seem to me that
Speaker 3: a state could also change its mind and withdraw its ratification.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure what the argument is in favor of
Speaker 3: you just say yes and then then it's yes forever.
Speaker 5: But there are people who argue that that's kind of
Speaker 5: the argument of a written constitution, though, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think one fine distinction ought to
Speaker 1: be mentioned, I think, John, which is the states, I
Speaker 1: think or three states rescinded their ratification. But it's before
Speaker 1: you had three quarters of the states agreeing to ratification.
Speaker 1: So the argument there is, I mean, other once you
Speaker 1: had threequarters.
Speaker 3: Of the states, and oh yeah, then it becomes part
Speaker 3: of the constitution. Yeah, you can't take there's no right.
Speaker 3: Then what's a right part of the constitution.
Speaker 4: But it's while it's being deliberated by all the states
Speaker 4: in a state.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's not a thing.
Speaker 3: The thing I was thinking about was, and this is
Speaker 3: from working in Congress, is you know when you vote,
Speaker 3: when a senator votes on a bill, they might vote yes,
Speaker 3: but then before the bills actually, you know, time pier closes.
Speaker 3: You can always change your mind, and the senator can say, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's but once the time is up you're voting, you
Speaker 3: know it, you know, it doesn't change. You can't say
Speaker 3: after the bill has gone through the Senate, oh I
Speaker 3: changed my mind.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, But.
Speaker 3: That's that's the That would be the analogic analogous position.
Speaker 3: So I think you're right, you could. I think you
Speaker 3: could change your mind while the amendments still pending. But
Speaker 3: once the amendment's over, then yeah, you're yeah, that's over.
Speaker 5: Well, the argument for a time limit would be would yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna say that because there have been amendments
Speaker 5: that have had time limits that have passed during that
Speaker 5: time limit and the states ratified them, wouldn't that be
Speaker 5: create something of a president that the time limits are legitimate?
Speaker 3: So there are I think the argument is h and
Speaker 3: I don't agree with it. But the argument is Congress
Speaker 3: doesn't have the right to constitutionally restrict how long the
Speaker 3: state legislators have to vote for the amendment. So even
Speaker 3: though they might even stick it in the amendment text,
Speaker 3: they would just say, that's not the constitutional role that
Speaker 3: Congress has. You can't have these time limited That's an
Speaker 3: interesting argument. I don't think it's successful.
Speaker 1: But you know why they put the time limit in
Speaker 1: the amendment, in the amendment legislation, I think you know, I.
Speaker 3: Think they've been doing hurry people to do it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: before the Era, that's been something. I think the Era
Speaker 3: is not the first amendment that did that. I don't
Speaker 3: remember which one was the first one.
Speaker 4: Oh, I like your theory, Lucretia. That's like, hurry up
Speaker 4: and get busy.
Speaker 5: People don't remember all of this, believe it or not.
Speaker 5: And I just remember the discussions against it, Phylis Schlafley
Speaker 5: and others arguing that nothing, no other right in the
Speaker 5: Constitution is so similarly open ended and ill defined as
Speaker 5: what was being by the era.
Speaker 3: That's one of the ones I remember from those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, one of her arguments with people laughed
Speaker 1: at was is, look, this amendment passes are going to
Speaker 1: have single sex bathrooms.
Speaker 4: You know that kind of looks right. Yeah, so this
Speaker 4: is about time I go, yeah, I've.
Speaker 5: Got mine ready, and I don't have this one ready,
Speaker 5: but I remember it the Babylon b one that said
Speaker 5: more members of Congress have been injured by transsexuals and
Speaker 5: bathrooms than anybody who's injured. On January sixth, and it's
Speaker 5: a picture of Nancy Mace after she was attacked. Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm going to have a couple that we didn't discuss,
Speaker 5: but I'm sure our very intelligent listeners are up on
Speaker 5: it now. Now, let's not be so hasty to find
Speaker 5: and assassinate everyone responsible for the healthcare crisis, says nervous Obama.
Speaker 5: I love that one. Or assassin Luigi. You gotta love Luigi.
Speaker 5: I like the one that said it wasn't Luigi, it
Speaker 5: was Mario Assassin. Luigi Minngioni takes lead in twenty twenty
Speaker 5: eight Democratic primary polls. Kamala Harris named person of the
Speaker 5: Year by Wine Enthusiast. My personal favorite wellness check called
Speaker 5: on Elon Musk after he doesn't post on ex for
Speaker 5: over seventeen minutes. Sorry, I have to get up to
Speaker 5: the really good ones. Everything is fine. DEM's report as
Speaker 5: Pelosi cracks, Trump's acquitted primaries implode all in one week.
Speaker 5: Oh sorry, that's an old one. You still have to
Speaker 5: love it. Nancy Pelosi hospitalized with dangerously low blood alcohol level. Sorry,
Speaker 5: life alerts buttons. I like picking on people who are
Speaker 5: I know, alcoholics when I had too much to drink.
Speaker 5: Life alert buttons to be installed at every congressional seat.
Speaker 5: Can you imagine this One's good? I'm almost done, I
Speaker 5: swear powerful. This Broadway production called a Little Retarded Girl
Speaker 5: up on stage.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine?
Speaker 1: John?
Speaker 5: Problem solved after they try flying over Texas that really
Speaker 5: should say Arizona yea and drones you have to see
Speaker 5: the picture. But drones turn out to be elaborate gender
Speaker 5: reveal party and across the sky it says it's a boy.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, Well you have blue and red lights, so
Speaker 4: I sort of get that. Yeah right, yeah, you get it?
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 4: I'm all right, John, I got some new stuff. This week.
Speaker 3: So all right, well yeah, oh, you know we're gonna
Speaker 3: have to change all the side in just a few weeks.
Speaker 3: But I always drink your whiskey meat. Let's go Brandon
Speaker 3: and Steve.
Speaker 1: A brand new one from Kamela just this week. I
Speaker 1: ask you to remember the context in which you exist.
Speaker 4: What you know? Do you know?
Speaker 3: I listened to the clip of that, and when she
Speaker 3: said that, people in the art and started laughing at her. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then she goes, yeah, she says something like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I did say that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: All right, I think we're probably going to be back
Speaker 1: this weekend with another special holiday edition where who knows
Speaker 1: we'll play John Alive again more.
Speaker 4: I don't know, we'll see anyway. Okay, bye bye everybody.
Speaker 3: See you guys.
Speaker 4: Bye.
Speaker 1: I was walking up sixth Avenue and Blue Man came
Speaker 1: right up to me. He was round a baton sphericle
Speaker 1: with the biggest grin I ever see.
Speaker 3: He bounced on up toward me, but before we could.
Speaker 1: Be intrub he gw up very suddenly.
Speaker 3: I guess his name was probably.
Speaker 2: Bruce, and I loved.
Speaker 3: Like I always.
Speaker 1: Cried, like I cried for you, Blue Man, Blue.
Speaker 2: Up in my
Speaker 1: Ricochet joined the conversation