Speaker 1: Well whiskey, come and take my pain. The honeys all right,
Speaker 1: oh whiskey.
Speaker 2: Don't why think alone when you can drink it all
Speaker 2: in with Ricochet's three Whiskey Happy Hour. Join your bartenders
Speaker 2: Steve Hayward, John You and the International Woman of Mystery Lucretia.
Speaker 3: Where they slapped it.
Speaker 1: Up and David Hain't you easy on the soud tap
Speaker 1: you got to give me and let that whiskey.
Speaker 4: Flo Welcome everyone to the three Whiskey Happy Hour. It's
Speaker 4: a really great three whiskey happy hour because we are
Speaker 4: all home, not in each other's home, in our own homes,
Speaker 4: but it's eight o'clock PM, and we're all drinking whiskey.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, right exactly, and I am drinking a fifteen
Speaker 4: year old McAllen. It's very nice.
Speaker 2: That's pretty young. That's pretty young for you, is he is?
Speaker 4: But you know, as I got fired from all my
Speaker 4: different jobs, I can't really afford the eighteen year old anymore,
Speaker 4: so you know, it's it's it's kind of popping.
Speaker 3: What do you mean to start a go fundme page
Speaker 3: for the three so you can buy three more years
Speaker 3: and make it an eighteen year old?
Speaker 2: I know, if Lucretia does an online page that starts
Speaker 2: with go and an f ho it, it's going to
Speaker 2: be a different something.
Speaker 3: My browser doesn't let me see Lucretia's web pages for that.
Speaker 3: What are you drinking, John, I've got a wild turkey
Speaker 3: oh rare breed right ry?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, and I always do.
Speaker 3: I'm going to pour it. I don't know if you
Speaker 3: can hear it, actually.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's always fun. While you're doing that.
Speaker 4: You can hear it from the will it bottle.
Speaker 3: Always I do the willet bottle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just doing my I know, I'm doing my
Speaker 2: old standby because I haven't had time to go to
Speaker 2: make it the good liquor store tomorrow in Fas.
Speaker 3: Just throw this out and drink the will it.
Speaker 2: This is how I have it.
Speaker 3: I have it there like this.
Speaker 4: Why do you have a hat on it? Okay?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 4: Well, I hope that any listeners live out there are
Speaker 4: joining us in tipping a host a toast to all
Speaker 4: of you. Thank you for joining us, And if you're
Speaker 4: watching this later on or listening later on, thank you
Speaker 4: again for joining us. We very much appreciate the support.
Speaker 4: Uh So, first we've been including speaking of support, we're
Speaker 4: going to start by asking Steve why it is that
Speaker 4: dogs have a thing for his books.
Speaker 2: Well, I should laugh, Yeah, a toast tonight's a lily.
Speaker 2: And so we have a long time reader and listener
Speaker 2: who've never met named Tom Steaky. I'm not even sure
Speaker 2: where he lives, but not five years ago, he sent
Speaker 2: me photos of his dog Lily. You know how authors
Speaker 2: like to say my book was so good, people just
Speaker 2: ate it up. Well, his dog literally ate my book.
Speaker 2: And about a second here, if I can find the
Speaker 2: pictures he sent me, there we go. For people who
Speaker 2: are watching the live stream. There is Lily looking at
Speaker 2: my book. And there on the right side is Lily
Speaker 2: after after the book had been fairly masticated, and good girl.
Speaker 3: Did he only eat the books that talked about Strauss
Speaker 3: too long?
Speaker 4: So John, So I had this lovely first edition of
Speaker 4: the Constitution produced in like eighteen sixty that was the
Speaker 4: publication date on it. And it was the Constitution and
Speaker 4: some of the other founding documents, and it was this
Speaker 4: lovely old book and it was about eye level on
Speaker 4: one of my bookshelves, and one of my dogs, my
Speaker 4: German Shepherd's not little rat dog Skink. You about that,
Speaker 4: Oh my god, anyway, actually got up somehow. There must
Speaker 4: have been something in the pages of the book. I
Speaker 4: mean it was, you know, one hundred and fifty years
Speaker 4: old at least, and chewed it to smithereens, not even
Speaker 4: like half of it. That Lily only ate half of
Speaker 4: Steve's book. This one was just destroyed. And I write
Speaker 4: what it was, But I guess it's because dogs like good,
Speaker 4: good books. Steve.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I was going to say, but I'm
Speaker 2: not sure I got to the not a punchline. But
Speaker 2: the reason it's timely this week is that this week
Speaker 2: Lily came to her last days, and so we drink
Speaker 2: to Lily, who's obviously has good tasted books, and thank
Speaker 2: Tom Steaky for being a loyal reader, and also he
Speaker 2: buying a replacement copy of the book. This now suggests
Speaker 2: a new strategy. You put a milk bone or something
Speaker 2: along with every book so that you sell every book
Speaker 2: twice to dog owners. Something like that.
Speaker 4: I would tell you, Tom, close your ears on this, John.
Speaker 4: My my mother died when I was very very young.
Speaker 4: I remember sitting next to my father at the funeral
Speaker 4: and kind of watching his chin quiver a little bit
Speaker 4: but when our family dog died at seventeen, he bawled
Speaker 4: like a baby. That's how dogs affect you. So my
Speaker 4: condolences to you dogs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, little dogs. I just don't like rat dogs. I
Speaker 3: don't feel them to be real dogs. God anyway that
Speaker 3: they walk around with him everything hills.
Speaker 2: Now, finally, can I just do before you start us
Speaker 2: into our line of serious subject of creatia. I cannot resist.
Speaker 2: And you shouldn't eat because you grew up in La.
Speaker 2: You're a Dodgers fan. We went to a Dodger came
Speaker 2: together once.
Speaker 4: One quite the most memorable one ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's because John, I threw a friend scored. I
Speaker 2: think it was like Budweiser's seats on the first row
Speaker 2: the dugout level, right behind home plate. But you can
Speaker 2: believe it right when yeah see, and Lucretia spent the
Speaker 2: whole game ogling Steve Yegger's there here. I remember that,
Speaker 2: and the Dodgers.
Speaker 3: Got crushed by It's just like you guys, like on
Speaker 3: a date or something. That's why she was staring at
Speaker 3: that guy rather than you, Steve.
Speaker 2: Uh Anyway, John, Now, now I don't feel so bad
Speaker 2: about humiliating you over the Phillies doing a face plant
Speaker 2: worse than a Brown Jackson.
Speaker 3: I can't believe they lost on a fource ole error
Speaker 3: and the extra innings on a tap back to the picture. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and the picture over threw it to the wrong base
Speaker 3: and then overthrew it. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know who feels good about that today?
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 2: But you know who feels good about that today besides
Speaker 2: Dodger fans Bill Buckner. He's no longer He's no longer
Speaker 2: the greatest goat of the postseason.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know. That was still pretty bad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, right, don't mean that we're about to
Speaker 4: start the World Series or something.
Speaker 3: There's one more round of playoffs, one more round, all right,
Speaker 3: I'll try to when the I mean when the Japanese
Speaker 3: All Star League team, I mean the Dodgers are gonna play,
Speaker 3: but probably the Brewers I assume.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be what the Milwaukee Brewers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're really good.
Speaker 4: They're a real team.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're the best team. They had the best record
Speaker 3: in the league.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Things So so, John, you know what I'm gonna do
Speaker 3: next week.
Speaker 2: I'm going to do an AI animation of Steve Yeager
Speaker 2: calling the games. And see if I can full into watching.
Speaker 4: It was a long time ago. I know, I have
Speaker 4: no interest in sports figures anymore. I'd be much more
Speaker 4: excited probably about I don't know, Thomas soul or you know,
Speaker 4: somebody could intellectually engage me.
Speaker 3: I don't even know. She would get hot and bothered
Speaker 3: by the idea of Harry Jaffer doing jumping checks or something.
Speaker 4: Okay, it's time to change. Yeah, all right. Big news
Speaker 4: this week that made a lot of a lot of
Speaker 4: headlines in the right media, probably not the media that you, uh,
Speaker 4: inter interact with. John. Have you heard of this guy
Speaker 4: named Jay Jones running for Attorney general in Virginia?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I heard about this. Yes, I think it
Speaker 3: was actually in the Washington Post.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Really, Well, they're doing well, they're doing the season and
Speaker 2: pouncing thing. No, there's one headline I forget which paper.
Speaker 2: You know, Republicans sees on comments by attorney general candidate. Right,
Speaker 2: it's always the reaction of Republicans. That's the media, the
Speaker 2: mainstream media coverage. Okay, sorry, this session is great to me, right, awesome?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, but you know that they've got nothing else
Speaker 4: they can say about it because the guy, you know,
Speaker 4: it really it. It wasn't as if it was something
Speaker 4: that you know, the three of us in deep in
Speaker 4: the back of a bar somewhere, trusting each other's promise
Speaker 4: to keep everything secret, made some offhand, off color remarks
Speaker 4: about something. This was a text message the guy sent
Speaker 4: to a Republican and he it was just vile what
Speaker 4: he said.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's not it's not like some podcast
Speaker 2: hosts we know has ever said that somebody should be
Speaker 2: executed or something.
Speaker 4: That's just that's just an offhand remark.
Speaker 2: He met it. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And and mostly because not because of anything that that
Speaker 4: guy had ever done wrong, but because he held policy
Speaker 4: views different from Jay Jones. And the way that you
Speaker 4: get people to change their policies is you shoot them
Speaker 4: while they're in their mother's arms, make them watch and
Speaker 4: so they feel pain, and then they'll change their policies.
Speaker 4: How sick do you have to? And then not one,
Speaker 4: not one, not one Democrat. I take that back. John
Speaker 4: Fetterman is the only one I know of is willing
Speaker 4: to even tell the guy. Look, somebody who has these
Speaker 4: views is not fit by character, by lack of integrity,
Speaker 4: whatever you want to say to be the chief law
Speaker 4: enforcement officer of the state of Virginia. That's easy, in
Speaker 4: my opinion. Go ahead, I'm done pontificate.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, well, let's get back to a conversation
Speaker 2: you and I had. I'm not sure you were on
Speaker 2: this episode, John, It's a while ago now, but we
Speaker 2: had an extensive discussion of why are so many leftists?
Speaker 2: It's not all of them, but it certainly seems to
Speaker 2: be a high number really horrible people. So, you know,
Speaker 2: never mind the assassin of Charlie Cook, think about the
Speaker 2: I think it's probably numbers in the thousands, certainly hundreds
Speaker 2: of people on the left who declared publicly how happy
Speaker 2: they were that Charlie Kirk was shot. Right, So you
Speaker 2: know what can explain this? And you know, I've given
Speaker 2: my philosophical explanation because that's what I run to. There
Speaker 2: may be a psychological explanation to go with it too.
Speaker 4: There's the bubble explanation that, yes, the practical matter, which
Speaker 4: you should probably.
Speaker 2: Mention, Well, that gets to the Katie Porter story, which
Speaker 2: maybe you want to hold for a moment. But people too,
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 4: One would you cannot know that talking about shooting your
Speaker 4: opponent's children in the the while they're in the arms
Speaker 4: of your wife. To cause him pain is an inappropriate
Speaker 4: thing to say. You have to know that. And if
Speaker 4: you don't know that, you live in such a bubble
Speaker 4: that any any morality has been sucked out of it.
Speaker 4: And it's you know, the whatever, whatever it is, the
Speaker 4: left things is important. That's all that matters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Actually there's a question for you, John Well, I
Speaker 2: don't know. Go ahead, John, if you have a general observation.
Speaker 3: I mean you don't You guys don't really think that
Speaker 3: liberals are worse people in general than conservatives. Don't just
Speaker 3: think being good or bad people would just be evenly
Speaker 3: distributed amongst I mean there's very bad conservatives too. Well, look,
Speaker 3: I mean saying think terrible things. Also.
Speaker 4: I think it's a little bit like men and women. John,
Speaker 4: here's the point. There are there are women who could
Speaker 4: kick butt against either one of you two.
Speaker 3: Who would that be? Come on, bring them on? Who
Speaker 3: is AMMO girl person I keep hearing.
Speaker 4: About she could definitely destroy you with with her humor.
Speaker 4: I'll leave it at that. My point is is that, uh,
Speaker 4: this strength, why why why are we complaining about women
Speaker 4: men and women's sports? Because the average man is much
Speaker 4: stronger physically speaking, and has great biological physical advantages over women.
Speaker 4: I say that the same phenomenon is actually, for some
Speaker 4: reason manifest in the left versus right, that most leftists
Speaker 4: are horrible people Jay Jones or Katie Porter, or or
Speaker 4: Amy Klobuchar or Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris, who just
Speaker 4: treats the people around them as if there's scum.
Speaker 3: I mean, President Trump says lots of bad things about people,
Speaker 3: but people just don't think he means it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well he does.
Speaker 3: That's part of his appeal. That's part of his appeal
Speaker 3: is that he says terrible things.
Speaker 2: But look, John, well, look, I want to hold this.
Speaker 3: I find that interesting about him, that he says terrible
Speaker 3: things about people and the audience loves it. I don't
Speaker 3: don't quite understand why.
Speaker 4: But I don't think he's ever said that they should
Speaker 4: have to watch their children being shot in the head
Speaker 4: while their wife was holding them so that they can
Speaker 4: feel pain. He's never said anything.
Speaker 2: But I think most people, most people like working well, look,
Speaker 2: I mean I just pick one thing. When you see
Speaker 2: high staff turnover, it's usually a bad sign. By the way,
Speaker 2: you know, you used to have high staff turnover because
Speaker 2: he was a jerk. Was John McCain of course, But you.
Speaker 3: Know El says high staff turnover. Yeah, Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Well, but that's not because he fires them and they
Speaker 2: you know, well, hold on, I want to ask you
Speaker 2: a specific question about getting back to Jay Jones. You know,
Speaker 2: as a lawyer.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, people who are replying to the bar, who
Speaker 2: take exam and they apply for their bar license, they
Speaker 2: usually have to pass what it's an ethics or morals
Speaker 2: and fitness review.
Speaker 3: And moral fitness qualification.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now do you think if Jay Jones was coming out
Speaker 2: of law school, passed the bar and was then reached
Speaker 2: that review stage, those tweets would not raise some eyebrows
Speaker 2: at the state bar about his fitness to be granted
Speaker 2: a law license.
Speaker 3: You know, that's interesting. I don't think it would stop
Speaker 3: you because they would just say this is which I
Speaker 3: think he's saying, is this is just you know, locker
Speaker 3: room type humor.
Speaker 4: He didn't say that, He just said it was wrong.
Speaker 4: He didn't.
Speaker 3: Oh really he didn't. Because I've heard people in politics
Speaker 3: say very mean things. They don't really mean they want
Speaker 3: to shoot someone or kill someone, but they use this language.
Speaker 3: Of warfare all the time.
Speaker 4: He doubled.
Speaker 3: But yeah, but they don't mean it like they don't.
Speaker 3: They don't mean it right like you. But they Well,
Speaker 3: but you know, people in electoral politics often talk this way.
Speaker 3: I mean, when I read it, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's a bad fellow, but there's a lot of bad
Speaker 3: people in electoral politics.
Speaker 2: But you know, he did double down on it. There's
Speaker 2: a I mean, now maybe it's contested, but he did
Speaker 2: say to someone this is a you know, what you
Speaker 2: say here say we'd say these days, but persons thinking
Speaker 2: with a story, and it certainly sounds in characters saying gosh,
Speaker 2: maybe you know, it wouldn't be bad if a few
Speaker 2: more policemen were shot, because then they'd be shooting fewer
Speaker 2: black people, you know, the whole sort of black lives matter?
Speaker 2: What's it, George Floyd Nonsense. It sounds to me like
Speaker 2: this guy's pretty out there wacko. But I mean, I'll
Speaker 2: just restate briefly what I've said before.
Speaker 3: Why do you guys think that liberals are worse people
Speaker 3: than conservatives? This is what I want to know.
Speaker 2: So well, first of all, I'll give you two data points.
Speaker 2: One well, one's my an interpretation and the data point
Speaker 2: the interpretation is when you believe as a philosophical premise
Speaker 2: that you were on the side of history. As they
Speaker 2: never stop saying it's that lazy progressivism that they can't
Speaker 2: stand to be challenged. They think that what's the Charles
Speaker 2: Crowdhammer line is that conservatives think liberals are stupid, Liberals
Speaker 2: think conservatives are evil. And you know, he was a
Speaker 2: psychiatrist Ride and I think he was onto something there.
Speaker 2: And then take I don't remember how they work, but
Speaker 2: you know, Jonathan Height did based on some really good
Speaker 2: survey work, you know, about how conservatives actually he has
Speaker 2: five different points in the moral compass. I everget how
Speaker 2: he puts it, and he says liberals only get three
Speaker 2: of them, Conservatives get all five. And that's why Jonathan
Speaker 2: moved from pretty far left being sort of centrist, or
Speaker 2: i'd argue even sort of center right, and he says
Speaker 2: liberals are much more narrow. Add to that the media bubble,
Speaker 2: which I think is really the subtext of the Katie
Speaker 2: portrait story. The liberals are always reinforced on college campuses,
Speaker 2: in the media, and of course amongst each other. I quoted, Sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm Rambling. I did quote on substack here a week
Speaker 2: or two ago, someone writing to the ethicist at the
Speaker 2: New York Times saying, we have these new neighbors. I
Speaker 2: don't know what their politics are. We can't possibly associate
Speaker 2: with someone who has different views from ours, And the
Speaker 2: New York Times printed this. That's how liberals think, and
Speaker 2: that's why I think they think it's not remarkable to
Speaker 2: say something really outrageous, to.
Speaker 3: Take crowdhammers quote. It's think. I actually think liberals are
Speaker 3: often more misguided than evil. Liberals think conservatives are evil,
Speaker 3: but you guys think liberals are evil, right.
Speaker 4: Not not unqualifiably so. But I do think that what
Speaker 4: fills the empty souls in liberals when they reject nature,
Speaker 4: they reject God, they reject religion, they reject good and evil,
Speaker 4: that what fills their souls is is demonic and satanic.
Speaker 4: And I think there's ample proof of that.
Speaker 3: In Yes, I think they're like agents of the devil.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Not I don't think that every democratic or liberal
Speaker 4: politician is. But certainly the the push for transgenderism, the
Speaker 4: push especially amongst vulnerable populations, to turn them into transgenders,
Speaker 4: that's evil. There's just no way around it. The push
Speaker 4: to mutilate children in the name of some ridiculously stupid
Speaker 4: idea that you know, you're not the sex you were
Speaker 4: born into, and pushing that on them. That's evil. That's
Speaker 4: not just you know, bad policy or stupid decision making.
Speaker 4: It's evil, And or they wouldn't be going after the
Speaker 4: most vulnerable to make it happen. So yes, I do
Speaker 4: believe that I don't believe every liberal is evil, certainly not,
Speaker 4: not by a long shot. I also think that this
Speaker 4: has been a theory of mine and I'm not gonna
Speaker 4: harp on this. Steve's gonna get mad at me if
Speaker 4: we don't move on. But for the longest time, John,
Speaker 4: my belief is that the extreme far left gets away
Speaker 4: with as much as they do because the average you know,
Speaker 4: decent suburban soccer mom, college professor, mayle whatever, they really
Speaker 4: shut their eyes to the evil that is the far left,
Speaker 4: you know, the transgenderism, the satanic worship, the you know,
Speaker 4: the worst of antify. I could go on and on,
Speaker 4: and I think that part of the reason why Democrats
Speaker 4: continue to be successful in the electoral arena is because
Speaker 4: so many liberals turn don't believe that what the far
Speaker 4: left is doing, is even possible. I've had that experience
Speaker 4: with professors in my college over and over again. You
Speaker 4: give them examples and they accuse me of lying because
Speaker 4: they can't believe that anybody on their side would.
Speaker 2: Be so awful.
Speaker 4: And I think that's so they're I want to qualify
Speaker 4: if I agree to your characterization of me. I want
Speaker 4: you to understand what I mean when I say, yes,
Speaker 4: I do think that someone on the left are actually evil.
Speaker 4: So there you have it. Like Katie Porter, they just
Speaker 4: don't make a more. What I don't understand and is
Speaker 4: if you are fat and ugly, why would you be
Speaker 4: mean that?
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, I just the mynuscription. Okay. My description
Speaker 2: of her is that she's like a well marbled Porterhouse steak,
Speaker 2: and Porterhouse steak, isn't there is? That doesn't work? Okay, Sorry,
Speaker 2: I couldn't help it. But look, people have known in
Speaker 2: California for a long time that she's a pretty horrible person,
Speaker 2: and they vote for her. Well they didn't. You know,
Speaker 2: she ran for Senate and lost to Adam Shift, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, you've got to be pretty bad to lose
Speaker 2: to Adam Shift, even in California. And she did. But
Speaker 2: you know, there's one of the divorce filing claims from
Speaker 2: her ex husband is that she dumped hot, massed potatoes
Speaker 2: on his head. And I think, yeah, well, I mean
Speaker 2: that made me.
Speaker 3: I mean, if there was gravy on it, that'd be
Speaker 3: fine with me.
Speaker 2: Yeah you can. Yeah, well well well well we'll poke
Speaker 2: you with a hot corn dog, John, That's what we'll do.
Speaker 3: But I mean, you know, like you were saying, but
Speaker 3: they're but there were Republican politicians who are mean to
Speaker 3: their staff too, like you mentioned McCain. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: Arn Actually mar Arlen Specter was voted I think the
Speaker 3: worst boss on Capitol Hill at the time because he was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was used to call him on the hill. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I always called him Arland's sphincter.
Speaker 3: Sorry, but I mean it's not just but I don't
Speaker 3: think it's their staff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but never mind that for the moment. Look, I
Speaker 2: mean I think there's a spectrum. John. So some of
Speaker 2: the really smart left of center people we know at Berkeley,
Speaker 2: I'll use his name. I wasn't gonna name names. So
Speaker 2: Dan Farber, right, he's sort of a he's not a
Speaker 2: far lefty, but smart guy he's not evil, he's interesting
Speaker 2: to talk to, a lot of give and takes, so
Speaker 2: you know, we we tend to see the best of them.
Speaker 2: I think in a place like Berkeley for the most part,
Speaker 2: they're really crazy people there avoid us, of course, as
Speaker 2: we know, and and uh. But when you get to
Speaker 2: the political class, some of the journalists class, I think
Speaker 2: it's a different story. And then you know, down to
Speaker 2: the people on social media who decide it just be awful.
Speaker 2: Look the Porter story. Aside from the fact that you
Speaker 2: know she's an awful, horrible person, what you really saw
Speaker 2: there was is her shock that the media wasn't treating
Speaker 2: this as a pr event for her. They're just used
Speaker 2: to the right. And there have been a couple other
Speaker 2: episodes of this here in the last couple of days.
Speaker 2: Actually the debate that you referenced Lucretia between Spanberger and
Speaker 2: the Winsome Seers. The moderator of the debate three times
Speaker 2: when after Spanberger's saying, so you're not disavowing the guy,
Speaker 2: you're not retracting your endorsement, and she do a word
Speaker 2: cloud and the person would repeat it. Democrats are not
Speaker 2: used to that. I am wondering if things like the
Speaker 2: Washington Post trying to turn over a new leaf, which
Speaker 2: they're really taking serious steps finally to do. Barry Weiss,
Speaker 2: the Rye Fagetts CBS News. I wonder if some people
Speaker 2: in the media are starting to say, god, you know what,
Speaker 2: we actually do have to step up our game and
Speaker 2: be a little more even handed, even if they don't
Speaker 2: think that way, even if they don't change their bias,
Speaker 2: and it's maybe happening too late. Right, yes, they kill
Speaker 2: the I mean.
Speaker 3: Nobody's watching Broke broadcast news anymore. They're all watching Fox.
Speaker 2: Right right. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't even think they're doing that. John, I think
Speaker 4: that people younger than us get all of their news
Speaker 4: from uh social media.
Speaker 2: From online sources.
Speaker 4: Yet, TikTok, I don't think it's just social media.
Speaker 3: And YouTube live streams of podcasts.
Speaker 4: Yes, yep, absolutely, Okay. I still think that if you
Speaker 4: are fat and ugly, you should be nice. That's just
Speaker 4: my my advice to Katie Porter, you should be a
Speaker 4: nicer person. But she seems to double down on being
Speaker 4: all together horrible. So moving on, we are going to
Speaker 4: discuss just for a minute, because Steve says says, we
Speaker 4: have I have too many topics, but I do want
Speaker 4: to tie them all together at the end in an
Speaker 4: interesting way. But I want to quickly talk about retribution
Speaker 4: and political law fair by Trump against his political enemies,
Speaker 4: and wonder if you guys when you're you know, I heard,
Speaker 4: oh god, I heard fat tush Tish out there.
Speaker 2: Now I'm gonna I'm gonna cut you off from the bar.
Speaker 3: But Lucretia does not mean she says this in the
Speaker 3: most loving way.
Speaker 4: Here's the problem. If you are an ugly person, then
Speaker 4: I see you as an ugly then lookism takes over.
Speaker 4: If you are a great person, I don't care how
Speaker 4: deformed you are or any of those other things. I'll
Speaker 4: think you're beautiful. So the problem with fat tush Tish
Speaker 4: is she's just an awful person, just like Big Fanny
Speaker 4: Willis and all those other people. I'm sorry, it's just
Speaker 4: it's the truth. And Katie, okay, move along, move okay. Anyway, anyway,
Speaker 4: Koby got indicted, Tish got indicted. Maybe maybe what's her
Speaker 4: name from the fed or get indicted. Maybe more people
Speaker 4: will get indicted. Is this what you my friend John
Speaker 4: way back when when you were actually you went to
Speaker 4: a conference as I recall and debated a liberal Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: said that it's okay, you know, we can do all
Speaker 4: of these things to Trump because there's no way that
Speaker 4: they're going to do it back to us. And you said, oh,
Speaker 4: yes we.
Speaker 3: Are, and yeah, you know, yeah, I mean it's one. Uh,
Speaker 3: the case against Kobe is going to be hard to
Speaker 3: win is that. You know we talked about that, right,
Speaker 3: That's just it's you know, he says he didn't say something,
Speaker 3: someone else says he did say something. Jury has to
Speaker 3: decide who's more credible. The Justice Department doesn't like to
Speaker 3: bring cases like that when it's a fifty to fifty
Speaker 3: coin flip. Letitia James is an easier case, I would
Speaker 3: think to win because it's just a matter of you
Speaker 3: said this on your mortgage application, is it true or not?
Speaker 3: And it was obviously not true. It wasn't her primary residence.
Speaker 3: And the delicious part of it is that it is
Speaker 3: exactly the same thing that she used Donald Trump of
Speaker 3: doing of you right, misrepresenting his his assets on his
Speaker 3: mortgage application. So look, I would love to live in
Speaker 3: a world where there was no law fair. But they
Speaker 3: started it right. This is Letitia James started it Komey
Speaker 3: tried to entrap the President himself in an obstruction of
Speaker 3: justice investigation, which he succeeded in doing. And I don't
Speaker 3: see how this can be brought to an end unless
Speaker 3: both sides are willing to retaliate. And so I don't think,
Speaker 3: I mean, I wish that these lawsuits were not necessary,
Speaker 3: but I don't see how to stop the future. Letitia
Speaker 3: Grahames and Alvin Braggs and your friend Fanny Willis and
Speaker 3: Jim Comey's from ever doing this again unless they suffer
Speaker 3: at the hands of it. Unfortunately, I mean, I used
Speaker 3: I use this example. The Special Council of the Special
Speaker 3: Council was used exclusively against Republicans and it wasn't dropped
Speaker 3: by Congress until Bill Clinton suffered at the hands of
Speaker 3: Kent Starr.
Speaker 2: And I said, oh wait a minute, and that Linda Greenhouse,
Speaker 2: the Greenhouse effect is always called at the Times, right, said,
Speaker 2: oh you know what Scalia was right after all? And
Speaker 2: Morrison versus Olsen, who knew. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I have one, just minor point to bring up
Speaker 4: with both of you guys, what you think about I
Speaker 4: read the funniest article today about fat Tish picking Abby
Speaker 4: Abby Abby the lawyer Abby Lowell.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, he's a very he's a very good best
Speaker 3: criminal defense.
Speaker 4: The interesting thing was is that they outlined all of
Speaker 4: the famous Democrats that he'd taken their case, and he's
Speaker 4: lost big on all of them. And the upshot of
Speaker 4: the article was he's such a good lawyer that his
Speaker 4: reputation doesn't suffer from the fact that he's willing to
Speaker 4: take cases that he has no chance of winning, like
Speaker 4: the Hunter Biden case and so on. And I just
Speaker 4: wonder what you thought about that.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting?
Speaker 3: And when you're I mean, if you're a federal criminal
Speaker 3: defense lawyer, you know, just to get the sentence reduced,
Speaker 3: our charge dropped as a major victory, because to get
Speaker 3: acquitted is you know, I think there's some statistic like
Speaker 3: a conviction rate in federal court is like way is
Speaker 3: over ninety percent. You just don't have a chance of winning. Absolutely.
Speaker 3: The best you can do is limit the DAMAGEA.
Speaker 4: Sorry sorry before you go on. Is that because it
Speaker 4: takes so much to get an indictment in the first place.
Speaker 3: Or what it's because usually the Justice Department does not
Speaker 3: bring a case unless they think they're going to win.
Speaker 3: If you have evidence, but you don't think you're not
Speaker 3: sure you're going to win, And usually the prosecutors will say,
Speaker 3: we're not going to bring the case. That's why it
Speaker 3: was so outrageous. What you know Jack Smith did and
Speaker 3: the special counsel did and what Komi did is they,
Speaker 3: like I said, where they violated core principles that the
Speaker 3: Justice warn't bringing these made up charges you know, first
Speaker 3: in their time arguments about statutes, applying to the president
Speaker 3: so on. They I mean, they were the ones who
Speaker 3: violated Justice Department procedure. But I actually say, I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's actually true. What the Times
Speaker 3: are people saying about Lowell. I mean, I don't like
Speaker 3: Hunter Biden. I think he should not have been anywhere
Speaker 3: near guns, drugs, or public power. But Lowell actually got
Speaker 3: him off pretty well. I mean, the guy is not
Speaker 3: going to do much jail time for all the terrible
Speaker 3: things he did, but he had before that, but he
Speaker 3: had him down to like very I think very little
Speaker 3: jail time, like he was probably gonna do like a year.
Speaker 3: I mean that was and getting the pardon was also
Speaker 3: right Lowell at work because Biden had remembered previously promised
Speaker 3: he wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2: I have a simpler theory about Lowell, which is, I
Speaker 2: remember that guy from the Iran Contra hearings. He was
Speaker 2: one of the chief councils for that joint committee. That
Speaker 2: was what nineteen eighty seven, so nearly forty years ago now,
Speaker 2: and I thought he was horrible. The other council was
Speaker 2: Arthur Lyman, who he goes way back to the McCarthy era.
Speaker 2: He must be dead by now, but he was quite good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he yeah. But the point is is, you know Lowell
Speaker 2: is one of the insiders. I'll bet he shows up
Speaker 2: at all the parties at Georgetown. There is that's having
Speaker 2: lived in Washington, and you'll know these names. To John
Speaker 2: there is this small circle of people, and of course
Speaker 2: you know they do sort of lean one way or
Speaker 2: the other to the parties that you go to and
Speaker 2: you have these problems. So I think Lowell's at the
Speaker 2: top of the speed dialists along with the other guy
Speaker 2: I always said I would hire if I got in
Speaker 2: trouble in Washington. Plaano cacheris just because of miss right,
Speaker 2: can I say he was Montica Lewinski's lawyer, but he's.
Speaker 3: A famous solicited of is So I needed to hire
Speaker 3: a lawyer, and I, you know, I would not hire
Speaker 3: a connected lawyer or anything like that.
Speaker 2: What I want? What I chose.
Speaker 3: I wanted the meanest son of a bitch that you
Speaker 3: could get, and so I picked Miguelistrata. Oh yeah, he's
Speaker 3: not only smart and you know, both argue the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court and try cases. But he'd been screwed over by
Speaker 3: the Democrats, right, they held up his confirmation in the
Speaker 3: DC Circuit and then there's this outrageous hearings where he
Speaker 3: got screwed over by Schumer. That's the kind of guy
Speaker 3: I want to be my criminal defense lawyer. And he
Speaker 3: just kicked the crap out of everybody. That's what that's
Speaker 3: the kind of guy. You don't want someone who's, you know,
Speaker 3: glad having a party. You want someone who's pissed off.
Speaker 4: Smith get.
Speaker 3: If he's smart, he would call it Miguelistrada Lucretia. That's
Speaker 3: the thing. Like Lucretia. If you ever have more legal problems,
Speaker 3: because god, you must get so many defamation lawsuits, you
Speaker 3: should hire me. I would, you know, you know me,
Speaker 3: I would, I would leave. I would burn down everything
Speaker 3: to win.
Speaker 4: And remember, so the funniest thing is is that you know,
Speaker 4: John has this photographic memory. If you want to ask
Speaker 4: him about some obscure case from the eighteen twenties, he
Speaker 4: will name of it and all the important legal theories
Speaker 4: in it, but he won't remember what we discussed a
Speaker 4: month ago. I think that's a guy thing too. But
Speaker 4: here's the interesting thing. At what point Lucretia was being
Speaker 4: persecuted brought up on charges being threatened at her university
Speaker 4: Because in a debate before the twenty twenty four election,
Speaker 4: I had made the comment when somebody started namming Mam
Speaker 4: and mam and man insurrection, I said, well, that was
Speaker 4: a really lousy insurrection as insurrections go, I said, because
Speaker 4: nobody brought any guns and they didn't accomplish anything, and
Speaker 4: blah blah blah. Anyway, that I guess was very triggering.
Speaker 4: And so you know, complaints were lodged with the provost
Speaker 4: and with the oie what's that called the title nine?
Speaker 4: And you know, just on and on and so I
Speaker 4: mentioned it to John, and John says, oh, if they
Speaker 4: do anything, I'll take your case. I'll take your case
Speaker 4: for free. So the next opportunity I had, I said,
Speaker 4: maybe you just want to talk to my lawyer about this. John, you,
Speaker 4: I'm sure you've heard of him, not a word since
Speaker 4: In fact.
Speaker 3: Oh I love it. I didn't know this. I forgot this.
Speaker 3: This is great you forgot.
Speaker 4: But here's the even funnier thing. So they said that
Speaker 4: they were going to send General Counsel, someone from the
Speaker 4: General Counsel's office to the college to give a talk
Speaker 4: on appropriate uses of academic freedom in a political setting
Speaker 4: by university employees. And it was all set up, and
Speaker 4: then John Hugh's name came up as my personal attorney
Speaker 4: and alone and behold, they didn't have time.
Speaker 3: Oh that's awesome.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know I'm talking right. We're talking about me
Speaker 3: coming to your campus to do a lecture. So you
Speaker 3: should tell them. I want to stop by and say
Speaker 3: hi to these guys. I was just I know, I
Speaker 3: want to let's add that to the schedule. I want
Speaker 3: to introduce myself to the German council down there and
Speaker 3: just let them know that you know, I'm watching.
Speaker 4: Speaking of Steve wanted to mention this. I didn't. I
Speaker 4: didn't put it on our list, but I do want
Speaker 4: to mention it quickly because just to see what you guys,
Speaker 4: think about it. My university is actually one of the
Speaker 4: nine on Trump's list.
Speaker 2: And wait list for what I am.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, I'm getting to it on Trump's list of
Speaker 4: universities that, for some reason, the some people in the
Speaker 4: Trump administration have determined are open to the idea of,
Speaker 4: how shall we say, removing the leftist orthodoxy that has
Speaker 4: been so dominant for the last fifty sixty years in
Speaker 4: our universities. It's either because the president and the senior
Speaker 4: leadership at the universities are open to it, or perhaps
Speaker 4: the governing board.
Speaker 2: But there's a compact, right, yeah, I've got it right here.
Speaker 4: Okay, you tell them you could go from here, Steve.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean it's been in the news and
Speaker 2: mit I think yesterday or today said no, we're not
Speaker 2: for it. But the compact for academic excells and higher education,
Speaker 2: and it's got always conditions in it, and it's a
Speaker 2: mixed bag of things. Just pick on one number two
Speaker 2: of all the different conditions of the marketplace of ideas.
Speaker 2: They want no single ideology dominant. I'm quoting here both
Speaker 2: along political and other relevant lines. Signatories commit themselves to
Speaker 2: revising government structures as necessary to create such environment. So
Speaker 2: it goes on from there. Lots of pretty formal, well
Speaker 2: thought through languae which and it does.
Speaker 4: Controversial students.
Speaker 2: Yeah, limit the number of band your national students, Oh,
Speaker 2: limit your tuition increases. That's some of the business side
Speaker 2: of it. It's the content side that's the most I
Speaker 2: think important of it.
Speaker 4: Actually, that's because you're not you've never been an administrator
Speaker 4: at the universe.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I understand all that. I'm for all that.
Speaker 2: I mean, what's his name in Indiana, Mitch Daniels. He
Speaker 2: proved that you can prol costs and still run a
Speaker 2: first class university. That's all very corrupt. But the bigger
Speaker 2: problem I think would interests us is how corrupt they
Speaker 2: are intellectually right, all other stuff they look, if Harvard
Speaker 2: tomorrow cut their tuition in half and got rid of administrators,
Speaker 2: we'd still be mad at it for their intellectual content
Speaker 2: wouldn't be right. That's why that's more important.
Speaker 4: Yea.
Speaker 2: I mean, I do care about all the other stuff,
Speaker 2: but that's the easy stuff. It's creating intellectual balance. It's
Speaker 2: the harder part.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And I was, well, I'll stop there. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: what else you wanted to say of several observations about it.
Speaker 2: But I think I don't think it was pick picked.
Speaker 2: I don't think they picked those people of those universities
Speaker 2: because they're indicated a willingness. I mean, MIT has already
Speaker 2: said a hard No. I think it's because they want
Speaker 2: to pick on some of them and target them.
Speaker 4: That's not what they said. You're probably right, see, but
Speaker 4: they did say that there had to be some there
Speaker 4: had to be some sense that either the leadership or
Speaker 4: the governing board was open to having these kinds of
Speaker 4: discussions in the first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was no.
Speaker 4: Maybe that was just fluff.
Speaker 3: I don't know, But do you think I read that
Speaker 3: the chairman of the Border Regents in the University of
Speaker 3: Texas said that he was honored that University of Texas
Speaker 3: was on the list and that he intended to reach
Speaker 3: the agreement with the administration about it.
Speaker 4: So I was I was listening to an earlier podcast
Speaker 4: that we had done where we actually discussed when Trump
Speaker 4: first went after Harvard and John kept John kept coming
Speaker 4: up with, aren't you guys worried that in the future,
Speaker 4: you know, when the Democrats get back in power, if
Speaker 4: and you know, that's always a worry, but it brings
Speaker 4: me to a deeper question. I'm not sure how well
Speaker 4: this compact proposal is going to work, But how else
Speaker 4: would you would you ferret out the absolute orthodoxy? You
Speaker 4: know that that is rampant across almost every university and
Speaker 4: almost even even into the stem fields. Not so much
Speaker 4: that they're grabbed ideologue's there, but they don't have a
Speaker 4: choice but to go along with it. How would you
Speaker 4: do that otherwise?
Speaker 3: So well, so, I do think the federal government's allowed
Speaker 3: to fund the things that wants to fund. I don't
Speaker 3: think they have an obligation to, you know, distribute money
Speaker 3: even to different universities. But I think the only way
Speaker 3: to beat them is what you're starting to see with
Speaker 3: these civic schools. You know, there's one at Arizona, there's
Speaker 3: one at Texas. There will never be one in Berkeley,
Speaker 3: but you know that's going to provide competition.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I've heard stories from friends of mine who are shocked,
Speaker 3: shocked that their children want to go to big state schools,
Speaker 3: who want to go to big SEC schools in particular
Speaker 3: because they think they're going to be treated more fairly
Speaker 3: there and that they're going to have access to more
Speaker 3: right even you know, fair ideological classes. And now that
Speaker 3: may not be true, but that's what these kids in
Speaker 3: the Northeast and in California all things. So, I think
Speaker 3: that people are onto something with these civics programs. You
Speaker 3: start offering just alternatives and competition. It can't just be
Speaker 3: Hillsdale that's the only competition. Yeah, So I think you're
Speaker 3: going to see students and faculty flock to these other
Speaker 3: these new programs.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of way to beat. I think we
Speaker 2: should do a whole separate segment on an episode someday
Speaker 2: about some of these schools. I'll be visiting some here
Speaker 2: next semester. I don't want to go off on it
Speaker 2: now because it'll take us too far afield. I have
Speaker 2: a somewhat simpler suggestion for public universities. So look, you know,
Speaker 2: I got curious some years ago about provost. I mean,
Speaker 2: know what a dean is, what's a provost? And it's
Speaker 2: kind of murky, but in my sort of practical business,
Speaker 2: private sector mind, provost, to my mind, is the chief
Speaker 2: quality control officer of a university. All the hirings have
Speaker 2: to go through a provost. Right, Lucretia and tenure promotion decisions,
Speaker 2: and a lot of curriculum stuff, including I think even
Speaker 2: course approval. The provost has a say, but not so
Speaker 2: much as that.
Speaker 4: Okay at big universities, no, but but program approval, program
Speaker 4: changes except yes, okay.
Speaker 2: I think that for public universities, the legislature and governors
Speaker 2: ought to say, we are going to pass a law
Speaker 2: if you have to saying we're going to approve the
Speaker 2: selection provosts, and here are the kind of people we
Speaker 2: want as provosts. You want provosts at these universities who say, no, sorry,
Speaker 2: gender studies, you have to shrink by half and then
Speaker 2: another half next year or something like that. No, you
Speaker 2: cannot promote this lunatic who publishes all this crap. No
Speaker 2: you cannot have a course in why Christopher Columbus is
Speaker 2: the greatest general silent whatever you pick, the politically incorrect stuff.
Speaker 2: That's what provosts ought to be doing at these universities.
Speaker 2: They could actually make real changes into the intellectual climate.
Speaker 2: And you know they ought to say. What's Thomas Soul's
Speaker 2: great line is, next time you hear a university boast
Speaker 2: about his diversity, ask how many Republicans they have in
Speaker 2: the sociology department. So without doing that, I don't think
Speaker 2: you should have a partisan test. But I do think
Speaker 2: you could say to the political science department, history department,
Speaker 2: do you have any military historians, history department, diplomatic historians?
Speaker 2: Do you have anybody who studies, you know, American history
Speaker 2: from the traditional point of view? You don't think that works?
Speaker 4: No, I don't. I will tell you that I know
Speaker 4: too many military historian Well, okay, I get that.
Speaker 2: But in political science you could say, no, we don't
Speaker 2: want a political theorist as all as crap. We want
Speaker 2: somebody who oh well, I'll just in the.
Speaker 4: Same way stup for a second, in the same I mean,
Speaker 4: on the one hand, I wanted to dismiss what you're saying,
Speaker 4: but then I think about the kinds of job postings
Speaker 4: that have been out there for faculty over the last
Speaker 4: few years, and you have to be you know, you're
Speaker 4: an English teacher who teaches critical race theory and transgender
Speaker 4: empathy studies, and you know, and progress.
Speaker 2: Promost to be saying I'm sorry, you may not post
Speaker 2: that advertisement period. And the story right, that's what now, look,
Speaker 2: that's you know, sort of hardcore. But you know, as
Speaker 2: you know, John, the new provost in Harvard is John Manning,
Speaker 2: who is not as conservative as say Lucretia, but who
Speaker 2: is and you know he's not a wild eye leftist, right.
Speaker 2: I actually I think the real subtext here is well,
Speaker 2: back up. There was a story in the Wall Street
Speaker 2: Journal a month or two ago that Harvard's been thinking
Speaker 2: about a center for you know, some conservative thought or
Speaker 2: something like that, or you know, a civics program like
Speaker 2: the other places have. And everyone said, oh, that's a
Speaker 2: response to Trump. I happen to know from insight sources,
Speaker 2: Harvard was thinking about this a year ago, months before
Speaker 2: the election. I actually think that Garber, the new president,
Speaker 2: and Manning and a few other people they know they
Speaker 2: have a problem. I actually think they have the intentions
Speaker 2: to try and fix it. But it's really hard to do.
Speaker 2: That's why you need mean you need mean so ob
Speaker 2: John Wayne style provosts. That's what we need. You'd have
Speaker 2: to post.
Speaker 3: You're the kind of character provosts are generally mealy mouth balancer.
Speaker 2: Right, That's how they get the job, trying to please.
Speaker 3: Every exactly, trying to please everybody. Yeah, very hard to
Speaker 3: have actually any real like who's haying actually what you
Speaker 3: think is even academic leader. Well, you know, the president.
Speaker 4: I do want you to know that the provosts long
Speaker 4: gone who hired me as dean, invited Harvey Mansfield, Yeah,
Speaker 4: to speak at our university.
Speaker 2: There, there's a there's a few here and there. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Become a university president generally by being you know, sort
Speaker 3: of nailing mouth, a little worm who doesn't want to
Speaker 3: actually take a strong stand on any right.
Speaker 2: Raise money. Yeah, the right. You have to have a
Speaker 2: spinal removal surgery before you can be a college president. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I have this great story my friend does Jesse Choper,
Speaker 3: who was a great professor at Berkeley. He was dean
Speaker 3: at Berkeley for ten years, and he said, being the
Speaker 3: dean is like, hey, this goes to your you know,
Speaker 3: the the toast we had at the beginning of the show,
Speaker 3: he said, being the dean is like being the fire
Speaker 3: hydrant at a dog convention.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And he was kind of out on the left,
Speaker 2: but a serious guy, an interesting guys in academics. He
Speaker 2: was a conservative, Like he didn't was affirmative action. Oh
Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that's but sadly that's
Speaker 3: how you define what's conservative.
Speaker 4: Right, We tie this all together in a funny way
Speaker 4: and just say that it so. The Trump administration is
Speaker 4: going after universities because that is a you know, the
Speaker 4: bulwark of the left. They've gone after entertainment if you
Speaker 4: think about it. By the way, Milania Trump has a
Speaker 4: documentary coming out and that's and she's a co producer
Speaker 4: of it. It's supposedly a very big deal. They're going
Speaker 4: after the leftist under what would you call them shadowy
Speaker 4: networks that that are funding Antifa and a lot of
Speaker 4: you know, radical leftist causes. They're going after them a
Speaker 4: little bit untouchable style, you know, going after the actual
Speaker 4: money behind it and looking for violations of tax law
Speaker 4: and other things like that. Among the things. They're going
Speaker 4: after Jack Smith and the people that were subjecting Trump
Speaker 4: and and Maga people the law fair. They're going after
Speaker 4: crime in the cities, especially in now. We could say
Speaker 4: that there are cities because Trump is a racist, and
Speaker 4: there are cities that are led by blacks.
Speaker 2: Or an organism. The whitest city in America is nine white.
Speaker 2: So you can't say that about Portland. Yes, it's Stockholm?
Speaker 4: Well can It's just not true? Which is pretty much
Speaker 4: them o. The modus operandi of the left these days.
Speaker 4: You say what you want, regardless of whether or not
Speaker 4: it's true. But I want to know. I looked up,
Speaker 4: just for the fun of it, I put civil war
Speaker 4: into Google and got literally thousands of hits about all
Speaker 4: of these people that says that say, we're on the
Speaker 4: brink of civil war.
Speaker 3: What do you guys think that's crazy?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't think so crazy. Why why are we
Speaker 3: on the brink of a civil war?
Speaker 2: That's crazy? Well, I think we are. Well, well, look
Speaker 2: we discussed this what a year ago or a year
Speaker 2: and a half ago, and it was all kind of
Speaker 2: as crazy then too well, but look, I mean I
Speaker 2: could My thought was it could start. Actually, this may
Speaker 2: get misinterpreted. It could happen from the right where if
Speaker 2: you had a rebel administration did something really egregious, you
Speaker 2: would see, you know, tea party types or whatever. You'd say,
Speaker 2: you're surrounding federal buildings in Saint Louis and Milwaukee and
Speaker 2: places like that. Now, let's choose. On the other foot,
Speaker 2: I think Chicago blinked in the last forty eight hours.
Speaker 2: The news out Friday is that Chicago's police are now
Speaker 2: arresting and interposing themselves between protesters and federal buildings and
Speaker 2: you know, ICE officers and ICE operations and so forth,
Speaker 2: because there was loose talk earlier in the week from
Speaker 2: Mayor Johnson saying I am going to order my police
Speaker 2: to protect the protesters from the National Guard troops that
Speaker 2: Trump may decide to send in. Now, that's all I
Speaker 2: guess in limbo. I don't keep up from hour to hour.
Speaker 2: But the point is that starts to look like a
Speaker 2: Fort Sumter moment to me. Uh, you know, if you
Speaker 2: actually have there and.
Speaker 3: Some other states, there's no serious no serious state is
Speaker 3: going to try to secede. I mean, no state's going
Speaker 3: to actually.
Speaker 2: Put But it.
Speaker 3: Doesn't resource.
Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be secession, john It only needs
Speaker 2: to be you know, actual shooting violence between two units
Speaker 2: of government in our country, and then we have a crisis.
Speaker 3: I mean, if if the Chicago police would be ordered
Speaker 3: to attack the National Guard, they'd be squashed like bugs.
Speaker 3: I mean, well, military so has so much more firepower
Speaker 3: police police officers, and I don't think the police officers
Speaker 3: would obey. You're really doesn't.
Speaker 2: Assume well maybe not, but the fact the fact that
Speaker 2: we're even being told even have people in public office
Speaker 2: in Illinois talking this way is a moment that I
Speaker 2: don't think John, you would ever anticipated.
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean we I mean it was much worse
Speaker 3: in reaction to Brown in the South. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: real defiance federal law. You really had governors and trying
Speaker 3: to write in.
Speaker 2: I like to say, at least democrats have been consistent.
Speaker 2: They opposed troops and now they opposed Trump, so at
Speaker 2: least they're consistent.
Speaker 4: Dichotomy, John, for you to come in upon Trump is
Speaker 4: claiming the power to send either to nationalize state National
Speaker 4: Guard troops or uh yeah, to do that, but send
Speaker 4: them elsewhere and use them to protect federal property and
Speaker 4: to ensure that the operations of the federal government. All
Speaker 4: of this under the Insurrection Act, which was passed originally
Speaker 4: I believe in the Jefferson years in eighteen o seven,
Speaker 4: and then it was amended in actually earlier he won,
Speaker 4: and then again in the in the nineteen fifties to
Speaker 4: do exactly what you were talking about, which is to
Speaker 4: protect desegregation against Democrats. Of course, of course democrats. So
Speaker 4: you have the Insurrection Act, and what do you have
Speaker 4: on the left people screaming the problem with the use
Speaker 4: of the Insurrection Act is posse commatatis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they don't understand the law.
Speaker 4: They don't understand the law.
Speaker 3: I get that, but.
Speaker 4: Don't you also find a little bit of irony in
Speaker 4: the fact that the Insurrection Act, in its eighteen sixty
Speaker 4: one amendments, at least was designed to protect the newly
Speaker 4: freed slaves, to enforce civil rights law in the reconstruction
Speaker 4: period in the South, and so on, and that posse
Speaker 4: commatatis was actually agreed to so that the federal government
Speaker 4: would stop using federal troops to protect newly freed slaves.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, I think you and Steve are both
Speaker 3: right in pointing out the parallels of how Southerners pre
Speaker 3: you know, pre Civil War, Southerners after the Civil War,
Speaker 3: Southerners after Brown versus Board of Education, and now Democrats
Speaker 3: today all want to oppose the valid enforcement of federal
Speaker 3: law when they just happen to disagree with it. Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, I don't the laws. I don't
Speaker 3: think the law is even close on this one. Trump
Speaker 3: definitely has the power to deploy troops to protect federal funks. Actually,
Speaker 3: you don't even need This is the interesting thing. You
Speaker 3: don't even need the Insurrection Act or any law. The president,
Speaker 3: under the Constitution, as the Supreme Court has said several times,
Speaker 3: has the power to protect federal agents, federal property, and
Speaker 3: to protect the agents when they go out and force
Speaker 3: the law. All these other statutes you're talking about give
Speaker 3: the president broader powers in that. Well, and Trump's not
Speaker 3: really going as he's not claimed the Insurrection Act. He's
Speaker 3: not going out actually as far as he could go.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's just saying her modest role is to
Speaker 3: protect federal officers. The federal officers are the one who
Speaker 3: are enforcing the law, not the military.
Speaker 2: Well, isn't it amusing that Trump, in his typical genius,
Speaker 2: is making Democrats come out for states rights and the
Speaker 2: Tenth Amendment. They they don't actually cite the Tenth Amendment
Speaker 2: because they don't know it, but still it's kind of
Speaker 2: funny to watch.
Speaker 3: But this is interesting thing that judges who have been stopping,
Speaker 3: you know, trying to enjoin the deployment. I think they're
Speaker 3: all going to be overturned on appeal. They've all been
Speaker 3: suddenly discovering the Tenth Amendment right over. But I don't
Speaker 3: know what the tenth Amendment here actually provides the right
Speaker 3: of states to prevent the enforcement of valid federal law.
Speaker 2: That's not in the tenth Well, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Another term for what's going on is the states are
Speaker 2: attempting nullification.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: It looks very much like nullification to me. And we
Speaker 2: remember what Jackson Andrew Jackson threatened South Carolina in eighteen
Speaker 2: twenty nine or whatever.
Speaker 3: It was just teaching this in classes. Well, he said, right,
Speaker 3: he was going to lead an army they have ten
Speaker 3: thousand they called up ten thousand right militia to invade
Speaker 3: South Carolina. And he said he would hang the governor
Speaker 3: of South Carolina from the tallest tree he could find. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you know Trump, oh, personally, jack is going to
Speaker 3: do it. And I believe he would have done it
Speaker 3: in person too.
Speaker 2: But you know, the nullification business, I I take. I
Speaker 2: have taken pictures over the years of those signs on
Speaker 2: you drive into Berkeley City City Live at saying Berkeley
Speaker 2: is a nuclear free zone. And of course up on
Speaker 2: the hill is the Lawrence Livermore Lab where they develop
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons and have a working nuclear reactor. But of
Speaker 2: course it's a federal facility. But there haven't been. I
Speaker 2: don't know there've been pro Maybe there have been forty
Speaker 2: fifty years ago protests about it that you know. The
Speaker 2: federal government just said that's cute now, you know, go
Speaker 2: away while we do our work, right, but this is
Speaker 2: more serious.
Speaker 3: No, Actually, the protesters don't go up there because it's
Speaker 3: up a hill and protesters are all usually out of
Speaker 3: shape and don't like to walk up.
Speaker 2: That's right, right, right. Well, oh oh man.
Speaker 3: By the way, I did tell you when I used
Speaker 3: to get protested on a weekly basis, there was this
Speaker 3: old guy would protest me in a you know, one
Speaker 3: of those like electric scooters because he was so out
Speaker 3: of shape he couldn't actually walk back and forth with
Speaker 3: a sign. So he got like one of those scooters
Speaker 3: from Costco and would go back and forth.
Speaker 4: Have you seen, oh, yeah, video of the protest in Portland. Yeah,
Speaker 4: of these these uh septagenarian a little bit of them. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, so here's the thing. Look, remember I've spent lots
Speaker 2: of time in Portland over the years. The great cliche
Speaker 2: that well that's where Lewis and Clark College was, and
Speaker 2: my best friend until he died, it was there a
Speaker 2: lot I'd go there two three times a year, and
Speaker 2: I was there a year or two ago to speak
Speaker 2: at a black tied dinner. Anyway, the Clicheva Partland is
Speaker 2: Partland is where young people go to retire. And so
Speaker 2: my joke is, all those people look like they're seventy.
Speaker 2: They're actually thirty five.
Speaker 4: Okay, but but they're they're they're share they're pathetic, they're
Speaker 4: cringe and they're standing there with their little ukuleles seeing
Speaker 4: these protest songs on behalf of all of the illegal immigrants.
Speaker 4: Not one single person in the entire crowd had a
Speaker 4: tan as good as mine. Never mind, were any of
Speaker 4: them Hispanic or black or anything else. They were all
Speaker 4: lily white liberal. What are they called they call him?
Speaker 4: There's a there's a term. I forget it right now,
Speaker 4: but anyway, anyway, sorry, okay. Steve says that he has
Speaker 4: something really great for the end of the show, so
Speaker 4: I give him enough time, not that.
Speaker 3: Much time, but anyway, the standard an he's pulling out
Speaker 3: vinyl records and some kind of thing that looks like
Speaker 3: playing let.
Speaker 4: Me let me give you just a few I want
Speaker 4: time for Steve's latest.
Speaker 2: Uh, it's pretty go ahead, go go go flng to me.
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, uh bablon b. Trump retaliates for Peace
Speaker 4: prize snub with picture of the Nobel Committee in sombreros.
Speaker 4: Tell me that wasn't the Oh my god, that was
Speaker 4: so great. And the worst thing about it is is
Speaker 4: that left has no sense of humor.
Speaker 2: Oh right, yes, Oh, I thought you're talking about the
Speaker 2: woman who did get the Nobel Prize giving full credit
Speaker 2: to Trump forgetting it, which.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, yeah, yeah, because I think that the Nobel
Speaker 4: Committee probably thought that they were really tweaking Trump, right,
Speaker 4: and instead it really backfired on him. But anyway, Federal
Speaker 4: court overturns Israel Hamas peace.
Speaker 2: Deal, right of course. Well Judge Moosemark orders Hamas and
Speaker 2: Israel to keep fighting. Right, that was the other one, right, James.
Speaker 4: Call me produces letters signed by fifty one former intelligence
Speaker 4: official sayings totally innocent. Yeah, and then this is the
Speaker 4: we didn't talk about it, but Steve is right. We
Speaker 4: don't have that much to say right now until we
Speaker 4: figure out how it all happens. But it's a picture
Speaker 4: of Trump, but the caption underneath it is Hitler brings
Speaker 4: peace to Israel exactly, John, that's true.
Speaker 3: Okay, always drink your whiskey meat, buy more books and Steve,
Speaker 3: what ai travesty do you have for us today where
Speaker 3: they're throwing even more people out of work?
Speaker 2: Oh? I have so much fun. I asked chat GBT
Speaker 2: to give us a parody of a John U op
Speaker 2: ed and it gave me. I got several versions. I'm
Speaker 2: just going to give you a couple of very short excerpts.
Speaker 2: It gave me The Constitution empowers the President to control
Speaker 2: the weather by Professor John Yu the Manual Kant Distinguished
Speaker 2: Professor of Original Intent at the University of California, Berkeley.
Speaker 2: And another one is like, this doesn't sound like a
Speaker 2: parody yet, yeah, right, and senior fellow at the Center
Speaker 2: for Atmospheric Originalism. All right, just a couple of variants.
Speaker 2: I've got five pages, but I'm gonna give you just
Speaker 2: three short paragraphs which worked pretty well. Okay, cut one.
Speaker 2: James Madison did not spend a human Philadelphia summer crafting
Speaker 2: a week meteorologically impotent executive Keen his colleagues intended a
Speaker 2: president capable of acting with decision activity, secrecy, and dispatch
Speaker 2: quality is indispensable to weather modification. Federals Number seventy. See
Speaker 2: also the Weather Channel versus Reality twenty twenty five. That
Speaker 2: was the case citation. The other one is let's see
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 4: The context is John arguing that the president has complete
Speaker 4: and total authority under both Commander in Chief Article two
Speaker 4: to stop her Cain's command the weather.
Speaker 2: So that kind of okay? So cut two of three courts,
Speaker 2: of course, should refrain from second guessing presidential weather decisions.
Speaker 2: The judiciary lacks institutional competence in atmospheric science, as shown
Speaker 2: in Marbury versus Monsoon, the US one Cranch.
Speaker 6: One thirty seven Judicial review over quents judicial review of
Speaker 6: cumulus formation with risk, transforming the Supreme Court into a
Speaker 6: kind of judicial Doppler radar, undermining the separation of barometers.
Speaker 2: And finally, the conclusion, as Hamilton wisely noted in Federal seventy,
Speaker 2: energy and executive is a leading character in the definition
Speaker 2: of good government. It is time we recognize that this
Speaker 2: energy includes literally energy, thermodynamics, barometric pressure, and when necessary,
Speaker 2: tactical cloud seating. In short, a timid president may surrender
Speaker 2: to the whims of nature. A strong one commands the stormy.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 3: That's a great last line, I'm going to use it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The problem is these things are getting almost good enough
Speaker 2: to put us out of work.
Speaker 3: Right, oh, and this is great. I mean I'm going
Speaker 3: to start using this thing right in my beds.
Speaker 4: All right, all right, you guys, have a wonderful week,
Speaker 4: Happy Columbus Day. There was a great article I think
Speaker 4: in the Spectator today about oh yeah, we ought to
Speaker 4: stop shying away from celebrating everything great about Columbus hit
Speaker 4: He I won't even use the term family show, but
Speaker 4: he had very big kahons to be able to do
Speaker 4: what he did across the Great Atlantic Ocean five hundred
Speaker 4: years ago.
Speaker 2: Have you seen the size of the ships they sailed in?
Speaker 2: Oh my god? Yeah? Yeah, right, okay, all right, you guys.
Speaker 2: We had like fifteen people watching live, which isn't bad
Speaker 2: for this late in the evening, and thank you listeners,
Speaker 2: and everyone is.
Speaker 3: In night out of them really crecious dogs.
Speaker 2: Okay, bye, everybody, see you soon.
Speaker 5: Across the wide and rolling sea to a far and
Speaker 5: distant shore. Then save three tiny wood and ships where
Speaker 5: Nune had sailed before, and of the sailing tramite, all
Speaker 5: the world.
Speaker 3: Would know the name.
Speaker 5: The Nuna, the Pinta, the Santa Maria and great would
Speaker 5: be their thing.
Speaker 2: And great would be the thing.
Speaker 5: On the same the ocean wind to prove that the
Speaker 5: world was round. It's my saving. To the west, lat
Speaker 5: anew route could be found to the fable sanities of
Speaker 5: the east.
Speaker 2: With a wondrous wealth, Untold.
Speaker 5: Evoldy would returned again with spice, silk and gold.
Speaker 2: With Ricochet join the conversation.