Speaker 1: After the New Orleans attacks attack, there was this absurd
Speaker 1: little moment of questioning where the FBI was. They had
Speaker 1: a local agent, sort of the local field office person
Speaker 1: in New Orleans who rushed to the microphone to try
Speaker 1: to assert to everybody that this was not a terrorist attack,
Speaker 1: which is which was an unbelievably baldly stupid thing to
Speaker 1: have claimed at that point, and was made even more
Speaker 1: insanely stupid the further we got away from it. Pretty
Speaker 1: immediately they determined that the guy who drove his truck
Speaker 1: into the crowd of people in New Orleans, which by
Speaker 1: the way, is a repeated Islamic terrorist strategy that they've
Speaker 1: done this same exact thing multiple times, where they take
Speaker 1: a truck, they drive it into some super crowded gathering
Speaker 1: of people, just like a month ago, an attack like
Speaker 1: that happened in a German Christmas market. I guess we'll
Speaker 1: take a wild guess about the racial, ethnic, whatever profile
Speaker 1: of the person who did that attack. And yet, as
Speaker 1: Annie McCarthy writes a National Review about this, he has
Speaker 1: a very good piece about this. Basically, here's what he writes.
Speaker 1: A top official in the New Orleans Field Office leading
Speaker 1: the investigation so this is one of their geniuses we
Speaker 1: have leading the investigation. The Assistant Special Agent in charge, ALTHEA.
Speaker 1: Duncan could not get to a microphone fast enough to
Speaker 1: state emphatically quote, this was not a terrorist attack, mind you.
Speaker 1: Jabbar had just flown from the rear hitch of his
Speaker 1: rented pickup truck. The black J Hottest flag of isis
Speaker 1: made notorious by terrorist organizations and terrorist organizations that are
Speaker 1: designated as such under the very laws that the FBI enforces.
Speaker 1: He had just employed a classic, oft repeated g Hottest
Speaker 1: tactic of driving a vehicle into a crowd gathered for
Speaker 1: a public celebration offensive to fundamentalist Islam, in this instance,
Speaker 1: an observance of the new year, the hallmark of time
Speaker 1: measured from the birth of Jesus Christ, not the Hidra,
Speaker 1: the Hidra, which is the way of measuring time from
Speaker 1: the offh at Mohammad's migration from Mecca to Yathrib, which
Speaker 1: happened in the year six twenty two. So they don't
Speaker 1: like the Western New Year because it's like it's basically
Speaker 1: designating time has centered around Jesus Christ rather than Muhammad.
Speaker 1: In some Jabbar had just quote cast terror into the
Speaker 1: hearts of the unbelievers, as the Quran instructs in Surah
Speaker 1: three one fifty one, an injunction the fundamentalist Muslims take
Speaker 1: literally and regard as immutable one that enables terrorism by
Speaker 1: dehumanizing non believers in Sharia's supremacist eyes, because as verse
Speaker 1: one fifty one continues, their abode will be the fire
Speaker 1: and evil is the home of the wrong doers in
Speaker 1: what realm? Again, This is Andy McCarthy writing at National Review,
Speaker 1: and McCarthy was for those who don't know his background.
Speaker 1: If you listen to John Jolready show long enough, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna read something by Andy McCarthy, who I think is great.
Speaker 1: He was a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of
Speaker 1: New York for many years and did a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff with terrorism. He prosecuted the first World Trade Center bombers,
Speaker 1: the guys who detonated actual bombs in the World Trade
Speaker 1: Center in the early nineties, and as a result got
Speaker 1: a lot of expertise in international terrorism and has been
Speaker 1: a big critic of particularly Obama era policies and attitudes
Speaker 1: towards international terrorism and the sort of willful PC blinders
Speaker 1: that federal counter terrorism has taken with regards to well,
Speaker 1: what is real is the role influence of Islam, the
Speaker 1: nature of Islam within as a motivator of Islamic terrorism.
Speaker 1: And that was one of the things he had a
Speaker 1: problem with during the First World Trade Center bombing was
Speaker 1: he was trying to show, oh, no, their religious ideology
Speaker 1: is specifically what pushed what motivated these guys to do
Speaker 1: this attack. And he was having some problems during that
Speaker 1: First World Trade Center trial with getting some of that
Speaker 1: evidence in on the grounds, well it's inappropriate to bring
Speaker 1: in their religious background. He said, well, no, it's very
Speaker 1: distinctly relevant here. So he writes about this fundamentalist Islam,
Speaker 1: which is better described as sharia supremacism, is an authoritative
Speaker 1: interpretation of Islam. It may not be the authoritative interpretation.
Speaker 1: Islamic practice and belief is diverse, so the authoritative version
Speaker 1: really doesn't exist. And this plays off a thing that
Speaker 1: was a problem even in the Bush era, where Bush
Speaker 1: was sort of saying, well, Islam is a religion of
Speaker 1: peace and that this is a perversion of Islam, which
Speaker 1: I always sort of thought like, is it are we
Speaker 1: actually the right people to be judging what is and
Speaker 1: is not authoritative Islam because a lot of aspects of
Speaker 1: Islam that we would view as out of bounds that
Speaker 1: most Americans with views out of bounds are accepted and
Speaker 1: practiced by large swaths of the Middle Eastern world. And
Speaker 1: McCarthy's sort of making this point, fundamentalist Islam, Sharia premisism
Speaker 1: whatever is undoubtedly an authoritative interpretation of Islam. It is
Speaker 1: so dominant, So dominant is it in the Muslim Middle
Speaker 1: East that it is accepted as authoritative even by Muslims who,
Speaker 1: in their private thoughts and lives do not necessarily believe
Speaker 1: or practice it. That is because it is an Islam
Speaker 1: supported by more than a millennium of scholarship and championed
Speaker 1: by some of the world's most influential Muslim nations such
Speaker 1: as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, some of the world's most
Speaker 1: prominent Muslim establishments such as Al Ajar University in Cairo,
Speaker 1: organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its global tentacles
Speaker 1: and figures such as the late Shikh use of Karadawi
Speaker 1: and Turkey strongman Receptayep Erduan, a key backer of the
Speaker 1: Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Sunni Jihatis tied to such groups
Speaker 1: as al Qaida and ISIS. Under this fundamentalist interpretation, it
Speaker 1: is the duty of Muslims to spread Islam by implementing Sharia,
Speaker 1: Allah's law and societal framework. This can be done in
Speaker 1: many ways. One of those ways undeniably endorsed by scripture
Speaker 1: is jihad or struggle in Allah's cause, which is the
Speaker 1: spread of Islam. In its classic understanding, jihad is a
Speaker 1: military struggle. Jihad is cons disidered defensive when Muslims deem
Speaker 1: themselves under attack, in which case all Muslims are obliged
Speaker 1: to support. The jihad under attack is in the eye
Speaker 1: of the beholder. Sharia supremacists perceive Islam to be under attack,
Speaker 1: for example, if a territory that was once under Muslim
Speaker 1: rule falls under the control of non Muslims, or if
Speaker 1: Muslims form an enclave in the West and the local
Speaker 1: government interferes with their determination to live under Sharia's struct
Speaker 1: strictures rather than the jurisdiction's laws, or if Muslims are
Speaker 1: aggressors and the aggrieved people dare to fight back. Western
Speaker 1: progressives because they tend to be hostile to religion in
Speaker 1: general see religion as outdated superstition and can't fathom the
Speaker 1: centrality of religion to others when it is avoid in
Speaker 1: their own lives. They do not take Sharia supremacism seriously
Speaker 1: as an ideology. For them, Muslims are just an oppressed
Speaker 1: other resisting their oppressors and the white male Judaeo Christian
Speaker 1: power structure. In this way of thinking, why Muslims themselves
Speaker 1: may believe they must resist is beside the point. This
Speaker 1: is the silly thing about the sort of bizarre alliance
Speaker 1: between the modern left and the pro Palestine movement of
Speaker 1: the Middle East. The Hamas led anti Israeli movement in
Speaker 1: the Middle East is based on all kinds of Sharia
Speaker 1: inspired hatred of the Jews and this notion that basically
Speaker 1: the Jewish state was created in nineteen forty eight on
Speaker 1: land that Muslims had controlled, and therefore it's inherently wrong.
Speaker 1: It violates this Sharia supremacist view of the world, and
Speaker 1: so all military violence, etc. Is justified to push them out.
Speaker 1: Modern day liberals in America support this cause because they
Speaker 1: somehow have it in their heads that the Israelis are
Speaker 1: white and the Muslims are brown. And that this is
Speaker 1: Western colonialism, and that that's what this struggle is, which
Speaker 1: couldn't be absolutely nothing to do with what's going on.
Speaker 1: Since progressives don't take religious beliefs seriously, McCarthy writes, they
Speaker 1: regard religion as an abstraction that, though obsolescent, has certain universal,
Speaker 1: well meaning attributes. In the case of Islam, the relevant
Speaker 1: one is peace. People who study sharia supremacism forthrightly note
Speaker 1: its propensity toward militant jihad when Muslims become a critical
Speaker 1: mass of the population in a given place. Progressives reject this,
Speaker 1: demagoguing it as Islamophobia, as if critical examination were the
Speaker 1: equivalent of racism. Ergo the regnant syllogism. Religion is peace.
Speaker 1: Islam is one of the world's great religions, with close
Speaker 1: to two billion adherents. Therefore, is Islam is altogether now
Speaker 1: a religion of peace? What to do about? What then,
Speaker 1: do we do about fundamentalist Muslims and the inconvenience that
Speaker 1: some of them routinely engage in violent attacks easy people
Speaker 1: who claim religious justification for brutality are simply said to
Speaker 1: be engaged in false religion. After all, true religion is
Speaker 1: inherently peaceful. Indeed, to hear progressives describe the Islam of
Speaker 1: their very own that they've fashioned, you'd think peace might
Speaker 1: be Islam's only tenant. Consequently, another syllogism, religion is peaceful.
Speaker 1: Al Qaeda and ISIS, among other jihadist groups, unabashedly claim
Speaker 1: Islamic tenets as justification for committing violence. Therefore, al Qaida
Speaker 1: and Isis represent false Islam. And this is the thing
Speaker 1: I've always thought was stupid. Well, they're just al qaida Is.
Speaker 1: This is a perversion of Islam, perversion of the one
Speaker 1: of the world's great religions. Well, it's a version of
Speaker 1: it that has a pretty long standing track record in
Speaker 1: the Middle East. Again, this rationalization is at war with reality,
Speaker 1: McCarthy writes, in which there is an authentic Islam that
Speaker 1: summons Muslims to wage jihad and Allah's cause and has
Speaker 1: been doing so for centuries. But onreality is where the
Speaker 1: FBI dwells. And don't blame the FBI for that. While
Speaker 1: I have no doubt that asak Alathea, Duncan and other
Speaker 1: agents recruited and promoted since the Obama era are perfectly
Speaker 1: comfortable spouting the party line. It is the party line
Speaker 1: imposed on the Bureau by its superiors. McCarthy continues, I
Speaker 1: used to feel confident, saying that most agents doing actual
Speaker 1: investigations don't buy into this nonsense. But fifteen years is
Speaker 1: a long time enough to change in agency's culture, which
Speaker 1: Obama undertook to do. Recall the purging of such terms
Speaker 1: as jihad, the termination of instructors versed in Sharia supremacism,
Speaker 1: and the instructions that agents should avoid noticing any nexus
Speaker 1: between ideology and violence, a core principle in the transformation
Speaker 1: of counter terrorism into what Obama fileds dubbed countering violent extremism.
Speaker 1: So basically, what the upshot of all this is when
Speaker 1: a terrorist. When an obvious Muslim terrorist attack happens, the
Speaker 1: FBI starts from the premise that it is not terrorism
Speaker 1: unless agents can establish a solid operational tie between the
Speaker 1: Muslim who committed the attack and a group designated as
Speaker 1: a foreign terrorist organization under federal law, such as Al
Speaker 1: Qaeda or ISIS. The Bureau has no problem labeling such
Speaker 1: an incident a terrorist attack because the government's official position
Speaker 1: is that those groups are driven by false Islam i e.
Speaker 1: Their claim to be faithful Muslims is deemed false. There's
Speaker 1: no danger then that the FBI in the US government
Speaker 1: will be perceived as linking terrorism to Islam because that's
Speaker 1: a religion of peace, or so they tell themselves. Now
Speaker 1: it also just sort of seems just my comment to
Speaker 1: in here, the rush to say it's not terrorism when
Speaker 1: what you of course it's terroristic. He he killed a
Speaker 1: whole group of people in this bizarre fashion. You don't
Speaker 1: do that if it's not terrorism. That that you can't
Speaker 1: kill a large crowd of people celebrating at a party
Speaker 1: without it being terrorism. That that's just what I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's it's like, I don't know, it's like beating up
Speaker 1: your wife without unkindness. There's no way to beat up
Speaker 1: your wife that isn't unkind Obviously it's terroristic, that the
Speaker 1: fact of it happening is terroristic. I guess it's questionable
Speaker 1: whether this guy had set up formal operational connections and
Speaker 1: coordination with ISIS or al Qaeda, or some international terrorist
Speaker 1: group designated as a terrorist group by our US government,
Speaker 1: even though he was flying an ISIS flag at the time.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was was he inspired by or actually coordinating
Speaker 1: with Probably at that very early stage when that special
Speaker 1: agent ran to the microphone and declared it's not a
Speaker 1: terrorist attack. Probably at that point it was not clear
Speaker 1: whether the guy was in coordination with an international terrorist group.
Speaker 1: Maybe he just did it on his own, inspired by
Speaker 1: isis okay say that, but don't tell me it's not terroristic?
Speaker 1: All right? When we return. A great question that was
Speaker 1: asked of Joe Biden regarding terrorism, whether he still thinks
Speaker 1: white supremacy terrorism is the most imminent threat to the
Speaker 1: United States. Next on the John Girardi Show, President Biden
Speaker 1: had a little press conference at some point after the
Speaker 1: terrorist attack. It actually wasn't President Biden, it was just
Speaker 1: a one of It was the January third Daily Press
Speaker 1: briefing with Karine Jean Pierre, the President's press secretary, and
Speaker 1: she ducked this question that was asked by Lucas Fox
Speaker 1: Lucas Tomlinson, Sorry, Lucas Tomlinson from Fox News. He was
Speaker 1: reported there as she was leaving the briefing room. He
Speaker 1: asked out loud, didn't look at him, didn't address it.
Speaker 1: Does the President still consider white supremacy the greatest terrorist
Speaker 1: threat to the United States? Let's talk about that. Now.
Speaker 1: Some of you may recall, after January sixth, the Attorney
Speaker 1: General Merrick Garland, President Biden, everyone in the Biden administration
Speaker 1: solemnly stood there and declared to us all that white
Speaker 1: supremacy was the greatest terrorist threat facing the United States
Speaker 1: of America. White supremacist white supremacist terrorism, home grown white
Speaker 1: supremacy terrorism, the greatest threat facing the country, and that
Speaker 1: January sixth of twenty twenty one was an example of this. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not here to say January sixth was good, and
Speaker 1: I hate that I have to do.
Speaker 2: All these bowing and scraping every time you bring up
Speaker 2: January sixth, and God knows, I'm we have to do
Speaker 2: it again. January six was bad. January six was a riot. Yes,
Speaker 2: I've said it over and over all undred million times.
Speaker 2: January sixth was bad. January six was stupid. January six
Speaker 2: was a riot. People who did violence on January six
Speaker 2: should be prosecuted. People who committed nonviolent crimes I really
Speaker 2: don't think need to be prosecuted. The idea that this
Speaker 2: became the largest criminal investigation in the history of the
Speaker 2: FBI is an absolute, absolute idiocy and obviously smacks of
Speaker 2: political retribution, the fact that people, some of whom were
Speaker 2: just waved in, who committed crimes no worse than trespass.
Speaker 2: Basically that the full resources of the federal government are
Speaker 2: used to prosecute people far flung all over the United
Speaker 2: States who were there, happened to be there at January sixth,
Speaker 2: happened to walk through the barrier at some point, are
Speaker 2: being prosecuted. Look the guys who were punching police officers
Speaker 2: or breaking windows or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, arrest those guys. Prosecute those guys. Not Mema
Speaker 1: who walked through at various points because people were waving
Speaker 1: her through, someone who committed some trespass level crime. Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: But after January sixth, white supremacist terrorism was deemed the
Speaker 1: worst threat to our country, even though January sixth wasn't
Speaker 1: motivated by what you and I would think of as
Speaker 1: white supremacy. It was just Trump supporters. It was Trump
Speaker 1: supporters who thought the election had been stolen. Some of
Speaker 1: them were black, probably not most of them, certainly not
Speaker 1: most of them, but some of them were black. I'd
Speaker 1: be curious to hear how many African Americans were prosecuted
Speaker 1: as part of the January sixth prosecutions. So, but why
Speaker 1: was the FBI able to cast this as white supremacy.
Speaker 1: I think it's because of the way in which academic
Speaker 1: liberals have recast the whole notion of white supremacy into
Speaker 1: this far broader category. That basically they have expanded the
Speaker 1: notion of white supremacy into just basically anyone who favors
Speaker 1: sort of policy prescriptions that liberals don't like, people who
Speaker 1: don't like equity as a measure of who don't like
Speaker 1: equity and favor equality, the idea of someone who favors
Speaker 1: the oppressive patriarchal norms, or I don't know, the basically
Speaker 1: white supremacy got so wildly expanded as to be an
Speaker 1: almost meaningless label that the left and the FBI, the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice started to apply to basically anyone they disliked.
Speaker 1: Now the question gets raised, is white supremacist terrorism really
Speaker 1: the chief terrorist threat facing the country? Because last I checked,
Speaker 1: there what white supremacist terrorism has actually happened in this
Speaker 1: country since January sixth, Which, even if if you want
Speaker 1: to go so far as to call it a white
Speaker 1: supremacist event, which I think is ridiculous, I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: haven't heard of any. Look, actual, honest to god, white
Speaker 1: supremacism bad thing. Don't like it. If you know of
Speaker 1: any white supremacist committing crimes, let's prosecute them, put them
Speaker 1: in jail. I don't like neo Nazis. I don't like
Speaker 1: non neo Nazis any all stripes of Nazis, Illinois Nazis.
Speaker 1: I hate Illinois Nazis. If you've got some white supremacists
Speaker 1: out there committing you know, driving pickup trucks and killing
Speaker 1: ten people during parties in New Orleans, or planting bombs
Speaker 1: around the French Quarter near the cathedral down there, if
Speaker 1: you've got white supremacists doing that kind of stuff, please
Speaker 1: let me know. I'll be first in line to say
Speaker 1: that they need to be prosecuted. It's not happening. I
Speaker 1: think there are other kinds of terrorism that are still
Speaker 1: pretty serious threats. By the way, I feel like it's
Speaker 1: been pretty quiet the investigation into the terrorist attack in
Speaker 1: New Orleans, by the way, other than this one guy
Speaker 1: that they killed, and clearly he wasn't acting alone. He
Speaker 1: had put bombs around different parts of the French Quarter
Speaker 1: that were found and safely detonated. Feels odd we haven't
Speaker 1: heard more about all this anyway. When we return, a
Speaker 1: Republican member of the House calls for the stupidest idea
Speaker 1: I've heard in a while, mandating independent redistricting commissions in
Speaker 1: every state. Next on the John Girardi Show, So I
Speaker 1: saw a little little quickie news story. Republicans just desperate
Speaker 1: to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. Representative Brian Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 1: a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, is introducing a bill to
Speaker 1: mandate one of the dumber ideas I've ever heard. Or
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh, but and
Speaker 1: maybe it's a thing where in one maybe it's a
Speaker 1: thing where it just won't really change anything more so
Speaker 1: than it's going to do something actively bad. But let's
Speaker 1: let's talk it through. Representative Brian Fitzpatrick has introduced a
Speaker 1: bill to mandate independent redistricting commissions in every state. The
Speaker 1: people who recommend independent redistricting commissions, it's people who get
Speaker 1: real upset over jerrymandering. Jerrymandering is the practice where the
Speaker 1: what is the the what are the boundary lines of
Speaker 1: the congressional district you live in? How did those boundary
Speaker 1: lines come to be drawn? Well, for most states and
Speaker 1: most of American history, it happens like this. Every ten
Speaker 1: years in America, we have a census nineteen ninety two, ten,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. Based off that census data, different states are
Speaker 1: allocated a different number of seats in the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives in Congress. So, oh, okay, California's population jumped by
Speaker 1: this is not true. I'm just making this up as
Speaker 1: an example. Okay, if California's population jump by a million people,
Speaker 1: they get two more members of the House of Representatives. Okay,
Speaker 1: brings their total account of congressmen from forty eight to
Speaker 1: fifty or something like that. All right, Oh, Wyoming's population
Speaker 1: jumped big time. They may move up from having only
Speaker 1: one member of the House of Representatives now they have two. Hey,
Speaker 1: what do you know? So every ten years, the census happens,
Speaker 1: and reapportionment happens. As a result, changes the number of
Speaker 1: members of the House of Representatives that a state has.
Speaker 1: It thus changes the number of Electoral College votes that
Speaker 1: a state has. The number of Electoral College votes your
Speaker 1: state has, it's the combined number of how many House
Speaker 1: seats you have plus your two Senate seats. So Wyoming
Speaker 1: only has Wyoming and Alaska only have one member of
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives and they have two senators. So
Speaker 1: Wyoming and Alaska each have three electoral College votes. California, though,
Speaker 1: has I forget what it is. California has like something
Speaker 1: like I think like forty eight members of the House
Speaker 1: Representatives represent California plus the two senators. California gets a
Speaker 1: total of like fifty electoral College votes somewhere around that ballpark.
Speaker 1: Now you get apportioned all these House seats, Well, how
Speaker 1: do you draw the map of the specific regions that
Speaker 1: these individual members of the House Representatives will represent. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: for state legislators, how do you draw their district lines? Well, again,
Speaker 1: it's based off of the census data. So every ten
Speaker 1: years you have a census and somehow you've got to
Speaker 1: draw all the lines. For Okay, we have eighty members
Speaker 1: of the California State Assembly. We got forty members of
Speaker 1: the state Senate. How do we draw their lines? Well, historically,
Speaker 1: the way this was done and the way it's done
Speaker 1: in most states is the state legislatures draw the lines.
Speaker 1: The state legislators draw the lines for members of the
Speaker 1: House representatives and they draw the lines for members of
Speaker 1: the state legislature, and political parties being aggressive towards their
Speaker 1: own self interest. When one political party is in power
Speaker 1: in a state legislature, they try their best to draw
Speaker 1: the maps in a way that's advantageous to them, and
Speaker 1: this might result in districts drawn that looked weird. And
Speaker 1: we call this process jerry mandering. The term came from
Speaker 1: an eighteen twelve political cartoon. This was a state Senate election,
Speaker 1: and the governor of Massachusetts at the time was this
Speaker 1: guy named Elbridge Gary spelled g r ry, even though
Speaker 1: it was pronounced Gary with a hard G. But over
Speaker 1: time it started to be pronounced as jerry jerry mandering.
Speaker 1: And this political cartoon showed this one state Senate district
Speaker 1: that was drawn in this really weird fashion. They drew
Speaker 1: it to it looked like a monster, so they drew
Speaker 1: it almost looks like a dragon. And this bizarrely shaped
Speaker 1: district that was clearly drawn to benefit the Democratic Republicans.
Speaker 1: Elbridge Gary, by the way, would go on to be
Speaker 1: a Vice President of the United States. Now so ever,
Speaker 1: since that time, ever since that event, advantageously drawing weirdly shaped,
Speaker 1: non naturally shaped districts for the political advantage of one
Speaker 1: side over another has been referred to as jerry mandering,
Speaker 1: and basically, and then people took the term jerry mandering
Speaker 1: and started to apply it to other specific politicians. In
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty, jerry mandering was sometimes used in reference to
Speaker 1: California Governor Jerry Brown Perry mandering was used for Texas
Speaker 1: Governor Rick Perry and some Texas electoral maps that were
Speaker 1: drawn under him, et cetera, et cetera. Now people get
Speaker 1: all bent out of shape about jerry mandering. They really do.
Speaker 1: There's a certain class of people who just think that
Speaker 1: it's the worst thing ever. I sort of accept it
Speaker 1: as Look, this is governed by the political process. It's
Speaker 1: a political thing. The framers of the Constitution surely understood
Speaker 1: that politicians would try to advantageously draw these districts. It
Speaker 1: was put in the hands of the political process, political players,
Speaker 1: political actors making their political coalitions. We're going to advantageously
Speaker 1: do this. So I've never really cared about jerry mandering.
Speaker 1: It's sort of what I dislike are people who pretend
Speaker 1: like jerry mandering is so awful and then engage in
Speaker 1: it anyway, and that's basically precisely what we have in California.
Speaker 1: So there are people who get so angry about jerrymandering,
Speaker 1: and particularly they get angry about it when Republicans do it.
Speaker 1: That's the main thing. Most of the people who say
Speaker 1: they dislike jerrymandering, they get suspiciously quiet when Democrats do
Speaker 1: it in absurd ways in states like Illinois or Maryland
Speaker 1: where Democrats have controlled the process and draw up the
Speaker 1: most insane maps possible, maps with these big, long, thin
Speaker 1: districts connecting completely separate disparate cities from one another, because
Speaker 1: that'll make a more effective map. What they don't like
Speaker 1: is when Republicans do it. Now, there's this legacy of
Speaker 1: whites in the South drawing electoral maps deliberately to deprive
Speaker 1: any sort of electoral power to African American voters. You
Speaker 1: take some African American section of town and instead of
Speaker 1: making it a natural kind of district, you do whatever
Speaker 1: you can to lessen the power of an African American population.
Speaker 1: So they did this in a number of ways. One
Speaker 1: way would be to sort of split up this one
Speaker 1: African American section, this one African American heavy region, almost
Speaker 1: to divide it up into little individual pizza slices where
Speaker 1: it's divided up as members of a bunch of different
Speaker 1: congressional districts, and none of them do African Americans have
Speaker 1: anything close to political power. Or another way to do
Speaker 1: it is, if you have too many African Americans and
Speaker 1: there's no way to stop them from having political power,
Speaker 1: you just shove them all into one district so that
Speaker 1: all the other districts don't lack any African American participation whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And you can draw and in order to do either
Speaker 1: of those two things, you can draw maps that are
Speaker 1: are oddly shaped and that combine regions that don't have
Speaker 1: any sort of natural ties to each other. So there
Speaker 1: was kind of an ugly legacy of that, and some
Speaker 1: of the federal voting Rights Acts and then state voting
Speaker 1: rights acts, particularly California that were past, were designed to
Speaker 1: stop that from happening, but have resulted in bizarre outcomes
Speaker 1: here in California, where you know, Latinos are a historically
Speaker 1: oppressed minority, where you can't do that too, even though
Speaker 1: Latinos in a lot of regions of California, maybe California
Speaker 1: in general are now basically the majority. And there's also
Speaker 1: the problem of, well, the point of it's okay to
Speaker 1: draw district lines in a way that's politically advantageous. The
Speaker 1: problem is, well, what if that political advantage lines up
Speaker 1: with racial demographics. African Americans tend to vote Democrat. So
Speaker 1: if I draw a map that's intended just to favor Republicans,
Speaker 1: it's not intended to be racist or any I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to have my Republicans win. Is that against the law? Well,
Speaker 1: the interpretation by some courts has been that, yes, if
Speaker 1: the outcome has the effect of disadvantaging a racial minority,
Speaker 1: then therefore it violates the law, and that that is
Speaker 1: certainly that's the interpretation, certainly in California. Now, with all
Speaker 1: of this, the idea came about of why do we
Speaker 1: let the political process play out here? Why do we
Speaker 1: let political parties decide all of this? We should have
Speaker 1: an independent redistricting commission. If we have an independent redistricting commission,
Speaker 1: then it can put together district lines that are more
Speaker 1: natural that makes sense, that won't do racially bigoted things,
Speaker 1: and it'll put meaningful communities together without the motivation of politics.
Speaker 1: So Honald I love this idea and pushed it through
Speaker 1: a ballot initiative that, of course we it's California's pass
Speaker 1: We passed the Independent Redistricting Commission. We also passed idiotically
Speaker 1: the jungle primary. Schwarzenegger had this beautiful, brilliant vision of
Speaker 1: a post political partisanship era for California politics, which have
Speaker 1: just become more politically partisan than ever. Why well, because
Speaker 1: the Independent Redistricting Commission just became Both the political parties noticed, hey,
Speaker 1: if we could get hard partisans for our party on
Speaker 1: this independent redistricting Commission, we could draw the lines in
Speaker 1: ways that are advantageous to us. So what happened. Both
Speaker 1: parties rushed to get as many of their partisans as
Speaker 1: humanly possible on the Independent Redistricting Commission, with predictable results.
Speaker 1: Democrats got more, and the redistricting in California has been
Speaker 1: predictably one sided. Democrats have drawn the lines in a
Speaker 1: way that's really advantageous to them. Certainly that's their intent.
Speaker 1: Remember what I said about, you know, hey, the example
Speaker 1: of you take all of the African Americans and shove
Speaker 1: them into one district so that none of the other
Speaker 1: districts have their influence. Basically, Democrats have just done that
Speaker 1: to Republicans here in the San Joaquin Valley. They take
Speaker 1: every heavy Republican enclave in central California and they shoved
Speaker 1: it into what was Kevin McCarthy's district is now Vince
Speaker 1: Fong's district. Right, I tweeted out what Vince Fong's map
Speaker 1: looks like. It kind of looks like the number three.
Speaker 1: It's got the main body of it along the right
Speaker 1: side is kind of very little population. Mostly it's just
Speaker 1: the Sierra Nevadas. But then it's got three spurs that
Speaker 1: come out. One is kind of Clovid, yes, the other
Speaker 1: is Lamore for some reason, not Daanuba, not a bunch
Speaker 1: of cities in between Lamore and Fresno, but Lamore. And
Speaker 1: then a third spur goes around around the city of Bakersfield, basically,
Speaker 1: I think all the more conservative rural parts of Kern County.
Speaker 1: It's this bizarrely shaped thing that now it's the result
Speaker 1: is I live in Clovis and my Member of Congress
Speaker 1: is from Bakersfield. I like Vince Fog a lot, but
Speaker 1: he is not from where I am. And of course,
Speaker 1: what a natural grouping Clovis, Lamore, and the area around Bakersfield.
Speaker 1: What do those three cities have in common? I mean,
Speaker 1: not very much. I can tell you that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess we're all in the San Joaquin Valley, but
Speaker 1: that certainly there's nothing about Lamore that I that I have.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know. I think I have at
Speaker 1: least as much in common with Dai Nuba as I
Speaker 1: have Lamore and Delano and Wasco. But those are all
Speaker 1: cities that are no part of this district. And it's
Speaker 1: all sort of specifically drawn so that Jim Costa can
Speaker 1: have his Democrat majority area, Adam Gray will have his
Speaker 1: Democrat majority area. David Valadeo keeps winning even though it's
Speaker 1: a Democrat majority district that he keeps winning it anyway,
Speaker 1: it's the same old nonsense, just under a different package.
Speaker 1: When we return, Justin Trudeau stepping down as Canadian Prime
Speaker 1: Minister my conspiracy theory I will never let go of.
Speaker 1: Next on the John Gardi Show, Justin Trudeau announced he'll
Speaker 1: be stepping down as Canadian Prime minister. And I just
Speaker 1: want to let everyone know I don't like a lot
Speaker 1: of conspiracy theories, but here's one I do hold on to.
Speaker 1: Still kind of think Justin Trudeau is Fidel Castro's son.
Speaker 1: If you haven't heard of this, just google Fidel Castro,
Speaker 1: Justin Trudeau. There was some point where his mom and
Speaker 1: had met Fidel Castro that there might have been some up.
Speaker 1: Some people say there's no opportunity. He looks exactly like
Speaker 1: a young Fidel Castro. It's insane. That'll do it. John
Speaker 1: Jardy Show, See you next time on Power Talk