Well, whiskey, come and fame my pains all.
Ray, oh whiskey, Why think alone when you can drink it all?
In with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy.
Hour, join your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John U and the International Woman of Mystery, Lucretia.
Where they slaps it happened, David, ain't you baby on the snow Tat's gotta give me.
And let that whiskey flow.
Welcome everybody to the Snowmageddon episode of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, where I am the only true American on this podcast because I about to have a foot of snow dumped on me while Lucretia and Steve Hayward, my co hosts, sit in their sunny climbs and are wondering, what are we talking about? Freezing rain, snow? What are these magical substances they know?
Not raining here?
John, Yeah, it's it's cloudy here. It rained a little yesterday, but it's mild.
I've been through those snow mageddons many times, and I did get to communicate yesterday from a friend, actually, someone on the faculty of George Mason Law School, who said she went to the local whole foods or whatever the market was, and they were sold out of Pellegrino, which.
Is that's like the end of civilization.
The Northern Virginia thing I've ever heard.
So, as some of you know, I'm spending this semester at the University of Texas at Austin, and so I went to my first h e B which is, you know, some kind of cool supermarket here that rivals Walmart but only exists in Texas. The owner who's private, it's privately owned. I believe the owner doesn't want there to be any outside of Texas. And it was like a rodeo. People
were going crazy buying up water pasta. It's actually interesting the things people buy in turn in case of a design, they'd buy water pasta and toilet paper.
Oh yeah, I don't know why they think COVID creep? How about you?
Is there going to be a disaster in Arizona?
No?
Two things. So, when I was about seven months pregnant living in upstate New York, we had an ice storm that took out our power for three and a half weeks, and so we had oil you know oil generators, right, but we had a some pump that kept the cellar from filling up with water, so we actually had to get a generator so that some pump would work. And then we were warm, and we were the only house in the entire town that had lights on, and all the soldiers are coming in eating stew that I was
making on my gas stove and whatnot. We had absolutely fine, but it was a disaster. I mean, seriously, nobody, that's thing one, Thing two, thing two. How long could you guys go without making I mean I think I could go for two months with the food that I have here at the house the freezer. I wouldn't be eating things I want to eat eventually.
But in California, for me, that was easy because I didn't have a lot of food, but I had a lot of ammunition, so I could just stone next door and get as much food as I wanted. But Ruts that theory doesn't work anymore. So go to h me and get camed chili like everybody else.
But wait a minute, John, you're facing you know army Snowmagedden in Texas, and you haven't socked up on whiskey for the weekend.
No, that was dumb up.
I didn't stop by the liquor. They also have everything here's bigger. So they have these enormous liquor stores that are the size of supermarkets Texas, right, yeah, Yeah, what's the old one? Three blocks from where I'm staying.
Yeah, what's the old joke?
Is that in Texas the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is a convenience store chain.
So aha, what are you drinking, Freud?
I'm drinking with Freud of course. Yeah.
And I appreciate you're oh lucre of you, John, Yes, that's a great drink. Whistle pig piggyback rye.
Yes.
So, by the way, I should mention for listeners, John, I mean you're in charge of this, but the three of us are going to be there joining you in Austin.
And was it two weeks? Yeah?
Talk about live Yeah, we'll have a typing Well we'll try, I mean audient kind of.
But I am.
I am watching this whole storm with great interest because it will be relevant to that conference. You know, when Texas had that big freeze, what was a twenty twenty one.
I think five years ago?
Yeah, so you know you had huge power outages, but not just that because so many generators were offline and things weren't working. Uh, the Texas grid had to buy power from out of state where they could get it. They normally pay I think the average price in Texas, the spot price for electricity something like forty dollar a megawatt hour. The price during that crisis rose to nine
thousand dollars for mega wow. And you know the utility has to eat that cost because you know, you get fixed, regulated retail prices to customers, so it costs them huge amounts of money. So now you're going to see possibly a freeze of that magnitude crossing tire southwest, like one hundred and fifty million people perhaps, And you see that, Steve.
That our friend Robert Bryce said that the price of natural gas had already risen by fifty five percent.
Yeah, gas is way up.
And right, that's just for not only home use, but for generators that are going to be going full blast.
And well, now.
Would you use natural gas on it? I guess if there was a permanent built in generator, you might, but normally well.
No, no, natural I mean it's natural gas.
Speaker plants for no, I mean natural gas, you know, combines the big plants.
You know, you're big five in our megawatt plants gas as your producer, and.
Okay, I'll stop there in the schooling Lucree on energy, which he's learn all about here in two weeks.
So okay, well, let's yeah.
I'm sure the reader's listeners they can send in comments about what they're going to do over the weekend during snow armageddon, and maybe favorite drink, favorite foods to eat while we're holed up for the next two days, like eskimones, cavemen, whatever you But why don't we start with our first topic, which was going to be I believe some of the Supreme Court oral arguments and cases this week. Is that
what you guys? And also some questions about ICE searching people's houses for illegal aliens?
Do I have that right?
Let me start, John, because I had one of our very loyal listeners asked this question, and there have been things about it ever since he asked it, which was only yesterday afternoon, including what you said, here is the question the Democrats most mainstream media organizations outlets are are reporting that the when when an ICE agent goes into a home without judicial warrant but with uh and let me help not mess this up, John, an administrative warrant
that is actually the result of the final determination through the whole process du process of determining that this person has actually removal orders that it is appropriate or is it appropriate? They're saying it's inappropriate. It's a Fourth Amendment violation to go into someone's house without a judicial warrant of the Fourth Amendment type. So fixed where I.
So, let me describe what the law is and then we could have I think a very interesting discussion about what the original understanding of the Constitution should be, because
I think those are quite those are different. So the law of these days is to get you can get a warrant that's called an administrative warrant, which allows you to search without going through the process that's used for the criminal justice system, where you go to a federal judge and you have to show probable cause that criminal activity is occurring in this location. The judge gives you that warrant and specifies exactly where you can search, when and so on, and then that gives you the.
And the remedy.
The interesting thing is, right, what is the real remedy for a violation of that? Is that at your criminal trial the evidence that's gathered is suppressed. So administrative warrant is this kind of thing that was created by these progressive era agencies where they would say, I'm not mentioning
your statute, Steve, don't get excited. But the case is that exists come out of that, right, There are these cases that come out of Well, if you're the EPA and you are going to inspect a business to make sure they were complying with unnamed statutes, would you really have to go to a court and get a warrant. There's no criminal punishment at the end of it. So they created this idea of the administrative warrant where you wanted to search for violations of quality of things. We're
not going to mention in violation of a regulation. You could go and get a warrant from a non judge, and the court has kind of upheld these, but they haven't decided exactly how independent that quote unquote judge would have to be. It wouldn't have to be a federal judge. It could be a judge like the kind that work at agencies. Perhaps, So this is a question, right when you are enforcing immigration law, Theoretically that's not a criminal proceeding.
You're just grabbing them and kicking them out, that's not criminal. Could an immigration judge is the warrant to go catch these people, enter house, catch them and eject them. How independent does that immigration judge have to be? Immigration judges work for the Justice Department. They're not part of the federal bench. And so that's that's actually not been decided by the Supreme Court, believe it or not.
Well, now, John, you don't have to use a certain favorite unnamed statute. You could use OSHA inspections where I think this has been a live issue for a long time because I remember being controversies about OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Right, they would show up at workplaces to do an unannounced inspection for safety purposes, and people said, isn't this a don't they need a warrant? Isn't this
a Fourth Amendment violation? And I don't know where that all landed, although I do know the data that we learned a few years ago that proceedings before administrative law judges of the IRS or the SEC were always hugely favorable to guess what the agency?
Yeah, right, So I don't know where it all stands. But interesting question.
Well, it's interesting also because the arguments that are being raised against this used to be raised by conservatives defending property rights right and wanting to limit the power of the administrative state, and so he has right.
Now.
The other let me ask acretion of this is if you believed in natural rights, and you thought that the Bill of Rights was just a statement of some but not all, then would you have to believe that the government just has no power to search your house ever for any reason except when it can get a criminal warrant. Right would the natural right presumption be well, there is no power ever given to the government to search your house for administrative purposes, So why does the government get do it?
Now?
Well, this doesn't sorry, go ahead ahead, you can answer, Steve. Well, I'll just go this is a criminal matter being investigated. We're you know, it's one thing to say we're looking for civil violations of safety regulations. It's a different thing to say we are looking for someone who's violated immigration laws and in many cases, many others.
But immigration is.
Non crypt Immigration is not criminal. It's not okay, well, it is considered administrative.
But you can be a felon under immigration law.
That's one of the reasons to kick you out.
Yeah, yes, yes, And and presumably presumably I couldn't tell you in any given case, we are talking about illegal aliens who have been adjudicated as removable deportable.
Yeah, by these judges.
I still have a really hard time, based on social contract theory, with the idea that the for that anything in the Bill of Rights applies to a non citizens, especially to a non citizen who is here not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
But and then you're going to throw that in.
I do agree with you that it, you know, I like to throw out there the dissent from Olmsted versus us that, you know, whatever, whatever else. A civilized society believes, it believes in an a sphere of privacy into which the government made on intrude right, and I do believe that. However, I honestly do think that in this case, if you have been adjudicated to be deportable, it's a what it's a technicality about how Ice finds you and gets you
out of here. You have no right not to stay in your house and not be deported, is what it would come down to. I don't know that's not a very good legal theory, and I won't know be a lawyer today.
I can I throw on two things. It pains me to support Lucretia's arguments with evidence, so why I mean, because humfully they're much better without any evidence. But love argument is and this need the implication people haven't teased out.
But you know that.
Justice Thomas and some folks in the Claremont School think that the Bill of Rights should be incorporated against the States through the Privileges and Immunities.
Clause, not the due process clause.
That would make a big difference on your point, because the privileges and immunities are privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, and the due process clause is just to persons. So if actually in corporation of things like the Fourteenth Amendment against the States were to shift, then you might have to figure this out whether aliens who are here illegally actually get constitutional rights of the same kind that citizens get when you do it through
the due process clause. The Court has said when you do it through the process clause, because it's to persons, everyone on the territory of the US gets the same constitutional rights. It's really that could make a big difference. But you know, the court doesn't seem to show any signs of One last thing is that the original understanding does seem to be from the fourteenth Amendment that privileges and immunities. It really is the right sparing provision, not exactly what.
I was going to say. Give evidence to your evidence, John, And that evidence also includes the fact that it was the Supreme Court who really mucked it up in the
first place. And again, all of the legislative history, evidence and so on of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment indicates that it was intended to take the Privileges and Immunities clause as the proof that the at least the first eight amendments in the Bill of Rights, the first eight amendments would be in fact applied to the states. And that's, you know, really because it was designed to change that relationship between between citizens and their states versus
citizens and their federal government. The original Bill of Rights, Marshall told us, was to protect us against federal government abuse, because that was the considered the greatest danger in the founding. But the Civil War sort of puts that on its head, and so I think that Thomas has always been right about that. Whether the court will I mean, that would be a major that would be bigger even than overturning Humphreys. Let's just put it down way.
Oh I agree, So let's take a go to commercial Well, yeah, go ahead with and also raise Steve's favorite topic of parents genderism. And when we return, Steve, your thoughts on differences in constitutional rights or between the aliens and citizens, or the privileges and ease.
Caused or the right.
I'm sure you're going to turn this in some kind of discussion environmentalism, but about administrative schurches and the Fourth Amendment was the leading Supreme Court case is called I think it's Monsanto versus Ruckle Shouts or something. So, oh, yeah, you know it's a Monsanto case.
Yeah, but Steve, go ahead yourself.
I already got that out of my system in the opening bit about power prices in Texas this weekend. I actually I was going to bring up something slightly different. We've done a decent job with the Fourth Amendment there, and that is just as Thomas.
You mentioned.
Something else this week is embraceive natural law in the what the Ellenberg case about to whether a certain kind of font civil find was constitutional under the expost facto clause. The court ruled, no, Only that's only a criminal fine that can be on retro act. Sorry, I'm staying it backwards. Only a civil find can be retroactive, not a criminal one.
My taxes can be retroactive, right.
Yes, right, yeah, And you know, Thomas is I won't spend too much time on this, but I just thought it was funny at a whole page about that passage that I have quoted many times in the classroom from Madison's notes on the Convention, where James Wilson says, we don't need an ex post facto clause. Everybody knows it's against the natural law, and people will think we're idiots if we I'm paraphrasing, right, but that's his real colloquial meanings.
People think we're idiots if he wrote that in there, that's as dumb as saying, you know, the sun rises in the east, right. And so I thought that was fun. But the serious point is that distinction between the expost factor law applying to criminal but not civil law goes all the way back to the seventeen nineties, and this will connect to the next case I'll bring up but.
Called their bulk casus bull. So what the case is? What seventeen ninety seven or something.
And the point is, if we talk about before Marshall, but if we talk these days about how you know, a long practice of the way we applied to law, Thomas's skepticism about whether that distinction is valid would face an awful steep uphill climb.
I think, now that's a long discussion.
Right, Lucretia on Lucretia, on the fascinating topic of retroactivity.
No, I'm actually going to go to the deeper topic of those things that we as Americans, with our constitutional focus, shall we say, our beliefs are that I was having a discussion with my classes last week about the Declaration and how it that's really sad, Steve.
I know, good guy, Steve.
It's sad that you that you actually let yourself run out anyway.
Back to that.
So, we were discussing the right to property and its protection, you know, the whole argument of it in the Declaration of Independence, even at Locke and then into the Constitution, and a student asked, what you know. It was a really good question. He said, if they were so concerned,
the founders about protecting the right to privacy. Why in the original Constitution is there no specific, specifics statement to the effect that, you know, other than the takings clause, which is not a statement for the right to privacy. It doesn't say anything, for instance, about the need of government to protect your right to privacy. It's you know, And the argument that I gave back was the argument that Steve just did, and I said, I didn't use
sex post fecto. I used guilty until proven innocent. That it was that, you know, the founding Flauthers were so committed to the idea of the right to privacy to property excuse me that it didn't even occur to the in some ways to have to spell it out in the Constitution. Is that unfair?
Yeah, I know.
I mean there's other things in the Constitution like that, Like it doesn't actually say legislation passes by a majority vote, all right, It just said it gives us super majority requirements. So there's all kinds of things like that in the Constitution. So my argument, which you guys don't like, is that we read it against the common law and its definition of terms and concepts, and.
We kind of fill it.
I mean, whether you read that or not, that's what the Supreme Court has done, is that they use the common law to fill in gaps.
But you guys know don't like that. Yeah, I'm like that, just fine.
Oh you guys okay, no igs what I'm the only really quickly so we can move on. My only argument against it would be when the common lass somehow stands in the face of what we know the Constitution really means. Like in the case of birthright citizenship.
John Well, there was a I don't remember the case now, it's a long time ago, but there was a moment in an oral argument where one of the lawyers says something like, you know, my client wants to repair behind his constitutional right, wasn't self incriminated? Oh no, behind the constitutional presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and Justice Scalia piped up says, oh yes, where in the text does
that clause appear? And the point is it doesn't, but it's well understood, like the expost facto clause that James Wilson is something that proceeds from the logic of the law as and no one really disputes that. It's only positivists like you who get picky about things like.
Sorry, well, you know the it bears some importants on a topic Lucretian and I are going to write on in the next few days about Californians leaving for Arizona. Because you'll notice this wealth tax that's on the ballot is retroactive too.
Yeah, because and a bunch.
Of billionaires move out before the January first effective date, even though it would have to pay it's going to pass later on this year, but it would be retroactive to January first. If you're reading, we're correct of the expost facto clause, you could not have these retroacted. And by the way, Congress does this all the time too. It's not just the state of California.
So moving on.
To our next topic, Lucretia has some thoughts she wants to raise about the state of Virginia under its new governor, Abigail Spanberger and the progressive furies that have been unleashed by this allegedly quote unquote moderate Democrat.
Yeah, moderate, the wicked witch, the white witch, the wicked white witch, that's what they're calling her. So let me before we move on to Spanburger, let me just talk about J. Jones for a minute. J Jones, It's sorry. I'm going to just say it is proof of how much affirmative action in law schools destroyed the law profession. The guy is a moron. Never mind that he's evil, vile, all of those other things. On top of that, he's so stupid it's unbelievable. He can't even spell attorney.
Oh did you guys see that.
This huge sort of social media what would you call it, Steve A. I don't even know what the word for it is. I'd call it a poster, but on social media, that's not what it is. And of course he's saying that they're going to pull out of their agreement with the DOJ not to offer tuition in state tuition to illegal immigrants. They're going to do that. But of course, you know, his stupid ass, sorry, stupid, sorry, stupid commentary on is we're not gonna let we're not gonna let
the DOJ destroy students. I don't even know what that means, but that's what he says.
He misspelled attorney. He misspelled attorney in.
The atto n E Y.
So maybe he went to the Somali Learning.
Center exactly the Luring center in Minneapolis. Oh God.
Anyway, by the way, General's appreciate Did you see what your state's attorney general said today?
Yes?
I did, Yes, I did. I did. Yes. So you know, because illegal immigrants are allowed not to have guns and Ammo, Actually you have to show in Arizona. If you just go buy Ammo at Walmart, which you can do, you have to show your driver's license. You have to show proof that you are an American citizen. So the idea that you know, I should be careful because they're going to show up with no badges and costumes on and
masks and nobody's going to know their ice whatever. Idiot, and then they're gonna get shot because we have a standard ground law in Arizona, said dumbest I these people. Okay, So I want to I want the context of this to be that every time we talk about something like say getting rid of the filibuster or this or that, uh, squishy Republicans, Oh, we can't do that because we can't
get rid of the blue slip. We can't do this with that because when we do and then we're out of power, that democrats are going to do that to us. What happened the first day that white witch shows up, she and does all of the agreements that said we're gonna uh cooperate with ICE and with federal authorities to deport legal immigrants. Oh, we can't let our people waste their time on that because they've got more important things
to do. And the legislature. I can't even I don't even want to list all of the things, but I will list what I consider the worst thing, and that is that they decided to get rid of, for no apparent reason that I can think of, to get rid of minimum criminal sentences for rapists, child rapists, child pornographers, a whole long list of really violent crimes. Why would you do that? I mean, can you guys? I can't think, but give me a give me a rational reason why it might do that.
Since I've sat through many workshop papers at Berkeley about I can tell you what they say.
I'm associated with my own views, But what they say is that sentencing should be a personalized process that takes to account all the things that happened to that individual criminal.
For example, mandatory minimums are unfair because what if there were you know, terrible family abuse of this you know perpetrator when they were growing up, or what if they lived in abject poverty when they were growing So to how a mandatory minimum prevents judges from tailoring the exact sentence to the particulars of that individual and taking into account all the things that happened to them.
Okay, I mean fair enough that at least it is an explanation. It's allows it. It's a scinarian behavioral lest explanation. People aren't responsible for their actions. They have no moral moral what's the word.
When you have your responsibility?
Yeah? That you know, they're just the product of their skinner box and whatever that looked like. So how can we hold them accountable for it? Okay, it's not a rational explanation, because there's nothing rational in that, but at least there is a explanation. Anyway, that's one of the things they did. Another thing that they did because all of these different I'm not going to list all the different crazy things they've done. But the one that's really
problematic is what they're doing to electoral integrity. So they are all right, they're permanent mail in you you have permanent what they they're calling it absentee voting, but it is. Once you sign up, you will forever receive a mail in ballot in Virginia. There will be no more signature verification, and you will no longer have to have a witness sign that you are the person who say who you say you are when you turn in your absentee ballot mail in ballot. And they're going to encourage so we
can have more voting. That's such a good thing, you know, interdet vote. That was sarcast If anybody missed it, I think they did. Do you think they got that, Steve?
I hope so well you didn't.
You didn't say it in your sultry voice inational law.
So you know, think about this for a moment. Well, go ahead, you guys, come well.
Look on the on the crime thing. I mean, you said, what rational reason? It's not a rational reason. I think this goes back to the impulse that ruined liberalism in the sixties, capturing that great story that I think the neocons used to say, like Irving Crystal, it's reversal of the good Samaritan. You know, two liberals walk along the road. They find the guy beaten up and bloodied by some mugger, and one of the two liberals say we must find the poor person who did this to you and help him.
I mean, that really is the impulse ofalism that explains those kind of crazy papers that we see at Berkeley john But the bigger point you're making with all these, and I think it has shocked people, is Spanberger was supposed to be a moderate. And let's go back for a minute. And maybe I'll come to this a little bit in a second, but you go back to Bill Clinton in nineteen ninety two. What he runs as a moderate. He remember, he's going to end welfare as we know it,
He's tough on crime. He presides over and signs the execution of the mentally retarded Ricky Ray record, which really was kind of grotesque in some ways. He has the sister soldier moment. What does he do when he gets in office? First thing out of the box, gaze in the military and raising taxes and a whole bunch of other stuff. And it cost him badly, right and Clinton only recovered by moving to the right in the last six years of his term. So I think we're going
to see something similar on this again. I think span Berger, and also I think you can look at the governor of New Jersey, keep your eye on her, Mikey Mikey Chryl or something like that. And Hokle is still trying to move to the center, but I think un successfully.
You know, there's a.
Whole bunch of stuff in the mainstream media about how you never mind Trump's polls that are actually no worse than Biden's or Obama at this point in their second terms. But you're seeing a bunch of smart Democrats like David Pluff, who you know, ran Obama's campaigns, writing The New York Times this week, Democrats in a deep hole. You saw Axios, right, saw Axios, You know, no conservative outlet interviewing leading Democrats asking them what is a woman? And most of them
couldn't answer it. The only person who got it right was rama Manuel Why he's an old Clinton alumni.
Right.
And then my favorite of the week is The Atlantic did a long story about Gavin Newsom and how he's got so much baggage, how can he possibly run for president? My favorite line in it was Newsom's well, Newsom's records a problem. My favorite one is that how do it go something like California's policies under California's progressive policies read like something reverse engineered from a Republican attack AD.
That's the Atlantic saying this, right, So, I mean it's all very bad. I agree with you completely. On the other hand, there.
Boy, Okay, we're gonna Steve, I'm gonna cut you all. I'm going to cut you, okay, because it's time to go to another ad break, And when we come back, we'll hear from Lucretia again, and then we'll turn to our next new topic, which is Steve's fascination with the utterances of conservative calmness in the New.
York parts the Kristia.
You have another point to make about the Virginia governor and her progressive platform.
Yes, and so she was able to get away with the moderate.
Label.
I don't think anybody believed it to begin with, but I learned this from one of our listeners, Michael Lee, and then a couple of other places. I started paying attention to the actual electoral process that put all of those lefties shall we call them into power. One of them. But this is a really interesting thing I just want
to point out quickly. So if you'll recall the election, especially the weeks leading up to the election, was right in the midst of the shutdown, and I had to heard people say, you know that they were the unions and so forth were able to rally the troops to come out and support all of these federal workers and
so on, and that's why they won. But Michael actually provided another interesting piece of information, which was they weren't working, so they had plenty of time to go out and work on behalf of Spanberger and all of those incredibly liberal leftists. And I just thought that was interesting. Why not because of that point alone, but because so many people made so much out of the fact that this moderate leftist, I mean moderate white witch won in you know,
doctor Trump is done for. The midterms, are done for. Everything is going against Republicans. Everybody hates what's happening with immigration, and I actually think none of that is true. I do think if we continued, if we allow them to continue to gaslight like that, it will become true. It will be a self fulfilling prophecy. But what I want to say to patriots out there is don't believe it.
Don't be disheartened. They lied, They had extraordinary circumstances, and Republicans are gonna Not that I care that much about Republicans either, which is a secondary problem, but it's better. You know, Republicans are awful, but they're not Democrats, and you have to choose them over Democrats every single time. So don't lose hope, go out and work hard for the midterms. And not because the military impeached Trump, but just because.
Yeah.
I mean, the last point I would make is I wouldn't be so pessimistic about Virginia as I think both of you are. I mean, they're got Glenn Youngen. He was elected to the governorship and he did an outstanding job. And I bet if they had Virginia's a strange state, right, they don't have reelection of governors, and I bet if he were subject to re election, he would he would
have won. I think he's very popular in Virginia, and so he's done a really great job there, right, did He creates some massive surplus in the state budget and was appointing a lot of good conservatives to reform higher education, which Spanberger has put a halt to. But it doesn't strike me that Virginia is just going to be hopelessly democratic going forward.
Well, event's question in here quickly. Let me bring it up. If the Democrat and I would have said this, if I could have remembered, if the Democrats ran through all of their election reforms as it looks like they're going to, will it be even be possible for Republicans to win in Virginia again? Because you know, is it going to be possible for Republicans to win in California again?
Guys?
And a lot of that has to do with the way California changed.
Oh, I don't think so.
You really, I don't think any changes in electoral law has made any difference in California going so blue.
I mean, the difference is so huge.
Yeah, I could be wrong, but I think these things you talked about they make their marginal chant differences in close selections, they might matter, but republic I mean, Dick Trump lose by like twenty five point. You know, in California, it's not going to be close, no matter what the.
Voting rules are in California.
But I think I think Virginia has changed in some really big ways. I mean absolutely stipulate that if you have loose voting rules, it's going to make it harder for Republicans to win but you know, I was in Virginia well forty five years ago, right out of college in nineteen eighty one. It was a very different state
than it is now. And I'm living in Arlington, right, And you know, order in the Virginia elected Republican congressman, very conservative ones like Frank Wolfe, and now that's impossible. And that's the growth of the federal bureaucracy. And also all their hangars on that are contractors. I mean as late as eighty two, I still remember, probably later than this, but I remember nineteen eighty two, if you flew out of Dallas Airport, you drove along the road with forest
on either side of you. Right, if you go through the Doulls. Today, it's all developed and built up.
Yes, government contractors.
They're all government contractors, and most of those people are going to lean Democratic. And I just think that the demographics of the state have changed. I don't count it out the public trial, of course. Well, the fact that what is it, something like six of the ten richest counties by income levels are clustered around the Beltway, right, so four of those are in Virginia and three in Maryland. Something like that.
That's now.
I think it still is. Yeah, I started passing the Save Act. The next best thing for Republicans our Trump to do is to get all of those bureaucracies out of the Beltway and send them across the country.
Yes, yeah, I.
Don't know that they could do without getting judges to overturn that right or just to put injunctions against it.
Yes, a lot of the statutes don't require No, a lot of statutes don't specify where the cabinet headquarters has to be. So uh no, I mean it's you could just the question is do you want more of those blue people infiltrating good red states or would you rather just have them concentrated in places like Virginia and Southern Pal?
Did you say blue people? I get?
So, you know our our my comic pal Dave Deebel has a great one up like that nowhere, he says, because he uses a lot of comedy and cruise ships. He says, used to be talking to blue hair ladies meant I was on a cruise ship. Now it means talking on a college campus and the women studies program.
That's okay, Well let's move.
On to now. Uh you know, we're doing our each host guests to pick a favorite topic to talk about. So now we're turning to Steve. Steve, what's your topic and what would you like us to discuss?
Well, actually, I fooled you on. I'm actually gonna talk about a certain statute you don't like. No, I'm not. I'm just kidding. No, it's frighten you. No, No, it's there's a lot of I don't know if you guys follow it, because you guys tend not to. But uh, I'm always amazed at how ross data the New York Times makes news. I mean, he does it with the guests he has on his podcast, in his column, and he's got to call him out here a few days ago.
That's cutting a lot of buzz and a lot of responses from other people in the mainstream media, from a lot of conservatives. And he's asking a simple question, what is post Trump conservatism gonna look like? Or I am calling it conservatism five point oh? Because I have a long piece almost finished about how that is. The question is, uh, you know Trump represents conservatism four point oh.
I won't go through all the predations of how I got there. You can read the article when it's done, and what Ross says is uh. I think he starts out very strongly.
It's a New York Times column, right, he starts out very strongly saying there's a lot of contradictory elements right now, and it's all being held together by.
The force of Trump's personality. And I think that's true.
And he says it's not clear whether the nat cons or you know, he doesn't mention Adrian Remule and the Catholic integclists or some of the Protestant groups who want a more self consciously religious political conservatism. And you know, foreign policy, is it going to be realists and isolationists, or we're going to go back to some kind of principle internationalism. And he goes through a bunch of stuff and the air kind of comes out of the balloon as you go. But I think he's onto something there.
And one of the things I'm going to point out in my pieces.
Well, I will give a little bit of the history. I'm old enough to.
Remember now and have read about that. We've been through at least four new rights in my lifetime, called that by the media, called that by conservative leaders, and two point zero is actually Buckley in the mid fifties. Why was it two point zero because new right one point zero as the media they didn't use one point oh then. But the new Right in nineteen fifty was a bunch of liberals. Really it was Peter Vererek, Clinton Rossiter, Walter Littmann to a certain extent, and they said two things
above all else. They said, conservative should make their peace with a new deal and support government economic planning, and we should accept coexistence with what not mean you no be quiet? And then the other one was we should accept coexistence with communism. And you know, Buckley said nuts to all that, and you had the sort of fusionism of Frank Meyer. Leave that aside for now. But Meyer's fundamental point was the economy should have as little government
control over it as possible, and preferably none. He was a free marketeer, but he was also a person who said we do need virtue. He didn't think much of Russell Kirk, but he thought that people who said that the individual virtue was necessary for republic were right, and he explained how they belong together. Well, that's all sort of changed over the years. We got the neo cons we're a social scientist. You got the religious right, of the seventies and then you got the populism under Trump,
and so now what's going to replace all that? And I'm noticing that, you know, certain precincts like the nat Cons and people like Patrick Denin who don't like classical liberalism, people like Orain Cass say, you know, the New Deal is really pretty cool. We got to bring back a lot of that stuff. People are for industrial policy, which means government planning and Trump actually taking government stakes in
prominent companies like Intel and others. One thing that I'm not hearing anybody say is, you know, we ought to go back to Milton Friedman and you know, free markets, and by the way, we got to talk about individual liberty, which, as I say, the post liberals are actually against in principle I think, and maybe in practice too. So I think those are a god awful mess and it's going to be interesting. But I would like to see the Conservatism five point zero actually go back to the old
conservatism two point zero. And I don't care if that makes me a grumpy, old, stuck in the past person.
That's all lucretia.
You know, we spend a lot of time doing this what we ought to spend time doing is getting out there and.
Uh oh yeah, okay, staring.
Or how should I put this? We need to react to, we need to get in front of We need to be proactive because the Left is just controlling every part of the conversation these days. Somehow, somehow they are getting independence to believe that ICE is illegitimate and it's a Nazi organization and they're a bunch of fascists. And then by the way, they they kidnapped a five year old and you know, you know, just lie after lie after lie, and oh well, we don't need everybody knows that's a lie.
We don't need to go up against it. We don't need to explain to people that, guess what, if you come to this country illegally, you are a criminal. A criminal by definition, you are not a nice, law abiding citizen minding your own business. You are a criminal, and you have every right to be deported. You can say that maybe I should be using their scarce resources to
go after the worst criminals. I'm okay with that. But if they get the grandma, the umbuella who has been making tortillas in her kitchen for fifty years, I don't care if she didn't come here legal, and she's been here fifty years and she didn't become legal, then get her out of here. I'm okay with that anyway. I while conservatives and Republicans dither about these things, democrats are playing the right game.
Well no, I look, I mean, I agree with the practical matter of what needs to be done. But on their hand, you do need to understand why you want to argue about what is the good life.
Right.
But by the way, maybe you I've seen the pictures of this. Guess who gave Tom Homan that you know, the head of Ice these days. Guess who gave him the Presidential Medal of Valor or something like that. A guy named Barack Obama. There's pictures of him putting the thing around, right, so in the recent Yet by the way, you're not seeing this in the media. And okay, so I they're lying, of course about the five year old. But my observation is going back to what I've said
for years about double standards. Gee, I didn't see those people upset about when the immigration people grabbed a guy at gunpoint named Ellie and Gonzales.
Remember that little boy and that famous picture.
No, there was no outrage over that, although I will say that that photograph and the larger, uh you know, controversy around it, I think arguably cost Al gore the presidency because I think he might have won the state of Florida without that having been so poorly received by the Cubans and their friends in the state of Florida.
So you know, there is some rough justice in the world.
Well, we're gonna take a break, and when we come back, I will actually explain while you're both wrong.
Okay, I'm gonna look forward to this me too.
Three two one.
Well, I generally don't find opinion columns in the New York Times terribly enlightening in terms of making news. I kind of find them as sort of summarizing and restating things have been going on for a little while. And I think that's true here. We've been I mean, we've been talking on this podcast for years about the different streams of conservative thought and how Trump's disrupted them and whether they still make.
Sense or not.
So I didn't really learn that much from the column when I read it, which I don't read. I actually strangely read the New York Times for the news, but not the opinions, And I read the Wall Street Journal for the opinions and not the news.
This drives.
Do you read the Washington Post, John, And I.
Read the Washington Post. Actually I read the whole thing just because I want to see what my friends are up to.
But well, you.
Know, one thing I thought is true that he said in his column, that I've been thinking for a while was that when Trump won election, he had the possibility of building a coalition, a broader based coalition than just
this you know, mega and the demographics of it. And if he could build that broader coalition, I think he would be like a figure like Andrew Jackson, someone who had won a sufficiently large majority, that it would really change politics permanently, and that it would get solidified in a certain way. And this is a you know, political science, right, this is your field. This is a critical elections idea.
But if you look at the.
Polling, Trump's polling is really tanked since the election. I mean, he looks like he's back to where he was in the first term in terms of his public approval and
in terms of his support amongst demographic groups. There's a story in the Wall Street Journal today about how his support amongst young people has really collapsed since the election, and how his support amongst you know, the groups he did very well with, you know, Hispanics and black men have also seemed to revert back to norm from his first term. If that's true, then I don't think he's going to make it cause us permanent change in American politics the way Jackson did or a Reagan did, and
he'll be more like now. I think Biden didn't change it either, but he might. We're still, I think then, just living still in the age of Reagan, and that we're not seeing a fundamental, we won't see a really deeply fundamental, permanent change in American politics.
But I could be right.
But that's the police seems to suggest that you're reading way too much into Trump. You're reading way too much into Trump, and you're reading way too much into polls. I'll just leave it there, okay.
Before you you closed out this episode. I know I got plenty of time on Virginia, but I do want to I put it in the thing. I do want to say two things. One, my new heroes are Blue Lives Matter and the guy who drilled Jack Smith's forty one year old whose name. I cannot remember. Young guy, smart guy, not a lawyer, who grilled Jack Smith and just embarrassed the hell out of him. So we need a lot more of what It's terrible that I can't remember his name. Can't you guys remember no I saw what?
Yeah it was he really I don't know if you saw John.
I forget his name now too, but he really tripped up Smith on the speech and debate clause of the Constitution, and right it was, Yeah, it was pretty good.
The Blue Lives Matter.
If you don't know what Lucretia's talking about, it's this group called Blue Lives Matter. I guess my stage some ice raids in the Minnesota fake ice raids and got the.
Protest right better than that today. What they did was so what they've done is they've sent us. Originally it was to like off duty policeman, sheriffs and so on, but it's expanded much beyond that. They've sent out all of the links to the lefts. This is where ICE is. You can report ICE. You know the stupid people in Virginia, my stupid Adelita Grijalva. Oh, this is where ICE is.
Go protest and stop them. Well, they're sending them out the links to all of these people, but in turn, these are because many of them are in fact law enforcement. They're also finding out who the protesters are and where they live. Have that hard to do, and so they're sending these protesters on these wild goose chases and then they end up at the protester's house. But today they reported on what they did yesterday. They sent them to a bunch of biker bars. I told them that ice
was inside these biker bars. So, oh great, Okay, you guys can can debate all the philosophical theoretical things about nat coms versus integrollas and all that kind of stuff. I am cheering on the Blue Lives matters, guys, and Randon Gille, all right.
Well, why don't we close out? We do have a few minutes, but I thought we should go in order to meet Steve's demand that we finished within an hour. Taking into account ads, I actually had topics, which might I always want the listeners to know where vetoed as stale and uninterested by my co host, Like Greenland. I'm really interested in Greenland. Like oh okay, I think President
Trump could break the NATO treaty. What if Congress had passed that statute that it was very close to passing under Marc Rubio's sponsorship when he was in the Senate. That for big the president up from breaking the viole, you know, termining the NATO treaty. And then I had
the other interesting question also thought. I thought, I'm sorry for the podcast about could president can the president on his own accept and incorporate Greenland into American territory or would Congress, because of his control over the property of the United States, have to consent in some way if any territory in Greenland were actually possessed by the United States. But I just love the listeners know these topics. My co host said, Greenland is old news, boring. Let's talk
about other stuff, all right. I think Greenland's extremely interesting, But it does. And then what I was going to use it to taunt my co host by saying, is this not actually an example of Trump checking and out?
Did not? It seem to me that nothing changed with Greenland is well played, well played, bait. John.
I tell you what, the indulgence of our listeners to go into overtime just no.
No, no, no, we're tod on no, no, no, when I can always end that down with we end on time.
I love the Greenland story.
Your little red light is going off because it's time for you to be quiet, counsel.
I love the Greenland story. I think it's uh. I think it's Trump genius in action. And anyway, no bad question about Ken.
Wait. I heard you want law talk talking about this. I think was that it that? That's yeah. I think the president can terminate Yeah.
I think the President can terminate the NATO treaty because he can terminate any treaty. And I think it would be unconstitutional for Congress to pass the loss and you can't terminate a treaty. But on the other hand, I thought that if we were going to add territory to United States, like if we actually were going to take over Greenland, I think Congress would have to approve some
kind of annexation or possession. Just but this involves the stuff I thought you interesting because it involves a question of the territories, which was the key to a lot of the things you guys like talking about before the Civil War. But instead Lucreati is drinking directly from the piggyback bottle.
I noticed.
I like Trump disinvited Mark Carney to the border peace. That was my favorite thing.
Oh the whole Board of Peace thing is silly too.
I mean, come on, who cares sillier than the UN?
I think the President could terminate the UN treaty and kick the UN out of that beautiful Manhattan real estate and never turn it back to development. I mean that, I don't understand why he doesn't do that instead of this Board of Peace silliness. Just get right to the point and you know, pull the US out of the UN and kick the UN can get out of who but he pulled us out of all these agencies at
the UN? I mean the UN is just a debating is an echo chamber, debating society for left doing marks governments. I don't know why we tolerate and.
Then come and park and legally and never get tickets.
Yeah, I agree, but we are we do have but we do have to stay within the hour. Uh maybe if we stay trapped in our houses during the snow arm again and we could tape another episode later this weekend. I don't know how to talk about these issues. Yeah, but I was forbidden to raise Greenland, so I before we turned to Lucretia's Babylon B headlines. Okay, there you go.
Whoops. Trump reveals he's actually been thinking of Iceland this whole time.
I hope not because I like you, I get all the time.
No, no green in Greenland.
Uh.
Somebody got me on that. By the way. They sent me a picture of a of a small space of Greenland that was actually green, So I have to take it back. Trump to convert entire city of Minneapolis into a Saint Insin asylum. I like that one. But also, Trump, this is what you were saying. Trump tells EU it's time we start seeing other continents.
That's good.
Trump announces new round of terroists and anyone who doesn't on everyone who didn't laugh at his jokes and doggos, that's so good. All right, I'm gonna go ahead and say this because I have a lot of listeners out here who this is their sentiment. I'll put it that way. Pam Bondy says she has finally figured out what DOJ stands for?
Oh yeah, really, I want proof.
I want to see the proof of that book.
Go ahead, well, because she she I, actually that was a legal question, really quick, John, I was going to ask you, what what what recourse does Pam Bondy have with the Don Lemon situation? Uh, what kind of federal magistrate has the final say on that?
I actually wasn't when I saw that story. I couldn't really understand what happened because magistrates don't get to block prosecutorial decisions. Now, prosecutoral decison may be on ways. You know that you could bring a case, but a judge could dismiss the indictment as unfounded and without it. Just that is such an unusual event though for the judge to Yeah, but I couldn't tell from the story what the magistrate judge exactly had done.
Yeah, it was. It was not a lot of good reporting on it. I'll agree with that. Okay, Exhausted white liberal women clock in for another long day protecting migrant sex offender offenders. A little bit of not political. This will resonate with people. I know Apple engineers working feverishly
to somehow make next iOS update even worse. Yeah, aging George show, hoping to ruin just one more country before the end, just to I like this one reminds me of that Don Henley's song Gleeful Weatherman excitedly announces dangerous storm likely to kill everyone.
Yeah, and then this one.
The only reason I know what this means is because I have a member of my household who is probably has an encyclopedic knowledge of Tolkien, and it is give me a second, Ussha, how do you say her name? Vance's wife, Usha Usha? I don't mean to mispronounce it. Usha informs j D. They will not be naming their child Thomas Bombadil Vance. But the funniest thing I saw was that the vice presidents of the Naval Observatory will now be housing more children than all all Somali daycares put together.
Right, that's all right, Okay, Well, always drink your whiskey, Neat, buy more books and Steve, what new AI fancy do you have for us today?
I don't have an AI fancy. I have a reader suggestion for the culinary menu for Kamala Harris when she runs for president in twenty twenty eight. It's ray short, and it goes as follows. We must appreciate the salad of words because words and solid form allow us to see the dressing of ideas unburdened by the croutons of reality.
That's pretty good. That's pretty funny here saying that, right, I mean, is it is it made up? Or is it really her? Right? That's the whole thing.
So all right, Uh, whats the best of the best line of the week was besince I actually think of Gavin Newsoen as a bronze source with a brain the size of a walnut.
Oh. I thought it was something about some kendo a thing that he had going.
That was the other that was good too, but.
Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, Well that's nice. Questions for next week. I hope everybody stays safe and survives the snow armageddon that's about to befall the entire United States of America, aside from the two colonies of Insanity in which my two co hosts live Arizona in California. Rye bye everybody, and.
Thanks everybody who tuned in.
So you probably next week we're all on the road, but we'll do something.
So okay, there we go.
So you worship Anthos proved.
By your device, and I have your arrange for you to time to decide. So smile for me, like to smile for everyone else.
It gets easy with believes that you never help.
Got your rage I've got your rage a.
Slide.
It's a choice, any slide. We are free, and they started on us. For girls, say boys, I'll never be there.
Because en
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