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