Well, whiskey coming game, my pain, Honey don't.
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.
Have you gotta giving? Let that whiskey bloon when you're been in loud, down and load.
Welcome everybody to this very special edition of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour because we had to drag Steve in from his balcony on the first sunny day that he's seen at his lovely beach home in the last twelve years or something like that. How long has it been, Steve?
A week?
No, No, it's been like six or eight weeks. It's been foggy. Is the foggiest summer I can remember. And of course it's all because of either climate change or George W. Bush. I can't decide one of these.
Ge W. Bush, I thought everything was Trump's fault.
Well, you know, we're saying you just dated yourself.
And then of course we have with us also John You, who is similarly lounging near the beach getting ready to instruct another another cohort of young people into his pragmatism ways?
Is that correct, John, positivist ways? I think you mean, but yes, I am.
Yeah, because right, I forget pragmatism is great, except it just doesn't work.
Pragmatism is I'm not sure what pragmatism is. But I'm here at the Claremont Institute's program for law school graduates called the Marshall Program where I play the role of the loyal opposition, questioning how and I ask you guys to explain this today later in the podcas cast. How do judges and courts how are they supposed to use unwritten natural law when they make decisions? Explicate for me the differences between JAFFA and work scolia and.
We all do that later. I will come back to that. That's a promise, John. In the meantime, can I just say that I'm rooting for terrorists these days? As Taylor Swift opens her five day thing in London, and I'm hoping that what happened in Vienna will happen in London and all of those pathetic Swifties who have absolutely no taste in music will be disappointed once again.
Oh really, oh man, are you trying to get us boycotted by every like sixteen year old girl. I mean, that's our that's our that is our main demographic for this podcast.
We have sixteen year old girls that we've may very well might have sixteen year old girls that listen to this podcast, but I promise you they are not swifties. I have never met a swiftie with two brains in their head. I'm just going to leave it at that.
Meins, Can I say that I was actually curious about this swift y thing, and so a few months ago, while I was working, I turned my Apple music thing to play all the Taylor Swift songs in order of popularity, and I had a hard time telling where like one ended and a new one started. It seemed like a whole thing was like a music soundtrack.
Yeah, and her voice is screech. Oh, well, we've probably offended enough people. I actually know old people who like her too, but I think it's just because they're trying to be, you know, friends with their kids or something dumb like that.
But anyway, I can't decide if the old term swift boating can be used for this problem or not without getting in trouble.
But I think my favorite meme of all time is when the girl looks at the auto mechanic and says, how did you fix that awful screeching noise? I replaced your CD of Taylor Swift with Genesis.
I've never heard that. That's great.
Now when I when Macretia, I actually do like, I actually want Taylor Swift to succeed abroad because I love the idea of Europeans spending their hard earned socialist money given to them by the government to subsidize an American export product.
Yeah, yeah, I'm okay with that too. You know. The problem really is is that there's something about the whole Taylor Swift phenomenon that reminds me a little bit of the Kamala Harris phenomenon. Excuse me, the Kamalamaedingdong phenomenon. Yeah. Absolutely that in this age of constant communication, electronic communication, That's the way I'll put it with you know, social media,
everybody on their phones, everything happening moment by moment. You know, remember the days that when the Jay Treaty was being negotiated and it took how many months for news of that to get back to the United States. Oh do I wish for those days again, but anyway, or even June teenth. You know, the reason that they celebrate that dumb holiday is because communications were so poor they even though the Emancipation Proclamation had been passed in January first,
they didn't hear about it until June nineteenth. So anyway, But that being said, Taylor Swift is a phenomenon because she's a phenomenon, not because she's so incredibly talented at singing or dancing. They have a showman, I'll give you that, but no better than a whole lot of people out there. She's a phenomenon because she's a phenomenon. I actually get from my hotel memberships, you know, Hilton, this and that.
I got one from the Marriott saying I should enter this contest by getting their credit card and I might get a free hotel to stay at the next Taylor Swift of contest in somewhere. I didn't pay attention. I deleted it and discuss But I mean, come on, I know your audience.
But you're an audience of one. Is the problem, Lucasia, So you.
Really think that's true? Do you think there are people out there who would get a credit card to justin for a chance to stay at a hotel and get Taylor Swift.
Well you're missing oh yeah, a lot of them. Yeah. Well also you're missing a huge arbitrage opportunity. I mean, if you want a credit card, fine, if you got the room, you then sell to somebody for four times the value of it.
Yeah, So anyway it would make me, it would make me complicit in the whole root in business. I couldn't. But my point, my point was a serious one, and that is that I do think because I know John wants John wants me to convince him. John still wants me to convince him that everything you're hearing about the polls in Kamala's favor and her popularity rising what six points?
She used to be the most disfavor politician practically in the history of the universe, and she's gone up six points and now she's only at forty five or she's what did I see? She's at forty five percent approval rating, which is more than she has ever been and there's no explanation for it. She's still the same dom cackling word salad piece of you know what, progressive liberal moron that she always was. Although did you guys see today. I don't know. Steve's got to figure out when he's
actually gonna pose this. But sorry, folks, this is Thursday because of schedules. Again, today she had a rally with hundreds of people. Hundreds of people showed up, stood in line in hot, hot weather to get in, hundreds of people, and then she introduced Joe Biden and lots of people walked out while he was talking.
I heard a little bit of his talk and he was slurring, and you could bear the understanding he was so bad.
But okay, he looked terrible too. He really looked and actually, I don't know if you watch, oh, if you watched it, when they both came out onto the stage, it was almost like Kamala ding Dong was holding him, like she was right next to him the whole time, like they were going as a unit. I think, so he you know, what would happen if he fell down? Whereas usually the candidates, you know, they come and they're kind of spaced out
like runway models. I would think, so you can look at each one individually.
Well, I think he go ahead.
Well, I've thought for a while now that the biggest question looming out there is whether Biden is going to make it all the way to January twenty or even to election day as president. And one of the reasons for him not to resign, aside from his pride in narcissism and all all those things, is that then cammelon It becomes president and owns the Biden record, which right now she's trying to disassociate herself from, which is amazing
to me. It's like she's trying to put distance. By the way, I mean, you guys understand this, this is almost an inn so to our intelligence. Uh, Kamela is trying to put distance between herself and Biden, who are also being told is the greatest president since George Washington, the most successful president of modern times. Why would you need to be putting distance between yourself and that person if you're seriously going to say something that self evidently stupid.
There was no distance today. So that today was supposed to be some big speech right about economic policy, right, and what was it? It was, uh, seeking a ban on price gouging and for food costs, price controls like.
Price gouging on food. Yeah, just absolutely ridiculous. Two things about that. First, Uh, back to John's comment, John, you have a lovely mother who is actually older than Biden.
Right, Uh, yeah, I think she is sp how's my mom comeing to it?
Because you might actually want to, you know, help her on the stage, right, Not because she's any she's spry. She's extremely intelligent on top of her game still, but yeah, eighty one years old is eighty one years old if you've had how many aneurysms as he had, and so why are they even bothering to do that? It goes back to Steve's point, which is they're trying to split the baby. My only answer to that is these are the same dumb people who go to Taylor Swift concerts.
They could be convinced of anything. Anybody stupid enough, stupid enough to vote for a Democrat would be stupid enough to buy exactly that argument. I don't know how else to say it. So they have nothing, nothing, supposedly if you believe the polls. Nothing None of their gas lighting, none of their hypocrisy. You know, none of that has hurt Kamala one bit. She just keeps rising and rising, and she's going to go to the stars in popularity before we know it.
Well, by the way, I mean all this, all this gas lighting explains why she's reversed her position on fracking for natural gas because she needs a lot of it to pull this off. I don't think she can do it. That was a joke. By the way, you guys are got it.
It took me a second.
God, Okay, we need a lot of gas.
For the gas light.
Yes, you're trying to say something like that.
Yes, right, do.
They use natural gas? Okay? Sorry about that. I do want to ask, so, so Steve had this lovely idea for us to leave aside, Kamala and the polls and Trump and all those other things were coming back to it. I don't care what Steve says. However, you did want to talk about a few other things, which is appropriate, But I do want to I want to ask about the federal Cortapellate ruling against UH in favor of the
lawsuit claiming that the covid Era. Let me get this right, the covid Era moratorium on paying rent where they just issued an you don't have to pay your rent anymore? Was it takings? So I really don't fully understand all that. I'm leaving it up to you too. Constitutionally, savvy lawyers to tell me about it.
John, Yes, I was wondering about this too, and it actually goes back to the New Deal. But remember during COVID, the government, the federal government and then also some states and city governments like San Francisco, banned evictions during the COVID lockdowns, So you could as lucutiae as you're saying,
you could go months. In fact, my brother, I think, had a tenant who refused to leave for two years, just stop paying rent and there's nothing as San Francisco would not provide any legal remedy for some of the guy just lived in this house for free because of
these lock of the moratorium. So this is interesting because would have thought, right under you know, the original understanding of individual rights, there's a contract clause and there's a property takings clause, would prohibit the government from just saying someone can live in your house for free for years.
During the New Deal, though, states declared these mortgage holidays where people wouldn't have to pay their home mortgages during the Great Depression, and the Supreme Court right eventually upheld those. It's very controble. First o case, people we don't talk about anymore. It's called Blaisdel. Yeah, the Playstel case, and that's what seen is one of the cases that sounded the death knell for the idea that economic rights are
on the same part as political rights. You know, if this court, you know, this court has been very friendly to property rights, this Supreme Court, if they wanted to give another injection to the reinvigoration of property rights, so this would be a great case for them to take. The basic doctrine is h if you're going to have a takings clause, the Supreme Court has said in the past that temporarily taking property requires just compensation just as
much as a permanent taking of property. So the logic of the court below here, this is the Federal Circuit in DC. It's a special court about takings, and they basically said, if the government took your apartment, you could get just compensation. So why should you just get the same just compensation if the government says people can live for free in your apartment for two years?
Yeah, yeah, I mean.
In two years, is no kind of statutory limitation on it. It's really, I mean, there is no because now, of course what they do is they claim squatter's rights.
Yeah, well, right, that's a little bit.
That's different, a little bit. No, I know it's a different but but there are many people who are actually claiming squatter's rights based upon the fact that they were not evicted when they didn't pay their their rents back in the day, back in COVID.
Yeah, but not of them now, John, I haven't read the pleadings on this, and I haven't even gotten through Ilia Solman's article about it. Reason, but is this a takings case or is it also U the CDC first announced this, and really the CDC gets to announce a rent moratorium because they overreach or maybe both. I mean it could be both. They're not mutually exclusive.
This is how bizarre and circular the Biden administration was. They said, well, in the end, it turned out that the moratorium was unconstitutional. Right, So, as you remember two years ago, the Supreme Court actually struck down this moratorium and said there's no authority for the federal government. Congress never gave the agencies any authority to declare nationwide basically an interruption in every landlord tenant contract in the country.
So the Biden administration, this is how circular they go in and they say this is not a taking because we weren't authorized to take the property. Since that was not an authorized taking, we don't have to pay just compensation, which actually should make it worse for the government, not better.
Yeah, I mean talk about shameless. Well, I don't want to get to It's been years since I've read the Blaisdell case, but I remember that from what nineteen thirty three or thirty four, And as I recalled, John has said Minnesota can cancel essentially didn't say it could outright cancel mortgage contract. Yes, spend them, but of course once you did, and there's all this language about, oh, you know, emergencies don't change constitutional rights and limitations, but it sure
blew a big hole in the contracts clause. And it's been often races ever since. Right, and so at the very least, it seems to me that landlords who are out of pocket from people who didn't pay rent ought to be able to recover if not from I mean, I got chased down tenant. You may have evicted in good luck with that.
That is the problem in San Francisco. It's like, right, these guys didn't pay rent for two years and then they disappear. Yeah, they might leave the city. Like, how are you supposed to act?
Right?
You're right, Steve, you could only the Supreme Court has said when the emergency's over, maybe you should get your money back. But yeah, yeah, how are you ever going to collect?
Good luck with that?
I will say that that all of all but one, all but one of the cases that Steve suggested that we discussed today have to do with the mid level federal appellate courts making good decisions. Another one had to do with the n error nl RB, the National Labor Relations Board. Anybody want to come in on that quickly because I have a point to all of this.
Well, let's talk.
About Well, it's a district court opinion, and I think John again, I'm just skimmed all this. Someone Actually it's it's Musk's space X people I think who are challenging the National Labor Relations Board. And what they're claiming is is, look, it's an executive agency, but the executive prohibited from removing the members of it. In other words, this is a direct and overdue challenge to Humphy's executor, isn't it, John? Yeah, that's right.
I think this. I think the district judge went a little farther ahead than where the Supreme Court is because people remember we've talked about these cases on the podcast. The Roberts Court has been striking down federal agencies that don't allow the president to remove their heads without you know, for any reason, at will employment and the most the last famous one was striking down the protections for the head of the consumer Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That's what
it's called. The problem was in that opinion, it's called Selo law. This is typical Chief Justice Roberts. He puts in there this language saying, but we're not going to re examine Humphrey's executor. We're not going to question or bring into doubt the agency, these these boards and someone that have been upheld in the past. I don't know why that would actually write, why would you do that, but that's what he said. He said, So he basically said,
we're not going to overturn Humphreys executor. We're not going to re examine all those new Deal agencies, but we are going to look closely at new you know, new creations, new creatures. So I think the NLRB probably falls within that exception that Roberts mentioned in this law case unfortunately.
So remind me though that the the one, the one of the big defeats during the Obama administration for Obama was an nl RB case having to do with his appointment of interim members of the board, right, but I don't remember.
Yes, a recess appointment. That was a recess appointments case. That was whether when Congress was at a session, how many days would Congress not be meeting for Obama to come in and start up pointing people as what they called recess appointments, people who could serve basically without having to undergo advice and consent, even though they normally would have to. Just because Congress is out of session, they get to serve for the rest of the congressional term.
And the Supreme Court, yeah, because of President Obama, I think, basically claimed if Congress was out of session for like a millisecond, he could do it, right, And the Court said, no, No, the recess has to be a certain number of days. And it was a significant defeat for the Obama administration because it had the effect of invalidating a whole bunch of NLRB decisions.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, let's remember that you know, John Bolton served as you an ambassador for about a year and a half as a recess appointment because a couple of Republican senators opposed his confirmation. But then the other thing, I mean why this is important is you may remember this mixes up a story from last week.
The NLRB tried to intervene in strong Boeing into not opening one of their aircraft factories for this seven eighty seven in South Carolina, a non union right to work state, and they got slapped down I think in court or had to back down. I forget exactly what happened, but it was a clear overreach of their own authority, and when questioned on it, Obama said, oh, I have nothing to do with that. That was the National Labor Relations Sport,
and they're an independent agency. I don't have any control over them. I mean, I can appoint some new members sometime, but they're beyond my reach. So this is the old two step that the administrative state has been using from the beginning, about oh, we have these expert administrators and gosh, I'm just powerless to do anything about it. And everyone nods their head and says, oh, I guess we.
Have up with that, and forgive me for calling it recess. I mean interim instead of recess. If you know anything about the hell that is my life at my university right now, everything is an interim. So I'll just leave that one alone and move on to Unless you had more to say, John, get you picked up your mic. They do want to talk just briefly. You're right. There
was a district court decision. This one is a Fifth court, Fifth Circuit Court decision that says that basically John's completely wrong about his nonsense when it has to do with invasions by illegal immigrants at the border. Right, am I reading that case correctly? United States versus Abbott State war powers? Do states have warpower? Steve?
I don't know. I mean we'll find out soon. It's a practical matter. Sorry to.
I.
You know, this Fifth Circuit case was really not about the state war powers. There's some mention of it in the opinions. There's a whole bunch of opinions, but it's put so a lot of it is just about whether the federal government has chosen to take over the Rio Grande River using the environment of using Steve's favorite environmental laws, right,
to yes, right exactly. So do you remember this is a case where Texas put up those floating barriers along the Rio grand and then yeah, the buoys, and then has also deployed state National Guard units to the border, and the Biden administration is suing saying that this violates federal control over immigration, and then Texas in part has claimed they're allowed to do this because this represents an invasion. And remember when we talked about on the podcast, for
I did not think highly of the Texas argument. The Texas Texas points to Article one, section ten of the Constitution, which says that a state cannot engage in war without the consent of Congress, and then has two exceptions unless actually invaded or in imminent danger that will not admit of delay. So I don't first of all, even if it is, I just don't think it fits those two exceptions. What's going on in Texas. I don't think it's an imminent danger because you know, we've got plenty of time
to respond to it. It's just that the United States government doesn't feel like doing anything about it. But I don't think this is an imminent It's not like a surprise attack. Now the other question, is this an actual invasion?
Uh?
You know, my view is that I don't think the movement of people who are not working on behalf of a country, you know, not part of the armed forces. It's just migration of a population. I don't think that's an invasion. Now there's this article by this fellow who out there named Natalsen, which makes the opposite claim. We could get into some interesting arguments about how you should
do originalism properly. So he basically argues the word invasion used in sort of the popular vernacular of the time or a political rhetoric. What have referred to could have referred to aliens. I actually tend to read the words.
The Constitution basic legal from the sky.
Yeah, I don't know what the eighteenth century thought about UFOs well, but no, no, But my only point is I don't I think that the legal phrases in the Constitution should bear their legal meaning of the time. So that so the reason this came up is because I, you know, when I first started baking the career, I wrote a lot about what does the phrase declare war mean? It has that this characteristic to it? Does declare war mean?
Have this kind of popular meaning of starting a war or should we redeclare war to be what did the legal phrase declare war mean at the time of the eighteenth century, which to me did not mean start war. It meant like delivering your complaint about why you're pissed off at the other country. That was a declaration of war. So that's the same basic argument here. Does word invasion in the Constitution mean, like, you know, I like, when I say Lucretia invaded my personal space, Does that mean
I can wage war on Lucretia? Or does an invasion mean the.
Legal when I invade the space?
Well? Now, well a whole lot of second. Hold on a second here, John, Let's you know, since the law schools are fond of hypotheticals, I think it's either Neil Ferguson or Douglas Murray or somebody like that who's pointed out that the number of male migrants from the Middle East in Europe now outnumber the combined armed forces of the European NATO countries.
See, that was going to be exactly my argument.
I look, I bet, I bet the Berkeley Police Department outnumbers the armed forces of European countries these days. Well, that's the effective the effective military forces of the Western Europe these days.
But the way it plays out here is uh, and I don't want to let's see too much hyperbole, but you know, we have some evidence that you've had a large number of Chinese nationals across the border. I mean, I think it's in nintens of thousands, and we have other you know, we know that because we know we've arrested somewhere on the terraced watchlets and things like this, and I think it's pretty clear that the cartel is
influencing all this. So the hypothetical is a lot of us, there's a lot of manpower has come into this country as part of this migrant wave. What if the guns are being smuggled in separately? In other words, as your argument is, it's not an invasion unless those people are crossing the border with a gun in their hand or some other weapon. You can see where I'm going with all this is that it's not at all clear to
me that you can't. This doesn't satisfy the at least the vigilance for you know, military threat.
But no, you don't have to. It's not a hypothetical, Steve, you could say, look, there are all these cartel members crossing the borders back and forth with guns. But my boys, I don't they don't work for Mexico, right, They're not. I think to be an invasion, it has to be the rep They have to be working for, represent in the armed forces, or another country, which is different than gangs, criminal groups and just people moving across. It's not the
violence issue that's to me. That's about an invasion.
Armed But if they are here to invade to establish Sharia law, I mean, that's probably a stretch. That's why it's a hypothetical. But it turns out that you know, that's happening all over the world now they're demanding it now in Germany because Germany was so stupid as to allow an unlimited immigration from and so what if it is in fact an invasion with the intention of overthrowing our republican form of government and substituting I don't know.
It could be Chinese communism with Steve's example, mind, I think is a little stronger. But I don't know that they want to engage in acts of terrorism, invoke enough terror across the country that they can in fact take over our institutions of government or replace them. And we have Sharia law.
Well, I mean right, I mean I mean a footnote.
To this is we do why should we not be worried?
Well, and we have four or five elected Labor Party members of the new Parliament who are Islamic migrants advocating for Sharia law in Britain. So they're already getting and they run some city councils in a few British cities.
Now and at what point when you add together all of the evils then brought by first of all, Islam is the greatest force of evil in the world. I'm just going to say that. I'm going to say it every day for the rest of my life till people actually get the point across. Let's stop with this nonsense about religious toleration. But if if you add that evil to Chinese infiltration.
Anyway, So now seventeen year old American girls are not going to listen to this podcast, and now no Muslims are going to listen to this podcast.
I'm okay with that.
How did you offend both groups at once?
This is amazing.
I'm okay with that until and I do actually, we know Muslims who are willing to denounce all of the aspects of Islam that are just truly evil. It wants to destroy everything that's good. I'm pure and just about Western civilization. That is its aim. It's stated everywhere.
Well, that just brings them up, even with the faculty of Harvard University.
But I'm okay, yeah, but they're But the fortunately, the difference is that the all of those people are are bushies that were that I'm not supposed to say on our family show the Harvard They're they're you know, they're They're really not dangerous from that point of view. Their propaganda, of course, is dangerous.
But anyway, anyway, John, we just do a whole bowl of spaghetti at you with four or five different things.
So, yes, John, I did have to bring that up.
But let me can I follow there?
I think so the point originally that Lucretia was making was suppose it's a group of people, a lot of people, and they want to deny the authority of the United States. They're coming here in order to change our country and to follow Sharia law or whatever. So again, this is not an issue of the government can't do anything about it. It's whether you want the state governments to be allowed to act.
So the federal.
Government I completely has the authority to block whoever it wants at the border, and it's allowed to block people. It has the right to block people for their views from coming into the government. And if it doesn't, then that's the choice of the federal government. I don't think so. This is an interesting question. Does a state have this kind of reserved sovereignty to use some kind of.
Unstated war power.
I don't think talking about Originals, it did, It's sure.
I don't think they do in foreign affairs and national security. No, I don't think they do with foreign affairs and national security. I think they gave up when we entered the Union. Ah, you guys are you guys are the JAFFA guys who love Lincoln. This is Lincoln's theory. You guys are making the argument that the.
Confederates did for immigration if they were invading their borders, if a state was at a border with a foreign country, they didn't give up their power over immigration.
I mean the basic argument.
Sorry, I think they gave their argument over I think states gave up their powers over foreign affairs and national security, which includes border control.
Well, that would be true if the government were living, if the federal government national government was living up to its end of the bargain. The chain of logic here, and it gets back to the challenge you offered at the beginning. Is the purpose of government's or instituted to secure our rights. And when government fails to do that, it is the right of the people to alter or
abolish that form of government. That's the language of the declaration. Right, Well, the government has abandoned its duty to secure our rights.
So but my real point to bring this all together, with all of the you're gonna love how I did this, Steve, with all the suggestions that Steve made, we'll get to John's momentarily, is that we finally get to this this ruling about UCLA, the ruling that says that, and I hope I don't get it completely wrong, you know me,
I rush through it. But an injunction against UCLA because they refuse to stop those prohamas subhuman Pos's protesters from stopping Jewish students from attaining their education on UCLA's campus something like that, right.
Yeah, they were blocking Jewish students from access to buildings and parts of campus.
Yeah, and so there's an injunction. UCLA has appealed that.
Yeah. Well, the well their argument was that wasn't us doing this? We have no agency here, It's it is public property. True. But what I like about the judge's ruling is he said, Okay, here's the deal. Uh, if you don't secure the rights of all your students and including your Jewish students or any other religious minority, uh, then you essentially you can't leave things available to anyone. In other words, it's simply saying is if you allow a mob to shut down the campus to Jews, you
got to shut it down to everybody. And and and it's also I mean it was couched a little bit as a religious liberty opinion. I think, my again, I read quickly also, but I thought, uh, it was a pretty breathtakingly strong opinion. By the way, John appeals take a long time. So this injunction is not stayed pending appeal, is it? I don't think No, No, I don't think so unless the Jidge wanted it to. But I think it'll go into it goes into a.
Right away, and then the UCLA could go to the Ninth Circuit and say you have to issue an emergency. Yeah, stay of the injunction.
But I thought I read that this morning, John.
I didn't.
I was just looking at the opinion. So the end of the opinion doesn't have it, but that would be up to the Ninth Circuit, right. But the Yeah, the interesting thing is what I was so I what I didn't. What I was curious about was the application of the decision to all these other places. Like we're going to talk about Columbia next, right, So one is I'm not it's not clear to me that it should only apply to state schools, because I it would seem to me
it should apply to anybody takes federal funding. You take federal funds, you're supposed to acknowledge, you know, and obey the constitution of federal law. And so why doesn't this apply to Colombia all these other schools that have allowed these protests to shut down campus and prevent not just Jewish students but all students from being able to walk around and go to class and go about their daily right daily affairs.
Yeah, yeah, And so you wanted to say something about Columbia for us, John.
Well, you I remember that when we had when we listened, I talked about those hearings, the disastrous hearings before Congress, I called out, I predict that all the presidents who testified would be gone. So the president of Harvard resigned, the president of pen resigned, the president of Mit is still there. But I'll take the latest victim. The president of Columbia just resigned yesterday. But you know, the interesting thing is, I'm not so sure that is a victory
for conservatives. I think it's actually liberals who wanted to oust the president of Columbia. You might recall that I think hundreds of Columbia faculty called on her to resign because they thought she was being too tough on the protesters that you remember she called in the NYPD. I mean, that doesn't do anything, because guess who's the DA in charge of prosecuting the people arrested by the NYPD. Alvin Bragg,
the guy who's prosecuting Donald Trump. Apparently he dropped. He chose not to charge a single one of these protesters at Columbia, even the ones who weren't Columbia students.
Yeah and so again, who vandalized the librarian, so on and so on? Right, Yeah, well, look, oh sorry, John, go ahead was that No?
No, So you know, I you know, the interesting question is, you know, one who would a Columbia or any of these universities a point? Next, are they going to actually people be people who stand up for free speech or not? But then the second question, this is, I know, this is what Stee's really interested in, is is this actually going to make things worse this fall? Are we going to see a shutdown of a lot of campuses, especially if there's a war, a broader war in the Middle East.
Suppose Israel and Hesbala and southern Lebanon go to war this fall, that would be much bigger I think excuse to shut down campuses than the gods of war has been.
Yeah. Look, I mean I think three or four points that aren't necessarily directly connected. One is I think this this whole anti Semitic profo, most mobs are going to want to pick a few campuses to shut down, and they'll want to be in media capitals like Columbia, like UCLA. We'll see about Berkeley and some others. But second, I'm not sure it's correct say that, even if it's strictly speaking true that the left wanted what's her name Schaffique
out as president. I still think it's a victory for the forces of good because it's going to have to sober up a lot of people, trustees, most liberal leaning faculty, who realized that the left is out of control and rampaging and they better do something about it. But also
I think, you know, I recall her hearing. She testified after several weeks or maybe months after the after Claudine Gay and then the woman from Penn were such disasters, and she was in comparatively better on the whole free speech and having the deal with protest but comparatively well comparatively, But there was one moment where I thought you could
actually almost charge her with perjury. One of the Republican members said, so, I keep reading about these groups to talk about folks spelled fol x, And he says, what's that about. Why do they spell it like that? And she said, I don't know, maybe they don't know how to spell. And people kind of laugh. Now the obvious follow up is she's not unaware of this trend. This is the sort of identity gender neutrality behind latinks.
You know, I don't get that one either. To be honest with you, Steve how does how does spelling it with an X instead of a chaos make it gender neutral?
You know, I don't know, But the point is she darn well knows what that's all about. And when she said, gosh, I don't know what this is about, that was a lie and I actually wish the next question, but what about latins? How many people in your faculty use latins? She said, Oh, I've never heard of that too. You would have known she was lying. She knows to say what latins? Yeah, no one knows how you're.
Supposed to say, okay, because I think that sounds kind of a little bit derogatory. So I'm going to say that from now on instead of latin X when I make fun of people.
Yeah, no one knows what to say. I think LATINX is easier and mulls off the tongue better, But no one. There is no authoritative denunciation. And you know, we have all surveys showing that like ninety percent of Hispanics hate term.
Right, it's okay, still just one quick comment that has nothing to do with anything. But I think that I am now getting a dozen a month. Probably that's accurate. And we're well past the time when you would normally be sought out by headhunters. A dozen a month offers to apply personalized ones from headhunters for presidencies. In my case, they're small. They didn't ask me to apply to the
University of Florida. I'll just tell you that when Ben Sasse decided to leave, but small but larger for provost and vice president and that sort of thing. The whole of higher education senior leadership, for some crazy reason is imploding on itself. And I'm laughing about it.
It's not.
I mean, there's a lot of different reasons for it. The fact that most universities, except for ones like Harvard, and even they are to some extent, are in a little financial trouble because they got all this money during COVID, they spent like drunken sailors instead of being very you know, frugal and wise about their expenditures. And now they're all in big financial trouble, and that causes all sorts of things.
Because god, you know, if we have to fire some one of the seventy thousand vice provosts we hired with COVID money, good will not be terrible. Anyway. That was just my my, my comment from academia as I'm living through the pain right now. I'll just leave it at that, John, Nice to see you back.
John wanted off for lost. No, no, I've been back lost.
So so I do want to talk one more time with a little bit deeper this idea of can we should we pay any attention to the fact that if the washing Post is saying, you know, not only does Kamma have one path to victory, she has another, and she's more popular and you know the left, this isn't just people excited about Kamalama ding Dong. This is a
Kamalama ding Dong movement. I heard somebody say that this morning on my way to work the polls, I wanted to mention about poles and this was actually not a Kamalama ding Dong or Daddy Walt Pole. This was an Arizona poll asking. It asked me who I was going to vote for for president, so on on and who I did vote for. But then it was zeroing in on my congressional representative. Who is Juan Siscamante a freshman? Okay, he's not. He went won bi partisan Congressman of the Year.
And the last time I saw Steve. I was so happy, so happy to tell him your your m Stanton Evan's joke about bipartisans life. Yeah, he did laugh. He's a nice enough guy. But anyway, so but but here's what they did. They asked me who I was going to vote for, you know, who I voted for last and all that, the usual kind of stuff. Then it said, we're going to read you a series of statements of
critics by Juan Siscamanti. And then it was let's see, he's a Christian nationalist who wants to impose Project twenty twenty five on the entire help Trump. Does that make you more or less likely to vote for him? He wants to start training young children, very young children, in the use of weapons and violent warfare so that they can do it. Was just crazy stuff. And then it was does this make you more or less likely to
vote for to vote for Juan Siscamanti. Juan Siscamanti wants to make it give women the death penalty if they choose an abortion. You know, just does this make you more likely more or less likely to vote for Wan Siscamanti? Okay, what do you suppose that poll is going to look like when the results come out, well, we.
Know what your answers are. Yes, No, that's well, that's I mean, they're doing a couple of things there there. It's push polling. That's actually they may not be they might not even be a quote unquote real poll. I mean, I'm sure they'll have results, but it may be they're going to call ten or twenty thousand people in the district and they're going to run those messages and what you're supposed to think, if you're a casual voter, is oh, he thinks that I don't like him. It's advertising, right,
and they generate some data. They may I'll bet they have little trips in the thing where a person who says, well, I'm a weak Biden voter, or you know, I split my ticket or something that you're be a person of special interest, and they see which messages are working for targeting and so forth, and now they have your number so they will text you the week for the election and so forth. So there's that's that's polling these days
has gotten very clever that way. Sometimes they're real, sometimes they're fake, sometimes they're both or not by one of their campaigns, and it's real news. They'll they'll leak the results to a newspaper but leave out all those questions. Right, So it's you know, it's a dirty business.
But despite the you know, the games you can play with poles and how they're done, they to me you're reading them, they do seem to reflect that it's undeniable. I think that that Harris has made up a lot of ground on Trump. I mean, you know, you can complain about you can complain about the reasons why, and the media is all on her side and all the institutions are on her side. But she has you know, she is doing better than Biden, and you know, the
polls seem to show it's at least a tie. If she's not, you know, some Poles say she's slightly ahead and that Trump is not. Trump doesn't have the same polls, right show Trump, you know, ahead in all the seven of the battleground states, and now they show him ahead I think in just two of the battlegrounds dates. So we could argue about the well, you know, these issues, but it's hard to deny that there has been a swing in the momentum and that I also think that Trump was the thing, but.
One of the things you said really quickly, because you have the expertise here, Steve, I don't want I actually don't want to get in the way of your expertise here. All I want to mention is I went back and looked at about ten articles, but from both the right and the left, sort of leading publications, and almost all of them were concentrated you said polls. Almost all of them were concentrated in the first place on the New York's New York Times, cn.
Poles, New York Times College. Yeah.
So okay, so one poll and then I saw I think it was Sean somebody who has a little bit more legitimacy, actually include the Emerson Pole. So you have two polls telling you this, and they are acting like it has changed the character of politics for all eternity. So do you see what I'm saying they're done. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with anything you just said. I think that they're taking maybe a little bit of a bump in the polls and trying to turn it into a
story in and of itself that becomes self fulfilling. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Well, Rush Limball used to say the purpose of a lot of these polls is to discourage voters, especially Republican voters. Right, That's why they're on the front page news and so forth. I think the New York Times Santa poll has actually been a pretty good one in the last few cycles. Not perfect. But one more comment about the poll you got, and it connects to this problem, is that a push poll. That's what they call out there was a push poll.
Is a lot of people like you. Well you just told us, did you know, I forget the guy's name. I've been told you're going to talk to ten people and tell them that message. See that. That's called of the network effects of this kind of campaigning. Now, one thing is I'll put it this.
Okay, wait, wait, just in case you might be right about that, Steve, to all of our listeners out there, none of those things about one s ISCA money are true. Don't vote for the U of a uh environmental lawyer, vote for wants is CO money. Okay, Sorry to get that out there.
I figured you probably told the poster, all those upholsters, all those things made you more likely support him. They did tell us that, of course.
I did, and I said it was an independent. There's some things that it doesn't make sense for me to lie about yeah, because if I am a white woman that is has an advanced degree. I am. I do say I'm not married and I have a cat. That's true the married part. I am married, But uh, you know, it's hard for me to to to skew their polling because they'm already everything. They don't expect me to be.
Sorry, go ahead, yeah, no, I sometimes a few times I've been pulled. I have occasionally lie to screw up their sample on survey on purpose.
But there's your argument that Trump's actually really ahead by significant margins. Just no, that's my point about the polls. I'm not trying to say the wessure really accurate, but I do think they reflect that the races change and it is now.
Yeah, okay, I do think that's true.
Yes, yeah, so look and then then that's what I was ccuruous, like, do you think it's because part she's getting this big boost from the media and the Democrats are unifying. But Trump seems to be floundering to me, although he had a really good press conference today where he was showing household products me which I'm sure he's never touched in his life. Well, bony detergent and showing how much the prices have gone up. Do you think
Trump really knows the price of bacon. I mean, come on, I never shopped in a grocery store in the last twenty five years.
Here seven bucks a pound.
Here's my field theory, and then I'll explain why it explains the polling problem. My field theory is it is metaphysically impossible for Harris to win this election unless it's short enough and the media cooperates to disguise all of our vulnerabilities. Remember this is some of the Democratic Party three years ago rejected so badly she didn't even last of the first primary. And now they all love her well.
Part of its euphoria that they're out from under the certain doom of Biden and you know, fresh face, and so there's excitement and you know, a bubble. But on the polling business, Lucreasy, you started to mention his name is Sean Trendy, who really knows these things pretty well, and I think he was a straight shooting guy. And he says, look, I think there is among social scientists an awareness that there are swings in you might say,
voter enthusiasm for talking to posters and answering candidly. And when Biden was, you know, cratering, the problem was getting enough Democrats to have a genuine, authentic sample that really captured opinion completely. Now he thinks it's happening the other way around. A lot of Republican or Trump sympathetic voters are not wanting to talk to posters, not telling them
the truth. You remember, you know, the finding I think Rasmusten had back in twenty sixteen that the polls that came closest to calling those states in the Upper Midwest that Trump ended up winning were the ones who thought to ask who are you voting for? The people would say, Hillary, who's your neighbor voting for? And when the prints at all, my neighbor's going to vote for Trump. I'm sure of it. They said, Ah, a lot of these people are lying
to us. They're actually Trump voters that are not telling us honestly. Right, there's still that problem. And so I mean, and then finally, and this is in the chapter Goot coming out in Michael Walsh's book Next Month that he's edited,
called Against the Corporate Media. I went back to the work of Tim gross Close the economists that George Mason used to be at UCLA, and he assembled not only in his own work, but of several other social scientists showing that media bias probably gets the left and Democrats
five points worth of public opinion and votes. That's the handicap against Republicans, and with the media now behaving more egregiously than ever, I'm not surprised that it's pulled even I still think Trump has well, let me finish on this, because I've just got a couple more things to say. It's that is the evidence for this. By the way, is Barack Obama in twenty twelve said I'm sure I'd be eight points further ahead if it were not for
Fox News, just one news outlet that descended right. And Evan Thomas in two thousand and four said media bias in favor of Carry and Edwards is probably worth fifteen points to Democrats. You know, he was the editor of Newsweek, din or whatever he was. He later said, well, it's probably only five points. But the point is is that the unbelievable way the media has reacted to Harris's elevation, I think it counts for a lot of that bump You're seeing. But finally, there's no reason to think whether
Trendy is right or not about shy Trump voters. There's no reason to think that the polls are not once again underestimating Trump's true support. So if he is, remember he was like eight points behind Biden in a lot of places where he was either one or was very very close. If the polls are even, John, means Trump's gonna win. So if there's no change between now November, Trump's gonna win. Unless another factor comes into play, that will leave for some other time. But that's why I
think people shouldn't panic about this. Although I can. I can see you're winning. I mean, you know, metaphysics doesn't always rule. But I will stop there.
John, what are your thoughts?
I have no more thoughts. I wanted you guys to explain to me why the polls were so close or what. And it sounds to me like, do you agree that it's a fifty to fifty race.
I don't really believe it's a fifty to fifty race. I really don't. But I also, whatever the race is now, it will not look like that very soon. The one thing I wanted to mention when when Steve's talked about the media. You are you quite rightly, John, say, stop winding about the media. It's just a fact of the matter, and there's you know, not a lot you can do about it. So you don't get to say it doesn't count because you don't like it. That's basically your point.
You're right. What I will tell you is that we are not any longer beholden only to Dan Rather Walter Cronkite. You know, I forget the rest of them. It's been too long, you know, three network news organizations, and then all things considered, and what I wanted to bring up briefly wasn't even on my list because I'd already forgotten. Too much happening these days. Is Trump's interview with Elon Musk.
If the Democrats aren't panic a little, panicking a little, why were they so quick to pretend that it was an unmitigated disaster when in fact it was quite successful. It was quite successful. It was two successful billionaires. And I don't think people. I don't think people except for the worst kind of you know, socialist rats out there. People don't really mind rich billionaires who made it on their own anymore. They really don't, you know, there's a
certain amount of admiration for that. Okay, put that aside. Despite what that idiot Bill Crystal had to say about it, I'll just leave it alone. He came and said that it made him I brought out his inner socialist democrat, as if it's in or anyway whatever. But not so all in all that. I mean, they say, who knows, it got a billion impressions, It got seven hundred and fifty million listeners from around the world. That's more than
the people we have here, as you know. But anyway, there are ways to reach there are ways to reach voters, engaged voters at least that are not you know, the View and CBS or NBC or MSNBC Nightly News. And I do think that that's a crack in the armor, kink in the armor, whatever you say, clink in the armor. I don't know what the thing is. But and that's becoming more and more obvious because what you said was true, Steve,
the media has been So what was the word you used? Coquious? Yes, yeah, I mean that wasn't the word, but that's a good one. And so what do you guys think do you think that new media, but especially Twitter I mean Facebook, even though Zuckerberg has found a new admiration for Trump, it's still despicable. It's still censoring things. What are the others Instagram, et cetera, et cetera. Obviously TikTok is being manipulated by the Chinese and the Russians and all those other things.
But Twitter's out there allowing people to say what they want to say for the most part, and so much so that poor Elon he's getting sued right and left, he's getting he's getting threatened by the EU. So what do you guys think about all that? And doesn't matter?
I think it matters a lot. Yeah, the old many old media monopolies are They've been shattered for quite a while now. I think the power of Twitter. You really saw it in one particular case here in the last few weeks. I forget which organization it was. It had raided Kamala Harris, the most liberal senator before she ran
for president, and they went and scrubbed that from their website. Well, it was all over Twitter that they had done that, and it was although the mainstream media won't report that, and the fact that you know, borders are right. Stuff was funny too. You know, the social media makes it
possible to pierce that. And what that means is the Republican advantage, not advantage exactly, but you've seen in a lot of state races over the years, especially Senate and governor, that the Democrat will be ahead well in the late September and Republicans hold their fire hold their money and then they do a big paid ad blitz because you know, it's Trump's been pretty good and throughout the last ten years getting free media because he's such as right, and
hopefully he will return to being effective at that. But for other Republicans, it's always been paid media to overcome the bias of the free media, and that's when you often see the late charges by Republican candidates. It hasn't played on the presidential races that much, but this is the bigger, different thing, but it's certainly been a factor in state races over the years, and I think that
may be the pattern we'll see here. I think it was the pattern in nineteen eighty eight with Bush and du Caucus when Bush was so far down until they opened up on Ducaccas's weaknesses and concealments. By the way, one last thing Henry Olsen has a good piece out here in the last day or two where he looks at that woman in New Zealand, at just Cinda our door, whatever her name was, though it was so terrible about
coming Aaron right, well, the story about her. I didn't know this, but Henry of course knows these things because he's such a nerd about it. She originally was a little bit like Kamela. She was not the first choice of the Labor Party. But then she ousted or something happen, and then the leader Labor Party had a step down and she took his place, huge surge of popularity. She ended up losing the election by seven percent uh to the you know, behind the somebody who came in ahead
of her. She formed a government with some minority parties because it's one of those parliamentary stupid systems they have. But there's a case of where, you know, at first,
all was excitement for the woman. New Zealand never had a woman prime minister or whatever they all call them there, and and you know, by the time they actually got around to casting ballots and those short elections they have like England, people said no, actually, we don't like her very much, and they were right not to like her.
John U Christia, I cannot remember what your original question was, whether or not I was thinking I was thinking so much about New Zealand. I met me down. Sorry, no, no, no, I'm just I'm just joking. I we'll agree to you. It's just whether that transition to where, uh, you know, new media just provides a complete right replacement for sort of the media being you know, our content being bottlenecked through you know, just a few major media companies. Obviously
that's going to be the future. I just don't know whether it will be soon enough. Right like this, I mean we all seem to be acknowledging that the media's support for Kamala Harris like not, you know, just not criticizing her for not doing interviews, for having no policies, uh.
Campaign choice policies.
Yeah, this campaign of joy silliness. I don't want my politicians to be joyous actually or joyful frankly.
I know.
I mean, yeah they go go run for cheerleader cheerleader in chief then but you know, I but we're all acknowledging it seems to still make a big difference. I mean, it can produce a five point difference. That's huge.
Yeah, it does make a big difference. There's no doubt about it. Is there's still many many people for whom the view or the you know, the watch the CBS nightly News and they consider it gospel. There are a lot of people out there. And then of course the rest of the expanded media landscape still takes many of its cues from that legacy media. There's no doubt about it.
But what I would say is things like Waltz's We talked about this briefly last week, maybe on the Ricochet podcast, but Waltz's despicable abandoning of his troops, his lying about the fact that he served in combat, his lying about the fact that he retired as a command sergeant major, all of that which was known when he ran for governor, and the local media would not cover it. If not for Twitter. I believe this sincerely, it never would have
become an issue at all, and it is. It is one of the biggest issues on Twitter, of course, but because it's the right kind of form for that, there's a lot of different things that never would have seen the light of day if it had been left up to legacy media, and that I think just this whole business I wanted to almost forgot to bring it up in this context, the whole business about Hunter Biden going to the State Department. Oh, and you explain it, because
I'll get it wrong. It's a little on the complicated.
This is actually a good example of things in media. Is not asking Harris and she doesn't feel like she has to answer, which is whether she would continue the way that Justice Department has treated Hunter Biden with kid gloves and allowed the fact that he's President Biden's son to be a get out of jail free card. And you know, although I have the greatest respect for the Department of Justice, I have been persuaded that they have
been playing political games with the choice of prosecutution. So the way they went after Trump, I think mistakenly so, and then the way they haven't gone after Hunter Biden. So in this case, the news this week was that Hunter Biden, while Joe Biden was Vice president, was writing letters and we don't know what else phone calls or emails he was sending as well to officials in the
American embassy in Italy. Because the Ukrainian company Barisma, which put Hunter Biden on its Board wanted to open some kind of plant in Italy and wanted so Hunter was trying to use his contacts at the State Department to get the US government to weigh in with the Italian government to let his buddy is Ukrainian buddies get some kind of business advantage. Gosh, that seemed like it was
peddling and bribery to me. But you know, he may never be called to account for it because the Justice Department seems so sad on this for so long that they won't be able to prosecute him. It happened too long ago, which is outrageous, actually, I mean, that is the kind of mistake lawyer should get get fired for. It's like you let something, you just sit on something so long that the case becomes too old and you're forbidden by law from prosecuting somebody for it. That's a fundamental mistake.
I mean, even if there's not a statute of limitations problem, which I'll bet there is, after this much time they're going by, there is yeah, well, okay, well there certainly ought to be. And again, you know, I say this, and Lucretia is quite right to say, when do these guys actually get it right, there ought to be some serious oversight hearings and drag the State Department people through the across the hot coals about this, because this is
unbelievable corruption. Uh, and we're just na to mention.
The impeachment the congressman involved in the impeachment.
But we go, right, yeah, that's right, Yeah, yeah, we impeach Trump because of a phone call and unbelievable And I mean, we know the State Department's rotten as a general matter anyway, but so this would be a good way to keep them busy while sensible foreign policy things happen.
Yeah, I'm a little worried about that, but we've almost run out of time to discuss what's happening in Ukraine, so we'll have to save that for next time. I do want to mention or give John the opportunity to bring up his question to us from the point of view of the Marshall program, where he's being told that Marshall scholars that are interested perhaps they're going to be judges someday, or their clerks and so on. They're lawyers. Now, young lawyers are in law school. I don't remember that
they should be applying natural law to legal decisions. I promise you if anybody at Claremont said that they're dumb, that's never what Jaffa said. Okay, go ahead, Sorry, No, that's.
Exactly what I What was hoping we talked about is to what extent should judges and courts use unwritten natural law or natural rights when they interpret the Constitution.
First of all, where do you get the unwritten from unwritten.
In the sense it's not in the constitutional text.
It's in the Declaration of Independence, which both Jefferson Madison Washington all said is our foundational document.
Okay, okay, So whether you should apply the Declaration of Independence in constitutional cases? So here will be an example, would be an example. So we haven't talked about this. I'm sure we're going to talk about it tomorrow. So could you say that the Supreme Court could interpret the word life in the fourteenth Amendment right says and in the Fifth Amendment right the government's not allowed to take
away life, liberty, or property to process. Could the Supreme Court say the natural law understanding of life includes fetal life from the moment of conception, because we think that's what natural rights mean now and actually pro strike down state laws that allow for generous abortion rights. So that would be the kind of that's the kind of question we're talking about where I would say, you know, the go ahead, you guys.
I'm just going to say, this would be my simplest way of answering that maybe it's not the best way. But when Lincoln, for instance, was debating the question about slavery, his reference to slavery was not what happened when the Constitution was put together. It was the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Okay. The fact that slavery was included in the Constitution did not mean that somehow it was
a part of the original understanding of the Constitution. And his reference point to the question of slavery was was a slave a human being? And if a human being, were they entitled to the protection of life guaranteed in the Constitution as a natural right? Okay? And he talked about what kinds of things do you consider if a black as a human being? And he made some great
arguments about that. But at the same time, you will recall that he was never the person who claimed that we should immediately abolish slavery because it violated natural law, even though he claimed it over and over and over again. He said, we will follow the Constitution fully. We're not about going out to the states and abolishing slavery all
of that. He also believed that understanding what it meant to be a human being, and that we should be moving more and more more towards the perfection of a regime, a constitution, a society, a government that would protect that life in the same way they protected every other life. That's what natural law tells us we have to do. It's not I'm going to plug this in and it's going to give me a magic answer.
Yes, you.
Can make a distinction there. There's to be what you're saying is there's a distinction between saying, Okay, we have this moral goal ending slavery that is given to us by your natural philosophy, and you're trying you want to move the positive law towards that direction, but you can't say that the Constitution prohibits slavery until the thirteenth Amendment.
But why would you change the constitution?
Oh, good question, because so this isn't the suppose this is my point, so to me, because slave is legal in the United States until the thirteenth Amendment, the Constitution well, but but this is my point. This is why I'm raising this question because your friends here at the Claremonts you're telling me no, that that actually slavery is moral and illegal. Even before the thirteenth Amendment, I was like, that's not I can't.
Be right state strictly speaking, John, By the way, I think you're punking as John, And I'll tell you why.
I think that I'm what I'm doing what you.
Know better, but you don't want to minute. Yeah, so look, I could.
Be doing that. Yes, that's true.
Strictly speaking, it's not really true to say that slavery was legal in the United States. It was legal and individual states that were part of the Union. I mean that was part of the dissent andred Scott from us was the Constitution permitted slavery to exist? Okay, Well, Jaffa used to say, I'll paraprase them slightly. I think you'll
set this lucretia. Jeff used to say, the beginning of wisdom on these matters is to be able to make a distinction between the principles of the Constitution and the compromises of the constitution that you needed to get a constitution at all, Right, that's the whole story of the convention, or the central story of the convention, right.
And the overarching concept that defines that, Steve, by the way, is something called students.
Correct, of course, but you know, I mean, look, John's never going to get a C from our class on prudence is just see, we're gonna flunck him every time. But what do you mean?
This is the difference between constitutional principle and then constitutional compromise. What's important is what does the text of the Constitution say to me. You could say, oh, the text of the Constitution will let me contradicted or superseded by the principles of it that are well there, let me go Back's just you're inferring. So this is actually I mean, I'm not punking it out at this point. You're just
inferring some principle of the Constitution. If it's not expressed in a written text, then it's not in there.
Well no, wait a minute, John, let me go back to your original question and started this challenge, which was, could a judge use the word life in the fourteenth and Fifth Amendment Fourteenth Amendment and fifth Amendment to strike down a statute that had very expansive abortion rights.
Yeah, like in California.
Yeah, okay, Well all right, John, What if if you're pure positivists, which you sometimes say you are, what do you do about a state that past the statute has said, actually, we define life as beginning at age ten, that no being is a title to the protections of the law until they're ten years old. By the way, that's only a slight exaggeration of that Peter Singer guy at Princeton, which is a really can't really be the John You position that a judge says, well, that's what the legislature decided.
I guess I have to defer to that. I think a person would be on very solid ground and saying, hey, wait a minute. There may be serious scientific arguments about when human life can be said to begin viability outside the woman and all the rest of that, but we're we're confident enough that we know that life doesn't mean ten years old for the purposes of that.
I mean, unfortunately, I would say we do allow states to make decisions like that, in the sense that we allow life to end based on people right, some states saying oh, this life is no longer a human life because we think they're well, you know, we think they're terminal, and so will allow euthanasia not consider it murder. Well, morally, I don't like these laws, but organs allowed to do this under the Constitution now, and there aren't they effectively saying human life.
I'm not convinced that they should be.
Valuable if you're eighty and you have cancer.
Yeah, let me go on a little bit more on this. Let me just.
Answer that really quick point. Steven. I'll let you go on because I do want you to finish. But when you say allowed under the Constitution, the fact that we've had idiot judges who have issued idiotic decisions that have said that's okay doesn't mean it's allowed under the Constitution. That's not Those two things are not the same thing.
The fact that the Supreme Court has said something stupid, the fact that the Ninth Circuit Court has said something stupid, doesn't give you the right to say, well, the Constitution allows it. No, a judge allowed it, and the Constitution and a judge's decision about it are not the same thing. Sorry, go ahead, Steve.
Okay, Well, then I would be willing to say that I don't think the Constitution and it's phrase life. Putting aside what judges think would authorize courts to invalidate euthanasia laws of the kind that Oregon has. Well, all right, that's left up to the states.
Let's leave that issue aside, because I think we're just the beginning of some legal tangles about that. I think we haven't really confronted as directly as we have abortion. Look that you know, I sent you that draft article I've written. It's too short, but I got reflecting on the fact that judg we always say Justice Thomas is the natural law person on the court. But then I look at Justice Alito's opinion in Dobbs, and what did he do in order to overcome story decisis of Roe.
He decided to invoke the classic common law works going all the way back to Bracton in the thirteenth century, but also Matthew Hale Blackstone, right, some of the classic common law treatise writers of the thirteenth century to the eighteenth century, and what all of them said was, for the purposes of protection of the law, life begins at quickening,
which is really derived from Aquitas and so forth. Now where I think here's the axis of the argument is I'm one of those persons who think that the common law is applied natural law. And remember that one of the reasons Justice Scalia did not like the common law or common law mode of judging, as he said, it's too much power to judges. It's anti democrats. And that's because he bought in fully to judge made law, whereas I think rightly understood the old common law tradition was
judge discovered law. How do they discover the law? Well, they have to use a chain of reasoning, and yeah, it gets very tangled. And you know, somewhere here I've got a copy of Pluck and it's concise History of the common Law. That's twelve hundred pages long. I'd love to see what the complete history is that that's the concise history.
Yeah, I've never seen.
That's an amazing thing. That's very small print. Right, But look, there's the point is that, uh, you know, the old common law reasoning that rests upon natural law is not obsolete and ought not to be that difficult for us to reapply at modern times. And then my point of the article I'm trying to develop is we're starting to see that coming back a little bit in ways that I wish Scalia were still around to reflect upon because he was unconc.
Here's the other thing Scalia would say would be, uh, know, you're saying that it's a natural law that is the governing moral system that the Constitution helps express the great majority of people today, at least philosophers, are not natural law people. So he would say, like the philosophy you choose to adopt and express, the Constitution is not fixed
unless you how can. In other words, he would say, you would only win if you could show natural law and natural rights has to be the actually true and correct system of morality. And Sklee would say, I'm not
sure about that. But if you want to ask all these philosophers, they would say, no, right, the take the call of the But if you were to say there, you know the philosophers in the world say they're whatever one hundred percent, what percentage of them actually would say, oh, I believe natural law natural rights is actually the governing law system. It would be like less than five percent.
When non sequitor John it doesn't matter if you understand what it is, the what the natural law principles embedded in the declaration. They are not complicated, they are simple and straightforward and un unassailable to basic human reason as anything has ever been. Steve's already looking for another glass of whiskey, and he's telling me, you've got to end this for this time. But you've got to stop somehow
this depends upon someone's opinion about it. It doesn't okay, all right, I gotta go to I gotta go quickly to Babylon b before Steve just cuts me off and I don't get to do it. We will take this up, so lovely picture of David French in a dress and pearls, and it says David French says, to save masculinity, he will now transition to female. Yeah, enough of our people know who did Frenches and stupid stuff, he says. So meet Brinley, pretty blonde woman, the White House intern running
the country today. Meet Brinley. It's this plucky White House interns to run the country. Her turn. Join us as we take a look at her busy, exciting day. After two weeks with Kamala, Tim Walt's announces he's signed back up with the National Guard and requested it to be deployed to a rat Actually think that's pretty funny.
Or the other one. Did they have one that said Waltz drops off a ticket when he learns yes to visit battleground states Yes, that.
One was good too. He clarifies that he's not stealing valor just redistributing it. The I will fix things if you vote me into office, says woman currently in office. That was not even funny. I'm sorry, just is uh Kamala to announce policy positions just as soon as Poles tells her, tell her what they are? Oh sorry, there's there's just too many, and all of mine are from like the last three days. This doesn't even take me back for a week, which it should. Uh Pamala Kamalama.
Ding Dong's team releases new campaign slogan we decline your request for an interview. I like that one. And uh finally, my personal favorite tam Lama. Ding Dong takes commanding lead in poll of people who've recently been hit and head with a giant rubber mallet. Like, that's not exactly how I feel about things. They're just talking about my opinion that they're okay, sorry, you turn.
Well, mercifully for you. John. We've come to an end because we went much longer.
We'd be getting I want to Okay, let's do let's pick walking up more next time. All right, we're not done, but hey, did did you pick a sign off?
No, I'm still order.
I'm shocked.
The old one. It's time to drink the whiskey that have been drinking. That's times every day. Cackle, pack gackle, come a.
Lot of rama.
That's what I call.
Bye Ricochet.
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