Well, whiskey, come and take my pain, the money.
The way, Oh whiskey. Why think alone when you can drink it all in with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour, Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John, You and the International Woman of Mystery Lucretia where the laps it up? And David, ain't you easy on?
The show cats?
Gotta give me and let that whiskey.
Welcome everybody to this super super special edition of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour. Why because we're all together, although it's only on Zoom, but we're happy to be together. We really hate it when it's not all three of us. I'll be honest with you. Think you just don't work very well, you know Steve and I and we're not. We're kind of uninteresting without John. I'll just say that. So John, welcome back.
True.
See it is true. Yeah, because there's a nice balance of you guys being idiots and me having but different kinds. No, I'm kidding, but there is a nice balance between my fiery sorts of ideas and Steve's historical analogies. And then you come in and you're kind of this moderate guy who just sort of elitist. You know, it all works,
It all works, and folks love it. They say that, I know you don't read comments, but now the comments mostly come to me as by the way, as private messages on x and just sorry for this, but for one of those private messages out there. I did open my brunello last night as I was instructed, and you're right, it's delicious. So I get all sorts of nice advice
as a result of people listening to this podcast. John, you really should sort of be more open to the idea of listening to the listeners once in a while. But John, even when.
They hate there, are you kidding like the pedestrians that I run over in my car?
No, these are our listeners are highly intelligent, thank you very much. They are listen to influencers.
Lucretia exaggerates a little bit. There are many commenters, John, who are on your side. Oh yes, really yes?
How many would you say is a percentage of our listenership?
H forty? I was gonna lower the.
Wow at any given time, John, at any given.
Time, I was hoping for a third.
The thing that frustrates our listeners most about you is your purposeful ignorance about certain things that you refuse to learn about them, and you refuse to learn about them. Does that make.
Sense conspiracy theories?
No, I mean even just going outside of the the rate, the lamestream media, whatever you want to call it, to some more edgy kinds of media sources. You won't do that, which is why you don't know a lot of things that are happening because they aren't reported.
Are you talking about like professional wrestling magazines.
Like No, I'm talking about even just reading Breitbart or reading Daily Caller or reading I don't know, Newsmax. There's all sorts of places that you can get it from besides X, which everybody should be on X. But anyway, that's a different story. Okay, today we have some really interesting things to talk about, because the life is just interesting these days. We do want we're coming a little late to the party, but my co hosts want to
talk a little bit about the hundred days. Why one hundred days is an exceptional mark in a presidency is a little bit lost on me. It reminds me of my short time in the public schools, where at one hundred days, that's where public schools get their budgets are based upon what the attendance is enrollment and attendances of public school children the first hundred days. So they always celebrate it by counting one hundred m and ms and
one hundred beans and one hundred this and that. So let's count one hundred beans and let me hear John, what you have to think about the first hundred days of the Trump administration.
So Steve recommended we read these accounts, which were much more pro Trump than probably a lot of the people in the media saying things like, well, Trump's been much more successful. Trump's been the kind of change that conservatives needed, basically because I think of his brashness and willingness to disrupt and change things up. So I think there's a lot of good that Trump has done. The thing that
worries me is whether it's going to be ephemeral. And by that I mean a lot of things he's done so far can be easily reversed, and what he really needs to do is to get Congress and the courts to codify what he's done so it becomes more permanent. So take, for example, doge a lot of publicity. I think, as all of us know, you're really not gonna be able to cut the enormous federal budget deficit unless you
do something about social spending. Nevertheless, I think it's really good that you sent this agency, you know, these outsiders in defined as much cutting as can be done by the budget and the budget yeah, and fraud and waste, you know, and find fraud and abuse. But a lot of it's not going to succeed unless Congress ratifies the changes, right, Like you know, Doge can come in and say, we'd like to fire these people, we'd like to cut the money. But that's why we're seeing a lot of the litigation.
If Congress went in and authorized it, or if Congress came in and just adopted all the changes does recommended, there'd be no court suits. It would be if the president Congress. So that's my point is Trump has did a good job with getting rid of DEI, right, with shaking up spending, with impowerments and so on. But they could be very fleeting unless Congress, that is rep. Right the House in the center of controller this. If he doesn't do that to really close the deal, it could
all be fleeting successes. And that's what really worries me about the first hundred days is that you don't want them to be the first hundred days. You want them to be the first you know, a thousand days. But without Congress, it could just be a few hundred days.
Anyway, Steve, are you there? I guess Steve doesn't want to play with us anymore.
I'm totally here. I was just waiting my term patiently. I didn't want to interrupt.
That's not like you.
Well, I'm you know, I uh well, I'm working on my lafroy ten here tonight. I'm feeling mellow. Look. First of all, a I don't like tariffs. I think you're a bad idea. Be Trump is taking a huge risk and he might win. That is the history of prompt eastne that in business. And there's some evidence, and I won't board listeners with it now that he may win this battle. A lot of evidence out of China that they're feeling the heat, and more and more news reports
that they're willing, they're ready to talk. They deny it, but who knows what you believe what you read in the media. But I think there's a chance Trump is gonna come out on top of this. It may be MESSI I don't like it, but nonetheless, let's reserve judgment. But second about the forget all the stupid polls. This is lucreatia. You had it right. This is a psi op by the media, and I do remember it's maybe kind of reversal in some ways but consistent in others.
But back in the Reagan years, Reagan was always popular, except for when he had a recession and be Iran contra. Otherwise, his popularity ratings were always great, and the media would say, well, he's personally popular, but the American people don't like what he's doing. That turned out if you actually pulled issues, that was largely untrue. Also, there are a few places he did poorly on issues, but in most places he was His issue stands were just as popular as he was.
I think the media is doing that now, except I do think there may be something to the view that there's still a lot of people think, you know, Trump's kind of rude, and I don't know, but we like a lot of what he's doing, like at the border and other things. And I think you discount these poles that show him underwater on tariffs and all the rest
of that. I think some of that's genuine. But again i'll just plant here the axiom I've said many times that do not trust poles or do not credit polls that are about attitudes about issues, because those are you know, a mile wide an inch deep. And I'll stop there. But the third thing is, look, the media has clearly chosen sides, more so than they've ever done in their history. We know they're always biased in the hostile to Republicans, but they have decided they have to destroy Trump. And
so here to one hundred days. Okay, one hundred days is arbitrary. On the other hand, it's an arbitrary measure the liberals invented, so let's use it against them. And so they're trying to say, oh, Trump's in big trouble, and you know the VS Republicans like David Brooks says, oh Trump's in big trouble. And that's why I was taken by the articles first by Martin Gurry in City Journal. I never heard of this guy until he wrote this A hold up for you guys. He wrote this, Oh
I don't have my camera on. Sorry. He wrote this big fat book six seven years ago about populism that gets the whole matter quite right, I think. And he says this week. You know, I underestimated Trump. Turns out this guy's got more to him than I thought. I think this is very significant when people who otherwise would keep their distance from Trump say, oh, maybe there's something
to this guy. And then today Thursday, as we're talking in the Wall Street Journal, my old colleague Karl zin Smeister, who he used to clash with at the American Enterprise Institute, has this article saying, boy, did conservatism ever need a Trump reset? Why that's important? And for listeners who'd never heard of Carl or don't know him, is he worked in the George W. Bush White House. He is as conventional and mainstream conservative as they come these days. That
would be criticism. It would it wasn't, you know, twenty years ago? But yes, it was well for you, right, Okay, very good. I'm almost done to the crease. I promise you're read very very patient with me tonight. But for him to say that suggests to me why we're seeing a what what is often called the cascade preference. But the point is is that I think the story in one hundred days is exactly the opposite of what the media is saying. I think Trump is moving from triumph
to triumph. Oh, there's lots of things to say. This is, you know, wrong, and this and that, and you know, I can pick on lots of things he's said. But of course I said that about Reagan too, who made lots of mistakes a lot along the way. So I think I give Trump an a plus at one hundred days. And I'm usually pretty tough on these things.
So I want to just throw out that. What I told you guys, I was going to say is that the people who have really been defeated in the first hundred days are the are the Democrats. And Trump has
put the nail in the coffin. But I don't want to leave it there, because what I want to say is, not only are the Democrats lame and useless, and across the board they have I mean, they have no bench, they have no leaders, they have no consistent ideas except for maybe falling back on, you know, the radical leftism that got them defeated, you know, and they're fighting over that.
What it comes down to is the Democratic Party is useless, and who's taken the opposition roll away from the Democratic Party. It's the media. Yeah, it's the media, And so yeah, and absolutely, stevee just give me a second. Pete Hegseth goes on Twitter and puts up I got a score of one hundred. Do you know what that score was? It was media media? What's the media research or media? I always get a mixed up the good guys versus
the bad guys. Whichever the good guys are. They came out and said that in the month of I believe it was the month of February March, one hundred percent of the media coverage of hag Seth was negative.
That's our right, that's our friends, that's our friends at the Media Research Center, Brents Bosel and those guys. I don't know anybody's ever gotten one hundred percent. So that is a great achievement.
It is a great achievement. I mean, Elon Musk only got ninety six percent, and who was it? Somebody else only got somebody else came in at eighty six percent. Oh Rfk came in and only eighty six percent. So Haig says, says, you guys got to do better. But that's a serious point. Go ahead, Steve, Well, there's just one sentence.
I mean, it emerged this week that Hakeem Jeffries, the House leader, announced the caucus, and somebody leaked it that he said no more trips to El Salvador. Why more information comes out about that guy they shipped over and you forget due process in those arguments. But they realize this is actually bad politics because it tells people we're on the side of a gang member. We care more about gang members and El Salvador than Americans in America.
And even dim with the Democrats can figure that out. Let score another one for Trump.
Yeah, I totally agree with Lucretia that that, you know, what, how are you know, troubled Trump's the first time the days are no like however, however tru But I just want to say Democrats are far worse shape. But that's what But that goes to the tarrific economics issue to me, which is the major I think major defect of the first hundred days is that Trump's handing the Democrats the issue of the economy. You know, the Democrats don't have any issues other than just like what Trump's giving them.
They have no ur great lookers, they have no agenda, they have no outstanding figures right they I was at some event involving political scientists this weekend. They said, you know, the odds are that the Democrats will take the House just because of normal historical patterns, there's sory such a slow, small majority in the out of power party usually wins the House and the midterm elections in a second term. So the thing that that's why I think you're right
that the Democrats are in terrible shape. But if the economy turns sour because Trump spent too much energy and all these other issues in didn't address inflation and economy first, then it'll been his own fault.
But you said yourself, Congress doing something. If Congress fails to reenact the Trump tax cuts, then the tariffs don't worry me. But if those tax cuts expire and huge tax increases across the board, as much as the stupid Democrats try to claim that they were tax cuts for the rich, people like us and people that make less money than a actually saw more money in their pockets
because of those tax cuts. And if those tax cuts expire because the useless Republicans can't get off there you know what's and get it done, then there will be a recession and they will lose the House and probably the Senate.
I was talking to a friend of mine who's, you know, very prominent Wall Street banker, and he, you know, he says, look,
Trump can pull this out if two things happen. You have to pull the get the tax cuts through, and the tariff system has to and maybe it'll turn into this mostly focused on China, that if we can actually use the tariffs to enter into good trading deals with our allies like the Europeans and we all have a better free trade agreements with them, and all of us raise tariffs on China, then actually it it will be
a great success. I'm not sure they're going to do it, but that's the route out, and you know Trump has a room to maneuver.
Well, let's let's on that happy note, take a break for TAMU to come on and sponsor a program. And we all know that what we need is a whole lot more cheap Chinese goods at cheap cheap prices.
Well, how do you know that the ad we just listened to, which is all customized to where listeners are, was from I've.
Actually never heard a TMU ad. I've seen them all alright.
Right, Well, no, Lucretia, I mean, I just wanted to budle and say, look, I mean, yeah, we're the big enchilada, as they say with our Spanish language ads. Is whether the House and the Senate are going to get together and pass a good tax cut bill over the summer.
That's the big drama. However, I think what should be noted today and won't be in the press, is that the House voted on Thursday in a bipartisan majority, with thirty five or thirty six Democrats agreeing with Republicans to kill California's electric car mandate, which something like twenty understand it's a copied that's the mandate that said that by the year twenty thirty five you cannot sell a gasoline
powered car in California, which is insane. And so now there's been some thought that the Senate Parliamentarian says, well, I'm not sure this requires or that satisfies the requirements of the Congression Review Act. And if John Thune does not squash the parliamentarian and past this, then he will be worse in your mind, Lucatia, I think than Mitch McConnell as a Senate majority leader. That's all out.
Okay, Ouch, that's the worst. That's the worst you could be.
I know. That's why I brought it up.
Okay, I don't know. I'm not I don't. I don't worry about the whole tear of things. I think it's I think you guys are going to realize that everything I've predicted about this tear for is going to become true, and that at the end of it, America will be in a much better place. But I am prepared to be corrected if it turns out you guys are right. It just never happened that way. I'm all, I always end up being right. But anyway, I actually saw the
funnies thing. I just have to go on this on X about trying to teach people about tariffs, and I'm not going to read the whole thing, even though it's hilarious, but it starts off by saying that suppose you buy an inflatable woman from China, and then it's the whole thing about how teriff's actually work, and and and you know the idea that a supplier would raise their their prices, you know, fifty percent, if they could raise their prices and get them to sell fifty percent higher, they would
have already done it, you know, so that's the whole point of it. But it's a whole thing about buying your inflatable women from China. So there you go. Off to you all right, back to back to sirius. I'm sorry, Steve, Steve, I'm embarrassing him.
You are my gosh, let's talk about Canada for a minute, and I want to start start the conversation unless you guys had to say about so des No, I want to start the conversation with what I think is my favorite post that I saw.
Of all times. And I'm so Steve. I listened to your thing last week and your nice friend mister Bryce has a pie mouth.
Well I know, yeah, but okay, so.
Because I'm quoting, I'm going to be like your nice friend for a moment. So forgive me family show. We can shit on Canada all day, but don't forget just four years ago we in America elected a senile conman who had accomplished nothing during his fifty years in government. No nation is immune to the media stoked madness of the electorate.
Yeah, okay, fair enough.
Okay, that's that's pretty much puts in a few words what you said in your political Questions posts the other day without the body part.
Look, I mean, well, I think it was an unforced error on Trump's part because the idea of making Canada the fifty state is really a bad idea. And that's because, you know, there's a reason the Tories went to Canada in seventeen seventy six, and why they accepted the metric system in the seventies without any fuss, whereas we said, no, we don't want that.
Crap, and they're seceeding.
Well, yes, no, I well, I did say that in my posts. Let's take Alberta in It's well, they're there. Well, I said, let's entice them to become the fifty first state. They are the Texas of Canada, by the way, you know,
again another reason to love Trump. He invited Jeffrey Goldberg of the famous single Chat and the Atlantic editors to come in and interview with I mean, Biden will let anybody in for a free, willing, free wheeling interview, but he had Jeffrey Goldberg in, and Jeffrey Goldberg pressed Trump, I think exactly right, saying, wait, Canada would be a liberal state. To be a democratic state, it would be two democratic senators and twenty five Democratic House members, and
Trump said that's okay, I don't care. You know it was I don't know, I don't know why. I think i've heard the Actually I heard from shoot the Canadian guy who came with us on Ricochet, whos and they might forget who said this began as a joke. Whereas Justin Trudeau was at marl Lago in December before Trump was inaugurated and said something dumb and Trump just said, you ought to be the fifty first state of America.
I call you, Governor Trudeau, and apparently Trudeau responded weekly and so Trump ran with it the way Trump does. Is the world's greatest comedian. You know, the world is the greatest improv comedy club for Trump, which is not a criticism, by the way, Maybe a little bit, but anyway, it was a dumb thing for to double down on and keep talking about. And I think that was an unforced era Trump.
Trump's mistake is not about conquest. It's why do they get to be a state? Why don't we just take over Canada and leave it as a territory so they get no votes, no senators, They'll just be the Canadian the northern territories. Yeah, they'll be like, you know, like this Solomon Islands or something.
Right, we have I had not thought of that idea. That's a great idea.
Yes, we won't let there be slavery there either. Right, I'll just be a territory.
I have to say. If I I'll just say this, If I am Alberta, my condition for joining the US is that I am not subject to EPA and Department of Interior regulation on developing the tar sands and oil and mineral resources in Alberta because our so I don't know if people know this. In Canada, the provinces have a lot more autonomy in their regulation of how they do natural resource development. And so that's why Alberta is so
prosperous and can do things like the oil sands. If they had national regulation, centralized regulation like we do, they couldn't. So I think they don't. I mean I think they want you know, I don't know, but they want to make sure they don't fall under the oppression of a future Democratic president. That's all.
All right, Well, let's move on to my next thing. Steve says it's not important, but Judge Dougan, now, first of all. Okay, a little lookism. We haven't had any lookism for a while. I think that that awful Wisconsin judge should be in peace just because she's fat and ugly, and judges shouldn't be fat and ugly. But that's beside the point.
You have you looked at the Supreme Court lately?
Actually? Have you looked at her?
Though?
I mean even even so to my or anyway.
I was just gonna say that the rule, like you know that being a good job, raising rising hind in the judiciary and appearance are inversely correlated for both men and women.
Do you think so? I mean, I despise the dread coward Roberts, but he's not an unattractive guy.
Yeah. Oh, there you have at Twitter verse, there's something for you to tweet about. Krisha has the hots for Chief Justice. I did that theies Let them begin, start your engines, Let the conspiracy theories go for will.
I will just say that I saw the dread coward Roberts once in person and Vice President Cheney's house during a Christmas party like two thousand and eight or something, and you know that's a handsome guy. Yeah, anyway, he's.
Not bad looking. He's not my type because he's By the way.
Did you see Lucretia and John the the histogram this week that Justice Jackson has spoken more than all the male judges combined, and.
This week true from her very first term on. I bet I think think this year's unusual.
Well, and apparently it might have been I'm not sure which orgal argument this week, but Justice so to my Ore interrupted and said, will you please let the lawyer finish? And I thought, oh, that's interesting. Even so to my Or is tired of Jackson's loquaciousness.
I'll put it that she's operating under a false impression, because you know, she is like other justices are taking as their model Justice Scalia when he first showed up on the bench, and he was extremely talkative, and it did give him a certain influence. But that was because everyone else back then was like ninety years old and wasn't asking any questions. It's very different now now. I
think she's really harming herself by going on and on. Yeah, I'm gonna give it, but let her let her talk more. I hope she talks even more now than she has been.
Yeah, the spin, I'm gonna give it. I find that there's there's levels. So there's people who are very very smart and don't talk a lot and talk only when it's absolutely necessary. I would actually put Clarence Thomas. He's not a talker, and he's not he doesn't ask a lot of questions. Very very smart, it's not because he's not capable of it. And then there's those people who maybe on this particular issue it's not my strong suit. I'm going to be quiet. There's those people who are
just too dumb to know how dumb they are. And that's where Katine and she comes in. I mean, I have yet to see anything intelligent come out of her mouth, never mind that she talks a lot. She's just not right. John, I'm going to put you on the spot. You said it yourself. Look at what the how much the Democrats hurt their own cause by the affirmative action.
In that case I'm trying to think about. I don't. I can't really. I mean, the thing is, she's trying hard. This is all of someone who's trying hard, but they're out of their depth. And that's just the questions. I
can't think of a really outstanding opinion she's written. Now they would bostly be dessents, but that actually means that you have a chance to show your individual view and your brilliance more actually when you're descent, because it's a personal thing, not writing for a five judged majority, so you have more ability to show what you think. And I can't think I don't think her opinions have been very good.
I think I can find, even so to myr opinions that I think are well argued. Not all of them, of course, but I think that there are are some that I've read that that I was actually okay, this is a pretty decent opinion.
I've never do the listeners know how crazy this is. First, Lucretius says, Soda Mayor has had a good opinion, and she has the hots for John Roberts. I mean, what is going on here?
And she said she agree with you about something, John, I mean, this is okay.
No, but I do think I think, you know, I think so My or was the same mistake. But she hasn't turned out to be quite the disaster that Katangi has. Katani's a wasted vote on the court is what it comes down.
She's even worse than that. She's actually driving people towards to sticking with the conservative That's why I'm like, put more Katangi Brown Jackson's on the court. This has been great for us. Actually, had a.
Smart leftist on the court, we'd probably been in a different place on a lot of these critical issues.
Yeah, right, Yeah, that's the point. So Wisconsin judge, what's your name? Judges, you just briefly tell listeners who may not know what you're talking. I expect mostly she's.
A Wisconsin state judge, right state, not a.
Core state judge.
Elect.
Yes, most most judge, most state judges in the.
Country are lested them in one way or another. So she she obviously is very much against the Trump's deportation plan. She had a defendant inner court who had been accused of battery and some other kinds of assault against two victims that were actually present in the court, and she was informed that Ice agents were there to take the defendant into custody. So long story short, she escorted him out the back so that he could sneak out of
the courthouse. Uh, never telling the prosecutors or the victims who sat there for the rest of the morning in court expecting this guy to show up. So that they could, uh, the prosecutor could bring the case against him, the victims could give their point of view, and that what it actually happened is that Ice was too clever for this idiot judge and caught the guy anyway down the street.
But she was subsequently arrested. She's being charged with you'd have to be more specific on what the actual crime is, but it's caused the.
Simple obstruction of obstruction of justice.
Okay, that's okay. But the interesting thing, in my opinion, is the reaction to it. And it was interesting at first because of course Democrats you had Amy Klobachar and other idiots out there saying, oh, this is, you know, an assault on the rule of law, and they're after
judges and you know, just the stupidest things. And the next thing, you know, however, we find out that a bunch of it's not just Paul Clement, but a bunch of established republic establishment Republicans and some firm have decided to take up her defense because she's being charged by
the Department of Justice. She has been removed temporarily by the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, which is, as we all know, because of recent elections dominated by Democrats, but even they found that her behavior was execreable and over the top. And we have Republicans out there defending her, and I find that objectionable.
Steve, Wait, you're throwing us on me, okay.
Because you said he didn't think it was a big deal.
Well, well, I don't know. I don't know Paul Clement very well. I've met him two three times. I have, like most practitioners, and John backed me up on this, have long admired his skill at the Supreme Court. I mean, you know, if you ask me, who do you want to argue U case, I'd say is Paul Clement is number one through five. I don't know why he's doing it. Maybe he really believes it, maybe he needs the business. I mean, let's remember listeners should know this. Who don't
know who he is. Paul Clement essentially was forced out of his law firm, King and Spaulding. Why because he kept winning cases at the Supreme Court the partners didn't like, for example, on gun control, on what it helped me out? John an Abortion and some other.
King and King and Spaulding. It was he litigated in defense of the Defensive Marriage Act.
Yeah right, And then he went to.
Another firm called King and Sir Kirkland and Ellis, which I think is now the largest firm, you know, the most financially profitable, richest firm in the world. And that's the firm that let him go because of his success on gun rights cases. Okay, and now he's actually defending some of these firms that are subject to President Trump's executive.
Order right footnote by just go ahead, Well, it's it's.
Into the good graces of the establishment.
Well I I don't well maybe, but I wouldn't necessarily assume that I do. Recall that twenty five years ago, now maybe thirty years ago. So John Eastman was originally at Kirkland and Ellis in LA and they said, oh, yeah, you can do pro bona work and he said, fine, I want to do pro bona work on behalf of the boy Scouts against the lawsuits saying they must permit gay Scout masters. And they said, no, you can't do that.
And that's when he left. And that's when ken Starr left around the same time, because he was working for ken Starr in LA at Kirkland Ellis. So this is not a new subject. And look, I don't know. I mean, like I said, Lucretia, I don't know Paul Clement, but I think very highly of his skill. And I'll just stop there.
And so let me say first, I think this judge is violating the law yep, and hasn't read the supremacy clause lately the Constitution, which says a federal laws supreme, and that includes immigration law. And it's not just state judges, no one. You, neither you, Lucretia and me have the right to say I'm going to follow some federal laws
but not other federal laws. So I said, does a state judge a right to hide Luigi Manzoni, the Manzioni, the you know, the assassin in her chambers because she doesn't think he should Does she have the right to hide right drug cartel leaders because she thinks marijuana should be should be legal? Or in fact, I would say state judges have a special obligation to obey on federal laws.
If you read the supremacy clause, it's very interesting. There's actually after the familiar you know, constitution, laws and treaties are the law of the land. It then says, and state judges shall notwithstanding state law right there's a special obligation on state judges specifically to obey federal law. So that's one I don't now. You could see her defense is going to be right. A state doesn't have to actively cooperate with the federal government to help it with
immigration law. You can be a sanctuary city, but you can't obstruct the federal government. And that's what she did, I think because she took the alien and took her to a place federal agent weren't allowed to go and snuck them out the back door, basically snuck the aliens out the back door while she sent the federal agents on a wild goose chase. That's obstruction of justice. If you did that to federal agents who wanted to come into your house for a warrant, that would be obstruction
of justice. Now why Paul is doing it, I think is and I have known Paul long time, we clerk together right out of law school. I think I don't think Paul is doing it for publicity per se, But I think I think this makes clear he's more of a never Trumper than people have thought. I think he you know, he's representing law firms against the Trump law firm. Eos.
He's representing this state judge. He is from Wisconsin, by the way, he's representing the state judge against the federal government's immigration authority.
And every defendant deserves good representation, right.
But I mean, I don't you know, he's not I don't think he's a mega guy at any rate. I mean, I think he's a bunch.
But just to say that, John, let me just say for a moment, that's problematic in and of itself. That because you just made what I consider a rock solid case for why that judge obstructed justice and what.
Why she should go to jail she should go to jail, And.
I unless it's possible, this is the only thing that I find would justify or provide a rationale for Clement to do that, and that would be that maybe the facts of the case that we understand are not really the facts of the case. Maybe, But otherwise his never trump ism is somehow motivating him to become Party two something that is really seriously problematic, you know. I mean, that's what I would say. I want to bring up
really quickly because we need to take a break. But the new Mexico judge, I read the article from ABC is sent to my inbox for some reason, and they talk about how that judge and his wife did all this for this particular trend Diagua gang members and the one who the way that the ABC's news story said it was, this particular illegal immigrant turned himself in after
pointing a pistol at someone. And then that was sort of in this tiny little thing, and then the rest of it was the injustices that had been done to him and to the New Mexico judge and his wife in the course of the Justice Department going after this guy as if pointing having a gun and pointing it at someone isn't a problem a and especially a problem for someone in the country illegally as a Trendiagua member.
And it was my point is this there is another syop going on here, Steve, And that's what I wonder if Paul Clement is part of that. We want to change the narrative away from what Trump is doing about the eleven million illegals or more that Biden led into the country that the American people are profoundly happy about, especially because he's gone with criminals first and so on. They've got to change that. And if you're a never trumper.
Even if you're a good Republican establisher, never trumper. You've got to you've got to stop this one way or another, because otherwise Trump is going to be massively popular. That's what I think is going on there.
Well, okay, you're gonna win either way. Look, maybe, yeah, let me offer this is an exit thought again, not, I mean maybe John is you know, you know Paul Clement way better than I do. I mean, I've barely met him once or twice. He's done me a couple of very minor favors. When I asked for law students who told me they'd like to medium, and I fixed up for them to medium, And it's okay, maybe he knows this person. I don't know if he does or not,
but I'll just say this. You know a mutual friends whose name I won't mention, at a university in Texas, not the one where you're visiting. John said, who's a classmate of ours with John Eastman? Who said, how can you be friends with John Eastman? I mean, he's a horrible person. He's a criminal and insurrectionists and blah blah blah. And our friend said, John is my friend, and I'm gonna stick with him and good for him. And that's sort of my view about it too.
And can I tell a story about John by the way, go ahead please? Here in Texas, just last Monday, John and I, John Eastman and I did a debate on birthright citizenship. And so John was so pleased but also secretly bombed that there was a protest sign outside and it was to protest me. They protested me. So I got up and I said, you know, I know Texas is a conservative state, but where have you guys been for the last twenty years? You're giving me a hard
time about Bush administration service twenty years ago. This guy just tried to over throw the United States government? And you're protesting me John Eastman? Where's wrong with you people? Have you not been around for the last twenty five years? What is going on here?
John? How much?
And then I said, John Eastman loves debating because it's the only time he can go out and debate, and he's not the protested speaker.
All right, let's take a break.
See John, how much did you pay that guy? John to mess with? John? Say? That's what.
And we're back to talk about Catholic charter schools or proposed Catholic charter school So, John, I did try to do my research, and I need you on this one. I need you to explain a to our listeners. What's happening with the oral arguments this week in Oklahoma where the state of Oklahoma is denying a public school charter school charter to an online Catholic charter school that is run out of the Diocese of Oklahoma City, something along those lines.
Right, Yeah, that's about Those facts are right, and what it calls on is for the Court to keep extending this principle it's been building for more than twenty years now about if the government has a program where they give out benefits, where they give out grants, where they ask private groups to help participate in public programs, can the government exclude religious groups because the government thinks, oh, if we do that, we're violating the Establishment Clause, which
says we can't set up or favor religion. And so steadily the Court has been saying no, the government cannot exclude religious groups from participating on an equal foot in a non religious groups. So some examples would be if the government's giving out money to schools or to groups to fix up something like the parking lots is the example in the case. Can you say everybody gets to
have the parking lot money, but churches? The Court said no. Another example is Philadelphia said we'll ask groups to help us place adopted kids in families Philadelphia, City of Philadelphia, my city excluded Catholics, Catholic groups. Supreme Court said, no, you can't do that. So one way to look at this case is, can Oklahoma say we're going to have a very large charter school program where anybody can set
up a ch charter school except religious people. When you look at it that way, it seems to me like the court, well, this should be easy for the court. This is just like those other programs. People on the other side of it would say yes, but there's a line. The line has always been, but public schools cannot have a religious religious element to them. And if you give
money to charter schools, they are public schools. And they would say the difference between all those other examples I gave you, it's private people making the decisions the right. Catholic charity services in Philadelphia don't suddenly become public. You know, part of the government when they participate. Are charter schools really still private schools or are they really public schools? If they're public schools, they can't have right they can't
be a Catholic school. But to me it seems no, they're the Catholic charter schools just saying we want to participate just like any other charter school. You can't exclude us. You're discriminating against religion. So that's the issue in oral argument, it sounds this is weird because Amy Coney Barrett recused herself. She's been on the board I think of you know, religious schools, so in her view, she had to recuse herself. So I don't think she has any particular tie with
this Oklahoma with this Oklahoma school anyway. So there's only eight justices. I think almost certainly the four liberal justices, I'm sorry, the three liberal justices will vote against this. See even the Crease has got me thinking this way already, So you know, yet the three liberal justices, I think they're like, this is like prior in public schools. We've always the Court has never gone back on saying you can't have prior in public schools, you can't have religion
in public schools. I think Thomas, Gorsuch and Alito and Kavanaugh in oral arguments seem pretty committed to this is just like the precedents we've been building. Cavin in particular, was very strong oral argument about how this was banning religion. Roberts nobody can tell. He asked questions on both sides. If he goes along with the liberals. It's a four to four decision, which means the lower court decision stands and the lower court vision banned the Catholic charter school.
Before Steve steps in, I have a couple of comments, so I'm gonna I'm gonna be Roberts here for a moment. The first one is that, on the one hand, from a purely policy point of view, the absolute worst thing that a Catholic char Catholic school could do would be to become a public school and thereby have to follow all of the rules and regulations that they have, you know, the massive amount of federal regulations that they would then
be required, and probably Oklahoma state regulations as well. So you know, we're seeing evidence of that in the Harvard cases and so on. It's actually much much worse at the K twelve level than it is at the universities. Believe it or not.
Yes that.
On the other hand, what I will tell you is that in public charter schools and private parochial schools, federal money must go to those schools. District public public school districts must give some of their title IE money and their idea, their their special education money, their title to money which is highly qualified teachers, Title three which is of English Language learners, so on and so on. They must give a certain percentage of that money in certain
ways to private parochial schools. They are obligated to do so under federal law. So already we know that money money, but it's federal money, must go to these private parochial schools. This is a question about whether or not I wanted to bring this up just to see what you thought
about it. There are people who argue that the First Amendment, which says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, what that always meant, at least in the view of the framers, was that Congress could not force a state into an establishment of religion or to recognize an establishment religion. And then in fact, the Congress shall make no law is not an individual right. It is in fact a protection for the states. I don't know what you think about that, but no, no, I.
Think actually Justice Thomas has that view. I think he's said, when you incorporate the Bill of Rights, establish the establishing Clause can't be incorporated because there were established churches at the state level at the time of the passage of the Bill of Rights, and no one thought they were unconstitutional.
So it's really a pro federalism protection, the establishing Clause, because it's protecting the state right to have established churches by denying the federal governments right to right create one and squash those state ones. So that doesn't that doesn't work as a incorporated Bill of Rights because, as you said, the crease it's not an individual right. It's a limitation on the power of the government. It's not like the free exercise Clause, which obviously can be incorporated. So I
don't think that's a crazy view at all. I think actually that's probably the right reading of the clause. And there's I think I don't know about other justices, but I know for sure Justice Thomas thinks that he's got an opinion about it. I don't know if any other justices have joined him in it.
Steve, Well, here's what I think. Maybe we should do an entire episode just on the separation of church and squat church in squait state question.
And that's really good, Lafreud, you're cheeking there.
Still, Well, there's really no such thing.
Go ahead. Look, I think we should do a whole episode on this that not only goes through the incoherence of some key cases, but also maybe Cretia does a little bit about the underlying problem of the theological political problem, which is abstract and will be way over John's head and bore him to death. I'll just say briefly that two things. One is, you know, I do think the court has been incoherent and idiotic about this for decades. And my favorite example was the one Pat moynihand like
to point two. In the seventies, there were two cases I forget their names, but one of them, well, yes, well let me go through it for the listeners. One was a court said no, no, a public school district cannot give old textbooks that they're not using anymore to a Catholic parochial school. That would cross the line of the separation of church and state and be government approval of religion. Okay, so you can't give them old textbooks
you're otherwise going to throw out. But then in a subsequent case, a year or two later, they said you can share maps with parochial schools. And what that was about, by the way, entirely practical. It was the parochial schools are going to run their buses and the public schools are going to run their own buses. And it's not a bad thing from a common sense point of view to have the two bus systems knowing the bus routes and times. It just makes for less traffic congestion and logistics.
So that makes perfect sense. Oh, that's okay. And that's when Pat moynihan asked Platt. Moynihan asked, what about an atlas? What would the Supreme Court say about an atlas? Could they give an atlas to a public to a parochial school? I mean, that just shows you how stupid and incoherent
all the jurisprudence on this was. I will add Lucretia your point about Uh, Look, Catholic schools or any religious school ought to be worried about taking public money because you have public strings that's a point that some hardcore school choice people have been making for a long time, and I'll just say that very Excuse me. It varies from state to state. But why do the teachers' unions
hate charter schools? Because they have been largely deregulated. That doesn't mean they're perfect, but they are sealed off in most legislation from a lot not all, but a lot of bureaucracy and a lot of the nonsense. Now can they resist that over time? Maybe not. It's a very valuable caution. But I think the view that we might not want to be too excited about a decision in favor of the Catholic schools is one that we should hold in suspension.
I actually don't know exactly where I would come down on it. I'm glad I'm not being asked to argue it because I have seen what federal regulations due to K twelve schools and we know that that. I mean, the evidence, the correlative evidence between the interference of the Federal Department of Education and student learning and success is overwhelming, and I think it probably ventures into the causation part. Anyway, Thank you for that, John, because I think that was
really helpful. Do you want to take a quick break and we'll come back and finish up all the rest of our issues for today. One last issue I'm going to go back to John Is. I do want you to because you mentioned it briefly a little bit earlier, when you were talking about universal injunctions, or you were talking about the court's reigning in Trump a little bit.
We missed you last week. There have been quite a few more district court judges issuing injunctions about the Alien Act, the Alien Enemies Act, whatever it's called about, no more deporting people to El Salvador, on and on. Can you just give us a little bit better than I was able to do reading your article and summarizing it, where you come down on this question of universal injunctions and what the dread coward Roberts should do about it.
So, see, these universal injunctions I think are actually unconstitutional because they take the federal courts out of their proper role of deciding cases or controversies into policymaking, into sort of running the government as a whole. So an Article three of the Constitution says the federal judicial power shall extend to all cases or controversies, and then it says that arise under federal law is basically the main jurisdiction.
So think about what happens in a nationwide jurisdiction case you've got, like in the Venezuela case, six Venezuelans, lawyers for six Venezuelans sue the government in Washington, d C. And they say, right, we're being deported from the country without due process. You must give us relief. The judge there, Boseburg, says, not only does he stop everything for the sixth Venezuelans, he says, and the government cannot deport anyone from Venice
Isuela nationwide. The reason I think that's unconstitutional is that he's extending his power over thousands and thousands of other people who have not appeared in his courtroom, who did
not bring suit. And so I would say the federal judicial power doesn't allow you to do that, because otherwise then you can get any federal judge to basically take over any federal program any time you won, without regard to where the actual cases, which is just between the simple plaintiffs and the simple defendants who show up in court.
And Justice Scalia had a great opinion warning about this where he said, if court start to go beyond that main limit on their power, they will become like a third you know, they will become like the third House of Congress or an a roving ombudsman in the executive branch, because they will really have the final word on what policies go forward for the country and which ones don't.
And so I think this Roberts has a great opportunity to actually diffuse a lot of these cases against the Trump administration by saying, a lot of these judges are just acting unconstitutionally. They should only limit their decisions to the case before them, and they'll go up through the normal process of appeals, but the government's are handicapped while that happens.
And how could he do that? John?
Could?
I mean, because he just he could just go out.
Like he did with Trump when he got upset when Trump criticized that Hispanic judge and you know, got out there and got all upset in beside himself and said that judges only call balls and strikes and you know all that nonsense. Does he go out there and do that or does he actually make a ruling?
No, it's through a case, through that case on May fifteenth, right, they put this is the other amazing right. They've scheduled a special session on May fifteenth, when you know usually they'd be done here in cases in April, they're already done. Basically, I think this might be the last week of normal argument. They have special a special They've scheduled a special session for May fifteenth to hear arguments about whether to stop
nationwide in junctions. So they would just say in an in case, you could say, for it involves birthright citizenship, so they could say, okay, district judge, you have this person who wanted to passport, and you think that the government has to give it to everyone born in the country, So order the passport for that one person. What the judge can't do is say, and everyone else in the country gets a passport too, even people who never sued
aren't here. And you know it ties into Lincoln because you remember, if nationwide injunctions were correct, Lincoln could never have taken the position he did on dred Scott. Remember Lincoln said, I disagree with dred Scott. I don't think the logic binds me. I will if I found dread Scott himself, I would obey the court's decision and hand dred Scott back to his owner. But I'm not going
to do it affirmatively for everybody else. If people want dred Scott to be the law and make me obey it, they have to bring an individual lawsuit for every single slave. And that if right, if nationwide junctions are actually constitution possible, then Lincoln's wrong about dred Scott. I tend to vote with Lincoln, not all these you know, wayward district judges who think they're running the country.
And there is a slight difference even in the example that you give, because that decision, this dread Scott decision, was actually a Supreme Court decision, and he was arguing that even the Supreme Court should not have that kind of power because we would have surrendered all of our power to that eminent tribual, or our democratic Republic to that eminent tribual. It does seem to me to be over the top idea that a district court judge could
in fact issue a decision beyond their own district. But if they decide if the dread coward Roberts actually gets enough members of the court to agree to the position that you have so carefully laid out, Will that automatically just wipe out all of those universal injunctions that what have their bits seventy of them or something?
Yes, they would. Yeah, if they decide that way, all those universal injunction cases would be lifted, All those would be lifted. They would all be instantly unconstitutional. That's why it's a really this case could be a really big win for Trump. But Roberts can sit there and say, but we didn't decide on birthright, we didn't decide on the Alien Enemies Act. Those will work themselves up in those cases, and that's the governments can still.
Yeah.
Yeah, and that's what would be normal. That's the way it usually was until you know, really until the twenty's and twenty tens, where there were never niche Ine junctions before this, and that's the way it normally worked.
Okay, Steve, do you have any comments about that?
Nope?
All right, then let's take a break. We'll come back and do some Babylon bees. I hope you have something less than lame this time, ja, Steve. All right, So, folks, I promised Steve, and I forgot because they got carried away listening to John about my favorite.
Talk well, espially when Steve just wants to talk about dead people.
Yeah, Steve wants to talk So Steve wants to talk about you know, he's wearing a red shirt again, John, what do you expect he wants to talk about a communist? Oh? Okay, an ex communist. Let me say really quick, so Steve, so you can go off on your tangent forever that I remember when I was working on my dissertation, I lived in the mountains and I didn't have a television, and so my contact with the outside world was this
was before the internet. Things that I got in the mail that I had to drive into town to go to my post office box. But I got Heterodoxy, the magazine back in those days. And there were two articles that I can't even remember if David Horowitz wrote them or they were just in his publication. The first one was a really excellent article tying the whole ortion debate to the slavery debate. We and there he is. We lost Steve for a moment.
And the second one, I'm back, sorry, so I don't worry.
Sorry, I just had lost the whole the slavery debate to the abortion debate and and the parallels were uncanny, and that was really formative for me at the time. And then the second one was was this long expose about AIDS and how this whole thing about AIDS being
a virus was again a massive sigh op. I'm not going to go into all the details, but basically the argument was is that the the at the time, the homosexual lifestyle that was, you know, promulgating the the spread of AIDS was kind of just so I can't I can't do it. I did it. This is still a family show, but that it was that and not in
fact any silly virus that was the AIDS. But that was why it was so important for them to pretend that it was a virus, so it was no longer tied to the behavior of homosexuals and bath houses and things like that. Anyway, both of those things. That was forty years ago, and I still remember those two articles because they made quite an impression on me. Now, would you like to tell us about David Horowitz in your Red Shirt?
Well, right, I mean, David Horowitz had been ill for quite a long time. He was ill when I saw him last nine years ago in person. But look I think a lot of it we said about him. One is he had a central insight that a lot of conservatives still don't appreciate, even in the age of Trump. He liked to say, the issue is never the issue. The issue for the left is revolution. This gets back to the conversation we had the last couple of weeks
about whether we should embrace Gromskyism or not. Right. He understood that the left is about power to impose their agenda. We are not going to beat the left with genteel arguments about Edmund Burg or Leo Strauss or anybody else. He was never hostile to any of those camps. He understood and agreed with all of them. But he said, you don't get that this is a street fight, and what's the on line. You don't bring a knife to a gunfight. And look, that's why, very early on he
loved Trump. And the last time I saw him in person, which I think was June of twenty sixteen, so sort of in the middle of the original Trump story, and he said, I don't understand why anybody doesn't get why we should get one hundred percent behind Trump because he will contest the left whatever his imperfections may be. I'll just say that. I mean, I think it's a fun story.
I first met him way back in nineteen eighty eight, and I already knew who he was because I'd read the Left East for Reagan article in nineteen eighty five. That was a big sensation. And I got a phone call one day at the Claremont Institute from a guy named Spud Malin. Listeners may not know that name, but they deserve to know about Spud Malin. Spud Malin founded Whammo. He created the Hulu hoop, Crazer Wow, and the Frisbee and the Waterway slip and slide Wammo. He was Wammo,
and he was kind of whack. He was kind of wacko. He was a conservative, he gave He was a big supporter of the Claremont Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Really wow. He used to call me up a lot. I was still my twenties at a graduate Dude. He called me up and said, I have this crazy idea, and I'd say, Spud that to do something political. I said, that is a crazy idea. But how do you tell a guy who created the hula hoop that he has a crazy idea.
I sort of learned some epistemological modesty listening to him. But he called me up one day and said, I think it was funny how you remember months It was like it was June of nineteen eighty eight. He said, Steve, I'm having David Horwitz over to my house Saturday morning. You want to come meet him, and we're going to talk about stuff. So yeah, great, I'd love to meet this guy. And I go down there and I'll skip
a lot of details, but Lloyd Billingsley was there. That's the first time I met him, now a regular contributor to the Political Question substack. And then David calls me up a couple of weeks later. He says, Hey, I'm having a fourth to July party at my house. And he had a fabulous house in Los Felees there in Los Angeles, right below the Hollywood Sign where my grandfather, my father grew up, my grandfather lived, Okay, And you know,
David was like that. He was a great networker, and the point was his central point was always and I reiterate this, so you know, our friends at the Commentary podcast, to make a brief digression, they talk about the left always has what they call the Omni cause, and you know, everything links together for the left. Whatever the cause is, they're going to get behind it, whether it's you know, Israel and Palestine, whatever. And I said, yeah, that's what
David Horowitz has been saying for forty years now. The issue is not the issue. The issue is the left's drive for power, and the only way to defeat them is to thump them back equally. And that's what Trump is doing in a way that the genteel conservative Republicans have never figured out. By the way, I'll mention this, it was a late nineties when suddenly everybody turned on Nut Gingridge because he'd made some mistakes and all the rest of that, and David would hear none of it.
He said, Nut Gingrich is the only guy taking the fight to the left, and I don't care what mistakes he's made. You guys need to figure it out and learn how to fight the way he does. So I'm gonna miss him. I could say more about how he was a serious Marxist. A lot of the obituaries have not really gotten into the fact that he was not some parlor hippie Marxist. He went to England and studied with Isaac Deutscher, a forgotten figure now, but a person
on par with Gramsky. And you know, David really knew that stuff, and so when he turned on it, he had all the receipts. And that's all I happened.
I can say. I thought Radical Son was a great book. I remember reading it, yes, yeah, very And he David invited me to some of his conferences, and I often would come and talk about the judiciary. David was I think a person who thought early on that the judiciary had been captured by you know, left wing progressive ideology. And then the other interesting thing is, you know there's this big tech loave firm called Andreson Horowitz, and that
Horowitz is David's son. And yeah, and many people I've read accounts where they attribute some of the tech bros world coming behind Trump, winding up behind Trump this last last election because of that, the younger Horwitz, who of course was influenced by the elder Horwitz. So David, you know, had an impact not just on thought, but maybe in you know, political you know, in the trench warfare too in the last election.
Yeah, So okay, okay, rad Or solemn Lucatia. Sorry, go ahead and do your babylon So I'm going to.
Be I'm gonna be solemn with the Babylon bee because some of those are actually solemn. Democrats hold candlelight vigil in front of illegal immigrant mugshots on the White House lawn. You get it. No, look at John's looking confused, they
put well. So it was another one of those Trump moments where he lined the White House lawn with posters, you know, pretty good sized posters of all the illegal immigrants that they were deporting in the crimes that they had committed, their pictures and the crimes they had committed. So that when Democrats went out to protest this or when the you know, the media went out to cover it, of course, all they're doing is showing the pictures of
these murderous, sex, trafficking, et cetera thug. So it was it was another clever Trump moment, a little bit crasp, but nevertheless this one is one of my favorite. In the picture of courses of kat and g support rows for requiring Supreme Court justices to pass cognitive tests. Global birth rates hit historic lows, as Elon Musk busy with Doge have thirteen?
Who knows? Right, Well, you did have a tweet. You did have a tweet saying don't have to do everything?
Yeah, no, forgotten. This one's for you, Steve your promises to get the electricity back up asap so everyone can hear the Muslim calls to prayer. It's not either.
Yeah.
Well, Joe Biden arrested for harboring eleven million illegal aliens. Don't we wish just a couple more because I know we're really really over time. Harvard awards honorary degree to man who firebombed to Governor Shapiro's house. Yeah, well, this one's depressing. Women shocked to learn pill designed to murder babies might not be safe.
Yeah, I know it's.
Not funny, but I'll end with just a couple more. What's his name? Bad timing kilmar Orbrego Garcia honored with MS thirteen Employee of the Month award, just when they were saying he wasn't really a gang banger. And then finally, Venezuela thanks the US Supreme Court for keeping dangerous criminals out of their country. Okay, you could laugh, Johnson laughing.
Well that's true.
Yeah, I know, Okay, yeah, you're more true than funny. I always drink your whisky, Neat, always drink your whiskey. Meat and Steve.
Okay, here's this makes couplet the three Whiskey Happy Hour, where shadows bloom, a dance on the edge of joy and gloom. Raise the glass once twice fate will cower under the spell of the three Whiskey Happy Hour. Bye bye, everybody can see you next week.
Bye. So you worship Anson's proved by your device, and I had your arrange for you to time to decide.
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Smile for everyone else.
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