Well whiskey coming thame my pay money ally, Oh why don't You?
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 Gotta giving.
Let that whiskey clone where you're feeling in loud down and loone.
Welcome everybody to a special Christmas Day Christmas Week episode and the Three Whiskey. I'm gonna start again and welcome everybody to a special Christmas Week episode of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, our last gathering before December twenty fifth, though we will be having one directly afterwards as we approach the new year. But we thought this was going
to be a quiet, quiet time. We were going to sit back and enjoy our whiskey and talk about great philosophy and all the other things like Big Max and Nick Ribs mc ribbs work products that we usually talk about at the end of December. But actually the news presses on and there's a lot of actually deep political theory and constitutional questions to discuss raised by this week's events. I'm joined today by our relentless hosts Steve Heyward, Steve, where are you?
I'm actually in Seattle today. Long stupid story that I'll skip over, but.
Just like all his stories, Yeah, why do we stick up this one over? And the International Woman of Mystery mac Gresha Magresha, how are you? Where are you?
I'm well, John, thank you, and I am home. Just got home yesterday, so I'm happy to be home. And I'll tell you what I know. There's like three percent of our listeners who care. But she's happy I'm home too. Your cat, yes, the cat. Yeah, she's very happy that I'm home because I've been gone too much lately.
So anyway, you are a pathetic excuse for cat lady though, I just put that down there.
I know.
But you guys are not childless, your fertile You know how did the fertile cat lady vote in four members?
Oh? I think we do, actually, John, I posted a chart about this. In fact, you know, married cat ladies who have children voted for Trump. It's amazing.
Yeah, okay, no, this is the last time I'll bring up cat at all. But I do have to tell you, guys, if you ever got to meet my cat, I know, neither one of you really like cats, unless you are one of those actually despise cats sort of people that can't even be around them, which included my son, by the way, He would just like go wash his hands after he touched one and that sort of thing. He adores her. Everyone adores her because she acts like a dog,
is what it comes down to. She has no cat qualities whatsoever.
Anyway, Sorry, I loaf cats. I think they're just watching us and waiting around for us to kill ourselves off so they can take over.
Right, Yeah, that's obviously.
She's probably doing that. I'm not going to deny that one for sure.
The dogs are on our side. They want to maintain human supremacy. Okay, well, let's let's start off with the news about President Biden. There was a lengthy expos in the Wall Street Journal this week which gave a lot of detail to what I think Steve and Lucretia have long thought and suspected that President Biden might not really been president all these years, that he had become so withdrawn due to his faltering mental condition that it seemed
like his White House not for in charge. There are reports that some cabinet members rarely talk to him, not to mention saw him that even the most important functions of the government, defense Treasury were now it didn't seem to be really run by President Biden, that the cabinet members would not ask for meetings and wouldn't even see them because they'd be turned down. Actually, I got to say, Lucretia has been on this from if I remember the
very first week of Biden's presidency. Lucretia, what do you think? Thank you and take your time trotting around the course in your victory lap, in.
My victory lap. Thank you for noticing that. Actually, if I'd have had more time between when you brought this up yesterday and today, I probably would have gone back through our podcasting compiled a short, you know, montage of me saying that over and over and over again, and talk and actually ask you guys on a couple of occasions, as I recall, who you thought was actually in charge, and we never had a clear answer for that, although you guys are get credit for not entirely disagreeing with
me on that point. But what I think is maybe worthy of discussing here see my shocked face. Oh Biden wasn't really on top of things is that you finally see what came out in the Wall Street Journal, you know, three reporters, and then it was reported over and over again. You see the mainstream media sort of gleefully reporting this now, which is kind of interesting.
You know.
I see a few really really left wing rags coming out, you know, Vox and a few others, Donna Brazil best president ever in the history of the universe, and people like that trying to counter it. But most of the mainstream media does seem to be wanting to try to restore some and you know, try to instore your store some respect for their integrity, I guess is a better way to put it. Carrying this story and you know, acting duly shocked of course that they were misled. Of
course they knew it. If I knew it, they knew it. Let's just put it that way. I'm not brilliant about these things. So I think that's actually the story here, is how much the whole idea that they covered it up and now they're pretending like they're shocked about it, but coming clean on it. I think that's a story.
And I do one last thing, Steve, I just want to say, I quoted you today on Twitter, John, and I said, my good friend, John, you thinks that this is the perfect opportunity for a for Congress to investigate under the legitimate legislative purpose of the twenty fifth Amendment.
I'll let you talk about that, but I just want to tell you that I gave you credit for that one, although I followed it with I'm not sure when you have weak minded Republicans based on history running congressional investigations, you'll get anywhere. But still it's an interesting idea done Steve.
Oh yeah, so yeah, hearings right. So one of for listeners who haven't seen the story, and it's probably a lot if you don't subscribe to the journal, one of the things the story makes clear is that the cover up of Biden's disability began during the twenty twenty campaign. This is not something that started in twenty twenty two or whatever. And the Wall Street Journal was one of
the only major outlets to report on this. I think back in June they had their big feature story that reported a lot of these problems, and they got ferocious blowback, not just from the White House and from Capitol Hill Democrats, but from the rest of the media. That's when that Joe Scarborough guy said, I can tell you that this is the best Biden. He's intellectually sharp, he's on top
of things. And it wasn't just the journal by the way, yesterday, it was also that Chris Silizigai who used to be on seeing it in the Washington Post, and he went on YouTube said I have to apologize to all my readers. I should have been asking questions about the president's condition. And you know, I want to ask him if I had the chance, why didn't you? Because you know, the media was heard. Right.
What the story now is not that. The story is how ubseid he is with the right wing for not taking his apology seriously.
Yeah, yeah, of course it's always a republican's pounce, right. Of course, Yes, well he war like that. But so you know, this is a media scandal as well as a political scandal. One other details emerged from this, which is, you know, sorry Biden met Putin. One meeting with Putin in I think June of twenty twenty one in Geneva, And of course this is two months before we bug
out of Afghanistan in such a shameful way. And you know, I think back to when John F. Kennedy met Krushchev in Vienna in nineteen sixty one and Krushchev said, this guy's a lightweight, I can take him. And that was one of the chain of events leading to the Cuban missile crisis. And Kennedy knew it. By the way he told is he told his staff after he came home from Vienna, says got Krushchev absolutely brutalized me. It was
the phrase Kennedy himself used. Well, I am guessing my hunch is is that Putin took the measure of Biden and realized he was senile and out of touch and pushover. And then after the Afghanistan bug out, decided, you know, we can just Wautch and Ukraine and take the whole thing. We can quit nibbling at the edges like they've been doing for a decade now. One other thing, So there's this story going around social media in the last thirty six hours that Kamala Harris abruptly canceled her plans to
go to California for the holidays. Biden came home from Delaware and they're saying that's for some event or maybe to sign a continuing resolution, which isn't necessary. Lots of speculation about what. Oh, and then Harris was seeing in a motor kate going to the White House the other night, I think Thursday night. So the question is Discussia. There's
something going on, So you can only speculate. But when you read today's Wall Street Journal story saying that Biden is considered ring commuting the sentences of every federal inmate currently facing a deat sentence, which would include people like that Sarnaev kid who did the Boston marathon bombing, the guy who's the Bowers guy who shot eleven people, the Tree of Life synagogue in Pennsylvania, et cetera, et cetera.
And you know, the Democrats are already embarrassed by Biden's pardon of Hunter, and this is crazy speculation of my partner. And I'll say the last thing, which is maybe they're going to invote the twenty fifth Amendment because they're afraid that Biden is going to go crazy with pardons and really embarrassed Democrats. It seems unlikely, but you know, then you do that historic first presidency thing for a woman. But finally, yeah, I mean I had that idea too.
There ought to be aggressive hearings and haul and all the cabinet members, all the White House staff, and say why did you conceal this? How did you do it? What are the implications of this? Do you know for reasons that you stated? John? And I think that would this is at least as biggest scandal's Watergate in my mind, concealing we didn't have a president who's been president for the last four years. It hasn't been Joe Biden.
Yeah. I think there's two angles that Lucretia's right. You have the media, which conscious possantly must have covered this up.
I mean, anyone who saw him close up would have known.
Let me say though, that the only truth teller here was the Korean guy, Robert Hurr, the special counsel. Remember how attacks he got when he said, this guy's a
well meaning man, old man with memory problems. And then the political cover up, because I think that's what the Wall Street Journal opens up that we're not focusing on enough, but we will, as Lucretia Steve's call for congressional hearings is for a president in that condition to have continued in office meant a whole bunch of people conspired to keep the American people from knowing, and we're probably issuing orders in Biden's name that he didn't even know about.
Now there was exercising the power of the presidency without permission. Basically, think the pricelessness of this is going to be great because if Congress is smart and does these hearings in the start of the new year, Trump finally gets his and yet another Trump getting his revenge because all those all the staff members and cabinet members going to claim executive privilege. Guess who gets to decide whether they have
executive privilege the same argument. By to make the sitting president not the past president, Trump will be able to waive all of their executive privilege and they will be subpoenaed and forced to testify. And then it gets even better. If you suppose Janet Yellen, the Secretary of the Treasury or Lloyd Austin says executive privilege, I won't testify. Congress will subpoena them, and then guess who's in charge of whether to throw them in jail and enforce the subpoenas
Pam Bondie going to be priceless. Everything that the Democrats did to the Trump people is going to boomerang back on them exactly. So sorry the christ you're about.
To no, no, no, I was interrupting you. I just had a question about it, because you know, at the beginning of Biden's administration, Ron Klain was obviously very, very powerful, and the Wall Street Journal article talks about how he was the one making a lot of decisions. If you're if you're at the height of power there, why do you resign if you're Ron Klein?
Oh well, I mean I hate to say this, but usually people in the White House, especially at the beginning, to take leave after two years because that's when you're the most valuable on the lobbying circuit.
Yeah.
I don't know that's a good answer, John, You.
Know, it's uh.
You know, every White House staffer has a best if used by date on them, and best if used by is usually the second year, end of the second year of the first term.
Although to be fair, a lot of the Biden advisors, a lot of Jill Biden's closest people that want Andrew Brennall, you know, the sexual harasser guy. They've been with him for years and obviously they're loyalty. I thought Ron Klaan was a little bit more in that category, but you're probably right. But it's coming out that he probably was the person at least the first two years responsible for just about every initiative out of the Biden administration, at least the domestic exactly.
Yeah, the people know most him the current chief of staff zites. And also, I think Jake Sullivan has a lot of things to be worried about because you will look at a lot of Biden form policy having been a disaster, and that's what happens. Maybe when you know, a young junior staffer suddenly becomes National security advisor, there's a whole story about why that happened, and then starts making decisions with very little guidance from the president.
I have a very descriptive name. I'm sorry. I'm just going to say I have a very descriptive name for Jake Sullivan that I probably should didn't say on a Holy show, So I'll just leave that alone. But it describes him perfectly and explains everything that you said the long story about Jake Sullivan. But anyway, go ahead, Steve.
Oh, I got to hear about this well, but boy, oh no, god, oh.
Dear, I didn't actually think you were going to say it.
Okay, well before yeah, just two footnotes. I've been saying for years now that Jake from State Farm would give us better advice than Jake Sullivan.
Uh.
And on a second footnote on the media story, So, Lucretia, you say that the media is now suddenly backing and filling or actually I heard Charlie Cook say I think quite sagely or no, it was Rob Long and Ricochet said, you know, if you want to know what's happened, you always want to read the New York Times two weeks after an election that they've lost, because then they start approaching the truth.
But yeah, like there's been immigration problems.
Right exactly. And uh and and also they have their own litervery mild story about Biden's disabilities. But uh, you I know you were on the move yesterday, Lucretius, so you missed this. But won't be surprised that at the Daily Press conference there was not one question for creating Jean Pierre Paul Sart about the Wall Street Journal story in Biden's disability. Not one you would have thought somebody would have asked that, and for a White House response, but no, one.
Did, even Peter Doucey, was he there?
I don't know. I didn't watch it, but I read I read an account. I believe that no one asked about it. So there you go. There. Media is still covering up for him, in other words, because they're deeply implicated in it, and.
Either that they just feel really super sorry for Kareem Abdul Jabbar whatever her name is, mophead.
It would take three of her to get as tall as cream.
I know, but they might. They might. Actually, I think I could almost. I confess to feeling sorry for her last time. So I think that maybe they what's she going to say? I don't know, the same thing that that that that Brnald gut No, the the other spokesperson, the other White House spokesperson, Andrew somebody or other. I forget baits. Maybe something's with a bee who just kept saying, oh no, every decision, every decision was either the will of Biden or an extrapolation of the bill of the
will of Biden kind of thing, you know. In other words, oh, in spirit, he was behind it all. We knew what he really wanted, and we just carried it out.
Yeah, No, that's all they thought.
Or who knows.
Let's move on to the ancillary issue, which also is actually raised by Biden's many mental troubles, which is the
sweeping pardons he's issued. Not only did he pardon Hunter Biden, which we talked about before, but since we talked he has now issued what his administration claimed this is the most sweeping set of pardons in history, over one thousand, eighteen hundred, including people who have defrauded cities and states out of millions of dollars, including you know, various drug dealers and so on.
Judges who let who took money to put probably innocent kids in for profit prisons.
Yes, in Pennsylvania. And although so one, he's almost definitely wrong because the broadest set of pardons were issued to draft dodgers right after Vietnam by Jimmy Carter, or by Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, to all the Confederates. So it's not even close. But he's still trying to make his mark.
And it's also I think raises the question we didn't also talk about too much, which is do presidents have this power to pardon people for things they haven't been prosecuted or convicted for, or things that we don't even know they did yet, Steve.
Well, yeah, look, I mean I think a lot of people make a distinction, John, between prospective amnesties as was done after the Civil War and after Vietnam, and pardons are commutations of people who've actually been committed through the you know, through due process and so there, if you just use that categorization, Biden has set a new record, even exceeding Franklin Roosevelt, who had, you know, twelve plus
years to parton people. They have admitted by the way that they did not do these on a case by case basis, actually reviewing the facts that they just were out and found a lot of people. I have two speculations again, One is, you know, you wonder if Biden and his family are getting bribe for some of these and or the number of them is meant to part point two as cover for extending yet another round of pardons to oh, I don't know, Biden's family and Biden
himself on his way out of office. You know, you know, all those Floria partons, what's another couple for my brother uh and and all the other people who did how many suspicious bank reports, suspicious transaction reports? Did banks send in on the I don't know it was it was a lot. I'm not sure it was one hundred, but it was a large was.
Over one hundred. I saw those figure the other day.
It's just unbelievable. And and you know, let us remember that. Oh it'll be interesting to see a fight. Last point. Sorry, I have enjoyed again, you know, Trump winning on all fronts, talk about well, we should prosecute Liz Cheney and the January sixth Commission and maybe those fifty one intelligence officers. And I think, but I think this is a reverse syop. Lucreati is big on sy ops from the left. I
think maybe this is a Trump syop. The idea being that Biden will feel compelled to issue prospective pardons to Liz Cheney, the January sixth Committee, all kinds of other people, and then Trump's gets to say, well, they wouldn't have needed a part, and if they didn't do anything wrong, this is implicit recognition that they're guilty. And you know, another great day for Trump on Twitter.
So a couple of comments and questions. So the way you described it at first is are you kind of gave us two categories of pardons? John and one was a pardon for a crime already committed, and then you called it a prospective crime. And you said that as a result of you know, prospective crime Confederates and draft dodgers. But I see a distinction there as well. And that distinction is everybody knows why the Confederates were being pardoned.
Everybody knows why the draft dodgers were being pardoned, even if they had not gone through the legal process necessary to find them guilty of treason in the first case, whatever draft dodging. There is a difference between that and a prospective pardon that pardons for anything that might have happened, say, in the case of Hunter Biden, right, it's not just for the a pardon for the things he was actually
convicted of or pled guilty to. It's a a pardon for anything that they might have found that was a crime that he did in that entire period. Okay, that was my first point. My second point, the White House admitted to the fact that of those fifteen hundred pardons that they didn't look into the specific of the you know, the crimes that they had committed or anything like that. They just who knows where they got the fifteen hundred. From my guess is donors you know, the crime Biden
crime family continues, but they confess to that. And I bring that up to go back to Steve's point. If they don't if they pardon fifteen hundred Americans, actually a lot of Chinese you know, spies and things like that
as well, corrupt spies. They if they do that and they don't look into the circumstances of you know what it was that convicted those people in the first place, it becomes much easier as a matter of record to say, well, we're also going to pardon the Biden crime family, right, I mean, that's I'm not even trying to be a conspiracy theorist. I'm just putting that out there as a
possible explanation. Why would you admit, if you're the White House, that you pardon fifteen hundred people and didn't even look into the circumstances under which they were initially convicted. Because some of the story, as we pointed out to being are horrendous.
Well, you know, if you go back to the flurry of partons Bill Clinton gave on this last day in office in two thousand and one, the people said his motivation for doing that was his hatred of prosecutors and the prosecution he went through with the hands of Ken Starr. And you know, in addition to high level criminals like Mark Rich who was guilty of what, you know, one hundred million dollars in tax evasion. Oh and his wife had pledged money to the Clinton Library. Gee, wasn't that funny?
Wink in a nod. But he also pardoned some really bizarre criminals that you looked like they had to go look for these. Oh and there were allegations that, you know, a bribery in the background, you know, rumors around jail houses. This is a good time to get a pardon from
Bill Clinton because he's in the mood. And I think one of thems I recall vaguely was somebody who'd been convicted on federal charges of rolling back odometers on used cars, which wouldn't yeah, I mean really, so, so what's Biden's motivation here? I think it's clearly personal and criminal on his part, and not the animus you know, Bill Clinton, you, I mean, it was wrong, but you still understood why he was angry because that he was Bill Clinton. But
why is Biden doing this? I think it has to be for some very bad reasons.
Well, as we saw with the as you mentioned, also with the Clinton pardons. We remember Mark Rich, who's right, a wealthy financier's wife gave money to the Clintons. But also remember he pardoned, if I remember, some members convicted members of the Puerto Rican terrorist group, right, because he was trying to sway the Puerto Rican vote for his wife's future New York Senate campaign.
Right.
And so there was not just the outright bribery, but you know, influenced paddling, which is what the Biden family seems to excel at. So I bet once people have a chance to look through all fifteen hundred pardons, and as you say, more to come, we may see lots of other connections. Now, the other point is why do you harden the weird o dominator person? Why do you pardon the.
Petty drug uetar.
I think it's like when you shoot a missile at somebody and you don't want them to shoot your missile down, so you throw out lots of decoys and chaff too.
Yes, right, you.
Want to assassinate somebody, you blow up the McDonald's they're in and kill forty people.
Let's not go overboard. Well, you know that's right. You So there's thousands of people who have applications for pardons with the Justice Department. There's actually a full time office called the Office of Pardon Attorney, who goes through all these and actually makes recommendations. And they don't recommend a lot of them. But you know, Biden Price said, get them all out, get them all out in the dusty shelves, with part in everybody, and then slip in the ones
that I really care about too. They'll take them forever to figure out which ones are important and which ones are.
So question about that. So the Office of Pardon Attorney is that a partisan office? In other words, does it change hands every single time? Or are they been meaning, you know, corrupt.
Political hacks or its career and they.
Which means they're corrupt political hacks.
Well, they're actually very they're known to be quite stingy about recommending pardons. They really they don't recommend one hundred a year or anything, maybe single digits a year or maybe low double digits. But they're they actually I think they're they're much stingier than presidents, that's for sure.
So I have a question for you, John, Will you now that you've you've seen the evidence, even from the Inspector General who tried to minimize it as much as possible, You've seen evidence that, in fact, the FBI was clearly operating on January sixth, will you be in favor of pardons for the January sixth protesters.
You know, it's amazing how one can read the same document and have the opposite conclusions. Because I read that document as there were no FBI officials there, and there were what six informants twenty.
Nine that they admitted to not one single person of whom has been prosecuted.
Well, I wouldn't prosecute the informants.
Well twenty nine? Which document did you read?
John?
You read it in the Washington Post, didn't you?
Awe hundred?
Yeah, I mean I'm more I Well, I will pass over the subject for the moment, except to say that Trump himself has said that he will review the January sixth defendants on.
A case by case basis. In the case to me that he's going to pardon people who are just trespassers and convicted on you know, selective grounds, and ones who actually committed some violent acts either property destruction or you know, assaulting a police officer. I think those numbers are much smaller, and I'm with the they.
Should none of them get any more punishment of consequences of any kind than anybody who did a similar thing in the twenty twenty riots.
Yeah, okay, well that's right, Yeah.
That's my opinion. I would restore a lot of collectors.
Those are state prosecutions, all of them.
There was a lot of things that how much federal. They assaulted federal courthouses, they assaulted Washington, d C. All sorts of things happened there. Yeah, there were quite a few federal prosecutions there.
Well you could have anyway, but okay, well.
Yeah, yeah, there weren't federal prosecutions, but they were federal crimes committed on federal property against.
Federal Anyone who committed violence against an officer and destroyed property, when to kidnap and officials should should should be sentenced to jail, regardless of how the people in twenty twenty were treated. Well, the failures there don't make up.
I think giving a pass to people.
Who genuinely wanted to stop the electoral count.
Well, okay, I can grant the general principle there, I'll just wait on a market that I don't think we know the full story of the FBI on that day, and we'll see what Cashptel discovers and reveals as that goes on. I think.
What Sorry, I was just gonna say, no, no, it's not on your list, John, But I did want to point out that the big, the big story that seems to be across the board in which I think our friend Rich Lowry addressed today and I forget where, uh maybe it was a real clear politics article, was the fact that, you know, people are screaming bloody murder about the fact that he's going to go after Trump's political enemies.
Isn't that rich? And you know, because Cash Bettel himself was the subject of an FBI investigation for trying to get to the bottom of that crap Steele dossier business in the Russian Russia Russia Russia hoax. He was investigated, he was stonewalled by the FBI. So you know, I just I can't even sort of wrap my head around how duplicitous the press continues to be on some of these things. But anyway, sorry, that wasn't on your list.
I just Steve pointed out that my prompt Biden to parton more people than he would have wanted to, like Liz Cheney or all the members of the January sixth committee, or I'm not actually still sure why Senator Shift, Senator b Schiff would want to part needs a pardon. But you know, if Biden parts them all out, then it's a great political victory for Trump because then he can say they all accepted it because they did something wrong.
I would actually, if I were Liz Cheney, I would say I don't want to pardon right.
Oh, that would be interesting, Yes, exactly, you can.
I'm just not going to say that.
I promise that'd be interesting if fact she took a part in that. Okay, let's let's I have the feeling before January twenty we're going to be talking about this subject again.
Yep.
So let's move on to the next issue, which is all over the news, which is and the particular trigger is not important, but its deeper meaning might be something very important, which was the failure of Republicans to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open, but which got larded up with lots and lots of extra provisions. President Trump and Elon Musk demanded that Republicans voted down, even though it was the draft presented by Speaker Speaker
Mike Speaker Mike Johnson. And after it was voted down, and by the way, it was about one thousand pages long. Yeah, the one that was eventually passed was about one hundred pages long. So after it was stripped down, just last night, the House and Senate passed it and the government won't be closing. It will be good, I believe, until March.
And then at that point the House and Senate, both controlled by Republicans this time, can pass a broader, more comprehensive built But the interesting thing, by the way, I don't think usually the public cares that much about continued resolutions.
They get done all the time.
But the interesting thing is that you're seeing all kinds of accusations now that one who's still president. How is it that Donald Trump is deciding what they continued must rather than the sitting president Joe Biden. And Joe Biden's been nowhere to be found about the continued resolution. So that's one, and then two, as Luguci just said, there are people saying Elon Musk is too powerful are we becoming like a Russian oligarchy where the rich business people
are really calling the shots behind the politicians. So, Steve, what do you think about the cr But also it's deeper.
Political meaning Yeah, by the way, first of all, count me is shocked, shocked, and any billionaire not named Sorel or Bloomberg might want to be involved in politics, right, I mean selective indignation as usual. Look, Lucretia may jump on me for this, I don't know. I actually think the outcome of this was a minor victory for the Republicans.
And here's why. The original bill of fifteen hundred pages was a travesty, not just with a spending but because Johnson preemptively conceded he would need Democratic votes to pass it, he allowed them to stick all kinds of policy writers in there. So some of these didn't involve money at all, but there was immunity for the January sixth Committee was written into the bill. There was also this one passage I saw where they redefined offenders for criminal statutes as
justice involved individuals. This is this usement. I mean, you would think the election November hadn't happened. To read somebody's euphemisms, sneaking in lots of stuff like this. Why were those.
Money out congressional salary raises? Did that end up in there?
I don't know if it did or not. And they didn't have the debt seeing increase that Trump wanted. But the point is all those things, most of those things, as I understand it, were stripped out of the final bill. I also think what happened was is, you know, I just love this that the Democrats started yelling about Musk and Trump and the evil Republicans are going to block cancer research for kids, which is some new research program
that somebody lobbied for. Okay, fine, as well as the one hundred billion dollars in disaster relief, which seems rather high to me. But now here's the let me finish this. Here's the point is, at some point in the last thirty six forty eight hours, somebody got smart and said, Okay, you know what, we can break us up into parts and bring every single part of this up for an up or down vote, and then you'd pass the disaster relief, you might pass the cancer research bill, you wouldn't pass
a lot of other things. And I think that scared a lot of Democrats that they didn't want to do that. You know, this whole game has always benefited them, and I think Republicans got clever about this, and so I think without going through the whole thing, and I haven't had time to and I probably won't, I think exodus was not a terrible outcome. But we'll see what the sequel. It's only for two months. We've got to go through this all over again in February, apparently, or something has
to happen in February. It has to be either.
It has to be an initial Yeah, and this is when the Republican majorities have their greatest advantage.
There has to be right.
Was called reconciliation, which is why there's a budget actually voted on and spending is actually voted on. But the key thing is filibuster rule is waived, so knowing you a simple majority get that through, that's how the Democrats have historically gotten most of their major Now it has to do my memory of it, and having done this in the Senate was this requires that the legislation be related to the budget, So it has to do with
spending or taxing. It can't just be banning something you don't like, yeah, so it does have to be financially but that's when Trump and the Republican drives will be at their highest. And note it has to happen every year, so Trump will get two bites at the apple beginning of the next year and beginning of twenty twenty six.
And hopefully this has been a warning shot to Republicans in the Senate and everywhere that you know what, people are paying attention and want you to quit being a certain species of spinelessness that Lucretia likes to say, but I don't.
I mean, just one last thing, that's the politics of it is that this was always something that Democrats have always been better than repeats that because if you're a Democrat, you don't have control of all three branches, well, you hold the whole thing hostage. And so Schumer's very good at refusing to vote through this cr until he gets it right, but you know, spending and taxing riders that he wants, and then if it doesn't happen the government
shuts down, then they blame it on the Republicans. Democrats never seem to get blamed for government shot.
Apparently, the House passed the Research Program for childhood cancer, and Schumer never took it up in the Senate. So there you go, proof of your point.
Yah shumor's the problem in a lot of things. But anyway, so a couple of things. I want to go back to the thing that you know. Steve just sort of dismissed it as if it wasn't important, the whole idea that they were going to raise congressional salaries by forty percent. Yeah, wow, Okay, Okay.
There is something called the twenty seventh Amendment, part of the Original Bill of Rights that was finally passed in nineteen ninety two, which says that any law that changes the salary of members of Congress cannot take place until after the next congressional election. So if they had done that, it wouldn't have got it wouldn't have been an effect till the next Congress.
Correct, correct, But well, I think there has to be election election.
Sorry, this Congress is still the sitting it Okay, it says election.
It doesn't say until the next Congress. It says the election.
But this I think, because of the way the rules are read, that this actually still counts as the preceding congress. So the salary effect would have taken effect in January.
No, it doesn't say that the sitting Congress. It says the election of the next Congress. So it couldn't take place until the next November. After the next November. In other words, what would be the point of doing that. The whole idea is you want people who voted for their own pay rais to stand for re election and have the public know about it. Anyway, Enough about that, because I don't know where that stands, But I want to bring up the other thing that Elon Musk is.
So it was so brilliant about not just putting it on X and having you know, people pay attention. But the reason he was able to do that with the fifteen hundred page bill before most members of Congress could have even thought about skimming it, he had Grock his his you know, Elon's AI go through and it's the algorithms are trained to find wasteful government spending. So all over X you had the examples like the kind that
Steve was talking about. And so what happened was on X Elon was able to amass an immediate and widespread public outrage against the spending in this bill and create an instantaneous movement unlike anything we've ever seen before, and I just wanted to point that out, and that's why the bill was killed in almost no time. Really is I mean, it's quite amazing.
Well, what do you think about these arguments that are coming, of course, from President Trump's critics, who are saying that Elon Musk actually has too much power for a private citizen.
We didn't complain about it when Zuckerberg and uh what was that that that bearded, filthy guy from that used to be on Twitter?
What was his name, Jack Dorsey? Jack Dorsey?
You know, those same people weren't complaining about how much control they had over the twenty twenty election and the censoring. I have no problem with the left countering well, and they tried countering what Elon Musk put on on acts. I mean they tried to say, oh, well, don't you understand people are going to be without uh disaster aid?
And you know that that that despic I saw the funniest thing on x You guys probably don't even know who this is, but there was a Cajun singer who is very popular in the seventies named Doug Kershaw.
Isn't oxymon Cajun singing.
But go ahead, well, I mean that's honestly, yeah, that's what we're saying. But he looks like Rosa de Laurel. All right, Yes, it was a meme that said, uh, here's here's what happened to Doug Kershaw. Anyway, you know that they're just screaming about it everywhere. But it's so transparently stupid that they they're getting nowhere. I mean, Elon
Musk didn't make anything happen. He didn't have any influence other than getting people, the citizens who for whom members of Congress work to pay attention to what's going on and say, no, we don't want this. That's not so much that's democracy.
I think it's I think it's actually pretty simple, John. I think, first of all, they're talking about President Musk. They're trying to drive a wedge between Trump and Musk on the view that Trump's ego won't allow Musk to get all this tension and praise. And ordinarily you might think that work, except my hunch about it is Trump really likes Musk and respects him for his accomplishments, and it will be a much harder wedge to drive through
than people think. But second and related, it's this is the primal scream of the left and losing an institution they thought they owned, which is Twitter, right, you see all them bailing out for Blue Sky and so forth. So just as the left has a temper tantrum when they lose control of the Supreme Court or any institution, they're mad about social media slipping away from their control
and therefore losing control of the narrative. And so you know, it's the narrative above all else for the left these days. And I think that explains their primal scheme about Musk. And I think that Musk is it probably gets this. And this boy, is he going to have fun because once you realize you can push their buttons so easily, he'll push it more often.
I think.
I think that's absolutely true, and I think it's wonderful. And yeah, you know, the fact that Blue Sky has turned out to be just it's not a kindler, gentler place. It's it's it's being taken over very quickly by the most extreme of the extreme left, who will not tolerate, for instance, someone who's gay complaining about radical transgender surgery for three year olds. You know, they won't tolerate it. They'll they'll dox them, they'll put out their addresses. I mean,
it's just a really really awful place. Have at it, my friends, go ahead and get in your echo chambers.
Yeah. Blue Sky has banned some people who joined up, like Jesse Single, the Social Scientists, before they've even posted anything. Just you know, we know they're bad people, so they're going to ban them before the.
You know, Luckily, I have no idea what any of you are talking about, because I or any of those things. I just stick to, you know, primitive sources like Facebook and LinkedIn. But that brings us to one more in Washington Post. Yeah, the Washington Post and the New York Times. And someone has to tell you what they're saying.
Lucretian, Yeah, I appreciate it.
One last big I think, pretty big piece of news, delicious piece of news that came out before we maybe turned to reader Mail Hadley. We're talking about you.
Oh, is.
Lucretia's favorite public figure. Big Fanny. She lost lost badly, was disqualified kicked off the Trump prosecution because of her decision to hire her boyfriend to be the special counsel, paying six hundred thousand dollars, even though he had no criminal felony trial experience, and so the Georgia Appeals Court actually reversed the trial judge who had sat in and ordered and said it on all of those oh dreadful hearings asking about the location of the boyfriend and Big
Fanny at the same day and the same times, and the trial judge had said that she could stay on the case as long as the boyfriend with drew, so he withdrew, and the appeals court actually said, no, you all have a conflict of interest. You all have to get off the case. Lucretia vindicated again after waiting years for her vindication. Wins on yet another one.
I have to tell you, John, I was very pleased by your article about the subject, the Fox News article, but I was disappointed that you didn't introduce it in the same way you did in our email, which was using my favorite Big Fanny Willis. I think that would have been I was a little disappointed on that one, John,
but otherwise the article was excellent. I think Steve should should link to it in the show notes, just because it reminds me it was basically the same argument I made a little bit earlier about Cash Pttel, which is that you see these people who are you know, who were so willing to go after Trump now being very very worried about the same thing being done to them, and so on, and the second and third order consequences
of big Fannies prosecution of Trump. We could because the at the state level, all the Biden pardons in the world won't make a difference, just like they wouldn't if you know this, this prosecution continues against Trump. But that doesn't mean, as you point out, that we wouldn't see state attorney generals across in red states, especially maybe even in red counties like in the god awful place you guys live. What a pretty place it is. So I just have to say that anyway, how sad and we
won't see that. We could very well see prosecutions of even of Hunter Biden continuing by state attorneys and there's nothing that pardon will do for that. So it was an interesting article. I appreciated it.
You saw that the Hunter Biden was prosecuted for tax evasion in Los Angeles. That means he has activity related to his conspiracy course through LA. Maybe the DA of Orange County might want to take a look or the da of Riverside or Sam Bernardino, which are more red counties.
Would double jeopardy apply there about that?
No, double jeopardy only applies to crimes prosecutions brought by the same government. So you can be prosecuted by California King the US government for the same acts. Actually, there's Justice Thomas has written a sense questioning whether that's constitutional, whether that's faithful with the original understanding. On the other the Streme Courts that has upheld it for at least one hundred and seventy five years.
Although to be fair, John really quickly, I know this's totally off topic, but one hundred and seventy five years ago you could understand the Supreme Court, Even though I despise the Supreme Court most of the time, especial one hundred and seventy five years ago, you could understand them agreeing that different levels of government prosecuting the same person for essentially the same act, at least if not the
same crime was appropriate. That was, of course, before federal law took up entire libraries of you know, laws that actually reached down to the conduct of individual citizens. And I think that maybe I haven't read what you're talking about. For Thomas, I should go read it that dissent, because I do think that there's a kind of there's a qualitative difference between say, you know, prosecuting the Rodney King
officers for violations of his civil rights. You know, there's just it all seems I'm not arguing in the stations.
No, No, it's a good question. In the Rodney King case, for example, or any similar case like that, you had a jury that acquitted them, and then it was the double jeopardy provision really can't stop the federal government from basically trying to overturn the jury verdict by bringing a new case based on the same facts.
Yeah, but you realize, John, that to pursue that line of argument to a new jurisprudence will involved invoking the fundamental principles of natural law. I'm just putting that.
Get out of here. There's a constitutional text here. It's called the double jeopardy clause.
For christ everything's been said. I mean, you know, it's what took them so long? Is the only question in my mind? To hand fanny her fanny as I.
Put it, Okay, good, let Leeds, we got some minutes to uh return to reader mail and fans fans, it's not just any reader. Steve received a lengthy miss of from Hadley Arkis, Emeritis professor from Amherst College, one of the most I think distinguished American natural law political theorists in the country, and he had some thoughts to add about this.
First, say what they were?
Fourteenth Yeah, the fourteenth Amendment in the conversation is no. I was going to ask Steve to introduce, uh, you know, maybe read some of Hadley's comments because he wants to, you know, Hadlee, Hadley can't let go, can't let an argument go, even when that he wasn't the.
Part of except I want to point out before Steve starts, because I know he won't read this part where he says, basically, I agree with everything Linda said.
Yeah, that's true. He didn't say that, right, So let's just.
Start by saying, you know, he says it much better than I ever could, of course, and that's probably what he really meant when he said I agree with what Linda said and then had to go through and explain it all because I don't do that very well. But anyway, let's get that on the table before you continue. Thank you, Steve. O.
Well, this is actually kind of hard to summarize. Here's what happened is John, I responded to with provocation of John's from his article at the Cimitas new website. That's, by the way, spectacle looking website. I have to say, and you mentioned Hadden, We're both contributed, and we both contributed to it. More to come. I've already gotten a second John. The creature will be too. The creature will be contributing to good good. Okay, we mentioned Hammer v. Dagenhart,
the case I haven't read in years. Let me explain.
Let me actually explain. O, go ahead, and then you can understand what what we were arguing about last week, and then what Hadley Hadley's further commentary.
Which I thought was really good. Yeah, adds. So this is the question of.
Can Congress prohibit interstate traffic and certain kinds of goods or services not based on what the products are, but how they were made. So this was the case of child labor. So in the late nineteenth century of progressives at both the state and federal level, I wanted to prohibit child labor. I think we could all agree child labor is a terrible practice. It was not clear which
level government could handle it. So the federal government tried to say, we will prohibit the interstate transportation of goods that were made with child labor. There's also actually interesting they try to do it through direct prohibition and through attacks. Actually they tried to impose an excise tax also on products being used of child labor. The Supreme Court rejected this, and it said the products themselves were perfectly innocent. I
think at that time was mostly clothing. Yeah, we're perfectly innocent. So you can't punish those goods because you're trying to reach into manufacturing. The intention of Congress to impose these regulations made the regulations unconstitutional because at the same time, the court had held in the past and I just don't think this has really mattered dispute that Congress, under the interstate commerce clause can just choose to bar goods
from traveling cross state lines, innocent or not. We just have the discussion to say, we just don't want this product to be sold in interstate commerce. So that's what we were essentially arguing out last week, right was how far can Congress go in using its commerce clause? To regulate the national market. And I that's what Lucutian I argue about. So that's Steve. This is where Hadley thought that our debate needed some further further intervention.
Yeah. Well, he writes about this case at great LinkedIn is great book on George Sutherland. That's thirty years ago. Now he said, hey, haven't you read my book? And I said, oh wait, I read it thirty years ago and I've kind of forgotten my bad. But he points out that, look, the statute in question affect at North Carolina. It was one of the states that came up in the case before the court. Now, North Carolina had banned child labor by state statute for younger than twelve, but
the federal law was fourteen. And what's the reason for making distinction between twelve and fourteen. There was no real moral argument prevented to the court or deliberated by the court about you know why. Instead they talked about unfair competition and lots of other stuff.
Uh.
And Hadley points out that we still have laws on the books today that, for example, ban the interstate transport of what is it fetal tissue, you know, a production of abortion, and you know and that I guess is still good law. And of course what what that gets to is a moral themselves that was part of itselves. Right.
Here's my So his point is that Congress. Maybe I'm overreading it, but I thought what he was saying to you, and I believe this is why he sent a southern of the book, is that there has to be some kind of moral component, yes to what Congress does with the Commerce Clause power. In fact, I think Hadley would say to all uses of federal power, but he was saying, there's no moral justification for this law, given that states were already prohibiting. Well, but my point is that's not
part of the Commerce Clause. There's nothing of the Constitution that says the Commerce Clause has to actually be used for morally beneficial purposes.
Well, but what is the ah this implicates the whole rational basis test that which I think we have to put off more discussion to a later date. But it's you know, who's deciding these things and how and what? You know, we ought to have some grounding for these kinds of decisions, not just that the powers there, But I could I just add one little factory, you know, our great friend, Richard Epstein, points out because he looked at the data that by the time this case was heard,
child labor was declining fast everywhere. Why because of economic growth and progress, and so in a certain sense, federal or state statues were obsolete by the time these things reached the court.
That's all true. The question, though, is why is that up to the court. That's up to people in Congress to think about and vote about. But why does it matter to review the Commerce clause, whether the ban is effectual, even whether it makes sense, whether has a moral or a moral purpose. So this is a hypothet I was gonna. I was asking Lucretia, do you think that Congress can't ban interstate traffic in a good or service that actually everyone thinks is a good idea?
Like?
Can Congress not use its Congress Clause power for an immoral or you know, you know the bad purpose is Suppose suppose actually the adult now maybe it works. I suppose Congress got taken over by pro choice people and they said, we want to allow traffic in dead fetuses and you know, body parts, and we will allow the interstate traffic in it. We're gonna lift the ban.
So that's a really good question, John. And here's part of the problem. And I always have this problem a little bit with Steve, especially you a little bit less and that is like the response to our friend Ryan Williams. I'll come back to that. On the one hand, would I think that initially the Supreme Court would have ever gotten involved in those kinds of questions, No, don't. I
don't think so. And I don't think they would have necessarily been considered the moral implications of the law that was outlawing, you know what, the law was outlawing one way or the other. We are now at a place, though, where the Commerce Clause is a meaningless limitation on anything that Congress does other than you know, the individual mandate.
But they got around that too, so we're okay with My point is it's really hard to look at you and say, yeah, you know, the Supreme Court shouldn't use its powers to reign in Congress. When it does X, Y and Z, it's not gonna it's I mean, I don't see any evidence it's raining it in on anything. And so in some ways it's kind of the hypothetical. I get what you're trying to get me at get at with me here, but it just it doesn't even
make sense to me. I'd have to return to what I think is the original understanding of the Commerce Clause, which you and I don't disagree as much as you think we do, because I don't think I was as clear as I could have been on it last week. And that is I'm not saying Congress doesn't have very extensive interstate commerce powers, and that b that those powers are very difficult to define with any kind of you know, clarity. I guess it would be the word and you know,
clear rationale. But I also think that the interstate Commerce Clause is a limitation on Congress's power. And how we return to that, I'm not quite sure. I don't think that Congress's power should have been an extended, you know, to like it was in Wicker versus Philbourn as we talked about like it, you know, all of those kinds of things. I'm not sure that we need Congress legislating on most of the kind of stuff that it does
now under the Commerce Clause. I think when it's a genuine conflict between the states, when it's genuinely national in scope, I get your argument that you know, what commerce isn't anymore? Okay, But does that mean that we should look at the Commerce Clause as an unlimited grant of power to Congress just because something might cross state lines. That's what I was trying to get at last time, and I didn't
do a very good job of it. And I don't know that you disagree with me on that, John, I don't know that the extent of the powers that Congress has exercised under the Commerce Clause have actually been all that salutary in terms of making sure that a national economy works. That would be my argument, but that would take a long time to spell out and defend, I think. But that's my opinion, and you probably that's where I think we disagree.
Yeah, I do disagree with that, because I do think that the use of federal power has been very important to the success of a national market, because otherwise you'd have states erecting protection States have long there's a lot of Supreme Court cases of all the clever things states have tried to do to engage in protectionists.
Okay, so let me which is.
Only natural for them because that's what their constituents would want, right, It's just like why nations impose engagement protectionism.
Too, no hypothetical. Real Let me give you two real situations one the both of them come from your guys's god awful state. The first one was the whole pork business. Remember that. Yeah, I don't even remember the details of it, but you know, the California wasn't going to sell anything that was produced where pork was produced in conditions you know, pigs lived in conditions they didn't approve of. That was one and the other one, of course, pigs, yeah right, yeah, yeah, exactly.
And then the second one, These are two different examples with two different results, if I remember correctly. And the second one, of course, was the the fact that California is environmental laws of emissions laws are so much stricter that, you know, car companies started making cars to meet California emission standards when other states didn't want any part of it, you know, beyond federal law. Nothing Congress has ever done
actually stepped into either one of those circumstances. What happened in the.
Case, Actually that's not true, but that's certain.
Yeah.
Well, that certain act whose name I'm not allowed not allowed to mention, gave granted California specific power to set their own emission standards. I think that's a mistake and it's contestable, and that's how they get away with it. And the car companies say, look, we don't want to be making cars for different markets. So whatever California does will make for everybody.
Even with gas prices. That works. But I guess that actually proves my point though, Steve. But because the first point, and again I'm remembering this, I'm not quite as committed to bacon as you are.
But but I am from I am from lady.
I know, lad, I'm from Iowa have pigs that I knew. I'll just leave it at that.
Okay, that I met on farm, I've mean pigs that I would like to know.
But anyway, my point is is that that kind of fell by the wayside. I mean that inflation causes but pig farmers in Iowas that go, screw yourself, excuse my language, to California. We won't sell to California if that's your problem. And and so I think there's an example.
John Shuware, Yeah, no, Lucretia raises the dormant commerce clause, which is a great topic which I don't know we could get to, but I think that I would say federal power should allow the federal government to squash both of those regulations. Congress chose not to have Steve said in that that's that act which cannot be named. The Congress actually does prevent most states from doing what California does,
but it gave California a waiver. Congress actually did use the Commerce clause parer example about.
The pigs inappropriately.
Yeah, well, I mean, but it's bad policy, but it's not unconstitutional. And then the other one about the pigs. I don't think anyone doubts that Congress could, under the Commerce Clause pass the law overruling California's special you know, dainty pig law or whatever.
If California to apply in the state of California what can be sold in the state of California.
And that's part of my broad reading of the Commerce Clause that the I do think the Commerce Clause prevents states from prohibiting the import of products from other states.
But the court is declined to hear to challenge to this law, I.
Think right, because there's no there's no federal law. And so this is the big change in the dorm of Commerce clause. Since Congress wasn't out there doing this job, the courts basically took the power on themselves to start striking down state laws like California's. But this new Trump conservative majority, they said, courts aren't going to be in this business.
If people want to.
Stop California from discriminating against imports, Congress should.
Do it, not or the states themselves.
Well, I don't know, you could have retaliatory You could have easily other states start to pass retaliatory trade sanctions against California wine.
I mean they did that with things like Sorry, Arizona's constantly was constantly sort of being uh punished by other states because of you know, they didn't do this, or they didn't do that, they didn't pass Martin Luther King Day and you know things like that.
And so this is why I think we need to have a broad Commresce clause because once states start passing, you know, discriminatory trade measures against each other, you're gonna have retaliatory trade wars between we do.
And it.
Is my argument.
I think the pork products are much more expensive in California now.
California fix it. Yeah, but it's not I I just bought.
I know, I know, I just bought fight again fourteen again. I'm speechless that you're disregard for the value the virtues of having a unified national marketplace with standardized rules brings cheaper prices and better quality products for everybody.
In the case. That's because she's not a grubby utilitarian John. That's why. So I think we should.
We have one more piece of reader may which we are going to wait to discuss next week, but just as a preview, is very interesting question about can how far can the federal government go in regulating private conduct for civil rights violations. That's another reader question. Well, unfortunately we were going to do that this week, but we've run out of time, so we'll turn to it next week. So to finish up this week, Lucretia Babylon be headlines b SO a.
Couple of things that we never really got to. Newsom says with another twenty five billion, he could double homelessness by twenty twenty. That was FBI assures nations that drones are just US governments spying on its own citizens. Taking a bacon, yeah. R F K Junior advises children to leave out eight strips of bacon and a bowl of beef tallow for Santa this year. By the way, I only cook with beef.
Tallow McDonald's fries. When the.
Funny thing is so it used to be cheaper than cheap. I have to buy it online and it's ridiculously expensive. I'd deep fried turkey in it, but I'd have to take out a loan just to buy the beef tallow.
And you know, get the sty Comngress clause when you be able to do that.
Okay, wait, wait, wait.
I have a couple of don't give up on me. I'm sorry that was just too much editorial Congress Warren's failure to pass spending bill might delay destruction of the country or just two more. Congress proposes new law banning anyone from reading spending bill until it's passed.
Yeah.
Members of Congress explain they need pay raises to keep up with the inflation they caused.
That's yeah true.
Okay, Well, let's sign off with always drink your whiskey meat. Let's go Brandon and Steve Wee. I know we have a new kamalism.
Well, I'm working on an AI bot that will run Camel's statements through a Yogi bear of filter, and I'm not very far along with that. But the one I'm working on right now is let us be unburdened by our context. That has been something like that. Gotting work on it.
Oh no, there's a much better one. Wait, wait, there's a much better because it was actually the same speech you coded from last time.
Right, he doesn't read your email? John?
Here this it says, in moments like this, the true test of our character is how resilient and persistent we are to pursue the future that we all can see.
Bye bye, everybody, We'll be better.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
How about That's who's John?
Because it is my favorite holiday? But all this year has been a busy. But I don't think I have the energy to add am. I already man Ross's cousins the season. The perfect gift for me would be completions and connections left from last year, shopping the counter most interesting Patta's number, but never the time most of anyone has al on those lines, subtack those halls, term those trees, RaSE up comes on Christmas here. I just need to catch my brother Christmas by myself.
This year.
Ricochet join the conversation. H