Well whiskey coming fame, my pain, the honeys.
All, ray, oh whiskey.
Why think alone when you can drink it all? In with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour, Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John You, and the International Woman of Mystery Lucretia where they slaps it happen livid? Ain't you bb on the show taps, gotta give me and let that whiskey bloon.
Welcome everybody to a live version of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour. We're back on substack. We have left zoom left recording and just presenting it to people after the fact. We have many many people joining watching live, and we're inviting comments and questions in the comments in the live chat section. I'm John You, one of the co host of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, and I'm joined by my co hosts Steve Hayward, who is caught in mid qift. Steve, what are you doing? What are you drinking there?
I'm just having my standby Lefroy because it's Friday and it's all half so great, right, No, I've gotten an end of course.
The International Woman of Mystery Lucretia, how are you?
And what are you, Lucretia person.
My new name.
Do you don't know what that refers to you?
John? I think so you're talking about the identification of the Canadian.
Yes, yes, the gun person person, gun person, I think.
I remember when Fetterman got elected, I said, why aren't the Democrats calling him fetter inks?
I know, I know, but now he's like more solid than half the Republicans in the Senate. So actually, I am drinking. I am drinking a mixture of tea, honey, lemon and whiskey. Oh you're not feeling well, little little thanks to Steve A little bit of a this week?
Were you yelling at well?
Didn't you hear last year show?
I was?
I was. I was getting horse, you know, during last week's show, and we taped in Austin, and it only got worse over the weekend. And I had no voice in class on Monday. It was it was, you know, six hours in class on Monday.
Did anybody notice.
I had some guest lecturers? I had Lynn Keasling came to my class by zoom last Monday, and that was great. You saw you both saw her. Well, you were the panel chair, Lucretia. Anyway, we'll come back to the John. But I mean, look, we always have to, you know. The main news story of the week is the latest McDonald's news. A thread on Reddit which was the one thousand dollars challenge, how would you spend one thousand dollars
at McDonald's in two days? And somebody said they'd spend the whole thousand dollars getting the ice cream machine fixed, which I thought was the best answer.
I see, that's funny.
Yeah, I thought so. But apparently that's a conspiracy for.
The ice cream machine. The one that breaks down even more is the mcflurry machine is more an advanced version. No, that's like a because it does the mixing of the ice cream with other things like M and m's and so on. So that thing apparently breaks down even more than the ice cream machine. And then of course there must be some kind of rare McRib machine because it's so expensive, a rare it's only brought out a few times a year.
Yeah, we better bring it back soon because bitcoin keeps plunging in price. It's it's having a bear market.
Yeah, but you know this one thousand dollars over two day challenge, of course, that got me to thinking how what exactly would you order? So of course you would try to order something that had the least number of calories per dollar. So I think that's got to be something like a triple patty, you know, big Max special or something like that. But I haven't been to McDonald's lately to test it out. But I'm going to this weekend.
I'm going to go and see what's the most expensive things you could buy at McDonald's.
You haven't been there for a while, are you? Are you?
No? No?
I mean I just haven't been there since I heard about this challenge.
What are you talking about?
Of course I've given McDonald's recently.
O God, I have.
I wasn't going to try and stop. All my friends from Texas has been urging me because they know about my love of convenience stores, to stop at something called BUCkies. Have you guys ever been to a Bucki's? But I haven't had the time, and they're not right in downtown. You have to drive out about thirty minutes. But I drove by one today but I couldn't stop because I was rushing back to do this podcast, and it looked like a cost Coast sized convenience store with already glass
pumps out in front. So I'm very excited to try this.
I think that Bucky's beats Walla any day, John.
Oh, John, in the fighting words. My advice is set aside a couple of days to clear your calendar, because I think once you get inside BUCkies you might not leave for quiet.
Really.
Oh, I'm not kidding, You're gonna be I can't wait to get your review of it. BUCkies is awesome.
One of my friend friends at the Vailor where I was today a fellow named Kleineman, who's a good political scientist.
Oh yeah, I know who he is.
You I've written a book about presidential power. He said, what you want to get is the beef jerky. So he said there's so many kinds. I was like, how do you choose? And he goes, you get free tastes of jerky there, and I was like, what do you mean you actually take a piece of jerky and just take a poll and give it back. I mean, how do you get a free slice of beef jerky? Anyway? So enough about my favorite subject, convenience stores, and let's
turn into the first ish. I'd like to start with the creature, which is the latest machinations and schemes in Washington, DC, where I think we've seen the Congress now going on vacation without passing the Save Act and also not funding DHS.
Did they go on vacation, Well, they've gone on a kind of recess.
Yeah, they've left, and so DHS is going unfunded starting this weekend. Of course this isn't applied to ICE because ICE is specially funded the beautiful bill, that's right, and the rest of the government is funded. But if you remember, in the budget deal, Congress decided to cut out the DHS funding part of it so that there would have to be an individual vote up or down on DJs. And as you know, the Democrats have refused to approve the date just funding bill unless there are changes made
to ICE operations like no wearing of masks. Apparently no administrative warrants know what they're calling aggressive sweeps, whatever that means. And so you haven't been able to get agreement on the dh just funding bill. But I hear the creatious worried the Republicans are going to cave to all of this without passing the Save Act. Appreciate.
So the last I heard is that they actually had fifty votes because Thune and Collins both decided to vote for it.
So now all we need is for Thune to stop being.
The worst that he is, oh and decide to hold a talking filibuster, which he can he can do. I don't I don't think that they should abolish the filibuster for a whole variety of reasons, but.
Not over this anyway.
But he can do a talking filibuster and force Democrats to get out there and argue that women liberal women are too stupid to be able to figure out how to get an ID that has an appropriate IDA with their married name on it, because how are they going to change their birth certificates? Oh my god, these people. You don't change your birth certificate when you change your name. When you get married, you take your birth certificate to the court clerk and then you get the side and
then that's how you change your name. And then you go to the DMV and they give you an ID and it takes you five minutes and it costs you ten dollars.
I mean, it's so stupid.
But the problem is so the Gora and I went back and forth on X on this and he said, this is almost as good as repealing the Nineteenth Amendment. I said, no, the problem is going to be all those damn single liberal women who still have their maiden name unless they married their cats.
Maybe right quickly, I should explain what the SAVE Act is, which I'm sorry. The Save Act would be federal legislation that establishes nationwide for voting a requirement for voter id And what Lucretie is referring to is that this criticism or accusations that this might prove difficult for married women whose birth certificate name and driver's i D name could be different. But the basic idea of the SAVE actors
to establish some minimum standards for federal elections. It also some versions of it banned universal mail in voting, for example, as well, Steve, let me turn to you. But Steve, I thought we didn't one federal election legislation. Wasn't that the art that Republicans made against the Democrats HR one.
If you remember at the beginning of the Biden administration, the argument Republicans made is that the Constitution gives the responsibility to running elections to the states, subject to a federal override if Congress chooses to pass one, but that it had been Republicans in general that had opposed universal nationwide rules on elections. Steve, what do you think, Well.
Look, that was purely political, but for all the right reasons. They wanted to override all of the red states that have tighter voting oversight, including requiring IDs, which by the way, is wildly popular even with Democrats. I mean CNN as a poll showing you know, eighty five percent of the public supports it, in seventy percent of Democrats, seventy percent of blacks. So this is just a typical leftist racemongering. And so I mean, in that case, of course, you
don't want them to hr. One of the Democrats was let's increase ways democrats can cheat at elections. That's what that was about. So even if you repaired behind the argument that the Constitution has multiple provisions on this that are arguably contradictory.
Wait wait, wait, they're not contradictory. The clause says states states. It's basically says states determine the time, place, and matter of elections. Right, And it's as basically comma except for exceptions and regulations that Congress wishes to So Congress can always override the state rules, but the state rules are primary, and the rules, yeah, go ahead.
What I want to bring up, though, is the fact that we have the fifteenth Amendment. It kind of want to leave the nineteenth Amendment out of it, but it does fall into it sort of the twenty fourth Amendment leave the twenty sixth Amendment out to but you could.
Especially the fifteenth Amendment and the twenty fourth Amendment were passed because Democrats in Southern states, Democrats generally speaking, wanted to corrupt our electoral process by not allowing citizens to vote, not allowing citizens in the case of the fifteenth Amendment, who are citizens now as a result of the fourteenth Amendment, newly freed slaves, etc. And then, of course the twenty fourth Amendment was designed to get rid of the many.
Sneaky, malicious laws.
That Democrats passed after the fifteenth Amendment, so that they still didn't have to give blacks the vote. And so it got rid of poll taxes because one of the things they did was make it have an expense. You had to pay a poll tax in certain cases. So those two are examples, in my opinion, John of the belief that it is an obligation of Congress to ensure election integrity, and I think that there's no way to argue against that. That that's what the fifteenth Amendment is
designed to do. It's what the excuse me, the twenty fourth Amendment is designed to do. The Save Act is
trying to do the same thing. There has been now very serious evidence allegations with evidence down in Georgia, and I'm to understand that they're now in my home state of Arizona weeding out some really again serious allegations of voter fod leads out aside whether it's true or not, if it's even if it's not true that there was massive voter fraud in twenty and twenty four whatever twenty two here, why not ensure that you don't have these
idiot democratic states allowing illegals to vote because they let them get driver's license and do all those other things and automatically register them to vote. And supposedly everybody keeps bringing out this heritage study that says only thirty four cases in the whole history of the world have ever been found of illegals voting.
I don't know.
I didn't read it. I don't know if any of that's true. But what I will tell you is today, two times today I saw references one two. I forget where the heck it was. Back in somewhere on the East Coast, some idiot who doesn't speak English and is not a citizen was elected mayor re elected mayor of some stupid town, and some stupid lady in Minneapolis brags about the fact that she is an illegal alien Minnesota representative. Did she vote for herself?
The more on? I mean, what the heck?
How can those obviously would not be prohibited by the Save Act because their candidates for office not voting.
Well, well for herself.
But actually the Georgia case is interesting because I think that Brad Raethlisberger, the guy who was attacked by President Trump, actually claims he wrote an art on the Wall Street Journal just recently and said he conducted an audit of the electoral rules, and I think he said he found eight cases out of two million registered voters of people who are not qualified to be on the roles. I mean, does eight? I mean that's a tiny percentage, right, that's
less than less and less than one percent? Does that justify enacting John nationwide? John happening, But you have yet to produce real evidence of enough fraud to change any election.
I don't know that we need to anybody wants to prove to change the election outcome. That's not the point. The point is to show how fraud happened so that it can't happen again.
And there's not votes in Georgia.
John three, you're saying three hundred thousand votes in Georgia were fraudently tasked.
No, we're have questions about them.
Three points if three points, if I may one is if there's really no fraud happening at all, Uh, then what's the problem with passing some safeguards because it wouldn't prevent anyone from voting. But the second one is there have been several jurisdictions. I think even New York had this at one point, where the Democrats wanted to allow non citizens to vote in municipal elections.
They're less two.
I mean thought I thought they lost that in the I thought they lost it in.
The courts under their own state constitution. It's a question of streat law.
But now does it come on common sense? You really think that you have a lot of people who are thinking non citizens should be able to vot vote because they'll vote for guess who that there aren't attempts to get them onto the voting rolls and cast their votes for them. Second point is is, look, I mean there's mounting evidence, although smoking gun proof is hard to assemble of,
you know, massive welfare fraud like in Minnesota. You really think all those people Minnesota who are giving big campaign contributions to Democrats aren't casting any votes? Come on, John, even you are not that naive. Nor Look, my point is that it's not that.
First of all, I don't think it's possible to drive anything like this to zero. And so the question is is it worth enacting nationwide federal legislation when Republicans have taken the position that we should just allow states to regulate it, like conservatives generally are in favor of states being the front line for most policy decisions.
Well, okay, I'll give you my exit proposition now, which is, you know, Democrats love all those social democracies in England and in Europe, you know, Denmark, Sweden, France. My proposal is, let's have the same voting rules that they have deal because guess what, there are a lot tougher rules than we have. And so if they love those social democracies for all their well for state, let's have their voting rules tool. I'll make that. I will make that deal tomorrow. I'll make it to know.
Okay, let's let's take a break. We're going to go to uh one of the most enticing ads ever for any podcast of any kind.
We are the Korea. Well you know, yeah about stuff? Right? Sorry?
Yeah, I guess you count as a conservative sometimes, John, Sometimes you know, the kind of that won't stand up for free and fair elections but steal a conservat I.
Don't think anything's free or fair. That's the problem.
But we should move forward that, don't you think. But since you know, we like to disagree, and I'm not calling you any names to night, so best behavior not in this segment now, I'm trying to be on my best behavior the whole night. But if you enjoy conservatives arguing like we do, and you don't want to hear any name calling, then you should.
Probably try try out a new podcast.
Try out a new podcast, Conservative Crossroads with Henry Olsen, who is the Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
He doesn't shy away from it.
His podcast doesn't shy away from these conservative disputes. They just take them head on, just like we do. They lean into them by putting at least two conservatives who disagree about an important issue together to hash it out on the air. Every other week, Conservative Crossroads does what no other program does explore conservatives disagreements without name calling.
Conservative Crossroads is the podcast for conservat damps who want to understand what's happening to their movement and just this is received. Join Henry Olsen and his guests at Conservative Crossrooms every other Monday is they hash out the ideas and principles that will decide the future of the right.
I'm amazed that you know, the gold Bar advertising advertisers haven't called the cruise up to do their ads. I mean they've gotten back God William Devane, he always plays the president of the Secretary of Defense. Right, they should have a female version as well, well, A wonderful ed I don't think Henry deserves it.
Before you move on, John, to the next point, since I actually answered your question, you didn't ask in the first saying we were talking about immigration and I was already on the Save Act because it was first in our list. Sorry, my brain was just going in that direction.
I kind of want to make a really serious point for a second, and that is that, Okay, I won't call him out by name, but at our conference last week, our good friend and I had a conversation, and he's a good conservative, but he said, look, we have to
back off on immigration. We have to back off on the idea that we should deport every illegal immigrant, because Trump's going to lose that battle, and you know, it's already Independents are turning away from him, et cetera, et cetera, and we should, you know, and we're at fault as a country for allowing for so many years the the unfettered illegal immigration into the country. So all of these people came in thinking that they were being welcomed, and
it's not fair to kick them out. Again, good conservative on most issues, I think that this is a watershed moment. Either the United States decides that we are going to have laws, We're going to have immigration laws, we're going to have them enforced fairly but universally, or we become a nation of.
Lawlessness. You know, something right out.
Of Abraham Lincoln's I see him address right, Yes, and anyway, that's my major point that I really did want to make about this, John, And I think that the SAYBAC goes along with that a little bit. But more so is this idea that we should play politics with the enforcement of our laws and decide that, you know, something as important as our own sovereign borders can just be left up to whatever the political wins are of the moment.
I'm afraid. I just think it's impossible to force any laws. And it's a policy question how much we want to devote towards how many resources we want to devote towards enforcement, And one of the ways we decide is by giving political feedback to the executive branch. And does seem like the polls show people think that the Trump administration has gone too far? Now a majority of Republicans still support the enforcement levels, but the Democrats, of course heavily oppose it.
But Independence have turned against this level of immigration enforcement. Steve, what do you think about that? Should should independence decide how much enforcement authorities get thrown into the immigration fight? Or should the President Trump, as Lucretia's advising, keep going forward until all the illegal aliens are removed from the country.
John, So, first of all, general proposition, independence should be relied upon to be a decisive voice in absolutely nothing, whatever the issue is. You know, every four years they have these debates where the last debate is with undecided voters, and if you ever watched those, they are always morons, Right, who's undecided? Three weeks before national election? Morons undecided and they asked moronic questions now. But the more serious point,
I mean, I am serious about that. But the more serious point is I'm kind of amazed there's a much public support as there still is in light of the media onslaught on this. Look the media accounts for a lot. They still swing public opinion five ten points on things. That's you know, Timothy Grows Closest Findings and other people that I think are pretty robust. And the great thing about the Trump people is they don't give a you
know what. And look, John, I don't think even they think we're going to deport every single person who crossed over illegally at whatever timeframe. But one of things about this it is working is you know, everyone thought Mitt Romney was a monster for saying we won't have to lots of people there'll be self deportation.
I think the.
Ratio right now is something like three to one. I think three people are leaving for every one person's being arrested and sent it abroad. And so this is working. And I say stay the course, just like Reagan did about the economy in nineteen eighty two, and don't pay attention to the darn poles. John, that is the road to ruin. And I'll just stop there because I think Lucreas is agreeing with me furiously. Maybe I should keep going. This is a rare moment I can enjoy it well.
I mean, first of all, I haven't paid as much attention to the polls themselves in and looked into the questions and so forth. I wouldn't be surprised to find that many of them are pushfulls and not actually trying to find out what public opinion, public sentiment on the issue really is. But Steve's also right when he says it, the media play.
On this has just been appalling.
And.
You're right, of course, John.
We will never have the resources to enforce every single law. We're not going to arrest every Jaywalker, and I get all that, Nor are we going to prosecute every jaywalker and so on. We have limited resources, but there cannot be in a country that claims to be a sovereign country, they cannot have open borders that allows anybody to come in, including enemies and terrorists, etc. That's a whole nother thing. But the other problem, of course is that use Minnesota
as an example. It was one thing for my grandparents and your parents to come here. They didn't come here and go on welfare, right, I mean, and they came here and they worked hard. They might have gone to a community diaspora of their own people where they got some help along the way, for sure, but nobody expected that they would come here and just feed off the public, you know what, for the rest of their lives. And that in and of itself is so problematic. Never mind
the lack of assimilation and so on. We cannot tolerate. This is one of those things we have to put resources to and that's why Trump won in.
Twenty twenty four in my opinion.
And we cannot just decide, Okay, well, you know, this person has been living here for sixteen years. Let's stay overstayed there three months visa. But they haven't really broken any laws, so we won't go after them.
We cannot do that. I mean, it just seems to me basic.
Let's move on to another topic. Since I'm the host. I can't really you said this is so unfair or not violent or violent, I've been canceled, so topic number two and it just gets worse for me after this last topic is I'm going to trigger discussing the act which shall not be named. But perhaps what I think this probably is true. President Trump announced on Friday the reversal of something called the Endangerment Finding, which he said
was the largest single active deregulation in American history. Yeah, Steve, what is the endangerment finding? It sounds like some kind of riskue musical or sometime. What is an endangerment finding? And why is it so important? And does it actually produce the greatest single active deregulation in American history?
In reverse order? The answer is yes. But John, you can relax. We have reached the point for our purposes in this podcast. With certain band statutes. That reminds me of the a comic novel from the eighties. It was Richard Gramier's great comic novel The Marrakesh one, two and it's about a bunch of CIA officers whose cover was there could go to the Middle least and spy. But they're going to be making a movie about Mohammad, and they didn't realize that you can't actually allow you're not
allowed to. So that was the comic device, as the whole comic device was the entire movie. All the scenes, all the dialogue would be shooting reaction shots of people looking and listening to Mohammad. But then then you couldn't even have the shadow of Mohammad onto the ground, right, So I mean it was. It was a very funny novel. If it had been more of a best seller Richard Granier, he would have gotten the Fatua instead of Salmon Rushti
in the later eighties. So the point is, I can discuss this Sean without mentioning a certain prohibited statute that rhymes with bear fair or fact or something like that. Okay, look, this was the lynchpin of regulating of nationalizing all of our energy from the electric power grid and power plants
to our automobiles and even our appliances. And the EPA did that because that statue that won't be named never did include carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, so they had she warnered in with the help of a close Supreme Court. Both that you know, all about a couple of things to be said about this. I've been wanting to say from the beginning of the week. You know, endangerment Will Robinson or something in old days, but.
He's a space reference for those keeping Yeah.
I wasn't sure you're old enough for that, John, But look, I will say this military analogy that ought to be close to home for you. This move this week by Trump is the inchon landing of the tax on the administrative state, right. I mean, you know the history of that in the Korean War, I assume. And so first, it's unimaginable that any Republican named Bush or Romney or
McCain would have ever done anything. McCain and Rodney, by the way, they were totally down with the climate change hysteria, right, and I won't go through their sorry record on all that. And the Bushes would never have resisted it. So again, only Trump could go to China, you know the Nixon thing, right, Only Trump would do this, and good for him. Second, and this is long entangled. I don't want to bore
people with the ins and outs. But I think they're gonna make this stick because of careful preparation to make it stand up to legal challenge. They're going to get a legal challenge, but I think they're going to make the stick. Even the New York Times this week said, gosh, it looks like this one was not easy for a future Democrat to reverse with an executive order or a new EPA dictat that's long and complicated. But the final thing to me is the media coverage. You expected to
be hysterical. I didn't expect it to be completely stupid. So ABC News, their evening news broadcasts, I think yesterday the day before, said Trump is depriving the EPA and the government of the ability to control the climate, as if our EPA could control the whole world's climate with a knob. I mean, how are they going to do this?
It turns out, if you want to just one fact about this, none, almost none of the interventions that have been made by US or other industrialized countries has had any effect on the decarbonization rate of our energy systems, which is going along for two hundred years now at about one or a half or sent a year. Not because people want to be clean and green. We like
efficiency because when you're efficient, guess what, you make more money? Right, And none of this is working, it's not making any difference. Uh So this is I mean, I'm enjoying this. Oh, I mean, I can go on a while. One last thing is the media covers decided to not use certain prominent climatista voices like Michael Mann, the guy who sued Nash Review It is now on the hook for millions
of dollars for lying to the court. Well Ap interviewed him and then put him up in an early version of the story and then took him out because even the media is coming around and realizing these people really were crazy and they're still going to report wrongly and badly in reports that every storm is a you know, it's because of climate change.
Did they take him out of the stick.
Stick?
Right?
Yeah? I'll stop there because as you know, I can bore you forever without even mentioning.
You already you already have, Steve, don't put yourself. Probably so, Lucretia has done her part, believe it or not, in popping the hysteria about climate change. Because the reason we were all three of us in Austin last Friday was for a conference by the Civitas Institute about climate change.
We had panelists who were part of this Department of Energy special task Force to evaluate the science behind climate change, behind the engagement finding, which was very critical, and Lucretia shared a pad the third panel and I actually didn't it just to ask you, lu Christian, what is your view of climate change and the science and the economics, the things that you heard and saw while you were moderating these panels, because you were moderating, so you couldn't
speak your mind, much like the moderator tonight.
Yeah.
Well, the funny thing was is that we had a kind of an outlier on our pan who's well, I actually found really interesting and everybody's gonna get a kick out.
Actually probably not. You're going to be upset about this.
But in the midst of all the academies and the political science theory that she threw into her presentation, what she was talking about was the fact that the reason our homeowner's insurance rates are skyrocketing is not because you know, the whatever happened in Tennessee or even California. It's because climate change risk is being from the models, the models of climate change risk that can't even predict accurately what happened in the past, are being built into by the
actuaries into our homeowner's insurance rates. And I don't know about you guys, but mine's gone up three hundred percent in the twenty years I've owned this home and I've never had a claim. And the biggest part of that is, I know, housing prices go up, which means it's more expensive to replace.
A home if it burns down.
I get all that, but it's still way beyond anything that you should expect. So I thought that was really interesting when you know her explanation of really sort of intricate details about how the politics inside of Congress work on that.
But the main point was that climate.
Change risks, which is a hoax of major proportions, in case you were wondering, my thoughts is, actually, you know, it has all sorts of really negative consequences beyond those stupid cars that shut down when you stop at a stoplight. The first time I went and took my card to the Audi dealer and they gave me a loaner and I got to the stop light and car stalled, and
I took it back. I said, installed at the stop light, and they thought I was, you know, the dumb blonde, which I was, but I didn't know that six eight years ago, sending maybe more. Yeah, but you know what a stupid thing. And I remember being a kid, you know, when I first would drive, you'd never turn your engine off, like if you're going to run inside the house, because it was bad for it. And I just I could never get myself to stop being upset when it would
do that. One car we had had a button, but you had to push it every time, you know that, So that's gone.
I know. Well, at least in America we have the option of turning that field. I have two cars that have that start automatic stop thing, and I have it to save you because you can do that. Here in Europe, I think it's mandatory because they're you know, fuel Nazis and everything else. Right, Yeah, I think we should say, though, Lucretia. I mean, the person you're talking about is Jessica Winkle from the University of North Carolina, and she's what do
you say about her? She's she's not terribly political. She's a bit of an outlier in this sense. I think I think she would not say climate change as a hoax. I think she's probably a person who can be described as a blop warmer. Yeah, well, okay, I mean I haven't read I've read a lot of it. I've always put up She's very careful about saying, wait a minute, something's off here. And look her main point, which she
came to at the end. And by the way, I think she hasn't been too many conferences quite like this one, although there haven't been many quite like this.
And I didn't even tug about the most fun one, but.
Well, the climate of the one I was on was really boring. The best panel anyway, scientist her main where they just wailed on each other and yeah, scientific felons and frauds, right, it was wonderful. Well, I'm so glad they just finished with Jessica to each other.
Oh go ahead, sorry, let me finish with Jessica. In one sentence, her culminating main point was scientific expertise has been damaged and it's their own fault, right because we've given too many of these extravagant claims about climate change, and the insurance companies have exploited this, right and anyway, so no She's very good, I think, and an interesting person to keep your eye on. But yet the side, you know, she made me sad. I'll tell you.
Let me say this is a totally different thing. But I think you guys will appreciate it. My academic career inside of you know that the regular thing is coming to an end. Happily, I turned in my paperwork to retire. I'm very happy about that.
So now she's Lucretia America.
Well I have to grant it first, but but but my point is is that we had a long talk about and she was asking me for advice about how you sort of deal with with with the intricacies of getting tenure and and being you know, I mean her her course load to teach based on how much research she was expected to do was it was astounding, and I just remember feeling awful for her and thinking, God,
akadem is a terrible pleace to be these days. Anyway, Sorry, that was a total little tangent, but I know that our listeners sometimes like to hear a little bit about what's going on in academia, and it's awful.
Well, well, on that happy note, we are going to take another ad break coming back I thought one more interesting topic for a discussion had to do with a great conference I got to participate in this week at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, which was a conference devoted to evaluating the legacy of Justice Scalia last week. This week was the tenth anniversary of his death. Can
you believe it's been ten years? And it was a lot of fun because it was right now that was a distance of time, asking people what they thought about his impact, his influence, why he had any and so I got to tell some interesting personal stories about my relationship with him. Because the year I clerked for Justice Thomas, none of Justice Scalia's clerks played squash or tennis, and
I did. I played both, So I ended up driving Justice Scalia to play squash of tennis twice a week, and I would talk to him during these times, and being a twenty five year old smart ass, recent graduate of law school, I would ask him and say all kinds of now that I think about it, crazy ridiculous things to him, like nobody agrees with you, why do you write the sentence at all? So on I look back, I can't believe I asked them things like this, But
my main steps. And I'll tell some of these stories another time, because I do feel like I got to know him pretty well. I should have written it up into a book. Actually, all the things we talked about.
But one thing that I tried to say on the panel is if the Court strikes down independent agencies for good this year, right as I think it will in this case about the FTC, the slaughter case over Wall, as Humphrey's executor, it will be the ultimate vindication of Justice Scilia, because in his very first year he dissented alone in Morrison versus Olsen and said that the Independent Council statute was unconstitutional. Now today that almost seems inevitable.
His logic that the executive powers granted the Constitutions granted executive power to the president must include the power to fire anybody who is responsible for executing federal law. It seems inevitable that the Court would adopt that logic. It seems inevitable that all these independent agencies would eventually be brought to reign. But in nineteen eighty seven, in nineteen eighty eight, really Scillia's first year real year on the Court,
he dissented alone. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion saying that Congress could prevent the firing of even prosecutors. There was no scholarship, there was no histories, there were no arguments in defense of the unitary executive, if you want to call that, And it was such a lonely position to take at that time. And so one of the things I said, it really does show the force of ideas and the force of personality really can make
a difference in politics. And scale is dessent to Morrison versus Olsen eventually winning out right thirty years later, almost to in.
The end in the factical world.
Yeah, to eventually just to end the reign of independent agencies. I think it's a remarkable story. But anyway, I was what I was going to ask both to you is what do you think of Justice Scalia's impact and influence ten years later?
Steve, Well, you know it was interesting you've hbably remembered us from ten years ago. John is when he died. You had a lot of people on the left, such as Linda Greenhouse. The other Greenhouse effect. I always left us say Linda Greenhouse, who's awful. Let's just stipulate that I don't look to be any daylight between the three of us on that question. She said, you know, Skale was really right about that Independent Council thing all those
years ago. And that's when I thought, you know, the jig is up for these guys, because the consequent logic of that points to where we have gotten to now. And of course why do they say that though it was political not really constitutional principle. It's because ken Starr revealed that the Independent Council could be used against Democrats. Right. I mean, look, that thing was set up to prosecute Republicans after the Nixon years, and so good for ken
Starr for wrecking it. We did. But two of the things to say is you've left out John and I try to be brief about these things. But you go back to those years. You say Scale was all alone, but you know the Circuit Court of Appeals opinion that set the case up that sided with Ted Olson was
spectacular and written by your other you, clerk Ford, Lawrence Silberman. Right, So you go back to those days, there's Lawrence Silberman, and you know, maybe my wife's judged Danny Boggs and either Jones a few years later, just a tiny handful. Now there's a lot of Laurence Silberman's on the court and on the spits to one degree or another right or not identical. And then finally you'd say that you know, Scalia did defend the Chevron doctor for a while, as
most Reaganiites did, right. They thought that helped them to rationalize and make more sensible a bureaucratic regulation. But by degree is everything you heard is that by twenty sixteen he was starting to change his mind about that. So I think he'd be pretty happy and strongly in the majority on things like the West Virginia case with the major questions doctor and so forth. So yeah, his his
shadow lengthens every year. And I think there you know, certain core philosophical differences he had with Thomas, such as on natural law on its application. I think those would be diminishing over time. Lucretia, all right, I just people who aren't people who are going to be listening to this, or you canna say John is getting a sour prune look on his face for my invocation of natural law.
But don't worry, we're going to come back to that after the It didn't go unnoticed. I don't think you're a sneaky bastard as you think you are.
It does make more sense to me, John, Now why you're such a positivist if you spent all that time with Skalah, which is the only thing about him that I find objectionable. But it's one of those situations where the good is far out ways the bad, in this case, far out ways the bad.
But he was in fact a positivist about the law and.
Did not believe that, for instance, we should turn to the Declaration of independence, So were any of the theories of the Declaration of Independence and understanding the constitution that being said ten years after to the day as actually today, I'm not going to speak ill of him at all. I remember as young, young undergraduate, especially when I took I took three or four classes in constitutional law that we happened to have as an undergraduate, and and just
loved reading scully A's opinions. You know, he brings in or well, and he brings everybody else is just oh jo on and on, and he's just delightful reading Scullya's opinions and especially his descents. I do also remember you talked about what the Liberals did when he died. I remember that the right, was certain that you know that there was some foul play involved in his death, and
that went on for a very long time. Because he had been so influential and successful on the court, and because of the timing of his unfortunate death, we did not get Mark Garland, as our liberal friends hoped we would, and we've had that discussion many times. We got instead to Gorsich, Justice Gorsag thanks.
To the thanks to the maneuvering of your favorite, second my favorite.
There's enough, you know, there you go.
I mean, I think his brain actually has been addled by Trump derangement syndrome because the Say Act is something he's been fighting for those kinds of things his whole career, and all of a sudden, just because Trump wants it, he's not gonna he's not gonna support it. Never mind, Maybe it's maybe I'm going to have age limits after all, because these old people are just driving me crazy.
Let me one point that I made at the AI conference to follow up on Steve's point, which is I did ask, you know, some points that I don't think Scleia ever got to address, because I think he did die a little early. Was he never did explain how much of a positivist he was. Did he actually think the Constitution could exist in a kind of free, free state, ungrounded in any pre existing sense of right or wrong or morality. Was it really just a document meant to
uh effectuate democracy? Which is something you know, things he would say often, you know, Was he really like Holmes who famously said, uh, if the American people voted to send themselves to hell, Holmes, would you know, do his duty and help them on their way? And so there was this famous speech where uh, Scalia went to the Vatican and spoke to an audience of Canon lawyers. And I would have thought if there were ever any place he would yield an inch to natural law natural rights,
it would be there. But he would not. He didn't. He did not yield an inch at all. So I think the answer to Steve's question is that he really was a pure positivist and would not accept any role for a natural law actual rights. And I asked, but is that really a defect? I mean, does that in a way? Is that not? Maybe why Scalia's opinions are so in a way attractive to liberals too, I mean, he apparently he's one of the most cited justices, but by the three.
Yes, because right.
If you don't build a morality into your opinions that doesn't come from the constitutions, that makes them maybe it gives them more staying power.
Well, I have an explanation. But Lucretia, you have a question.
You said, I just want to know why you would bother to support democracy with a constitution, Why would you choose democracy?
Well, look, I haven't that's my explanation.
Yeah, I mean that's the problem is that ultimately, if you cannot give a defense of the natural law basis for people governing themselves in a democracy or republic, if you cannot do that, then then it's very easy ultimately to do what has happened, which is to you know, to deny that anybody but elites ought to rule. It's very easy to undermine the entire structure if you cannot build it on the right foundation.
Sorry, go ahead, see you.
Listen to Well, let me go back to let me go back to that appearance of the Vatican. You mentioned John, because it's when John Paul two was still alive and in charge of things. He gave a talk to I think he introduced Scalia. Now, if you took John Paul two's text where he said very sensible things that could have been written by Lucretia about democracy and the natural law basis for it, and Scale's text, and he took
the names off them. You would have said, oh, this person who turned out to be John Paul to he should be on the court. I mean, he's the one. He's expressing the more of a deep American understanding, American founding understanding. And Scalia was again pure positivism or not pure. But here's the point. If you then bring alongside renquists famous Lectury gave in nineteen seventy seven where he quotes Holmes right like you do John from time to nothing
or you know, okay, he quotes homes the problem. Think about when Scalia goes to law school and Renquist goes to law school at Stanford along with Sandraday O'Connor in the forties, and there's nobody talking about natural law, there's nobody talking about originalism of any kind, and you Holmes was the grand figure and then the most famous justice. I think, by the way, uh Scalia is displacing Holmes. I think what redeems Scalia and explains him is, in fact,
at the end of the day, his Catholic faith. He would say privately, I believe in natural law. I don't believe judges can use that as an interpretive tool. But I think he could not get away from his fundamental spiritual values. And I think that explains why he was so and plus he's smart, right, And John think that explains it? What's that?
It explains John too, because John, he's all the right thing, but has no basis in his explanation why he believes them.
Well, I wasn't gonna be just through my secure intellect and reasoning.
What are you talking about?
But the point is, John, is that you know, uh Thomas went to a law school win in the seventies, was a classmate, was around the same time that. I'm not sure that the.
Clinton He's just a few years behind the Clintons.
Yeah, yeah, okay. But the point is, now you have Gorsch, who you know, studied natural law with John Finnis at Oxford and so forth. We now have a generation of jurists coming up who have had a different legal education than Rehnquist, in Scalia, in Powell, name all the others.
You can't write, yeah, you could if it's yeah, you could say that Scalia Renquist. They are brought up in a time when the central problem is how do you find a principal basis for the court overturning plus e in right Brown versus Board of Education? Whereas for the following generation that you just mentioned, younger justices, the central problem is Roe versus Wade right, how do you allow
court to interfing in the abortion question? Well, I think we would have more time to talk about this in future podcasts, but I think it will take one more ad break, yes, and then we'll come back for the wrap up. Steven then to have some observations to make at the end of the podcast before we wrap up.
So a good friend of ours Steves in Mine. I guess John doesn't know him. Mickey Craig. I went to graduate school with Mickey Craig and actually wrote my first public published article with Mickey Craig. It was a article about Rose Bird, who was a Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court and why before the what do they call them retention elect right? But she was not retained along with two other associate justices, And I always liked to think it was because of the article didn't make
a night. But Mickey was a long time professor at Hillsdale and passed away, I guess a couple of days ago. So Mikey rest in peace.
Yeah, not much. Older Straussians never die, They.
Just fade away.
Well he was Mickey was. Oh, he was beloved. I mean, and I had lunch with him in November when I was at Hillsdale, but he'd want to take me lunch and I had, you know, a cheeseburger and a beer, and he had nothing because he was heading to the cardiologists that afternoon for more tests. And yeah, so you know, in retrospect, so beloved person. But then there's another passing this week of someone I never met and I never
even interacted with. But it's a guy named John Ekdall who was Charlie C. W. Cook's best friend in Florida. And Charlie's taking it very hard, and I don't blame him. Ekdahl had a very strong Twitter game, among other things, and one of his treats from more than a decade ago caused a ruckus in the media. And it was very simple. He said, you know, the Ford f one point fifty and GM's pickup truck equivalent the best selling car in America. Buy a lot. It's not even close question.
For the Washington Posts, New York Times, CBS News, how many of you know a single person who drives a pickup truck. You would have thought in those newsrooms that somebody had thrown a dead skunk in the middle of the There was an outrage to even bring up such an impertinent question to the sainted people in the news media. So talk about scoring a direct hit that exposed how out of touch the media is. And John was only
forty seven, which is way too young. And anyway, he's getting a lot of deserved attention on Twitter and elsewhere this week. And Mickey. I may write something about Mickey. He was my housemate for a while along with John Eastman, me, John Eastman, Mickey Craig in a house we rented from Peter Drucker, the famous management consultant guy to hate.
God.
We didn't talk about. I do, but but I have to.
I have to bring up a subject because of it that we didn't talk about, which was the which is the ongoing Nancy Guthrie saga. And it's very sad. The eighty four year old woman blah blah, blah blah blah. But oh my god, yeah, so I know exactly where she lives. It is, in fact, a very rural place, and we just got informed here where I am, I
mean about seventy five miles from there. But it's across Arizona that we can no longer have the lights on our house that shine up, or we have to turn them off after ten o'clock at night because there are laws across Arizona against light pollution so that you can see the stars anyway, So that's part of the reason why it was you know. Anyway, Here's here's my argument to John when he said I should be more interested
in the story. I'm actually happy about the story because my life is the political scientists such as that is and is always trying to stay ahead of all the major stories, and it leaves a whole area of news I don't even have to bother with. That's why I like about that story. But I'm sorry, she's eighty four years old. Do you know how many children are missing? Do you know how many you know?
Sorry?
Well, right, I don't know who Savannah Guthrie is from Adam. I guess she's some twit on a morning news show.
But who cares?
Why is this the Look, this is my one set, that's one story estion is why do people care so much they do?
Well, Look, I've been saying my one sentence summary is this is the Lindbergh baby kidnapping of our age. And why was the Lindberg baby kit napping a big deal? Because Charles Lindberg was famous and so Lucretia you don't watch the Today Show? Well, okay for four year old woman, but look, it would not have made any news seven eighty years ago if it hadn't been Charles Lindberg's baby. In this case, this would not make news except Savannah Guthrie is watched by forty million people a day on
the Today Show. Not you're not one of them, and I'm not either, But that's why And that's the only blot from the media that's made of story.
Doesn't it also appeal to people's fears about their elderly parents and are they taking care of them well enough? And they're on their own And it's just just like there was right the idea that there were children being kidnapped, you know, in open daylight, and actually child kidnappings have been at an all time low when this happened, but it still caused a huge crazy when it started happening
in the nineties. So it's an ansurb. I think it's more not because the case itself is of individual merit, but it does right express something about what people are worried about, because I don't I think the TV show is only showing it because the ratings are high for it.
Sure Gris Faults, your friend from Outnumbered, Harris Faultner's actually grew up in that neighborhood and she is obsessed by the story. I've turned it off every single day. I just can't listen anymore. Okay, but I only did that because they have a Babylon b and I just want to make sure everybody knew what we were talking about. But before we get there, this one was sent to me by a listener who goes by the name of Way. I would have found it anyway, but it's a good one.
Alarming study shows average Somali high school senior in Minnesota committing fraud at just a fifth grade level. So as we're hearing all of these stories about the fact that, as a matter of fact, university they're hiding their dei et cetera, et cetera. They still have their damn land acknowledgements, et cetera. Wife refuses to return stolen land she took from husband's side of bed. Took you guys a second, and then we had the yet another trans person to
shoot up a bunch of people. I'm sure has nothing to do with those god awful drugs that they give them. Canadian reporter person announces police persons have identified gun person.
You already gave that jerk away at the beginning.
I know that I was the Babylon B does it better? So credit where credits do? I haven't talked about the Olympics either, don't care. Frauds suspicions arise as Somali team wins seven hundred and thirty fourth gold medal at Winter on the.
And then backed by Save Act, Democrats counter with Steel Act to ban voter ID and said, but I'll steal that grewsome kidnapping, just the career boost.
Crime reporter has been waiting for.
Get that one.
Do you remember that great line from the Don Henley song Dirty Laundry, The bubble headed bleach blond Layah.
Bubble headed Bach bond that comes out.
She'll tell you about the crash with a stleam in her eye.
Like Jef, I hated the Eagles.
Although this is from the man who likes air supply and others such that is block that does not.
Mean anyway, that's a great song. I'm not a Don Henley fan, but that's a great song anyway. I just Ice leaves Minneapolis to focus on American cities. And finally, we didn't talk about this halftime either. We were going to and be see suffers bizarre technical glitch as entire halftime show broadcast in Spanish.
I thought we were gonna get all the way through this episode without a bad Bunny reference, and I was afraid we weren't going to get in a Sydney Sweeney reference by just half some Okay, I.
Wait before wait, before you go on, I have to tell you one thing. So I've been having trouble in my teaching my class with doom. All these used to work perfectly. They you know, they messed it up. But here's the crazy part. All of the directions inside of my learning management system where zoom.
Is are in Spanish, and when I get back.
To English, that could happen to a better person.
I got and they come back in Spanish. Right, it's the technical glitch.
I wish I could tell you I hacked your system and did that, because that would be beautiful. Always drink your withiskiny, buy more books and Steve. What is the latest message from our AI rulers?
Oh, I'm trying to change this up a little bit, but I couldn't resist.
John.
I asked them for what what chat GBT describes as the extremely niche genre of John U natural law jokes.
Oh, I was really worried you're going to start talking about aerial pollution.
No, no, no, no no, no, I even I am not that mean to you. Okay, John Hughes's version of natural law. We hold these truths to be self evident unless the president thinks otherwise. Uh a quitnas. Natural law is rooted in human reason, John U. Natural law is rooted in executive discretion. Except that's actually kind of true in a certain but okay.
Yes, I agree.
Let's see there's a natural law says unjust laws are not true laws. John U says, let's not rush to moral conclusions when memos are still being drafted.
All right, that's pretty clever. A.
There's a bunch of these, and I'll skip over them. The Founding Fathers reacted to on you, James Madison reading expensive executive power theory. We wrote an entire constitution to avoid this exact email. There's more of these. They're fun, they're good one liners.
But well, thanks for that, Steve and everyone, thanks for joining us. Thank you to the live live chat audience and all your contributions. I wish I hope people can get a chance to read them with a view recording of the podcast, because Steve and Lucretia have been wildly responding to the comments. I of course never read any comments, so it would be doubly hard for me to actually ever read live chat and participate. Yeah, but there's been a lot of fun, I think, for both the hosts
and the audience. So thank you very much for joining and we'll see you next week.
Yeah, Ricochet, join the conversation.