Well whiskey.
Coming 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 Lucretiative where You're in love Down.
Hello, Welcome everybody to another quiet episode and a three whiskey happy hour, and nothing at all in politics happened again. We're gonna have to spend the whole time talking about esoteric political theory. No, in fact, in fact, that's all untrue. It's been another crazy week in national politics, and we couldn't have better people to discuss it than my co hosts, Steve Hayward, Hi Steve, Hi, John and the International Woman of Mystery, Lucretia.
Hi, Lucretia, Hi John, How are.
You what a crazy I spent all day today and yesterday teaching Law of the Sea, believe it or not, so I've missed everything everything. I only am reading the speeches. I've not been watching the DNC. I have been reading the speeches late at night, and I totally missed today's big news, on which we have a three whiskey how happy Hour scoop from Steve Hayward. Well, the RFK drop out of the race and endorsement at Trump. Steve, what is this big scoop.
That we have?
Well? Maybe, but first of all, John, really, you've been teaching the law of the sea and you heck will be about the Clean Air Act? Are you kidding? Well, I don't think about it.
I just want to explain to people I'm out of it.
Look what I've been Listeners can't see that I'm holding up Chep Melnick's great book, Regulation of the Courts, The Case of the Clean Air Act. I'm going to like make you read this someday, John, like you know, like Roddy McDowell and clockwork Orange with your aisles peeled open. It's a great look. You know, it's a great book.
It is the only book of Chut Melnicks I refuse to read.
It's a great book. It was a dissertation.
Okay, but you know, by the way, by the way, you're right, Steve, I am or miss. I forgot to ask both of you before we talk about this quiet week in politics. What are you drinking? Steve?
Well, you know, it's actually a Friday night for change because we often lose Tuesday. Mark I've got a Telliskir ten year old, which is a you know, isle of sky uh single malt, which I I've been planning for a couple of years now that here in another remote bucolics central coast, I don't have good liquor stores. Well, I can tell listeners that a fantastic, maybe the greatest liquor store I've ever seen, has opened in Passer Rubbles.
It's called Grapes and Grains. And without going through the whole thing about how great it is, they have lucretia. I have to get this for your birthday. They have, for example, a seventy five year old McCallen single malt for sal behind a glass case for eighty nine ninety nine dollars.
That's when we went to well, when we stopped in London on our way to join you guys in Milan, that I went to the McCallen store and they had a bunch of really nice bottles behind glass, but that they had like a set I almost want to call it, of different ones. And that the week before the saleswoman said that some rich guy from California had come in and bought two hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth one of the sets of all the different bottles of Scotch from the London from Heath Airport.
Yeah, it wasn't me.
I don't get is Steve's in this great store with eighty nine thousand dollars bottle McCallum and he buys a talliskir tenure, which usually get two for the price of one on Civic Well.
I was also getting some I was also getting some Spanish red wine and very fond of that's hard to find. But here's the point for listeners, which is I keep tightening this. But now I think I'm going to try and organize a Ricochet meet up for the Central Coast sometime the next year, and I'm going to see if I can get this store to have a special event
for us. Now they won't break out. They have several cases of you know, whiskeys that are anywhere from two to five thousand dollars on their sticker price, and plus stuff that if we pull the too a collection and all that, we might be able to get one bottle. Okay, anyway, So Talian, that's what I'm having, Lucretia, what do you drink? I, on.
The other hand, have this great your store a couple hours away from me, which everything is called Costco, And I bought another bottle of the cask of a Monteado and it's lovely, the you know, the the whiskey aged in the cask of a Montiado. So that's what I'm drinking, and it just makes me take one to take revenge on all of my enemies, which I have a lot of lately.
That's a lot of booze.
A lucky thing. I can buy it at Costco.
John One, I am drinking a Costco bottle too. It's a my will It bourbon pot still in the gigantic size.
That cool bottle. You know, I bought that once. John. It's good because I like the bottle.
Yeah, the bottle is really cool. The bourbon's not bad either.
Yeah.
So anyway, so let's start with this this week's news. The first, Steve, you promised some kind of scoop or inside story about RFK Junior's decision today to withdraw from the presidential race and to endorse Donald Trump and an in person lollapalooza in Phoenix and Lucretia's neighborhood in Lucretia's back here. They might have been her at her house. She may well have broken this sweet deal.
Steve have pictures.
Well, there are two steps to this or three steps. Really. Someone who is a listener and reader who I don't know but Bona Five's check out just called me up and to say, look, I just want to tip you off. I've been a volunteer for the Kennedy campaign for several months now in a key Eastern state. And he said,
I'm not senior in the thing. But on the other hand, the Kennedy senior people are calling around to all of us saying, I hope you will all please get ready to or consider signing up to join the Trump campaign. And he told me a lot of details. This is really going to happen, is what he told me. And sure enough, it did happen today in two stages, Kennedy gave a speech that look, I've always thought the guy was a clown, demagogue and all kinds of crazy things.
But I watched the whole thing today forty five minutes or so, and I found it absolutely riveting. Another part you might quarrel with, although not many, I have to say I was utterly captivated and I thought it went on too long, because I think most speeches go on too long. But he said three things. First, I am absolutely outraged at the way the Democratic Party is anti democratic and is the party of censorship. And he went
through all the things that we've talked about a lot. Second, John, and this is the part that you would not have liked. He talked about the Ukraine War and foreign policy, and he says we have to end the neo cons forever wars. And he gave an account of the Ukraine War that is much closer, shall we say, to Lucretia than yours, surprise, surprise, surprise, although he did it very well, I have to say.
And then third, he talked about the health crisis in America, especially with the children, and obesity and a whole lot of things, leaving out the whole vaccine stuff, where he's been kind of dodgy over the years, and by the way, he said a number of things that I thought were very shrewd. He said, Look, I don't agree with Donald Trump about a lot of things, but we do agree on some of the most important things, and that's why I'm for him. And you know, we've agreed to disagree
on some things but I'll be in the room. He said. You know, Donald Trump has said I'll be part of his administration. He left it vague, how I have thoughts on that. Okay, he did that, and I thought it was a fantastic speech for someone who's never liked the guy who's turned down two invitations to debate him twenty
years ago. And then later in the day he appeared with Trump in I think Phoenix, and they had a rally with fireworks and all the rest, and Kennedy came up and gave five or six minutes with Trumps standing very patiently at the side. That was fabulous. And I you know, the pole data up to this point all suggests that if Kennedy dropped out, it would help Trump. So there we are. I think it's a master strock
on Trump and Kennedy's part. The day after the Democratic Convention ends, and you know, talk about weird things happening this year, this is one of the weirdest ever.
By the way, Lucretia, before we turn back, well no, please, Lucretia, go ahead. Then we got to find out did you know Steve slipped in that he was asked to pay RFK Junior and turned it down twice. We got to find out what that's about.
About it before John environmental stuff, but remember there used to be a real environmental nut. But so I read the speech, and I'm going to be honest with you. That's much easier for me because I always I have this empathy for people that have uh sort of speech difficulties, and it kind of makes me anxious almost, So I'm much better off reading it. I don't. I don't hold it against him. I don't. It's not problematic or anything. It's just kind of anyway.
Have you been hanging around with Steve all these years?
Yeah, I know Steve. I'm used to Steve's little flights to fancy. What was I going to say?
What was that?
What was my next point?
What was my next point?
But I'm used to it, and Steve told me before when I kind of mentioned that that I that if I listened to RFK long enough I would get used to that too. But anyway, I will say, I don't need to add to what Steve said. He said it well. One of the things that he hinted at at the very end was if nothing else, what this has done, has it has popped the balloon. Sorry, I'm going to mix my metaphors here of the media gasm that was going over the top over calm a Lama ding Dong
and her acceptance speech. Right, I mean, we were even. And though Beyonce did not show up as let's see, as the All Times put it, speculation of a surprise guest Taylor Swift, Beyonce turned out to be nothing but wishful thinking. No matter, Kamala Harris crushed it. Yep, oh God. Anyway, so that you know that went on. But and and they may not spend as much time talking about Trump and RFK, but nevertheless, then the excuse, the expression, narrative
has changed somewhat. So that's that's what I'll say about it. You know, I'm trying to concentrate on the things about RFK that I like, and there are some, there are many. I try not to concentrate on the bear and the brainworm. And you know, some of those things that are weird. I mean, they're no worse than the things we know about walt assistant volunteer coach Waltz. And they brought out players, these these fat out of shape you know the kind of people that democrats love to make fun of who
are Republicans. They bring out these football players from nineteen ninety nine to talk about how great assistant volunteer coach Waltz was. Why because they certainly don't want to talk about what Governor Waltz has done, so they have this absolutely fake attempt to make us all think he's a folksy all high school football coach. You took his team to a state championship. Oh my god, I just want to kill people when I hear them talking like that. I hate to be gaslighted so much like that. I'm
not that stupid. Maybe fond, but I'm not that stupid anyway.
Sorry, So, what effect do you think it'll have on the race? So the story I see say that at one point RFK Junior was pulling around ten percent, but that was before Biden pulled out, and now he was about four percent in the polls. But in a race that could be decided by seventy seventy thousand votes in the right states, could that make a difference.
Yes, because it's not four percent in all the states either. It varies, and it also varies to some extent. John about where those votes might go, Well, go ahead, Steve's much better at this. Well.
There was an interesting interlude in the speech. Today he has file paperwork to take himself off the ballot in many of the crucial swing states. Some of them he may be locked in. I'm not sure. But he said something very curious. He said, Look, you know, it's possible there could be a two sixty nine two sixty nine tie in the electoral College. This is true, it's realte, but it's possible in that case would go to the
House Representatives. And if you know your constitution, you know that the House chooses from the top three vote getters. So he went on to say, so, look, if you're in a deep red state and you're for Trump, or in a deep blue state and you're for Viiden, but you kind of like me, vote for me, because then he would still be alive as a compromise candidate in
the House of Representatives if they choose the president. That shows to me that he's you know, he's still in his back of his mind thinks there's some remote you know, what's what's the what's the famous movie scene with you know what's his name? I mean, one in a million, i'd you I still have a chance. Right, he still thinks he has a chance at all, this, which I
think is kind of interesting. But look, you have to be a megalomaniac who think you're going to be the president to begin with, and so that comes with the territory. But that was a very interesting argument, I thought. So anyway, so he's going to stay on some ballots and try and get off the others and hope that Trump wins. But if it's a tie, hey, I'm still here, everybody, and I could be your president.
Said there was some kind of deal with RFK maybe the next Secretary of Health and Human Services, and well that was charge of all the vaccines.
No, well, no, that was implied. I think, uh, I think, I think one of two things will happen. I My own view is, I think it'd be great to make him the White House a Czar of declassification and then declassify the UFO documents that the JFK assassination documents. Oh, John, I mean, will you think about this? I would like to see the redacted parts of the nine to eleven Commission report that we all think, say the Saudi government had a lot to do with the nine to eleven plot.
I don't know if that's there, but that's the speculation. Right, maybe you know something about that, and maybe you can't say because they would kill you.
Okay, thanks for that.
Or to put him in charge of some White House council on looking into health regulations and all the rest of that. H His talk with Trump today was all about we got to get corporations out of By the way, this is conservative regulatory capture language, right, we got.
To finish the sentence, Stave, we got to Steve. We got to get the corporations out.
Of dominating the regulatory agencies of the federal government. That's that's regulatory capture doctrine that conservatives understood fifty sixty years ago and they've kind of given up that language and now it's back. Courtesy of r of an unusual.
Source heard I heard. I actually couldn't tell who it was because he was kind of a mushmouth, which a lot of Democrats are. On one of the Fox shows that one of the panels they brought together, Uh, they asked what the question you just asked us, John, which is what do you think this will do for the race?
And what did you think about his speech? And you know, most of the most of the panelists had good things to say that whoever the Democrat mushmouth was said, well, you know, his whole talk about censorship was just nonsense, because his complaint was that, uh, you know, he only had two two interviews on mainstream media out of all the mainstream media, but that they otherwise spend all this time of slamming him, you know, saying these untrue things
about him, et cetera, et cetera. It's because he was so unimportant. Why does he think he deserves these, you know, any more than two interviews, because he was never going to win the presidency. Except you know, the other side of the argument that that RFK made quite rightly was if he wasn't that important, why did they spend so much time and effort trying to demonize him and so forth? And so I think that the only reason I brought that up. Who cares what a stupid mushmouth Democrat says.
But I think they're worried, well, except worried about the things he brought up. Sorry, so go ahead.
Well he did mention again, you know, he mentioned that Ross Pereat in nineteen ninety two got something like forty interviews with leading news organizations too, the three major networks and so forth, and he says I got two or almost none, right, and he says that's the media can cooperate. Okay, you get the point.
But again, as he pointed out, lots of negative things about him, So if he wasn't important, yeah, why they ignored There.
Was not this attempt by either party the truck to try and block ross Pro's access from the ballot. And he got twenty percent of the vote that year. So yeah, a good point I think he made.
So well, it's uh, not exactly the work of the Party of Joy, is it.
So?
By the way, which is the next topic.
But Steve, Well, here's well, I'm anticipating you. I have a summary point that I'm very proud of that Lucretia will be horrified, which is why I want to make it. Of course, Look, they're trying to recreate Obama in two thousand and eight, talk about media gasms, Lucretia, right, And you know people have said this that you know Obama, and I think this is true in a pop culture or pop culture level, Obama was Bulemania, right, people are
crazy for this guy. Well, they're trying to recreate with camel. But I think she's the monkeys. In other words, the monkeys, because people can't see if this is while lucretious stroping the cat that's draped around her.
Neck like like blow felled right, more like look, I mean, in other words, if if Obama can be said to have been Paul McCartney and John Lennon, well Michelle is no better than Mickey Dolan's and Peter Tork right.
I mean, it's a it's a pale shadow of the real thing.
I have no idea who those people are.
Of course you don't. You know, you're young and foolish and all that stuff, but you know they The point is the media. Well, the Monkeys were a total creation of media marketing, whereas.
Take advantage of the Beatles creation.
They're still playing their songs, Steve.
Are they. I don't believer. Yeah, well I'm not a believer that this will work in twenty twenty four. But okay, but that's my no.
I mean, now, was seven, I wanted to marry Davy Jones, and then when I was eight I was taller than him.
So let's turn to the next topic, which is, Okay, the other big event was the Democrats formally nominated Kamala Harris.
I don't know if you know this. There was a a session on the last day of the convention on how to pronounce her name Kamala?
Did they say Kamala me ding dong No?
I think I saw Steve there trying to throw that in, but he was quickly hustled out of the arena.
Yeah.
So, what do you guys think about the Democratic Convention? We think first, actually, what do you think of her speech and her the last day which was devoted to her Lucretia.
You know, I'm I'm not a good person to ask. I just find everything about her foul and despicable and disgusting in every other word you can say, I I do. So I'm gonna I'm sorry for this total, total sideline here, But I've told you guys before that I'm the elector at my church and if there's a new prese that comes in, he always thanks me. You know, you're the
best lector I've ever heard. Why because I've been a professor for forty years trying to keep students interested in Aristotle in the Federalist papers right when I read them. So I'm good at inflection. I'm good at you know, the just because of practice for a very long time. But not a lot of people are and they don't really have qualifications. So the advice that are that is given to people who are not necessarily good public readers is just speak very slowly and enansi eight every word,
and you know, the congregation finds that completely annoying. And I had the exact same impression when Commaluma ding Dong talked about how our dreams cackle, cackle, cackle. Uh, you know, it was just really annoying. Now that being said, she didn't lose it. She didn't cackle, she didn't screw up reading the teleprompter, she didn't screw up reading the speech that she did not write, that was written for her.
That's you know, that's not uncommon. By the time they got around to her, it was late, same as what happened with Biden. I'm to understand that because it was so late, James Taylor didn't get to sing, oh, what's this song? My friend?
You've got a friend, you got a friend?
Yeah, you know, the ultimate Kumbaya song. So he was not happy. And even without Beyonce, there wasn't time for James Taylor because too many people had to talk, and they talked too slow.
I think, well, and some of them were bad, like your Senator Mark Kelly was really a dud.
I mean, I told her he's a troll.
I don't yeah, all right, all right, all right, I got it. So, by the way, you know, early in the evening, I watched the whole evening and I kept hearing, Oh, they think Beyonce's here. I'm told Beyonce's here, and I thought, what a terrible idea to have Beyonce come. She would overshadow here. I think this was a bait and switch
on the part of Democrats. They thought that that's going to attract some of Lanni Oldsry I don't know who, but it's going to track more viewers to listen to the because if she had come, she would have overshadowed the speech because all the headlines would have been Beyonce highlights last evening with Campwar and Kambella Harris accept the
nomination and I would anyway. And then in the middle of or maybe it was right before, but beyonce spokesperson put out a statement saying Beyonce was never scheduled to come speak. I thought that was interesting, right in the middle of the events, right to talk about a diss uh.
Yeah, even as I think or maybe it was T would ever t T TMX. What's the tmzz our fault? We leaved that we were wrong.
Right, yeah, I think you know, but I think that was planted with TMZ because they're an outlet that would put the Okay, Look, what I thought about the speech was, I say a lot of things stylistically like Lucretia did. I thought there were four parts of substance that were notable. One is the attack on abortion, even though she distorted
badly Trump's position in the court case. I thought that she landed the line about the Republicans have lost their minds uh, and you know that got a big rousing cheer, and of course it's fan service. The other thing she said was Donald Trump is an unserious person. I think that's wrong. On the other hand, there's lots of things like his crazy tweets and stuff, which, as the old saying goes lens vermilicue to an otherwise unconvincing and bald narrative.
But then more interesting to me was she said Israel by name, no one mentioned Israel the rest of the entire convention because of their problem, and she said, and as she'd always said this, we'd say, gosh, we're going to give it to her. She said that we will always defend Israel's right to defend itself from attacks like October seventh. Then she might, of course she did all that. But the fact that she said that, I think no other speaker could have said that the Prophomaque people were
not going to boo Kamala Harris in her speech. They would have boot anybody else who said that. But then the other one was I don't know if you caught this, lucretia. She said the one word to use the I forget exactly the words, but the adjitive. I remember she said, the American military will, under me, will always be the most lethal fighting force in the world. Now, of course we doubt her sincerit, you know, and all the rest,
and you go through the substance. But the fact that she said that, I thought was curious.
Well, however, she certainly didn't think that's important though to some ex sense, Steve, I don't think she would have ever written that speech.
But but you're right, I don't disagree with you about any of that, But the point is what's on the surface sometimes, you know what did Strauss say? Sometimes it's the surface of things is the heart of things. She had to say that. And by the way, if a Republican says something like that, we could call the war mugger a neo con and you know, all, okay, right, I'll stop there.
Only Nixon can go to China. The other thing I'd add to that is that despite the demands from that creature, rush sheeted to leave and others that they have a pro hamas they said, prot pro hamas speaker of the DNC, resisted it and correct, you know, and even though the protesters outside created some havoc, caused you know what, seventy five million dollars it costs the city of Chicago to
sort of keep that all in line. Amazing how the stupid twit Kamalama ding Dong calls for defunding the police and rethinking policing and how many police did they have out there? But anyway, that the protesters really didn't do the damage that was being predicted to the you know, the the overall public face of the of the convention, you know, and and of course the media wasn't really great about pushing the narrative of the protesters. But I don't think that the protesters hurt much.
No, not.
They were a non story in the end, because they know they've got the potential for an ally in the White House of Kamalowins.
They're smart enough to think that. All the moss they're not.
Smart so well.
But here, Lucretia, I think it's two things I think are what happened here. One is the numbers were lower than expected. I think partly, Lucretia, it might have been that they got the word from George Sorow, Sendak Blue and others, don't screw this up. If you make a big fuss, you're going to help Elect Trump. Go ahead and protest. But the other part, John, I think is u and Lucretia is I do think and I heard stories about this, credible stories that the Chicago police had
organized to nip this in the bud. And all the clips I saw on YouTube, are on Twitter and elsewhere showed that whenever there was some little coterie protesters wanting to make trouble, there were a lot of police at the point of attack, and prevented it from getting out of hand early.
So I think they reimagined the police.
Oh no, no, they were in riot gear and in big numbers, and they they were. I think they prepared for this and figured out what they had to do. I mean, John, I mean, I think we've talked about this. I remember talking to people in the Chancellor's office at Berkeley after the milout Unanapolis riots and said, why didn't you send out under police inside Cellar Black Hall? They said, because we were outnumbered, and when you're out numbered it's bad for the police and everybody else. You have to
have a superiority of numbers and a tactical plan. They didn't have that in February twenty seventeen, and I think they learned from that at Berkeley and elsewhere. And so if you know what to expect, then nowadays I think police tactics have gotten a lot better.
And Okay, well, without taking us completely off track, I wonder if if what Steve said is true and the powers that be sores or never put that message out. Yeah. My understanding still our classes start next week, is that you know, universities all across the country have actionable intelligence that these protesters are going to be very serious. Have you heard that too, Yes, John.
I haven't gotten any special things, but you know, at the beginning of the year we usually don't get much of any messages. But we've gotten several messages from the chancellor and university administration about the right to free speech. We usually don't get those in the beginning of the year. I'm sure they're worried, but on the Berkeley hasn't been as crazy as most of the other colleges, So for
us it's just regular work. You got protesters, So you think you guys think putting aside the merits the substance of our policies, of which there were few. Do you think that she's actually doing their smart thing from her perspective, which is, don't talk about policy, just make it about personality. Right, the A lot of the speeches just went after I was surprised actually had the Obamas when at hominem at against after Trump, there's very little discussion of what policies
the Democrats would propose. But if they make the election all about Trump there, that's their path to victory. I guess that's the path of everything they think they have. So maybe they're doing the smart and of course you're going to say the press is helping them, and the press is helping them, but is this not the smart thing for them to do?
It's a twofold question, John. I think one is question is is it the smart thing? And the other is will it be successful? And the reason that I say that is you have to say absolutely it's a smart thing because A kamalamaeding Dong is the most unlikable politician since Hillary Clinton, no doubt about that. I mean, seriously, anybody that gets near enough to her dislikes her. Her aids. I mean, I guess Dougie doesn't, but I don't know. Maybe he does who I don't know. But she's a
very dislikable person. She's not a nice person, she doesn't treat people well. She's dumb as a board. She has an annoying voice, she has an annoying cackle, on and on and on. So it's smart to put her in absolutely scripted situations where she doesn't go off at all into her word salad, she doesn't go off into the cackle,
she doesn't say stupid things. And then the other part of that also is not only is the ugly, dumb, stupid, in every bad word that Lucretia can bring up from her large repertory of negative adjectives, every single one of them. She's also a far leftist who has a record both in the Biden Harris White House and as Attorney General, et cetera, of being a far left nut. The policies that she believes in are not the policies supported by most Americans. Now, one more thing, then I'll give it
over to Steve Was for some real analysis. But I you know, listened, of course to some of it's excuse me, probably Jesse Waters, but I don't remember for certain. Had people inside the convention talking to Kamala Kamalama Dingdong supporters, what's your favorite policy that Harris supports? Not one single person. Now, they probably edited the ones who had intelligence answers, I'm guessing.
But the fact that anybody who is a delegate to a Democratic delegate to the convention cannot give one single policy with which they agree that is supposedly a policy of Kamalama ding Dong's is really telling to me. So smart, yes, successful, It remains to be seen smart because there's no alternative that's why I say it go ahead, Steve, Steve.
Yeah, Well, look, the calculation here is because it's a short campaign, they think that she can what do the basement strategy essentially, and because we have what's seventy some days to the election, they may may be right. I don't think it will put it this way, if we'd actually had an open primary, either starting back in February, if Biden had dropped out when he should have, or if they have this sort of rapid fire mini primary after Biden dropped out six weeks ago, whatever it was,
I don't think she would have got the nomination. She could not have hidden behind an image of joy and vibes and all the rest of that. But with the cooperation of the media, they're going to try it now, and I don't think it will work, but it could. My hunch about this, though, is in this upside down year, Kamala had her convention bounce before the convention. She got all of her boosts, all of her surge, and the
polls happened before the convention started. I don't think she's going to get much of a statistical bounce that you'll see out of the convention over the next week. In the polls, especially with the RFK gambit today, which is going to royal things. Right now, the pole averages have a dead even with Trump with a slight edge in the battleground states. So he's still the favorite to win,
I think, And so we'll just have to see. I think the two things that now are the black Swan events, except now there have been so many black Swan events this year. Yeah, right, black Swans are not rare anymore. But the two black Swan events are the debate on September tenth. Who knows how that will go, And we can hold that for later and then run up to it and after it's over, we'll talk about it. But you can see that going a whole bunch of different ways.
And then second is Judge Mrchan going to sentence Trump to prison. I want to ask.
He's not. That's already clear, right.
He's not. No, he's already I mean.
The Trump give me correct me if I'm wrong, John. The Trump lawyers requested a stay of the sentencing. Yeah, rest continuance, that's the word I'm looking for. Until because all they really have to do now is go to a federal court and ask a federal court to take on those federal issues that came out of the Supreme Court case, and that when this is what I what I understand, John, again, correct me if I'm wrong. When the lawyers went to Merchant, Bragg did not fight that.
You have both the process acution and the defense asking Merchant to the licensing until after the election. That's my first question, Am I right?
So Fi?
So the uh yeah, the Trump You you haven't graded in law school lately. That's like an honors grade. So, uh, you're right in terms of what happened. The amazing thing is Bragg did not It's not that he didn't a post. He just took no position, which is quite shocking given how he was driving to get the whole case tried over the summer, which again reveals that the whole thing
was political and was meant to affect the election. Because if Trump was really such a threat to the public that he had to be tried over summer, why is he allowed out running around and not being sentenced right away too? So that part is true, and that the problem for Trump is that he can't really go directly to federal court to try to stop the sentencing or get it overturned. He has to work it up through New York State Court and then get to the US
Supreme Court there. So if Merchon and I totally persuaded that Murchon is trying to screw Trump over he wants to sentence Trump and not give him enough time to get up to the US Supreme Court to get the whole thing reversed. He should. If he were an honest sort of a full judge of integrity, he would know, having read the immunity decision, that the trial that he presided over is flawed now and he has to do
it over again. And so if he's not going to do that, then I think he, you know, he's gonna try to screw Trump over again, which would be the sentence him to jail, and then that would be yet another day or two of several days of stories. It would be another negative added onto Trump in the mind of independence. And if he's doing it in late September, there's not enough time to get to the Supreme Court
to get it to overturn. In fact, I believe absentee ballots in my home state of Pennsylvania become available two days before the sentencing. Yeah, Okay, so you're about half right. And then but the ability to go to federal court isn't really there so right away, so that gives Merchan.
Well, I mean, but even if he just appeals it through the New York state courts, doesn't that automatically delay him actually being jailed if.
He sends to Yeah, yeah, I think I don't. I mean, I think that what Merchan would do would sentence him to jail, but then say you're out during your appeals. But that still means, right that all the new stories facing a twenty year sentence, because remember the other thing Merchon allowed is that there's dozens of counts. Every time Trump wrote a check, they considered it an individual count,
which you're not supposed to do. But you add those all all up for seeing and Trump's, you know, facing a lot of jail time.
Let me ask a second question. Let's assume that that what I said actually turns out to be true, and that is that because Bragg did not complain, did not counter it, and Merchant looks at the situation, perhaps looks at the fact that every time he's done whatever he's done to Trump, he's become more popular as a result of it. And maybe he's not, you know, politically savvy to know.
Who is more popular with Republicans become more popular.
You know, that's true enough, but there are still you know, all of those Republicans for Kamala white guys for Kamala Medon. I digress. My second question is what if the sentencing, the sentencing itself is in fact continued till after the election and Trump wins. What I want interesting what happens then? And is there any what's what if Trump is sentenced to jail for a crime he committed in twenty seventeen, then.
What this is all?
You know, there's no certain legal answer because it's never happened before. But Trump would have to come in and ask for the sentence to be delayed until after he's done in office because it would interfere with his ability to perform his federal function as president. That would not normally, that would I'm trying to think that would not normally prevail if it was like an FBI agent, Right, if FBI agent gets convicted of some state crime, you don't get to say I stay out of jail because I'm
an FBI agent. But you know this is you need the president is unique. Right, The executive branch can't function if the president's at prison.
Yeah, I mean becomes president.
No, No, I mean Trump's still president unless he resigns or impeach. He's impeached, so he so.
It wouldn't be considered any ability to execute the office.
I mean, if he's sitting in prison, they could, they could bring the mobile White House Oval office with him and Rikers. And I hate to say it, but he might be safer in Rikers than he is under the protection of the Secret Service these days.
Well, he's almost We shouldn't be laughing, but it's funny, but it really isn't it.
Stee. Well, Look, I mean I my hunch about this is I can't believe I'm a radical incre on this point. I think I think Judge Merchon sees a chance for himself to me go down in history as the person who stood up and stopped Donald Trump by ordering him to prison, either ordering the prison right away or the delayed sentenceil after the election, at which point it becomes Russia hoax ten point zero right on steroids. And and that's why I think it's gonna happen. Annie McCarthy thinks that too.
And you know Andy Spring is so always wrong on his predictions.
Well, I don't know about that, But the point is the reasoning is I think this is I mean, I think merch on Seas has chance to go down. As you know, this great historic figure say.
Stuck at the Trump. Every time he's had a choice, exactly, he has never showed any mercy, never showed any good sense. Yeah, it's been a partisan. I mean he is an elected I mean the New York judges are elected.
And so you know, by the way, if Trump has to be will be frog March. Look, this is the great dream of the left, is Trump in an orange jumpsuit going to Rikers Island jail. And at that point, I mean the riots we thought might have happened if he'd been killed in Butler, PA might start after that happens. So that's your other black Swan event that may be looking at us in less than a month.
So the only thing I would add is I don't think I could see Merchhn sentencing Trump to a jail sentence, even though I don't think he should on the merits, I don't think he would order him to prison right away, because that actually would drive out the vote for Trump, you know, drive Trump votes for Trump. So the best thing from from his perspective, I think is sentenced Trump to jail, but he doesn't have to start serving the sentence. Yeah, okay, that just knocks him takes It knocks him down a
peg or two amongst independents. And I think, you know.
The fact that we can discuss this as supposedly intelligent adults is just and I don't that's not intended to be you guys, it's it's it's appalling.
That's what the that's what the New York court system has reduced us.
To the alternative universe, that's for sure. I do want to ask you, John, if you had a chance, for instance, to look at what the Republicans put together in their impeachment attempt failed, I guess you could really call it an impeachment attempt against Biden.
Yeah, let's discuss that for a second. Let me introduce that the So the House committee that've been investigating the Biden's issue to report recommending impeachment against Joe Biden. It's
it's interesting. So I did look through it quite I didn't look at it really carefully, but I did read through it is quite long, it does show, i think, a good grounds to investigate Hunter and Joe Biden's brother, and it does make out a good case that the Biden family did benefit from all these funds being funneled abroad by foreign governments and foreign corporations through Hunter and
Joe Biden's brother. It does ask this interesting question like how does the Biden family have all this money and houses and assets when no one seems to make a
living in that family other than influence peddling. Here's one interesting thing is much of this conduct occurs when Joe Biden's vice president, and so there's an interesting legal question which is the same one that came up with Donald Trump's second impeachment, which is can you impeach Joe Biden for things he allegedly did as vice president when he's
not vice president anymore. That's kind of interesting. And then a second question is they do try to make the case that Joe Biden could have committed impeachable offenses while he's president now by appointing people the Justice Department who allowed the investigation and charges into Hunter to be mishandled right. A lot of the things that he's that he was investigated for in this committee report. The Hunter was investigated
in this committe report. The Justice Department can't actually charge Hunter for because the statute of limitation lapsed. That the US attorney, this David Weise fellow in Delaware, did not bring the charges fast enough and so that you know, a lot of the things that the whistleblowers brought to our attention. You know, potentially twenty million dollars in payments to Hunter and his failure to report them, his failure to pay tax can't be brought because they're just too
long ago. That is just now once you could say, may that sharing confidence? The committee seemed to suggest no, that was in some way deliberate. And if it was deliberate, should Joe Biden be held responsible for it? It's interesting, there's an interesting these interesting lead questions. Certainly the ears
should be more investigation into it. And you can see if the Republicans keep the House, maybe win the Senate, and or Trump wins, you would see more I mean you would see you would see more investigation of it. I think it would be warranted from what's in that impeachment report.
Yeah, I haven't a chance to read any report however, I mean, Biden is already yesterday's news. I mean, is even still president. I mean, that's a serious question. However, there's one part of this that interests me. Part of the story about pushing Joe Biden out the door with Nancy Pelosi, Obama and whatever, is they told him that, Well, they told him two things. You can't win. Here's the data, now, Biden the wave. Obviously, I've got my own poll, damn you.
The other one was, it was reported to several places, is they told him, look, we have Camelo's agreement to invoke the twenty fifth Amendment. Except we talked about that several times on this podcast. I'm doubtful about that. Biden could resist that. I'm not sure the cabinet would have gone along with it. It puts camel in a tough spot.
But then the third thing you only saw reported one or two very sort of out there places, was that they passed along the word to him, we are going to step back from defending you and Hunter from the Republicans. In fact, we're going to expose more of than dirt and hand it to them. And so if you don't go, you're really doomed. I could have used the stronger word that lucretian anyway, And I'm sort of wondering this report, I mean, too bad it didn't come out a month
ago or whatever. Who knows, but I'm now wondering if that wasn't the final blow against Biden was Democrats saying, you know what, We're just gonna stand back and let Republicans set you and here is this report, which we'll see if they want to chase after. It kind of looks like to me, if Biden's gone and all the rest of that, I don't.
Know, sochiable do you think of it? What do I mean? Is it sort of yesterday's news? As Steve says, it's It would have made a difference that Joe Biden was still the candidate. But he's gonna, yeah, you know, leave ignominiously from office. So uh, maybe this was ended up being a waste of time.
No, I don't think that what I find appalling is not just the slimy, whiny little Republicans who refused to back an actual impeachment effort. I do think it would be absolutely critical at this point to move forward right now with impeachment because I do think that it needs to be sometimes you you you prosecute people in the general sense to make a statement, and I mean, yes exactly.
And so the idea that for all these years the Biden crime family got away with this, and and you know it's not just it's not just the fact that they that they got all of this money and so forth for selling influence. In many cases that influence was treasonous. What we know about the whole Ukraine situation, and then that Trump was impeached for it over a phone call. That's manipulation of our political system. That is just. It's that I have no words to describe how horrific it is.
And so from it doesn't matter what I think, because we know that not only do we not have any Democrats at all willing to, uh for even a moment, stand up for any kind of ethics or principle, but we have slimy Republicans unwilling to do so as well. So yes, it is from to agree with Steve something
of a point, which makes it yesterday's news. But you know, I think that Republicans should beat this drum beat and they should not worry about They should say, look, this isn't about about chasing down a poor, decrepit, old, corrupt pedophile. This is about cleaning up and making American, the American constitutional system the ideal of the world again, because right now it may as well be some corrupt third world
South American dictatorship. It's just that bad. The idea that they're going to talk about putting Trump in jail for what didn't happen and made up crimes and then looking at what's very clearly a pattern of decades long pattern of project corruption, undermining, undermining our constitutional republic, our foreign policy, and they're not going to do anything about it. You know, I have no words, that's all. I don't know what
to say about it. I almost given up. I had a little bit of hope in rfk's speech today, although he didn't address that correctly directly, he did say our government's corrupt, and he was. He made a very compelling case for it. Read it, John, when you get a chance, I think I think you'll find it compelling.
Okay, we'll take a look. I will take a look. So let's we're nearing the end of the hour, believe it or not, and so I know we go ahead. Would be uh well, uh thoughts, hopes fears for the new academic year. We're all three of us professors, and we're all on campuses, and we're about to open a new academic year. I publish my thoughts in USA Today today, and I sent the article onto Lucretian Steve, and hopefully
Steve will post him in the show notes. But basically made the argument that you are seeing an intolerance towards free speech in our law schools. There have been a number of stories of law school administrators turning down donations and programs from conservative donors who just want to have programs on free speech or invoking free speech rights. And this is apparently too radical for some of our law
school leaders. And so I put this little piece out there saying, well, if this is what's going on law schools, and these are the people we expect to be at the front lines of defending our constitutional rights, what is happening? But I would open up more broadly, what are you both looking forward to afraid of? Maybe or your general plans for this new academic year? Call this maybe this week should have called this the three whiskey Appy Hour back to School episode.
Well, you can do that a couple of weeks, Well, we can see what happens. I mean, I'm watching Columbia, which opens up the day after Labor Day, later than some schools do. Some schools are opening this week. Look, John, I thought so. First of all, you're being too modest as usual. Your article says we got a problem with the long term if our law schools teach a disrespect
for the Constitution. I was grabbing onto not the pre speech part, as much as your data about a lot of law schools that don't require teaching the Constitution to students. There I pause and say, I'm not sure I want them teaching the Constitution because they do such a bad job of it. Right, They might, they might, you know, I know they might even teach positivism. Joy leave that inside for today. But no, there is this problem, and this requires a longer conversation than we have time for today.
But I have been for several years now listening to administrators, presidents of colleges, and part of a task force I was on. Soy, Yeah, you know, we don't teach civics in high school and college at all, and that's why we have these free speech problems. And I always raise my hand. Actually I don't because it would be the hurt in the punch bowl. And what I always say is is, look, let's say let's have more civics instruction, and then you are handed as civics instruction the sixteen
nineteen project. The Constitution's obsolete, the country sucks, we're evil, we're bad, we're a slaveocracy. And then why should we expect students to respect free speech or you free expression? And so the problem is not now. I do think last point, I do think John, that the problem is least bad. That's a relative term in law schools for two reasons. One is law school is both academic but
also a professional program. You have a lot of conservative students go to law school because they want to be lawyers. They're going to be immune to all the crap that they're thrown at. And second, you have the Federal Society, which which is now really blossomed into this organized intellectual challenge to the left. In law schools, we don't have anything remotely like the Federal Society and other disciplines at the graduate or undergraduate levels. And that's a huge problem.
That's a long story. I've long said, can't we replicate the Federal Society for other disciplines, and the answer is no, it's harder for a whole bunch of reasons, but no one's really tried it. And plus it took the federal society you want thirty years to reach critical mass, and so it takes long term thinking and no one's been able to figure out a plan for that.
How is there not one in your guys, field and political theory where a lot of people who are drawn to it, I would think are instinctively conservative because they like reading old texts.
Well, well, they had a.
Lunch the other day, guys for deans to meet with new faculty. So I ended up talking to a new political scientists and blah blah blah, this and that. Yeah, well, so she studies indigenous policy making, you know, blah blah, gender blah blah blah. And what did you study, says I said, Well, you know, I got my degree in con law political philosophy in American institutions. And she says, political philosophy, you mean political theory And I said, well,
I said not really. She says, well, they don't even have political They didn't even have political theory at any of the schools that I went to. That's so First of all, it's not being taught, John, and political theory is crap. Sorry, excuse my language, Family show. It's it's sorry, it's game. Theory is probably the best that you get. Mostly, it's just it's just this turgid most it's awful stuff. Anyway, go ahead, Steve good.
Well, well, some other day, John Lucretian, I will walk you through the distinction that's crucial between political theory and politic philosophy. It is an actual serious distinction, and political theory is what dominates where they have it at all, and it's been taken over by the left.
And my students don't want to study it.
It's all right, Yes, that's right. They made it boring. I'm coming to a quick story about Harvard in a minute. What was I going to say about all that? Well, I forget now hard Harvard long story how this happened. But I was on a zoom call with a very eminent person I forget her name, it's but a very senior lady in political science at Harvard, and it was all about The subject was, well, we really shouldn't have
these outreach efforts to try and recruit conservative professors. So I intervened and I said, okay, Harvey Mansfield has just retired. He brought real diversity in the serious sense of the word to the Harvard's curriculum to the student body. Or is Harvard going to replace him with somebody like him? And there's a long pause, and she said maybe, and I said another other words, in other words, no, and then it changed the subject. So there's the problem right there. I think, I mean, we will.
But I would just say one thing John, you might find interesting, and that is that even Claremont political philosophy students understand that one of the most important call it avenues or venues into American political thought, American political thought, American political Yeah, that's the right word, American political thought is constitutional law.
Yeah.
It's actually the legal profession in a serious way. So you will find, in my opinion, most of the really good political political philosophy professors scholars, at least at some point in their career, embracing also the study of constitutional law. And so I thought you might find that interesting. And they tend to be conservative, not always but.
Well, or they're non leftists, like our great teacher Leonard Levy, right, who's now you know, we've gone thirty plus years, so John, I mean, and actually our friends in the political science department at Berkeley, which is ranked number five in the nation sort of center I won't say left, but sort of centered liberal, and you know a lot of them have said to me, and maybe they've said to you, Yeah, we used to have a really strong public law program,
which meant what Lucreati's talking about, and now we don't anymore. That's true everywhere it has vanished. I've actually it's one of my many unfinished projects is doing a serious actual quantitative analysis but then qualitative analysis of the decline of public law in undergraduate and graduate political science and why
that's bad, including for law schools. Because I'll just declare this and we can talk about it at some length later, that the sort of public law people in law schools talk and write and think differently than the public law people, say fifty sixty years ago. And then I'll just say, I'll put Jack Balcon. I'm ninety nine point nine percent of our readers will not know who he's talking about. You probably know Jack, right, was he? Yeah?
Jack Balk.
I will take Jack balk interesting guy, but his mode and writing and is completely different from say Edward Corwin or mcilwaine from the nineteen fifties, or Martin Diamond or any of the conservatives we can think of. And that's actually significant. But that's a long, long story. Someday maybe I will write.
And we will go through. Maybe we'll talk about it some more later.
Yeah, that'd be fun.
So what about I thought you guys, well Steve briefly alluded to it, whether you think that we're going to have a lot of protests on campus this, yes, appreciate it's going to happen. Yeah, what's gonna happen in Arizona.
Well, they came out today with one of your free namby Pamby free speech sort of die vibes. It was just offensive. It was it was weak, and for that reason it was offensive. However, I'm told by the people that I'm very close with who are actually responsible at the very basic sense for public safety on campus, that they are expecting the intelligence that they're expecting some pretty serious attempts at protests or doing everything possible to prevent
that from happening. And by the way, my little college is helping with that. And I'll just leave it at that. But I don't want to be like Waltz's scumbag daughter and letting the protesters know that the National Guard won't be there for a couple of days. You know, I'm I'm hoping, I'm hoping that it's going to be too hot. It's one hundred and ten in Tucson, so who knows. Maybe.
And actually one of the one of the triggers for law enforcement step in is watching somebody walk to the quiet area with a big old thing of water, you know, bottles of water, a big case of bottles of water on their on their shoulder. They will immediately go and find out what that person is doing and redirect them.
But anyway, yeah, but my prediction, my prediction is the left is going to try to shut down Columbia University and is a smaller place than you know, Arizona, Berkeley, UCLA.
But I think that's that's the place I'm watching in Columbia. That's the canary in the coal mine.
Yes, okay, well we will have a very interesting show. Actually, next weekend is Labor Day weekend. I don't know if we'll do anything special that will be I'm going to be Steve and Lucretia, whether we're going to have a special Labor Day episode and what we'll be doing on it.
But well, I'm going to be in Reykiavik, Iceland next weekend, although I should be available.
But what really, Maybe you'll you'll run into my friend who I met and remember a few years ago. I was transitting through Frankfurt airport, so I just heard the sound of my voice. And since she was said he was a big Lucretia fan. Turned out he was from like Sweden or Norway, one could have been Iceland. It was one of those Nordic countries where I'm sure Lucretia has a humongous following.
Careful, you know, be careful.
And Iceland, well right, yeah, Lucretia, you have any interesting Labor Day plans, anything to anything to meet the high standard set by Steve going to Iceland. No pickled fish in your Labor Day future.
No, I actually don't celebrate Labor Day because it's a Communist holiday, guys, true, too true. I just I take the day off because I need a day off, but I don't celebrate anything about it. I drank to forget my woes and I am ready whenever you guys are.
Yeah, I go ahead, give us some bees.
I do want to just mention that I thought it was hilarious the whole billionaire thing going on at the DNC convention, where Oprah of all people, has the unmitigated gall to talk about income inequality and Michelle Mike whatever her name is Obama talking about how you should only have what you need growing up. And you know how many mansions do they have, including one where they have no business having one, which is in Washington, d C. But that's a different story. We could have talked about
the convention all day long. I have all sorts of to say about it, but I'm going to start with this one, which is, oh no, DNC abortion bus breaks down and four babies get to live.
Another one about a person wait accidentally, never mind, I don't remember now I.
Might see it, Steve when you get to it.
I do want this one.
Trump adds a Kennedy in hopes he will draw all the snipers. That's a little wrong, so disappointment as special d n C guest turns out to be carrot Top. Democrats encourage supporters to go to the polls by telling them Beyonce will be there. Yeah, it's pretty good. You have to. Oh, no, man at d n C thinking he was in line for food truck accidentally gets vasectomy.
That's the one I was remembering, right, Yeah. I think my question was at the next d n C in four years, we're going to have an assistant suicide truck. I mean it seems to be the direction we're going.
Yeah, absolutely, I think it's a good one. Oprah surprises d n C attendance with free gift under each seat. You get your own free level illegal immeric. You get your own free illegal immigrant. You get your own free illegal immigrant.
Yeah.
I actually have never ever, ever watched a single episode of Oprah, so I only know that from some cultural references. And let's see, the final one was, oh sorry, I lost it. You're gonna have to go without me on this one? Oh too many?
Oh yeah, well the week like this? Yeah?
So John, well, Steve, do we have a sign off? Have you run the contest amongst the listeners?
I haven't.
I've got to somehow promote that more. I haven't gotten any good suggestions. I will if we want to escape, let's go, Brandon said, he's gone.
Yeah, that doesn't make any sense.
You know I always drink your whiskey neat, but I do think I'm going to use this at least for this week. Joe Biden left us with a bit of wisdom in his farewell speech the other day. He pointed out that the women of America have electrical power. To hear that electrical power, here's the electrical power embodied by Lucretia, and so many of our listeners are female listeners.
Bye bye, everybody, oyebye, see you next, bye.
Bye.
I'm thinking it's his time with the freckles.
In our eyes are mirror ilicious, and when we kiss there perfectly. I have to speculate that God sucks make uss into corresponding shapes, blake puzzle pieces. Fund True, it may seem like a stretch, but it starts like thisiness. Catch my trouble head when you're away, when I am missing, You're out there.
For several weeks and shows.
Will you scam lady? I hope this song would guide you. They see swa such.
Trying to make the past time ricochet. Join the conversation.