Well, whiskey, come and take my pain. Honeys my ry, oh whiskey. Don't why think alone when you can drink it all in with Ricochet's three Whiskey Happy Hour, join your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John, You and the international woman of mystery, Lucretia where the lapped it up? And David, ain't you busy on the show? Tap you gotta giving? And let that whiskey flo It's the three Whiskey Happy
Hour with your three bartenders. I had a Gen and tonic earlier because I am dehydrated from flying on airplanes all day from Mississippi. More about that in a moment. But Hi Lucretia, Hi John, what are you guys using to celebrate the end of the week with the.
Task of a monteato? Ha?
Right right? And John, you're still doing a lot of media tonight, so you probably can't enjoy your show on TV.
So I'm contrary to what people believe, I am not drunk when I'm on TV. Well, you know, maybe on this podcast.
Yes, well you know. I think I have told the story before of getting advice from a well known public speaker never to have a drink before you're doing a public appearance, and it was PJ. O'Rourke of all people, right, a man for whom there was no illicit substance. He hadn't tried, right, He was.
Like to be smoked, didn't he like smoke during things?
And well, yes, smoking is different than drinking. He said, don't drink before you speak. And you know he's the guy who hung out with Thompson. Right, So it's.
Smoking doesn't do anything to alter your state of mind.
Well, wait a minute, nicotine is good for that. You know that you were a smokerlone.
No, no, no, no, you don't get any kind of You don't get the effects of an aberration. You don't get hallucinogenic effects. You might get just a little bit.
Of a why bother?
Then why bother?
Because first you get a kind of energy you get at the same time you get calming effects from it. You know my great story about the priest at Lent who's coming back at two o'clock in the morning, the worst part of Chicago, middle of winter, and some guy sticks a gun adimsy, just give me your wallet. So he opens up his overcoat and and it sees that the robber sees his collar and uh, he said, oh, oh, father, I'm so sorry. I had no idea. You're a priest.
Don't put your wallet back. Put your wallet back. And the priest reaches in for his cigarettes and offers the robber a cigarette, you know, because you're nervous and it calms me down. That's the point. And of course the punchline is it's supposedly a t too story. The punch line is, oh no, no, no, I gave those up for lent.
Doesn't get it, I know, even though he even though he went on Episcopal press school and a million years ago. Yeah all right, well, but but.
The point is Robert versus smoking. Never mind, I have to explain it to you.
There is research showing that nicotine sharpens your concentration. I think. I think it's right, really yeah, I think. But it's not something that you feel, well, well okay, I don't know.
No, no, I mean, it's just it's not mind altering, is what I'm trying to tell you. You don't get that kind of anything from it. I smoked for a long time. I know this.
Yeah, well, okay. All I know is when I see people smoking, especially Europeans, so that just looks so great. I wish it wasn't so bad for.
You or stunk so much. Yes, right, you've probably anybody who's ever watched us on YouTube knows that I have a very hard time keeping my hands still when I talk, and having a cigarette made it very simple.
I'm just I think someday we'll look back and say the barbarack, like we used to take weeds and burn them in our mouths, and for centuries it seems bizarre. Actually we think.
Well, I don't know. I don't know if if I've told the story on our podcast or not. LUCREATI Jull can tell me. But I remember seeing Alan Bloom at Claremont paired with James Buchannan right after Buchanan had won the Nobel Prize. So here you have the famous Nobel Prize guy and Bloom the now monster best selling author. And Bloom was making fun of the Chicago guys. He ran circles around Buchanan on his panel. It was amazing,
but it's like nineteen eighty eight. I would say, you can still smoke in the lecture halls in Claremont at that time. But Buchannan was talking about sorry, Bloom was doing his usual flamboyant routine about you know. Now at Chicago, I used to go listen in on these seven hours of Milton Friedman and Frank Knight, a really famous guy earner than that, who Bloom was very close to, and Hiak and all these people. And he says, and I always say to me, Bloom, if you're so smart, how
come you're not rich? And Bloom pauses, takes a big drag on his cigarette and says, well, I am. Now the whole room busts up right. I highly recommend it to everybody. Way bega cigarette around, ashes flag everywhere.
I will tell you that more than once, Steve I I bummed a cigarette in class from Peter Shram.
Oh I'm sure, yes, right, because Shram could ever read without a cigarette. And sadly that's partly why yeah years ago, so right right, yeah, Well, a couple of little chotskis to show you, guys, one just for you and then one for listeners and viewers, all ten viewers. Maybe I got from United Airlines today my official two million mile plaque to put up on my shelf. Two million flight This is stupid. I have too many of these things. I can't I don't like chotskis like this, but it's
still nice. They sent me this thing. And but more important than that, you know, we've been talking about this and I did a sample press run of the three Whiskey Happy Hour coffee mug, and there it is.
I don't think it's too beautiful.
You don't want it too colorful? Well, you don't like the black and white you want? Well, all right, but I think i'll say this about it. It is up. It's not a decal, which means it's dishwashers safe. You know, a lot of coffee mubs are decal stuck on and they won't last ten times in your washing machine. This is actually, you know, imprinted on it. And well, I'll tell you what, John, I'm gonna post this up and see who you get.
Out like a black and white sketch kind of thing. Well that was having that garish multi colored that's like what like this a multi colored dream code or something from some bad seventies Broadway musical.
Appreciate who side are you want here? I mean, what is wrong with John here? This is a great logo, that's fantastic.
I don't know if I like it with the red on the inside. Because it doesn't match. But okay, anyway, I think it probably doesn't matter either. You're gonna pick it up because.
You know you're loyal. You know it's for I won't send you one then John back with you. You know.
I want there to be some like small secret symbol that only people in the note will understand.
What.
Well now, okay, well I'm toying with that idea too. I mean, we can have more than one. You can have just a little thing that says three w h h the people who know no, right, and that's like a secret handshake. So all right, no you're not.
Okay, so you got you two million miles. By the way, the US Army awarded me the let's it called Meritorious Public Service Award for something incredible service to the US Army.
And during a government shutdown this happened. That's important.
They yes, they it was very interesting. It was Wednesday and a lot of the I mean all the all the green suitors there, the salad suitors who are obviously they're paid unpaid, working unpaid, but they had gotten paid on Wednesday.
But all of the.
Civilians and the commanding general told me that he I said, I can't believe you guys are doing this now, why didn't you just wait? He says, it's too important and we had to give it to you right away. So anyway, I was trying to share the picture, but it doesn't seem to work with the way you have the authority sometimes nowhere course, But anyway, the interesting thing is the metal is like a meritorious service award that the that a soldier would get, and the way the metal comes
to me. I get a nice plaque and everything, but it came in a nice little box with a medal for my you know when you see the generals and all of their one of those one to go on my blue my dress blues, and one to go I mean absolutely nothing that I ever. You know, I'm not in the army, so I don't actually wear army uniforms. But that's what I got, three different medals for the purpose of the different uniforms that I don't wear anyway, So there you go.
Okay, Well, so I thought what we do this week is put off a couple of headlines till later in the show and talk about something that I think, at least I think it's a sensation that may have some legs. And also I was in Mississippi all week. Let me just say give a shout out to the University of Mississippi and the Declaration of Independent Center. By the way, many of whom are listeners to our show. They're a
fantastic bunch at a great time. I gave a lecture series that's going to I think become a book soon called Against Mediocrity. That's the working title anyway. Now Lucretia will mock me right away saying, how nevermind, I won't finish that slur anyway. So I wasn't following the news that closely this week, But what has been on my mind for ten days now is this article by Helen Andrews called the Great Feminization that appeared on Compact. And
there's a backstory to this very briefly. Helen was until recently the editor of the American Conservative magazine and she was fired and the magazine's gone weird. And we'll leave that story for another time. But I think she's very talented and Lucretia, you remember we interviewed her a couple of years ago at the Philadelphia Society about her book. Yeah, about her book Attacking Baby Boomers, which I love because I'm a self loathing baby boomer, and I think he's
very bright and very talented. And the article really is the adaptation of a speech she gave John. Yeah, you may not follow this at the latest National Conservatism Conference. Now, most of those speeches, they put them all up on YouTube, and most of them get a thousand, two thousand views. For some reason, her speech the Great Feminization went viral and it's up to something like one hundred and fifty thousand views. So that's clearly totally different from the other.
And you know they have famous people of that Jadie Vance, you know, Peter Thiel, but Helen has been the big breakout star of this last meeting. So the Great Feminization, you might guess for the title is it's an attack on feminism. And how is that new, because you know, people like Christina Hoff Summers and others have been doing this for thirty years. But let me share with listeners, and I will post a link to her compact article,
but let me post the listeners. There's a few sentences from it, and then I'm a lot tossed to depreciative because of course, the chief advocate for appealing to the nineteenth Amendment. This is her Bailey Wick, right, But the point is he's saying, you know, people say WOKERI is, you know, cultural Marxism, almost leftist dogma. And she says that that's all true. But she says, I think it's actually feminism and not feminism the ideology. But too many
women in high places. She's that blood about it. Okay, here's a few samples for listeners that I think we'll convey the whole article early on. All cancelizations are feminine. Cancel culture is simply what women do whenever there are enough of them in a given organization or field. Everything you think of is wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine, empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition.
Wokeness is not a new ideology, an outgrowth of Marxism, or a result of post Obama illusionment. It is simply feminine patterns of behavior applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently. And here, John, I'll call
on you for this next part because very germane. A much more important tipping point is when law schools became majority female, which occurred in twenty sixteen, or when law firm associates became majority female, which occurred in twenty twenty three, and she goes on through other feels like medicine and corporate management, and then John says, this the field that
thrightens me, that frightens me most is the law. All of us depend on a functioning legal system, and to be blunt, the rule of law will not survive the legal profession becoming majority female. Lucasia, I'll let you have first spite at all this.
Well. I actually think that her strongest argument is in the area of law, and because she goes on in a little more detail and talks about how the rule of law, to put it over, simplified, been replaced by feminist feminine empathy and rather than you know, color blind blind justice and the rule of law carrying the day,
it's empathy. I have to feel sorry for this criminal because of the root causes, and you know, on and on and on, And I think there's a lot to be said for that observation, and I do think that it is also very very uh e bodes for a lot of danger, I think for the entire criminal justice system and the law in general. So I think that's a really strong one. Before I go on, let me just let John speak up and see if he has any thoughts on this or if he's too afraid to say anything because he still has.
No I mean, I I wasn't persuaded by the article. So for some two reasons.
One is.
I'm not sure. I mean, you guys would know the literature better than me, but I don't. I don't know if I agree with the idea that women all think one way and not all, but you know, in general as a group, is her point. Women think in this sort of non rule of walwegh, and men think in a rule of lawwegh. I've met if you look at the justices on the Supreme Court. I mean, you know, you have some women on the Supreme Court who today who you know, probably like balancing more. But there's a
woman in the majority who doesn't. And I don't think and certainly these divides were on the Supreme Court when they were all men. I don't I don't think they're but you know, I you know, she referred to a book that was allegedly what it was about like primitive men, and said like men were warriors and women who fought and tried to take resources from, you know, the hostile environment, and women were at home and fighting each other over resources.
I just don't.
I think that's a thin read to make these broad generalizations that men and women think so differently in a professional setting. That just hasn't been my experience in the law. And then the second thing is, suppose she's right that women and men in law or these other professions do think fundamentally differently. It still doesn't. It could be you know what you call you know, they call it an independent variable problem. There could be something else causing changes
and institutions. And so maybe the law changed in a certain way first, and then women started going into law because the law had changed already because of something else. If I was to attribute these problems, it wouldn't because of gender. I think it would be because of race. I think it's been this corrupting influence of affirmative action in particular that change law schools and change the nature
of the legal profession. Because if you are determined that you to have a certain percentage of minorities or any groups in law school, regardless of their relative merits in terms of testing grades and so on, then you have to start eliminating grading systems, and you have to make the classroom less tough, because the tougher it is and the more grades you are, that it's going to be more obvious who should be there and who shouldn't. And
I think that process is not gender related. I think it's a corrupting effect on that affirmative action and its attack on merit has had in the law. That's what I saw, not that there were more women in my law school classes. That caused a lot of my colleagues, for example, to give up on teaching class in the Socratic method. I still teach class and the Socratic method.
I mean, people are shocked when I described, you know, I call on basically one student for the cases for a whole class, and I ask the questions the whole time. People seem shy. That's the way it was when I you know, that's the way law school was when I graduated. I don't think it was the presence of women that changed most colleagues to start using the you know, lazy undergraduate method you two favor, which is just lecturing to the students and going on and on and then let them message.
So many of our classes. But I don't necessarily disagree, But I think you're doing the same thing that she's guilty of, which is attributing all of these things to a kind of single, uh causation. And I actually think it goes deeper than that. I think that all of these things are effects causing further effects. But I mean, I think it's that the rule of law was destroyed by say, uh, what's it called critical legal theory, the idea that there is no rationality to the law that
there is. You know that it's impossible, for instance, for a judge to be either in deciding a case or deciding some kind of appellate issue, to be rational and objective in all of those things. It's just impossible that according to critical legal theory. And once you have conceded that, which of course is an outgrowth itself of progressivism, then it becomes very easy to adopt things like affirmative action
and critical race theory and feminist empathy. That part I had to agree with her, whether again it's a cause er and effect. It's one of the reasons why I have a really hard time stomaching women most of the time. There's a few that I can they're wonderful your wife, for instance, Steve Janice Rogers Brown. There are others, but these touchy feely women who watch the hall Mark channel the View, the View. Yeah, and so there's something to what she's saying, and there's also something to what she's
warning against. Again, Steve's gonna post this. But when she calls it that it was done by social engineering, that this sort of initiative was feminist initiative was forced on us by social engineering, I think it's kind of the opposite. That social engineering had these goals and feminism was one of the things that helped it get there. But I do think that her her analysis of the workplace is
not altogether inaccurate. You know, think about it. You really can't have pinups, and you can't you can't tell dirty jokes, you can't. What you can't do is create an unsafe environment or a a hostile workplace. You know, I've told the story many times. When I was a graduate student, more than one professor had a slightly insulting, slightly affectionate
both nickname for me. Tricksy's right, they called you tricksy. Oh, I'd want to call me bright eyes, you know, just you know, just things like that.
I mean like like the Monkey and like the Monkey and the movie like right, yeah, okay, it's not affectionate, that's insulting.
Well, they might, and I'm sure that in many cases it probably was intended to be insulting. My point is is that I guess, you know, I could have gone crying to the to the provost or the dean or something and say, oh, but you know, I'm a little tougher than your average female. In case you didn't know that we were wondering, you know, that was an open question.
But we should we should we be kicking Should we be kicking you off the podcast?
Now? If I take article, Yes, yes you should. I know, because I'm much more I'm much more on the manly side than our good friend David french Is. We'll come back to that. Let me let me come back. Let me give you one other thing. When I was in graduate school at Davis, my PhD advisor, if I was going to get a cup of coffee, would not allow me to bring him a cup of coffee.
Oh is that Larry Peterman?
Yeah, okay, absolutely, why exactly why because that would have been uh gender, you know, outdated gender roles, and it would have been you know, advancing some notion of female inferiority and blah blah blah. And I was forty years ago, so it's not like this happened yesterday. But but it is different. You mentioned Charles Murray earlier to me, Steve.
One of the most amazing things that I heard in person from Charles Murray, again probably forty five years ago, was talking about the legally defining and punishing sexual harassment and all of the difficulties attendant to that, which you know she talks about as well. Here too, the idea that females believe everyone who says I've been sexually assaulted has to be believed, et cetera, et cetera. But Charles Murray said something really interesting. He said, you know, there's
always been women in the workplace. They've always been subject to the boars and the you know, the crude guys, the guys with no class, et cetera, et cetera. What happened in the old days. They didn't go to HR and say I mean sexually harassed. They went to their they went to their brother, They went to their father, and the father showed up and punched the guy in the face and then it was over with.
Well or oh yeah, this is sorry.
Charles Murray said, go, yeah, well, I mean.
Actually, this is what my mother and mother My mother, well, my mother and my mother in law both said the same thing. They didn't have to go to boyfriends or brothers because my mother's case, she didn't have a brother, just had a sister. My mother's in the workplace, as was my mother in law in the late forties. You're working for lawyers or something, and they would occasionally get frisky and pinch you on the bottom, and so what they do you can't run to HR, they slap them
and then it never happened again. Now I mentioned this. I remember I got in trouble for this ten years ago when I was at Colorado and I said, you know, the problem with all these bureaucracies is, you know, if there's some bad behavior at a frat party over the weekend and you run to HR on Monday, that's a bad remedy because then now it comes a bureaucratic, drawn
out thing. I said, women should just slap some guy who's out of line and the oh and I was on an NBR station that was another mistake I made. The eruption was unbelievable. I had faculty saying, this crazy conservative professor is advocating violence, And my response was, I thought self defense was a basic principle of lockey in liberalism. Have we lost that completely?
Right?
But anyway, that's where we are. That was the old remedy and it worked, and now that we want to make it some kind of process, it doesn't work worth a dog, no.
But did you rather have so one? I think David French has a good point, which is it's got to be the case that our society is better off with the large number of women we have in the workplace today and in the you know, opportunity, higher levels of the jobs they can have than it was, you know, pre nineteen seventies. Mean, I just think that's undeniably better for our society that half the population can now be fully part of the workplace.
It's not too well, all.
Right, go ahead, let John.
Enharmis under you have ununi, you have underutilized resources in our population. If half the people are going to be subject to discrimination various kinds, it keeps them out of different jobs. I mean, it's like it's just better. It's more productive for society for everybody too, So that's one I think he's right about that. Well, I want to
hear your counttercase two. If you are going to start having large amounts of women in the workplace, then you are going to have a lot more friction between the sexes. And I'd rather have rules that might be legal rather than people slapping the crap out of each other left and right. Okay, you're just going to have larger numbers of these interactions. Unfortunately, you're going to have to have more rules. And I don't think that you know, relying
on minor violence kid. I mean, maybe it worked when there were less women in the workplace, but we're going to fifty percent of the workplace pe women. I don't think that that that's a that you can run a system that way.
And both women have to change behavior. I'm just going to say that I'm going to let you Steve, But in both cases you have to change behavior. Which one works better? And that's the question. You've changed people's behavior. I never accused my PhD advisor of treating me like a sex slave or anything like that, but at the same time, he was already completely conditioned to the idea that you can't let your graduate student get you coffee because then you'll be a sexist, you know, patriarchal pig
change behavior. How best to do it?
Go ahead, Steve, I'm well so, first of all, so John, I don't think anyone disagrees with your basic point that we now have a lot more talented women in the workplace whose talents are not used that may be their highest and best use. However, I think the real cause of that was not feminism. You know, this is all glural power and his whole business has grown up as a feminist resolution revolution values. No, it was the washing
machine that made this possible. I actually mean that literally. Well, the washing machines a metaphor, right, and look up someday this wonderful video by the Swedish demographer named Hans Rosling, and it's about the washing machine, and it's about how liberated women and that's what made so. By the way, if you point out that it is technology that has made it possible for women to enter the workplace to a feminist, they go absolutely berserk out of their minds.
They hate that idea, right, So that's point number one before.
One can I just illustrate that point. I used to tell my students reading the part in Jefferson in the Notes on the State of Virginia where he says it is civilization alone which has brought women into the enjoyment of their natural equality. And I would tell them exactly what you just said, which is before technology, before civilization, and that you know, there's more to it than just the technology part. But I'll keep it to your analogy. I can. I can come home and cook dinner for
my family after working a ten hour day. Why because hominos no, no, no, actually cook a dinner. Because I don't have to go kill a chicken. I don't have your you know, and I don't have to feed them at four o'clock in the you know. There's all of these things.
It's not just technology though, because there are lots of countries to day which have access to that technology don't have the same level of women in the workforce. So we do although the same amount of right opportunities and ability to be professors or.
For women.
Well, now wait a minute, John, that's an interesting point. If you go to let us say more patriarchal societies, say in the Middle.
East, like Pakistan or likes like South Korea and Japan, although Japan just had its first right female ministry. Right, but if you talk to people in those countries, which are you know, technologically maybe even more events in ours, they have very few women at the upper echelons society organized that way.
Well, well, this is going to get us too far off on a tangent. But I think if you look at places like Pakistan, you'll find that smart talented women go into the sciences, they don't go into gender studies.
And there's something we said about all that that's a that's a lot of story with that. Yeah, I think it's a combination of both. And I just don't I don't see what country would you rather be than.
Us in this world?
Then?
Well think about that.
I mean, I think it's better here has imperfection, it has imperfections, But right, which country is actually better in terms of balancing having more movement in the workplace?
Right?
I mean we have maybe gone to we went too far with wokeism, but I think the basic rules are good for everybody, men and women, and it's been.
Let me point to the second as Let me second point of the second aspect of why I think the story is important and why this debate. We can go back to this, by the way, in future episodes. Here's my analogy. You know, I'm baiting Lucretia here and see John. I think this is starting to remind me of Ed Meese in the late eighties picking the fight over rigial intent. Now, if the left and the legal academy had ignored him,
it might have gone away. Instead, you had Supreme Court justices and law reviews and prominent people freaking out and saying, oh, this is terrible, we can't and that ignites a debate on original intent or originalism that the left lost. So it's not just David French. Hold on, he said, what is it to be? Well, here's the point is her article has elicited a huge response from the left. And then you know David French, who say he's a conservative. He's in the New York Times. His article is we
have met the enemy of civilization and it's women. Hold that for a moment. A lot of smart lefties like Matt Iglesias and others saying, no, this is terrible, this is ridiculous. Is this is where the right is going? This is awful? There a couple of people have actually chimed up and said her article could have been more substantive. And here's some journal articles with the typical peer reviewed statistical analysis to show some important statistical differences between men
and women that are relevant. So the point is, I think she's touching off bait. So there's David French, and I just I'll end with this and let you take it from here. Lucas, you got a little hand of me on this. She provoked. See, I actually did French. She is pretty good. That's a good slip. David French's column we have met the enemy of a civilization, that's women. It provoked Charles Murray to a tweet. And you know, Charlie, you know Charles, he's a pretty mild mannered guy. Here's
what his tweet said. I am still waiting to read something by David French that doesn't irritate me. Even when I agree with the substance, The sanctimony drives me nuts. Amen, that's mindsert continue with Charles in this case, I wholly disagree with his take on Helen Andrews.
Uh.
You know, Charles brings a lot of batistics and learned social reflections to these kind of debates. I think this is the beginning of something. I host the beginning of something, and it's it could get wild and wooly. But who thought that?
This?
All I know is law, So I mean the legal profession all that well, in this period where this has allegedly been happening, originalism has arisen. Right, if this started in the seventies, this is actually during this period where women were allegedly weakening standards in the law and introducing all this huggy, touchy feely stuff in the law. Actually, that's the same period where originalism has kind of driven out all this stuff from the Warren Court, which is
where a lot of these attributes happened. And we have a conservative Supreme Court. We've overturned the Harvard Harvard overturned right back right, we overturned roversus. I mean, I don't understand where all this corruption is occurring. When to me, during the same time period where this is allegedly happening, I think the legal profession from our perspective, has vastly improved from the way it was before. I don't know, what do you want to change it back?
What do you want to change it to there.
You brought her up as an example of someone who's not some whiny cry baby feminists.
I didn't say.
So. The other three are, okay. Remember what she said about January sixth that no, excuse me, I take it back about George Floyd that she and her eight children held hands, cried and prayed because they were all so empathetic about what happened to George Floyd. If that is not he was all I'm sorry that a drug addicted felon violent criminal died an unfortunate death. I would certainly didn't discuss it holding hands with my children and cry about it.
Well, but you know, Lucretia John has a bit of a point here. I can't be a reaction. Well, no, we have. There are a lot of great originalist female judges, our friends, Edith Jones, Alice Batch Elder, there's Janice Rogers Brown, right.
Remember she says that. Helen says that, you know, it's just like I'm a better shot than you two, even though I think men are mostly better shots than women are.
Wait, you never that is that is that has not been proven. There you go with your touchy feeling, non fact based.
Reality because you are too afraid to challenge me.
I just believe in automatic weapons. You don't have to be a good shot, just spray everything with bullets.
I think originalism is a reaction to this stuff. It's an attempt to say empathy has no place in a courtroom. It might have some place in a pardon, but it has And maybe a judge at the end of the day looks at a woman who uh lit the house on fire when her husband after beat her senseless, uh God, because he was drunk, and and she lights the house on fire and burns him up and burns him to death.
If the judge wants to have a little bit of empathy for a situation like that, that's not what I would call well feminism.
Let me restate the thesis and then move on to another topic, which is uh. I'll put it this way. My thesis is she's touched off a debate that may go somewhere.
Uh.
And second, this is why.
I don't understand. I don't think so because I don't see what is supposed to change. Well, all right, let me it's an I legal perfision. What would we change?
Well, let me do with her.
You would like sell and I have quotas on women and the.
How associates, Well, you put you mentioned, you mentioned it, John, we go back to the aggressive socratic method of classroom teaching, which a lot of not just women actually but the men who've been feminized object to. But the second point is this is an argument that you couldn't say five years ago.
Ah, and now I've heard people argue about this in the law for a while now because it was a big women become a majority of the law schools, and people do talk about it.
But but now it's breaking up her opening salvo. Remember what that was the Summers making the comment that there's, you know, some actual biological differences between men and women, And what's the reaction. It's not somebody pulling out their their med cat M cat scores or you know, this is my research and it's Oh my god, I ahs fainted. Oh I was so upset. Oh my god. That is just a perfect microcosm of modern academia, feminine academia. Let me, I'm so upset you said I wasn't equal.
What do we get our ai parody? Let me let me add it this way for listeners who don't know lucretions referring to Helen begins the article by recalling the firing of Larry Summers for saying, was it twenty years ago now that there may be a difference in aptitudes and dispositions about math and science between men and women? That is statistically true? And for that the Harvard faculty voted no confidence and the Board of Overseers with the Board of Governors forced him out as president. I'm not
sure that would happen right now. Maybe it would. I thought Howard Somers was kind of a coward for surrendering so easily, But.
I'm not would say it either.
Well, he wouldn't say it he in a normal lot of other people. But now maybe people will see, all right, look, let's have some fun with other stuff, because there's some fun stuff in the news this week, not so much about issues and you know, legal issues. John. But first of all, well, I don't know, we want to spend a lot of time on this. But last weekend we had the great No Kings rallies, and I want our team to have a No Parliament's rallies. That's a response
No Kings. I don't know. I mean, you have any guys, have anything you want to say about all that spectacle. It's just the usual protest that Trump is president and so what butter Joan Biez concert. Okay, that's good, right, but more interesting to me and I guess there's a tiny legal angle of this is the way people are freaking out about Trump's construction of the ballroom at the White House.
Yeah. I find that so bizarre, isn't it. I just, you know, it's understand why people are so freaked out about it.
They're just going I think.
It's a shutdown, to be honest with you, I really do, even though that's not always the perspective that the anti ballroom left is bringing out. I think it is a to distract attention away from the shutdown, or to try and make the argument because all the polls now say that Trump's Trump's approval ratings are up, that looks like the Democrats are going to end up actually being the ones blamed for the shutdown. They're trying desperately, but it's
not working. People. You know, people don't really feel sorry for someone who's Obamacare subsidies are going to triple, because they recognize what a disaster Obamacare was in the first place. And I think it's because here's what you can do.
You can lie about it, as the left always does, and say, in the middle of a shutdown and people aren't getting paid, Trump is spending two hundred million dollars on a gold ballroom, you know, just because he wants to stay in power, and he's not leaving in twenty eight because he's building himself a gold ballroom. And I think that they're just hoping against you know, Chelsea Clinton had the unmitigated gall to come out today and say that that Trump is desecrating the White House.
Yeah, really really really went on that. Oh my god, to live in it.
Seems to me a sign of weakness because if this is the issue of contention on the part of the left, then they're really not prepared to debate policy. They're just like they're giving It's almost like a sign like they're giving up. If that's the kind of thing they're really making their case on is because we're not there, absolutely right. I think someone said, like, after it's finished, no one's going to remember I look much better White House.
How many how many times has the White House been renovated? Yeah a lot, Yes, maybe the first those friends weren't there before been there since the forties. This may be the first time where the entire thing was financed by private donors, including Trump himself. Yeah, it's only two hundred million dollars if you're a billionaire, it's not that big of a deal. By the way, there's a billionaire.
It's like as usual, they're getting ripped off the contractors. I could do it for ten million. Jeez, well you just give just give that to Marco Rubio to do too.
I won't.
I won't, I won't. Right now, go through the reasons why. But there's actually a good logic from eating a bigger events space at the White House for steak dinners and other things. And and you know, Trump's absolutely right about that, but other people thought so too. They've improvised by putting tents. But if the grass is wet, you' you know, the women's high heels, it's the big problem.
And yeah, much more difficult, correct.
That's right. Yeah, I mean I told that I did twenty years ago. You get to go to a state dinner, and they're pretty small, intimate affairs because the White House facilities are not big enough to have big crowds. And sometimes you want bigger crowds for those things. So okay, well, all right, so that's kind of silly to watch the intensity of it.
I think he's just doing it because of the former Doze employee that got beat up, you know, and he needs a place to fit everything. I'll just leave it at that.
Well, I do as one of you just said something significant, which is, look, all the polls show that the Democrats' strongest issue is healthcare. They kind of own that issue. And maybe it's true that Obamacare premiums will go way up without extending the Biden subsidies that were reckless to begin with. I think I'm hearing a policy I'm being a policy wont here. I think Republicans are missing a major opportunity and or responsibility to go on the attack
and say Obamacare has failed. We need to start over again and have real reform. But I've always had a this sounds this will sound LUCRETIONI like something John might say, which is I've long thought for years, just the way politics falls out for decades, and let me finish both parties here, that only Republicans can fix healthcare because they're a party that is more competent with all the market
based logic, you would need to have a real healthcare marketplace. Okay, that's if democrats'll let them, right, and that's a big problem with our gridlock in politics. The reverse is also true. Only Democrats can fix entitlements like Medicare and Social Security if they want to, which I'm not sure they do, and if Republicans will let them, because Republicans will be against well in the case of Medicare tax increases, because the Medicare tax has always been too low from the
very beginning. And Okay, I'll just stop there and say that to me, has always been the political landscape of these things, and Republicans ought to go first and say we want to fix healthcare. Are you with us or not? And then you blame the Democrats for blocking a healthcare reform that would work. I will say one more thing
to annoy Lucretia. The guy who actually had the right idea on this was John McCain in two thousand and eight, except it wasn't his idea and he never could explain it because he got it from Douglas holtz econ a very competent policy WONK. But we ought to go back to that, and I'll stop there because it gets wonky. But anyway, I think Republicans are missing a huge opportunity right now.
I had something interesting this morning to take what you said a step further, and this was the premise of the article. It was a real clear investigations kind of thing, but it was about how Maha make America healthy again was the key to Republicans maintaining the House in twenty twenty six and perhaps the sentence Senate, and that if they could get Republicans in congressional districts to embrace Maha.
Do people say Maha, Yeah, well, okay, the same way that Trump and has has embraced it because the Maha moms out there are the new soccer moms, and that this particular uh, you know, it's not monolithic in what Maha means, but you know, some skepticism about vaccines, overdoing vaccine means, artificial ingredients in foods, junk foods, overprocessed foods, lack of exercise, too many medicines for made up conditions,
all of those things, pesticides growing in the food. The MAHA movement doesn't necessarily join on all of those things.
But the fact that Trump is paying attention to them, the fact that RFK is out there trying to do something about it, that this could actually give Republicans back to what tying it into what you were saying, Steve the opportunity to take the initiative on healthcare and say we're about making America healthy again, not just about paying more and more and more and more for useless medical treatments that make people sicker. And so it was an
interesting perspective. I don't know, you know, there's a lot more subtlety to it than what I just gave it. But if Republicans could actually be seen as the party that cares about the health of Americans. And you'll notice whenever trolls like Mark Kelly come out with their nonsense, I'm trying to use big girl words today and not usual adjectives that you know, Republicans don't care about Americans healthcare. Yeah,
this isn't about healthcare at all. It's about more money to those medical health insurance companies who drew up Obamacare in the first place, got exactly what they wanted with it. They want more money to ensure Americans. It's not about healthcare. Nobody's getting any less sick because of Obamacare these days, and if Republicans would just run with that, they could
abolish Obamacare. John was shaking his head, Yes, that needs to be done, and they could actually figure out ways to make America healthy.
So there.
It was okay for Melior.
There's an interesting study out right showed not by any partisan people but just scholars who showed that all that increased in spending and Obamacare didn't improve health outcomes. So sad we've wasted trillions of dollars. Yeah, and you know the money that's at stake with the lockdown is just extra subsidies egoing beyond Obamacare that were just to be short term because of COVID. Yeah, and there I don't
know what I think of. I mean, I don't really trust Robert Kenny and the MAHA stuff, but that's I think independent of Can't we just go to the American people just say this has been a policy failure, wasted trillions of dollars, and I think the political support is there. Remember that Trump only came within one vote in the Senate of getting Obamacare overruled thanks to John McCain.
Right, And who is that vote?
Right?
Yes?
Yeah, but I mean at least in twenty right, that's twenty seventeen and eighteen. You had just one vote short of a supermajority to get rid of Obamacare. Yeah, it's just but unfortunately, like there's other entitlement programs. Once the middle classes getting subsidized with these government benefits, it's hard to uproot them. I mean, isn't there like studies which say there's only like one or two tiny programs entitlement programs that have ever been undone by Congress.
Every time.
It just gets everyone to dictate the free stuff which is not free. It's politically impossible to get rid of them. And that he sounds like what's happened with Obamacare. It's probably what Obama intended all along.
Of course, Well, yeah, it.
Would move even further in the direction of universal single payer it.
Wanted to fail. Is the Cloward pivots strategy. It's been famously called for years. Perhaps let's do this. Let's move to our Babylon B segment of the show, because our our ah, oh no, hold on, hold on, let me keep going, our AI parody segment we've been closing with is actually a separate topic of its own. It won't take long, but there's an interesting wrinkle to it today, so that's why it will still be a regular links show. So, Lucritia, what are our Babylon bes?
Okay, before I get to the Babylon Bees, I've been saving this for you, Steve since this morning. I've been cackling and rubbing my hands like this. So somebody you know, Michael Lynde, Oh yeah, unheard, Yeah, says.
Turn to the mic.
Oh, I'm sorry. Let me move this over so I can read it.
Then.
Plenty of other grave parallels have been drawn of late with the First and Second World Wars. Yet one hundred and eleven years after the first began and eighty years after the second ended, perhaps it's time we dropped the analogies. That three decade cataclysm will surely never be forgotten. But when it comes to thinking about and making foreign policy, these conflicts provide few, if any, lessons of history that
are of value in today's world. On the contrary, these parallels, whether drawn by history dotorians, pundits, or policymakers, are likely to do more harm than good as they seek to impose anachronistic patterns on the realities of today.
Well, this won't be my first rodeo with Michael Lynd, who I do know of it and I have tangled with sharply before. Did I send you, guys my lady about Sean what idiot? What idiots said that?
I don't know who that is, Michael.
You don't know who Michael lind is. See you just.
I's smart.
The really disappointing thing was you didn't make a single analogy today.
I did too. I did an analogy to me an original intent. He started off.
He kicked off with the analogy see it for the middle, but.
The whole piece, and then I'll send it to you guys quickly.
We should make analogies to World War one and two?
What an idiot? Well, by the way, I took it out of context, so I'll go read it. But what you gave me sounds pretty bad. I can't imagine the context. It was about appeasement and oh well he's a lightweight on that.
Because never mind, I think that was totally unfair to spring on you guys, But I think I didn't.
I send to both of you guys my my response to Sean mckeekon that has not been published yet, and so listeners will know. Okay, Well, let's hold that for now because when it comes out, when it comes out, will be a big deal. That's okay, I didn't want Yeah, good, good, good good.
Next, No, King's protest to end by four pm so everyone can get home in time for Matt Locke. This is my personal favorite. Worse and worse. Platner also has a nickelback tattoo.
Oh for that, Steve, Yeah, he's the guy running for the Senate in Maine, a Democrat wh apparently has.
A nickelback tattoo. I mean I gets a Nazi tattoo.
Yeah. Well, he's running for the Senate as a Democrat in Maine, and he has a Nazi tattoo and nickelback. John As, you had another of the many blank spots in your cultural knowledge. But we'll let that go for now.
It's me.
For everything upstairs, you got to prioritize, that's true. So much stuff going on about Taylor Swift upstairs? Do you have time to think about it?
The loub announces they have installed a ring camera.
That's good.
I thought you'd like that.
That's good Trump.
Oh sorry. White House construction crew finds one three and fifty seven more cocaine stashes right, Democrats enjoy their favorite pastime of holding all white rallies.
Yeah, that's.
Where's the one. I got to go back to the top. Sorry, the really good one. Shoot it was. Sorry I've lost it, but it's basically Trump is stopping deportations until the ballroom misconstructed.
Well, that's why it's going to be so extensive.
It takes so long.
No, right, all right, Okay, there's all sorts of ones about the Dodgers, but I don't want to get you too knowing on that, so I'll just let it go. Okay, and Steve Ais to death.
Well, let's interapt the normal flow of things, John, because I don't know if you followed all this. But I had a person emailed me the other day, Personna real Well, and said, hey, I'm trying to find your article, and he gave it title and the date was nineteen ninety eight, and I thought, huh, I don't remember that title. And I looked for it and I can't find it either my own archives, you know, on my old hard drives
that I have, or on the internet. And so I finally wrote him back saying, by the way, the date's wrong. I wasn't working for AI in nineteen ninety eight is could this have been an excerpt from something? Could it have been a transcript from a panel? So no, it came up in an AI I search for your work on the environment. Oh, in other words, another AI not
fabrication but invention. So, as you know, John, there have been these several instances lately of judicial opinions at state courts, usually that got out with phony case citations, cases that don't exist. And this in the last few days I've heard or seen on Twitter and elsewhere several law professors people you and I know and Lucretian know who said, I keep hearing about a lot of you articles I've
written that I've never written that AI have generated. So there's something going badly wrong here with all this AI stuff.
That's all price scholars are probably doing better, probably better off with this mistake, because their productivity would being weigh up.
It's called hallucinations.
Well well there, you know though, that's I mean, that's the.
Natural technical term when AI introduces when it makes something up that doesn't exist, which is actually I mean it's they're getting a little bit better time. But it's yeah, they're called hallucinations when you have faulty facts, faulty whatever it might be.
Right, Okay, well that's preface, kind of preface to saying that I asked this week Rock, I moved on from chat GPT to GROCK and the prompt was produce a satire of Lucretia in the style of Three Whiskey Happy Hour. And one it produced was really pretty boring and not very good at all. But if you gave a note, it's said, this insult. Well the way, there's the rescue itself. When I gave a different prompt, So stay tuned, but it's say the note. This will convey some of the note.
This satirical article is written in the style of Lucretia, the sharp tongue, quick witted persona from the Three Whiskey Happy Hour podcasts, known for her biting humor and unapologetic takes. Well, well, that's true, but kind of uninspiring. So then I went back and said, not satire, produce a parody in the style of Lucretia in the Three Whiskey Happy and it produced a transcript of you know, an actual, actual podcast, and it's a lot better. I'll just give you two
samples from it and I'm jumping in right in the middle. Lucretia. Oh, Steve, your darn right, I'm itching. And it's not just because John's wearing that hideous tie. Again, seriously, John, did you pick that out of a law school lost and foult?
Well, and the subject was about it said that about Steve's ties like that?
Well, but then that the made up subject was a proposed department of meme regulation, and says so John, Now, hold on, Lucretia, The legal argument here is that memes can be a form of speech, and regulating them could fall under the commerce clause or national security, you know, misinformation, foreign interference. Lucretia, Oh, spare me the law review lecture, John, Okay, So like that? It's pretty good. I think it's uh. And then again the notes on this, the show notes, Uh,
this one's a better one, right? So is tone content something else? Style? Tone? Lucretia's style is bold, sarcastic, and unafraid to take swings that both her co hosts and her targets. She is quick with equip but grounds her rants in deep skepticism of government overreach and a love for individual liberty.
So I kind of like all that you know, Steve, you never Actually it's not bad, but you didn't include it because you weren't gonna be there when we had
our no no, no, no, it's okay. I'm not trying to insold You're really not we I had AI produce a short happy hour between John and me and the yeah as the kids, but before that, I actually had the transcript produced, and the transcript was based upon the question of John, John and me discussing whether or not Trump should go ahead and make no South America the fifty second state because we were going to be going to a conference with our friends from Latin America and
South America. And it's actually quite funny. So maybe you should put that one in at the bottom too, Steve, if I can find it.
Again, Okay, by way, John, I think we will wrap there and let you go find a tie from the Lost and Found in Law School for your TV.
I know where where I get that from. I mean, you're picnic when I'm going to wear on TV tonight. Which one looks those are actually so actually one of them, this one does look like it was from the Lost and Found. That's the one, Steve would probably that is a good tie. It's like weird stuff like yellow shirts and orange ties. I can't go down.
Do you know what I used to do? I used to this going on too long here. I used to buy a box of fifty ties on like eBay or somewhere for like fifteen dollars, and I'd get a box of ties and I'd throw out forty five of them, but five of them would be pretty good. And that's how I acquired the very few Donald Trump ties that I have.
Mister, why don't you just do that for everything? Why don't you just buy like, well you can't, like fifty oranges and throw them all forty five of them out?
That moment said I'm never wearing a tie again. Mister Brooks Brothers threw away or gave away almost all of his ties.
Oh, I would take some of those ties.
I don't know that some of them were Jerry Jerry grateful dead Jerry Jerry Garcia ties.
You are bane wearing that he kept.
We're both Trump ties, which he's been wearing for years.
Trump's ties are so ugly. I mean, come on, they're blue, they're like they shine, they're shiny, they're clearly not made of so.
All right, you guys, it's time for us to say goodbye to our long suffer See everybody next week. Have fun, John bye, everybody. Everybody was buying.
The music was soothing, said everyone attacked about listen.
I'm gonna said by one to do about.
Lessen Ricochet join the conversation