This is the first big batch of UFO disclosure ordered by President Trump. Some of the clips and videos on there have popped up different places before, some of them have not. And we have been going through this all morning and overnight to try to put together some of the best video so we can all look at this together.
This is a world exclusive right here.
It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson. I''s right, I said, Peter Robinson and Stephen Hayward and Cherls C. W Acrook. I'm James Lylynx, and today we're going to be talking to Mollie Haming a way about our new book about Alito.
So let's episode a podcast.
Supreme Court of Virginia got it exactly right. The governor's jerry mandering scheme fail. The current share congressional maps will stay in place for the twenty twenty six elections. You don't change the Constitution in the middle of an election.
Welcome everybody. It's the Ricachet Podcast, number seven hundred and eighty eight. I'm James Lylynx in Idyna, Minnesota, and I'm joined by General C. W. Cook and Florida Stephen Heyward. Somewhere I believe in California, and if you can believe it, he's joined by Peter Robinson, one of the founders. Gentlemen, welcome in, especially Peter, welcome back. Thank you, James. It's a delight to be back. And I'm seated right next
to Steve as well. You are somewhere in California, as you put it, and behind you, even though the podcast, of course is an audio medium, there's a poster. It appears to be CCCP and Ronald Reagan in a football uniform defeating the demons of Marxism. Do I have that correct? Because you're at the Reagan Library and one would expect such a wonderful tableaus.
Actually, we're at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, which is separate from the library. We're in their glorious boardroom looking out it's foggy this morning, but looking out over the Pacific Ocean and departing to visit Reagan's wonderful Mountaintop Ranch directly after we finished this episode.
Well, I imagine that the Reagan Library does not have the sort of appearance of Obama's Library, which appears to be something that the Eloys would construct to keep the Morlocks in line. It is an absolutely dreadful name. And The New York Times, in discussing the art of the building this week, had a piece, of course called the audacity of Art, and everything inside was as predictable as you
can possibly imagine. There's nothing audacious about it. Audacious would be some good Soviet realism or some representational art, but that's another podcast. Here today, we are to discuss all the things that have bubbled up in the last week, and we've got smart minds to take a look. So who wants to have a crack at what appears to be breaking new? Is Virginia Supreme Court rules the redistricting
referendum unconstitutional four to three procedural grounds. The challengers successfully argued apparently, I'm reading here obviously that lawmakers failed to pass the proposal across two legislative sessions separated by a general election. Details, details, details, All right, gentlemen, somebody take this? What does it mean? And should the rest of the country care?
Charlie, being in Florida, has been awake for three hours longer than Steve and I, and I presume that Charlie being Charlie has also read I have the decision itself. Perhaps so I want to hear about it from Charlie myself.
Well, it is hilarious, isn't it.
It is.
I do because Senator Luise Lucas, who pushed this whole thing, was full of it. She was swearing on Twitter, she was calling people who disagree with her cucks. And now she's been arrested and her initiative went down. So it
was procedural grounds. The court made it very clear that some might ask why it hadn't done this prior to the referendum, and it said, but the Commonwealth of Virginia is not allowed to ask that question given that it insisted that it couldn't because President in Virginia holds that they have to wait until there is a referendum to
strike down. They can't do it proactively. And they point out quite rightly that if you take the position that it shouldn't get involved before a referendum, and that after a referendum is violating one of the people, then you essentially bolished the court. So Twitter is full this morning of people saying it's crazy they allowed the state to waste seventy million dollars. But that's not really true. The state told the court correctly given precedent that it wasn't
allowed to get involved. What happened here was very simple, James said it. The rules in Virginia are pretty clear. You can't do this sort of thing while an election is on. And Virginia has very long early voting periods. They're already in one, and so the three descents say that's not the election. They say, the election's only election day. Early voting isn't the election. And the majority says that's nonsense.
And there's this great little passage in there where the majority says that if you stopped somebody who was early voting at the polling place and said to him, what are you doing here, he would say, I'm voting in the election. And if you said to him, no, that's not the election, he would be mightly confused, yes, which is true. So yeah, they pushed it too far. They knew what they were doing was unconstitutional. And the last thing is Jason Mayiraz was the former Attorney general of Virginia.
It's taking a bit of a victory lap today, which is deserved because last year his office put out an opinion in which he said exactly what the court said in its majority opinion, and he had offered the Democrats in Virginia the chance to go through it with him, and they declined and called him names. Well, he won.
So is this appealable now anywhere?
It's a matter of state constitutional law, and the Supreme Court of Virginia, which has just ruled, is the ultimate and final authority. There's no appeal to the Supreme Court of the United State or any other court of any kind.
Is that correct?
I believe that's correct, because I don't think there's a federal constitutional issue at state. I think it's purely a matter of state law. And the Speaker of the House of Delegates in Virginia said today they will respect the court's opinion. Now I don't know if that means they won't appeal, because that's not up to him. That's up to our best friend, the Attorney General of Virginia, J. Jones,
who's famous for wanting to kill other people's children. But I don't think it looks like they're going to appeal this.
But whom would they appeal it to.
Well, they could appeal it to the court if there was some procedural problem, I suppose, But yeah, at which.
Court they'd ask this federal court, I think no.
I think in theory you could appeal it in the Virginia Supreme Court if something changed, right, if there was a substantial shift in the fact, But what could they be.
There are some parallel instances of these kind of state Supreme court rulings about ballot initiatives. Oregon some decades ago, well twenty thirty years ago, they had a whole series of conservative ballot measures that passed, and the Oregon Supreme Court state Supreme Court, which was very radical at the time, struck down almost all of them on usually very technical
grounds of violating the so called single subject rule. It was usually nonsense, and there was almost a recall campaign mounted against a couple of the Supreme Court justices there who became nationally famous for standing.
Up to the conservatives. But that was always the end of it.
There was no appeal of any of those rulings to federal court that succeeded. So I don't see why Virginia would be any more optimistic that they could overturn us at the federal level.
No.
I don't think that's going to happen. The timing is the problem.
We have a new map in Florida, and there was some bruhahaigh electoral wise in Indiana people to say the administration could be looking at ten additional seats by twenty twenty eight. Interesting when everybody's been talking about a blot, of course, because of gases at four forty nine, then they lose. If gases at three eighty nine they win. Interesting how this will all turn out Another subject that I think you gentlemen would like to talk about because
it fascinates me. It's keen Germane to where I live, and it turns out that it's Germane too everywhere, and
that's medicaid fraud where oh in Ohio this time? So the Daily Wire sent a guy to Ohio and he did what all of these independent journalists do that Apparently state agencies and mainstream media is don't really seem to wonder why a windowless building on the edge of town has one hundred and fifty eight hospice centers crammed into one post office box and when they go there, every time you look at it, you find a billion dollars has been spent on people who have been vetted not
a bit, who are often politically connected, who have no medical background, and it's just an empty office with a sign on with a piece of paper with something scrawled,
little sharpe to indicate that there's a business there. We're losing huge amounts of money to this, and you wonder if there will be some sort of of tectonic shift because of it, because if nothing else, this shows that the largest of the state, far from starving people and saying, oh my gosh, we're not spending enough money on the welfare of our citizens, that huge amounts of money are being pitchforked out every day to criminals who are wasting it,
sending it back home living high in the hog and that essentially nobody knows how much of the extraordinary amount of money that we spend on these things. Is absolute criminality, is absolute fraud. So what do you guys think, Peter, you're in California. I believe that there's been some They found what two hundred and ninety seven centers for dying people crammed into a shoe box that was taped to the side of an office building somewhere.
To me, the heartening part about all this is that investigative journalism is being reinvented. We have had a collapse here in California of the La Times, which used to be of course, it was always left of center in its good days and became more left and now it's just irrelevant. And Chris Rufo's organization, I don't know if I can't remember what the aegis. Under what aegis Chris couldn't have been the Manhattan Institute where Chris is a fellow.
But Chris Rufo's organization has discovered fraud here. They're actually onto a story. They've got names and dates and amounts of money.
What's broken? In Ohio?
Another organization, Peter Schweitzer, has an operation in Tallahassee which is doing a real investigative journalism. It's moving out. It's no longer being performed by newspapers at all, do you, Steve am I right about this? But investigative journalism is being reasserted, reinvented by good guys on our side.
Isn't that roughly correct? Yeah, that's right.
And don't leave out the California Post, which is the brand new New York Posts West Coast edition, and they're going to be after some of this. They're still gearing up. But Christ's operation is actually through City Journal, which is going to revive a California edition here at some point, which is the the publication of the Manhattan Rights Toute. So okay, right, what wonderful trains sound were by the tract train State. By the way, I can add to
that since we do have a train whistle. It may not seem related to the welfare fraud, but we did just get news in California this week that are high speed rail that was initially promised to cost only thirty three billion dollars is now projected to cost two hundred and thirty billion dollars before they finish it, and they're never going to finish it, so that they're not to.
Finish it the point wants to finish.
They know the point is to shovel money to unions, which is extraordinary when everybody says we can't do anything in this country anymore. We can't build dams, we're taking them apart. We can't build rail the rest of it. No, we can. It's just that we lack of a political class that has the will to do it or the desire
to do it and finish it. It's obvious when you look at Elon Musk and space X and Tesla and other companies that, of course America still can do these things if unfettered from and not connected to the lugubrious, massive government that sits upon us. Well, yes, you're right, it's great that a new class of journalists are doing it, but you always have to wonder. The response of the mainstream media is often to sniff and to discount it because who are these rank amateurs? They didn't go to
journalism school, which means nothing. By the way, never trust anybody who went to journalism school. I was in the newspapers in college for a long time, longer than I should have, and it was always astonishing to me that we sat underneath an actual journalism school and we were producing an actual daily newspaper of sixty papers and sixty pages a day with a sixty thousand circulation. And the people from the Jay school upstairs never came down to
work there. They just got their degrees and they took their classes and then went out to do their work. For those of us actually doing journalism, well, so, I think part of it is that there's a real uncomfortable feeling in the mainstream media with who they're finding out is doing the crime.
Oh well, you know, Peter and I were here doing all good and Reagan reminiscing for two days, and we were reflecting on how Reagan was assailed for attacking welfare queens. He never actually used that phrase, by the way, That was the media spin to attack him, And so the media very seldom followed up on any of the stories that he referenced. There was the Chicago Tribune and actually did find the woman in Chicago who was registered with
fifty accounts and all that. But the point was is that, you know, Reagan, as they used to say, went over the heads of the media to the American people.
We need to have that happen now.
And so, by the way, I have a field theory on this that I can lay out real quickly that all this is deliberate.
I mean, the.
Media and the Democratic Party. This is actually on purpose. And I actually think it began here in California. It just came this week after the Northridge earthquake in nineteen ninety four.
It was a very serious earthquake.
My parents were living there then, and FEMA showed up and there were huge complaints that FEMA's too slow getting checks to people who are desperate, and you know, their apartments have fallen down and their businesses have been destroyed, and write the damn checks. And so work came down from the Clinton administration. Quit doing all this due diligence. Just write the checks and hand them out the people who show up with like no excuses, you know, no
questions asked. And then and I think this spread to medicaid, oh, COVID, same way. Shove the money out the door.
Yep.
And I actually think this is airsats redistributionism for the left. It's inefficient. But you know, given that radical or punitive egalitarianism is now a core principle of the left, they don't recognize this fraud. This is overdue reparations. It used any of the buzzwords you want. And I think that's why it's happened, and why Tim Waltz and others are against investigating any of this, because they're for.
It reparations and the rest. You're right, you know, two calleries of this one. There was a recent scandal because it turns out that a lot of the money that people donated for the Pacific Palisades fire it didn't go
there all. And the relevant organizations are saying we never said we were going to give the money with people's houses burn down, we you know, is going to podcasters and art installations and other affected communities and the rest of it, which just shows what a big slashing pile of money that it is that they do with as they wish. And when the NGO spout dries up because of Doge, well then you just piggyback off of fire.
But the second thing, Charles, I don't want to leave you out of the loop on this unless I'm mistake. In Florida was successful in actually building a train, a fast train, quickly, were they not?
Yes, although that company looks as if it might be in trouble. Why because it's running out of money. It's expanded quite.
Quickly usually how it happens, right to explain where the train goes. It's also fairly expensive.
Yeah, the Bright Line. It doesn't come up to me in Jacksonville. It runs from Orlando and then across to the East Coast and then down to Fort Lauderdale and Miami. It was supposed to be a bit bigger. It was supposed to go to Disney World as well, and there was talk of it coming up to Jacksonville, but that didn't happen anyway. They are completely private, they took no government money, and if they go out of business, it's ready none of my business. But I think they expanded
a little bit too quickly. The one thing they do have going for them is they bought an awful lot of land, and people have described them as a real estate company pretending to be a railroad. So they may be all right, but I did notice last week there's a lot of stories about their future. Anyway, they got it built, just as whether people want to take trains, which is my big criticism. I'm a big train hater.
I hate trains. I would use the air Force to bomb all the trains, not for cargo, but just for passengers. We'll get the passengers out first, but trains as communist and should be replaced by airplanes where possible.
Well, we could just cheerfully blather on here, or we could talk to our guest, who we love to talk to whenever possible. That's Baliamiway, editor in chief of the Federalist Journalism, fellow with Hillsdale College, and a Fox News contributor. She's the author of four books. As of April twenty first and the latest is Alito, the Justice who reshaped the Supreme Court and restored the Constitution. Bali, welcome back.
It is wonderful to be here with you all.
And it has been some time. Well. First things first, here explained the title of your book, The Justice who Reshaped the Court? How did you do that?
A few years ago I co authored a book with Carrie Severino on the Kavanaugh confirmation, and we interviewed a bunch of people, including Supreme Court justices, and some of them wondered why nobody ever talks about Alito, because they consider him to be this giant on the Court who shapes so much of the Court's jurisprudence and has had a leading role in returning to Congress or returning to the executive branch their proper constitutional authorities after decades of
the Court just trying to act as this super legislature. And it was from them that I got the idea that he needed to be profiled and people did need to know more about him, and also why they think he's so important, which is his constitutional emphasis, his important role on the Court, even if nobody really talks about him or knows about him as much as they should.
Molly Peter Robinson here. The reason I'm putting this word to you. You could correct me if I'm wrong. The reason we tend to overlook Justice Alito is that people are still people who follow the Court still have a very vivid memory of Justice Scalia, who was so much louder and more vivid as a personality. And Justice Alito is a quiet man, a modest man, very sweet tempered. He would never call attention to himself. He's a kind of pure intellect, and he's easy to miss for that reason.
Is that right?
I think that's a major part of it. He is so unlike almost everyone who inhabits Washington, d C. And you really get the sense that he doesn't like Washington DC very much. He doesn't want to be the center of attention. He gets uncomfortable when people are talking about him. But there's another thing too, which I think relates to to his jurisprudence. When you think about how enjoyable it is to read Escalia, I mean, he's hilarious. He's so biting, vicious,
but in a totally delightful way. And he also has these you know, he has these big rules. He likes big concepts. Justice Thomas, who's another fan favorite, very big conceptual thinker. Alito is more focused on, Okay, so we've made this ruling, how are the lower courts going to implement it? How is a US attorney going to know what to do with this? And so he's very specific in a way that doesn't lend itself to those colorful aphorisms.
Right.
So, Ascalia, the late Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas to this day are justices for law schools. They're justices to be read. They're justices who are trying to change the way people look at the Constitution for decades to come. And Justice Alito is a judge's judge. Is that one way of putting it.
I think that's a very good way to put it. I also think, though, that because Scalia and Thomas were and are more philosophers, more big picture philosophers, and they're so pure in their thinking, and by the way, I love that. I love that about them, But they tend to be more liberty focused, whereas I think Justice Alito is also just in his core and in his jurisprudence, very conservative, and there has been this bias towards more
libertarian minded justices. I myself understand that, but Alito is really the conservative on the court.
So Molly, it's Steve Hey. We're sitting next to Peter out here in California. I haven't had a chance to get into the book yet, and I'm wondering if you've got some real scoops here. But I'm wondering if you got into any of the what i'll call gossip. Although I have some sources for this proposition, which is, as we know, Alito was President Bush's second choice. He tried to install his White House counsel, Harriet Myers's old friend, and there was revolt against that, and so.
Aledo was picked.
And I've heard from multiple sources that Bush resented the fact that he was pressured into, as one person put it to me firsthand, from Bush appointing this hack from New Jersey, and he turns out to be one of our best justices.
Right.
I don't know if you've heard anything about that story. If you try to delve into it, maybe that's old business that you don't care about. But I've heard comment on if you want. But I've also heard Alito described as a Burkian, whereas both Thomas and Scalia were Thomists as well as maybe Locke in. But I think I like that description of Alito as a Burkian.
Well, he also likes that description of himself as a Burkian. I think that is how he conceives of himself. But I have to say that does not match my reporting what you just said about President Bush. I almost feel there would be no market for it. But I almost feel like you could write a whole book about that summer of nominations and what it meant for the conservative movement.
I would read that makes two.
You've got two readers, but three James, Oh yeah, I'm okay.
Well sold well. One of the things I learned about that process was that Harriet Myers herself had always wanted Alito to be the number one pick, so they had a shortlist. They thought there was going to be a chief justice opening first, because Rahnquist was so sick and it seemed like only natural that he would be retiring.
They were kind of shocked when it was Sandrade O'Connor who retires instead, and they decided to just kind of keep with what they'd been thinking for the chief Justice slot, and they end up giving that to Roberts, but there were you know, five people on the short list, and Alito was one of them. He was the number one pick for a bunch of people, including the Attorney General, but also Harriet Myers, who was the White House counsel. She thought that maybe Roberts didn't well he said it
himself in his confirmation hearings. He didn't have a judicial philosophy, and that concerned her. People give her a very hard time. But I think it's interesting that she sort of understood that might be an issue with Roberts. She wanted a lido. The pressure that I think Bush might not have loved was the identity politics pressure. And even his own wife is on a foreign trip to South Africa and she's like, well, I sure hope. Oh sorry, what did she say? I
think this is before Roberts's pick. She's like, I sure hope he picks a lady to replace Sandra day O'Connor. And they ask President Bush about it, and he says, I look forward to receiving her counsel when she gets home from her foreign trip, Like, why don't we keep this in the home, Laura, you know? And it was kind of funny, but once, once, the chief dies and
they decide to put Roberts up for that pick. They think they have to pick a woman, but many of the women were too conservative for some members of the Bush White House, and Harriet Myers did not in any way want to be the nominee. She just basically was told she had to be, and she does it for the team. She'd been a loyal Bush person, and it just makes you look at it a little differently when you think about what she went through in the mockery and as soon as she steps down, Alito's the one.
And I mean it's kind of like everyone agreed.
I mean, I always heard from people whose were views I really respect that Harriet Myers was a very solid person.
She was just unknown.
And you know, after the previous Bush gave us David Suitor, the word was, no more suitors. We don't want any unknown people. We only want known people. And so poor Harriet Myers, I think maybe it was unfair to her and Peter Molly.
I have to ask a couple of questions about Dobbs. If I made it feels to me, I've got about three. Let me just lay this out and then you take it. It feels to me as though Justice Alito is going to be remembered for Dobbs, which overruled Roe versus Wade.
That's his decision.
So questions in your reporting on this, do you have any leads on who leaked it? That's sort of a mandatory question. I'm sure you've been asked already. And then the next question, though, is not mandatory, but it's mandatory to me. In the couple of years, what almost three years now, since Dobbs came out, I've been watching it was attacked vitriolically over and over in place after place after place, and yet as far as I can tell,
there has been no legal attack on Dobbs. That is to say, his historical analysis, his legal reasoning, all of that stands by the way I considered it a beautifully written within this legal It's not flashy, it's not filled with memorable phrases of the kind that you get with Scalia. But boy, is that a calm, thorough legal document that has stood up now without any serious legal attack. Nobody's saying no, he made an error in legal reasoning here.
All kinds of arguments abortion is a right. How could the of the results based arguments, But no serious le no fst. I can tell no legal attack on the decision in the three years since, so any reporting on who leaked it, And am I right that that that that decision is really standing up.
There's so much of interest about the Dobbs decision, including what you just said. Peter. Reminds me that one of the things I learned in my reporting from people on the court was that when Alito issues his draft, the one that's eventually leaked, yes, and it's nearly one hundred pages, the chambers of the liberal justices were just shocked at how thorough and eviscerating it was. There was like, no, there was.
Nothing of Row left after that.
Yes, And the thing is, in some ways, overturning Row was kind of easy, right, even at the time liberal legal scholars said, this is a joke of a decision. They might love abortion or.
Mistake.
Yes.
Yes, So on the one hand, it should have been easy, but it took such courage there had been so many attempts previously, and then also to do it in a way that doesn't give the opposition you know, for lack of a better term, an easy way to attack it. At the time that it's leaked, and then when it's handed down the media are hysterical about it. But it was actually very restrained. I mean, many pro lifers would like something much more dramatic, a fourteenth Amendment protection of
life for the unborn or something like that. It simply said, we all know that it's not in the Constitution, it's not in the fourteenth Amendments, not hidden between the words, and as such we have to return it to the people through their legislatures. It's like very modest, and you're right that there. I've actually not seen any substantive legal
attacks on it. I did talk to a lot of people about the leak as well, and so I know who most who many people think leaked it, but there are but there's no one, you know, there's not There might be one that's the who most people say, but that doesn't mean there's just one person. But mostly what I got into was how absolutely awful the investigation was.
They didn't begin it for weeks, they didn't ask decent questions, Like some of the high level people at the court said, if you want to find out who leaked it, find out who's in communication with the reporters who published it. Don't just say did you leak it? Which is what they did. They asked everybody if you leaked it, and everybody said no, Well, instead say do you know this reporter? Does your spouse know this reporter? Were you ever in a situation where someone would have had access to your
draft that you had on your home computer. You know, you can ask questions that would like a real investigator would Molly.
Is he going to retire? This is the big question at the moment. People have said he's unhappy. Is he unhappy on the court? People have said his wife doesn't like him having the job anymore because they went after her because she flew a flack outside the beach house. Or is he comfortable where he is?
So people call him unhappy, and I think there's a I think it's that he's he's certainly not a happy warrior, but that doesn't mean he's unhappy. He's just more motivated by duty than personal feelings. So he in my view, I don't technically know for sure. I have not thought he was going to retire, even before his chambers got worried out that he's not retiring, But I think he feels there's still work to be done, that he needs to do. Would he be happy? Would he and his
wife be happy once he leaves? Yes, But he doesn't do things for happiness. He does things out of duty, out of sense of duty.
And he calls himself a practical original list and Scalia quote himself an originalist, and Clarence Thomas calls himself a bloodthirsty originalist. I've seen recently a lot of praise for Alita in his ability to keep together coalition if you will. Is that what that means? I've never quite show what practical originalist means.
So there are many different ways that you see him being more practical than some of his colleagues. Part of it is what we just talked about with thinking about how a decision will be implemented by lower court judges or other people involved in the administration of rule of law. But another thing is he's more willing to look at the facts of a particular case than some of his colleagues.
They'll just say they'll just kind of see something. You'll say, this is a First Amendment issue, so we're just going to do a broad First Amendment type ruling, Whereas he might look and say, I think it's a little more complicated than that he might ultimately side with them in their big broad brush approach, but he's comfortable looking at the facts of the case. He famously dissented in that Westboro Baptist case, and it was because of the facts
of the case. They said, well, really, what they're doing, this so called church, they're protesting the government, so they're allowed to do it. And he went through the trial record and saw that they weren't. They were protesting this man, his faith, his family, his marital history, and that he thought TOWRTS law could cover this in a way that
it was less applicable as a First Amendment case. And then he also does I think he's just less autistic in the I don't mean that's like in the originalism. He just he's kind of thinking, the whole purpose of what we're doing is to help a people and their country and their government, so we should think about how this is going to affect that dynamic.
Mollie, it's Steve again. One of your scoops in the book, to which there is I think a sequel episode in the last two weeks, is the fact that how did you put it, Kagan was having a shouting match with was with Bryer about delaying the Dobbs decision and hopes what some Supreme Court justice would retire or die or something even worse than that, in hopes of overturning it.
And then everyone I think has seen and you can see it now in the opinions, great frustration, including from two of the liberal justices about Justice Jackson, who talks more than the other justices combined much of the time, and whose descents have drawn some rebukes, even from Justice
Kagan in one case. And then this last week it was a sort of supplemental decision, a ruling related to this recent case on the Voting Rights Act, where Justice Alito I think wrote a rebuttal saying this is nonsense, and I think he said this is even insulting. And then he has an asterisk where he says, I remind
the Justice that this case was conferenced six months ago. Now, for listeners, what that means is is when you hear the Supreme Court case on Monday or Tuesday, the justices meet typically at the end of the week on Friday to vote on who wins and who loses, and that's after that.
The whole business.
About doing the opinion is done, and that can take, as we know, months for the two sides to work out their opinions and the cents, and that's become a game where everyone.
Wants to get in the last word. But I think you're really onto something.
And the fricken's in the court, and especially the role of Justice Jackson and Justice Kagan and all this, and there's a leado having to put up with it.
All well, I think this is really explosive too. The liberal justices are frustrated at their lack of power. The Supreme Court is an institution that the left used to completely control untilp quite recently, so the first time you've seen an originalist majority. Even if they have their differences at times, they're all rooted deeply in the original meaning of the Constitution in that majority, and so they don't
have power. They're frustrated. And I reported how they slow walked the descent in Dobbs even after their colleagues asked them, please hurry it up, because our lives are being threatened. And that was not hyperbole. They were daily threats on their lives, including an actual assassin on the street of the Kavanaugh home trying to take out him, and others. So after my book comes out, or actually right before my book comes out, there was reporting that they were
slow walking the Collide decision. Kalay, I don't know how to pronounce that, sorry, And it was just interesting that you're like, oh, is this part of a pattern? And then I think we've all but had that proven with that footnote from Alito. Katanji Brown Jackson, I think is less politically smart than her liberal colleagues, who know, like they might have been slow walking it, but they knew not to put it in writing basically, or give Alito the opportunity to point out that they were slow walking.
Anyone who read that footnote understood what was being said. Yes, not only was it conferenced in October, that was the second time they'd heard the case. Remember they first heard it in March of last year, so everyone knew where they stood, everyone knew what the arguments were. It really shouldn't taken that long unless you were delaying for political reasons to help your political party of choice.
Molly Peter here, once again, as you worked on the book, how did you find yourself a couple of quotess how did you find yourself feeling about justice? Alido, You would never have written this unless you had a fundamental admiration for him and his work. Did you find him as you interviewed other people, as you read the materials, you read his decisions, as you interviewed him, as you spoke to missus Alito? Did you find yourself enjoying him? Was he good company to keep for all these months as
you worked on the project? And then I wonder did you find yourself admiring more or less the court as an institution?
Huh? I definitely was intrigued by him at the beginning, and I would have to say that I also came to admire. I tend toward more of that big picture thinking myself and his pragmatism. I found the I saw the wisdom in that. He's also you know, I think anyone who's met him or studies him knows he's a delightful person. He's very funny in private in a way that you don't see publicly so much. I mean, occasionally
you pick it up in the speeches. Also, the admiration his colleagues have for him, it's hard not to be touched by that as well. I was not sure when I began the project how I would explain Martha Ann Alito because she is so fun. She's oh exactly, And I always joked that my dad was a pastor and my mom, I always joked she was the world's worst pastor's wife. And I meant that with like unending praise.
But that's what I would kind of say about Martha Anne, Like, I don't know how she ended up being in this life where she's a Supreme Court justice's wife. She is very much her own person, very vivacious, uh just fun luve a fun person, and you're it's interesting to see
them being together. I think one of the things I admire about the Court more than anything is that they have weathered some of these difficult times and they have come out with regard for each other still and even seeing the way they handled the recent situation with Justice Soda Mayor attacking Kavanaugh, I'm pretty confident that Kavanaugh was the least offended by what Sodamor did. The other justices really didn't like that, and Justice so to my just a.
Moment to explain for listeners what happened.
She was, she was giving a speech, and she attacked what everyone clearly saw was Kavanaugh based on the specifics of the speech as someone who had never met anyone who worked in hourly wage. It is so unfair. I mean, they're all they're all elite by virtue of being on this Supreme Court. But Justice Kavanaugh, his mother was highly
respected Jog. Yes, he did have a nicer upbringing than an alite Toe or a Thomas, but it's just an ad hominem that was completely unnecessary, and she did apologize for that, which I think is great and speaks to how they do work at collegiality. These people disagree with each other strongly. Or even the anecdote that I tell in the book about Kagan screaming at Briar, she was screaming at him because Briar, as liberal as he is, he cared about his colleagues and he didn't want their
lives threatened. And he's trying to accommodate them because he understands they're in a very bad situation with the leak of the Dobbs decision. So you come out with respect for how much they try, even if they fail. At the camaraderie at times lolls and.
Like, oh, oh, I'm sorry, Peter, you had no and the project of the originalists, this new I mean, who knows what the presidential politics will be like, who knows who's going to capture this, who knows whether it will last. But the notion that right now there are six more or less originalists, more or less conservative justices, and only three liberals. Did you feel that the how to put well, you're a big thinker, you said this yourself a moment ago.
Did you feel that they're taking advantage of this, that the conservatives are taking advantage of the moment.
I think that's actually one of the big divisions among the conservative justices or the originalist justices is the issue of timing. Justice Thomas and Justice Alito have been on the court for a long time when it was not under originalist control. The three newer originalists, they're thinking, I could be here for many decades. We have time to get this all done. The older guys, I think they're thinking, well,
we might not have time. And also, if there's a wrong that needs to be corrected, let's correct it now, right now. And so I think that is a big division. But I also think it reminds me of how after winning the Cold War, you saw the conservative movement kind of be confused about where it was and where it was going.
Hayward and I were still confused.
Well, originalism has had so many successes on the Second Amendment thanks to Justice Thomas. On First Amendment issues, the court is fantastic. The religious freedom issue is better now than it has been ever. Probably, you have affirmative action. Roberts, who doesn't identify as an Originalist, hast done human's work on overturning all of the bad racism racist issues. You have Dobbs taking care of Roe, a fifty year project of the movement. Well, with all those successes, you're also
starting to see people kind of sour on originalism. And I think that the Justice Alito model is a really good one going forward. He's very principled. He's also focused on culture and community and what the purpose of rule of law, and I think it's a way to blend these warring factions. You know, right now in the movement you have people who is like, all that matters is the principles we hold, and I don't really like that's the thing that matters. Then you have other people who say,
I'm so sick of principles. I just want to win Well in Alito, you see that in fact, these things having prudence and thought and strategy and principles, that they work best together. They're not in conflict. We are both principled and pragmatic people ideally right as Americans. So that was the That was the main thing I myself learned from studying him and his jurisprudence, and I hope that the conservative movement and really Americans in general also pick up that as well.
That is fast Wally.
Last question is Peter Robinson used to say, probably still does. Besides all the marquee decisions, there's a there's a chance here to do with FMDJ deep cuts sort of thing, or you go to the B side you find the third song that is really better than the other. Do you have a favorite deep cut Alito opinion? Something under the radar that demonstrated his wit and his incisiveness. And it's one of the things you just kind of like to bring up when the conversation turns Alito wise.
I will say that, Well, Randy Barnett always says that Alito's First Amendment jurisprudence, where he's the loan dissenter, is the one thing that sometimes makes him wonder if he's wrong about these issues, So it's kind of fun to study those. But for me, the deep cut is oral argument. It's not a case, it's how Alito conducts himself in
oral argument. Kagan's very good at this. Justice Kagan and Justice Alito, they understand that the best you can get out of oral argument is to sort of shape your colleagues. Your fellow justice is thinking about what the issue should what the issue you're going to decide the case should be on, what issue that should be. And they are very good at guiding the advocate that they agree with to stronger ground and then totally devastating their opponent. And
Alito has had some really fun ones with this. There was a Minnesota case that said you couldn't wear tea party gear at the election at a voting booth, and he led the solicit the advocate down the path to admitting that you couldn't wear a shirt that said the First Amendment on it at the voting booth. Or he got the Colorado advocate who was trying to violate Jack Phillips's rights to create cakes according to his conscience, he got him to admit that the entire basis of his
case was wrong. He said. He said, okay, So like if someone wants to have a cake that says November ninth the best date in history and it's about that person's anniversary, he would have to make that cake, right, And he says yes. So what if he came in and says, I wanted to say November ninth best date in history, but it's for Crystal not would he have to do that? And the solicitor says no, that he definitely wouldn't have to do it. Well, that was the
entire case. It was the entire case, and he got the He got the guy who was trying to argue the opposite to it to concede the whole thing and it ends up being a big victory for Jack Phillips and a loss for Colorado. So oral argument is where you should pay attention to him.
Got All this and more is contained within the covers of Alito, the Justice who reshaped the Supreme Court and restored the Constitution. No Small Feet. That's a book by Molly Hamingway. She's been her guest, And Molly will see you on Fox and we'll see you on Twitter. Of course, from time to time, and thanks for joining us on the show today. Write another book fast so we can.
Have you back as quickly as possible, and give me our best, give Mark our best.
Yep, we'll do great talking to you.
Bye bye, guys, Hey bye bye. Well, so many things left to talk about the best tweet of the week, I think with somebody so that said that Ted Turnles Ted Turner's funeral arts at seven o five.
Do you know what that means?
Gentlemen?
It wasn't that the game time for the Atlanta Braves when he started Turner Broadcasting.
No, no dead Turner when he started, when he started TNT and all the rest of them started the shows at seven o five, which ensured that in TV Guide that they would break out that they wouldn't be seven o'clock with a whole bunch of other things, would be a separate entry whom. Oh my goodness, I like. I worked there for a year, so I quite remember that.
I got to meet Turner once at his gigantic buffalo ranch in Montana outside Bozeman, and I have to say he's hilarious in person, maybe, I guess otherwise. I never paid too close attention to win, but Heyward.
What Steve, Steve what what? Just what were you.
Doing at a buffalo ranch outside Bozeman, Montana.
It's an environmental thing because you know, he wanted to bring back the pre Columbian conditions for the buffalo and it was very controversial because over two hundred thousand acres he sold off all the cattle that were on this ranch, which crashed the prices of beef in Montana that year. That really annoyed all the other cattle ranchers. And it's kind of a you know, you can see elements of it in the Yellowstone series.
Did he succeed on his ranch in bringing back something some original conditions?
Oh?
Yeah, no he I did a tour of the ranch in a jeep with one of his wildlife biologists explaining how they were restoring the streams to their original condition and getting out non native vegetation. And I mean it's ridiculous, I don't say ridiculous project, but it couldn't possibly last because invasive species are really not invasive in my own opinion. But the punchline was sitting around talking to him. He's
a very gracious. How it's a small group of us, you know, the free market, environmental crowd around perk, you know, friends of ours, and that is a small group. Someone said, you know you've done all these things, you know, TNT America's Cup, the Goodwill Games with the Soviet Union, which was one of his dumb Cold War stunts. What do you consider your most innovative thing you've ever done in
that long career of years? And he pauses from it, and he said, marrying Jane Fonda, that was really the vative. I don't think I'll say any more about that, though at.
Least he didn't see colorizing Casablanca. Somebody looks at Charles and somebody who lives in the in the South, would you'd like to explain cud zu to the guy who just said that invasive species aren't cud zuo?
Isn't that the sort of Spanish mosqu type stuff? That's all?
Yah? I think you have it a lot in Florida, but it was brought over and it's an invasive species and it's hardy to get rid of, as is the Asian carbon invasive species that we have up here. What do you mean an invasive species aren't?
Well, maybe I shouldn't have said that, because that's a longer subject, but it's become another biological diverse.
Biological diversity is our strength is that's no, well.
Look a look, AT's a longer subject. I probably shouldn't have said that because I baited you. But the point, the.
Point is this invasive species has become another extremist tote of environmentalism. So I'm just pushing back against their abuse of it. Oh no, they're very disruptive to ecosystems. I totally can see that.
But do you know I saw a debate about a year ago as to what is the south? Obviously people pile in, they have many different answers, but the best answer I saw was where kudzu grows. I think they're right. I think they're right. No, no, I just have to say this. We have a guy at National View called Andrew Stutterford. He used to be British. Yeah, he's now American like me. How do you used to be British? Well, because if you became an American citizen like me, American? Yeah,
I did not know. We really need to tighten up the require pretty sure. But anyway, Andrew is the only person I have met until Steve Hayward who just has this abundance of stories that start with things like well, of course it was nineteen sixty seven and I was in an open top car in Paris with.
You.
Sorry you were what And Steve, I've noticed, Steve, you do this, you do start He's like, wow, I was in a treehouse in Okinawa, and.
When you started to tell that story, for some reason, I'm seeing you as Sam O'Neill in Jurassic Park about to see an enormous buffalo that genetically engineer. Speaking speaking of genetic engineering and strange things in science fiction, I love to hear exactly how you three guys are going to take this. Peter, calm down and.
In too long. James, all right, all right, sorry.
The government has begun what I believe is this modified hangout, slow rollout of saying there's aliens. Then they're here, and they're under the ocean, and they're they're on the moon. But we can't just come out and destroy everybody's conception of the universe in our special place in it and possibly a threat in the metaphysical basis that people use to live their lives. So we're going to drip, drip trip.
We're going to just give you little stuff, and then thirty days and then we're going to give you something more so today. Official government site, Official Pentagon photographs, Official pentagrap renderings of FBI encounters. It's it's remarkable, really, and you know, when you combine it with what's been said and what's been shown and revealed for the last few years, it really does seem as if they're sort of massage us all to get used to this very important realization.
Walter Kern, who is something of an interesting crank, I love him. I said that the probe will go in slowly and get the way a great way to describe it. Now, Peter, we know from previous podcasts, is utterly indifferent to space whatsoever when it comes to mankind going out there.
We know that, Peter James dog Gunnet. I keep trying.
The Cold War is over, we won taxpayers should not be taxed to if Elon Musks wants to fill the space with satellites, if he wants to go to Mars on his and his investors'.
Money, I'm all for it. I just don't think we should NASA is now.
I agree with you, although it's literally the only thing besides the military that I'm happy for my tax doll is to be spent on basically every other thing I hate. And I watched MS two and I thought, yeah, okay, I don't mind paying for this. I do agree with you. Ten years ago, I got to go to Cape Canaveral, hang out there for a day, access all areas, watch a launch, and they were selling me on private space travel because they said that's the future. Look at all
these amazing companies, space exploragy and all of this. I'm totally with you that said. When I do see taxpayer funded space exploration, it's one of the only times that I don't go give me my money back. I'm just sort of happy.
All right.
Well, the question gentlemen was about UFOs. What do you think the government is doing and do you believe them?
Well, I've already told my one story for this episode, so I won't tell the story about my father and I when I was a young teenager doing UFO pranks at outdoor UFO conventions in the California desert.
See actually to say some years in a row.
That doesn't answer the questions do you believe that the government is rolling this stuff out in order to prepare us for greater revelations to come that are you going to answer the question?
No, over to you, Peter.
That presupposes far too much much competence on the part of the federal government. They couldn't plant. No, I don't believe that there's some kind of coordinated plan on the federal government slowly to massage because the federal government isn't that smart or that good at doing anything.
Especially true in other words, than we had the whole six weeks to slow the spread, and then it's going to be another six and then it's going to be another six that we know.
They didn't know what they were doing. They were making it up as they went along.
Well, y, I've always had the iron law of conspiracies, which is what it's There's an inverse relationship between the plausibility of a conspiracy and the number of people who would have to be involved to carry it off. Where's JFK's assassination and so forth. I got to think something would have leaked out at some point over the years, and and then there are few people say, look, I've been but I never know whether to believe these witnesses that come forward to congressional hearings.
You you never know.
I was.
I was at a studio Studio fifty seven, yeah, area fifty one, and I you know, I saw the gray on the table being dissected. I don't know, right, I tend not to believe it. But on the other hand, when NAS says, by the way, here's a photograph we never released before from Apollo seventeen that shows these three lights hovering over them as they're doing their business. That you know, it wasn't a leaked before because it was
held deep, deep, deep in a vault for reasons. So you know, Yes, anybody who watches the IS International Space Station feed knows that sometimes it just cuts out and people look at what it was doing before it cuts out, and they'll find something in the court. Yes, it's the whole space is polluted by grifters and people with bizarre ideas who want to believe that comment that just went
around the sun. I mean, if you're hanging on the subreddit's about people discussing what that was, you know that there are just absolute lunatics out there. But at the same time, just because there are lunatics who believe it, does not believe there's not a core of truth at the essence of it. Okay, all right, coming back down to earth La, Spencer Pratt, We're all looking at saying,
why isn't this guy gonna win? He makes these audacious commercials where he says things like, yes, in the future, we will arrest criminals and they'll even be put in handcuffs, we will take the needles off the street, and we will arrest the people who are selling the drugs and plane the parts of the homeless people. And everybody rears back in horror when.
Actually what he's doing is saying doing.
He's talking about the absolute base level, what ought to be a mayoral competence, what ought to be the responsibilities of government. But yet people in alsay La say, yeah, non of sucks. But I don't know.
I'm gonna go with the Marxist. I don't get it. I don't get it.
So we're going to Steve and I are going to have to defer to Charlie and you to talk about California because for Steve and me, and we've discussed this over at the last day and a half now, it's too painful. We love this state too much. Steve Hilton is now leading in the polls Steve Hilton, the Republican, is now leading in the polls. In the gubernatorial race. Pratt seems to be breaking through and the mayoral race.
And Steve and I have had our hearts broken by this gorgeous As we sit here, we can raise our heads and look out the window, and we see the Santa Barbara Pier and the cloud, the fog beginning to dissolve in the morning sun, and the glistening of the Pacific.
We're about to go up to Ronald Reagan's ranch in a moment or two, a few minutes, and if the fog lifts up there, we'll be able to turn in one direction and see the Channel Islands glistening in the Pacific, and turn in the other direction and see the Santa Inez Valley, which is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Don't torture us, chains we cannot permit ourselves to get our hopes up again.
Miel I understand, I absolutely understand completely. It's how I feel about Minnesota. I mean, I live in a Dina now, which is a nice, little wealthy suburb. They said, we've had two murders in three weeks now. As they say, don't worry. It weren't stranger murders there. People knew each other, like, oh, okay.
Great, James. I had that as I live in a Dina now and I thought that was really appropriate given your podcast.
And yes it was an anagram of sorts. But but I am strongly considering decamping to a small, little rivertown where I can live out sort of a Twin Peaks, uh, you know, a little small town main street experience.
Because okay, so this fantasy somewhere between fantasy and plan of yours. You want to stay in Minneapolis or are you tempted to go back home to the Dakota's No, I'm not. I mean stay in Minnesota or go back home to Minnesota. Down on the Mississippi. There are some wonderful little towns down in the Mississippi where you can live a perfectly decent life. And and that's where I think I'm going to spend the last act.
So I get it. I absolutely get it completely. We are run by lunatics.
Theirs.
When you turn around, when you look at them and you say, where's the seed corn for next for you know, the next planting season, they look at you and they said, oh, we microwaved the last of that last night, and you know, there was a movie on it.
We needed some popcorn.
They just destroyed it, consumed the social capital of this place that wants me to work. I would, and in the same sense that it's duplicated in every other place where people build a decent society. And then you know, hard Man, strong Man, week Men, bad Man, that whole cycle, and we're the worst part of it, and so is California.
And I just don't want to think that years to come from now, they'll look back on it and say that they absolutely squandered the future of the Golden State for ridiculous, obscene, Marxist little smelly orthodoxies and plans is or Well called them.
Charlie's trying to suppress. I hope he's trying to suppress the earth. To gloat now, the only man on this podcast who lives in a state that.
Works, I'm not. I'm genuinely not. I've only been to Minnesota once and it was brief, so I don't know much about Minnesota. But as you know, Peter, I adore California. I've spent lots of time in California ever since I was a little kid, and I think it's a great tragedy what's happening to California. So I'm not one of those servatives it says in California. I love California. I just think it's an absolute disgrace how it's been run.
So I'm not I'm not going to I will. I'll invite you all to come join me in North Florida, but I'm certainly not going to close.
We will join the only militia where middle initials are permitted to Charles CW. Cook militia exactly.
Yes, Charles, could you say something so we can get you up full screen here? I know again, as I said, podcast is a medium, so Charles say.
Something, say something. Hello, I'm Charles Cook and I am in a militia in North Florida.
I want to get a screen grab of this, because even though I said the podcast is a visual is an audio medium. Some people will watch this, I assume, And we want to put this in the comments at Ricochet. What is Ricochet? Well, if you haven't figured out after seven hundred and eighty eight podcasts, it's the place founded in part by Peter Robinson. Again, well, please to have with us and rob long and for all these years it has been your home for saying civil center, right conversation.
There's a code of conduct you got to behave. That's why the comment sections are as fun as they are, and the community has arisen over the years. That's the sort of thing you've been looking for all your days
on the internet. You can go to the main page and read, you can listen to the podcast, but for a very few, very few, small, little little emilient you can join the member side, which is where you'll find a community that discusses absolutely everything you want to and if they're not discussing what you want to, start a conversation, if you want to come to your house, well they'll
come to your town and meet up. So it's just it's a great place and we love it and Charles will soon be rolling out all sorts of innovations in Ricochet. I believe five point zero. But now it's the pop culture speed Round for Peter Robinson and Stephen Hayward and it's going to be this. Charles has reconfigured his room. I've noticed there is a bench that used to be
in the back that isn't there anymore. There's a desk in the corner, but he has prominently displayed four album covers which he believes what he wants us to see because they indicate his taste. Steven name those four album covers right to left.
Go. I can't see them closely enough my screen, I can see.
I can see them right here. I've got a little, fine little screen, Charles. I say something, so we can so we can see them again, see it. We can cut this out if you want here we can maybe we can. Can you zoom in on them? I can tell them from here, and you're a thumbnail. For Heaven's sakes.
I don't know. I don't know if I can zoom in on them.
Stephen, Do you see them?
Can you?
I can't.
I can't make them out, James.
Yeah, Charlie being Charlie. One of them is a Beatles album. At the other the one one of the right is Endless Summers by the Beach Boys. The next one, Oh Beach Boys. It's a lineup, and then next one is Level of Gold by Dire Straits. The other one is You Wish You Were Here by by Pink Floyd, which has the fireman who's the guy who's exped you know, bursting into fires a stuntman or died a little while ago.
And then and then on its end, a little bit more difficult to see because it's stilted away from us. Is the butt of Bruce Springsteen in Born in the Usa. Mission, Charles, should you decide to accept it is to put up four different albums.
This is so funny that you say this, because I just completely redid my office, and I know I have a camera here, so my my screen is moving around. But I'll change that. But but and I said to my wife, I'm going to change the album covers in the background. Every time I said this, I would do this just to entertain people. And you have gone for it. So this is clearly a good ideas.
James.
Yes, quick question James for elaboration later. Are you keeping up with a new trend in microtonal punk out of Canada?
Uh?
Note I did not make that.
Are you talking about the guys who were the word stripe costumes? Yeah? Growing up the internet, they're awesome. They're absolutely showing up in my I hadn't I forgot the fact that they were micro tonal, but yeah, you know, they're they're quite unique. I'm waiting for a reveal where it turns out to be Ringo and Clapton or something like that do what they always wanted to do, but the man was holding them back. The man is not holding me back from doing what I'm doing now, which
is ending the show. Thanking Peter, thanking Stephen, thanking Charles, Thanking you the listener, advising you to join ricochet dot com, patronize all of the sponsors who are peppered throughout the podcast, and join us in the conversation if you will, please, We'll see you all in the comments. Guys at Ricochet four point whatever. Bye bye, bye, bye bye