I was in France to pronounce it like that. France, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Mister Gerbatcheff, tear down this wall, read my lips. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long. He's back and Peter Robinson, Lame James Lilacs. And given the whole Scotus bonanza we've had this week, there's only one possible guest we need, and that is John Hugh. So let's sabrasels a
podcast. Well, it's a very sad day. In the majority of opinion, they basically whitewash, whitewash the Constitution in a way that basically says that we were right all alone. America's a nation that can be defined in a single word. I excu welcome everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number six hundred and forty eight, two more to six fifty, which is probably a meaningless number of six forty eight. But here we are. I'm James Llax,
and here is Minneapolis. Rob Long's back in New York and he's been in falls. Peter Robinson will be trembling along in just a minute here. But while we're waiting for Peter and waiting for our guests John you who will tell us everything we need to know about Scotus World. Welcome back, nob and how was thank you? The last we say we see we see it's in flames. You know, it's just entirely inflamed. So you got singed on the way out. There's Peter gol Ah. You know, it's funny
when that stuff like that happens in a foreign cut. Often when things happen at farign country, especially France, which is sort of bewildering in a little bit different and kind of has their own weird thing going on. If you're in the United States, you think, what does it even mean? Like, what does it even mean that these guys are marching around in yellow vests and talking about a you know, twenty three hour work week. But we
know what this means. This is just a this police stop that went wrong and they light they shot a kid and they and they light about it. And so but the the demographics are different, are they not than the than the yellow bests? Yeah? Oh yeah, obviously yes. But what I guess what I should mean is if this just feels like okay, there that we've had this and What I think is interesting about it is that we we I mean, I hate when people do that, so I then here I
am doing it. But when I think about the sort of the George Floyd that the umbrella term, I'm using George Floyd's umbrella term for all that stuff. Um, I think of it is like quick, essentially typically uniquely American, that this is something that happens in the melting pot of the nation with a history that we have, and um turns out it's not. So that's
my only takeaway from from the Paris riots. I mean, what I was there, I got a lot of questions, and I think I did an interview or two with some journalists because they were obsessed with the writer's strike, because it seemed to them that Americans have innovated a new thing to strike about and a new group to go on strike. And I think the French had a hard time accepting that the Americans have invented and discovered a new thing that
they haven't. So there's a lot of curiosity about how what does that mean to go on strike? What do you do? Like they were like they really want to know the details of the writers strike. So I spec here it'll be like, you mean that are moments when writers do work well, No, I think they're familiar with that. How can you tell they're striking? The job of a writer is to sit around and not write and look constipated. Exactly right. Interesting, Peter, Welcome and you are in California.
You are in California. You have not been a hit by the haze and the smoke that is covering the country here for once, for once, we are so used to having the wildfire, haze and smoke in the middle of the summer that I have to say the principal reaction of US forty million Californians is to look at the rest of the country and chortle a little bit. Thank you for chartling yeah week, because we always point to you and say hat which we don't know where we we we s good Christian people in
the middle of the country. There science, but our weather. In the paper said of the fire, of the smoke and the rest of it, this is what climate change looks like and smells like climate change. That's why not poor strange management of their forests and Canada their tendency to just let things burn, not the fact that they've had Arson, and no, it's it's climate change, because what isn't But no, you've got to so what is
the news in California. We're just talking about Rob in France, where I assume he had delightful gustatory experiences because why also pretty much the news in California. Actually the news in California. My I have a friend who's a member of the Director's Guild, and he explains the strikes to me as followers.
The Director's Guild are the grown ups. He's a member of the negotiating team actually, and they go in and they sit down with the studios and they come up with a plan, and they don't yeah, they just get it done. And indeed they signed their deal I think it was the middle of last week or so, and then SAG the Screen Actors Guild and above all the Writers Guild, wine and more open stage protests and get a lot of publicity, and then they finally come in some weeks later and sign a deal
based on the deal that the Director's Guild signed. And this has happened over and over again. I'm told this year is different, and this year is different, at least in part because this is all the form of a question to you, Rob, because of artificial intelligence AI, and the studios have decided that AI is already useful. They will still need writers, but they might not need such big writers rooms. They might not need junior writers. And here's why. So my friend gave me an example. He's one of
the things you might assigned to junior writers. You've got a premise for a sitcom, and then you signed the kids in the room to come up with three or four different endings. Just see how might the plot go? How might you end it? And AI and do that already. I mentioned this to Sun number two and he called up chat GBT and assigned it to write a scene in which Donald Trump and Joe Biden play Ping pong, And forty seconds later there was five hundred words on his screen which I have now seen.
It was not ready for SNL. Lauren Michaels would have would not have bought it, but you know what, it had a sense of pacing, It tried some humor and you could just sort of see the way this could go, and it really could be bad for junior writers. Question Mark, Rob, Well, I'm I have a theory that if you're a writer and you are worried about AI. Just how bad are you? Like that scenario I guess could work. It's just never going to be as good as a
bunch of funny writers in a room coming up with stuff. The AI I just don't don't like jokes and so so far. Um and the idea of like separating it all into scenarios and you ask chet GPT to come on, maybe it would work. I don't know that that just seems like actually more work than sitting in a room with your team and the fun of it and
coming up with stories. And you know, you can write half a story in the in the room if you're if you're good, right, and so part of the problem is that's what I mean, is like if you're not good, I think I think AI means as you do this, if you if you're, if you're, if you're a good writer, it's going to make you slightly better because you're going to use it and the studios aren't going
to use it for you. You're going to use it. The studios don't want to develop, they don't want to do any of it, so I think they're out of that business. Um, if you're a great writer, it's going to give you superpowers, because you're really going to be able to run a bunch of different versions at once and see how they all play out, and it'll be an interesting writing prompt. But I even I use now
if, um, how how do you use? Give us a couple of examples of how you use I haven't used it in dialogue, but I've used it in pros when I don't want to do any research and I don't really want to know any of the information. I just want to kind of get what happened, and I'll just write the first three sentences and to say, finish it for me, and it'll finish it for you. I've never used
that. I don't really use the sentences of the language, but I definitely use the way it lays out events and sequences in a way that's very, very logical and easy to understand, and so it kind of gets out of you, so it gets out of your own worn So we're already in the third We're already in the third verse of in the year twenty five twenty five by Zager and Evans or a rob Long is just in a chair hooked up to a bunch of tubes, dictating some ideas to machines which write it off
for you. Well maybe I just I just think that when you when you reduce all that stuff to just the output, you know you're what you're going to get is something boring. And when people don't do this thing at the point, I mean, there's only one rule of show business, right, don't be boring. And I've never seen anything the AI has done has been morning And maybe they'll come up with one. I don't know, but I have to I am in the director's skill as well, so I would I
differ with your director friend this way. The directors have are traditionally the grown ups in the room. They are traditionally the ones to do the research. There's been a traditionally a huge overlap between the director's interest and the writer's interests. It's not quite the same thing now, especially as especially in terms of working conditions. This is very boring to people who are not in shows. But I'll do it anyway. The director the Director's Guild categories of employment are
really really strict and well defined. The first ad first sistant director on any set movie or TV does the thing. The second assistant director on any movie or TV set does another thing. The director does a thing. People the upm who's also in the director's guild does a thing. These are really specific categories. Writers are like, well are you. They have different names that
are traditional names, like story editor and co producer and supervising producer. But the story editor doesn't edit any stories, and the supervising producer doesn't produce any doesn't supervise any production. There's just titles for levels of writer. The problem is that that what you need to know now you want to be a useful member of the Writer's Guild, or or you want to be successful umbers the Writer's Guild, or you want to understand what's going on, is you need
to know math. And writers just don't know maths. And so there's a huge amount of stuff I read down from the Writers Guild that I'm just baffled as to how they got to two plus two equals, you know, f like the completely wrong categories that they're blending. The word residualism doesn't mean residual anymore, all that stuff. So they are they are intractable and and way
way behind on understanding how the business is going to change. And I think the actor screen actors guid will probably make a deal, probably a week, because traditionally actors do what the directors told them to do. John Pothoortz gives you a call and says, Rob, Rob, Rob, you promised me your copy for the next issue five days ago, and say oh, oh right, yes, yes, of course, of course you hang up. You'd write three sentences and then say chat, GPT finish my commentary column.
Really is that sort of the way it works, and then you go out. It's it's usually if I have a paragraph for two and you're writing pros, I write idiosyncratic essays that have very little to do with truth or reality or journalism. I am not a journalist. I am not interested in facts. I don't like I think facts to boring. I like what I think
about facts. So I want to help you with that stuff. It doesn't every now and then you have a paragraph where you have to lay out what happened and when oh I see and you trying to like and like and you and you can start it and it will sort of finish it in all sort of And I always do it on a separate you know, you do it on a separate document, and then you can kind of see, oh, this is the way, this is how a computer brain logically laid out a
sequence of historical or you know, financial events. And then that's a good way to do it, because I understand it's really for clarity more than anything else for me. Because I write, my senses are two paragraphs long. I use semicolons and dashes constantly. I'm incredibly, incredibly bad in that, and it's something's hard for people to understand because you're taking dictation from your head.
And I get that, and that's how I write too. But the thing that I'm loath to do is to do that thing that you just described, because I find that going in and taking a look and finding my own way to say something that I may not understand it seems a little boring, makes me a better writer. It makes me work as opposed to just falling back on my ticks and ingredient skills. Well, you see, you like
work, and Rob has a different approach work. He says, I've known you both for a long time now, and I see where we disagree here at the two of you. I'm out. Yeah. When it comes to work, the Nations leftist commentators are working overtime over the last couple of days, because there have been three decisions that have just rocked them all back on their heels, and we need to pack the court. It's a rowe court, it's illegitimate, it's been taking money from special interests, all these things.
Biden should absolutely ignore everything that they're doing. The States should ignore, the Court should be canceled all of that stuff, et cetera. If only Ruth Bader Ginsberg had In other words, we got some good news from the Supreme Court this way, and you know, we could talk about it here, we could plug it into our own little chat GPT things. But why when we have a walking, talking embodiment of an intelligence the likes of which
machinery could never hope to emulate, and that would be John. You it does pain me to say that this time we actually need John. Do you know how painful it's spin. I've been listening to you guys, and I couldn't say anything because you muted me. Yeah, how did you get how did you get chat GPT to mute me automatically? Because it's it's it's sentient
now and is making wise decisions for the rest of humanity. You know those computers that Kirk always argues with until they smoke and then they shut down. Well, this is like that, except we're going to let you roll because you are, you know, the Berkeley Guy American Enterprise Institute. You know, you've got your credentials up the yazoo, as they might say in some other places. You know, he's on power Line, he's got that other
law talk podcast. What really matters though, when he comes here and talks to us, because he loves us more than anybody else. All right, what do we got Let's start with Should we start with the freshest one, the last one out the door, the last grenade they kind of rolled before they headed out for the summer, or which one do you want to address? Is the most consequential Scotus decision of our times? Well, the most
consequential one of this year was yesterday with the affirmative action case. Right, I think for the Roberts Court this is the second most important opinion other than the Dob's case from last year. If you think about what conservative lawyers and judges have wanted for the last fifty years, it was to overrule Row versus Wade, and it was to end affirmative action it's almost as if the conservative legal movement has finally achieved most of its agenda. It only took a half
century. But John, does that mean you're more or less done now? Well, there's always new things to talk to Richard Epstein about. So seriously, you can see today, actually you saw the other cases where the Conservative Court is still pushing forward. One is religious rights, and that's the very controversial Conservatives actually are very divided about how much to protect religious rights. But today the court said that a religious internet wedding planner did not have to do
same sex weddings if out of her legitimate and good faith religious belief. And then the other case today was the cutting back stopping actually not cutting back completely blocking the four hundred billion dollars Biden student loan cancelation. And that's the other area where this Court's going to still keep going, which is trying to figure
out a way to rein in the bureaucracy. Ap characterized the website designer decision as another blow for gay rights, which I think is an interesting way of framing the issue as opposed to I mean, if somebody had declined to make a website for Nazis, I don't think that the ape would be saying in a blow to racist rights, Wow, they would be hailing it as something else. This is a matter of compelled speech, right. This is a
matter of the state's view on things being mandatory in freedom of expression. So the phrasing on this is always going to be suspect and perhaps not surprising. And guess what, I have no question there, so I'll shut up and Peter, you can go on and ask a good question. James actually made an excellent point there, which is one thing that the religious groups successfully did, and they started doing this about twenty thirty years ago, but you're really
seeing the culmination in the last five years. You say, kind and I'm not sure very religious people would agree with this. They kind of converted themselves from a religious group to a free speech group. So now instead of saying they still say, you're restricting our right to have freedom of religion under the First Amendment, but then they also say, and we have a point of
view as like a free speech rights. That's different, and they've been winning a lot more lately because they're able to say we also are just saying what we believe. As if you know, any group in society has a right to say what they belief, regardless of whether it's religious or not. And they've been getting I think they begin more sympathy from people and from judges because they've made that sweat. I know we're talking about we're talking about the website
case, but I also want to go back to the coffrimitive action. But the website case for it's just just clarifying. I always get this wrong. If I run a liquor store and I say I don't sell to gay people, that's a violation of something, right? Is that that you can't do that? I bake cakes or decorate cakes, or make websites or do a kind of a service and say, listen, I don't, I don't. I mean the people doing that aren't saying they don't sell or serve those people.
They're saying they will not create a public product for those people, right, they will not be their ghostwriter in a sense, either on the web or on the top of a cake. Is that that fair? Yeah? And that's where a lot of people are all right conflicted because you could say, if you're a store and you open yourself up to the public or your hotel, you open yourself up to the public. Then the law says you have to basically not discriminate against anybody who comes in. So you can't say,
I run the rob long Democrats only love motel. Although that sounds be a great business right, you got to let in Republicans and Democrats. You have an obligation when you open a business to open up to everybody. Now that distinction the court made, and you may not be persuaded by this. There's you know, there's a lot of people dissent from this on the court and then scholarship, but they would say. The court then says, okay, so if you go into the baker's place and you buy the kick,
he has to sell you the cake. You can't force him, though, to write what you want on the cake. He said, that's my artistic right. And the court kind of draws the line around there between your right to open access, but then the right of the business owner not to right not to have to say what he doesn't want to say, not to be your ghostwriter, which I I kind of agree, I don't quite understand. I don't guess I don't understand the argument against it because because it hurts the
wrong group of people. The same people who are saying that the baker should be forced to write something on the cake that is contrary to their own personal beliefs are the same people who will try to get you drummed out of your job or academia if you miss gender or use the wrong pronouns, or you have a hateful idea which is descent. I mean, this is the disconnect that I don't get is, on one hand, they want the state to compel people to say certain kinds of speeching on the other hand, they are
absolutely incensive. They're incensed if people say something that they find upbraids their own delicate sensibilities. And here's an interesting thing that both James and robs our questions race is after this case. Before this case, I would not have thought
this was a serious claim. But now I could see someone saying, well, in the workplace, you can't make me use your preferred pronouns anymore because I don't believe in three, four or five different genders, right, So I, for religious, good faith, religious reasons, I refuse to use the vocabulary that my employers trying to impose on me. That might be the next set of cass or it should be because I'm saying artistic somehow gives a
carve out that I don't think should be. There doesn't matter. I mean if the artistry or whether or not it's aesthetic is irrelevant. What matters is compelled to speech. And that's what the Left has been trying to do for a long time. It is to frame and just and contort the words so that if you do not utter these proper phonemes, that you are guilty of a whole wrath of harmful violence, et cetera. Thingshobe Um, all right,
so I guess, I guess I understand it is. But that feels to me as the way it has been limbed by James lilacs Um to use the you know, legal term. But I know you, like John you um, that seems to me as you describe never believable red meat an almost a hometown buffet times twenty a banquet of mc ribbs for future. Now you're making me graces. Yeah, this feels to me like that this area is
gonna be. This is like, this is the overture to the world's longest concerto for courts in twenty years, thirty years in the future, trying to figure this part out right. Yes, and this is to extend the method. This is the overture before the opera starts, because there's so many But
part of it's because of what you guys are talking about. If the other side let people alone, right, they didn't try to say the reason this happened was because Colorado passed a law trying to force Baker's wedding planners to accept everyone who comes in and to have to do these websites or put on the frosting on the cake with the messages for people they disagreed with and for causes
they disagreed with. So I think if the other side would step back a little bit, they won't start generating all these permanent Supreme Court precedents which they're going to be very upset with. And the chances that the other side will step back a little bit are counselor may we go to affirmative action? Yes? Please, I'll just I'm just going to give you a stack of questions and let you deal with them as you may so rather than kind of let you talk and then come in with it. All right, But can we
do them one at a time? Because I can barely remember what Peter said. You must says you might, thank you very much, you might. You can take Yeah, I was clicking around last night and you were. You appeared on every single outlet that I clicked on. John, you must not have slept last night. You were on cable television so much. Okay, it was I was calling. I was telling my friends. I hate to say this, but I was getting critiqued by some friends, so I
said, that's just what you for the first time in history. That's what you call the Asian victory. Lap Okay, I'm trouble for that. Three questions. Question number one, Can we agree that this was the Chief Justice at his best, no attempt to play politics, Beautifully written, passionate, forceful, logically unanswerable as best I can tell too. I'm going to give them all to you, John right now. There does did it leave too
much of a loophole? Of course, colleges and universities may continue to consider essays and personal experiences and your alma mater. Harvard instantly released a press release saying that if students, if applicants discuss the effects on their lives of race, we will of course take that into account. That's a loophole. I think maybe not, while you'll tell me three the military was specifically excluded.
Now, I can't quite figure out the grounds for saying that this is unconstant, that taking race into account in hiring or application admission decisions is unconstitutional, but the military gets to do it. John, So first, I think this is Roberts's greatest opinion. It was, as you said, it was very forceful and strong. He's almost if you read the descent, the tone
of it is he's exasperated. One theme that runs through is not just that the government should never use race ever for anything again, because it was such a mistake, but he has overwhelming disdain for university professors like me, the university administrators, deans, particularly college a ministry. He almost calls them all liars. He says, basically, you told us this stuff almost over twenty years ago, that you needed diversity to have better teaching, research and so
on. And he says there has been in the last two decades absolutely no proof that that is true. And this is almost the exact words. He says, we're no longer going to take your word for it, as you know that's not legal. Ease that's pissed off, right, So that's one day. Is just how forceful. He was almost angry that he felt the Court has been manipulated by university universities. So I thought it was It was a great and also he's very direct and responsive to the descent. He could
have ignored Justice Jackson and her sixteen nineteen Project Descent. I recommend you read it because now we have a critical race theorist on the Supreme Court. Justice Oh oh. It's in fact that she basically prompts Justice Thomas into saying that she herself holds racist beliefs. It is really an extraordinary exchange, Unlike I think I haven't seen anything like it in you know, fifty years of Supreme Court opinions. But what Roberts's main achievement is to say, let me show
you how the Constitution is color blind. Let me show you every time the Supreme Court has thought it was doing good by deviating from that, like dred Scott, which appeld Slay, like Plusy versus Ferguson, which upheld segregation. Every time we did it, it was a disaster for the country. And so we've done it a third time for emissions and we're gonna stop. We're gonna close that loophole off. And now we're just returning to a single,
easy to understand principle. We have a color blind constitution. So I thought it was I thought it was. I don't think Roberts is ever going to do better than this. It's all downhill for him now or you John, the two of you need to hang up. But we'll come to that in a moment. We'll come to that. I'm still young enough to get on the court. See, this is what we gotta You're gonna really scare the left. Just say, look, you can still put John you on the
court. This is not over. Um. The second the loophole, Yeah, that's not going to really think. Why do you think you wrote that book about Donald Trump called Defender of the Constitution? Yeah, three January sixth Um, anyway, the loop on the loopholepole question, Yes, the loophole. Actually, Um, this is again something he did because of the descent. So that sent the actually tried to say, okay, here the ten
ways college emissions officers can still cheat. They're really remarkable. They were exploited. They tried to find loopholes in the decision that's what the end did, right, and tell the end one of them and lay them out for college emissions officers. Right. So this really ticked Roberts off. So he basically said, actually says the last place you should look for legal counsel is the losing descent and a Supreme Court opinion. It's really harsh. I thought it
was a great line. But then that's why this provoked what people are calling the loophole, which is not which is where he says, Look, obviously, college students are going to put in their essays. Oh, I overcame some barrier because of my race, or my race inspired me to write about the works of Martin Luther King. It's not possible for the court to police any of that. But what the court instead said is, but if you use that race as a proxy for he's automatically in or she's automatically and that's
unconstitutional. If you look at their race just like you might look at their income or their lack of education opportunities, that's different. Then you're still treating them as an individual, not a member of a group. That might still be okay, But then they say, but we're going to be vigilant we're
gonna be watching you to make sure you're not cheating. Okay. On the third one about the military, this has been totally i think exaggerated by the left because they can't find anything in this opinion, you know, for anything that looks like sunlight. So there's a footnote in the beginning of the opinion that says, this opinion doesn't address military academies because no one sued them,
so we're reserving that for tomorrow. So I already had a friend of mine in the conservative legal movement who said, oh, we're going to sue the military academies next year now, so I think this exception is not going to last very long. And if you were the dean, you know, West
Point or Annapolis, you should change your missions. Gets sued to the Supreme Court, right, And I said, look, this is why the court would do this, because can you imagine the Supreme Court saying, oh, it would be okay to have racial quotas for promotions in the military to major or colonel. Court would strike that down right away. So why do you think they would allow those a military can of say we're going to have quotas
for black and Hispanic officers. And lower ones for Asian and white officers. So I can't think this court would would agree with that. Okay, so um, I am jet lagged. So I got up early today and I read the newspaper and I read the decisions in the affirmative action case and they are like really good, They're like riveting. That's like a lot of drama in there. But the one thing I was struck, and I just this is now cultural, not legal, So I'm asked to ask you a larger
question. I was struck by the difference of opinion between Katangi Brown Jackson and Clarence Thomas, that the two black members of the court have a very different view. And so I did a little Wikipedia and I and I mean no disrespect to Katangie Brown Jackson. I'm what I'm about to say I could be said about me in spades, but she in the word they kept using in the in the decisions, adversity that adversity can count. Adversity is something that
all colleges can look at. Two parent family. Katangie Brown Jackson raised in Florida, born in DC. Father was a prominent lawyer was then in the Chief Council for the Miami Dade school board. Mother was a school principal, she went to Harvard. Well, I'm sure, I'm sure she had adversity in her life. We all do. But when you can compare that to say that Clarence Thomas story, single parent family, raised by a grandparent in
poor, rural Georgia, a lot of adversity there. If you are the admissions officer for a Harvard law school, Yale law school, one of those candidates applicants has adversity in you know, truckloads, and the other doesn't. Why should both of them get preferential treatment over you know, goody two shoes a student, John you, because that's really what is at a heart right of this case. I don't understand why my shoes are goody two, but
I don't even know what that means. So, you know, Rob, actually it's your student, you know you were, Yeah, what do you get other than as a their grades below A that's another mom a Asian victory lap, but you went to Actually, Asian victory lap is kind of funny because we're supposed to be humble, So an Asian victory lap is just I don't know what an Asian victory lap would be just book. I'll tell you this much, whatever the victory lap is, it doesn't clock in at much
of a speed. So this is this point that rob is making is actually not just cultural, it's legal, and it's actually infused. In the opinion, the Chief Justice Roberts says, the evidence shows that the primary beneficiaries of racial preferences are middle and upper middle class minority families. And he says, why should write an upper middle class kid and a black kid in the suburbs get a benefit of racial preference over a poor white kid in inner city or
a recent immigruct from Asia. I think that's unanswerable. And so I think there's, as you see, this cleavage or fight between people who think race explains everything, which I think is That's why I'm quite seriously I say Justice
Jackson's descent is a sixteen nineteen project descent. She says this is justified because all of American society is fundamentally racist and produces these long term, permanent he says, permanent oppression of blacks, and Justice Thomas or I think the six other Justices and the majority who say there's nothing wrong with having preferences based on socioeconomic class. That's the other thing. People don't realize. This opinion only
says you can't use race. If you still wanted to have a better society and do social engineering, you can do it based on geography or poverty, right, whether your kids went you know, where your parents went to college, that's all still allowed. In fact, I think this court would uphold
those in a second. So you really so, Rob swyn Is. It shows that there's this difference between people who believe that government can do things based on class, but people in the dissent, And I think a lot of my colleagues and a lot of university professors and teachers in K through twelve who
think race explains everything. Right, But if you were, I mean, I'm going back to those two people and I'll shut up because it seems to be That's the crux of the argument is that Clarence Thomas was born in nineteen forty eight and Catangie Brown Jackson was born in nineteen seventy and when Clarence Thomas was born, he didn't have indoor plumbing and didn't have a father. He
had a father, father left early. He didn't have any of the things that you need to get to Yale, except probably a grandmother who's on him all the time and his own native brilliance. KTAGI Brown Jackson is a little bit more like you know, Frankly the Rob long story, like she kind of like you know, she born Okay, she did Okay. She's a child of the post civil rights era by any definition. So it seems like one side is clinging to the privilege and the other side is saying no,
no, done over. And I don't see where this ends. I don't see where if you have the oldest guy saying you don't need these set asides, the one guy who Rob really could have used them, frankly, and then the other person who didn't really need them claiming them. I mean, how can most Americans, certainly most Asian Americans look at this and think that the system is rigged against them? Yeah? I agree. In fact, Thomas says it's worse than that. Even he says that having this view that
the younger minorities have. Look, there are plenty of Asians who support racial preferences, which I find mind blowing. But Justice Thomas says, it's not
just that you're trying to get benefits for yourself. You are adopting an ideology that is destructive to young people, he says, because he says this in his opinion in response to Justice Jackson, you are trying, you are trying to convince all young black children that you are permanent victims, and that nothing you do is a result of your hard work and as you said, Rob your natural talents, that everything you suffers because of racism, and therefore everything
any benefits you get is because of race. He says that, as though that's supposed to stings, as though he's unmasked at their argument. That's exactly what they specifically explicitly say, that you are in this position simply because of you. I mean, I mean intersectionality and identity politics requires the reduction of everybody down to this. They'll admit it first. So, I mean, you're right, and he's right, but it's you know, I don't think
there's a mortal blow to their self image. It's like, yeah, of course, that's exactly what we believe, and it's baked into the bones of the American system. Now. The one thing I think is different between say, last year and Dobbs and this year is that in this case, but I think for these reasons. I think the great majority of American people agree
with Justice Thomas. I think the polls show something around two thirds of the American people, including a majority of the minority groups, think that the government shouldn't use racial preferences. So I think Katanji Brown, Jackson's descent, and this whole sixteen nineteen project, maybe this is the turning point. I hope, you know, maybe this is you know, this crazy ideology invented at the universities has been let loose on society, and maybe this court is now
not ending it, but it's the beginning of the end. So John, did you did you find it striking at all that on all three of these big decisions that have come down in the last couple of days, Affirmative action, the student loan forgiveness case, and then the cake case, the wedding cake case, wed wedding planner case, thank you, the three liberals all voted in the minority, meaning I guess, well, no, I'm putting this as a question my own thing. Just you know more about this than
I do. But it struck me that they're becoming that was almost transparently political. We just can't permit that we just can't do this. The arguments are very weak kotential. Jackson Brown is arguing politics from the New York Times, and I guess I was surprised and disappointed that now a correct, straightforward understanding of the Constitution. And as far as I can tell, on the student loan matter, nobody including Joe Biden, actually thought what he was doing there
was legal. And yet you still have three justices of the Supreme Court saying no, no, no, no. If the president does it, we're not quite sure how that's legal. But somehow or other, there's a deli man, somehow it's legal and just straightforward constitutional interpretation is not politicized. The left has somehow or other pledged itself to sheer power identity politics in a way that it had not before. Am I wrong? Which I may very well be? Well, I'm not sure you're wrong. When it comes to these
sort of core issues like abortion affirmative action. I think their views on this are really hardwired into liberalism. I mean, what are you wanna call it? Progressive is not liberalism, small elm. But I think progressive just can't because they have whole structures of thought and policy built around abortion, built around right, affirmative action, social engineering based on race. So I actually this
is my hope. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm too optimistic, but my hope is once the court gets over these central fights that have been going on for fifty years. Right back, which created racial preferences is from the seventies. Ro versus Wade is from the seventies. Right, These are fights that have been going on for fifty years. Now, maybe if they're settled,
you know, the cork can get down to regular business. So I'll, you know, while everyone's talking about as they should, affirmative action, talking about the student loan program. The Court's been unanimous on things that I think have a lot of common sense. They decided a case yesterday about the religious
postal worker. You know, um, what's his name from Cheers, not Norm, the other guy Cliff. It's like it's a Cliff were a religious Catholic, right, So Cliff didn't want to deliver mail on Sundays, and so the post office started basically punished him, and the court unanimously said the post office should just give him some other kind of work at the post office on the other days to make up for not working on suns The other case, I point out to get who delivers mail on who gets mail on Sundays?
What nineteen twenty seven where you got too you know you got it twice a day and then once on Sundays. I have there's never never known Sunday to live. Could be we just we just don't include Minneapolis. Oh that explains it? Could it possibly be? Actually no, actually no, it's actually Amazon. That's the post Office. That's what I was going to say. It's one of those things that they're doing their subcontracting for Amazon. And
so that dad's another little eye opener. Did these things anyway? Do go ahead? And then here's actually the other one is a Minnesota case self throw it out there too, where they were unanimous, everyone agreed them common sense where Minneapolis took the condo of a ninety two year old grandma because she had had paid her taxes, sold it, kept the tax money, but then took kept the rest of the money too. Again nine zero. That's a
taking of property. So my hope is right you three Trump justices added to Mary Roberts, Thomas and Alito has produced now the supermajority that can finally resolve these cases that really have bedeviled our system for fifty years. Now we can get onto new business and maybe you'll see right the tensions received rather than get worse. That's my guy. Let me ask you about the student loan thing. We all know that we had an amnesty when it came to immigration.
That it didn't settle the issue forever. It just meant that people said, whatever, can have one of those, I'd like to get into the next one, and so they'd come here and stick around and hope for a law. If they had passed the they've said that the Biden loan forgiveness was Okay, that's great, that's a good idea. We're going to say it's constitutional because it's a good idea and people like it, and ergo, it's constitutional.
If they had done that, there would have been absolutely no effect whatsoever on people taking ridiculous amounts of money to get ridiculous degrees because they figured another one was down the road. So now that they have, now that there's no forgiveness, could this possibly be the beginning of the pointless, expensive, miserable cultural addiction this country has to believing that a college degree is a somehow certification of one's ability to do anything in the world, and it's the basic,
most minimal thing that you have to do to participate. Is this the beginning of the end of the whole college mystique and the return to something perhaps that's more useful and grounded. In other words, I mean, you can wrap up everything we're talking about and saying that, actually, if you want to help these poor kids who grew up in adverse circumstances and have lived experiences
to tell about it, don't send them to Harvard. Then to electrician school or the plumbing school where they can actually make a difference and make some money. Anyway, just the end of college as we know it, Well, you're seeing the changes already and what people are majoring in. So I think you're seeing now the lowest number of majors and the humanities, you know, like English professors are wondering why no one's showing up in their classes. I'll
tell you. Here at Berkeley, we just created the first new college in fifty years, and it basically is data science, and I think it already has the most majors in the whole in the whole university, and people are not majoring in history English. Maybe this is good for humanity. I don't know, but you know, yeah, yeah, it doesn't sound bad. I wouldn't mind. People a fewer people are majoring in English in history if history and English were part of the basics, we're getting a college degree.
In other words, in order to get that degree, even if it's in STEM, we've got to see that you've sat in the class and and gotten a basic rutiment specific education and history in English and the rest of it. So he's come out of you're a well rounded individual. But no, it doesn't you know. Yeah, my points just like the marketers are spawning,
and students themselves are choosing to go for more practical subjects. Now, even when they go to college, they're you know, they're going for things like data science for STEM fields, not for the liberal arts, which I'm sure the four of us all majored in. Can I just change the subject for one thing? Yeah, I hear that, sorry, which we haven't talked about, which the Jerrymanderine case was from two weeks ago, Alan versus Milligan. Is that again, yeah, um, the one from Alabama. One
from Alabama. So the court again, the conservatives on the board said you're the Alabama the redistricting or redraw. The redrawn map that the Alabama state legislature did is is not object to state judicial review. Do I have that right? Uh? Not quite, but it just Supreme Court. The Supreme Court base said we're not going to overturn that map, even though when you drew
the map you can take race, and you took race into account. So some people think, oh, that's a contradiction with yesterday's decision saying you can't use race. So this is where so there's a I could give a political explanation for this or constitutional explanation. The political explanation is I think after last term with Daubs and the Second Amendment cases, I think that I think Chief Justice Roberts and the Conservatives say, there's only so much we can do any
one year. There's only so many Apple carts we're going to turn over. And so if we're going to strike down affirmative action, if we're going to strike down Biden's student loan program, right, we're and again I think this is just Roberts and Kevanaugh, but primarily Roberts. He's basically, we're going
to leave a law of the rest of the law alone. And so the Court has for many years to allow the considerations of race and drawing racial drawing congressional districts, and so conservatives are upset with Roberts because they're saying, how could you do that? This is inconsistent. You shouldn't allow the use of race here either. But I think Roberts just said, we're just going to
leave the way we've been doing business here untouched. I think a lot of conservatives think it's wrong and unconstitutional to use race even when you draw congressional districts. And then the question is, even how do you do it right? I mean, how do you you know you're making the worst stereotypical judgments of people based on their race when you pack them into different districts, assuming they're
all going to think and vote the same way. But my view is the court just didn't have enough, you know, political and intellectual capital to do it. It doesn't it doesn't consist with the earlier decision or the later decision. Now, I mean, now that was earlier this month, and so later this month. Maybe I get that's wrong. Um limiting the state Court's
ability to review election maps drawn by state legislators. So in a sense, it's consistent in a sense that they're sort of allowing the state elected state representatives a lot of seems to me, a lot of leeway properly, it seems to me in deciding how elections are organized run conducted in their states. Is that so it is consistent in that way or am I? Oh yeah, yeah, Again, I think there's a short term and a long term.
This is more versus Harper you're talking about, which is whether state legislatures alone have the right to draw districts or whether other parts of the government can change them, like governor or in that case, the state Supreme Court. So I think the short term again is I think Roberts, you know who, in both of these cases joined with liberals on the court to you know,
basically reach a liberal outcome. I think he just didn't want to fight on that many fronts at once at once, and particularly that case, because we may know that a lot of crow Trump people who think the election was stolen wanted the outcome to be different in that case. Because the parallel provision also
says state legislatures decide how you choose presidential electors. And so if you remember back to January December, January twenty twenty twenty, Trump's legal advisors were telling him that the state legislatures could ignore the popular votes in places like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Georgia and just choose the actors themselves for Trump, So I think the politician and Roberts thinks, Look, the more important issue in the long
run is striking down affirmative as racial preferences. Is stopping this seizure of the power of the purse by the president. The longer term picture is exactly as you say, Robin. I, Rob I, I welcome you. I encourage you to join the ranks of legal scholars because this would be a great law large journal article. Actually that I think has been missed, which is now these two cases, plus there's an earlier cases says the Court's not going
to get in the business of trying to draw districts. And then there's an earlier case called Citizens United, where the court said we're not going to try to right or decide how much you can contribute to campaigns. I think that the court is getting out of the business of trying to oversee elections and politics. You can see in the opinions there's this view politics a dirty messy business. Judges have no place trying to get involved and clean up democracy. So
we're just going to pull out of the field. Again. This was a great progressive project. If you think about the Progressives are the one who wanted to have they have they have teach courses called the law of Democracy the law of politics, and they were they were trying to push the courts into basically being the supervisors of elections and politics and political parties. And I think Roberts
and the Conservatives are gradually leaving the field. So not bad good. I mean, look, if if you don't like if you don't like the way your districts are drawn, you don't like the way your state elections are held, you don't like any of that stuff. But the bums out that's America. You don't go to the Supreme Yeah, they're saying, don't come here to the Supreme Court anymore. Rob will soon be submitting an article to the Harvard Law Review. But check it. I think he's going to have chet
GPT have Chap John. We have to let you go, not because we have to actually, but we're just kind of talking, you know, we're done with you, so as we could do this gentlemen, always a pleasure to provide legal advice for free. We will see you at our favorite kind when it comes to you. Had another victory lab for John. You right there right, Thanks John, see you guys, Thanks John, Happy fourth
John, Yes, yeah, fourth, Rob. We got about three minutes here before you have to take off, and I believe that you right at this very moment back from France. Jet Legged are eager to tell America that they too can meet Rob Long in person if they come to New York for
a one on one. Right, yeah, sure of, I mean if I'm here, absolutely, but you can meet each other other than one on one, because, um, if you really want to take back America, people are gonna have to get together grassroots level, and that reminds me of Ricochet meetups. So why not start by getting together with some smart, like minded people for drinks or several drinks and join Ricochet and we have meetups.
Schedule meetups in Winston, Santalem July fourteen through six. Scene in Portland, Oregon, July eighteen, So a lot of them are coming up next a couple of weeks. German Fest meet up in Milwaukee July twenty eighth of July thirtieth and Cookeville, Tennessee Labor Day weekend September one through fourth. Look, we have members all over the country. If these dates or times or places
don't work for you, just joined Ricochet. Throw up a post say how about a meet up here at this time and people will show up because Ricochet members like to come to a party. And you may say, join Ricochet. Why what exactly is in it from me? Why I just go to the site and read it. Well, that's because in the member feed you have things the likes of which you have never seen before in the Internet. Okay, maybe you have, but they're not as good, and they're not
as varied, they're not as well. Darry McVey just had a thread the other day. He has these great threads about Hollywood and Hollywood history and television and the rest. He had a threat about Destination Moon, the movie that brought into a George pal and Fritz Lang and buzzalled Run and it was great. I mean, I just I loved reading that had nothing to do with
politic Well maybe just a little now, but that's Ricoche. When you go to the member's site, you will find all manner of conversations, and you know what, it's It's my favorite place. And I write a lot of stuff there that I don't post to the main feed because I just like to keep it amongst ourselves and it's fun. So go there, join, It's cheap and your life will be changed. Peter, what are your plans for this fourth of July? Expanse Uh, I'm going to say something that's hopelessly
old fashioned, and I will be accused of sexism. My plans are as usual. I wait for missus Robinson to tell me what we're doing that's Sexual's tactically tactically wise, tactically very wise. Yes, indeed, um, rob are you getting out the grill and putting on your kids to cook? Bib? And oh are you cooking? The family will be gathering, father be gathering at the beach, and um what we usually do. And I just Nantucket Long Island, Um nan talk it nan talking. And I have to
be very careful what I what I broke. I don't know if I broke federalized other Brook state law. Um. I drove quickly out of the New York state and out of New Jersey state into like the first hundred yards of Pennsylvania where you can purchase fireworks, and I bought a bunch of those two shows to let off in an undisclosed location which I will not tell anyone because it's illegal, and my mom hates it and everyone hates that I do it, but I do it every year and it's it's part of the thrill,
as of course, is not getting arrested. But I plan to show up. I plan to blame my nephew, who's you know, strapping a seventeen year old football player but couldn't very international waters. Yeah, I don't know. What's that buckley thing with a red exactly. I wrote one of my columns this week for the newspaper I had. I gave it over my dog
to explain why fireworks are bad and why we should stop doing them. And I thought, just for fun, I'm going to use a photoshop Beta's new Generative AI to create a bug a photo illustration of my dog to replace mine in the newspaper in the style of the newspaper. And I did a really good job of it too, So my dog is taking over to explain why Rob and his fireworks loving people are the worst. I love them. I love them my neighbor actually does what Rob does, but gets industrial grade stuff.
So we have displays pretty good stuff that are just extraordinary. But when it comes to the rest of it, I'm just going to throw some broads on the girls. And that's a problem because I'm out of gas. So I'm looking at trichinosis here down the line. Fourth of July. So soon, as my mother always said, after this, it just seems like the summer's over runs through your fingers like water. But she's wrong. Of course, We've got two big, stern, brawny months standing in front of us
before the fall. July is great, hot August, as we know, is this big bulwark against the fall, against the winter. Right, So I always think until the cicadas stopped droning and I realized that it's getting cooler in the days are getting shorter. But why why I think about that when we can luxuriate in three great victories of the Supreme Court, a renewed sense of American optimism. The fourth of July, as ever on, we mun muddle on, we go on west, ride on, we march, and
we'll see everybody in the comments. And Ricochet, I say, four point zero four now but five point is right around the corner. You'll want to join now so you can get in and the fun. Gentlemen, Happy fourth, Happy fourth Next week, boys, Happy fourth of July. Ricochet join the conversation.