By the way, the new bagels sandwiches are awesome.

Oh I'll bet I think they're using real cheese.

I think they use like some kind of cheese sauce.

RFK would not appreve Why think alone when you can drink it all in with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour.

Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John You, and the International Woman of Mystery Lucretia.

Where they lap.

David at on the soda.

Welcome everybody to the latest episode of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, which I think is the first one, shocking as it is to believe, ever hosted from a McDonald's.

Since we are now doing the video, I am going to show our loyal listeners the amazing surroundings where your show comes from today.

You know, I can't tell that apart from a Cracker barrelde, at least the new cracker barrel, which I guess we're not going to get.

Oh anyway, I.

Can't talk about what eating at McDonald's can do to you.

Based upon that survey you just took of the dining room, John, it.

Makes it makes me want to go out and shoot foreigners and conquer a new territory.

Now, John, if i'd known you were going to host from such a you know, Lucretian has been telling me the last couple of weeks if we're going to be doing video, I got a dress better, but so I you know, I wore sure.

You are well.

I'd draft you better than this if i'd known we were being hosted for McDonald's class Joinney.

Now, this is a great McDonald's is two blocks down the street from Sloat Avenue.

I'm sure that call that name causes terror amongst the woke.

I think that was the admiral that came out to San Francisco and conquered the northern California for the United States and the eighteen forty eight war.

And just down from the Naval Postgraduate Institute where I'd in for the last two days, Steve Lucretia, how are you and where are you guys?

I'm home, and I want to say we're John's eating bagels and mcmuffins for breakfast.

It is actually breakfast time, which means that even I can't quite get myself to be drinking whiskey at this early hour.

However, I am coming through for the three whiskey happy hour podcast with some amazing tea.

The first one is Whiskey Rebellion Tea, which is Bourbon's smoky tea in celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution.

And that's black tea.

And then I put these together.

This is gunpowder tightly rolled explosive green tea, which is also put out in honor of the American Revolutionary War.

So it's actually the gunpowder and Bourbon in my tea.

Awesome, Steve, how about you.

I'm just drinking coffee, but I am bringing it in this wonderful Age of Reagan coffee mug that they give out now the Reagan Library, which you know, not really in honor of my book, but I'll take it anyway and claim that it is.

And you know, Stevie should be drinking in the nice swag You're going to be getting us, right the three Whiskey Happy Hour slash sub stack merchandise.

Eventually, eventually, one thing in the.

Way Lucretia's hat that says mass deportation on it.

In yours it says the Golden Age has returned.

What does yours say?

John?

You know, none of it was clearmont slogan's really hit me.

Imagine that.

I guess they had one that said Nature's law, Nature's God, or something like that.

You guys probably know better than.

The laws of nature and nature's God.

That'd be it, the phrase from the Declaration of Independence.

John that.

Okay, that's a great way to start our episode.

So the first issue that we would like to discuss is the terrible news of the school shooting at the Denunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

Young man slash woman.

I guess there was man transitioning into a woman.

A man full stop, but go ahead.

Got outside a church as a school year was starting children at prayers.

I think right now two children have been killed and at least eighteen were injured, in addition to staff and adults who were also sent to the hospital.

And this has led to the same, I think predictable demands for gun control, tough gun control laws and doing something about these school terrible school shootings.

Lucretia, why don't you start off what are your thoughts about the shootings and the coverage and what it means for policy.

Well, so, first of all, it's not just a call for gun control which is, of course, is ridiculous and as stupid.

Who was it?

Stephen King, one of those idiots who thinks that they have a right to comment on anything, came out and said, Oh, the problem isn't that he was trans.

The problem is that he had a gun.

No, absolutely, the problem is that he was trans.

I am willing to bet the lucretia compound mortgage on the fact that the drugs, the hormone therapy, the puberty blockers, all of the things that they give to already mentally ill people.

By the way, these are people who are so illusional that they somehow think they are born in the wrong body.

The stupidest thing that has ever become mainstream, I think in my entire lifetime, is that stupid phrase.

Let me just tell you.

I have a friend who's her friend, her cousin.

Actually, I'm going to call cousin grandma.

Grandma has a grandson that she has custody of because the mother was a drug addict and the son has now some mental disabilities.

He's a teenager and he comes home from school every day from his special education courses saying that Nana, they tell me, I'm really supposed to be a girl, Nana, They tell me, I'm really supposed to be a girl.

So the most evil part of the less project in destroying nature and destroying you know, God's beautiful creation of human beings as men and women, is that they target the mentally ill, the mentally disabled.

They target the call it the genuinely marginalized.

I'd have another anecdote with that I won't share right now, but the Left is just evil.

They are profoundly, profoundly evil.

And the idea that they go after these most vulnerable people is me, look at what that idiot.

I don't have enough negative, insulting adjectives to describe the left these days.

But what's his name, Frey, fried Brain, whatever his name is?

For the mayor of Minneapolis.

Oh, the thing we really have to make sure that we don't do right now is call out and put our hatred towards the trans community.

Okay, not towards the trans community, but how about the irresponsible I don't have enough adjectives responsible leftist politicians who make Minneapolis, Minnesota a trans sanctuary state, encouraging mental illness.

If Steve told me that he's suddenly identifying as you've heard this before, this is not mine a pirate?

Am I going to insist that Steve can have his eye gouged out and his hand cut off and and a parrot stuck on his shoulder so that he can fully embrace who he is.

I've got the shirt going for it right now.

But okay, it's a good shirt.

Anyway, I'm done, and I'm not going to talk about gun control, and I'm not even going to talk about mental health.

I'm going to talk about the leftist There are words, but I can't use them who prey on vulnerable people and then turn around and also have an entire propaganda campaign about how Catholics are evil and Trump is evil and Jews or evil, and you go on and on and on, and you know, we could talk also about shutting down mental institutions.

Steve probably knows a lot more about that than I do.

And I don't mean it because he belongs in one, because he follows those policy issues.

It's sick.

It's absolutely sick.

And of course, despite what jenfist, stupid Pisak had to say about it, everyone I know has been praying fervently for the families that you know, that's what you do when evil strikes you pray because that's really what you need to do, even on a personal level.

So I'm done, Steve, there's my rant for the day.

Yeah wee.

Do you think that this has something to do with transgender ideology and treatments and what about some of the things people on the left have said about stop praying, you should stop praying?

Oh, do something about it?

Oh?

Yeah?

In reverse order, this is really exposing how hostile the left is to expressions of piety, right, I mean, I don't even you know.

Jd Vance said it best, says, no, Look, we don't pray as a substitute for action.

We pray because we think God is listening and that's what you need.

And the left hates that they won't.

Okay, I'll just stop there going a long time about that.

I agree with lu Creation about Mayor Jacob Frey of Minnesota, and I'm a little baffled that he is being so out aggressive in his allying himself with transgender ideology because his rival to be mayor is a Somali Muslim, who if he wins, and who knows he might, I'm kind of guessing he's not going to be very sympathetic to the LPGBQ plus agenda.

It's been interesting that some of these cities in Michigan, where you've had a Muslim majority elected, the local city councils have canceled, you know, rainbow sidewalks and the flags and all the rest of that, and suddenly all the liberals and Michigan are saying, what, wait a minute, we didn't mean this when we embraced diversity.

And then finally, I'll just say two more things.

One is I don't think we know well.

I try to follow the seventy two hour rule of these things, wait till we get information.

First, more information, and then initial information that is confirmed.

So there's a lot we don't know yet, but a lot is leaked out.

Unlike the transgender shooter in Nashville last year, where they actively suppressed the manifesto and anything about it.

I am watching a news media tie itself in knots to avoid any consideration of this issue and the irony.

I think I sent you guys a text about this.

I'm watching the NBC Nightly News the other night when it happened, and of course, you know, the lead story, no mention at all of the gender angle of the shooter.

And then later in a segment we get to later in the broadcast, we get to a segment they're running as a series right now called cost of Denial, and it's all about health insurance problems.

Hardly a new topic or a new story, but they're making a big deal about health insurance covers, denials and so forth.

But I thought the title that cost of Denial, well, we're looking at a very high cost of denial to refuse to acknowledge that this is even an issue to be considered.

And so you know, here, the thing I'm following is, while we await more details to nail down some things, is I'm just amazed at the media malpractice over this.

I shouldn't be.

We know the media is terrible about these things, but this one, even the media is having trouble keeping a straight face.

Uh you know, So the New York Times NPR, instead of using she has occasionally lapsed into they because apparently the shooter used.

They then pronouns sometimes right, it changed from moment to moment, so, uh, you know, to be continued.

Yeah, I'll just stop there.

I think, oh, go ahead, and there, please, John, go ahead.

I actually think this is something that the federal government could do something about, which is, let's have a study.

One thing that worries me is that I agree with the creature.

The ideological bias is strong, so strong here about even asking questions that one thing you could do is do a study and see are these transgender involved mass shootings occurring at a higher rate than their alleged part of the population.

I was trying to see if any data.

Yeah, we have these stories anecdotal evidence, but let's see some you know more, you know, rigorous studies.

The Justice Department could do that, the FBI could do that.

The figure out and you can do it.

That's the problem, and it is so small and seriously, since twenty twenty three, for instance, there have been four school shootings, two of which are by confirmed self described transgenders, and two of which are questioned about whether that was a factor.

Out of four, now here's the problem.

What constitutes a mass shooting?

If somebody commits suicide, if you know this or that, But if you look at if you if you can find mass shootings to a narrow set of propositions, which are you know, some person who just goes off on a school There's been four since twenty twenty three, and two of them have been committed by transgender persons.

So, you know, I think that the more important thing is to figure out what the drugs and the scientific experimentation that the what's his name, the Nazi Bengali left want to carry out on on vulnerable children.

That's where we should be studying too.

This is another thing where the Scrammty case at the Supreme Court over this summer allows states to go ahead and do that.

Now, so Lucretia's theory is right, then states should start, as some have like Tennessee and SCRAMMTI, start banning these kinds of treatments for people who are minors and maybe even adults if they're having these kind of consequences.

And all I'd say Steve is I do agree with you about waiting to hear about everything, and a lot of things came out.

However, they did have a manifesto, an online YouTube manifesto, so calling him transgender was not I mean, I would consider it, of course an insult or a direcatory his term, but he didn't he you know, so there is there are things out there that A could not be suppressed and B I guess you might even go so far as to say elections have consequences because we are seeing more transparency now that we have a different administration in charge of the FBI.

Well, Steve, one other question for you, what do you make about the demands for tighter gun control.

Minnesota.

I would have thought probably already has the tightest gun control laws you have in the country under our federal system.

Well, I don't know if that the tightest gun control laws, but they've got some very strict ones apparently I'm no expert on it, and these guns were all apparently purchased legally.

And so notice by the way they are now calling for I mean, I've always had this problem in Chicago, New York, Washington, d C.

You very tough handgun control laws and so forth.

So pay attention.

They are now saying we need a national band.

They want the federal government to impose something stronger than the controls we've already got, because you know, the gun grabbers know that what they've got now isn't working.

I don't think a federal law would make much difference if it survived a Second Amendment challenge in the first place.

Here's what I think, where the lucretious argument becomes especially sneaky is because the left has always wanted to have mental fitness as a requirement to buy guns.

But if you were to define mental fitness here to exclude people under transgender medical treatment, which would have prevented this person from getting the guns, I think the Left would go nuts.

Maybe I don't know that we know that he had the Your your point is well taken.

I'm not sure in this case that he had guns legally.

That has not been determined as far as I am aware.

Maybe I'm wrong, Steve, you're right.

Well, the news stories say that he's right, but that doesn't mean the new stories are correct.

Again, So yeah, I mean again, Minnesota's gun laws are are stronger tough then probably every place other than Chicago and Washington, d C.

Which we'll leave that one alone for now because it'll come up after the break.

Yes, So Lucretia as always one step ahead of me.

We're going to finish this issue, and we're going to go to a break, and when we come back, we're going to turn to the Federal Reserve.

Welcome back to everybody, and now we're going to turn from the Second Amendment to structural features of the Constitution, namely, what does the president's executive power mean in terms of his control over the agencies.

This has been brought to the fore by last week's firing of Lisa Cook, a member a governor of the Federal Reserve Board.

The statue creating the Federal Reserve says that the president cannot remove governors except quote unquote for cause.

President Trump says that Lisa Cook lied on two mortgage applications claiming that they were her primary residence.

You're not allowed to do that, you know, I allowed to say I have two primary residences.

Being having a primary residence gets you more favorable mortgage terms, for example, lower I think, lower home insurance rates and so on.

Now, she hasn't been charged with this crime, she hasn't been prosecuted, certainly hasn't been convicted, but she's been referred for prosecution to the Justice Department by William Poulti, who heads of I think the Federals called the FAJA the Federal Housing Authority or something like that, but the federal agency does in charge of home loan mortgages.

Lisa Cook has already filed a lawsuit in court in her today to say that her firing would be illegal.

The reason this raises a constitutional question is if the courts agree with her and say this is not a ground for firing, then President Trump's firing of Cook would have to be constitutional under his authority as president to fire at will all members of the executive branch.

One last little tidboot before we go to Lucretian Steve is over the summer of the Supreme Court upheld President Trump's firing on a temporary basis, upheld it of members of the NLRB, and they have a similar for cost protection requirement.

And in that case, the Supreme Court said, we think that in the end the president will win on the merits.

And then it said, but it's not the case.

This would require the Federal Reserve and its members to also be under the same presidential control, because the Federal Reserve is kind of like the First Bank of the United States, Lucretia's favorite federal institution.

So, Lucretia, what do you think about President Trump?

Now you have to explain the difference to the less motif.

Actually I find this Actually, you know me, when it comes to this economic stuff, I get bored to death.

But I do think that this is a very interesting case for a variety of reasons.

That reasons I know you both will agree with me, and that is a what does this actually mean for the the concept of the federal whatever the hell it's called now I can't keep up with.

I'll call it the Federal Bank.

It's supposedly more quasi independent status than other quasi independent agencies.

And then the Supreme Court actually called it out as being more quasi independent.

But nevertheless, it is my understanding again, you guys, I'm going to be a blonde when it comes to this, but it has an incredibly important role in the execution of the federal government's policies regarding the economy.

That's the simplest way to put it from me from the blonde.

Okay, why is the president not fully in charge of that?

Why is the presid Is it not the person who gets to decide not just what those policies, but the people entirely?

If he wanted to fire the entire board, I believe that under a executive power unless you can explain to me, and I imagine that our listeners would love to hear this too.

A reason why somehow the federal Reserve Board should be exempt when executing executive powers from the article to requirement that it be executed by one person, and so all of those things make it interesting.

Let me jump in and back to Steve.

Is what you say, John, my expertise and channeling of the left.

So there's they would make two arguments.

One is sort of just a policy argument.

One is a constitution arm The policy argument is everybody knows you don't want politicians to control the interest rate.

The study I think this is fairly agreat on.

The study show that presidents always want the interest rates to be lowered right before their reelection campaigns to juice the economy.

Done.

Yeah, which is done Even with these protections.

The short term gain for the politicians is outweighed by the long term harm to the economy when we vow that to happen.

That's the policy argument.

So they would just say everybody agrees we should have central bank independence.

A more interesting constitutional argument goes back to well, the founders seem to think the Bank of the United States back in seventeen eighty nine was constitutional, So why isn't this bank constitutional too?

They allowed the creation of this weird creature back you know at the time of the founding shows that the founders might have had a more flexible view of the separation of powers in the executive than we do today.

Steve, you're a great lover of central bank independence.

You're a big defender of Paul Volker and Reagan in your book.

We see.

Yeah, However, I may bring it away.

Let's let's go about a slightly different way.

I do think that the argument for an independent central bank, if we're going to have one at all, is good in the abstract.

The hypocrisy here is the is the left saying, oh, Trump's trying to politicize the Federal Reserve and make it bend to his political will.

I am sorry, That's what the left has been doing forever by expanding the mandate of the Federal Reserve, like the Humphrey Hawkins Act in the seventies.

And in the particular case of the appointment of Lisa Cook.

Let's just go back from it and remember why she was appointed, because.

Before she was a brilliant economist.

Anything else, you racist.

Hold on a minute, because you're where everyone is forgetting that she was appointed after I think this is right after Biden's first nominee was rejected by the democratically controlled Senate.

There was that Sarah Bloom Rascin, woman who's married to Jamie Raskin, whose father, Marcus Raskin, was a Castro loving Communist.

What did she want to do?

She said, I want to go on a reserve and argue that because we need to fight climate change, we want to cut off oil companies from access to federal reserve and other banking facilities.

Oh and by the way, the big banks that are going along with this, we're going to be tough on them too.

That had nothing to do with monetary stability, which ought to be the only mandate of the federal reserve right, so they not made cook obvious DEI hire her?

She was John, a student of for a PhD of Paul Romer at Berkeley, who's a pretty sensible guy.

But I went through her CV and you know, her politics are pretty radical.

It seems to me now, John, that the turn of the legal question, you can fire for cause.

And by the way, I think that Supreme Court opinion to mention it was a curious thing too.

I think they were hoping, I think that was blatantly political, hoping to dissuade Trump from causing an immediate crisis for the court by firing Powell.

But now Cook is a different matter.

He's saying, I'm firing her for cause she lied on her mortgage applications.

People, do you go to jail for that?

Sometimes?

Uh?

The question is who determines that?

Now, by the way, there have been at least I look this up, a couple of regional Federal Reserve governors who've had to resign when they were credibly accused but never convicted, of insider trading and other dodgy financial things.

So it's not unusual to remove somebody for credible allegations of financial misdealing.

And here, by the way, Clok has not denied that she put in false applications.

Still not denying the charges.

She's saying, Trump can't remove me.

So who determines this?

And I don't think you have to wait necessarily at all for a court or an actual trial to determine this.

It seems to me there's a cloud over her.

Uh huh.

And I think finally you mentioned vulgar.

I won't tell the stories.

I'll just say that you know Reagan's strategy when he wanted Vulgar to change course gradually was to simply when vacancies came up, fill the Federal Reserve with his more sympathetic appointees, and finally they out voted Vulgar.

Normally, all these Fed governors, they defer to the chair because the chair is there every day.

They've got the staff under control.

They control the agenda.

But you can a determined president, as Reagan was as his term went on, force the hand of the Chair of the Federal Reserve.

And so you know Trump wants to do that.

Good for him.

Came back at the beginning that you said, I actually want some clarification for you.

Un this John again, I think our listeners will be interested.

I have heard I do not know the law nor even how I would look up the law, and whether it's federal because it's Fannie may or whether it's state law on mortgages.

But my understanding is if you lie on your mortgage application, it is a possible thirty year jail term if you are convicted.

Now you guys probably both know that.

Our good friend and Nobel Prize winner for Economics, Paul Krugman, came out and said, no, no, no, no, this is just like cheating on your third grade math exam.

No, no, it's not.

No, it's not it's not.

And they are good reasons why it's illegal.

So I just I don't necessarily want to come in on just so two things out there.

One is that let's be clear about why it's so important that people not lie.

I mean, one person lying on their on their mortgage application probably doesn't have the systemic wide effects of you know, causing the two thousand and eight mortgage meltdown.

But there are reasons why you have to say, this is my primary home, I live there, I take care of it, you know, da da da da, And then you get lower interest rates, lower homeowners rates or homeowner insurance rates.

And then the idea that Fannie May and Freddie May Mac fre Freddie Mac have been allowing this sort of thing and not following through seems to me to be also a little bit suspect, and it's time to go ahead, Steve Well that look.

Can I just make a comment about the importance of not lying on your mortgage application.

One need only go back and read about the commentary about President Trump's prosecution from last year.

Right they left went to the met to defend him being prosecuted for allegedly inflating his assets on his mortgage application.

And remember there's like, oh, this is a systemic attack on the way the whole mortgage system works.

And people didn't tell the truth on their mortgage applications, the whole system would collapse on and on and on.

So we don't even have to We could just go and look at I'm sure people like Drugman and people like that made those arguments about a year and a half ago to defend Letitia James's prosecution of Trump.

But the go ahead, Steve.

Well, that's the other interesting story that went by unnoticed this week that's connected to this.

And the Trump administration is proposing an initial public offering to fully privatize Fannie May.

And Freddie Mack and Democrats here Thursday Friday said, oh, that might lead to higher mortgage rates.

We can't do that.

That's not economic policy.

Talking Fannie May has been a sinecure for Democrats for decades now.

I was once actually this is back in the nineties, and I was asked to talk to the board of directors of Fannie May.

And I was stunned to see it was all it was, it was all all.

The other person was talking to him that day was Ram Emmanuel, who was then working for Bill Clinton, President Clinton, and I was stunned to see all these Jamie Gorelik and all these Democratic grandees who have no background in finance.

We're given these, you know, seven figure jobs at Fannie May on the board of it.

That's why Democrats don't want to change it.

It's another financial institution that's a dumping ground and pay off for them.

And they're not going to say, right, yeah, I can't.

We say that federal subsidizing of home loans has just been a disaster.

Yeahs public policy.

But the one little small thing before we go to our next break is, you know, the former federal Justice Department official and me, I actually went and looked at the referral and it's potentially much worse than just lying on a mortgage application.

One of the eight things about it.

I just couldn't help but look at the details.

The second home she purchased was a condo in the fourth seasons in Atlanta.

Yeah, and she put it up for rent and then the referel says, says it just as as so matter of factly Ms Cook did not report any rental income on her income taxes from this unit.

So that's way worse than just lying on the worded application.

She made filed fraudulent tax returned by not reporting rental income of her which in the unit she never lived in, the unit that she in the four seasons in Atlanta where she wasn't living that where she was bought for rental purposes.

That puts that in You're in a whole nother world of her.

But I'm surprised that hasn't really been focused on because that's something I think all Americans can understand, is people lying on their tax returns.

May it's something we can address after the next set of messages coming up right now.

Well, welcome back everybody.

I'd love to talk about law fair, but I have another burning, burning question to get to.

First, Oh that was bad.

That would be a one one on the James Lilac scale of transitions and seges okay, And then.

Oh you hurt me, Steve, You deeply, deeply wounded me.

And this is the announcement this week by President Trump that he is going to resume prosecution because it's a federal crime to burn the American flag.

This is very interesting because in nineteen eighty nine, by five to four decision, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that may made flag burning a clime.

This is someone who burned a flag at the Republican National Convention, I believe in nineteen eighty four.

Interestingly, the majority and DISSENTI views did not align in the usual ideological directions, where you had Justice Stevens noted liberal writing the main dissent, and Justice Scalia noted conservative, supplying the fifth vote to Justice Brennan, who wrote the majority opinion.

Congress then passed a law to restore making a federal climb to burn the flag, and the following year, in a case called Eichman, the Supreme Court again struck that law down.

I have to say my own personal involvement is when I was General Counsel of the Senate Traditionary Committee under Senator Hatch.

Lucretia's going to love the story.

I surprised she isn't know it, but she's going to love me for it is that I worked on the Constitutional Amendment to overturn these decisions.

It's make clear that whatever the scope of the free speech clause is that the flag was not one of the burning the flag was not covered by expressive speech.

We failed in the Senate by one vote, lucretia.

Can you guess which Republican senator did not supply the crucial last vote to send the amendment to the States for Radical John McKay.

No, even better, your favorite Senator Mitch McConnell, Young Senator Mitch McConnell, Right, you voted down at the amendment and deprived us of that two thirds majority necessary to send the amendment to the States for hopefully ratification by three quarters of the states.

So let me ask you, guys.

Let me start with Steve maybe this time, do you think that flag burning could be protected by the First Amendment?

Obviously President Trump is doing is trying to get the Supreme Court to reconsider those decisions.

None of the justices on the Court from that time are on the court today.

Did the Supreme Court get it wrong?

Then?

If so, is President Trump doing the right thing by trying to get it Because was this some massive bait and switch where President Trump is trying to get people to stop talking about Epstein and talking about.

Oh no, that's all silly.

Look, I mean, as you know, John, but many listeners may not.

The Executive Order is very careful to try and work a corner or le qni, you might say in the Supreme Court opinion by saying not banning flag burning per se or categorically, but to say flag burning if it is part of an incitement to violence or some disorder, can then be an arrestable offense.

Now, maybe that would hold up, but I'm not sure it would.

So maybe that is an attempt to get the Supreme Court to revisit it.

You note it was a five to four decision and this court I think could very well rule the other way.

Second, I did see on social media a bunch of lefties are having flag burning protests this weekend at various places around the country.

So, like you know, the old cat, the laser pointer in the cat, Trump has done it again.

And we've had this argument before, and I'll just say in one sentence, I think the long line of jurisprudence that made free expression so flag burning, naked dancing pornography fit under free speech of the First Amendment is mistaken.

That's a long, long story and long argument carried out by our great mentors Frank Canavan and David Lowenthal, among others.

And so finally, I think we got to float that amendment again and let Democrats vote against prohibiting flag burning, because that would just be a fun day to make them do that.

So I have two comments about this.

One is that I think that the Supreme Court's inclusion way back when of the idea of expression was a huge mistake and evidence of their failure to understand the purpose of the First Amendment to begin with.

Does that mean that you know that it has to be speech per se, not necessarily, but their whole line of constitutional reasoning regarding expression is just stupid.

It's I don't know how else to say it.

It's stupid.

It's it's not rational, it's not logical.

So flag burning is not speech.

It is freedom of expression, which is not protected in the First Amendment except by Supreme Court dictate.

Right, let's be clear about that.

Now.

I get that ship as sailed John, You know, I do fully understand that the reason we have a First Amendment is so that we can criticize our government, among other things.

But flag burning is not criticizing the government.

Flag burning is saying I am opposed to everything that this nation that has granted me the freedom to do something stupid like burn a flag.

I am trying to destroy that.

I think the arguments just are very simple.

If you stop confusing the issue so much, could I do think though, honestly, John, very many kudos to you, that the right thing to do, because this has become an issue, is to get a constitutional amendment and have just you know a few things very specifically protected because of what the flag symbolizes, it is of a it is of a different category, I would say, than just regular expression, you know, the draft.

Excuse my language, sorry, but that's what it said on the T shirt.

Sorry, family show.

I hope you believe that.

Steve, you know this is interesting when you when you go back and read the opinions, you have to say that Brennan's opinion is better, uh than request ren Quest is, you know very much.

You know Renquist and Stevens, I'm sorry, Stevens's opinion and rencast word World War two veterans, right, they had, you know, fought on behalf of the flag, and so for them, I think it was something that was beyond free speech doctrine, whereas you know, Brennan's our opinion is very much.

This is a very standard opinion.

I was liked what just As Scullia said.

He said years later in a speech he said famously said if I were king, he said, I would throw every uh yeah, what did he say?

Every sandal wearing Oh Harry weirdo who wants to burn the flag in jail.

Then he said, but I'm not the king.

So he said, like Lucretia, if you want to ban flag burning, get a constitutional amendment.

It was never an issue until recently, right until you know sixty is what seventy eight years ago?

Yeah, however, as that was, that was Ronald Reagan in the nineteen seventies governor saying, how do we reduce air pollution get the kids to stop burning the flag?

That was I looked up the boat, right, yeah, I didn't.

Mention it, right, yeah, I think I think I said.

They would appeal to you, two guys, you natural loss, Abraham Lincoln, loving people is are there?

Isn't it possible to say, there's some things that involved the nation, the creation of the nation, existence the nation, that have to pre exist the First Amendment.

You can't have the First Amendment unless there's a nation around to protect it.

And maybe there's some things which are so important for a nationhood that you they're elevated above something like free speech.

Important as free speech is to our ability to have self governing politics.

Well, you know, I've wondered about you know, a prominent protest tactic in the sixties was burning draft cards, and I believe that was a crime.

And that's because the draft cards themselves are actually government documents.

Right, yes, So okay, so I get the connection there.

This is a it's called O'Brien.

Unfortunately, this is the one that created the idea that of expressive conduct, that speech could just be actions.

Even though, as you said, it did say the card and it was weird.

They said something like, but if you made a copy of the card, you could burn that and that would be okay.

Well, you know, I've been saying for years I want to burn my Social Security card only after I laminated, which is against the law.

For some stupid reason.

You can have mine because you guys are going to bankrupt the fund.

I'm never getting any so you can have my card.

Use it in good health.

I'm going to see burn in mind just to warm my house.

Sure somebody else does your card?

John r U.

Yeah, well, that brings up on our last break, and when we come back, we're going to talk about punishing other people for their First Amendment rates when we return.

Okay, we just finished the topic of whether the free speech protects the burning of the flag as expressive conduct, and now we're going to discuss whether the First Amendment prevents President Trump from burning up John Bolton.

Because the news hit this last week that the FBI had executed a search warrant at John Bolton's home and his office.

I'm sure I don't need to tell the listeners that John Bolton was a National security advisor in President Trump's first term.

Has become a terrible one of the sharpest critics of President Trump since and wrote a book, The Room Where It Happened, about his time as National Security Advisor, over which there's much wrangling whether it contained classified information or not.

We haven't seen, I think, any official documents that describe why Bolton's home was searched, but there have been some weeks I claimed that the investigation is related to whether Bolton miss handled classified information.

Personally, my view, just to trigger lucretia, is that any man who keeps a mustache in such perfect condition would never mishandle classified information.

But more partly, is this not retaliation against John Bolton for being such a sharp critic, rather than really going after him about classified information?

Apprecia.

Can I just say that the idea of having to kiss somebody with that disgusting creature take to his lip just makes me want to vomit.

Okay, that being said, it's you know, the mainstream lamestream media is trying to make a very big deal about the book and whether or not Bolton put classified information in the book that is not actually, if you can actually get outside of the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and the New York Times, what they are investigating the leaks say is the fact that when he was fired, he immediately sent via his private email a number of classified documents to his wife and daughter.

And that private email was, if I'm getting the story correct, intercepted by foreign adversaries.

And that is what he is being investigating for, not the book.

And if that's true, I mean, we know Hillary Clinton did the same thing and she hasn't been prosecuted.

But you got to start somewhere, right, You got to You've got to start cleaning up this cabal of intelligence people on the inside, thinking that they're more important than the president, thinking that they're more important than the public that they supposedly serve, and that they're above the law.

So I'm all in favor of taking Bolton.

And even if they don't get to the end of it ever, because it's very difficult.

They won't want any of this information, this classified information, to become evidence in a public trial, et cetera, et cetera.

Put him through the ringer, yep, law fair against John Bolton.

I am all in favor of it, and I think he should shave that ugly mustache.

You're telling me, mister Lucretia hasn't returned from war zones after he's assassinated various extremists without mush, without a mustache and a gigantic beard.

We're not French, you know that, Napoleon.

I'll be home in a.

Month, don't.

Oh gosh, Well, we can all agree that none of us ever want to be French, have anything to do with the French.

I never will do anything with the French.

Yeah, So I thought about the John Bulton controversy.

Well, first I want to take up the mustache angle initially because I remember, you know, I'll come back to this too.

You know John, who I know a little bit because his office was right next door to mine an Ai back, you know, fifteen years ago, and we used to be the first people in the office of the morning.

I sometimes arrive at seven and he was already there and we checked our coffee.

Some I don't know him well, but he was helpful to me a few times on when I was chasing after the UN and their climate change nonsense.

And I did joke that you never want to be between John's corner office and the elevator when he was on his way to Fox News to do a segment, because you would get run over.

But because he was always starting in and out right, I'll say that I'm a little tripping.

I don't know if you knew Veronic Rodman and Ai.

She was Peter Rodmins, late Peter Rodman's wife, and you know, had been a wonderful person.

Oh yeah, No, she's one of my favorites.

And she'd been a.

Producer and descend into the Egyptian royal family.

I believe, I think that might be right.

And she'd been a producer in ABC news.

But she used to tell Bolton, I'd see this in the lunch room.

John, you got to shave that mustache and get better suits.

If you're ever going to be national security advisor, you just can't look slovenly like this.

Pretty funny, now that's said, I'm a little surprised that he would be a sloppy about handling classified documents, as these stories seem to suggest, because he always had a neat desk, and you know, he always seemed very orderly.

But it's possibly true.

And and by the way, the New York Times did report that this investigation began under the Biden administration.

It's not retaliation from Trump at all.

And because the Biden people were concerned that you really did have a problem here and that he'd been very loppy about it.

My final point isn't personal observation.

I'm a little hesitant about this because this is just maybe subjective.

But you know, I always thought from the beginning of John bolton Is four or five years ago, was a terrible fit for Trump, and I'm amazed that he didn't know that.

And by the way, one of the big stories, the bigger stories, is between Trump one and Trump two, Trump one.

Remember he went with a lot of conventional choices.

Uh, you know what's his name?

Well, so, I mean, you know Tillerson for Secretary of State, he did not like and secretive and this term he's not doing any of that.

He's not taking any conventional Republican establishment choices.

Quite the opposite.

If you're that kind of person, you don't even get in the front door of your resume.

Uh.

And so you know he had McMaster, and I'm a fan of McMaster, who's been critical, though not as critical as Bolton.

I just think it Bolton's ambition got the better of him and thought he could make a go of it, and bitter that he couldn't.

Maybe that's not right, but I just think it was a a stake from beginning for both them to take that job.

But it's a job he always wanted, and I think that's you know, so, I think maybe the sort of the moral table here, moral fable or lesson here is beware of ambition that will make you make some choices that you probably ought not to make.

So Steve, the other thing I want to correct there is I don't think anybody is saying in terms of the espionage part of the Espionage Act, part of the investigation that John Bolton did this sloppily.

The whole point is that he did it absolutely intentionally.

He sent the classified documents so he would have them so that.

He could write a book.

Yeah, well, so he could write a book or harm Trump in some other way.

I can't say.

I can't speak to his motives.

Well there's another Well, there's another question about this, right.

So I remember when Angelo Codevia wrote his terrific book on intelligence thirty some years ago now, and it had some dynamite stuff in it, all of which he had cleared thoroughly by the CIA.

Now, in the case of this book, it does look like Bolton use some classified information.

They say it was cleared, but maybe it wasn't completely.

And the judge said, well, we've already got two hundred thousand copies of the book out there, so the horses out of the barn door and nothing we can do about it now.

So it's ambiguous whether he was properly clear to ever or not.

And and that's assumed that all the accounts are correct and complete, and I'm not.

Again, we don't just because this reporter doesn't mean it's true or complete.

I'm still surprised that a person, as to my impression, careful as he is, would have been You may you may be right.

Maybe he wasn't sloppy.

Maybe he was deliberate, he didn't care, and that's actually very bad.

That's even worse to being sloppy.

You know, I've been friends with John for a while, We've co written a few pieces here and there.

I actually have to say he was sort of more Mega than before Mega showed up, before Trump showed up.

As you mentioned it, Steve the one defining issue I think in his career was to restore American sovereignty to fight off all these international groups.

And he himself was quite a critic of the intelligence community before conservatives were on that.

So I I mean, in many ways he developed a lot many of the arguments that you hear coming out of Trump and Vance and people about restoring American control over its territory and borders and not listening to the UN or the ICC or bodies like that.

I don't know the fact.

I really can't imagine he misused classified information, but there was a big fight about this at the end of the first term.

Because we can have a different debate whether advisors should ever write books about their presidents while they're still in office.

That's not a classification issue, that's just a what's your favorite word prudence issue.

But remember the book was originally cleared for publication by the NSC staff, and then political appoint tried to block it.

And then remember Bolton sued in court to get it released, as you're allowed to do under the procedures, to say it's not really classified, it should be released, and he won and judge allowed, you know, judge allowed it to go forward in publication.

So I don't understand how really he could be attacked for uh Misshandley classified information when a federal judge already found everything he did related to the book.

Was acceptable for publishing book.

I know it's things outside the book, but he's going to say the whole thing is the right.

It is the stuff in the book.

But anyway, the thing I actually wanted to mention before we go to the end of the show, our closing, is that I think this is I think this is setting a bad precedent for Trump and his relationship with his advisors, because who's going to want to work for him again?

After seeing the ways treated Pompeo and Bolton.

You know, we're moving their security details and now, you know, potentially prosecuting one over classified information.

He's not going to get the best people to work for him for the rest of his turn.

I think pomp is a different story.

I kind of agree with with Steve on his analysis of what might have motivated John Bolton.

I think that what you had was you had those establishment Republican those those really you know, highly decorated, not that that matters in today's military too much, but highly decorated generals come in and Trump thought these people, you know, they're patriots, they would be great.

And one gets the sense, you know, he certainly couldn't defend this in a court of law, but one gets the sense that the thing that they were most upset about with Trump, more than anything else, was that he didn't listen to them, that he didn't think that their advice was, you know, it had to be taken to the bank, and that Trump would would often substitute his own judgment for theirs.

And of course, you know, they thought he was just this feed crafts bumbling New York real estate guy, and and and we're extremely offended when he did not bow down and follow their every word and every bit of advice.

I think that that, you know, I hate to see that because I was a fan of John Bolton once too and many of the things that he did.

But I do think that he let his hubris get ahead of him.

Shall we say, but that's that's so?

What so Lucretia thinks that what does that mean?

Absolutely nothing?

We'll see what happens.

Yeah, no, no, And Lucretia's word I fear more than that of any basic assistant US attorneys so and budling FBI agents conducting search barts.

Wait a second, John, are we not going to talk about the Travis Kelsey Taylor Swift tie.

This is the most.

None of actually the most supportant issue.

I'm happy to talk about this because it means Egos are going to beat the Chiefs again in the super Bowl.

But no, the one last issue and talk about is us.

Even though you kicked me off the podcast last week, you were victorious in your demands that cracker Barrel, Cracker Barrel, not crackle Barrel, Cracker Barrel change its ways and go back to its old Southern loving roots and lo and behold, cracker Barrel has gone back right, and it's just like New Coke, Old Coke or some other humiliating corporate retreat from some makeover to be woke.

Steve, how did you do you realize you have such influence on the cultural zeitguys, that you're able to force the great corporations of the land to change their wayward ways.

Well, it's not me, but I think you know when Chris Rufo and Robbie Starbuck go public that they're going to be after you.

I think that's now going to be paid attention to in boardrooms and the wider phenomenon.

So I think it's quite sick.

I think maybe the story was overblown to begin with, but I do think that the result of this is a sign that corporate America has now woken up to the fact that they don't want to give into wokery or they're risk paying a serious market price for it.

So remember, though, guys, that it's not just changing the logo and the interior and getting rid of the country focused atmosphere.

It turns out that Cracker Barrel was again a supporter of the less most perverse, perverted, degraded sort of activities drag queen shows for children and grooming and you know, all of the worst excesses of the perversity of the LGBTQ plus community, shall we say.

And so that was a little bit in the background.

They finally only got rid of that link on their website like yes today.

But the pushback was for I mean, okay, you take the old guy in the rocking chair off the cracker barrel, make a lot of fun of that, but it was really how bad the descent into wokery for an icon of you know, white, poor white America, poor Mexican America.

And it's not a white America thing, even if it is Cracker Barrel.

You know, it's with families go there when they're on a road trip and the kids have fun in the you shop in the stores, and it was an American experience and they just the left can't leave anything untouched.

But thank god America is pushing back.

I'm all about that.

I mean, I don't go to Cracker Barrel, probably won't for a while until I know they've become completely sound again.

But I have to admit I've never been to or stop putting a cracker barrel.

I don't go to the same feat restaurant that you guys go to.

It's out of my price range.

When I'm on a road trip, you know where I go.

I go to McDonald's.

Why would you go up scaled a Cracker brow Like, that's your truth fault here.

I was trying to rob elbows with the the elites, so, uh, you know.

If you can get a cracker barrel John click why And whenever I went, I would always get it.

They have these foot long tutsie rolls, and I it's my failing.

I don't eat them anymore because you know, they're like corn syrup and seed oils.

But but it's my probably my favorite thing in the world is a tutsi roll.

And there was this foot long bigger than round in my thumb.

It would take me the rest of the trip to eat it.

And that that was my favorite thing about Cracker Barrel.

But they don't even have and we asked why they lost their Michelin stought, Okaysia, do you have any babblon b headlines?

Oh gosh, I have so many.

You guys are just gonna have to shut me down.

Speaking of over correction, Cracker Barrel ads confess a flag to logo and change his name to the South will rise again.

This one, we didn't talk about it, and I'm not sure it's where where it's all landed, But I like I like the sentiment.

Genius Trump enacted plan to dumb down Chinese population by inviting them to attend American universities.

How about Trump and Vale's giant cannon for faster, more maintaining, entertaining deportations.

I know, I love it.

This one's for you.

Travis Kelcey finally acquires ring without help of referees.

Yes, that I agree with, completely, completely agree.

Human trafficker says it's inhumane to be trafficked to another country.

We'll leave that.

How about how about our good friend what's his name?

Madabbi?

Bobby Bobby, Bobby Bobby?

How I need a spotter, Chrisman Donnie struggling under five pound yoga dumbbells.

That's a great story.

It was great.

The story was.

The story was that he could have benched some very light amount of one.

Hundred and thirty five pounds, Yeah, one hundred and then Riley Gaines, who uh you know the swimmer, posted a video of herself.

I think she she bench pressed one hundred and eighty five pounds something like that.

Something like that.

Anyway, Mayorship of New York to be awarded the first candidate who can bench press the bar.

We didn't talk.

We didn't.

We ran out of time, folks, But it was because it was fun.

But we didn't talk about Trump's crackdown on crime.

But picture of Chuck Schumer somber Democrats moren DC going a record ten days without a murder.

All right, and it's for my role to close us out with always drink air whiskey met I believe the next one is buy more books and Steve, what interesting new ai haiku slash pong have you brought for us today?

Okay, this one's a mixed bag.

It's the Three Whiskey Happy Hours understood by Jay Alfred Proofrock.

If you get the reference.

Some parts of it are good, some parts so it's t s Eliot Lucretian.

That's who is.

The love song of j Alfred Proofrock was one of his famous early poems, and if you don't know it, then you will miss the beginning, which goes as follows.

Just a little bit of it.

Let us gather than you and I when the evening is spread out dry, like precedent over parchment, and the republic size beneath the weight of another week.

Between the murmurs of power and parody, the amber light spills into glass measure, deliberate, as if the world could still be parsed by careful men and a clever woman with bourbon tongues and mind's like razors, dulled only by politeness.

Some of that's good, but some of it doesn't work.

The politeness part.

All right, guys, it's fun.

See you next week.

Ricochet joined the conversation