Judging Freedom - Today_s Hot Topics

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, February 14th, 2023, Valentine's Day in the United States. It's about 1240 in the afternoon here on the East Coast of the United States. This is our hot topics of the day. And even though it seems like the government has stopped shooting balloons down, everybody's talking about it. What the hell did they shoot down? We all know what was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean slightly east of South Carolina. That was a Chinese spy balloon. The balloon itself was the size of a 747. The payload that it was carrying was the size of three school buses. So it was large and it was heavy. I argued at the time that it shouldn't have been shot down and crushed when

it reached the ocean. It should have been slowly maneuvered down so that it could have been salvaged, captured, if you will, and then reverse engineered. I don't think there's anything in there that's new to the American government. We use balloons. They use balloons no matter what they say. They always lie about this stuff. They claim it's national security. They claim it's foreign intelligence. They claim it's national security. They claim it's foreign intelligence. They claim that they can lie. They never tell the truth. Mike Pompeo, when he was the head of the CIA, boasted that our job is to lie and steal and lie about both. They lie about stealing and they lie about lying. Okay, I get that. I don't approve

of it, but I get it. But it would have been better, I think, in the Chinese government, and they didn't trigger that provision. They didn't destroy it. Maybe they want us to have it. Maybe if we reverse engineer it, it'll take us down a rabbit hole and mislead us. Who knows? American people were terrified that this thing was flying over the country, and the president, I got to praise him when he does the right thing, wisely waited for it to get over the ocean. But I wouldn't have hit it with a missile. I would have hit it with a bullet, just enough to let the whatever is in the balloon, I don't know if they still use helium, to come out slowly. So this thing would slowly land on the ocean and then we could have captured

it. We'll see where it goes. In the meantime, the government cannot provide a rational explanation for the other three devices that it shot down. So it has stopped waiting and worrying about where these things are. It has stopped waiting for these things to get over water. Oh, but one of them was shot down over Lake Huron outside of Michigan. One was shot down in the Yukon, which is Canada, just east of Alaska. I don't remember where the other one was shot down, but the government won't tell us what they were or even where they are. I don't believe in government secrecy. I saw a picture of Senator Marco Rubio with a very pained look on his face as he was coming out of the government skiff. The skiff is the secret room where the CIA gives select members of Congress, not all, just maybe a dozen in different groups,

reports on American intelligence and the dastardly deeds of American intelligence. Like we're about to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline. They can't take their mobile devices in there. They can't take pen and paper. They obviously can't take a laptop or an iPad. They can't take any and paper. They obviously can't take a laptop or an iPad. They can't take any communications devices in there. And when they're in there, they can't communicate with the outside world. I don't know what they told Rubio, but he looked very troubled.

Maybe it was one of those photographs that caught him when he had an itch in his nose and he was troubled for reasons having nothing to do with what they learned. That's not my point. My point is we have a government that consists of representatives. The representatives are our eyes, ears, and votes in the government. They shouldn't know more than we do. Maybe it should even be the other way around. We have consented to them governing us. We should know what they know. Whatever the government knows, we know, just like whatever the government owns, we should be able to own. When the government knows more and owns more, when the government has more weapons and when the government has more secrets,

it makes us subservient. That's not the government that James Madison gave us. Okay, the NATO chief Secretary General Stoltenberg has a very serious warning for the Ukraine government. Take a listen. The war in Ukraine is consuming an enormous amount of ammunition and depleting allied stockpiles. The current rate of Ukraine's ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production. This puts our defense industries under strain. So this is the Secretary General of NATO. This is Vladimir Zelensky's biggest cheerleader next to the president of Poland. This is a guy who wouldn't hesitate to ask for American troops on the ground in Ukraine. And

he's saying that Ukraine is using his words, you heard him in English, many times our ability to manufacture ammunition. So if they're using 100 rounds a day, we can only manufacture 10, 15, 20, give them the benefit of the doubt, 25, one quarter of what they're using. Pretty soon, we're going to run out of the ability to manufacture, and they're going to run out of shells. What does that tell you? That tells you that Russia is winning the war, as Scott Ritter and Colonel McGregor have been telling you. And that tells you that this is a candid realization by the leader of NATO that this can't keep up. If you spend $100 a day, but only take in 10, 15,

or 25, sooner or later, you're going to run out of funds and you're going to go bankrupt. If you shoot 100 rounds a day, and of course, I'm just rounding these numbers off, but only take in 25, sooner or later, you're going to run out of your supply and your suppliers are going to run out. Why? Because you're facing a stronger, bigger, larger, far better equipped military, which Ritter and McGregor have said will soon triumph. The war is over and the Ukrainians should know it. I often wonder if a comment like we just heard from Secretary General Stoltenberg was sort of a trial balloon to the West. Look, we can't keep doing this. It's just physically impossible. We'll see where it goes. Judging freedom will

continue to bring you as best we can, both sides. I know a lot of you can't stand Matt Van Dyke. We just did a tape with him. If you're watching me now, the tape has already been posted. He's a cheerleader for the Ukrainians. He's a former or he is a veteran. He's former United States Army Special Forces, now devoting his time in Ukraine to charitable purposes. He gives a pro-Ukraine view. In my view. He gives a pro-Ukraine view. In my view, there is no pro-Ukraine view.

They're slaughtering innocents, Russian boys and Ukraine boys, and they should have recognized it a long time ago, and so should Joe Biden, but they haven't. Okay, my favorite friend in the Congress, Congressman Thomas Massey, Republican of Kentucky, really libertarian of Kentucky, has just introduced legislation to repeal the Department of Education. Congressman Massey, my hat is off to you. While you're at it, repeal the Department of Homeland Security as well. And I can think of even a half dozen

other departments that you should repeal. But the Department of Education, which has about 4,000 bureaucrats running it, which is a relic of the Jimmy Carter presidency, has no business telling local departments of education how to run schools, even bad schools, even when it tries to run bad schools like Baltimore. The recent testing showed that 23 public schools in the city of Baltimore, the kids can't add and subtract. That's with management by the Federal Department of Education. Let's put aside the inefficiency of the feds managing anything. There is simply zero, zero authority. This is Congressman Nassi's argument and mine. There is zero authority in the Constitution for the Federal Department of Education. It is simply

another boondoggle. It is simply an opportunity for whatever party is in power to hire a bunch of its buddies as bureaucrats. And then, of course, of these 4,000 bureaucrats, there are about 3,500 that never change. Only 500 or so come in or out of power, depending upon who's in the White House. 3,500 stay. Professional educators, professional bureaucrats trying to tell local school boards how to do their job in an area nowhere authorized by the Constitution. Madison and even Alexander Hamilton, one of the founders who was the father of big government, would be flipping in their graves, so to speak, had they known what the federal government is doing with education today. Well, my opinion on education, you've heard it, but I'll give it to

you again. The government should have nothing whatsoever to do with it because one size fits all is doomed to fail. Even local education, unburdened by federal micromanagement, has guaranteed clients, the students, guaranteed income, tax dollars, guaranteed no competition. That is a recipe for failure. Schools should be private, just like McDonald's. You'll find schools on every street corner. You want your child to go to Princeton, send her to that school. You want your child to be an astronaut, send it to that school. You want your child to be a professional baseball player, to be an airline mechanic, to be an air condition repairman, send it to that, that, and that school. Rather than one size fits all, doomed to fail with no competition. Competition will improve the

product. And what else will be removed when we get the government out of the business of education? Indoctrination will be removed. All these fights over what kind of books are going to be in the library. They're going to have LGBT books in the library. Can the parents discuss sex change with seven-year-olds? All those arguments will be gone because you parents would be able to choose where your students go to school and your taxes would be less because you wouldn't be paying for public schools and competition would reduce the cost and improve the product. Oh, I once had a chat with the mayor of the small town in which I live, and I was complaining about the taxes. And I said, how about you and the next town over, which is called Lafayette, named after the Marquis de Lafayette, friend of Washington

and of Jefferson during the American Revolution. How about if you and the mayor of Lafayette compete with each other for my tax dollars. Let's see who can provide better services at less cost. This conservative Republican pig farmer, who's the mayor of this town and has been for 40 years, looked at me and said, Judge, I love you, but I've never heard anything so communistic in my life. Communistic? It's pure capitalistic that governments should compete. But government is a monopoly. It's a monopoly on force in a geographic area, and it's terrified of competition. Eric Schmidt of Google fame is now working on AI for the military. Can you imagine, instead of sending real troops into battle, if we sent robots into battle? AI robots programmed for every conceivable thing that might happen

on the battlefield. You know, before the American Civil War, battles were civilized. They weren't guerrilla tactics. It was one side's troops versus the other side's troops. They fought for six hours. At the end of the fighting, they picked up their dead. They buried the dead. Sometimes opposing generals or commanders of the troops would even have dinner together, and then they'd go back to fighting the next day. This goes back to city-states in Italy, and it was the way we fought the American Revolutionary War. And then a monster by the name of Abe Lincoln came along, and he directed his troops to shoot at and kill civilians. And for the first time in the history of the world, A, militaries targeted civilians, and B, militaries targeted

civilians of their own country. Another story, another time on Lincoln goes back to my argument about public schools, where students are indoctrinated to believe that Lincoln was a great man. He was a monster. But I give you this brief historical vision in order to place in a timely manner the argument of Eric Schmidt to show how battles have changed. Schmidt, of course, wants to change them one step more so that there won't be any blood. There'll be a lot of money destroyed on that field, but there won't be any blood. I don't know how we decide who would win. I don't know what would happen when one team's robots destroyed the other teams. I don't know what would happen if all the robots destroyed each other, but it's creative thinking that may save innocent human

life and it's private investment. Keep the government out of an investment like this, it'll end up costing 100 times what it needs to cost. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.