The Ricochet Podcast - A Super Summer Podcast

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

James, Steve, and Charles reconvene after an Independence Day break to catch up over some thoughts on the One Big, Beautiful Bill, Ketanji Brown Jackson's professional disorientation, and the latest dead end on getting to the truth about the twisted villain Jeffrey Epstein. The trio also discusses the newest superhero would-be-blockbuster that's betting on subverting viewer expectations, and James tells us about his own recent crime-fighting adventure...Visit this week's sponsors:Take control of your cellular health today. Go to qualialife.com/ricochet and save 15% to experience the science of feeling younger.Escape the summer heat while you sleep, visit https://cozyearth.com and use code RICOCHETSound clip from this week's open: Trump dismisses question about that Epstein creep. 

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And are people still talking about this guy, this creep? It's The Ricochet Podcast with Charles C.W. Cook and Stephen Hayward. I'm James Lilichs. It's July. And we're just going to talk amongst ourselves, shall we? So let's have ourselves a podcast. Welcome, everybody. It's The Ricochet Podcast, number 748. Hey, why don't you, yes, you, go to ricochet.com, join up, sign up, and be part of the most stimulating conversations in the community on the web.

I'm James Lodox in Minneapolis, downtown in a tall, beautiful skyscraper for the very last time. And I'm joined by Charles CW Cook in Florida and Stephen Hayward who as we know is a peripatetic soul and might be where at the moment don't say California. Well I'm at home I see the ocean I won't say where though so. Alright well so once again we span the nation. Gentlemen what is on your minds at the moment there's so much we've got the the big beautiful bill Of course which people are still chewing through and according to my Twitter feeds and the tic-tocks that I get I am under the Understanding that that the dead are going to be heaped like cordwood on the street corners because of the cuts that are being made

in various programs I Could point out that maybe I've heard before that every time somebody tries to cut something It's always going to be that people are going to die. I think we discussed last week or the week before the incalculable fatality rate after net neutrality. But is this different? Was this actually a change in programs? And going forth, there might be some difficulty of able-bodied people to

get what they had got before. Well I don't I think a unifying thread right now of a whole bunch of issues some on our rundown some not is the exhaustion of the Democrats in the left. I mean look we were you mentioned net neutrality but we also heard the same thing about the 2017 Trump tax cuts the people would die from those tax cuts, right? And the flash flooding in Texas, they want to blame it on Doge, but there was also, they're trying to run the Katrina playbook, right? You remember Katrina 20 years ago now, and Bush made some mistakes, they didn't present

themselves very well, but it wrecked Bush's second term, and they thought, oh, we'll rerun that playbook. So they keep trying to rerun these old playbooks, but I think they're less and less persuasive. And I'll give you one more of several I could do. I've noticed a conspicuous silence from Democrats about all the cuts to green energy that were in the one big, beautiful bill.

And you would think they would be saying, we're gonna die because we're cutting all the green energy because now we're not fighting climate change. Instead, apparently the latest figure I saw that Politico reported, 35 House Democrats have joined in endorsing President Trump's plan to get rid of California's electric car mandate, which of course spread across the country. And so that shows, as some people have been saying, is that the green mania is in retreat at the moment. And so what have Democrats got? Well, they've got Mondomni running in New York. And boy, isn't that a great story for them. Indeed. I think California is shutting down some refineries as well, under the belief

that perhaps they will be able to power their cars the old Flintstone way and that's the most ecologically safety Charles what have you taken away from the fallout from the BBB? Wow, there's an enormous amount It's such a big bill I'm not sure it's beautiful, but it's such a big bill That it's quite hard for serious people to take a unified approach to it. Now that doesn't include those who of course are demagoguing it, people we're discussing, but there's a lot in there to

like and then there's a lot in there not to like. For example, if you had told a fiscal conservative two or three years ago, not only will all of the 2017 tax cuts be renewed, but we'll get full expensing. I would have just jumped for joy. Some of the rest of it less so, but that shouldn't undermine the achievements. The Democrats are in a very weird position here because although they are pretending that everyone's going to die from Medicaid, not even cuts, slowed growth. And although they are upset that the Inflation Reduction Act, which had nothing to do with inflation, has been partly

rescinded, they also agreed that the vast majority of the cuts to taxes in the 2017 bill should remain. They're glossing over that. But that is a huge hypocrisy. Something I've observed over the last few years, James is conservatives often don't give themselves enough credit, especially on taxes, we get all of this, Oh, what have you ever considered? conservatives have conserved? Well, here is a change. When Hillary Clinton ran for president 2016, she said that nobody who made more than less sorry than $250,000 a year would see a tax increase.

When Kamala Harris ran for president in 2024, that number was $400,000. Now, if you go back 30 years, no Democrat would have promised that. The reason I mentioned that is, we don't even have to say, well, of course, Democrats wanted to keep a lot of the tax cuts. They said they wanted to keep most of the tax cuts. And yet they're, again, pretending every single statement that they put out that this was a tax cut for billionaires. So that's all this did was cut the taxes of billionaires. So it's very frustrating. It's also a reason why we should legislate by this. Like this, we really should actually

have lots of smaller bills and actually debate things and not have fiscal clefs and so on. But my takeaway from this is there are, of course, disagreements over Medicare and there are disagreements over the Inflation Reduction Act. But most of the stuff that is in this bill is actually stuff Democrats wanted. And they got their salt deduction back. The idea like, oh, this is the worst bill I've ever seen, which I've seen some Democrats say, this is the worst bill in American history, which is an astonishing thing to say, the Fugitive Slave

Act says hello. It's just another reason why a lot of our politics is so silly, because it's nothing of the sort. I agree that I would like to see smaller bills. It would be nice to see all of these things individually enumerated, delineated, and then voted up and down so we have a clearer view of who's believing what and what they say and do. I agree. I also don't think there's any way back to that.

At least, however, we have a bill that somebody voted on, as opposed to continuing resolutions that just roll everything over into the blob that just rolls and rolls on. So there's that. Stephen mentioned the green energy. It's curious. I read a tweet the other day that somebody said, after 20 years of green energy,

of better lamps and better appliances and better home stuff and all this stuff My electricity costs is twice what it was before which may not be entirely accurate, but you get that feeling I outfitted my house with all of the finest and greatest LEDs. I have my energy star compliant Appliances and the like and I haven't seen a reduction whatsoever could possibly be because rates go up because of a push to make the grid earth friendly etc but that's allusing it that's that's a that feels like a dead issue now it just it feels like after

the the Green New Deal of you know the AOC years there's no enthusiasm for that anymore and it seems that the Democrats find themselves in a position where all of the things that they, all the standards that they held so high are tattered and the flagpoles have wilted in the hot sun of disapproval and indifference. And yeah, Stephen said, what do they have? They got this guy in New York. Is that the future then of the party, an appeal to the people who absolutely want their communism and they want it now, fresh and hot? Well, I mean, we've talked about this before a couple of times. At the same time, you have

this enthusiasm among some of the progressive thinking class, like Ezra Klein, for the abundance agenda, and a few politicians gingerly putting a toe in the water, even Gavin Newsom for half an hour, said, yeah, I think I'm for this. Meanwhile, I just picked up the latest New York Review of Books, because I read it so you don't have to, and there's a long review of several books about the whole degrowth agenda, and one of them even is called Degrowth Communism. Talk about putting it all out there in plain view without any euphemisms, right? I mean, this is perfect, right? So, you know, that old religion dies hard, but I think, yeah, the practical politicians realize that this has been a vote-loser for Democrats. But the main point, the abundance

people, they do say one thing sensible, which is, can't Democrats somewhere pick a city and run it well, and, you know, make make the schools work clean up the streets reduce crime how about that and You would think there'd be less than were in the 1990s a few Democratic mayors like, you know Norquist in Milwaukee and a couple others who ran their cities in a sensible way And so that might be a place to start but I Start in New York. Let me start. Let me stop you right there. That's a great idea it depends however on an electorate

that is willing to be comfortable with some uncomfortable things. After my recent experience as a, I don't want to say a victim of crime because I hate the sound of that, as a non-enthusiastic participant in the rearrangement of my personal property, let's put it that way. I talked to an awful lot of people because I was walking up and down in the boulevards of several blocks trying to find one of the air pods because the carjacker had thrown my air pods out at three locations, which is just really devious, just evil. So I have to go to each one and get down on my hands and knees and look in the boulevard and the gutter and the rest of it. And I would explain to people why I

was on their lawn looking. And once everybody heard what had happened to me, everybody had their own story. Now, they weren't necessarily carjacking, but it was thievery, it was miscreants in the neighborhood, it was bad stuff. Everybody had a story. And everybody was equally convinced that nothing was going to be done to any of the people who had done these things. And as long as they keep voting in the same people that they do, and I presume that they do, because they all want to be thought of as good people and not somebody who votes for those, you know, Nazis, nothing will change. So, I mean, it takes a mayor to say that we're going to do the broken windows and squeegee guys things, but it doesn't seem to be that that's from their side.

No, I should correct myself. I read the other day that Eric Adams is actually trying to do like real mayor stuff like they used to do to make lives better for his constituencies, which is what mayors are supposed to do. But I mean, what's in it for them necessarily if they are getting rich and their friends are getting rich on the graft and everybody else in their party is doing okay? What's in it for them to go all doge on their own fiefdom?

Yeah, good question. By the way, back up a step, James. You were you were carjacked. I mean, yeah, at gun at gunpoint knife point. I mean, he didn't see a gun. you were carjacked I mean yeah at gun at gunpoint knife point I mean he didn't see a gun it didn't happen that it happened too fast they were in my car before I could notice it I more than one person yeah I well they traveled into as they followed me home and then one of them stayed in the car the other jumps out and I assume there's a gun because I mean you have to have some persuasive means to relieve somebody of their auto. The gun was not produced while I was hanging on the side of the car,

swinging into the car trying to get the guy. Although it may have been half a block down, you never know. So no, I didn't see one. But Charles, help me out here. Because a lot of people have said, this is why you always carry. And I'm trying to think of a situation in which I could have produced the weapon fast enough while moving a lawnmower,

you know, had it strapped. I don't live my life with the idea that I should put on my, I should strap on my pistol to go get a lawnmower out of my garage in the middle of the afternoon. I just don't. But you may have some other ideas on the thought. Yeah, although I do think I would be careful in Minnesota in the situation that you were in if my life weren't being threatened, which is of course the question. Because you don't want to end up being prosecuted. No, that's what you worry about. I mean, the scenario is basically this. I see him coming towards me. I can produce my pistol. If he then makes a motion to indicate that he's about to pull one out himself

I think at that point I got every right to put a hole in him But if if he takes my car and runs away, I can't shoot him So yeah, I mean all these little calculations that go through your head Unfortunate. But yes, go on. I just wanted to make a comment about degrowth communism. So when I was at Oxford, I saw a debate at the Oxford Union. I can't remember the topic of it, but there was this absolutely hilarious moment where the guy on the other side from my friend made some concession, rhetorical concession.

And my friend stood up and he said, he said, no, no, in mock helpfulness, he said, no, no, you don't understand. He said, you just said what I am here to get you to say. You don't say that. You say anything you can to avoid saying what you just said, which loses you the debate. And I spend my time trying to get you to say what you just said, but you came out and said it at the beginning. It was just hilarious. I mean, it was just a brilliant rhetorical trick. When someone says, I'm for degrowth communism, that reminds me of that. No, no, you don't say that. We say that. That's our criticism of you being a communist, that it's degrowth. You don't say that at the outset. Where's the fun in that? It's a bit like the Monty Python haggle properly from Life of Brian.

Python handle properly from Life of Brian? Well they say because they believe it to not, that it sounds good to people. Those are absolute attributes of which they which trumpets. So Stephen? Well here I've actually got the, I've looked up the actual titles, Charlie. It's even better than you thought. The title of one of the books is Marks in the Anthropocene Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism. Now, is this book published by Island Press or some little obscure greenie publishing house? No, it's published by Cambridge University Press. By the way, a mere $110 for the hardback. That'll generate a few communists.

Just amazing. You can't make this up. Well, I mean, if you're inculcated to believe that capitalism is the most evil system ever combined, ever created on the planet, then yes, of course, you would want all manifestations of it to be removed. There was a little video floating around on Twitter a couple of days ago of a University of Minnesota professor who's talking about the need to decolonize and dismantle America. And they say this as though America is some sort of, is this object that once removed,

nothing but goodness will happen. That the systems that immediately and effortlessly flow into place will empower all, will cause abundance, will make everybody absolutely just jackdandy happy when what they're talking about if it comes about is a state of nature. And it's remarkable. It's the sort of thing you know that you only hear it's so stupid you could only hear it from an academic to quote another man. Yeah, and that's a classic human nature problem. We see this a little bit on the right at the moment, there are some people who believe that the entire modern world is corrupted, but when you really wanted to live with, say, the Roman Empire or Aztecs or something. And what's

funny about them is that in their Twitter avatars, or their journal aesthetic preferences, they have pictures of statues of Julius Caesar. Of course, they think they would have been Caesar, but actually they wouldn't. And it's the same with these communist types. They all think that if there was some revolution, and then we entered into communism, they'd be the artist. Right. They wouldn't be the guy who cleaned the latrines, they would get the plum allocation, they would get to a bunch of paints. And they would get a ceiling to spend their days using them on and this is of course, absolute nonsense. And the ceiling would

collapse on them, hopefully quickly, before they knew it. But they don't think that they think that they would they would be given all of the best choices well but not not necessarily so because i follow the same accounts where they pop in my my stuff too and they all want to return and the the u in return is always spelled like a like a latin v and while they sometimes will say you know yes i realize the class distinctions, I probably wouldn't be a senator, but on the other hand, there was a simplicity to life, there was a sturdiness, there was an honorable quality to it, a man knew his place,

and well, if you look at some of these studies, peasants worked actually less than people do in America today. I know, I know, you see this all the time. And it's nonsense on its face but conversely I think there are things to learn from the past. There are some details, modus operandi, modus vivendi, that bear consideration and perhaps modernizing integration and the rest of it. I like studying the past but a clear-eyed view of it means that you're probably going to die 26 of an abscessed tooth. So while yes having these sorts of cultural solidity and national identification of the soul that's good we can

learn but yeah you're gonna be in the fields 10 hours a day and you're not gonna own the land and you're going to be strung up 10 hours a day and you're not going to own the land and you're going to be strung up for a tree if you shoot a deer that belongs to the local laird. So you're right Charles, it is ridiculous, it certainly is. But at least it's not as ridiculous as the Tartarians who believe that a giant mudslide wiped away traces of an advanced civilization at the turn of the century and we've been lied to ever since. Well that went there and here.

Kind of glad that it did. I don't mean to interrupt, except of course I did, which means that I'm about to do something important for the health and financial security of Ricochet going forward. Bear with me, won't you? Because you're wondering where I'm going with this exactly. Well, as I may have mentioned before,

I'm retiring because I'm of that age. Now, I'm not gonna quit working, but I'm of that age. Now I'm not going to quit working, but I am of that age. Yet, yet, I'm vital enough to chase down a carjacker and hang on and try to beat him. So I've got some vim and or vigor in me. How is this possible? Well, aging affects your day-to-day life. You know, there's no way around that, right?

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the Ricochet podcast. Another thought, everyone on the X is gnashing and wailing of teeth over the Epstein file not existing. I think the most interesting piece I read by this was Ace over at Ace of Spades who said, you know, I don't think there was a file. I don't think he kept a file. And he makes the point that rather than being part of some ingenious, massage-directed, blackmail, compromptu operation,

he was just a guy who called in favors all the time to make himself rich. Brought people to the island, got some back rubs from some cute girls. Everybody knew what had happened and when Epstein calls you on the phone and asks for a stock tip you remember the fact that you were at his island and you want to be buds and sure you tell him a little of this a little of that.

That seems more enlightened with human nature than some vast you know tentacular careful blackmail operation. But then again I'm just influenced by the last thing that I read so there's that. What do you guys think? a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, a list like that hanging around. But let's remember, there were also rumors a few years ago or claims that there were videotapes. They found videotapes at Epstein's Island

and you know, when that all comes out. Well that, I haven't heard another word about that because I think that didn't exist either. Look, I mean, assume the worst speculations that he was running a blackmail operation or some kind of genteel shakedown. He's not gonna keep a list. He would have long ago cleaned up and made it all go away. He was a pretty smart guy, pretty twisted guy, but obviously a pretty smart guy.

I still wonder who's the guy was it? Was it Wexler? Wexner? One of those guys who paid Epstein is claimed something like $150 dollars for tax advice. That doesn't seem right. Even the most expensive law firm doesn't charge that much by the hour. So it had to be something else and I've you know I've never heard that explained in any detail. It had to have been some kind of partnership, some crazy equity thing. It can't have been tax advice. So this whole thing has been built on rumors and crazy stuff from the very beginning, I'm afraid.

Yeah. I never believed in the list either. I also think that the conspiracy theories don't make much sense. So we have a president, Donald Trump, who has, I think it's fair to say, been victimized by the intelligence services, at least they haven't been nice to him. We have an FBI director, Cash Patel, who dislikes the intelligence services, he dislikes the organization he runs, he thinks it's been a malign force in American history, I agree with him on that. And we have Dan Bongino, who is very much in touch with the base, especially the sort of people who

think that there's a list or that this has been covered up under the Biden administration. And those people are all saying, actually, there is nothing here. Now, the only reason that I can think of rationally that they would lie about that, because I think announcing it would be pretty good for them. I think they'd enjoy doing that is if Donald Trump were in some way implicated. But that's got to be absolute nonsense too. Because first off, Joe Biden would have said something. Biden went after him in any way he possibly could. They tried to prosecute him,

as did the state of New York, which has a nexus to Jeffrey Epstein. And even if Biden hadn't done that for some reason, a person in the federal government would have, there would have been a leak or a whistleblower or a guy who came forward. Of course there would. That person would have, there would have been a leak or a whistleblower or a guy who came forward. Of course there would. That person would have had he had the goods made $50 million from a book deal. So you've got the people who already profoundly dislike the intelligence services on the right side of the aisle are saying there's nothing there. And then you have the only reason that they wouldn't want to do that being absolutely ridiculous. The most investigated man in the world

is Donald Trump. Doesn't it make more sense just to say Jeffrey Epstein was clearly an evil man who did evil things, but he didn't write it all down. It strikes me as utterly reasonable. I'm still trying to get past the fact, and I've never been able to eye-bleach this out of my brain, that Epstein had a big oil painting of Bill Clinton in a blue dress and red heels. The audacity of that, and the fact that Clinton probably saw it and yucked and said that's a good one, I mean everybody would see it when they walked into his place, just sort of tells you the type of individual character that we're that we're talking about here. Who needs a list when you

could have made that painting public in black and white? So I don't believe that that the island had that little temple there had secret elevators that went down to operating rooms or they removed the adrenochrome or whatever that is from the brains of infants. That whole comet pizza, ping pong pizza thing, the madness of that. Whatever happened by the way to Q, has the storm finally blown itself out? Because you don't hear an awful lot of people talking about Q anymore. And I'm wondering what has replaced it in the space of in the mind space of those people who fervently believed that the revelations were about to drop I have no idea I've wondered that too and I have I've got no clue what

may have replaced it I don't think they need them needed anymore to be frank well elsewhere in the news this last week I mean it's the fourth of July and all that but stuff did happen. We had, you know I have a feed that I, a news feed that was, that was, oh no I'm sorry I don't want to talk about Sean Combs, Sean Puffy Combs. I want to talk about Sean Duffy Shoes. Apparently there's a new, now I always said that when you take off your shoes at the airport to go through the security line that there should be a statue of the shoe bomber at the end of the line that you can throw your footwear at. Just to get your

anger out of that that bastard for doing what he did that made everybody take off their shoes for 20 years. But now apparently we don't. We don't. Do you know why and do you think the skies are going to be less safe now that their shoes will not be examined by x-rays? Well, I don't think we ever needed to do it in the first place. Supposedly the new scanners and technology can pick up a doctored shoe. I don't know. I don't think the Europeans – Charlie, help me out on this – I don't think the Europeans ever went in for the shoe removal business

Now while the British did but they abolished it last year last. Okay. Yeah anyway, it I Mean I was joking for the last 20 years and I'd vote for the first presidential candidate who said we could keep our shoes on Airport and then of course I got signed up for pre-check several years ago so I've been able to skip the getting the laptop out and taking my shoes off. I did like the last comment. The Babylon Bee had one of their classic headlines saying you now can keep your shoes on before TSA gropes you. Well I was wondering Steve how if I don't have to watch other people take their shoes

off, I'm going to feel better than the other passengers who don't have TSA pre. I'm going to need a new form of separate. No, I'm kidding. I never thought this would happen. I never thought it would happen. Not because it ever made any sense that we did this, but because the incentives in a democratic system all line up against repealing bad ideas like this because if in the tiny chance that somebody was wearing shoes when they blew up a plane, the president or agency that rescinded that order would be blamed. If you look, for example, we haven't touched on it, but at these horrendous floods in Texas, they are quite clearly nothing to do with the fact that Donald Trump is president, that Greg Abbott is governor of Texas, the Doge existed, but that is

the line. So I always assumed while presidents are smart enough to know that. And although this is theater, they don't want to be the guy whose decision or tenure happened to intersect with a terrorist attack. And I'm so, so happy that I'm wrong. It never occurred to me that they would do it. No, because the encroachment on freedom only goes one way. We think our shower heads will never be more powerful. Our dishwashers will never wash like they did before. Our toilets will not flush with a robust capacity that they did 25 years ago. We will never be able to not wear a shower. But you know, I feel like now if I went into a coma and woke up in 20 years and went to the airport, I started taking off my belt and my shoes, people would be appalled. What are you doing? What are you doing?

I said, it's TSA isn't it no you just walk over to the plane here have a cigarette I mean they were reverting back to 1967 when I last was overseas in London and in the Rome airports I'm pleased to note that the the scanning detection that they have is remarkable they make these 3d models these image these 3D models that they can then examine from every angle, blow up, go into. I shouldn't say blow up. And it's remarkable.

But I always hate it because I'm always the guy whose bag goes on the dreaded second to shoot. And I'm glad that they are because my bag looks dangerous. My bag looks like I am a maniac. I should be in a black hair shirt with bushy hair, holding a Boris Badenough bomb in my hand because there's so many wires and batteries. They're just paging through. Why do you need so many cords? Well, I'm traveling with my wife and daughter. Each of them has their own dedicated accessory battery cord that I provide for them. So you can see they're color-coded here. Well, these large batteries are for on the train, smaller ones are for an excursion.

I mean, I explain everything to them. But I'm glad. And it's also this, they also see your face. And they got all kinds of ways to see your face as you're in line and walking up, the minute you walk into the airport. And they know your face and they know who you are. And I would love to know which face of mine they have. I'd love to know where it is.

But I walk into a Roman airport and the Roman airport says, oh, James Lollings, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Arrivederla. So yeah, that's why we can keep our shoes on. This would never happen to the returned people who would be the ones making that determination. Right. No, it wouldn't, but of course since everybody lived probably about, you know, spent their entire life five miles from their birth, they wouldn't have to worry about security checks when they go to some other places. You mentioned the floods. The floods they tried to blame on cuts to the NWS, they've tried to blame on avity, tried to blame on understaffing. In other words, the whole idea that the government, if not funded

at current levels and then more so, results in imminent death. And also what they love about these is the fact that it's weather. And having the sort of paganistic fear of Gaia that they do, they believe that this is caused by somebody starting up an SUV in 1987 and contributing the fatal amount of the sort of paganistic fear of Gaia that they do, they believe that this is caused by somebody starting up an SUV in 1987 and contributing the fatal amount of carbon dioxide that, or monoxide or dioxide, whatever, the greenhouse gas that's going to kill us all. But as we were saying before, these claims are falling on deaf ears. Everybody's been hearing them for 20 years and the earth is okay. But yet we're still supposed to believe that these once in a 100 year life events are magnifying and increasing

and getting more deadly but none of that is sticking. All of this stuff is is like putting a post-it note on a on a sweating man. It just it just it just isn't working and the ghouls who would populate social media right away and gleefully blame this on to the editorial cartoonist of legitimate newspapers blame it on the people who deny climate change or the people who voted for immigration reform or the rest of it is is off putting it extreme to to the normies as they say right yeah yeah i think people are suffering from apocalypse fatigue at this point and this is really really isn't brand new. I mean, I filed away, I think,

way back around 2007, 2008, when an unexpected person, it was Nick Kristoff, the liberal-minded columnist of New York Times, wrote an article saying, gosh, I wonder if we're being too apocalyptic with this environmental business, because my perception is environmental alarms are now like car alarms, something blaring in the background that we're starting to tune out and ignore. Well, I think now we actually have the polling data in on this. You actually had the Democratic analyst David Schor a year ago telling Democrats from his very careful survey work, Shut up about electric cars. My findings say that talking about electric cars loses votes for Democrats.

And lo and behold, they're starting to not talk about electric cars as much. So it's become a stone cold loser for them and it's about darn time. Well, Charles, before you get to that, I want to note, I don't know what it's like in Florida. It's probably soupy there, right? And Stephen, if you're in California, we know that California is clement and beautiful, but July is hot. I'm here to tell you in Minnesota that it has been absolutely, well, extraordinarily hot, drenching rains and the rest of it, which is fine.

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sponsoring this the ricochet podcast let's see so we have pretty much set the world at rights here going down the list of things about which the concern is mounting and I'm thinking what what hit today well Friday in the summertime is about the last time is about the most the deadest thing you can imagine right so there's not a lot left so I'm gonna ask you guys what is something that you have been watching that you don't think that enough people are paying attention to and is but but is consequential nevertheless well james i was expecting you to bring up the new superman movie which uh oh i almost did oh good well now i'll make you because it sounds like it's going to be a bomb at the box office uh we'll see

about that but you know they've changed it from truth justice in the american way to truth justice and the human way uh-huh and then what the directors of James Gunn or somebody says, well, you know, Superman was an immigrant. It's an immigrant story. And like, wait a minute. No, well, from another planet, right? He was raised in America. To try and politicize this movie in even such a ham headed way seems like a real blunder. And so I noticed this morning that this White House, they should never blundered this way, this White House, not the White House should have blundered but Hollywood shouldn't have blundered, they put out an AI drawing of Trump in a Superman suit saying I stand for truth

justice and the American way. It's an epic troll on all this and I'm gonna watch the box office and see what the word of mouth is on the movie. It's getting mixed reviews so far. I'm curious. James Gunn was loved by some for the quirky, quippy tone that he brought to Guardians of the Galaxy and I loved the first Guardians movie. It had a great charm to it. Walking through listening to you know, who Gashaka at the beginning, he thought, oh this is new, but unfortunately quippiness is one of those things that infected all the Marvel movies which gave made them a sort of weightless. People don't say these things after they've just saved the world. And then of course it was swamped by also darkness

and complexity and the rest of it and Marvel movies became almost unwatchable. It seemed like homework and I fell away from them. I've never been a Superman guy because what's the interest there? He's Superman. He's invulnerable. He can't, you know, oh yeah, Krypton brings him down. I thought as a kid that the Superman books were stupid because in every other one of them it was what if Superman actually had a pig leg? And it would be one of those stories.

Lois Lane and Lana Lang would be cat fighting. Well that actually was a pretty good episode. But there's nothing about him interested me. The only thing however that you maybe can take away from the 60 supermans was that they did do PSA's in which Superman would tell a bunch of kids not to be prejudiced that everybody's an American here we're all born in America we're all citizens your national origin doesn't count and you could say that was him being woke back then but no that was the

usual good citizenship stuff that they used to do all the time what gun has done with the statements that he's made is indicated that he doesn't realize the nature of the complaints about illegal immigration nobody's talking it is it is not anti-american to be against anti illegal immigration we love our immigrants, right, Charles? You should do. We do, and we would be less without them. But there's a process, there's legality, there's a number of people, there's the question of dumping 15,000 people into a community of 50,000 without thinking that the culture was going to go under stresses and the rest of it. It's a complex argument, and if you want to reduce it down to your stupid comic book terms,

then you're an idiot, and I'll presume you're're an idiot and I'll watch the movie with that in mind. That said, everything I've read about it makes this thing sound weightless and jokey and quippy and let's redo it and rethink it and while there's room for that and a competent director and they could do it, I trust Kyle Smith when he says, I don't think they did it. Let me give you one little footnote to it James that will amuse you. The New York Times has a story out today. The headline is Superman's other secret weakness? Journalism ethics. Subhead writing the Daily Planet about his

heroic alter ego raises thorny issues for Clark Kent. Lois Lane has her conflicts too. Now, I mean, I haven't read the piece. I'm not going to, I've got to think that maybe this is a lame attempt at satire, but I'll bet not. I'll bet this is somebody that really thinks that there's something wrong with this depiction of Clark Kent as the Superman writer.

I dearly hope there is. Where do they learn about a guy named Peter Parker who would set up his camera to take pictures of the Spider-Man fellow? There's another questionable set of ethics for you. I just like the idea. I mean, I'm keen to see if this movie takes place in an actual newsroom because if it's supposed to be a newsroom of 2024 and there's more than five people in the office, I'd be surprised. If it's one of those places full of clattering keys and people shouting copy boy and wreaths of cigar smoke, you know,

that's 1947 daily plan. That that isn't, that isn't here. And even though we have a globe in our lobby, that looks like something you would have in a classic newspaper office. Um, the whole idea of the paper as, as, as it was in the daily bugle is gone. Charles, were you a comic book reader? Um, growing up, did you have any favorites of your own? I wasn't and I'm still not and mostly I'm

disinterested in comic book movies although I thought the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy was spectacular and I liked the Iron Man movie with Robert Downey Jr. The first one? I did. Yeah, I think the quippiness. Oh, and you mentioned Guardians of the Galaxy. That was good, too. The quippiness does bother me though. I saw someone on Twitter the other day, showing the scene in Jurassic Park where the two paleontologists first see the dinosaur. Right. And they said, you know, that movie had been made now by someone other than Spielberg, they would have made

a quip to show how cool they were rather than been overawed. And I thought that that was a fair point. My problem with the Superman movie, aside from things the director said, which have irritated me too, for all the reasons you outlined, it's just that I just don't think it looks very good. No. And okay, I'm obviously not the target audience because I'm not a big superhero movie. So stipulated, but I really actually wanted to be excited to go and see this

because I have two boys, seven and nine. And I thought, well, when I was 10, I loved the Superman series with Terry Hatcher and, and Dean Cain. And I thought, well, they would probably love to go to the movie theater, which they love going to the movie theater, and to see the Superman movie. And I've watched the trailer, and I tried so hard with the first couple of trailers that I saw to get excited about going to see it. And I just don't think it looks right. Now, maybe it's amazing. But everyone who's seen it, whose opinion I respect,

says it's not. So between that and the trailers that didn't excite me at all, and the director being annoying, I think I'm going to skip it. Right. The whole business about going from truth, justice, and the American way to the human way fails on two levels. One, the human way is actually not that good. It is not something that we... If I had a choice, here's a society full of humans and here's a society full of Americans, I'm gonna go with the one that's got the concepts of law and order and individuality and personal responsibility as opposed to the ones that are basically

blood-maddened, you know, resource-expropriating feral humans. I mean, the human way, unmediated by law and by tradition and culture is bad, and America is law, tradition and culture. So he's stupid in that way, again, to think that there is something human that is on a plane above evil Americanism. But also Superman has done this before. I think in one he renounced his citizenship and became a United Nations ambassador or something like that. I mean they love to do this and they love to point out exactly that you know he's got roots as an immigrant he's a reflection of the Jewish immigrant experience and all that stuff and hey you know Clark Kent didn't have his papers when he landed in Smallville and these are all tedious small little anal retentive details that forget the basics of the story. That he landed here a blank slate. And by

being raised by two loving people in the middle of the Midwest, he grew up to embody these characteristics. And that says something about the culture that we'd like to think, and even if we don't think it's true all the time, it's something that we should strive to incorporate into our national mythology. No harm in that. But basically we're talking about a guy who, you know, bullets bounce off his chest and he's got laser beams out of his eyes. So let's not take all that too seriously. Yeah, we will see. I'm disappointed. But again, and here's the other thing though. When are we going to get past this idea that, well, what I'm going to do, and it's very brave, it's very edgy, is I'm going to do, and it's very brave, it's very edgy, is I'm going to

subvert the audience's expectations about this longstanding cultural institution. How long have we been doing this? Yeah, you know what? What movie didn't do it? Top Gun Maverick. Right. It didn't start with some exposition about how planes actually suck. Right. You know what sucks? Planes. Planes suck and pilots. Pilots suck too. And who cares whether America wins or the nameless enemy Iran. Uh-huh. They didn't do that. No. And good for them. This F1 movie that people seem to like as well does not seem to subvert the expectations that cars that go very fast are cool. Well, I wrote about the F1 movie on my blog the other day because I ran across a piece that said we need to talk about female representation in F1.

And I thought, no, no, no, no, we don't know if anybody says we need to talk about this. You look at your watch and you say I got a I got a red canal I got to go to. We don't need to. Because first of all, you know it's not going to be a talk, it's going to be a lecture. But the problem is that the F1 audience is getting more and more female and there wasn't enough representation in the movie. So that's a problem. But movies that are straight ahead and appeal to that old style American movie going. People

adore them, people respond to them with huge waves of gratitude and I have to tell you as good as I know that they are I have a real problem with Mission Impossible movies because of something they did in the very first one. Spoiler alert for a movie that's been out for 20 years, they made Jim Phelps into a traitor. I remember sitting there and thinking, I mean I hate to say childhood ruined and the rest of it, but I grew up admiring the hell out of Jim Phelps and to do this to that character just just for a twist, oh he was evil all along. Look at that Captain America's actually Hydra. I hate that stuff. It's the most

boring predictable trope you can get these days. actually Hydra. I hate that stuff. It's the most boring, predictable trope you can get these days. Yeah, yeah. I think I recall reading that it was Greg Morris, and I think maybe Peter Graves was still alive, then hated the movie and walked out of it and wouldn't have anything to do with it. And I kind of agree with you about that.

I think for that reason, I think for that reason. And if Martin Landau had been alive, and Barbara Bane, that's right, Martin Landau and Barbara Bane, I think they that reason and if Martin Landau had been alive and Barbara Bain that's right Martin Landau and Barbara Bain I think they came to the and then of course Spock joined the show a little bit later right yes right I just absolutely loved that show very much I mean now the other thing James that I think here I want to prop Charlie that happened this week is I thought we were all done with Supreme Court for the summer, right? Oh.

You know, the term ended. And instead we have all this new commotion happening, including the Supreme Court saying, no, we really meant it about district courts doing universal injunctions. And there was the amazing spectacle, I never would have predicted, of Sonia Sotomayor hectoring Katanji Brown Jackson to say, you don't really know what the law is, do you? spectacle I never would have predicted of Sonia Sotomayor, Hector Inkataji Brown Jackson to say you don't really know what the law is do you? And over to you Charlie because you wrote wonderfully about this. Well it was you don't really know what the law is do you but also I think the broader message was

you don't really know what your job is do you? I wrote about this because we love the rule of three. In journalism, if you have three examples of something, you're golden. Ah, there's the column. And we have three examples. Now, the first was going in reverse order. Katandi Brown Jackson herself in an ABC interview, saying that she loves being on the Supreme Court, because it gives her the opportunity to share in her opinions what she thinks about

the issues. She also said she likes to share her feelings. And she said that she likes to talk about how the country should work. And this bothered me, because judges are not supposed to talk about how the country should work. And this bothered me, because judges are not supposed to talk about how the country should work. Citizens are supposed to talk about how the country should work. Congress and state legislatures are supposed to talk about how the country should work within his limited realm. The President's supposed to talk about how the country

should work. But judges are not judges are supposed to talk about how the country does work. And what the law is not what it should be. And they're certainly not supposed to share their feelings. And it struck me that I'm not the only one who thinks this. Clearly, Sonia Sotomayor thinks this, of all people to be chastised by imagine being chastised for not being good enough at your job by Sonia Sotomayor, who told Justice Jackson a few days ago that sure, she also agrees that the president must follow the law,

but that they hadn't actually got to that case yet. And the questions that were raised in Jackson's dissent hadn't actually been raised by the side of the dispute, and that she shouldn't jump the gun. And before that, we had Amy Coney Barrett, who is careful and judicious as a writer and as a justice, nuking Jackson, frankly, for her dissent, pointing out that it was not connected to the Constitution or any statute or any doctrine or any canon of construction. And that it was odd to hear a Supreme Court justice complaining about legal ease, which is an actual term that Jackson used. And it was odd to hear a Supreme Court justice complaining that both

the majority opinion and the principal dissent were obsessed with that complicated and boring legal question, which is again part of the job. And I just thought, and I wrote this in the piece you refer to, I just thought that having listened to Jackson talk about her role, she'd be much better off starting a sub stack. Yeah, I think you're right. Because we're about another term away from her releasing a dissent that

consists of the dog in a fiery room saying, this is fine. Ha ha ha. Alas. Alas and a lack. Hey, listen, folks, it's a short week this week for us because frankly, you got other things to do and we thank you for listening to us. I would also like to insert several lines of boilerplate copy right here. And before I do so though, we got to thank Quality of Senulitic for sponsoring the Ricochet podcast and thank of course Cozy Earth as well. That's

Q-U-A-L-I-A life.com by the way. Improve your life with these great products and thank them for supporting Ricochet and give us those reviews anywhere you can. We love them. Providing you say something helpful and constructive that is. I mean don't be that person. And if you haven't after 768 episodes gone to Ricochet and signed up yet mean, don't be that person. And if you haven't, after 768 episodes, gone to Ricochet and signed up yet, I don't know what we can possibly do except do another one next week that will make you say, that's the one, I'm going to give them my money. Now, mind you, you can listen and you can read for free at Ricochet, but we always like to keep something special in reserve for the paying customers, and that is the member feed

where we discuss all manner of things. It's old radio, it's sports, it's movies, it's people coming out and writing essays about how they're quitting today and their life in journalism. I don't know who wrote that one. All kinds of stuff. It's the community you've been looking for on the internet since they plugged the thing in. So go there, sign up just a few shekels a month and you'll be happy. I am happy that the expanse of January, or July, January, July still stretches ahead. I've got another hour and a half in the building

where I've worked for these many years and just a couple of hours left in a job I've been at for 27 years and I'm retiring today. Well, not retiring, that implies that I'm sort of hanging it up, and I'm not. As a matter of fact, you can find me at Lilacs.com and JamesLilacs.substack.com. As you can find Charles C.W. Cook at the National Review. And Stephen, where can people pick up the latest thing that you've written? Well, I have a sub stack these days. I call political questions. But if you do Steve Hayward at sub stack, it pops up.

There you go. So there's your reading for the weekend, folks. Don't forget to hop on that cozy Earth sale. And we'll see you at Ricochet and we'll see you in the comments at Ricochet4.0. Bye-bye, guys.