The Ricochet Podcast - In Need of an Unbiased Machine

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

Rob, Peter and Steve Hayward discuss the border, banking and the lovely North Dakota with Senator John Hoeven; and then dig into the Durham Report with legal scholar/McMuffin epicure John Yoo. The hosts also discuss actual reefer madess, plus the screenwriter's stike and AI.

Oh wait, that's me. Sorry, I'm running. Oh my God, I'm completely waiting for James. Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Read my lips. No new answers. It's the Ricochet Podcast. I'm Rob Long, joined by Peter Robinson. Sitting in for James Lilacs is Steve Hayward. And today we've got Senator John Hopen and longtime guest John Yoo. So stick around.

And yet, for those of you in the media who don't report on that, you should be ashamed. This is evil. And the reason you don't see any Democrats here is they can't defend this. They're counting on the press not to cover it. It's wrong. Hello and welcome to the Ricochet podcast. This is podcast number 642. We're going to have to stop. We're going to have to recalibrate these like the Argentinian currency or the new franc.

I am Rob Long, joined as always by the ricochet my ricochet co-founder peter robinson palo alto hello peter hello hello we are usually joined by james lilacs he's not here today and sitting in for him is steve hayward steve how are you i am good rob good to see you guys no so where are you steve do you mind i might ask you where exactly you are yeah i'm kind of hard to pin down. I'm a little bit like you. I'm currently at my main residence in the central coast of California, near Paso Robles. Oh, nice.

Do you have any idea how that sounds? If only our viewers could see how tightly you've curled your pinky as you say that. Thirst and howls. I'm at my main residence just down the hill from the hearse castle sorry all right yeah okay so we have a lot going on today um we are joined later um by john senator john hoven from um um from north dakota i can't believe it a former senator uh no senator former governor uh now senator so he's um why isn't he running for president peter well we should wait and ask that ask him ask him my impression is he has a very good life as it is he enjoys his state

his family and his grandchildren and the senate and why mess it up anyway i think that's the and then later john you will be here uh i don't even know how to introduce john you we all know john you john will be here to talk about other i guess there was some uh some legal stuff in the news we can talk about that but before we get to that before we get to the senator before we get to uh professor you um can we talk a little bit about drugs a danish study shows that up to 30 percent of psychosis diagnoses in young men could have been prevented if these individuals had not used marijuana yes so uh the i guess it's the biggest epidemiological investigation we should talk to our friend jay better try about that to date and And it does seem like this news comes in an inopportune time when, if you live in New York

City, you smell weed everywhere, and it is now legal almost everywhere, and it is considered as benign, if not more benign, than a martini. Well, Ross Douthat has a piece in the new york times um i continue to read the times only for the sake of our friend ross ross dow that has a piece in the new york times saying that the effect legalization of marijuana it's a little more complicated than that but in effect it's been legalized across the cops have stopped enforcing any marijuana laws almost everywhere and there are shops all over New York, as there are all over Los Angeles, black market, regulated shops, it's just, they're there. Ross says, A, this was a very big mistake. B, it's almost impossible to say so because,

and I'd like to hear Rob opine on this one. I'd like to hear both of you, but Rob in particular, because for several decades now, all the forces of what is cool and with it and correct educated opinion have been in favor of legalization. And it is almost impossible to raise a finger and say uh folks there's already evidence that this is doing millions of people serious harm because it sounds so square polite opinion is just not attuned to hearing that whatever the evidence but you are worried peter about sounding square is that no no i'm worried about you sounding square you're you're we've known each other three decades you've always been the cool one and that's not even close that's and here you are saying much but yeah here you are well i suppose i set a low bar but no you i mean you're the cool conservative and um and here you are

saying something square. Cognitive dissonance? Well, I don't know what I think of it. So, Steve, help me out here. Oh, he's skipping. Oh, look at him. He's punting immediately. He's slipping and sliding away.

I thought I was pretty good, actually. All right, I'll weigh in with a couple of thoughts. One is this really isn't a brand brand new finding, this Danish study. I think if it catches the eyebrows, it's because it's from those free-swinging Scandinavians, right? There have been lots of medical studies calling into question the effects of marijuana, that we've underestimated them, and so forth. And yet, Peter, like you say, you cannot question this, because it's an awful lot like some of the research on gender dysphoria and the whole trans phenomenon that there's active suppression of contrary findings to what is currently fashionable. I don't know if you know this, Peter. Rob, you probably don't. In the California legislature, there's currently a bill

that would outlaw by degrees over 20 years all tobacco sales in california so if it passed and was signed uh we would have a world in which you couldn't buy tobacco products of any kind but marijuana would remain legal well why is that well we know why it's isn't that astounding uh now i think um two things quickly and then i'll stop you know you've had these this proliferation of marijuana products it's not just weed that you roll up and smoke anymore. It's all these different edibles, it's oils, it's on and on and on, of varying degrees of potency. I mean, I don't know these things firsthand myself, but, you know, I hear that the industry

and the people who have been doing this for decades have really figured out how to calibrate very high potency weed and so forth. Yeah. And along with the sort of approval that the legalization has bestowed on it, I think that the use of it has spread. And there isn't any, you know, how do we, what do we do about smoking? 50 years ago, we started telling people that smoking was bad. And we're not telling people that they should be careful,

at least about their marijuana use. And so I think we're going to regret the rush to legalize it and promote it the way we have. Finally, by the way, the marijuana industry in California, the legal industry, is losing money because it's overregulated and overtaxed. And only in California could you make the weed industry unprofitable. Right. But the black market, are we even allowed to say black? The market of color? I don't even know what. The illegal, the unregulated market is just everywhere. It's this weird thing where the argument was, look, maybe it does some damage. Not much, but a little bit. We're going to legalize it, but then we will be able to regulate it. We'll make sure that it's safe. We'll be able

to spot people right away who seem to be having trouble. And that hasn't happened at all. What actually has happened is that the illegal market, let's call it that, that's what has blossomed. If you're crazy enough to try to stay within the regulations, you have to sell your pot at a higher price to deal with all the regulatory overhang. So you get undercut by the shop down and it just means that we've whatever control we had we've lost all together yeah i mean i think am i am i i think that's absolutely correct i don't i don't think so i think two things happen one is that people uh the very very strange thing that people thought that the reason that it was that you would ever sell something illegally was because it was illegal

and not because you wanted to circumvent regulation so if you love regulation you think well the minute you put regulations on this everyone's going to conform which of course isn't what happens um you still want to like you still want to circumvent it you still sell weed on the street here in new york city or you sell it illegally in some bodegas because the permitting process is complicated apparently or all that stuff the second thing is that it we live in this weird culture where it isn't enough to say well this thing isn't this stuff should be legal but it's not good for you right and this should be legal and you should be for we the the progressive mentality is that anything that's good for you must be compulsory.

And that is sort of like the old P.J. O'Rourke formulation was, you know, in a communist country, everything is illegal except for a few things. Those things are compulsory. And so the idea that like saying, hey, look, marijuana can be very dangerous, like rum, and it should be regulated and maybe even frowned upon, like beer or rum. I mean, I see people walking down the street smoking weed all the time. I smell it from construction sites all the time. And if those people were holding- In Manhattan. In Manhattan. Those people were holding highballs. And how recently? This is new, correct?

I don't know. This is like past six months, years three years right okay all right but the the pre-legalization or pre-decriminalization so definitely was considered fine before the before the city uh before city law dotted the eye as you might say it was wide open i mean nobody was ever arrested for this but the idea that like it isn't just so much that people are doing it out in the open is that if you replace that with a martini glass if you saw two guys sitting on the stoop on 11th street uh after before they go back into the house to rewire that townhouse they're working on and they're sitting there drinking beer or a highball or a martini you think hey hey dudes no that's after work situation right but you can't say that because you can't say that full disclosure i don't smoke it i don't i don't like it i hate the smell but you can't say to

somebody all right this is another one of your vices but it's a vice um that apparently is it it has to solve everything and you know you put the weed cream on your knee and your knee doesn't hurt anymore. Like we have lost the ability to sort of be normal about anything. Again, this goes to my working definition or working theory of everything last week was everyone has lost their minds. And I think that this is just one more instance of everybody losing their mind unable to say all right this is your vice of choice be careful with it and maybe well kids shouldn't be doing it i think it may be even worse than you think about everyone losing their minds

rob um i think this ought to connect to a larger phenomenon which uh also was reported this week which is the mortality rate among young Americans is up 10% over the last couple of years. And we know that life expectancy in the United States has taken a dive for the first time in, well, ever, really. And Peter, you'll remember that back around 1980, when Rinaldis Magnus ascended to the presidency, the first hint that the clever intelligence people got that the soviet union was in trouble was falling lifespans in the soviet union it had been rising and after world war ii and suddenly it took a dive in the late 70s people like our friend nick eberstadt said there's

something deeply wrong in that country now we can point to in this country fentanyl marijuana rising suicide rates soaring rates of mental health distress among Americans. Can we tease out? I am with Jay Bhattacharya. I am convinced that the COVID lockdown was, I mean, I have kids. It was catastrophic for kids, particularly teens and 20s who are supposed to be getting out, meeting people, learning how to socialize like adults. And am I wrong about that or doesn't that play into this? No, that's absolutely right. But this can have a long-lasting effect. And so, I think we need to have a wider angle view than just the problem of marijuana

and other things. I think this is now a long-term problem that we have. I think there's a crisis underway and it's a cultural crisis as much as there's any particular thing like marijuana or fentanyl or- It has to be. If I could bring my father back to life and say, well, listen, you lived through the Depression, you served all four years of the Second World War at sea, take a look. What do you think? He would be dazzled by the wealth, the ease of life, the conveniences. I remember the year, it happened to be the same year he died, I showed him for the first time, he'd seen it, an email, and he just shook his head. He said, magic. Okay. And the idea that kids are killing themselves or resorting to fentanyl and booze and marijuana, this just would not compute. This is not the country for which he went to war.

Something serious has gone wrong and it's in our heads. We're not poor. It's in our heads. By the way, Peter, on a lighter note for this grim subject the first time i showed my mother an email her question back to me was how does it get out of the envelope and into your computer that's well not a dumb question really when you're right but peter i think you're i think you're right i think it's a constellation of things i think like a lot of what happened in covet it, it amplified and exacerbated trends that we already had. I think actually the, the,

the, the target that the, the group that was targeted the most for harm were sort of preteens and early teens. So like middle school, young high school, early high school, because they,

they are really were coming out of their shell and coming out of the home and coming out of the nest at that point. And that devastation is huge. I think there's other parts of it too, which are that we, and it's in Richard Reeves' great book, Richard Reeves, a guy at the Brookings Institution, wrote a book called Of Boys and Men, Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters matters and what to do about it and i think he's pointing at some very very serious problems we have in the country um with how we raise men and how we raise boys and um as you all know when you when you fail at that only bad things happen um young men are the prime engine for uh social chaos and crime and all sorts of terrible things when they are not raised well or parented well and i think that's what's happening not only by their parents but

probably by but by the culture in general which is these are all big fat topics um and um we can keep talking about them or we can switch to other big fat topics because we have we are lucky to have john hoven he was the 34 as i said 31st governor of north dakota from 2000 2010 he is now the senior u.s senator from north dakota uh he's been on the podcast many times he's a friend of our uh of the podcast um so i um i got a big question for him uh so i i gave a little thumbnail sketch um of your of your successful term as the governor of North Dakota. And now that you're the current senior U.S. senator there, why on earth are you not running for president? And don't come up with I don't want any excuses here. I want the I want I want you to say, you know, a good point, Rob. I mean, so, Rob, it is great to be with you and Stephen.

I don't know if peter is joining or not but i see both you guys are from berkeley and i and i kind of marveled at that because you know peter is a reagan republican and a staunch staunch conservative and here i find out he's hanging out with two guys from berkeley yes i know this is directly germane to your question, so I thought I'd launch right into it. So, Peter, what gives? I live in California, Senator. I do the best I can, and that's how low I've sunk. These guys are the best I can do. Hey, Senator, you were down at the border just, what was it just last week and i saw you on my twitter feed was filled with you and it sounded as though you were shocked at what you saw so i'd like to ask two questions

what did you see and why does the senator why does the senator from north dakota care do do they do they do the illegals make it as far as as your state? Well, sure. It affects every state in the union. You know that, Peter. The fat and all, the human trafficking. You know, this is a national problem. And border security is national security. Remember, we are a border state, and we're seeing, you know, our resources on the northern border being, you know, taken down to the southern border. And so, you know, we're starting to see problems on the northern border.

North Dakota, we have responsibility for actually 900 miles of water all the way from essentially the Great Lakes out to part of Montana because we have the Grand Forks sector. And so, you know, we're familiar with border issues. Obviously, it's very different on the northern border than it is in the southern border. But, yeah, this is affecting every single state in the country. And you're seeing it in a lot of ways. Obviously, the human trafficking, the drugs, the fentanyl, over 100,000 deaths in fentanyl last year. The numbers keep growing. So it's affecting all of us and our kids.

And, you know, border security is national security so so back to you know you said you said i wasn't shocked because i've been down there many times now i i'm uh i'm doing everything i keep going back because i want to solve the problem and and the the the solution is for the biden administration to solve the problem. And the solution is for the Biden administration to enforce the law. It's that simple. And they've got to quit telling the American people that somehow if Congress did something or whatever, then they could secure the border. No, they need to enforce the remain in Mexico policy and the third state country policy. And that's the law. If they would enforce it, that would stop the legal flow right now. We can get into more details, but it is that simple and it is that direct. They're obfuscating. A hungro-mayorkas is obfuscating. That's all that

is. They have the tools. And in fact, they have a responsibility to enforce the law and stop this border crisis now hey senator so why is it so i mean you lay it out it seems like it should be easily easily done why is it so difficult i mean people vote in 2016 for a candidate who said he's going to build a wall and he didn't build it and he ups all sorts of excuses why he didn't build it we can come up with all the reasons why but he didn't build it um he maybe he replaced some parts that obama built but he didn't actually build any new wall um it feels to me like securing the border isn't that complicated i mean or at least the idea being if once you make it harder to cross the border you kind of send the message all the way down to the tip of tierra del fuego that this is not a done deal don't set off on foot for

something it's going to be really difficult don't come um why is this so difficult i mean i have a hard time believing the the sort of very prevalent conservative theory that this is the the the goal of the liberals the democrats is to you know to replace conservatives with loyal democratic voters but what are the other reasons why it can't just be done so ron if you look at what happened with the last administration essentially we did get control of the border and we do need a border wall border barrier whatever you want to call it and it's not the same in all places along uh the border it's different depending on the topography and the situation rural areas obviously california different than texas different than arizona and mexico so forth so right one you do need a border barrier um and you also need the people and the technology so that you actually have control the border and

that's not only so you can manage the flow what comes through, and then you need technology at the ports of entry so you can scan these, you know, millions of vehicles that come across that have contraband, drugs, other things. And so you need, that's why you need the technology. And then the other thing that it does, Rob, is once you get control of the ports of entry, then your border patrol can actually track all the areas in between and make sure that the coyotes and the cartels are not bringing people across, the human trafficking and the drug smuggling.

But then also you're seeing terrorists come across the border. And, you know, the cartels want to establish their criminal organizations in our country as well. And so it all goes together. And back to Peter's where Peter started. I've been at this for some time. In other words, a number of years ago, Governor, now Senator Shaheen and I, we were governors together back in the day. And she and I were chair and ranking member on the appropriation subcommittee that had DHS. We went down, we went all along the Texas border to check it out.

We worked on the funding back leading into Trump wanting to put up the border barrier, which he did rebuild a lot of that. He did as much as he could in his four years. But not a lot of those areas. The Biden people are just leaving the materials sitting there on the ground, materials that we've paid for rather than finishing the wall. But I've been to McAllen, Del Rio, Evo Pass. I've been to El Paso just in the last year. Plus, I've been on the other side to Mexico, Ecuador, to Guatemala, to Colombia. And the thing is, what's going on right now is that because the Biden administration will not enforce the law, very simply, the

remaining Mexico third safe country, that would stop it right now because CBP and Border Patrol, then those professionals, they could then take control of the border right now, even without additional barrier. But he won't do it. And furthermore, now that Title 42 is expired, Mayorkas is saying they're enforcing Title 8. They are not. Under Title 8, you actually have to have an asylum claim for persecution, not because you just want to immigrate. You actually have to be persecuted. You have to have an asylum claim

to stay in the country. And so what Mayorkas is saying is under Title VIII, they're enforcing that. They're not because the individual comes across and says, you know, I'm here. I want to have asylum or whatever. They say, no, no, no, you have to go back from Union, Mexico. He says, I want to appeal it. And then once he appeals it, they give him a phone number. That counts as a preliminary hearing he calls and he says i have credible fear unless the judge says no you got to go back but the judge has nothing to go on so they stay they're issued an alien identification number they get benefits

they get a work permit they're here and they don't actually have a court hearing date rob for about three to five years that's not enforcing the law. And even then, even then they can skip it. Yeah. And then they don't go to that hearing. You know, they're here for five years. That's it. They're here. Senator Steve Hayward out in California. I'm so old, I can remember when many leading Democrats took a hawkish position on this issue. You can think of Barbara Jordan's famous speech in the 1970s, the Democratic Convention, Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Even Barack Obama around 2010 had some hawkish rhetoric, at least, about the issue. And Gene Shaheen was working with the senator, as John just said.

Right. Well, I'm wondering, somewhere in the last decade, to make a long story short, the Democrats seem to have sold out to the open borders ideology for whatever reasons. I think there are a lot of bad ones. Really, they're all bad ones. And yet, in the last 10 days or so since the demise of Title 42 became imminent, you've seen several starting to change their mind a bit. Senator Brown in Ohio. Maybe it's a coincidence that senators who are up for re-election next year. But still, the question is, do you think that there's a change among Democrats who are worried about this, at least, do you think that there's a change among Democrats who are worried about this, at least enough of them? Is there possibly a majority in Congress for

a tougher stance on immigration? I think so. I hope so. And there needs to be. But that's why I say every American needs to truly understand what's going on. When Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas sits and looks at you and says it's, you know, the borders close and he's enforcing Title VIII, he is not. And people need to understand it, because when enough Americans across this country simply understand that the Biden administration could stop this right now if they just enforce the law, which is their job, and that those folks all call their senators and their House members on the other side of the aisle and say, enough of this. And think about, look at what's going on in New York right now, where now they're starting to house migrants in public schools and parents are coming out. Think about Mayor Adams complaining about Governor Abbott from Texas sending some bustles of illegal

migrants. Well, that's 10% of what he's getting. He should be calling the White House. It's the White House that's sending up the tens of thousands to him. And so as you see these problems continue to grow, even in the so-called sanctuary cities, I hope enough Americans will call their elected representatives and say enough and get the Biden administration to stop this. Senator, I'd like to ask you a question on a different subject for a moment. Before you entered public service, you were a very successful banker. So obviously, I want to get your summary perspective on what's been happening with Silicon Valley Bank and the slow rolling crisis we're having right now. First Republic, all the rest of that.

What should we think about this? What are our takeaways? What should we be watching for? Well, clearly, in that case, the bank was mismanaged and the regulators weren't on top of it, and they should have been. And when that happens, those banks should fail. I mean, they should go out of business just like other businesses go out of business. That does not undermine the soundness of the overall system. And that's what we need to separate, this conflating a bank failure where it was poorly run, where they got into all the

high-tech stuff, where the regulators didn't stay on top of it that is yes an individual case and that bank should go out of business and uh you know that but that doesn't threaten the safety and soundness of the other banks and and we can't get into this deal where you know you bail out every bank that that is not what she well that was going to be my next question is do you do you agree with the decision to lift the uh deposit cap? Well, what they started to do, Stephen, was they were going to arrange a sale or facilitate a sale of that bank or the banks, which obviously was going to happen. There were bidders. And that's what the market, you know, sure, they can help with it. But the market would have taken care of that by, you know, and you've seen that now subsequently with these other banks where, you know, the other banks will step in and buy them because they want those depositors.

They want that customer base. But it shouldn't be federal bailout. I mean, is it a way, Senator, could you actually say that bank. When banks go bust, it's a sign that the system is healthy, that it's only unhealthy when you create this attitude among bankers that regulators will step in and bail you out. Well, Ron, yeah, why should every bank be able to stay in business? No way. If they're poorly run and so on and so forth, they should go out of business. And they need to be held accountable. But the system is sound, and other banks will step up

and acquire that deposit base and so i mean the system will work it wasn't designed that you go in and bail out every bank that was never designed okay so um you want to you want to jump in peter go right ahead i do but i want i'd like to but i want to change topics me too oh i want to change topics. Me too. I want to talk about politics a little bit. Yeah, me too. I'm going to go first. Peter, can I ask a question? You? Is that the library in your home that you're sitting in?

Is that your study? The library in his head. I'm a little surprised. I guess this shows that you weren't the most studious student at Dartmouth College. Well, you know that. This is one of the libraries inside Baker at Dartmouth. Nice try, though. All right, Senator.

That was kind of good, wasn't it? It's really hard to get here yet. Throwing me off. I can't solve all this Senator stuff. As he just revealed revealed we've been friends since college so i'm going to call him john john donald trump beat joe biden in north dakota by two to one 60 over 60 66 to 32 percent right now that wasn't as big a margin as yours uh when you get yourself re-elected your margins are something like four or five to one it

is just amazing uh donald trump's running again ron desantis uh what what are you are you what's your position trump was trump was complicated for you and i discussed this once and you said your people up in north dakota have trouble with as a man, but they sure like his policies. What positions that puts you in? His policies have been very good, as you know. But, you know, I take the approach that I've taken pretty much every time. I think we have to be careful, Peter, about not this is when the grassroots, when the Republicans, you know, the people that work their rear end off for all those candidates year in and year out, this is when they get to vet everybody, when they, you know,

they get to weigh in and have an opinion. And I think we make a mistake if we don't spend some time listening to that and, you know, finding out who's right, finding out what people think. And I think we're pretty early on in that process. As a matter of fact, you're going to see Tim Scott, who's marvelous. I'm sure you know him. He's just a phenomenal person, the kind of guy that can bring people together. He's tremendous. DeSantis is going to get in. You know, I was disappointed to see that Mike Pompeo,

at least at this point, says he's going to pass. He's tremendous. There are very talented people that are going to be in this race. And let's give the process a little time to unfold. And let's be careful not to be trying to tell people how they should vote too darn quick. This is when the grassroots get to speak. Let's listen to them a little bit and just kind of see how this goes. Okay, so one case, Senator. Okay, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, so you're really and truly telling us that it's open-ended right now. Donald Trump does not have this wrapped up. Plenty of time to think things through,

fall in love with this candidate, fall in love with this candidate, fall in love with another candidate. We do not know who's going to win the Republican nomination yet. You really believe that? Peter, all the time I listen to you guys in the media world, and you know, with your prognostications and your polls and all the things every day, I know you got it sliced and diced you know you're ahead of the whole of the election but you know i've always kind of been one to say well we'll see and uh i think you know i know all kidding aside it's always interesting to see the polls the prognostications all this kind of stuff hey but hey this debate's just getting started and uh i think it's really

important and i think we've got a lot of talented people that are going to be is just getting started. And I think it's really important. And I think we've got a lot of talented people that are going to be involved. Well, Senator, you adroitly skipped over my question to start. And I'll let you off the hook. I want to ask you again, because I don't want you to say no too loudly, because I kind of feel like, well, maybe I'll kind of leave some room for you to change your mind. But can we just talk about the senate in 2020 in 2024 i mean um listen to you talk about immigration and banking and uh you know i'm sure go down the list um well like do it right but it's hard for republican senator in 2023 to just make it happen how likely do you think the republican party is to get control of the Senate in 2024 to really, really put into place a lot of these pieces of this agenda that we desperately need?

We need to. I mean, at the end of the day, you've got to win elections. That's one of the things that drives me absolutely crazy is I listen to people say, well, you know, they got this great plan and procedure and all these kinds of things. And somehow we're going to outsmart the other guys and on and on and on. And we're going to get our way, even though we're in the minority. It doesn't work that way. We have to have more votes to get our policies in place. And this last midterm cycle, you saw that, you know, well, we were, you know, back to what I said a minute ago, oh, we were going to get a majority in the Senate for sure, and on and on and on. And we didn't. And the country's suffering because of that. I don't care how smart or how

nifty you are, or how good you are at Robert's rules, orders, or whatever. If they have more votes than we do, they carry their policies. You are seeing what the Democrat policies are doing to this country, and it is not good. So we've got to win the Senate, and we've got to win the presidency, and then get back to the kind of fundamentals that made this country strong. So number one, we've got to win it. Number two, I'm hopeful that we can. But again, it's going to come back to winning the hearts and minds. And this immigration discussion is a great example. The energy issue is a great example. The debt ceiling and the outrageous spending, the debt and the debt is a great example.

On every single one of these these we have the right solutions and at the end of the day we've got to convince not just our base but enough of those people in the middle that we need to win for the good of this country and it's you know they always say in the next election is the most important but it sure feels that way yeah church feels the way can i ask you one i know you got to run i got one last question because you were born in bismarck north dakota true you're from north dakota you've been the governor of the state and now you're the senator from the state um and we think of you know i said we think people who don't live in that part of the country tend to think of that part of the country is kind of always the same but it really isn't how can what are the big ways that north dakota has changed the people that you represent the people that you were the governor

of you know for the past 20 years it feels like everywhere else in america has gone through some tumultuous sometimes wrenching sometimes very positive change what about north dakota good question you know i like that question rob that that i really do like that question. See, Peter, I can do this. Yeah, exactly. Peter, I can do this. Not so hard. First off, I'm so honored to represent the people of North Dakota. And North Dakota has always been an ag powerhouse. We lead the nation in the production of, I don't know, 14 or 15 different crops. We're number one in honey. We get livestock. I know, we get livestock.

I mean, we're a very strong ag state. We've always been an ag powerhouse. But we've added that. We're now an energy powerhouse. You know, we're either second to Texas or sometimes New Mexico is in there because of the public lands in terms of oil and gas production. But we've also developed a lot more technology. We've gone from an older state to one of the youngest states because we're attracting people because we have a lot of jobs. We have very high per capita income.

So where we've changed is we've gone from kind of just a farming state to really doing a lot of these other things and innovating in some really exciting ways. We're leading the country in carbon capture for our coal-fired electric industry. So, I mean, just I think, you know, in many ways we've become a much more dynamic state. We're doing incredible things at unmanned aviation. We have this incredible tech park, Grand Sky and Grand Forks. So I think in that respect, like you say, every place changes. But I think we've retained that kind of fundamental, down-to-earth, common-sense approach that I think is, you know, just a wonderful attribute for our state and something I think is really important for our country. Common sense. So America should be a little bit more like North Dakota.

Well, of course I feel it way better. Senator, thank you for joining us. Really appreciate it. I hope you come back again, especially as the 2024 general elect gets a little more complicated, a little more interesting. I'd love to hear some more of your perspective. Thanks, guys.

I've really enjoyed being with you. Thanks a lot, Senator. Take care. Tell Mrs. Hovind we send our best. I don't know how to put it. capital from the governor's office to the to the to to to the uh the the brainchild of our founders in center to philadelphia cheesecake to to mcrib we and now welcome our old friend professor john you professor at uh bolt law school they still say bolt right don't they say don't be it got renamed it got formally renamed yeah formerly named berkeley law school fellow at hoover and american enterprise institute

podcaster uh uh co-star with equal billing for some reason uh on law talk um and of course he occasionally co-hosts with our own Steve Hayward. Welcome, John Yu. You know, Steve and I have this other podcast where we replace the whole bunch of you with one woman named Lucretia, whose identity we protect by using ancient Roman pseudonyms. And she's more than a match for the dozens of Rob and me. If she had laryngitis, she'd still be better than you guys. Come on, we're going to do a head-to-head

comparison after this is all over. Hey, alright, funny time's over. John, put yourself back briefly in the Department of Justice. Just pretend. This is when we execute the search warrant on Robinson's house without a judge's permission.

My age-old dream. The Durham report comes out. And everybody reads it. Some people read it for the first time, some people read it the Friday afternoon, and they release it on a Monday. How bad, how bad

is it? Both from your perspective outside, and also if you were in there, what would you be saying inside the DOJ that Monday lunchtime after everybody's read this report i'm afraid the way a lot of people there think is well at least they're not going to fire me so that's the first thing they read the report to see where they're mentioned and to make sure they don't go but seriously, they would worry that something has gone seriously wrong with the FBI and the Justice Department.

This is as harsh as you can get without actually throwing people in jail. The FBI and the Justice Department are supposed to neutrally investigate crimes and to prosecute them. And what does the Durhamham report show it was a durham it's not it's really not controverted these days right it's one the incumbent party controlling the white house their presidential candidate hillary clinton concocted a completely made-up scheme claiming that her opponent right the out-of-party candidate was a russian spy right so that's just implausible on his face no evidence ridiculous and either tricked duped or had willing conspirators in the fbi who took that information and launched a two to three year probe of a candidate and then

the winning candidate a president i you you sit there and say what has happened to the idea of neutral non-partisan law enforcement this is the thing this durham is not some outside investigator he's one of their own right he's one of the most neutral, most nonpartisan prosecutors in the history of the department. I've met him maybe once. I've met him maybe once. So there's no beef here.

So it comes down to a lot of things, but one of the things it comes down to is the subversion of the FISA process, right? Which... lot of things but one of the things it comes down to is the subversion of the fisa process right which um is something that was predicted in 2000 whatever when they were arguing the patriot act i mean people you know especially libertarians were saying yeah we're saying this this is going to be trouble we pass this it's going to be trouble and it turns out it's trouble so how do you fix it this is the bigger picture which i

think goes beyond the durham report that he you know durham barely addressed which is look if i read this report and i put the words al-qaeda instead of republican party in and i put osama bin laden instead of donald trump in these were the tools that we created but i know sometimes people on msnbc make that mistake over and over again but right they actually get people yeah well they like the other they like the they prefer you know if that those powers and authorities were all supposed to be turned outward to investigate terrorists to investigate foreign spies the mistake they made and this is you know again durham does not he does not really scratch the surface of how to think about this how to cure it is it was turned

inwards if you think about is exactly what happened in watergate this is exactly what richard nixon did he used the cia worse than watergate isn't it john sorry well i you and you and i steve always think nixon doesn't get all the credit he should get in watergate wasn't so bad but it is it is exactly the same thing in the sense that these powerful you know tools like pfizer like surveillance and so those were all supposed to be used to protect the national security from threats abroad, never supposed to be used to go after domestics, and specifically not to be used to interfere in political campaigns. That's the lesson of Watergate. Well, but look, I mean, it's a thought experiment here. I mean, it's one thing to bug your opposition campaign, and it's one thing to try and prevent the fbi from investigating it which

were the two things right nixon or his people did what if nixon had used phony you know made up intelligence to start a criminal investigation by the fbi and that everybody all the people at the highest reaches knew about you know nixon didn't know about the watergate burglary we're pretty sure we think anyway uh oh my goodness they'd still be prosecuting nixon even though he's been dead 30 years uh i can't believe that this shouldn't at least raise the prospect of conspiracy charges against hillary clinton and the people around her against people in the fbi it seems to me that this ought to have serious criminal consequences but it's been played out so slowly that it's sort of like the old Clinton playbook. If you just slow things down long enough, it'll just sort of evaporate and lose its force.

I feel bad for Durham. And he says in this report, he says, look, there's a lot of things here that went wrong. There was a lot of bad action. Not all bad action is criminal. I can't. And he says this basically, look, I tried to prosecute two low level people and they were acquitted. The Justice Department rarely loses on acquittal. says this basically, look, I tried to prosecute two low-level people and they were acquitted. The Justice Department rarely loses on acquittal. I mean, the Justice Department usually wins 90 to 95% of its cases. So Durham essentially said, look, I'm issuing this report so the American

people and Congress can see all the bad things that were done. And you have to use other means to hold them accountable other than trying to throw them in jail because that's not going to work. So I agree with you, Steve, that some of the things that happened here are worse in the sense of who was involved it's almost worse in the sense that the bureaucracy you know watergate was a few really bad apples i'm watching this great hbo series starring woody house harrison you know rob's old buddy somehow they turned rob's old buddy you know on a white house plumber you know rob's old buddy somehow they turned rob's old buddy you know on a white house plumber you know for the rob's got a future here i think he could be a great uh you know dnc chair getting hacked in the next mini series on harry clinton but look these are a few bad apples here it's almost the bureaucracy right the leadership of the fbi of one mind believed it so it's almost

a greater threat harder to cure in a way steven throwing a few people in jail john that peter wants to get in but before we go like the nixon and now nixon comparison i think it's really interesting because you know i know that you know i don't want to insult the two of you you nixonophiles but like nixon was kind of a weirdo and paranoid and had lots of weird he was psychologically damaged and i believe that he had enemies around the corner in case of nixon he kind of did but like part of the weirdness of watergate was that he invested that someone felt they needed to break into the uh opposition office in watergate hotel a person that pretty much was already at like zero in the polls right nixon then went on to win i mean every single state right i was one of the

most smashing popular vote and electoral vote victories in american political history and at the time that the clinton administration the hillary clinton uh uh campaign was devising this nonsense and trying to get visa authorization she was the polls were saying she was going to win like 10, 20, 30 points all the way, like even election night. There were only a few people who were sort of inside. I mean, people in the Clinton campaign who were worried. One of them was Bill Clinton because he is a political mastermind. He knows a campaign in trouble when he sees one. But most people thought, you know, Donald Trump's going to go down.

Donald Trump thought Donald Trump was going to go down. What is the psychosis here? The Richard Nixon, Hillary Clinton psychosis, which people have already been comparing those two since she burst on the scene in 1991. What about people who seem like they have all the cards drives them to become this paranoid and weird? Why even bother to do this, is my question. Rob, this is a hard question this is something prosecutors can't figure out right this is going to be probably some psychiatric report on one of hillary clinton's servers which means it's probably in the hands of china and russia right now who knows but this is this is part of it this it was going to be a close election hillary tried just like

president nixon tried every dirty trick in the book the sad thing about the derm report is how far this dirty trick went and durham's report is telling us in a way it's the answer uh that you're looking for i think rob is the answer is not going to come from throwing people in jail it's going to come from congress right radically restructuring the FBI and the Justice Department and making a difference in the 2024 elections. Aren't you struck by how all the people who are in the Obama administration are now, you know, back for a rerun with the Biden administration, how a lot of these names that you see in the Durham report were part of the, you know, 51 intelligence officials who, you know, said the Hunter Biden Biden voptop, don't look here. There's still a chance to hold them accountable,

Rob, but you have to do it through elections and politics. Durham basically said, the Justice Department can't fix this problem for you. If you got these people at the top of their parties who are running these crazy campaigns, doing these these terrible things and then have lots of willing underlings we can't solve that problem by throwing them all in jail john i'm going to ask you a question i don't know whether you're going to answer it though because i i am told by our producer that we had small words where we had to swear that you could leave he can't leave something Something like three minutes. Apparently you have to get to the McDonald's before they stop serving breakfast. Oh, you have just invited a blizzard of photos

from me to you to show proof. That's right where I'm going. That's right where I'm going. I'm going to ask two questions really fast and then you do as much as you have time to do with them. Question number one, when you were at the Department of Justice during the administration of George W. Bush, if you had been told that a couple of decades later this would happen, you would have said, oh, sure, there's corruption around here or you would have said impossible not at not in the fbi not at doj that's question one question two vivek ramaswamy who's running for president has said okay that's

it j edgar hoover we know what the nonsense j edgar hoover got up to because your former judge larry silberman was responsible for reading through the hoover correspondence and he said it was the worst job can i say something about that peter i used to beg him nag him every time i talked to him to reveal something to something about what was it just one little thing he was he never would tell me he was he would never that's when he would start that but he would curse at me a lot he would that would usually string some curses so whenever he was giving me a hard time about something that i didn't want to tell him i would always say to him can you tell me something from the hoover files

and they would john you blah blah blah you know i can't tell you anything about that so usually i would that's how i would win arguments with him all right j ed. Edgar Hoover was corrupt. Mark Felt, deep throat we now know, was a self-serving FBI bureaucrat who brought down Richard Nixon. And now we have this, James Comey, whose self-regard is breathtaking and who was engaged in corrupt activity up to his nostrils. Vivek Ramaswamy says, that's it. Shut this thing down. End the FBI, and let's come up with a new Domestic Intelligence and Law Enforcement Bureau from scratch. And John Yoo says, yes or no. Those are two questions I will now fall silent. Well, I don't think defund the police is a winning message for Republicans. So, I don't think that's a good idea.

Throw out the FBI? All right. fund the police is a winning message for republicans so i don't think that's a good idea now back when i was in oh oh one and oh two i was i helped draft the patriot act i lobbied on congress for it not lobbies the wrong word but you know i pressed it worked on with congress to get it passed and i never thought this would happen i thought the lesson from watergate were well learned and hardwired into the Justice Department and the FBI not to use these awesome powers for anything but terrorism and counter espionage. So it seems to me the answer, Peter's tricking me because he knows I'm an optimist, and so I don't think this is the end of the world. I don't think we should get rid of the FBI. I actually think the problem might be that the FBI is too big and has too many responsibilities. And I think counterintuitively, the thing to do is to have the FBI focus only on terrorism

and espionage and stop trying to do bank robberies, kidnappings, let the other federal agencies be in charge of money laundering and be in charge of securities fraud and just have the fbi focus really purely on the external threat and not try to patrol around the united states and trying to catch people you're trying to catch politicians for the dirty business that is politics and just the the last point is this is what the british do i generally i know you and rob love the monarchy and want to imitate everything in great britain for reasons i don't know i know you guys were working to watch you woke up before i'm sitting on an urban carnage but i think in this case the british are right you know great britain they separate this function out so there's like mi5

mi6 you know from the movies but they actually actually separate it so the FBI would actually be two separate bodies. Because when you mix fighting terrorists and fighting spies, and you mix it with policing domestically, bad things result. This is now the second time we've had to go through this because of this problem. I think that's the permanent long-term solution. How likely is that going to happen well i you know we had a chance to do it after the 9-11 attacks right if the republicans were to win the senate the senate and the presidency i could see that happening again but i think people are really should be upset about this is a this is a very serious threat to democratic government if you have a right an unelected law

force and bureaucracy that's interfering in elections i guess my fear is that we end up solving that problem the way we solve the intelligence problem by creating another umbrella intelligence agency and then a national security apparatus that is tens of thousands of people working all day i mean yeah we all we did was put another layer on top. Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, DHS, the Department of Homeland Security has not been a happy tale. And so I guess what I'm arguing is decentralizing, actually splitting agencies up into smaller pieces and making them compete and fight with each other for resources in an effort to do a better job.

I think centralization has not had a good track record with our government and this you know i think this is another example this derm report john speechless you guys are speechless now well you know i'm gonna get myself now a double if you have more time egg mcmuffin with sausage and i'm gonna i've got it. I have one more question. Do you have 90 seconds more? No, I got to run. But this is Rob says leave them wanting more. Right?

I got to leave the stage. Before they start tossing tomatoes. Right. See you guys. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you soon. Thank you. Bye.

Bye-bye. He knows so much, doesn't he? He's such a smart guy. He does. He drives me crazy. After all this stuff, you're feeling a little ill, you may have to consult a doctor. And if you do, you'll have to consult your health plan. And as you know, health insurance

plans can be confusing and expensive. Then when you actually have to use your benefits, there are deductibles, claims, processes, and other red tape to deal with. There is a solution. CrowdHealth. CrowdHealth puts you back in control of your healthcare and helps you pay for health expenses. You know, I will talk about this in a minute. I'm on strike as a member of the Writers Guild. I have a very good policy. Writers Guild policy is really, really great, but it is absolutely baffling to use and baffling to understand. And even when the frequently asked questions,

I'm not even at that level yet. So I have this great plan and it takes a day and a half to figure it out. But with CrowdHealth, there's a simple, transparent, and affordable solution. As a member of CrowdHealth, you'll get a personal care advocate to help navigate the complexities of health events. Your personal care advocate will even negotiate bills on your behalf.

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ricochet at checkout to get your first three months for just 99 a month that's joincrowdhealth.com all one word promo code ricochet crowd health is not health insurance but it's a totally different way of paying for health care terms and conditions may apply and we thank crowd health for sponsoring the ricochet podcast as i mentioned i'm on strike so rob i wanted to make you the guest to talk about that for a minute because we have a lot of listeners who are interested and you know there you are on the front lines of the supply chain to one of the most important commodities which is our entertainment right uh exactly i mean i know this know this much about strikes and unions just from history, which is they're usually three-act plays at least, right? This one's

going to take a while, and if you involve Hollywood people, it's probably a five-act play. And the sure sign of this to me this week was this hilarious story, I thought it was hilarious, in the New York Times called Picket Line and Chill by Gina Sorelis, who is the sex, dating, and relationships columnist for the New York Times.

You might think of this as the modern love column meets the Teamsters Union. But it's all about how the picket lines are becoming a meetup location. And for lonely writers to have been oppressed by COVID or overworked or whatever. And it's controversial. Of course it's controversial because people say well here's one line from the story some strikers also went online to criticize others for expressing interest in dating on the picket line worried it could overshadow the strike apparently these writers aren't able to multitask but what what's the state of play what do you make of this crazy scene well i mean the the um the the picketing

thing is i mean eventually there's going to be a picture of me in some embarrassing pose or the sign looking incredibly awkward embarrassed because you all have to we all have to pick it and i i feel a little bit obligated to pick this time because i i actually there's about 35 or 40 percent of everything they're asking for uh everything we're asking for i i totally agree with and about another 30 percent that i think oh well you know if you can get it good and then there's 30 i think is silly but you know you don't you don't get everything you know so yes but like everything else in hollywood there's a there's a component there's a business component to it which is where are you going to pick it so i'm in new york so i have a friend who said like let's go the only the only pick a 30 rock that's where all the cameras and celebrities

are that's going to be the most fun don't go all the way to um in um you know uh maplewood new jersey where there are a couple sound stages and pick it that because don't do that and you want to pick it because the problem for the writers is the best time to pick it is early 5 30 before you know in the early in the morning that's because that's when the teamsters get to work and they can't cross the picket line but if there's no picket line you know most writers like i'll get there around 11 15 you know with a coffee and a donut too late um so so but in la especially it's like you know you you get to see people you never see because most writers are never you know we don't you know hang out there's no place for us all to hang out and so a lot of people are there all the people a lot of people are there with some very important writers like showrunners and people who do a lot

of development um uh you know their younger writers are trying to make friends with the older writers because you know they're not supposed to be working that doesn't mean they can't be networking and then finally there is this kind of like hey we're all you know like if you're a striking writer and you are kind of flirting with another striking writer you both know you're not going to go someplace expensive for the date right because you're both claiming to be broke so you're already kind of in the same boat um and it's the only time you get together the problem with that article which i read was the uh i mean i would never recommend to any screenwriter or probably any professional writer of any kind that they become involved romantically with any other writer or any other screenwriter it's best to only have one in the family at any given time two is dangerous oh so the real opportunity here

is for some cameras to show up and start a reality series uh meeting on the picket line they already have uh yeah yeah i mean the problem with it the problem in general is that everything is the business has changed so radically like everything else but um and that you there's a there's a whole basket of things that you can ask for that address the changes in the business and how it will be going forward. But there's also a whole basket of things that you're asking for that, even if you got everything you wanted, are still not going to solve those problems. And that is ultimately what the Writers Guild is facing, which a lot of trade unions have faced in the, in the past 34 years. Like, even if you had everything,

the world has changed a lot and there's no, uh, you know, you're not, you're, you'll get everything you want on your list, but you're not going to get what you really need, which is a time machine.

Uh, and I think a lot of these, a lot of the, a lot of these demands come under that heading. AI. What's it going to do to writers? I don't, I would be embarrassed as a writer to say they're going to try to replace me with a robot like really you're that bad but they will don't they some executive someplace is already saying uh we don't need these guys the computers can do

this i think if you're writing daytime drama right where you're just generating material every day and it's a lot of material and a lot of it is just people announcing things right then maybe you could get a little help from ai i don't know how i don't think ai has written a joke yet maybe look ai may be able to write a joke and if so hey you know more power to it but ai could ai could already handle certain scenes in days of our lives yeah probably or at least get you to uh to the the outline phase that you need i mean if um here's how i really think of it these are just tools right and if you're um if you're not good the tool is gonna kill you and if you're good the tool will make you. And if you're good, the tool will make you better.

And if you're really good, the tool will give you superpowers. That's kind of how I think about it. Maybe I'm a Pollyanna optimist, but I genuinely think that. That in the right hand, if you have talent already, the tool will only make it better. Robotic surgery in the hands of a bad surgeon is not great. Robotic surgery in the hands of a brilliant surgeon is going to be life-saving okay did i silence you no no no i'm just i'm just you implicitly compared yourself to a brilliant surgeon i think and no i'm running a chat gpt for no i just think that that the tool can make people i mean i'm i'm i don't think i'll ever have to worry about it because i i think it's going to happen well into my retirement age

but um but i i i would feel nervous i would feel embarrassed to march march around demanding that that the studios uh cease uh never replace me with a machine the the whole point of what i do is i can't be so so i'm sorry i have to ask one more because i do find this fascinating and maybe maybe on one podcast we just make you the guest and we talk about entertainment was so we do know so compute cgi computer graph what is it called? Computer graphic? Generated images, I think. Computer generated images transformed the special effects side of the business and eliminated a lot of jobs. It created some new jobs, but it put into the hands of computer programmers what all people who used to build models and it transformed that piece of entertainment. We that question will ai transform some piece of

entertainment second question why shouldn't the writers get everything they want the big change in hollywood in the last quarter of a century has been the arrival of more money lots more money it's not just the seven major studios anymore now it's netflix and apple right and amazon and why the heck shouldn't these guys i mean the desire the need for content is bigger than it's ever been this should be a great time to be a writer over to you it in many ways it is a great time to be a writer writers are making more money and there's more writers employed there's all sorts of things that are great about being a writer and the reason why the right i believe the writers shouldn't get everything it wants is because some of the things it wants i think are bad and will be bad for writers right i

think but the there's always a balance in hollywood between talent and luck and people who are successful think they're successful because they're talented and people who are not successful think those people are successful because they're lucky and they're both kind of right and so what happens in hollywood is you're kind of sustained by this idea that if i just stay one more year i'm gonna get my big break every actor feels that way every writer feels that way i'll just any small little little tidbit of success seems to you to point to the totemic of the future of you know riches and oscars and emmys and everything and the business kind of works on that because the business kind of works by having this big big garden where you kind of can live for a while if you're quentin tarantino you work in a

video store for years of all that stuff right right and it kind of keeps you on the hook because what if you do come up with a great idea we don't want you to come up with a great idea and be living back in bismarck south dakota right i mean not that that's a bad place of course we had a great senator from there but um we want you to have that great idea here where i can hear it and put it on tv or put it in the movies oh a quick idea maybe peter we ought to hook up a chat gpt to some kind of voice box and see if it could produce for us a ricochet podcast thank Thank you very much. And now somebody turn him off right now. I didn't mean this one. It could be as soon as.

So the question everyone should be, everyone should be focused on this, which is how do you create, right? What is the great secret to the enormous trillion dollar fortunes coming out of Palo Alto, coming out of Silicon Valley? It is not capitalism really and it is not the uh the benefits of the people who are risk capitalists and the brilliant adventure capitalists it is a non-profit organization organizations stanford university cal places like that that support kind of water the garden and create the opportunities and the federal government creating DARPA and DARPA net, creating the opportunities for great innovation. And that is what this entertainment business should be trying to create. How can we quasi-subsidize a little bit this idea factory that we have?

And because they don't think that way, they're stepping on their own hose, which I think is a real problem. And so whether the writers are correct in everything they want or not um i think it is time for there to be a rethinking of um of the way show business conducted i mean look all these guys got big into the streaming business thinking there was the solution without one stopping to think about how this how this was potentially the dumbest thing they could ever do which is what they did and they did so because they were they were absolutely encouraged to do that by wall street saying well what is your streaming plan because you look at netflix what is your streaming plan and what they should have said was let's let netflix just spend all the money and die

right and just see what happens right netflix is putin where is the ukraine let's let it let's see how smart they really are. And if they run out of money, which they have, right? So all sorts of like complicated things here. The problem is that it ultimately comes down to some perception of talent and some kind of luck, and you can pick it all day and not get any closer to those two things so uh and in terms of chat gpt and ai the people who really should be worried about it are journalists non-fiction writers those are the people who need to be thinking because those people can be replaced most of them can be replaced um by a uh by an unbiased machine if they ever come up with one right right right right mr peabody's

way back machine now now what we need is the unbiased machine exactly right exactly right uh which they we which we would not need by the way if we believe that our journalism was unbiased right which i mean the journalism created the opportunity now speaking of opportunity We believe that our journalism was unbiased, right? Which, however, we do not. I mean, the journalism created the opportunity. Now, speaking of opportunity, if you've enjoyed this, this comes to you from Ricochet and the Ricochet Network of Podcasts. Please check us out at ricochet.com. We'd love you for you to join Ricochet. But even if you just think, I'm never going to join Ricochet, come to ricochet.com anyway and see all the podcasts that we offer and subscribe.

And if you do join, which we hope you do, you'll get to join us at the meetups the meetups are where members get together they're fun and more than that it's like kind of your duty as a american citizen to meet up with the other like-minded smart funny interesting american citizens and by the way if you ever want to make change in this country you got to meet face to face and this week we got a bunch of meeting meetup inquiries western chauvinist has inquired about members in the uk uh she's going to be around london cornwall at the end of the month so get online and if you're from the uk or you're around there you're going to be there let us know let her know tory war writer is back and hoping to meet members in and around columbus ohio in late june randy uh has another meetup set

he did the new orleans meet. It's another one set up for Winston-Salem mid-July. Matt Balzer's asking for our SPPs for the annual German Fest meetup in Milwaukee. That's the last weekend in July. So we'd love to see one of these. Join Ricochet. Come. And if you're like, well, I'm not around this summer. Well,

join Ricochet. Put up a post. How about somewhere closer to you at a time you can make it? Ricochet members will show up. That's what they do. This would be great. I mean, we're sort of run out of time. So I'll just say thanks, guys. Thanks for joining us. Podcast brought to you by CrowdHealth. Support them by supporting us or support them for supporting us. And join Ricochet. Take a minute. If you have a chance to leave a five-star review on apple podcast your review allows new listeners to

discover us that's how the algorithm works helps keep this show and other shows going um steve anything you want to say you you sat in you you did a great job you were enough damage already no i'm just glad you got the host so i didn't have to try to do those schrodinger's cat like sponsor segues that james does oh man they're the hardest yes i yeah i i purposely um mess them up because i figure it's better for me to do a d minus version than a b minus version you know what i mean oh yeah that's true that's true steve steve thank you though You were wonderful until you were suddenly terrible. That's part of my job, right? It's true about life.

It's true about life. Hey, fellas, thanks for being here. See you soon. Next week. Ricochet. Join the conversation.