The Ricochet Podcast - Inflamed Labyrinth

Episode Date: July 31, 2021

A dizzying week calls for steady remedies. We’ve got the great Larry Elder, who’s hoping to save his home state by taking on Gavin Newsom in California’s upcoming recall election. Next, we bring back our pal Dr. Jay Bhattacharya since CoViD wants to stay in the news. Should the Delta variant motivate you to encase yourself in plastic wrap before leaving the house? You’ll have to listen to find out. Source

He's showing off, he bought a new suit, his mom made him buy a new suit, look at him undressed up like that. I see him. I don't know why you don't see him, we see him, let's go. I have a dream, this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. You know, democracies are not defined by our bad days. We're defined by how we come back from bad days. With all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey. I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Democracy simply doesn't work. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lylex. Today we talk to gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on COVID. So let's have ourselves a podcast. I can hear you!

Welcome, everybody. This is indeed the Ricochet Podcast and it's number 554. One more, and we'll be a brand of British cigarettes. Join us at Ricochet.com, and why? Well, you'll be part of the most stimulating conversations in the community on the web. I'm James Lilex in Minneapolis. Peter Robinson is in California. Rob Long is in New York, although he really should be in San Francisco, right?

Hanging from a bell tower in a mission somewhere. Oh, that's a good deep cut that's a very deep cut good uh no i am i'm um come i hope i my i had a severe bout of vertigo last week and um like i was in the hospital and i um i'm out and i think i'm okay uh basically they spend thirty thousand dollars making sure you didn't have a stroke. And when they find that you didn't have a stroke, they say, well, okay. There's a door and then you leave. You're on your own. Did it, did it come up upon you just all of a sudden out of nowhere? I stood up from dinner.

I was having dinner with an old friend of mine and I stood up and I was wobbly and I thought, God, how much did I drink? I don't feel drunk. And I had a hard time walking a straight line but i could and then i taxied home woke up the next day and couldn't get out of bed and couldn't move and threw up and was miserable for the day until i finally went to the emergency room um and um when you tell them like i'm dizzy and i've been throwing up and they look at you they oh oh well i have a seat right here you know they see an elderly man come in and then they sort of say the woman actually went into the pa microphone of the stroke team and the stroke team comes really and she says when she

says stroke team she looks at me like oh don't worry this is normal and um and then i'm at that point you're in 48 hours in hospital land um which, by the way, I have to report, the American health care system, and I know that there are some fine scholars at the Hoover Institution who agree with me, it is fantastic. It's fantastic. It was incredibly efficient as it can be in a room in a building full of sick people. Everybody's super polite at Lenox Hill. They always say, how are you? And they make a little too condescending for my taste, but okay. I feel better. Hope you feel better. Everything kind of happens on, you know, with kind of ruthless efficiency. All the technicians

are smart. And then all the doctors have been watching doctor TV shows. So they behave the way they're supposed to behave. I mean, I saw six doctors in a semicircular kind of arc around my bed, and they were all kind of doing the thing that doctors are supposed to do from watching TV. Even it was one young guy who had walked into my hospital room, was convinced he was going to be, you know, Dr. House from the TV show House. And so all the dumb doctors were asking questions normal questions like can you follow my finger blah blah blah and he funds it excuse me sir um have you had your hair cut recently and then intake of breath and i said yes as a matter of fact i had my haircut on thursday and everyone looked at him they looked daggers at this guy all

of his colleagues like damn, damn it. I thought I was going to be Dr. House in this consult and it's you. But it turns out, of course, it wasn't what he thought it was, but I don't know. It was going to be interesting. Anyway. What did the haircut have to do with it? Yes, exactly.

The haircut is like, sometimes if you're I went to a barber so it didn't really work, but if you're in a hair salon, they tip your head back quickly to wash your hair. And any kind of those movements sometimes can, can dislodge the little crystal. It's one of the little crystals that's inside your inner ear, your vestibular tubes. And, and once that gets dislodged or relodged or misplaced, you've got vertigo until it shakes itself loose. So they can have a bunch of exercises you do, really.

They're kind of like weird yoga exercises, and you do them in cycles. And at some point, you can actually, you have severe vertigo. You do the exercises. Your vertigo is gone. That is not the case with me. I never do the thing where I put my head back. regard that as something that i can do i'm not going to pay somebody else to wash my hair it's a little too indulgent and now i've got an extra reason for doing so peter you're good yeah you don't want to get the get the you don't want to get the vertigo

so so what we conclude here is that one of the things we conclude is that moving a human being around this large complicated mass of flesh and bone right turns out to be neurologically a fantastically complicated and delicate project and boy do you feel that when suddenly it goes awry roughly Roughly? Yeah. And I feel like what I have not appreciated, of course, is the mechanical genius in the human body. We shouldn't stand upright. It's weird. It's not normal for a little feet to suspend. And this giant, heavy, important thing at the very tippy top, that's crazy, right? And that it's all this incredibly, incredibly sophisticated, careful set of checks and balances.

For instance, for my vertigo, they say, here's what's going to happen. You're going to take your steroids. It's the inflammation in your vestibular things. It's called labyrinthitis, apparently. It's going to go down. But at the same time, your brain is going to start compensating so maybe you'll technically still have an inflamed labyrinth in your ear but your brain will have it will find work around for it an inflamed labyrinth that's the most fascinating term that i've heard all this i mean yeah angry describes earth america 2021 and with a really minor tour at the at the center of it now if it was really like television hospitals the doctors

after they left your room would have angrily ripped off their gloves and then had a conversation about their relationship with somebody because that's as far as i can tell it was happening all the time i'm not sure they did. Okay, brass tacks time. You go from your place down in the village to Lenox Hill Hospital, and I've always thought it was sort of miraculous that people get groceries onto the island of Manhattan. You think of the complexities of delivering foodstuffs every day to Manhattan, the complexities of medical equipment physicians nurses protocols

who's paying for this i am blessed as a member of the writers guild of america west uh which is technically a teamster uh by my health i have incredibly good health insurance this same writers guild that you have railed against year in and year out for lo these many years since we've known each other believe me yes and all my socialist commie pinko writer friends put it exactly the way you did peter um that i have to say is that was part of my comp package and so i wasn't given a choice whether i wanted to buy it on the open market or not um i think the world and american health care would be better and more efficient if people like me were encouraged to have very very high deductible plans and to shop around but

that's a separate issue um uh the whole thing so like i went to the emergency room cat scan emergency room meds emergency room um i don't know, doodads. We're already in the tens of thousands of dollars. Then ambulance to Lenox Hill Hospital uptown because it's part of the same hospital network. So they want you to go to Lenox Hill and not the NYU. They send an ambulance to your apartment? An ambulance to Lenox Hill. No, no, no, to the emergency room.

I went from the emergency room to the hospital. They checked me out for the MRI. Then you go into the hospital. Now I'm in the hospital. And by the way, you don't walk in the hospital. They wheel your ambulance bed right next to your hospital bed. It's fantastic. And I didn't do anything.

And then that, and then a night, a full 36 hours in the hospital, which included meds and exams and consultations and an EKG and an MRI. And so they called me yesterday. And they do this like sing song. Hi, Mr. Long. We're just checking and making sure you're okay. Really?

That's what this call is about? Making sure I'm okay? I'm fine. Go down to the next bullet point on your list and we have contacted your insurance company and blah blah and so they wanted to know if i would be if i am okay with the bill which is 318 dollars are you kidding me oh that's my health insurance my friend let's show bit okay you want to know you want to know what my dog just cost me? You have dog insurance, you know. My poodle just stole two ribeye steaks off the countertop.

Yeah. Marinated, seasoned, but still raw, ready for the sous vide, which thank you very much. This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't introduced me to sous vide. And the stomach troubles that this has produced ever since has i cannot 318 dollars is all that that cost yeah well all that cost me that you should fall to your knees and ask for the the great writers guild founders in the sky to to forgive you for all your mining no this is a common fallacy. This is exactly the problem, Peter.

You've become a socialist. I am not given a choice. I'm only given and I'm paid and compensated and kept quiet by giving me this extravagant health plan. But people like me should be encouraged to pay more out of pocket because we will shop better. We will be more thoughtful consumers, not necessarily of hospitalization fees, et cetera, but more thoughtful consumers of healthcare in general. That's the solution is more people paying out of pocket, not fewer. And when they give you this, they give it to you. Listen to that. That's what the writing skill says. When we give you healthcare, you don't give me anything.. Listen to that. That's what the writing skill says. When we give you health care, you don't give me anything. I work for that.

That was part of my compensation package. You didn't offer me the choice to take that in cash, a cash value. And had I had that choice, I would have taken it in cash value. Peter's right about the cost of dog care, especially if it's after hours. After hours, the cost of an x-ray all of a sudden goes up 500% because they have to wake up some nocturnal technician who charges exorbitant rates i had the same thing as peter had except for a nice steak it was a bunny that the dog or it may have been a part of this bone that we bought him that was supposed to be unbreakable and that he a little piece got lodged in his system so there are two rounds of x-rays

two troops on the bunny you mean you were preparing rabbit for dinner or the dog actually got a bunny? It killed the bunny. It did the hunting. The dog ate a bunny. Yeah. He's done this twice. And in both cases, it's 600 bucks a pop for the x-rays. Now you say, well, you can get dog insurance. And that's true. And I looked at them and they exclude things like pre-existing conditions. One of the pre-existing conditions is dogs eating things they shouldn't. Dog-like behavior is a pre-existing conditions. One of the pre-existing conditions is dogs eating things they shouldn't. Dog-like behavior is a pre-existing condition. I just

want, for one last time now, because the irony of this, I myself want to comment on it for a third time here, that James has paid twice as much for his dog as Rob had to pay for tens of thousands of dollars of services in one of the best hospitals in all of America.

Four times as much. The difference is the four times as much, and the difference is... Rob is right. I just can't escape it the difference is the writers guild of america it's not that nobody pays you know that no it's it's there's no transparency nobody knows exactly what anything costs anymore that's true it's all true you guys are right i just can't help go ahead i have a friend who had the same thing his dog ate an entire chicken rotisserie chicken chicken, the whole thing, boxer. Takes him to the emergency room, has the charcoal, all the rest of the stuff.

Vomits, gets it out because he doesn't want peritonitis because of a small bone. It costs X amount of dollars. That's the bill. There's no insurance. That's what it costs. Second time it happened, he looked at his dog and said, you're on your own. Because he knew exactly what it would cost. And he knew that it's probably going to work its way through. He made a decision right there because he knew what it's going to cost.

Rob, there's no way this cost $318, this cost all of the rest of it, this is what he pays. But nobody knows what these things are because nobody has to sit down and say, I mean, if you're in a hospital and they say, here's an aspirin, it's $74 for an aspirin. You know what? I might sit there and say, you know what? I'll have the headache for an hour or two because that's ridiculous. Right. I'll here's an aspirin, it's $74 for an aspirin. You know what? I might sit there and say, you know what? I'll have the headache for an hour or two because that's ridiculous. Right. I'll bring my own aspirin. The other thing I think the problem we have is that when we talk about healthcare, when we talk about, we'll talk about COVID later too, we have this idea that your job is to come up with a solution that solves all the problems

in one minute and in one solution and the truth is that if we just solved a little bit of the health care cost explosion just the kind of going to the doctor the wellness stuff um the the the discretionary stuff we solved that um we could afford i mean we could afford to spend fifty thousand dollars for somebody at the hospital bb you know what what else should be spent it on if not that and we wouldn't be with people when they start complaining about hospital stays they almost always segue into doctor visits which is hospital stays are i mean i've been in a hospital 36 hours my whole life that was it it was the first time i've ever been in a hospital and um i hope i never have to go back again. And statistically, I probably won't. All of these things are our need to find and to come up with a global solution is part of the sort of large status, progressive mindset that we even conservatives fall into all the time, which is like you did solve little pieces of the problem.

Wait, solve little pieces of the problem. Wait. And then you find you don't have big problem anymore and now i raise a red flag in admiration because that strikes me as a really profound insight every time i hear the word comprehensive attached to a legislative proposal comprehensive immigration reform comprehensive health care reform immediately i know it's going to be a fraud even people who who support it in goodwill, it's just going to make government big. Somehow or other, it won't work.

Just solve the pieces that we understand. Fix what we know how to fix. The small stuff. The small stuff. Do the easy things first. Low-hanging fruit. And then wait. And I think you find often the big stuff kind of becomes,

first of all, less onerous. I mean, I've always, healthcare, I didn't really like about healthcare, but one of the things I've always found strange about people who complain or insist on single payer or something are always saying things, well, we spend some giant percentage of our GDP on healthcare. There's some number that they find outrageous. And I'm like, well, what should we spend it on?

Right. I mean, is there something better that we toys i don't know apps i don't know rob the united states spends 17 of its gdp on health care if i'm remembering the figures correctly this is the last time and switzerland only spends nine percent and rob long answers that how um well switzerland switzerland spend more but also i don't even know what what's the right number i don't know what the right number is yeah yeah and why why is why should the number be lower again i'm not i don't i don't understand yeah um part of the answer is also that we're covering r and d for the whole rest of the world we we don't just provide defense for our allies we provide

them with pharmaceuticals and medical procedures and medical devices of all kinds we we probably need to figure out i mean you know i there's a bunch of people at hoover i've talked to before about this um the art the counter argument is well we don't get the outcomes they get so it isn't so much that we spend so much money it's that we spend so much money and our outcomes are worse um and i am 100 convinced and also 100 ignorant but i am still 100 convinced as i always am out of my ignorance that that is a statistical anomaly and that what we do in america is we diagnose diagnose and diagnose and everyone has a disease everyone's diagnosed with a disease we lower the diagnostic threshold for all sorts of things type 2 diabetes covid covid infection we lowered that to like

almost two toes irrelevant and um and then we don't get the outcomes you know we swore we in we we enlarge the denominator which by death and the numerity stays the same because there are only so many people you can treat for these things so So that's my theory. It's based on almost total ignorance, but I'm still convinced I'm right. I'm convinced I'm right. It all depends on the society and what they're willing to consider it treatable. I mean, you go to a place with grinding poverty and lower back pain is not going to be something that people say, I wish that there was a more efficient medical system because I'veiety. Because I've been sitting poorly. I mean, my wife has got lower back pain

from the chair that she sits at at her home office. She periodically goes downstairs and stands for a while, which is great. It's ergonomically correct, but then you go back to the rest of it. A lot of people are in that situation too, because in 2020, how many of you went to work? I wish there was a solution for your wife.

I'm very fond of your wife. I will light a candle and do some kind of Santeria ritual, because as far as I can tell, is the only possible way to solve this problem I'm very fond of your wife. I will light a candle and do some kind of Santeria ritual. As far as I can tell, the only possible way to solve this problem is to involve the supernatural. Don't dip into your Fauci or RBG candles that we sell for sale

in all these places here. Let's talk about shares. You're getting back to the office. A lot of us are getting back to the office. I'm happy to be going back to the office, but a lot of people find themselves in a new normal at home. The future of work, it's changed, and so has the future of seating, which brings us to X-Chair. X-Chair, it's at the forefront of the home and office seating during this transitional time and afterwards. Now, X-Chair's newest innovation, get this, LMAX temperature regulation. It'll take your seating comfort to a whole new level.

Patent-pending LMAX allows you to experience cooling, heat, and massage on your lower back in the chair as you sit and work. Feeling a little bit warm this summer? Set your LMAX to cooling. Air conditioning in your home and office? Cranked up too high? Set your LMAX heating and warm up and soothe tired muscles. Feeling stressed from too many Zoom calls? Turn on Elemax Massage Therapy and relax. X-Chairs patented dynamic variable lumbar, DVL as we call it in the biz. DVL support was already best in its class with incredible responsive low back support. Now, with Elemax, your comfort is guaranteed.

You won't believe the difference until you feel it for yourself. Imagine regulating your body temperature and getting massage therapy while you're working or just while you're sitting. X-Chairs LMAX delivers cooling heat and massage technology directly to your core, regulating body temp, helping increase blood flow, muscle recovery, and energy. All perks that make working from home or the office, frankly, a joy. It's never been a better time to ditch that old no-name office chair and boost your productivity by treating yourself to the joys of the X-chair. And right now, X-chair is on sale for $100 off. Go to xchairpod.com now. That's xchairpod.com now. It's letter X, chair, P-O-D.com, or call 1-800-4-X-chair. X-chair has a 30-day guarantee of complete and utter comfort

and satisfaction, and satisfaction. And you can finance your purchase for as little as $30 a month. So go to xchairpod.com now and use the code X wheels for a free X wheel blade casters, xchairpod.com. And we thank X chair for sponsoring this, the ricochet podcast. And now we welcome to the show, the next governor of the state of California, Larry Elder, attorney, writer, host of his own radio show since 1993, Larry Elder is among the handful of top-tier essential conservative voices, and he's been so for quite some time. Born and raised in Southern L.A., Elder graduated from Crenshaw High School and went on to earn a B.A. in political science and a J.D. from Michigan. He's been back in his home state for years and now hopes to lead it in correcting its course before it completely devolves into a dystopian nightmare. So he's gearing up for a gubernatorial run. Welcome, Larry Elder, and tell us, how good are your chances? Well, thank you so much for having me. Not too shabby for somebody who's been a politician for all of two weeks. I've already

had a lead over my Republican rivals. But the point is, we need to have 50% plus one voter to vote to recall Gavin Newsom. If that doesn't happen, it doesn't matter how well the Republican rivals do. And that's the point. People are steamed over the failure of this government governor to do what he needs to do about crime, about homelessness, about the rising cost of living, and the outrageous way he slammed down this state in the most draconian way than any of the other 50 states while having his own kids still enjoy in-person private education and while sitting up there at that french laundry with the very people that drafted the mandates violating the mandates they

weren't wearing masks they weren't uh engaging in social distancing while shutting down business after business after business we didn't still even know what the damage is because the court's just now opening up i i ran a small business in addition to being a lawyer. And I can tell you, most businesses fail. And those that do succeed are, you know, just living payroll to payroll. And, you know, he dashed the dreams and hopes of so many Californians while ignoring the science. You know, we have some of the worst public schools in the urban areas in the country. Seventy five percent of black boys before the pandemic, guys, could not read at state levels of proficiency.

Fifty percent of third graders could not read at state levels of proficiency. You pointed out I went to Crenshaw High School. I just checked. Only two percent of kids are math proficient and they've already lost a whole nother year of education because this man is totally beholden to the teachers union. They're the largest funder of him. And by the way, just yesterday, they put a $1.8 million into the anti-recall part of it. There are 300,000 public school teachers in California. It is estimated by virtually every expert I talked to, at least 5%, minimum of 5% are incompetent. That's 15,000 public school teachers who are incompetent. In a given year, 2.2 are fired. Now imagine we had the same thing with the LAPD. 10,000 LAPD cops,

suppose 5% of them were bad cops. By that I mean planning evidence, engaging profiling, using excessive force. We wouldn't put up with it. Or putting up with 15,000 bad teachers. One of the many things I'm going to do if I'm lucky enough to become governor is declare a state of emergency on education. And I'm going to get rid of these bad teachers. Larry, I'm the only, Peter Robinson here, I'm the only still Californian who's on the line with you. Rob Long got out for New York two years ago. I live in Northern California. You know what I'm about to tell you. I've lost friend after friend after friend to Austin, Miami, Bozeman, my youngest daughter who just finished her first year in

college, masked of course, but she just went to a little reunion of her high school friends. And it turns out that the parents of every single one of these five or six girls were just waiting for their children to graduate from high school. and now they're headed to Nevada, Arizona, Montana. So I have two questions for you. One is, really and truly, can it be turned around? And then the second one, I'm doing you a favor here by asking this although it'll sound nasty, I'm giving you a chance to answer a question that a lot of people are going to be thinking. Okay, Larry Elder is a personality. There's no downside in this for him. He says he's running for governor, but he's really doing it for publicity, get his personality up there, get more ratings for the radio show, and so forth. Okay, so can you really, can this state be saved? Could you make a difference with

the legislature still in the hands of the Democrats? And honestly, are you really running for governor or just having fun, Larry? Well, can I make a difference? Hell yeah, I can make a difference. And by the way, the left-wing magazine called The Atlantic just came out with a big, long article called The California Dream is Dying. So this is a diatribe against the left-wing policies by a left-wing magazine. Look, I'm running because I care. I'm running because I really think I can make a difference. I've been born and raised in this state. My father came here in 1945, right after the war, and he worked two full-time jobs as a janitor. And believe it or not, he was able to save his nickels and dimes to buy a house in South Central LA that now is worth

$600,000. Good for us because it's still in the family. But somebody with an eighth-grade dropout education like my father could not duplicate his route from poverty to the middle class if he worked three jobs because the housing regulations are so severe. They are discouraging developers from building homes, which is why we have a housing shortage. The average price of a home in California is literally 150% more than it is for the average price of a home in America. 50% of the cost of a house in California is because of the environmental regulations, according to Lee Ohanian, one of the brilliant economists with UCLA, who I have on my radio show many times. One of the things I intend to do if I'm lucky enough to become governor is to suspend CEQA. That's an acronym for the California Environmental

Quality Act that anybody can use for almost any reason to stop almost any project indefinitely. Now, somehow the left-wing legislatures were able to waive CEQA for the construction of the Sacramento King Stadium up in Sacramento for billionaires. Why can't I do that as governor by using my emergency powers to suspend CEQA? Developers tell me there are roughly 500,000 homes that are already to rock and roll, but for the lawsuits, if the lawsuits were to stop, we could increase the supply of housing almost overnight. Look, as far as running for vanity, you think it's fun being called an Uncle Tom and a sellout and a bootlicker, as I have been by a lot of people since I've become in this race. As far as not having any real experience, a guy that's got a great deal of experience is the incumbent. He was the mayor of San Francisco. He was eight years the lieutenant governor,

two years a governor. And look what he's done. There was a fellow that came out of Hollywood who hadn't been talking about these issues for 27 years. He became a pretty decent two-term governor and became a pretty decent two-term president. His name is Ronald Reagan.

I kind of thought people wanted people to come out of the private sector and to go into politics who don't have so-called experience, who aren't entrenched in the bureaucracy. So there's a lot of power that I'll have as governor, including, as I mentioned, declaring a state of emergency. And I found out, much to my surprise, that not a single bill that's been vetoed has been overridden by the legislature since the early 70s, the first time that Governor Jerry Brown ran. And so it turns out when the legislature passed something stupid and the governor vetoes it, as Arnold Schwarzenegger did and Jerry Brown did a number of times, you go to the public and you talk about what was wrong with the bill,

and the phone starts ringing of the state senators and the state assembly persons, and all of a sudden that bill is not overwritten. I also have the ability to appoint the heads of commissioners. Now people think outside of the California commissioners are no big deal. They just need a little bit, have some tea and that's it. But these are the people that impose the rules and regulations that cause the cost of living to be up so high. So I'll be able to impose, I'll be able to replace some of the commissioners with people that believe in a light touch, a limited regulation. And I can also stop stupid stuff. If it weren't for the governor, the lawmakers would pass single payers. They would love to do that. And the teachers union, by the way, is the largest funder of this man. And I can do something about that. The largest affiliate of the teachers union is the

L.A. Teachers Union called United Teachers of Los Angeles. And they demanded that they not have in school learning while they were still getting their salaries. And one of their demands for going back to school, single payer and defund the police. What those two things had to do with education is beyond me. I'm a product of the public schools. I went to Crenshaw High School. I could talk to black and brown people in ways that traditional Republicans in California have not done so. And that's why I believe they're afraid of me. That's why Elizabeth Warren just cut a commercial, an anti-recall commercial for Gavin Newsom. That's how desperate he is. At least she didn't accuse me of being a white supremacist, which is what the Gavin Newsom team said earlier. They said this is being driven by white supremacists.

Look at me, guys. I may be a lot of things, but I'm not a white supremacist. That is one avenue of attack that's shut down. Larry, I will walk precincts for you. Over to Rob. I am flying back to California to re-register so I can vote for you. I just want to make sure I just explain to people who aren't from California what it means when you said your father came in 1945, that that is a gold. That is 1849 gold rush for a lot of Americans, a lot of African-Americans, a lot of other Americans coming to California, which had a golden dream. You could build something big. And now we're in a position, I think you'd agree, that even former Governor Jerry Brown seems like a more reasonable choice for Californians than the present leadership. Like, that's how crazy California got.

Jerry Brown seems normal, right? That's how bad it's come. He just gave an interview, Jerry Brown did, and criticized the spending of Gavin Newsom and said the debt that Gavin Newsom has bragged about is temporary because of the obligations that we have going forward. Even Jerry Brown said that. And you're right about my father. Not only did he work two full-time jobs, he cleaned toilets two full-time jobs. Eighth grade education, you cannot duplicate that path right now. And that's why people making $50,000 to $100,000 are leaving California for the very first time. It's not the millionaires and billionaires who are leaving because they can still pay the outrageous taxes. 13.3%, top marginal tax rate, highest in the nation. They're still able to pay it. It's the middle class that are being hurt.

Poor people are being taken care of by government. It's the middle class people that cannot get that first house. And when they leave, that's the primary reason that they cite. We cannot get a house. But I want to add one more thing. I kind of want you just to say again, because when you said it, I had never heard it before said that way.

And maybe I haven't been paying attention. We had last summer, a year ago, the topic in America was bad cops. Bad cops in America. And whether you're a black lives matter or not, there's a certain percentage of cops that you recognize are bad cops. Some of them end up doing real damage. I had never, and the country was inflamed because of it.

And I had never heard anyone say, why are we not inflamed about bad teachers? Well, that's right. Why aren't we? And, you know, there was a study by the Fordham Institute several years ago, and they looked at where public school teachers with school-age kids sent their own kids. The average family, roughly 10% of us send our kids to private school, 6% of Black families do nationwide. 44% of Philadelphia public school teachers with school-age kids put their own kids in private school. 39% of Chicago public school teachers put their own school-age kids in private school. Here in Los Angeles, the district, a public school teacher with school-age kids is twice

as likely to put his or her own kid in private school compared to families that don't have public school teachers in them. That is the equivalent of opening up a restaurant, putting up a sign saying, come on in, just don't eat the food. The people who know the school system the best don't put their own kids in it. What does that tell you? All right. So my final question is, I think it's made me more personal. I mean, I can only imagine, obviously, I can only imagine what it's like to be having, I mean, I listened to you on it's like to be having... I mean, I listened to you on the radio when I was living in LA, right? You've been saying the same thing.

You're a consistent speaker. I can only imagine what it's like to be told by people, you're a sellout, you're an Uncle Tom. From the white progressive class, I can only imagine it's just pure outrage. How do you communicate to the enormous group of black Americans, working class Americans, kind of the way maybe Eric Adams did here in New York City where I am, and focus on their needs, crime, education, economic opportunity. How do you connect to them? Well, as far as being called names, that sort of thing, when I first came on radio almost 30 years ago, it did bother me. And one of my closest friends put his arm around me and said, Larry, relax.

You're making the right enemies. As far as talking to people, you know, I said this to a reporter from a black newspaper called Sacramento Observer. Aren't you tired of pulling that lever for the Democrats when polls show that black and brown parents overwhelmingly in the inner cities want choice in public school, and you're pulling that lever for the party that's not giving it to you? Aren't you tired of these rich, elite people who belong to the ACLU filing lawsuits to stop gang injunctions when the overwhelming consensus appears to be people living in the inner city support gang injunctions in

order to reduce crime. Who's on your side? Larry Elder, the Uncle Tom, or the people that you've been pulling the lever for year after year after year, who's implementing policies that cause crime to go up, a disproportionate percentage of the victims of whom are black and brown people who don't want to give what you want, which is for the money to follow the child rather than the other way around for urban education who's on your side those guys are larry elder and i can just tell i'm not saying that after i say that they become reagan republicans but i can tell that there's that there's a recognition that maybe just maybe they've been played maybe just maybe they've been betrayed and maybe it's time to try something new. The beauty of our

election system is we have private ballots. You can put a check next to Larry Yoder, even though it has an R next to his name, and not tell your independent friends, not tell your Democrat friends, because crime doesn't have a color. Homelessness doesn't have a color. The fire season doesn't have a color. The cost of living doesn't have a color. And the way this man ignores science doesn't have a color. So think way this man ignored science doesn't have a color. So think about it, connect the dots, and maybe just maybe you ought to rethink your assumptions. And I think I can talk to people in a way that is far more persuasive than maybe the average Republican has talked to people like that in the past. That's the question. Or actually, this is the last question, Mr. Elder. Those of us who look at California say, all right,

awful stuff happens. We see the homelessness in the street. I've subscribed to a Twitter feed that shows Venice Beach riots and fights every single day, but the police just come up and walk away. In other words, you have the sense of things falling apart in the urban areas. Yet everybody continues to vote for the people that created all of these conditions, all of them, from the housing, from the bad transit, to the crime, to the disorder. This is all the result of, you could say, it's a manifestation of the people's will. So how are we to expect that they will vote any differently? And is it just, we can't wait for the Republicans actually to get their act together, but we have to pray that there are sensitive, that there are wise liberals who will turn this around. Otherwise, these people are just

going to simply vote for more of the same and then be surprised when they get it. That's why I'm asking people to go to electelder.com, electelder.com, throw something in the tip jar, because this man can raise an unlimited amount of money and spend an unlimited amount of money. I have spending limitations. But Peter has interviewed Thomas Sowell many, many times. And one time I asked Thomas Sowell many, many times. And one time I asked Thomas Sowell, you know, the overwhelming consensus of economists is that minimum wage laws hurt people. Why is it you're not winning the argument? He said to me, Larry, most people haven't heard the argument. We have a left-wing media. And for the first time for the next two months, they're going to have to hear Larry Yelder explain some of these things in ways they've never heard before. It's not that they're stupid.

They haven't heard the problem because of minimum wage. They haven't heard about the stranglehold that the public sector unions have on schools. They haven't seen the connection between left-wing policies like yelling and screaming at the police officers, and therefore they pull back. They don't engage in proactive policing. And the fact that this is going to cause a disproportionate number of blacks and browns to get hurt. They haven't heard these arguments for the next two months. They're going to hear them like like it or not. They're going to hear. I hope you open some ears and we wish you the best of luck. Larry Elder, thanks for being on the show today.

Good luck with the campaign. And maybe the next time we talk, it'll be as you settle into your new gubernatorial digs and tell us what it's like. Oh, my beer, gentlemen. Larry, Larryer.com. Larry, you are one tough, courageous, brilliant guy. You've got one vote. Now let's round up about three, four million more. Peter, I appreciate that, but I'm not storming

the beaches of Normandy. No one's shooting at me. All I'm doing is running for office and taking a little bit of hit about my private life and taking a bit of a financial hit. That's all I'm doing. I want to turn this state around. That's why I'm doing this. Yeah, my vote. Thank you, Larry.

Thanks so much. Thank you. Well, you know, you think of California, you think of golden sand, don't you? And sometimes you think of sand in a box and sometimes that box is in your house and there's a cat on it. Well, that was pretty brilliant, James. Peace, man. Of course, you know, here in Minnesota, we have our own sand and our own beaches but a lot of people have sand in their house in a bin and there's a cat that does stuff on it or maybe you got the other ugly clumpy stuff whatever you do with the cat and their hygiene and their little habits it's a mess isn't it well the thing is working from home makes you around that litter box a little bit more than you might want to sure working from home means

more time for your morning coffee or an occasional afternoon nap. And of course, the opportunity for your furry little feline friend to walk across the keyboard in the middle of your Zoom call. You love having your cat around, but you don't love being around that litter box. Well, Kitty Poo Club is a convenient all-in-one monthly litter box solution. Every month, Kitty Poo Club delivers an affordable, high-quality, recyclable litter box that's pre-filled with the litter of your choice. The boxes are leak-proof, eco-friendly, and have a fun design for every season. When the month is up, just recycle the box

and Kiddie Poo Club will automatically deliver a new one to you. No changing used litter. No more cleaning the box. You can customize your order based on how many cats you have. And you can choose from four different litter types. Kiddie Poo Club has a no-risk satisfaction guarantee and you can easily customize or you can cancel anytime. And Kitty Poo Club is offering you 20% off your first order,

plus a free dome, free scoop, and free shipping when you set up auto-ship by going to kittypooclub.com slash ricochet. Just go to kittypooclub.com slash ricochet and get 20% off your first order, plus a free dome, free scoop, and free shipping when you set up auto-ship. That's kittypooclub.com slash ricochet and get 20% off your first order, plus a free dome, free scoop, and free shipping when you set up auto ship. That's kiddiepoolclub.com slash ricochet. And we thank Kiddie Pool Club for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast, and giving me the opportunity to say Kiddie Pool Club,

because it's fun. Now, welcome back, Dr. J. Dr. J. Bhattacharya doesn't need an introduction to Ricochet Podcast listeners, but I'll do it anyway. Professor of medicine at Stanford, research assistant to the National Bureau of Economics Research, senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Stanford Freeman Spolgi Institute. His research focuses on the economics of healthcare around the world with a particular emphasis on health and well-being of vulnerable populations. And he's been published in peer-reviewed journals that range from health policy and medicine to economics and the law. And we talked to him. Well, we'd like to talk to him about everything. But here we are with COVID again and the Delta panic. I frankly have never seen anything like this. It's as though the mask advocates were on their back foot for a

little while, but now they seem emboldened and COVID is going to slay everybody. Why? It's as contagious as smallpox. Fill us in. Where are we on Delta? And should everyone who's vaccinated retreat to a small little ball of mewling fear in a dark room before it all goes away? James, I do not understand the panic mongering. It is utterly irresponsible, both by the part of the media and also, honestly, on the part of the CDC as well.

The evidence that, and this is overwhelming at this point, is not actually in contention, and even the CDC admits this, that is that if you are vaccinated or if you've had the COVID before and you've recovered, then you are protected against severe outcomes from the Delta variant, just as you were protected against all the other variants that have come along today. Why this is not the lead thing that people get get told i have no idea that it's irresponsible this kind of this kind of panic mongering is utterly irresponsible and part of public health and we shouldn't be doing it well there's recently a story that said

that the vaccinated themselves can have higher viral loads than uh you know the andromeda strain second real and it was based on a study in ind India that was using a vaccine that was not even approved for American use. But yet it was panic, panic, panic. So it told us that we've got to all mask up again. The idea being that even though I'm not going to get it or have any bad symptoms, any bad effects, I could get it and unknowingly with my death gust breath, spread it to a 12-year-old who then takes it home and spits on grandma. It seems like they've had this attenuated, elaborate scenario that requires me to once again mask up every time I go into public. And again, they will say, it's just a mask. Why are you so concerned? Why is it such a bother? Yeah. So first of all, the risk to grandma

is not what it once was. In the United States, 85% of elderly people are now double vaccinated, something on that order. And if they're not yet, they can be. So the risk to grandma, before the vaccine, the infection fatality rate for people over 70 was 5%. In other words, 95% survival. For people under 70, it was 0.05% or 99.95% survival. Now, with the vaccine, elderly people have the same rate of survival after COVID as

younger people. We've turned the disease from something that was once very deadly to a particular segment of the population to something that is very, very manageable. This seems like a big political win. If I were advising the Biden administration, which everyone knows I'm not, I would tell them to declare victory. They've had an enormous success in protecting the vulnerable. And instead, we're getting more fear-mongering, more demands for interventions that have questionable evidence whether they did anything at all other than scare people and potentially prevent five-year-olds from learning to read. It makes absolutely no sense to me. If you look at Sweden, Sweden's a good example. They had an enormous spring wave, Delta variants sweeping through their population.

Huge increase in cases, up then down their population uh huge increase in cases up then down and almost no increase in deaths very much what's just happened is cases and deaths have become decoupled in the uk the same thing has happened cases went up freedom day happens they open up and cases start going down fine cases are not the relevant thing deaths are flat relative to what they were we have defanged this disease we should be we should be declaring victory we should be like celebrating to the sky for the first time in history we've taken this new respiratory virus and turned it into essentially a bad flu hey uh doctor my i'm because i consider you my COVID doctor. Two questions. The answer to both can be, I'm full of it. The first thing I said at dinner last night with a bunch of people,

and they were watching Rachel Maddow. And they're saying, hey, look what's happening in Florida right now. The emergency rooms are filled. The ICUs are filled. It's a disaster in Florida. It's a disaster in Missouri. And I said, really? Because I'm reading the New York Times too,

and I don't see that either. Is it over? I mean, my prior is what you just said, which is that we defanged it, and you might get sick. You might be in bed for two days, three days with the flu, but you're not going to die. Is it fair to say it's over? Not in Florida.

So specifically. The hospitals are not overwhelmed right now. You can look at the, not in Florida, not in Missouri, not in the few states where the cases are rising. The same thing happened in the UK. The cases rose and the hospitalizations did not rise in proportion as the way they did in the previous waves because the disease has been defanged. The vaccine and natural immunity defanged the disease. You can go look for listeners. If you go look, there's an HHS website that tracks hospitalizations and you can go see for yourself. Any news outlet that's telling you that hospitals are overwhelmed right now is spewing propaganda. And my second prior is this,

that when this is done, and we're close to, I think, being able to sort of wrap it up in terms of statistics, right? Probably by December, we'll say. Whether you had draconian lockdowns or a free-for-all, whether you were California or Florida or Texas or Sweden or the UK or Italy, it's going to come out to be roughly all the same. That we kind of roughly all died the same rate. We roughly got sick the same rate. The only thing that mattered, Rob, in any of this is protection of the elderly. If a place protected its elderly, if it vaccinated its elderly faster, it will have done better over the course of the epidemic. All the other business closures, school closures, church closures, all of the other crazy liberty

sapping interventions that we've undergone will have, I think, I completely agree with it, will turn out to have done absolutely nothing. I have a published paper that documents this from the first couple of waves, first wave in Europe and Korea. But you can see this, like, just look at Florida. Florida has one of the oldest populations in the country, which you would expect to have a very high death rate. And yet, over the course of the epidemic, it has little better than the national average. And once you do age adjustment, it's one of the very best states in the country. Top 10, top 11, something like that. So I don't understand the devotion that some people in public health continue to show to

these ineffective, disastrous, harmful interventions. We should just stop. We've done, and declare victory. The one main thing that they've done we should and declare victory the one main thing that they've done right which is get the vaccine out into the arms of older people and protect them that we've done that let's and now let's do that in the rest of the world where there still are older people yeah so it does seem like there's a continuing national maybe even global epidemic of neurotic paranoia that we that that's what we can't shake. What we need is Ativan. We don't need,

we don't really need hydroxychloroquine in the water. We need Ativan because people are just freaking out and I don't know how to get them to stop. Tell them the truth. Tell them, point to the data, point to the incredible good news. That's what I, I mean, at CDC, that's their responsibility to do that um you know i'm trying i'm trying to spread the word but it's it it's uh but you know people can see i i don't know about you rob but i my sense this time is that they're

just their heart isn't quite in it the same way it was in march of 2020 or or november of 2020 the panic mongering is there but it isn't. I think the red states won't follow. I just saw Governor DeSantis won't follow. The Governor Pete Ricketts in Nebraska won't follow. The red states will not follow us. We will not have a lockdown in the red states, and that's an enormous improvement from the previous time. I just hope that California follows. Jay, I happen to know that you spent Monday, this past Monday, with the governor of Florida. Two questions. One, does he have any regrets? Does he wish he had done on the substance of dealing with the pandemic?

Does he wish he had done anything differently? Second, sounds similar, but is actually quite distinct. Politically, has he suffered from his stand? Has his opposition in the state found ways of using that stand against him? So does he have political regrets? The answer to the first one is, I think, I don't know for sure, but my sense is that he wishes that he had been more careful about the initial lockdown, the one in March. But the rest, you know, so he locked down that state in March. But the rest of it, I think he has no regrets about.

He opened up the state starting in May of 2020 and then fully opened up in September. And he stayed open despite enormous political pressure all through the winter wave he vaccinated the old population first so that by january all of the nursing homes were residents were vaccinated he protected moved moved all kinds of resources to get nursing homes protected in the summer of last year uh well before many many other places were doing that um and uh and the results have been great. So from a disease control perspective, I don't think he has very many regrets. From a political perspective, I think it's done him a world of good. I think, you know, I mean, you all know more about politics than I will ever know. But my sense is that he looks for all the world like the presumptive leader of the Republican

Party at this point. And I think that's because he took a very brave stand. He read the scientific evidence himself and took a huge risk in May and September of last year in opening up. And it's paid off. He understands the scientific evidence himself. Honestly, he's a politician. He's relying on advisors. No? It's amazing. It's amazing for me to say this because I wouldn't have thought this

possible, but when I've talked with him, and now I think I've talked to him like five or six times, seven times, each time when I bring up studies, nine times out of 10, he's heard of the study before and knows something about the results, can talk intelligently about the study. I'm talking about not my studies, just studies just generally about COVID. I've never met a politician that could do that. I've not met many politicians in my life, so you take that for what it's worth. Dr. Jay, we know you've got to go. I just want to say, we hear you guys sold the movie rights

to the Great Barrington Declaration. James, I'm waiting for you to write a screenplay for us. Well, Rob's probably better at that. He can doctor it. I'll take a look, too. But good luck with that. I can't wait to see Keanu Reeves. You guys can't afford me, unfortunately. Couldn't buy you, Bob.

You know, as much as we love talking to you, I hope at some point we talk to you about something else other than COVID, because COVID has left the national imagination. But it seems to have rewired so many people's brains into interminable paternalism and safetyism that we're going to be with this for a little while longer. Anyway, you got to go. I'm hoping to become anonymous again, James. Talk to you later, Dr. J. Thanks for joining us. Jay, thank you. Too late.

Thanks, Doc. I am. Yes. Well, you know. By the way, it took all the restraint that I have and good manners not to say to him enough about COVID. I need you to talk about my vertigo because I do feel like I have a team of doctors here in the Ricochet podcast. Well, that would be a dizzying transition, so to speak, for you.

Hey, listen, I want to know. I'm not going to try to segue this because we have so much stuff to do here, but you're going to really find this interesting. What am I? What product am I trying to tell you about right now? How about a, not a product, a way of thinking and a modus vivendi for working with the thing that is a threat to American society, frankly. You've heard of it, of course. You've heard of it as CRT, a critical race theory. It's sweeping American higher education. At Wake Forest University, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics has implemented anti-racist math, really. In spring 2021, the University of New Hampshire began offering a class on racism in science.

And the University of Pittsburgh's medical school even added a vow against systemic racism to the 2,500-year-old Hippocratic Oath. It's happening at universities throughout America, and across curricula, from history to architecture, from medicine to economics. Critical race theory, the idea that America is an inherently racist country and that each American must be reprogrammed to dispel his or her intrinsic racism, is opposed by an overwhelming majority of Americans. Yet, leaders in higher education, from prestigious Ivy League campuses to state schools in the Deep South, continue to impose this radical ideology on students and faculty alike. Founded by a Cornell Law professor,

criticalrace.org, criticalrace.org is the definitive resource for students, parents, alumni, university donors, and all Americans, frankly, concerned about the continued creep of CRT in higher education. The investigative journalists at Legal Insurrection Foundation provide you with the latest updates on how individual schools are implementing critical race training, and how local, state, and federal governments are getting involved and how some parents and states are fighting back. To stop this toxic and un-American ideology, we must be diligent. CriticalRace.org is the resource you need to stay informed about this assault on higher education in America. Don't delay. Visit CriticalRace.org today.

That's CriticalRace.org. And we thank Critical Race for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Well, gentlemen, we didn't get to 1-6, a date that will live in infamy along with Pearl Harbor and 9-11, of course, because I got the feeling that neither of you are particularly tuned in or expecting great blinding insights to fall from this. AOC herself has expressed her deep personal fear at the moment. It seems to have been a formative event in her days. But what do you think is going to come of this? Do you think that we'll reach some sort of national consensus on this and we'll move together hand in hand into a future filled with more comedy and understanding? It's honestly, it's a bore to me at this point. We already have the outlines of what the

Democrats intend to bring out of the hearing. They are shaping it up as an issue on which to run in the midterm elections as a way of dragging Donald Trump back into the election. Donald Trump, who will by then have been a former officeholder for two years, and by my reading of the situation, will have faded pretty substantially from the scene. That's what I expect. I'm very happy to hear what you guys expect, but I'd actually also like to ask Rob about Eric Adams, the presumptive next mayor of New York. That looks pretty darned. That interests me, actually. But if you want to talk about January 6th, I'm done.

I've just told you what I think of it. It just sort of bores me, honestly. Yeah, I mean. Yeah, okay. No, no. I mean, I've already said about everything I'm going to say about January. I mean, there's two dozen court cases. We're going to know everything we need to know about January 6th, the next six months.

The people on trial, many of them are pleading mental illness. The guy with the horns and the stick and standing in the well of the Senate is pleading mentally ill. He's mentally ill. Many of them were mentally ill um uh eric adams just kind of smart he just sort of figured out like well what what ordinary working class new yorkers want and they want um uh they won't want somebody to be done about the crime wave they are not willing to go back to the to the high uh high water mark of homicides in new york city which was 1990 um and uh from all from the rumors and from the even the thing he's not a very good uh careful politician in general so i mean in a way sometimes he blurts out what he's doing and i think in the past couple weeks

he said some things that have been alarming to the progressives like i'm talking to a lot of bloomberg people um and i think he is modeling himself after mike bloomberg probably because he can't say he's modeling himself after ruda giuliani's since giuliani's you know has suffered the dissent um but those are all positive signs that that is exactly how new york city should be governed so i my crude view of new york is to see it in terms of boroughs, and I've understood Bill de Blasio as the mayor of Manhattan, and especially of the Upper West Side. And Eric Adams, I mean, just tell me if this is a ridiculous way of thinking about it,

but Eric Adams has the chance, as best I can tell, to be the mayor of Brooklyn and Queens and Harlem North. Harlem up to the Bronx, the outer boroughs and the northern edge of Manhattan Island, and I'll take those guys against the Upper West Side any day of the week. Well, I mean, I think that may be thematically correct, although if you really want to understand it, I think you should read John Podoritz wrote a great piece in NRO about de Blasio. It's really, really worth it. We should link to it. It's really excellent. And nobody has a feel for New York City quite like John Podoritz. But he identifies the problem with Bill de Blasio, which is he doesn't like New York City. He doesn't like it. He doesn't really, doesn't like the Upper West Side.

He lives in Park Slope. He doesn't really, he's not, he still roots for the Red Sox. Like, this is a crazy, this is a politician who shouldn't be where he is. And I think that's ultimately the problem with really good governance or thoughtful governance like they had under Bloomberg, which was kind of, you know, colorless in a lot of ways and zany in the ways of like, you can't get a, you know, an extra large soda, whatever. But essentially the trains ran on time and people got a little complacent. They thought, well, that's just normal. It's always going to be that way.

And it's not, I mean, and I think it's happening all over the cities i mean fox news which you know is not necessarily where i would necessarily go for the the sober analysis of what's happening today but they did have a really great graphic up today about washington dc two two two squares covid deaths and homicides the past two weeks. Four COVID deaths from July 14 to July 28. Eleven homicides. So if you're a resident of Washington, D.C., which one are you thinking about? And I think if you're a resident of New York City or California, which one are you thinking about? I'm not diminishing the fact there were four covid deaths but we know something about those covid deaths and we know who is and we know there's steps we can take and

if i go and get my vaccine i'm gonna make myself a lot lot safer i don't know what but horace's piece of national review that rob just referred to is it is great and it's great about de blasio it's also great about the history of new york city within our lifetime those of us who remember its descent into taxi driver hell and how it pulled itself out was an amazing thing and to walk around in new york city and feel utterly safe and to go to washington square park and not be assaulted by the smell of urine or needles crunching under your feet was was great i mean the the urban renaissance that took place all across this country in the last 15 20 years or so has been a remarkable thing. And, of course, people took it for granted.

People who grew up in that regarded that as just the normal state of things and decided they would have fun microwaving all the seed corn. So now we are where we are. The question to you, Rob, is whether or not Adams has the power, the backing to do the things that did get New York safe before. Because it wasn't as if everybody all of a sudden, hey, there's a little bit more money here. You don't worry. No, de Blasio was a big gassy bag of progressive blather that insisted that this whole series of policies that worked before were wrong. They were wrong because they were systemically racist. They had a disparate impact, et cetera, et cetera. We can't stop and frisk. We can't do anything about lifestyle crimes. We just have to accept it, or we have to spend more money to get people into the shelters which don't exist, et cetera.

Whereas what people are saying is, look, I have sympathy for people, but at the same time, the park outside of my house is nothing but a tent city. There's prostitution, there's drug use, there's fires every night. Get rid of it. Question, do they have the fortitude in new york to do the things that worked before or are they just going to say well we're going to be a little bit more smart when it comes to doing all the progressive ideas oh who knows i mean the part of the the progressive strategy for the past 50 years has been or certainly a place like new york city has been um do uh uh buy yourself the the the latitude to do a lot of crackpot left-wing intellectual things so um once the crime rate went down and the murder rate went down starting 1991 um the city the city government didn't become

less left-wing it became more crazy progressive liberal but at the same but the government didn't become less left-wing. It became more crazy, progressive, liberal. But the people didn't care because you're picking up the garbage and the streets are safe. So my argument for Eric Adams is what he knows is that he's going to be judged on only one metric. And he's a former cop, so I'm sure he's got some ideas how to implement this, which is, is crime going to go down or is it going to go up? And if it goes down down he's going to get another term and he's going to be a very very powerful national politician if it doesn't then he's not going to work but that's what i that's why i kind of don't understand about progressives which is that you you can buy yourself the way i think the conservatives can. You can buy yourself a lot of goodwill for all of your weird ideas and your trans bathrooms and whatever it is if you just stick to your knitting and deliver on the basics first.

I don't think conservatives get that. They don't want to. I mean, look at California where the municipalities have said it's okay to shoplift if it's under $950. Right. municipalities have said it's okay to shoplift if it's under $950. Right, because everybody out there who's scooping up every Maybelline makeup into a bag and walking out is Jean Beljean trying to feed his daughter. When you go to these big cities and you find that everything is locked up behind a counter because the people are taking mouthwash and distilling it to get drunk, and nobody is doing anything about it, they have to start doing something about it. They have to start saying,

you can't walk out of here with a bag full of stuff. You will be arrested, and there will be consequences for it, and bail will be required. So, I mean, the idea that a normal person can't walk in and buy mouthwash because it's locked up because of thievery is ridiculous. But I got to tell you that mouthwash itself has not changed in 140... Right, right. But as you say, like, oh, I'm sorry.

Now I get it. Now I'm sorry. I was going to answer, but now I see this as a segue. It was. So I'm not going to interrupt your segue. Go right ahead. In the Jurassic era of this show,

it was a segue. Good one, too, by the way. But I was talking about mouthwash, and it really has not changed in 140 years, has it? I mean, most brands are still selling these big bulky bottles that are mostly water and a little bit of alcohol. That's why the oral care experts at Quip created a mouthwash that gives you more of the ingredients you need and less of the stuff that already comes out of your faucet.

Plus, their alcohol-free four times concentrated mouthwash comes in an eco-friendly refill bottle that's 100% recyclable. It is their way of help making your mouth a little cleaner and the earth a little greener. So you know Quip, right? They're the makers of the electric toothbrush and floss that we've been raving about here for years. Well, they've launched a new mouthwash to help you complete your clean morning session. Quip kills bad breath germs, helps prevent cavities, and leaves you feeling fresh. It packs everything your mouth needs with none of the alcohol or artificial colors

you'll find in other brands. The refillable dispenser's compact footprint will fit in any bathroom, big or small, and with five colors and two high-end finishes to choose from, you're guaranteed to find a dispenser that matches your style. This is the one mouthwash you definitely won't want to hide under the sink.

Sitting on your counter, it's a beautiful reminder to rinse every day and a subtle way of letting everyone know that your oral care game is next level. Add a mouthwash refill plan and make sure that your rinse never really runs out. With a customizable subscription, after all, you can get refills automatically delivered straight to your door every three months. So you can stay on top of your swish without lugging any bottles home from the store. How refreshing. Now, along with the mouthwash, Quip also delivers fresh brush heads, floss, and toothpaste refills every three months from $5. Shipping's free, so you can save money and

skip the hustle and bustle of in-store shopping. With affordable refills plus free shipping, it's so easy to keep your whole mouth fully healthy. So why don't you join over the 5 million mouths already using Quip and start swishing today. And if you go to getquip.com slash ricochet5 right now, you can get $5 off your mouthwash starter kit. That's a $5 off your mouthwash starter kit, which includes a refillable dispenser and a 90-dose supply of Quip's four-times concentrated formula at getquip.com slash ricochet5. Spell G-E-T-Q-U-I-P dot com slash ricochet5. And we thank Quip for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. So anyway, that's, we've said necessary business has been accomplished.

Rob, do you think that they're going to do it? I don't see them saying all of a sudden we're going to arrest people and put them in jail for 90 days for joblifting. I mean, without that, what's the... I don't know about, I don't really follow California politics too closely, but I would say that if a month ago, even a month ago, the idea that we would have Larry Elder on, he's not going to win. But a month later, I don't know. I don't think it was a, certainly Eric Adams was not the front runner for a long time of the mayoral race for the Democratic primary, which is essentially the race here. I think there are, I i think i think law and order matters to people and i think the way last summer was reported and and and described um did not

necessarily comport with the way many many people experienced it and i don't just mean white conservatives i mean working class black people in New York city. I think they experienced the riots differently from the way they were told they should experience them by the New York times. And they don't like crime. People don't like crime. No, they don't.

But I think in Minneapolis, the current mayor is going to be reelected because the alternatives are even more to the left than he is. Yeah, right. And I mean, that's what happens in these places that become increasingly, we're meeting its tail progressivism. It's just you end up reelecting somebody who's the least nuts. I wish California wasn't the case.

You know, here in San Francisco, I'm very relaxed about San Francisco because we have this vigorous two-party system. After all, San Francisco elected a Republican mayor as recently as 1959. Right. Hey, Rob, I have a second test. This is cool. We've got to wrap. We're running long.

But I have a second test for Eric Adams, and I want to mention it to you now so you can be thinking about it. This is your homework assignment. The second test, obviously, you're right, the first test has to be crime. Second test, to me, does he promote charter schools? Does he take those successful schools up in Harlem, to which Thomas Sowell devoted a whole book, and get the teachers unions off their backs and let them expand? Is he going to help black and Hispanic kids in Harlem get a shot at a decent education? I don't know. I'm hopeful.

He seems to be saying occasionally the right thing. But anybody after de Blasio would be saying the right thing. What I like is that he's talking to the right, he seems to be talking to at least part of the right people. He's trying to recreate the sort of um good governance coalition that uh which was under bloomberg um and i think that's probably the right move in 2022 in new york city um what larry elder said today i think i've never heard anyone say maybe they have i just never heard anyone say it quite the way he said it that if we had if we felt the same way about bad teachers as we do about bad cops

american society would be transformed for the better in a year um and and for some reason we don't know perhaps because the bad teachers are teaching the children that the upper-class professional elite don't really care about that much and regard them as part of a pro-class that doesn't really need education. I don't know. We'll see. I do know that when Peter mentioned that it was the last time that they had a Republican mayor, it was in 1959. That is sort of my image of San Francisco, where I would like to go back. The San Francisco you see in the movie Vertigo. And I mention that only to bring the entire show full circle. Beautiful.

And hope that Blue Yeti plays us out with Theme d'Amour by Bernard Herrmann from that movie. It was one of the most beautiful things he ever wrote. And tragic as well. Yes, this podcast, tragic and beautiful as it is, must come to an end. And we thank everybody. We also want to tell you, X Chair, Kiddie Boo Club, CriticalRace.org, and Quip, those are the brands that have helped sponsor us, and you can help yourself by helping them, support them, support us.

It's a nice little mutual hand-washing society. Listen to the best of ricochet which is on stations coast to coast hosted by somebody named me check your local listings as they say and of course give us that five-star rating at the apple tunes ipod podcast whatever it's called now center because then more people find the show and more people find ricochet and we go on and on with more prosperity gentlemen it's been a pleasure and we'll see everybody in the comments at ricochet 4.0 by the way special thanks to our pal bill whalen for helping us land the great larry elder oh yeah right next week boys next week © BF-WATCH TV 2021 © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Ricochet.

Join the conversation.