The Ricochet Podcast - Let That Sink In

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

We may be approaching the spookiest day of the year, but it’s the government that give grownups nightmares on all the rest of them. California isn’t ordinarily a place where suspenseful midterms happen, though our first guest Lanhee Chen has something to say about that. Running to be the Golden State’s top fiscal watchdog, he’s getting dangerously close to becoming the boogeyman for California’s... Source

If you're curious, here's what a modern newsroom looks like. Empty, of course. I have a dream this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. We maintain control. It's a big deal.

And so far, we're running against the tide and we're beating the tide. 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 Rob Long and Peter Robinson's back. I'm James Lylex. Today we talk to Lonnie Chen, the next California State Controller, and John Yoo. So let's have ourselves a podcast. I can hear you. Welcome to the Ricochet Podcast number 616. Wow. Why don't you join us at ricochet.com and help us get to 617. It's all on you. No, not really, but you should join Ricochet Podcast, number 616. Wow. Why don't you join us at ricochet.com and help us get to

617. It's all on you. No, not really, but you should join Ricochet. You can be part of the most stimulating conversation and community on the web. I'm James Lilacs, joined by Rob Long in New York and Peter Robinson, who's back, and we'll get to that perhaps, but we want to get right to our guest because, you know, stuff's breaking. He's got stuff to do. It's Lonnie Chen. Lonnie is the David and Diane Steffi Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution and Director of Domestic Policy Studies and lecturer in the Public Policy Program at Stanford. He's advised numerous major campaigns, and now he's running his own to be the next California state controller. Lonnie, thanks for joining us. Tell us, why do you want to do this? Well, thank you for the opportunity

to be with you. It's funny because I often say people don't wake up in the morning thinking about what the state controller does, and I don't fault them for that. But the controller in California is one of eight statewide elected officials with an independent constituency, meaning the controller doesn't report to the governor or lieutenant governor or anybody else. The controller's job is really sound fiscal management for the fourth largest economy in the world, making sure that the $300 billion a year we spend in the state of California is actually being spent in accordance with, first of all, sound fiscal principles, but second of all, with results. And too often in California, what you see is massive amounts of spending, whether it's to address homelessness or public education or health care, with really results that are quite abysmal. If you look, for example, at the increasing numbers of homeless folks in California, if

you look at the fact that our public schools perform near the bottom of the list in terms of national rankings, clearly there is a need, in my view, for greater accountability and transparency into state spending. And that's why I believe this is an important role at an important time. And we have an election just under two weeks away, and I'm pretty enthusiastic about our prospects. So you could say, as controller of the state of California, you could say, my fellow Californians, in the last year, we just spent X on homelessness, and it didn't make anything better. We just spent X on our schools, and they're still ranked near the bottom of the table. And the governor and legislature could not shut you up. Is that correct?

That's absolutely correct. And I think, Peter, that is really when we originally conceived, I mean, the people who put state government together in California, conceived of what the controller would be. The controller would be the independent fiscal watchdog, the person who would hold the governor and legislature accountable and whose political interests would be divergent from those of the governor and legislature. And I think that concept of having an independent backstop on state spending is a concept that's very appealing to many Californians. It certainly explains why my campaign has managed to secure the support of every single major newspaper in the state of California, from Sacramento to San Francisco to L.A. to San Diego. I don't know that it's happened, actually, ever for a non-Democrat

candidate in this state to have the support of every single media organization. But I think everybody recognizes that we have massive challenges in the state that aren't being addressed. So, Lon, here we are less than two weeks to go until election day. Early voting is in. You'll be happy to hear that my daughter who's studying in Spain said we went through her – you now have a vote from – From Spain. That's great. That's just been registered from Barcelona. Exactly.

Can you win? Can you win? Really? Can you? I believe we can. And I'll tell you, it's a combination of a couple different factors. Number one is you have to have the right environment. And I do think right now we have a very unique political environment. I mean, we've been looking very

closely at some of the targeted congressional races in California, races in Orange County and San Diego County. Targeted by whom? You better explain what you mean by that. Targeted. What I mean by that are these are races that are very competitive. And the national political parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, each have arms of their operations that are focused on congressional races that they believe are going to be within, you know, three or four points. And so there are a number of these seats, believe it or not, in California, a few of them in Orange County, which is south of Los Angeles, a few in Ventura County, which is to the north of Los Angeles, and then throughout

our state. In the central part of our state, for example, there's a very contested congressional seat. And the evidence and data we're collecting and that others are collecting from all of these seats are showing significant movement toward the Republican candidate in each case. I'll give you an example that is extraordinary. There is a member of Congress, last name Brownlee, who represents part of Ventura County. Her district is a district where President Biden won by over 20 points in 2020. The Republican challenger, a very good guy named Matt Jacobs, is within one point of her right now. You are kidding me. So that gives you the idea of the environment we have. And by the way, here's another factoid. If you look at the early returns so far

in terms of who's voting, this is not poll data. This is real data. Republicans are overperforming their share of registration by almost five points right now. That means the electorate is going to be five. Now, that could shift, right? Democrats could all of a sudden decide to come in in a very significant way over the next. Now, usually that's not what we've seen. In the last couple of election cycles, Democrats have voted early and Republicans have voted late. And for many years, the opposite was true. But that's what we see now. If you look at the data so far, Republicans are overperforming their benchmarks and thresholds. So the environment's very good, I guess, is the basic point I'm trying to make.

But we go one step further than that. You see, the problem Republicans typically have in California is they get outspent. They get outspent by their Democrat opponents, and they get outspent by the labor unions, and they get outspent by all of the entrenched democratic interests that want the status quo. I am currently outspending my opponent two to one. My campaign is outspending her campaign two to one. We have a 10 to one cash on hand advantage as of a few days ago. We're sitting on about a million six. She's sitting on 160,000. So for the stretch run, we're going to be delivering a lot more message as a campaign than she's going on 160,000. So for the stretch run, we're going to be delivering a lot more message as a campaign than she's going to be delivering. We're advertising statewide in markets from Fresno to Bakersfield to San Francisco to LA. Her campaign is just in San

Francisco. And so I believe we have the ability to move numbers and to influence voters in a way that past Republican campaigns just haven't had. So, I feel very good about that. You have $1.6 million still on hand. We do. We do. Ron He, you have done the impossible. You have persuaded rich Californians that it might really happen at this time.

Can I ask one more question? This is the question. I'm going to ask the question that we're not allowed to ask because we're not supposed to think in terms of identity politics but i'm going to ask it anyway lanhee chen it will come as no surprise to people hearing that name that you yourself are asian we also last night last i checked yes last you checked we also know this is particularly it shows up especially vividly in texas but hisics, who are a big proportion of the voters in our state, Hispanics nationally, but especially in Texas, are moving to the GOP, not by three to one, but there's movement. What do you see among Hispanics and Asians in the Golden State?

Yeah, I think the movement is happening. I think it's a little more muted in California, if I'm being honest, I think the data reflects a slightly more muted movement, but there is movement. I think that there are race-by-race opportunities, and by race, I mean political race, political race-by-political race opportunities. In my race, let me tell you what we're doing. We are pretty heavily advertising and using other voter outreach techniques to get to Spanish language voters, to get to voters who vote in Vietnamese, in Chinese. We're adding Korean language to the mix as well soon. And the reason we're doing that is because we want to demonstrate that we are speaking to voters, regardless of whatever

language they're most comfortable speaking in voters regardless of whatever language they're most comfortable speaking in, regardless of what they look like. Our issues that we're talking to them about are the same, whether they're Hispanic voters or Asian voters or white voters. I don't believe in saying, hey, let's slice and dice the electorate and figure out what a Hispanic issue is. Let me tell you, everybody's frustrated with the state of public schools in California. Everybody's frustrated with the fact that we spend so much money and we get awful results. And everybody's frustrated with the fact that the one-party monopoly in Sacramento is wrecking some parts of the state. And so what we do is we make sure that our message, both the message about my campaign, but also the other

thing I was going to say, the reason why I think we've got a great shot at winning is because my opponent's a complete disaster. And so we're also out there marketing, not just about what we're going to do, but why my opponent is literally a financial disaster. Someone who wants to run or oversee the fourth largest economy in the entire world, but cannot herself pay her taxes or her mortgage. This is the kind of contrast that voters, regardless of their ethnic and racial background, look at. And they think, well, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Do we really want someone who can't even manage her own finances to be overseeing California's finances? So these are the messages that we're sending to voters, regardless of racial and ethnic background. Lonnie, I think you're completely wrong. That means she understands

what most people go through. She has a sympathy for the people who can't pay their mortgage and taxes. And ergo, that would, I know, nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. Rob? Well, that's her argument. That's her argument, James. Yeah. I mean, her argument is, listen, I can sympathize with people. And the point that I make is this. The problem is not that you didn't pay your mortgage or that you didn't pay your taxes. It's why you didn't pay your mortgage and didn't pay your taxes, because you didn't feel like it. It'd be one thing if you had deep economic turmoil, and many Californians have experienced that, and we should be sympathetic to that, of course. It's not that she could not

pay her mortgage because she didn't have the means. She didn't feel like it. She thought it was a bad deal. So the bigger problem is that we have politicians who walk away from personal and professional responsibilities. That's the bigger problem. And so that's the point we make. But listen, she's entitled to her own arguments. And we try to zoom it out and say, at the end of the day, who do you trust to help oversee this massive economy and to get us back on track? We have inflation in California. That's a big issue. Gas prices are higher than anywhere else in the country. We have all of these economic problems. We have recession coming. People are concerned about the economy and they want a skilled hand to be overseeing and managing this. I mean, that's our theory. And I think

that will be borne out. Hey, Lonnie, it's Rob Long in New York. I was at one point a California voter for a long time and I am not a California voter now, but I have to confess, even as somebody who was, you know, kind of mildly interested in politics and kind of mildly active in politics, if you put a gun to my head in 2000, whatever my last year, I was voted in politics and kind of mildly active in politics if you put a gun to my head in 2000 whatever my last year i was voted in california and said describe the job of the state comptroller uh i wouldn't have been able to do it the state government is incredibly complicated incredibly designed to be complex i lived in la for 30 years you put a gun to my head and said describe the difference between a county supervisor and a city councilman. I couldn't do it either. Can you really actually do anything?

I mean, I really mean that. I mean, for one thing, I don't think I'm alone, or I don't think I was alone as a reasonably intelligent, you know, marginally intelligent California voter in having no idea how the state is governed. The state itself seems to govern itself by electing governors. Then it instantly decides it despises. And then adding to the what would now be the size of the Oxford English Dictionary state constitution in ballot initiatives. Is it first of all all is it governable and second what on earth can the comptroller of the state do like what's the what are the first two things you're going to do when you sit behind that big desk well one of the i'll answer the one question is easier to answer than the other i'll say this this. We have a lack of transparency in California and

state finances that would shock you, Rob. The lack of information that people have. I really don't think I'd be shocked. I think that's what I would expect. Well, it's mind-blowing to me how, for example, we can spend all of this money on, you know, pick your problem, homelessness, water, whatever it is, and never decide that we're going to tell people how well things are doing. And maybe this is a problem that's endemic to state government across the country. But certainly in California, for a state that markets itself as innovative, you would think that we would have more capacity and ability to tell people what's actually going on. So the very first thing we need to do, in my view, is create full transparency, open the books, evaluate how programs are doing, and tell people, and actually create a conversation with people. Now, people may decide not to listen.

You know, not much I can do about that. But I do think that the first big power the controller has is just to tell people where money is going. But secondly, I would say the controller is the chief auditor of the state, the only person who can go in and really dig into what's actually happening. So you can audit any program of state government at any time for any reason. And it goes farther than that. You can actually audit local programs like school districts that use state money. So it is a tremendous place from which to launch investigations, from which to tell people, hey, this is what's actually going on. So your biggest enemy when you take office, your biggest hurdle, your biggest obstacle will be Governor Gavin Newsom. I think it's anybody who wants a status quo, right? And that could be the governor.

Good answer, by the way, but it's good to have a newsomal answer for you. I don't, I don't, by the way, I don't, it doesn't really matter who doesn't like it because they don't have a say in the matter, which is the beauty of this office, I think, in some ways. So the broader question you ask, Rob, is a good one, which is, is a California governor. And there's all sorts of factors that go into that, that extend well beyond the controller's office. You've mentioned the initiative process.

I mean, you look at the initiatives that are on the ballot in California this year. Nobody has any idea at the end of the day what it is these things are going to do exactly. And I'll give you a perfect example. We have two dueling initiatives in California to address the question of whether you can engage in sports betting. And one of them is being sponsored by Native American tribes, and the other is being sponsored by large gaming corporations. And these two initiatives have drawn $190 million in spending. $190 million. And you know what they're left with?

They're left with they're both going to fail, because people are fed up with seeing the ads. I mean, they don't really care about sports betting anymore. They just want the ads to go away. And what happens is this pox on all their houses problem we have in California, unfortunately, I think extends beyond just that and demonstrates I think we do have a governance challenge in California. It's pretty fundamental. And, you know, how that gets fixed, I don't think the controller is going to fix it. I don't think the governor's going to fix it either. Hey, Lonny, have journalists figured out what good copy you are and what great copy you would

produce? Opening the books in this state will be like turning over rocks. All kinds of creepy, crawly, semi-recognizable forms of life are going to be screaming in sudden agony and that is going to represent one great story after another has anybody seen that yet i i i know that a lot of them have told a lot of journalists have told me that they file these public records acts requests with basically basically FOIA requests in California that never go anywhere. It's like, well, we'll make sure they go somewhere. So I think they're excited. Good. I wonder whether or not the standard liberal response is not going to be that we're spending too much money. It's just the wrong kind, or it's not enough. I mean, they never say that

we're not spending enough. We always have to spend more to solve these things. And the failure of a program is usually ascribed to insufficient funding, right? Our schools would be better if we just spent more. The homeless problem would be solved if we just had compassion and courage and spent more. I mean, is that going to hit people when they see exactly how much money is spent and that it's an inefficacious use of resources? They're going to say, well, we just need different people to spend that much and maybe even more. Yeah, I hope that's the desired. That is certainly the desired outcome. I don't know that that's where people will consume the information how they're going to consume it.

I think that the thing that struck me was this endorsement from the L.A. Times, which is an editorial board that is not known for being fiscally conservative. They make the case in their endorsement of me that we know it's not working, that spending more is not working because we see too many homeless people on the streets, too many Medi-Cal patients who go without seeing a doctor, and problems going unsolved. And so something is not right. And the answer of we just got to spend more, even they're not convinced that's the right answer. Now, it doesn't mean that eventually after seeing the data, they won't conclude, well, we just need to spend more. But I think everybody agrees we're at a point now in California where we just need to see the data. Let's just see what's going on.

And then once we see it, we can have an argument about what the right policy is. It's an old statement. You can't fix what you can't measure, right? That's right. That's right. Is it too late for people to chip in? Where do they go? Where do people go if they want to toss five bucks and just participate in this great moment? It's definitely not too late. And this last 10 days is critical in our advertising campaign. ChenforCalifornia.com, C-H-E-N-F-O-R, California.com. Check it out. Learn more about what we want to do. And yeah, sign up to help. I'd appreciate it.

Rob, all of us whose feelings are still hurt that you left, we'll find our feelings assuaged. Oh, I don't want to cause Lonnie any trouble getting one of those attack ads. Out-of-state New Yorkers supporting, you know, right, exactly. Right, dark money, dark money. But it is true. I mean, look, the wayia comes back is by having um uh at least a two-party system and the way two-party systems comes back is you know one one one elected official at a time yeah well political parties and what happens in um in states i mean it's a

gradual process it has to be a gradual process it's not going to happen overnight lon here here's what i love maybe it's because we're your first interview this morning, but you're enjoying yourself. Yeah, I'm having fun. That is a very, very good sign. I'm having fun. It's exhausting at times, but it's a lot of fun, and you meet a lot of great people. Have you seen your wife in the last couple of weeks? Have you said hello to your kids?

I saw them a few days ago. I'm actually going to be home for Halloween, which I'm excited about, which is good. And I wanted to do that. But we're in the stretch run. We got to do everything we can to get across this finish line. And I feel good about where we're positioned right now. ChenforCalifornia.com. For Thanksgiving, for Halloween, just run some ads of the entrenched state interests like Frankenstein saying, fire, bad, spooky, and reeling back in horror. Spooky. Lonnie, good luck. Thank you. Talk to you after the election when you are ensconced in your new office, we hope. Thanks to all of you. Good luck. Have a great day.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Where does the money go? Good question, doesn't it? And sometimes you've got money as well, and you put it someplace, and then you think, where did it go, and did it do exactly what I wanted it to do? Well, I'm happy to tell you that we're sponsored today by Donors Trust. It's a tax-friendly way to simplify your charitable giving without compromising your values. Okay, ask yourself, is cancel culture coming for your charitable dollars? Well, big banks that sponsor charitable savings accounts or, quote, donor-advised funds, end quotas they're formally called, have a history of slow-walking or altogether blocking donations to conservative charities. Charities that have found themselves in the crosshairs of the woke bob include Alliance Defending Freedom, National Review Institute, National Rifle

Association Foundation, Liberty Council, Turning Point USA, and others. Clearly, not every donor advised fund provider is safe for conservatives. Let Donors Trust help manage your charitable giving. Donors Trust was built with our listeners in mind. That would be people who believe in limited government and constitutional rights, things that are worth fighting for. If you already have a donor advised fund, consider opening a rollover account. It can be done in three simple steps just by calling our friends at Donors Trust. The Donors Trust team will work with you to protect your charitable legacy and help you achieve your charitable goals.

Partner with a fund that matches your values. To learn more, download the prospectus at www.donorstrust.org. That's www.donorstrust.org. To align your giving with your values, visit www.donorstrust.org. And we thank Donors Trust for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And our next guest, oh no, again. Okay. All right. John Yu is the Emanuel Heller Professor at Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He's a smart guy. He's a non-resident senior fellow at AIE and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. And he's smart and he's funny and all that stuff. He looks good in the tux.

Most importantly, though, of course, he's one of Ricochet's top legal analysts. Absolutely. Well, in the top 10. So he's here with us now to discuss things and tell us about his experience with the McRib, which I understand is back and has made his life immeasurably better for it. John, welcome back again to the Ricochet podcast. Thanks, James. Actually, the McRib's being closed out by mcdonald's this is causing great not forever yes yes they said

it's going on its farewell tour after have you well what do you guys cover on this podcast not the news come on we know we know that the rolling stones went on a farewell tour in 1978. I mean, it'll be back. I'm sorry. No, there's just too much loose meat out there that can be compressed into a simulacrum of rib form and slathered with sugary sauce. It will be back. Or it'll pop up in some foreign country and you'll have to do a world tour. You'll be in Malaysia somewhere looking for the lost McDonald's down some dark

corner that has your McRib. All right. Supreme Court stuff. That's why we have you here. That and your winsome personality. What's up? What's coming up? What can we look for? John, hold on. Monday. Hold that. Before you get to the coming term, may I ask one question about last term? The Chief Justice apparently, depending on whether you believe the reporting, you know more than I do, the Chief Justice apparently tried to save Roe in the Dobbs decision on the theory that if they overturned Roe, it would rip the country apart. Well, he failed. They did overturn Roe, and now abortion seems to be item number six or seven or eight on people's list of the issues that matter to them most. The chief was just wrong,

wasn't he? It didn't rip the country. It hasn't ripped the country apart. It's moving right back to the states where it should have been in the first place, right? And this is why justices shouldn't try to figure out the political consequences of their decisions. They're judges. They're not politicians. They have no idea, really, what the effect of their decisions are going to be. And this goes way back. Chief Justice Taney thought when he settled the question of slavery in Dred Scott that it would end the controversy over slavery in the 1850s. Instead, he hastened the coming of the Civil War. And I think you're

right about Chief Justice Roberts. He's a fine guy. He's a good judge. But what does he know about politics? What do even political analysts know about the future of politics? How can they tell? So I think you're right. I think he thought that if he could keep Roe versus Wade alive, it would reduce a political controversy about the court and maybe about abortion. This is the same theory that the justices in 1992 threw out there when they decided Casey, and that didn't work either. Instead of making abortion less of an issue, after 1992, abortion became even more of an issue. So, John, would you make a distinction, though, between the chief justice saying, I'm trying to, you know, psychologize him, which is probably a mistake, projecting onto the country, saying, oh, the country will be driven apart, the country will have trouble,

when what he really means is the court is going to have trouble, and the court is going to be driven apart, and the court is going to suffer, you know, what it suffered throughout its history, which is a lot of angry citizens disagreeing with its decisions, right? I mean, wasn't he really just trying to protect the court, not really the body politic? Am I not giving enough credit? No, no. I think you could have a narrower view what the Chief Justice is doing, which is that he thinks if the court doesn't change its positions too often and looks less political, more legal, then respect for the institution will increase.

And what worried him in Roe, this part I think may be coming true, is just that people are questioning the legitimacy of the court. Even for Dobbs, there was all this pressure being put on the court by liberals and Democrats trying to stop it from overturning Roe. Remember, in the elections, one of the big issues, I think all of the Democratic nominees except for Biden said that they would pack the court and increase its numbers. And that was obviously to stop it from overturning row. But I would say this, Rob, to amend your point is that there's a difference between short-term and long-term. So I think you're right. In the short term, the court has come under increasing attack. You've seen things you've never seen before, like the leak of an opinion and assassination attempt on your college classmate. Although no one actually explored the true nature of that, which might have been just a serial killer mowing down the Yale class of 1983 or 1987.

87, my friend. Going undetect. Going undetect. Good start. But then there's long- long-term would bother just maybe that's why it's such a good murder mystery it'd be a great english murder mystery right murder a bunch of no accounts the patterns right a lot of middle managers and morgan stanley start and Morgan Stanley start to disappear. Suddenly Charlie Cook appears on this podcast every week. But then there's the long-term institution, which is maybe this is better for the health of the institution long-term, right?

They step out of abortion. It goes back to the states. All that political controversy, fury, everyone who back to the states all that political controversy fury everyone who cares about abortion now that political energy gets dissipated out into the political can i ask a political question about that were you surprised at how i mean being even-handed here which i think Just how unprepared the politicians were for what seemed like, you know, they had, first of all, they had months and months and months of warning. But just what seemed like could easily happen, which is that they would have to go to the voters and persuade the voters of some coherent policy about abortion. And they just seemed like they were, you know, they had Sin's Roe to prepare for this. They were completely, woefully, crazily unprepared.

Well, I think Democrats seem to have been more prepared to me than Republicans. I think, you know, Republicans are like the, you know, people would say dogs that caught the car. They didn't really know what to do after they had succeeded. For 50 years years they've been trying to get roe overturned it was overturned and then gosh i think conservatives have been on the back foot on abortion ever since they lost that election that uh initiative and and then uh i think this was a mistake senator uh lindsey graham proposes passing a federal law to

a federal uniform law about abortion which is i think is unconstitutional but also politically uh damaging i the whole point was to send it back to the states i i but but i would say the same for the democrats who seem to be unable to sort of just recognize that that the country broadly speaking is, is pro-choice with restrictions. And, I mean, if Kansas is pro-choice with restrictions, I think you could probably say the country is. So what they don't want is they don't want eight-month, nine-month, you know, in-the-birth-canal infanticide, which the Democrats seem utterly reluctant to condemn condemn which just seems bizarre and bizarre to most americans who are basically pro-life you know 15 you know weeks 20 weeks whatever it is um are there any oh so so

if you're uh chief justice john roberts right and you're like going to bed and you kind of every now and then as you're lying you know and you're like what i can only imagine is canopy bed with like lots of chintz right and you know you're before you you know, in your, what I can only imagine is a canopy bed with, like, lots of chintz, right? And, you know, before you blow out your candle, which I imagine is one of those, like, colonial thing candles, like a candle stand. Like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve. What are you, what terrifies you coming up? Right. Well, the thing that worries you is what I was going to say about Monday, which is you have this unruly majority on the court to overrule not just roe versus wade

but many other important precedents of the past and also they've had enough haven't they don't you get the feeling that justice thomas he's deep in his 70s samuel alito has given a couple of very tart speeches recently these guys there's a kind of we've had it up to here with you people attitude that's new to me or is that right i wouldn't say i know this is a familiar emotion to you peter but i don't think it's bitterness or the desire for revenge i mean i i think it's actually uh they have been developing a philosophy and attitude towards judging, and I think it's more robust that this is finally the chance to see it with a majority. That it's been accumulating, it really started under Justice Scalia in the beginning, these dissents and concurrences.

They've never really had a majority like they have today. I think I said this before when we talked about the end of the term. And I've been doing these panels and debates about the court and abortion and affirmative action. Nobody really cares what the liberal dissenters think anymore. Nobody cares what Justice Kennedy or Justice O'Connor thinks. There's no more discussion of balancing uh and the questions that rob's raising what effect will this have on the country uh it's much more in the lines of conservative jurisprudence which is really uh what did the

framers think about this question what does tradition and history tell us about this question right so that is where the action is now if you're ro Roberts, who's not as fully wedded to that as the other five justices, that's what worries him when he goes to sleep is because he thinks every time this conservative majority takes the founder's vision and overturns some past precedent from the Warren court, or even from the Berger or Rehnquist court, he worries that that's going to be another short-term hit to the legitimacy of the court. And if he cares about the institution because he's the chief justice and its political standing in Washington, D.C., then he wants to moderate

that whenever he can. Let's take a look at some of the individual cases. One of the ones that's probably not going to get a lot of press, but I think is really interesting, is the pork producers case, which says people of California said, all right, if you're going to raise pigs and slaughter them, they have to be in a, well, I got to be in a condo about 400 square feet per pig. And if you want to sell them in California and the rest of the country is saying, well, wait a minute, hold on. The restrictions that you're placing make it impossible for us to sell to them. It's a commerce clause thing. And it seems kind of obscure and and meaningless but it's one of those things where the where the it's like texas and and school books

it has a ripple effect throughout the rest of the country because the market is so large how do you think they're going to go on that well my if i were a liberal judge i would just take my personal preferences which is i want the price of pork to go down so that mcdonald's will reconsider about the mcriib because now it's affordable to make and strike this terrible, prejudicial, irrational law down about pork. But I think this is actually a good example, James, of what we were just talking about. There's nothing in the Constitution that says that the Supreme Court has this roving remit to strike down any state law that it thinks violates interstate commerce,

the unity and free flow of interstate commerce. So all the Constitution says is Congress has the right to regulate commerce among the several states. So actually, Thomas, Scalia, some of the originalists have said, well, if this pork producer bill in California is such a bad idea, then Congress should pass a law and overrule it. But starting in the 1820s, arguably, the Supreme Court has long just said, we're going to strike down any state law we think interferes with goods and products moving freely across state lines, unless it's really about protecting health and safety in a state i think under that test the california law will lose because why california is not really concerned about the quality of pork in california after all it allows the sale of the mcrib in california yeah quality spam i just had

by the way you are claiming you are claiming excuse me spam is from here spam is from minnesota so just lay off the spam by the way i just had a wonderful hawaii misubi the other day which those of you know this is good yes a slice of spam piece of rice and then seaweed wrapped around it and then since it's the bay area they charge you 25 for it it used to be a food truck john in la i think it still is that would serve this kind of weird kimchi taco thing and it was kimchi in a taco with spam yes oh unbelievably delicious can i leave now can i leave now and go go no you cannot we got to get those guys to advertise that's i think the koki truck which is this famous Korean chef.

The Kogi truck, right. By the way, I ran into Princess Leia at the Kogi truck. I was lying in L.A., Venice Beach, your old neighborhood, at the Kogi truck. Yeah. And what's her name who plays Princess Leia, the short little actress? No, the other one. Oh, no, no, Princess Leia'sah's mom oh you mean natalie portman yeah she was just waiting in line right in front of me and uh had to get her spam kimchi anyway sorry

and don't tell me she turned around and said she turned around and said excuse me sir but are you john i've seen you at a federal society Society meeting. I was like, questions, questions, many you have. I have a question for you, which I just thought about just this minute when I mentioned that. Federalist Society, founded now 40 years ago, in 82, right? Wow. 40 years ago by students it was a student club 40 years ago uh six of the nine supreme court justices if i do the math right uh are were members um i, radically shifting jurisprudence in America in 40 years, going from being weird outliers to completely alien. There was no support for this in the administrations of Harvard and Yale Law School. of harvard and yale law school um they changed they really did change the country in 40 years

which is not a lot of time for for you know the judiciary branch they are now the establishment are they not it uh it is the most successful student club in the history of mankind but it's also i you i i totally agree having been a member from its very earliest days, I totally get your point, Rob. It's as if we put the kids in the Dungeons and Dragons Club in charge of Ukraine policy, which actually may be going on right now. But it's right, like you had this small group of people who were kind of excluded by the mainstream of legal thought and student life at the time. But this is also what makes me so optimistic is despite all the claims of dark money and the Koch brothers, this and Leonard Leo, that it really grew because of the faith in honest and open debate. It really, I mean, I used to go to the, I've gone to a because of the faith in honest and open debate.

It really, I mean, I used to go to the, I've gone to a lot of the meetings, especially as a student, and the places would be packed because you would get to see, you know, my judge Larry Silberman or Antonin Scalia argue with the best and brightest of the left, and you would really learn more in those debates than you did in class and what's the equivalent on the left is there an equivalent on left of the federal society yeah it's called it's called a very good model association of american law schools all the harvard faculty right so the left the left actually has tried to set up something called the american constitution society but it doesn't really work because, you know, the fun thing about the federal society is that younger people don't like to agree with their elders. Their elders are all the law professors

and school administrators who are far left-wing and run everything. So, right, that gives it the fun of it. Why would you have a group that basically agrees with all the professors? No one wants to go to that. So, the left doesn't really need a group because they have all the law schools. Well, that was going to be my question. Six justices on the Supreme Court, Federalist Society has such mind space, the left thinks it runs the country the new york times can't print long denunciations of the federal society had huge long profile of leonard leo as if he were some sort of james bond villain in a lair slowly stroking cats and taking over the it's ridiculous they don't know how happy he is when they say that about him when they do that do. So, but the Federalist Society, the originalists, haven't even touched the law school culture, have they?

No. In fact, I would say, if anything, over time, and you guys have talked about this with universities generally, is that dissenting voices in the university and in law school is getting pushed more and more aside. Now, there is cancel culture going on, and so it's much harder, actually, to have the debates of the federal society today than it was when I was a student. Because the kids themselves are more reluctant to speak up? This is the thing I think that's different about university cancel culture now versus what we all were worried about when we went to college, which was when we went to college, which was when we went to college, we were worried the school administrators and the faculty would suppress

dissenting views because of their own certain belief in what was good or bad. And now I think the censorship, I agree with you, Pierre, is coming from the students themselves. I think this actually is hard for us to understand. I barely understand it, but my impression is that it's social media that's actually responsible for this because the student, you know, you see, you know, you go to a talk or you're in class and students are saying things, but they're also, you know, Twittering, whatever the hell, Twittering, WhatsApp-ing, TikTok, they're communicating by social media all the time, constantly. And I think what the students worry about more than administrators suppressing speech is that they might be seen at

an event, or they might actually say something, and someone posts about it on social media, and then they get flamed for it, and they get socially ostracized. In fact, I'll tell you, there's this huge controversy going on right now at the law school here at Berkeley between Palestinian and Israeli supporting students. I don't know if you've seen this, but the Palestinian group, the pro-Palestinian student group and several other student groups signed a letter saying they would boycott any speaker who they considered Zionist or pro-Israel. Meaning any Jewish speaker, essentially. In fact, the dean here said that would include me, I suppose, because I think Israel, you know, I support Israel.

And so, then the Israeli students and supporters of the other has circulated a letter, I think quite rightly, saying that even though they have the right of free speech to do that, I think they think it's wrong. And then all these outside groups have poured in, all this social media, and there's like this funny truck. I've never seen this. Like a robotic protester truck has showed up in front of the school and has a billboard on it. And it rotates all the names of the student leaders of all the groups from the pro-Palestinian side. And then it has something from Game of thrones saying shame shame and playing weird uh bells and bongs about a robotic protester yeah it's like a truck and it just sits there and it

recycles it has an electronic billboard and it cycles through all the student names of the pro who are engaging in the boycott and then it has like game of thrones music i was actually i was so disappointed i wanted to see the, but I think the protesters took their lunch break. The robot had to get recharged while I was looking for it. You were hoping it would sell kimchi tacos. John, one more question before we let you go here. We haven't even talked about the affirmative action case yet. And there's Moore versus Harper, which is, I think, judging from the name, would be Mary Tyler Moore versus Valerie Harper, arguing over the residuals, perhaps, that they got in the sitcoms, but maybe not.

So what is Moore versus Harper about? This is a really interesting question, just as a constitutional matter, but it has broad implications for the 2020 and 2024 election controversy, because this is a case about when the Constitution says a state legislature does something, does it really mean state legislature? Or can the state constitution fiddle and change how that power is exercised? That's it in brief. So in this case, this is about the congressional redistricting maps in north carolina the constitution says the state legislature not the state but the state legislature

is in charge of drawing the districts but in that state uh the state supreme court blocked it and you have other examples in other states where governors have vetoed district maps. So this question is, when the Constitution says state legislature, does that mean the state legislature just wins and no other branch of state government is allowed to participate? The reason why this is, itself, this is important, but the reason why this has direct impact on the 2020 Big Steel claim and what's going to happen in 2024 2024 possibly, is it's a similar structure for presidential electors. The Constitution says the state legislature picks the presidential electors, right? The state constitution might say you have to choose the electors that the people vote for. But if the court here says, says no it's the state legislature then conceivably if the people of pennsylvania vote for biden and the legislature is republican what if they just say no we're voting the electors for trump the latter view would win so it really has enormous

implications for any kind of close presidential election going forward. That's a big deal. Can you give us a similar, concise, four-layman summary of the affirmative action case and what's at stake there? Yeah, I mean, it's whether the Constitution is colorblind or not. This is the Harvard case, right? Yeah, so this is a Harvard and UNC Chapel Hill have been using race as a plus factor. Although when you look at the statistics, it's way more than a plus factor, but it's considered a plus factor. You can use the student and applicant's skin color

to decide whether you get in or not. Every area of life governed by the government, according to the court, the Constitution prohibits the use of race. So, you can't use race in national security. You can't use race in policing. You can't use race to give out government contracts. You can't use race to give out benefits or hiring, firing, and promotion. The one exception, according to the Supreme Court, is admissions to colleges and universities. And this is a 2000 case called Grutter. I think this is the truck through the hole through which the diversity industry drove a truck because of that. And the logic, by the way,

was it's not that universities get a special dispensation to use race because they're just better on race. It was the claim that universities need to have intellectual diversity, and universities were allowed to use racial diversity as a proxy for intellectual diversity, which is actually very insulting to minorities, I would think. But because of that now, that's where I think you get now all this stuff. Oh, diversity this, diversity that. every institution now claims they need diversity and they use race as the proxy for diversity and and in this case the chief that famous quotation actually as far as i can tell it's the one it's the the one bit of anything that he's written that gets quoted regularly. The way to stop discriminating on the basis of race, I can't remember which case this is from, but the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. Isn't he declared on this one in a certain sense?

Yeah, I would say to the extent, right, I've seen before there's this conflict between what the conservatives want to do and overruling past decisions. I think on this one, you're right, that this is a case where John Roberts is going to vote with the majority and overrule past precedent because every single race case I can think of where he's been on the court, he has voted for a colorblind constitution. The quote you just mentioned, which might be the most famous of all of Roberts' writings, was in a case where he said you couldn't use race to assign students to schools in K-12 education. Right. And he's also did what I thought was incredible. He struck down part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a few years ago in Shelby County. Actually, I never thought the court would ever do that. And so I actually think when it comes to race preferences, he's actually been just as conservative as Justice Thomas or Justice Alito. So I don't think he's going to be, I think, I mean, it's actually interesting if you read the briefs to the case, they don't really

even engage in hard questions because I think both sides assume that the court's going to overrule affirmative action. There's a lot of debate, discussion in the briefs more about like, this goes to Rob's point, that terrible things will happen to our politics and society and economy once you get rid of affirmative action. They're not even really legal arguments. The defenses really don't do this to society. So, it's the same thing we saw in Dobbs. The pro-choice side never actually made their argument. That's right. In Dobbs, the- A legal argument. Yeah, that's right. In Dobbs, nobody really argued seriously on the court, oh, actually, there is a right to abortion in the Constitution. It was mostly, don't disrupt society by overturning past decisions. But I think, gosh, I don't know what you guys think. I think the commitment to diversity is even more rooted and strongly held than abortion.

I think about all the institutions where this has become the most important thing is racial diversity. So, part of what I sadly predict is even if the court strikes down Harvard and UNC Chapel Hill, you're going to see massive resistance in the schools and the universities and right media and uh hollywood and the big business corporate suites they still want to use racial diversity they're just going to hide it now we'll see and we'll have you back after some of these decisions have been announced of course because uh you know probably by that point your secret assassins will have gotten rid of rob and the rest of his game will be that's it we'll be going back to you for our for our co-host in my in my murder mystery rob pretends to be dead but is the one secretly

killing off his classmates because he did that seems like a lot of work that seems like too much work to the supreme court and kind of brett kavanaugh i get it but uh you know i'm not gonna put in that kind of obvious too obvious slow burn of resentment against all those middle managers at jb morgan right i'm never gonna write it down send it to our friends at caa right green light guaranteed thanks john we'll talk to you soon thanks guys well i don't know if i got that far all right take care so we'll have more decisions yeah and Green light guaranteed. Thanks, John. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks, guys. Great to see you. Well, I don't know if I'd go that far. All right. Take care.

So we'll have more decisions. Yeah. And it'll come a little later. What will be different about the day that it comes as opposed to the day today? Well, sun will probably set a little sooner as it tends to do this time of the year. Every day. Every day. And, of course, the body's hardwired to say, oh, sun's gone.

Day is over. I should go to bed. Of course, we don't do that anymore. But, you know, if you've got Bowling Branch sheets and you remember exactly how smooth and comfortable and wonderful they are, you're tempted when it gets dark to say, eh, call it a day. I want to get next to those sheets. You would if you had them. And I don't know why you don't, but let me tell you.

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subsequent years of washing. And I realized it doesn't come any better than this. Signature hemmed sheets is what they are. The signature hemmed sheets from Bowling Branch, well, they're the best selling set for a reason. They're buttery and cozy and super breathable and they're perfect for every season. You'll feel the difference the moment you lie down. Now, we have been raving about them for years. I have, but you can find more than 25,000 other stellar reviews if you still aren't convinced and I don't know why you are. Listen, at some point, whatever sheets you got now are going to wear out.

They're going to be thin, threadbare. They're going to get snagged. Just right now, get the Bowlin Branch. Start them off so they just get even better. And they're sheets that will make fall the coziest season of the year. 20% off your first set of sheets. Free shipping when you use the promo code RICOSHET at bowlinbranch.com. That's BolanBranch, B-O-L-A-N-D, Branch.com, promo code Ricochet. And we thank Bolan Branch for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Before we get to our talk about the two big things in the social media world, and they do count, Twitter, meta, because,

you know, Ricochet is part of that world too and a superior manifestation of it uh rob is here to tell you about why you would like to get next to in physical form the people who have the ricochet exactly here's the thing here's the one thing i read today in the wall street journal surrounding up the decline on these sort of big networks is that maybe smaller networks niche networks networks of smaller people of not smaller people, but smaller networks of fewer people. Smaller people here for me, you know, I'm 5'4". Yeah, exactly right. Are going to be more valuable and more meaningful to the members.

And I think that's true. We'll take Ricochet. Ricochet members like to have meetups, real meetups, IRL, in real life. Where? Well, when you join Ricochet.com, you'll know where. But here are some hints. There's a group meeting on the National Review Institute cruise on November 12th through 19. There's one scheduled in Pittsburgh on December 10 and 11.

Sarasota, Florida. There's one coming in January on the weekend of the 14th. And there's another in Vacaville, California on January 28th. And there's one in New Orleans next year. That's going to be really fun. And there are others in the works. And if you're thinking to yourself, well, I'd like to go,

but the schedule doesn't work for me or whatever. It's a big country and I don't want to fly, whatever. If our meetup locations are out of reach, you aren't doomed to a lonely existence. What you can do is join Ricochet. Then give us a place and a time, and I guarantee you Ricochet will come to you. For details on our Ricochet meetups, go to ricochet.com slash events,

find the module in the sidebar of the site, join Ricochet, and we will look forward to seeing you. When you say that Ricochet will come to you, it's a question whether or not people imagine some sort of streamlined vehicle, you know, modern with all the bells and whistles and the little satellite dish rotating in the top, or the Clampett's driving down Beverly Hills. Exactly right. I kind of like the clampet model

myself, but we're a diverse group. Twitter. Now, Musk went in, and Musk says he's going to fire three-quarters of the people. There was a TikTok video, and I loathe TikTok. I don't have it on my phones because I don't want China to know it's precisely where I am at every moment. But there's a video of some youth who showed us her typical day at Twitter. She didn't appear to do anything except have a couple of meetings about some wonderful projects. And I'm thinking, what possible projects can you be doing? I have been on Twitter since they plugged the damn thing in. They have amassed a grotesque amount of information about me, who I follow, what I like, what I do click on, links that I do.

And they are incapable of tailoring anything to my experience. Instead, I get ads for investing in platinum rods in a Rhodesian historical museum. Everything that they promote to me is absolutely irrelevant. Every innovation that they add is nothing that I want. Oh, you can listen to people and talk to people now on this thing. No, I don't. We want an edit button. We want a couple of other things, but really, why do you need floor after floor after floor of people who go there to a place to their meditation pod, and then they have their lunch, and they have their meeting, and then they have their espresso when they're one, and they go upstairs, and they play the cornhole game on the top of the roof.

It seems $44 billion for this enterprise seems preposterous. But Musk bought it, and he'd hoe the top execs. What do you think is going to happen? The prediction, of course, is that bots will flood back in and our democracy will be imperiled because we'll be just inundated by a tsunami of misinformation that we cannot possibly parch, and that we will see a tweet from Bob37896423, who has no followers and joined yesterday, that says something about the COVID vaccine that makes us instantaneously change everything that we believed about what we thought before. That's the worry, isn't it?

Yeah, who knows? I mean, if you're, you know, this is a guy who didn't want to buy it. He wanted to buy it, and then he didn't want to buy it, because he can't really afford it. It's very expensive, especially when the crown jewel tesla got a huge hit and then he decided he was going to take him to court to try to get out of it but of course all of the discovery i happen to know this all the discovery involved in that um pointed to don't even bother showing up to court and arguing that you didn't know about the bots you didn't know about this or that you knew about everything and we have the receipts because he he he texts he's a very

he's an uncontrollable kind of impulsive guy so then he decides he's got to buy it he's just going to go ahead and buy it because at the worst thing is just you know at least he's going to own it and he's going to open it up he's a free speech activist which is terrific and i'm 100 behind free speech activism the problem is that it's an advertiser-supported medium. And so advertisers don't really want to be next to a guy espousing views they find creepy or weird. They don't want to be right next to that tweet. So he's got to figure out a way to make enough money to pay his creditors, which is a lot

of money, and keep it open enough that he keeps his his advertisers which is a very hard road to hoe it's a hard road to hoe if you're nbc let alone twitter this is going to be complicated he i mean the easiest thing to do is to bring donald trump back but that would lose some advertisers but i don't think donald trump wants to come back because he's got too much invested down his truth social. So, it's complicated. It's a complicated system. I mean, listen, I love it because I'm a spectator,

but were I a shareholder of Tesla, I would be deeply unhappy. This does not look like it's going to be a home run. It'll maybe look like it won't be a black eye that's not success well i have a slightly different take on it but it's the take of somebody who's

also a spectator someone who's sitting here in silicon valley and what surprised me yesterday, the tenor of emails and conversations here, was how much difference it made. Nobody knows what he's going to do. What's clear is that he's overpaid. He has now loaded the company with so much debt that it's going to have to spend a billion dollars a year just making debt payments. It's very hard to see how all this will work but here in silicon valley we have google and facebook and apple twitter is a much much smaller company but in terms of mind share it's one of those yeah it's not woke anymore. It makes no difference, but it makes all the difference. And it is like living under a different sky. Here's what we know about Elon Musk. Well, excuse me. Let me put it this way. Here's what we know about the way Twitter has been run.

It's been shutting down certain forms of conversation. It's shut down Jay Bhattacharya again and again. It is a machine for making us pretend that we don't know all that we know. It is a machine for making us stupider. And Elon Musk, from the moment he founds, from the very moment he appears, is somebody, he seems to have a, let's put it this way, an irregular personal life. There are all kinds of things about him in which I might not want my children to model their own lives. But he has been in favor of the human mind, of figuring stuff out, of knowing more than we know instead of less than we know. And this is a man who has figured out how to send great big rockets into space and return them to earth,

not in some sloppy expensive way of splashing down in the ocean, but of landing right back on the launch pad tail first. He'll figure out something at Twitter. He's already brought the rumor circulating here. I don't know. Maybe it's been confirmed by now. First, he fired the old executives and then he brought back some of his buddies from PayPal,

including David Sachs, who has won highly until the word was that David Sachs was at Twitter yesterday talking to executives there about plans. So somehow or other, this matters, and somehow or other, it's a good development, and somehow or other, matters and somehow or other it's a good development and somehow or other we're going to see intelligence exercised in tech in a way that we haven't you know in in years i think no i mean i am uh i i root for him because i like him. I like everything about him. I think he's fantastic. Yes. I just note that very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very smart people who build really interesting, complicated things. Founder on the rocks of a media, a mass media company that this story has been told again and again a bajillion times this is an advertiser supported mass media company and they look so easy to run and the guys outside who are geniuses really smart i mean that paypal group of things are the smartest people in the room they i mean

i don't mean that as a as a pejorative i mean they really usually are the smartest people in the room um it just it's a very different thing because your customers and your bosses are different and um and you are dealing with a assorted mob of uh easily terrified spooked customers and the advertisers and incredibly fickle and uncontrollable users. Media companies are really hard to ride. They're giving orders to your executives and running a tight ship. And none of that matters. None of that matters.

You got to have the product. And the product is made up of people tweeting and it's paid for by the advertisers. And most of the people who tweet don't, most people on Twitter don't tweet. made up of people tweeting and it's paid for by the advertisers. And, um, most of the people who tweet don't, most people on Twitter don't tweet. They're not going to pay for it.

Um, they just like it. They like watching it. And, um, man, these are hard. These are hard, hard businesses to run.

They are completely different from anything these guys have ever done. Uh, I wish them well, um, they will be humbled. Well, wait, hold on. Excuse me. these guys have ever done. I wish them well. They will be humbled. Well, wait. Excuse me.

Just one little tiny note, addendum to what you're saying there. You and I both know David Sachs, and I have been in your presence when you said to David, well, remember, David made money on PayPal, and the first thing he did, he has since come back

to Silicon Valley and become an investor and made billions of dollars. And the first thing he did, he has since come back to Silicon Valley and become an investor and made billions of dollars. But the first thing he did with his money from PayPal was go to Hollywood and be a producer. And I told you that and you said, oh, well, welcome to the club. He's here to lose his money. And in fact, he made a movie. He made Thank You for Smoking. And I have been in the presence of rob long and david sax when you said to david sax you did something that almost nobody else pulls off you came to this town walked away whole and made a picture so there's something you only need one and he left something there ask if he's asking if he wants to make another that's true he actually

thinks he made money on it i mean it may be just sort of like, well, I didn't lose it. I mean, look, these are just a complicated thing. They're really hard, and they don't conform. And I mean, I want them to succeed. I really do. But you're not going to come up with a plan. I mean, already, there's like the worst kinds of neo-Nazi, white supremacist, the worst kind of people are back on Twitter and enjoying it. And if you're an advertiser, you're like, well, I can't be next to that. And so then they're going to be shadow banned that way.

So these are hard questions. There's no easy answers. I mean, his argument to make it a giant open town square, I just kind of naturally like. I root for it. But, you but you know you gotta pick and choose you gotta stop thinking stop thinking that your advertisement next to a tweet which draws some loathsome reactions is the same as endorsement that proximity is endorsement if it was i mean than any stadium but again you're correct you have to stop thinking that but that's the advertisers thinking that they don't control the advertisers i'm sorry i was just looking around at the person

who finished what he was talking about what i mean is that if you look at a stadium when you see a stadium and you see a big ad up in the jumbotron all right that's that's going blaring out to 60 to 80 000 people now if you've got three guys in the upper deck who are wearing 88 shirts, does that mean that somehow that advertising message is associated with them? It presumes that we're not too stupid, that we can't filter these things out. I don't connect an advertiser to anything unless the advertiser's message is specifically what it is. I mean, if it appears next to this or in this place, I mean, I'm with you. The more the merrier, the more freedom the merrier, and let people have the responsibility to themselves to deal with stuff that they find offensive and not have somebody curate it for me or tailor or market my experience. I mean, we talked earlier today about, well, we didn't actually, about Facebook, which has lost a huge amount of its value. Now, do you see that as being a going proposition in the coming years?

It's going to continue to make a billion dollars a year because their advertising machine is just ongoing. But it's a company that is flailing around, is spending huge amounts of money, $15 billion a year, I think, on this metaverse thing, which nobody wants. Which I think is the best news of them all, that they came up with this and nobody wants it well rob by the way i just i don't know why it took me this long to think of it but i think but i just thought of the perfect counter argument if you and i have been able to run ricochet there's a chance elon musk will figure out i believe that analogy is correct by the way uh i think that is a perfect analogy and that i think if he but he yes he i hope he's a lot more successful but yes well look at the problem is that he's not gonna be able to convince i mean he's got to convince the advertisers that what james says

is correct i agree with james that is true but that's doesn't matter what elon musk thinks what james thinks it matters what the consumer package group people think, and they don't think that. They're your customers. So you hate meta. I haven't been there, but I am very willing to defer to you, James, and your judgment. You know this world better than I do. The kind of little snippets I've read about and the couple of demos of it I've seen look just god-awful. Well, if you've seen the cartoony stuff, yes.

The cartoony stuff is ridiculous. And these avatars that float around without legs for six or eight months are preposterous. And the public squares are boring. And everything about it is boring. That's not the entirety of it. There are things there that you can do that are interesting. You can go to, for example, and you don't need Facebook's interface to do this, but you can go to museums online. And you find standing in the national gallery and wow this is kind of cool

but then you realize that the only way that you can get closer to that picture over there is to press this thing which lurches you flies you across the room to it and then you can't read the plaque that's there you can't really look at the painting so you have this you have this unfortunate half-baked introduction to what it could be that just frustrates you because you know it could be so much more. And until it gets to that point, you think, why do I want to spend any time with this enormous plastic remoras fastened onto my face? It's uncomfortable. It leaves marks. Your glasses, the bows of your glasses go against your head.

You don't dare stand up because you might run into something. Everything about it is antithetical to what it means to be a human, which means that until they can make it absolutely seamless with something that you slip on your face and is feather light, no one's going to want to be there. What will come, I think, and replace it amongst some is what Apple is working on, which is not to replace the human experience with a virtual existence, but to augment it in a way that adds some enhancements. And in a way, as curious as I am about that, because I would like in the grocery store to be walking along with my AR glasses and look at the rows of tomato sauces and tap here and see exactly which coupon pops up. I wouldn't mind that, but here's the

problem. I recently upgraded the OS on my phone to Apple's new 16, and it's interesting. It's got some nifty things to it, but one of the things it adds is an ability to customize your lock screen so it's work or it's sleep or it's focus, so you can tune out that distraction, that you can bring this one to the fore, all of these things. That's great, except the reason that we have the need to do all the filtering and the tuning is the existence of this little glowing red rectangle in the first place. In other words, here comes this thing, which is going to make your life really complex and interesting in ways that you kind of sort of wanted because you were always a geek about Star Trek stuff. Well, here it is. And then now X number of years later, okay, here's the fixes

for all the ways in which we've ruined your existence. So I spent about an hour or so setting up the customized lock screens to tell me whether or not I'm in work mode or sleep mode or focus mode until I realized out of hell with it. I'm just going to live my life as should you, by the way, which includes going to donors trust to roll over your, your, your charitable donating, donating and a bowl and branch, which means better, betterors Trust to roll over your charitable donating, and Bowling Branch, which means better sheets. And of course, the five-star review wouldn't hurt at all at Apple Podcast. And of course, as Rob and Peter will tell you when they started this thing, join Ricochet.

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Rob has dropped. He sends a note to us saying that he had another call at this very hour. So, Rob, hope your call is going well. James, next week? Next week. Bye- Rob, hope your call is going well. James, next week. Next week. Bye-bye. Next week. Bye-bye. Special call out. Hello to Elizabeth in Alabama and Tully in Michigan. All right. Next week. Ricochet. Join the conversation.