The Ricochet Podcast - Mickey Mouse Mask Mandates

Episode Date: April 22, 2022

The title says it all, yes? Not quite. It doesn’t tell you that everybody’s favorite Peter Robinson is off to Israel, and will therefore be filled in by everybody’s favorite Steve Hayward. And it also fails to tell you that the indefatigably cheery John Yoo is our guest! The hosts pick John’s brain on everything from the trouble in the Mouse House, to slipping mandates, and on to a sure-to-be... Source

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Get your data center AI ready. Someday is here with Nokia. Who'd you say that masked man was? 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.

All is included by the scientists that we need Title 42, that we be able to do that. 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.

No, with Stephen Hayward sitting in for Peter. Rob Long's here. I'm James Lileks. and we're going to talk to John Yu about everything, so let's have ourselves a podcast. I can hear you! Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number 590. And this is a special day today because we're pleased to announce the launch of Ricochet Plus. That's right. Unfortunately, Peter Robinson isn't here and our guest has bailed on us. So we would now like to announce the end of Ricochet Plus, which lasted as long as it's CNN inspiration. However, we're

here with a regular old Ricochet podcast sitting in for Peter Robinson this week. Stephen Hayward. Stephen, hello. Hi, James. Great to be here again. Always good to have you. And Rob in New York, I presume. I'm here. I am in Gotham. All right, gentlemen, before we get to the big issues of the day, I want to run something by you. Before we get to the big issues, let's do some small issues. Yes. Small, tiny, little issues. Little, minuscule. Little, 88-acre issues.

Let me see if I understand the contemporary progressive uh bible correctly slavery is wrong which it is um targeting muslims is wrong for the religion is wrong which it is um endless copyright extensions for big corporations is a payoff to them and allowing corporations themselves to actually control land outside of government is the ultimate expression of conservative ideas. And also don't anybody criticize this company founded by the guy we think was a Nazi sympathizer. Do I have that right?

I'm confused. I mean, you're talking about Disney. Yes. Yes, I am. Well, I mean,

every time I talk about Disney, um, somebody smarter than about Disney? Yes. Yes, I am. Yeah. Well, I mean, every time I talk about Disney, somebody smarter than me corrects me. I had a long conversation with our old friend, friend of Ricochet and journalist and business owner, Charles Cook, who is a Floridian. Floridian. By way of the United Kingdom. So he's like, he's either you know at some point that that english accent is going to sound very fakey um and he insists of course that uh he could conservatively is that that that we're kind of missing the point in florida in terms of the land use that florida has a lot of these kinds of special yes they do they do they have many including cape canaveral etc um so that's sort of that may or may not be um

the the best way to i mean i'm more i'm more concerned with um the the what seems to be at first glance the hypocrisy on the right which is that we we supported citizens united and i know we have john you on in i guess in about 10-15 minutes. So what I'm going to ask him is, is Governor DeSantis, a person I admire, are his actions against Disney consistent with Citizens United or not? Citizens United said, of course, that corporations have the right to free speech. And we, of course that they're that corporations have the right to free speech um

and we of course we broadly defined as conservatives believe that uh the left probably find is ms one might say of course they do what they're not insulated from is is reaction to it and and right fallout which is what everyone is always saying about cancel culture right yes yeah the market fallout right but you know these boycotts never really the market fallout doesn't really happen i mean disney's not moving out of florida and he's not kicking disney out of florida and people are still going to go to disney and they're still going to watch the disney channel i mean that's what's going to happen um that's what always happens um but it's right. Stephen, what's your take on this? Because, I mean, one of the things we're hearing a lot, of course,

and I'm just saying that very vaguely so I don't have to ascribe it to anybody, at least alone myself, God forbid, wouldn't want to have something out there that I have to stand for, is that, well, this is how the game is played. And the conservatives have been beaten up for years, for decades by the left, which has been getting its way by badgering corporations. And now, actually, somebody is pushing back on that and saying, all right, if this is the way the game is played, then we are going to play the game.

And the fact that it may run contrary to certain principles of conservatism doesn't matter, because that's gone, that's dead, that's over. We have to fight. And so there are people who, when it comes to taking away the stuff from Disney because of what they've said, there are people who used to love to hate that idea. And now they kind of hate that they love it. Yeah. Well, we'll have John, you on in a few minutes who can comment on one legal aspect of this. Although I do have to say, I don't really think this is a Citizens United type issue. And here I have to just brag a little bit about a moment in the oral argument of that case when Chief Justice Roberts asked the defender of McCain-Feingold,

doesn't Professor Hayward's brief contradict you on all three of those points? That was actually my spouse, not me, I have to say, but she doesn't matter. Right, exactly. I wasn't there. My wife just about fainted in the second row listening to the arguments. Anyway, what's going on here is a secondary issue, which is you can say anything you want as a corporation. You do have free speech rights, but the issue is, should we continue to extend corporate welfare to you? So I think this is the way, you know, politics ain't beanbag, as the old saying goes. And so for Republicans in Florida, say, fine, if you're going to put your foot on the scale, we're going to retaliate and take away some of your tax goodies. Now, I have seen, and don't know if it's true, but I have seen an analysis that actually this is a

bad move fiscally because it's going to transfer some tax burden to general taxpayers in that area of Florida. So it may be counterproductive. I don't know. But it could be that this move will turn out to be impulsive and counterproductive. But we'll just have to see. I like the instincts of DeSantis and the Republicans in Florida to fight back and say there should be a cost to your political virtue signaling. What exactly did they do? Did anybody remember this? I mean, I was thinking the other day, am I confusing statements that they made with rallies that they permitted, with Zoom webinars where people were talking about what they were doing? What exactly are we responding to here, just so we're clear? Well, I think it was Disney making public statements criticizing the, I'm going to call it the parental rights bill, not the don't say, I won't say what they don't say, we're not supposed to say, or wherever that litany goes.

And so they criticized the bill and said they were going to withhold campaign contributions, I think, from Republican legislators. And so the countervailing point here is Disney apparently enjoys, as you just referenced a minute ago, some special governing privileges. They have their own taxing and spending authority, apparently, in some special district. Remember when Disney was founded there in Florida, what, mid-1960s? That was still, in the days of Florida, mostly swampland. And so probably a great deal for the state. So maybe it's obsolete.

I don't know. But I think the general instinct to say, let's end corporate welfare. I mean, that's something conservatives have been saying inconsistently for a long time now. And it's great politics, I think. government handouts for everyone is a good idea yeah um florida especially florida which is you know 387 days of sunshine except for the 33 days of hurricanes it has it's still a great place to have a vacation business which is what disney world is that's why they went there um so there's it it you know you you whether it's governor dos santos or charlie chris is the governor it's Governor DeSantis or Charlie Crist as the governor, it's still Sunshine State, so people still want to be there. And it already is business-friendly in that it has kind of an appropriate tax structure. It's business-friendly in South Florida, especially now. So they're already doing what they need to do to attract business um the the special i don't i can't claim to really fully understand the

weird peculiarities of florida's um you know special administrative regions for whatever or whatever they're calling them um that they which sounds like the uighur camp to be yeah apparently there's tons of them by the way there's like this well hold on there's more than um more than a few uh but but it it is true that when a company or when you take a step in the political realm you should expect a response and i think what's happened in this case is two things. One is the awkward maladroit actions of a new CEO at Disney who replaced a very, very, very smart, sophisticated, smooth operator. I think probably the smartest, most brilliant entertainment executive in a long, long time, Bob Iger. So the new guy, Bob Chapek, he's just no Iger, and he was caught flat-footed. So he's not as good as Iger.

But also, nobody in Hollywood, in show business, expects anyone ever to respond negatively. So they didn't expect anybody to say hey wait a minute what they didn't they they this is the problem with living in a bubble you don't know there's another side you didn't read the you don't you don't believe there's a normal person who can marshal a normal argument that you might actually find partially convincing on the other side. And if you don't believe that, then you're absolutely flabbergasted and completely flummoxed when someone emarshals that response. Right. People believe that there's another side. They're just full of cretins and biblical literalists and snake handers.

Yeah, well, they never assumed. They just did. That is the problem with the MSNBC bubble, right? I mean, what's interesting about this is, like, I'm going to try this on Steve. So this is my new thought, my new big think for the next uh week i'm trying out uh we we accept that i the premise is left-wing bubble hurts liberals they live in this bubble they they all they do is read left-wing press they don't even understand they don't mean conservatives have to be bilingual right that's what the john pedora's told me this once and he's absolutely mean conservatives have to be bilingual. Right. That's what the John Podores told me this once.

And he's absolutely right. Conservatives have to speak liberal just to get along. Liberals never have to speak conservative. So it makes them do crazy things. It makes them espouse insane things that are just so weird and way out and leads to what's probably going to happen in the midterms. You know, I'm in heated agreement with that uh the my corollary to it i think is one that came from glenn reynolds uh at instapundit who said uh the left wants conservatives to shut up and what conservatives want is for the left to keep talking their own worst enemy right well the libs of tiktok right that's what that is just keep talking but so my the corollary for me for that is um the the big the biggest, most colossal error in judgment of the past, I would say, 10 years has got to be the invasion of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin, who a year ago was thought of as a smart guy, a brilliant strategist.

He was so smart. If you were a liberal, he took he stole an election and even if you were conservative you thought he had it you know this guy he's smart he's uh reinvigorating western values or culture or whatever you wanted like he was a university he was admired on the left uh not admired but feared for his smarts and admired on the right in some places for his like i don't know, traditional values. And he read the far right press in a bubble. You look at that desk that he's in, that's a bubble desk. And he believed it. And he thought, I'll be in Kiev in, I don't know, 48 hours. That is a fable for our time that's the problem with living in a bubble you never hear the real news and bob chapik vladimir putin people like that who don't hear the real news end up looking extremely foolish i cannot believe i just compared a decent man bob chapik who didn't do anything wrong with the world with the great super villain but you know what i mean like there's a problem when you're not listening like you are where the other side is as far as you're concerned is just

it's just lunacy i think that you you end up making big big errors you do and by lunacy of course when i was saying before that if you believe that there is another argument to pay for the people who make it are completely off outside of the pale not even necessary to engage that explains a lot of the controversies a lot of the reaction to the lifting of the mask mandate um people there was a there's a sect of people who are absolutely convinced of the efficacy of masks and they it's it's a devotion it is a way of they can walk onto a plane and if they see that everybody every single person on that plane has a mask and it's cloth and it's not exactly very tight, they're still reassured because the sight of that tells me I'm amongst my tribe. These are the people who know.

These are the people who care. These are the people who are compassionate toward us and realize that we live in a society. So the idea that there's any other position than that drives these people crazy and around the bend. And we've seen it on Twitter. We've seen it in the conversation today with the mask mandate. The Biden administration will talk to John about this, but I want to get your take on this. Do you think this is because they are responding to that small little percentage of people who are absolutely so wrapped up in their identity of the mask, of being the mask, good person, the virtuous

mask or is because they really honestly believe that this is a matter of public health and we have to get them back on the plane before their covet super spreader events that dump variant to be a 0.7314 when it comes to seeking fertility treatment, time can be of the essence. At Beacon Care Fertility, we are proud to offer prompt access to affordable fertility care. With over 60,000 babies born across our fertility clinic network, we have both the science and the expertise to deliver. We offer convenient payment plans and are partnered with VHI and Leia. BeaconCare Fertility. Where science meets life.

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Your perfidy. Your perfidy. Right. So I mean, I've thought for a totem that signals your virtue. Your perfidy. Your perfidy. Right. So I thought for a long time that the Biden administration would be very reluctant to give up mass mandates and the lockdown mentality generally, not just for bureaucratic imperative, which is bad enough, but for a deeper problem the left has had. It's Earth Day today, which we may want to skip over because it's boring but hey i won a writer's guild award for writing a sketch for the earth day special so i'm an environmental activist and i'll have you know i have that award i had that word proudly displayed in my downstairs bathroom right all right well here's the point let me do quickly which is uh both the environmental movement but liberalism more broadly today has taught people to be panicky, to be risk averse, to expect thatencies, especially suburban moms they depend on as a key swing vote.

But that risks angering the very vocal base of the party that believes that they deserve and can expect a zero risk world. So I've always thought that they were caught. So this judge has given them an off ramp that they ought to grab um uh and you know you see that they're having to they're going to appeal it but they're not asking for a stay of the district court's uh judgment which i think is a real tell that they really want to get rid of this but they've got to preserve their bureaucratic prerogatives i want them to win i want it to be reinstated on the day it was supposed to expire yeah and i want to be like a 37 minute period there in which people in planes are required to put them on at 30,000 feet for 30 minutes, be able to take them off, of course, while drinking and eating and then remove them completely when the ban expires. Yeah.

Well, you know, Los Angeles has said, no, no, we're still going to keep mass mandates on our mass transit and at our airport. So if you go to LAX or Burbank, you have to wear a mask in the airport and then you can take it off when you board the plane. How ridiculous is this? I know. But the thing of it is, is that they'll let you get away. They will let you do it if you are wearing a cloth mask, even though we know that no matter how many thread counts you got in that mask, that the virus is going to get through it. Look, I know John, you're going to join us so we can talk about the legalities here.

But did you not see that segue? Did you not see it? I did not see it. But I just have to say this. I think that we need to stop complaining about people on the left covering their mouths. The fact that people on the left want to walk around wearing muzzles is fantastic. Freudian even. And we need to

encourage that. There's nothing wrong with people wearing masks. If they want to wear a mask, I say double mask. That way it's fantastic. I mean, I think they are, it's a public good. And if you want to wear a muzzle, go right ahead.

I agree. I have no problem with people wearing them themselves. I just get back to the point about thread count. Well, that's a, I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. No, it's ruined. No, it's ruined. You just ruined it.

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The guy's running on some great stuff. But casting around for other podcast guests to fill his spot, we thought, do we have to? Do we have to go and break the glass with a little red hammer and push the button and get John Yoo? We do. And we did. John. Oh, come to this. That's right.

It's our favorite legal correspondent. Our only legal correspondent, but even so, our favorite one. John Yoo, who I understand is cowering under his desk right now because you had an active shooter event on campus, right? I wish. No. Because then I would finally be allowed to bring my gun on campus. You're the only person in the middle of an active shooter lockdown to say, well, wait a minute. Let's just, first of all, these are the Second Amendment rights. I always wanted to say, I know what you're thinking, punk. Did he fire five shots or six?

But in all the excitement, I forgot myself. So where do we begin? We've got Disney. We've got Florida. We've got the mask mandate being repealed. And we've got Rob about to say something. Can I just jump in here? Because what you missed, John, was that I suggested a legal analysis that is probably wrong and that you'll probably do your little legal mumbo jumbo thing on.

And I suggested that it seems to me that that if you if you support Citizens United, that that, you know, that this is, you know, the first amendment rights to corporations, essentially, you know, that uh that you know that this is you know the first amendment rights to corporations essentially um you know that that corporations are people to use the um the left sort of attack um that may be what governor desantis a governor i admire very much but maybe what he's doing uh uh towards disney is uh not necessarily in agreement with that. That he's probably, that cheering DeSantis on may also seems like it's a little bit

in contradiction to the spirit or even the letter of the law of Citizens United. Am I right? Am I full of it? Am I both? Well, always both. But, no, I think you have a good point. I think of it this way both well always both but i know i think you have a you have a good point i would i think of it this way uh so if you remember uh florida used to be a swamp now it's just a swamp with money but it used to be just be a swamp and they were trying to get the earth too by the way

just so you know so they were trying to get businesses to come right this is back in the right 60s or whatever so they offered disney a great deal to come, right? This was back in the 60s or whatever. So they offered Disney a great deal to come set up an amusement park. They said, basically, we're going to give you this special zone where you have mystical power. Actually, it sounds like Disney World back in California. You have mystical powers where you basically get to govern this area, this land, as if you were the government itself. Generally, you don't give that power to companies. So then Disney invests millions and millions of dollars. And now, because Florida does not like the position, as you said, that Disney is taking,

which it can under the First Amendment, and has their free speech rights to criticize policy, to take whatever positions it pleases, to give money to candidates. Florida is taking away that benefit. And the thing that bothers me is not that Florida and Disney are having a dispute about politics or policy. That's fine. As you say, Rob, Citizens United recognizes that. It's that Florida is basically pulling out of the deal that it used long, long ago to get Disney to build its amusement park. So it's as if, like, take New York City. It's as if you said, okay, we're going to let you build this huge skyscraper and entertainment complex in downtown Manhattan, and we're going to give you tax breaks. And then all of a sudden, after you build it, they say they say oh we're taking the tax breaks away oh john are you saying this is like uh you know charles river bridge or fletcher versus pack that

that uh florida's actually breaking or a due process violation are you saying that they're actually um breaking what ought to be a a permanent covenant with the company i mean they can't say it's uh permanent but i think disney reasonably say, look, we invested money in this area. You made us a promise. And now you're breaking some of the original understandings that led us to come to Florida in the first place. I bet Florida, if they were smart, I've never looked at it. I bet nobody has in a long time, carefully wrote the contract back then to get Disney to come and said, well, there might be circumstances we might have to change the deal but still if you're disney now on the other hand you could say these disney see the

disney management being idiots to threaten this huge money-making sweet deal in order to you know to make this political stand so like i'm half with rob um but i'm not all the way with steve i'm not sure it's a takings quite yet but it it's pretty close, it sounds to me. But couldn't Disney respond and say, look, you could conceivably change the terms, but wouldn't grounds for changing the terms have to be how we're using the land itself? That we are mismanaging it? That it's part of the the grant you've given us we are somehow uh yeah we're being singled out because of our views well and then couldn't um florida respond well when we wrote this contract it would never occur to us

that you as a company would be taking an active role in our internal politics that have nothing to do with the running of an amusement park i mean hasn't isn't this the problem isn't the problem now that these gigantic companies or even small companies are encroaching on areas that were walt disney could never by the way walt disney would be spinning with curses in his grave. A very conservative guy would never have imagined that his namesake company would be taking this position, or even that their better policy would be not to comment on policy. But I wonder if you're Disney, you would say, well, you're punishing us for our views. Have you done anything negative to other companies that support Florida? I mean, it's a classic First Amendment violation. So there's the standard cases. I want a parade permit. And you're you know you're not giving uh i don't even i haven't been to disney world of disneyland don't they have like a parade at the end of the day and shoot fireworks over you know the sleep i love how you pretend you know i love how you pretend you're not there all the time with your little mickey mouse hat your eyes all aglow the giant like come on i'm still pissed about that i can't is there something there i don't even know

isn't there some like pass you can get that lets you get in as much as you want for a year yeah something tells me you got that pass no i have no i have no reason to think that price doubled in the last two years or anything like that but but come on john i mean what's what's if you can't single out a company for arbitrary punishment, what's the point of being in politics? That's part of the perks of office, isn't it? But politically, it's not. I mean, look, there aren't that many, I don't think, right now, operative politicians as smart as Governor DeSantis. He seems about as smart as they come. He's chosen carefully the specific issues he seems about as smart as they come he's chosen carefully the specific

issues he talks about you know it was covid covid covid when it was covid and now he's putting to culture culture culture and he he's these are the building blocks of a what i expect to be a very successful maybe not ultimately but a very successful presidential campaign um what's the downside here for him just politically oh well this is your guys field more than mine but i think it's brilliant i mean isn't disney sort of doing exactly everything it can to help the santas become president of the united states maybe that's walt disney's secret plan here no but i i agree i think uh i i don't know what you guys i actually read a lot of the liberal press because it's fun and amusing and there's lots of cartoons to be colored in but they are freaked out about all this they they are constantly

scratching their heads and asking how is it that the conservatives beat the hell out of us in the culture wars every day and drive out their base and kill us in the elections? Because, you know, in their minds, they should be governing with two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate because all their ideas are so right. But I think they tip their hats to DeSantis. They do not know how to respond. If you watch liberal television, they're not really putting up good segments and commentators with any effective response, Rob. I think you're right. John, can I shift gears to the mass mandate ruling this week? First, three observations on the reaction to it that are amusing but typical. One is the media and the left talked

about it was a Trump judge when we were told that it was out of bounds when Trump talked about Obama judges. Second, she's unqualified. Unqualified. Oh, she's only 35 years old. She's too young. Yeah. From the same people who tell us we're supposed to listen to Greta Thunberg on how to fix the world's problems. But then third, and this is sort of a challenge, I think, to us, John, is, you know, there's always some district court judge in Hawaii who was giving a nature. Hey, move those routers there.

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Hey, Nokia, right on time. Get your data center AI ready. Someday is here with Nokia. Nationwide injunction under Trump. And now this judge has essentially given a nationwide injunction, but the nationwide application of the ruling striking down the mask mandate. So take those threads together. And then also the appeal from the Biden administration. Why are they doing this? Why are they taking this gift and handing it back?

First, can I say I went on a plane the day after the mask mandate was dropped and it was awesome. I was coughing and sneezing all over everybody next to me. It was great. No, actually, the interesting thing is flying from San Francisco to Washington, I would say actually 80% of the people still kept the masks on, including all the stewardesses. With those destinations? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, consider the point of origin, too. So I actually expected much more, you know, much more people walking around normally. So first, in terms of her youth and who appointed her, I agree with you, Steve, it shouldn't matter. I mean, what we should do is read the opinion on the merits, read the opinion and decide whether you

think it's correct or not. And so I always think like people who immediately start attacking the judge show the, they can't argue on the merits, but actually it's a really close case. It's not obviously one way or the other. I mean, I think there's a good chance it's going to get overturned on appeal, even though I think politically it's unwise. that the mask mandate was illegal was because of the overreach of the Biden administration in the past two cases, the vaccine mandate case, and then in particular, the moratorium on evictions. In fact, this opinion parallels almost paragraph by paragraph the Supreme Court's decision over the summer to strike down the eviction moratorium because the administration made the exact same stupid arguments they made in that first case they made again to judge mizell and they lost again i mean this administration so so they made the minister the claim under what's called the

public health services act and that basically says the government is allowed to try to stop the spread of disease. So that sounds good for the administration. But that says by and says things like fumigation, sanitation, inspections. And so Judge Mazzella said, well, maybe that means the government can require you to clean the inside of the airplane. But masks, she said, don't clean. Masks don't sanitize.

She could not find a power in that list that required passengers to wear masks. That is a pretty reasonable decision. the next time we have a pandemic. I hear that an awful lot, that decisions like this are going to make it very hard for the government the next time we have a pandemic, which they're already leaning into and sort of, you know, almost like waiting for it to happen again so they can get back to all these marvelous statuses. James, that's why you got to read my book from 15 years ago about emergency power. I'm still waiting for the movie to come out but wait can i because my case and my argument is that emergencies come up unexpectedly so you gotta conserve your power you gotta hoard it as president and only use it when it really matters so petering it out on things like no more moratorium no more evictions or trying to get everyone to get a vaccine or this one for some mess it squanders the power but as your point is for when it's really going to matter in the future but don't we want this to be settled here i mean don't we want the

biden administration to take this all the way to what don't we need a ruling here to understand what the limits of a federal bureaucracy really are because it is in you know it is the feckless congress that kicks these things into the bureaucracy the unelected mandarins here and it doesn't matter whether you're left or right doesn't matter the republican or democrat they all love it they would rather have this person somewhere in some faceless office do the the hard work don't we need to have somebody at least kick it right back where it belongs with the accountable politicians i mean now somebody was gonna say you really do need to read this nobody can see it this is a book about what

rob's talking about so i just came out for those of you listening at home john he was holding up a book and you know what i'll be honest it's called the administrative state and the supreme court um and it looks i gotta say boring it looks boring and expensive what's the price on that book it's just like something on the disney streaming channel it looks like the kind of thing you you assign your students exactly and then they put it and then as the student loans pay for it oh my god you figured out the whole thing yeah i figured out your scam you uh but no your point but that the point. That's the point of the book is what's happened. The political dynamic is Congress doesn't want to make any hard choices because if you

make a hard choice, that means someone's going to run against you for reelection. So you don't make any hard choices. You let the bureaucracy decide all the tough questions and then you blame them and you support them if they do something good. And that's how you get reelected. The problem is the decisions are made by bureaucrats like Dr. Fauci, who are insulated from any kind of political accountability. That's true. The mask mandate. Most people do. Most people make a distinction between the bureaucrats and the legislation.

It seems that people just sort of view it all as the big, amorphous, all knowing blob of government over there. Whether the regulations come from somebody in a regulatory agency or come from Congress doesn't really matter. What matters is we've got to get people to mask because we've got two years to slow the spread. And masks, we know, are our best tool and they work. So, I mean, it's a necessary argument to have. I'm not exactly sure that it has great resonance with the people who are anxious for daddy government to just do everything and make us safe no you're right james that's what that's what the elected politicians bank on is that people will be confused they won't make distinctions they don't really know who's in charge so they'll just blame the government they

won't blame their local congressman or congresswoman who they like personally and you know does them favors constituency service and so the real look this is something actually that's flying beneath the radar but this is something conservatives on the supreme court are aiming to fix they are trying they've got a case right now before them that says if the court strikes that the court is going to try to place limits on how far congress can go and giving power over to the bureaucracies and force it to make choices it's like people are terrified by that because i think it's going to deforest the entire country these wonderful this canopy of green wonderful regulations laws we have are all going to be chopped down and mulched

and speaking of which well if they are at least at least your backyard will look well actually your backyard look terrible anyway i'm in california i don't have a backyard i have a you know i have a little six by four foot of uh plot of artificial grass back so james you're getting segment interruptions in stereo right now i know it's really quite remarkable i've got a i have a pro and i have somebody who doesn't know what he's doing right the point would be though if you do find your tree gone and lord Lord knows that we do have that, I've lost huge, big, glorious, expensive trees, and you've got this space in the sky that you want to replace, and what do you do? You've got to sit there and wait for how many years to fill up? Well, let me tell you about something called fast-growing trees. I have a lot of trees in

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and you will get 15% off your entire order. Get 15% off at fast growing trees.com slash ricochet, fast growing trees.com slash ricochet. And we thank fast growing trees for sponsoring this, the ricochet podcast. So Steven, you had something for John about the regulatory thing, the case before the Supreme Court we were talking about, because I was wondering

where that was going. It's been floating out there for a while. Are we going to get a rule? Let's ask John, how do you think the court is going to rule when it comes down to perhaps saying the regulatory state has, dare I say, gone too far? I know that sounds absurd, but it's possible they might have. It's up to Rob's buddy Kavanaugh, actually, because there have been four justices who've said pretty clearly, I think, that they want to cut back on Congress's powers to get out of these questions by delegating them to the agency. So in James's point, if you want to make environmental laws, you want to stop pipelines, you want to set gas mileage requirements, you want to force us to have electric cars, then Congress vote up and down on it. And so Kavanaugh, I think, is really the fifth vote, and he has signaled that he would be interested in going along. Very boring on the facts, but it's an environmental law case where the court is squarely being asked to strike down laws where Congress gives power too much power away and decide for yourselves.

The mask mandate, in fact, to Rob's point, this is actually one of the points that the Supreme Court made when it struck down the vaccine mandate and when it struck down the eviction moratorium. It said Congress is in charge of the major questions in social and economic life. And we're not going to presume Congress didn't make a decision on masks. We're not going to presume Congress just lets the administration decide on vaccines. We're going to assume if those decisions are before us, it's up to the legislature. And we're not going to let the administration get away, as James suggested, by, you know, bending, squeezing, stretching the law in all its vagueness to suddenly say we can impose masks, we can make you get a vaccine, and we're not going to let anyone get evicted. Well, prediction for you, possibly. of the Supreme Court strikes down the CDC's authority to impose the mask mandate and other things. I've thought from the very beginning of this and the beginning of legal controversies that what was going to come out of all this was a demand for a cabinet-level Department of

Pandemic Planning and Prevention. The only way to cut Anthony Fauci's salary, by the way, is make him take secretary's wages. Anyway, like we got with the Department of Homeland Security, which I think was a bad idea. And I can fully a biden and the democrats proposing that they'll probably think it's a nifty way to put republicans on the defensive heading into the yeah they want us all to die they're against this they want they want you to die in another yeah right exactly uh so i don't know i mean that that uh you know i'm i'm all for the supreme court uh making major readjustments to the balance of power between the branches, but I can easily see that the liberal answer is going to be, and I don't think they have the votes now, but they might in the future. Okay, fine.

Let's have more powerful, new and more powerful agencies. Hey, Steve, can I, well, have you met a congressman? They're morons. Like, these guys are like used car salesmen. They've got to run every two years. They spend about 20 minutes reading bullet points because they're too busy doing nicely put constituent services, but mostly just glad-handing and raising money. And they're basically on the take, right? They're sleazebags.

They're designed, the system's designed to make them on the take. Bureaucrats, on the other hand, are smart and they study and they're experts in the field. So we should always defer or on the side of the bureaucrat judge, the bureaucrat judgment, I should say. Yeah, well, you're right that there is, I'll put it this way, there is an asymmetry of information and knowledge of how the levers work between the bureaucrats and members of Congress. However, there is a huge opportunity for just a handful of House Republicans to change that. And whenever a House member asks me, as they used to when I lived in Washington, what would they do to try and contest the bureaucracy? I always say there are two Democrats who you ought to study closely, John Dingell and Henry Waxman. Dingell, chair of

the Energy and Commerce Committee, Waxman of Government Oversight Committee. They had large, very skillful staffs who got into the weeds. And I can tell you this has been true when both of them were in the House, that you did not want to be on the receiving end of a letter from John Dingell if you're at the EPA or the Department of Commerce or wherever. And so we need some Republicans who have that kind of determination and skill to emulate their method. And we really don't have very many of those. Okay, but i'm just going to go even farther than that so i'm i'm that that seems that answer is too smart and and and uh i'm going big it's 2022 so it's the first quarter of the century is now over essentially in that quarter century all we have seen are colossal, massive failures of experts from an Iraq war that saw no weapons of mass destruction to a financial collapse from financial experts to the experts in the epidemiology department that failed and gave us.

Hey, move those routers there. Oh, hey, it's's me your data center and as you can hear i'm making some big changes in here because ai is making some bigger ones everywhere so i took a little trip to nokia super fast routers optical interconnect fully automated the whole data center networking portfolio and they deliver that's them hey nokia right on time get your data center ai ready someday is here with nokia ridiculous solutions to um i mean in some way we mentioned it before you could even i guess throw in there the idea that uh the insane blunder by somebody, by Vladimir Putin with his ridiculous intelligence, this has been a humiliating 22, 23 years for the so-called experts in almost every realm.

So maybe the grubby little local businessmen who have to run every two years and their bad suits and crappy haircuts and their hands outstretched for the hand out maybe maybe the system actually worked better when they were the final maybe that, well, you really want some crazy congressman from some weird place to be second guessing Dr. Fauci. Maybe the answer to that question is emphatic, resounding. Yes, we do. This isn't a rejection of expertise because expertise can work. Expertise can come up with smart solutions. It's a rejection of the experts that we've had who seem to have been just microwaving their seed corn for the last 10, 20 years, not doing anything but protecting their phony baloney jobs and being, well, confusing credentialism with expertise. In other words, if I have a piece of

paper from this institution in this branch, that therefore means that I have judgment, wisdom, knowledge, et cetera, when it just means basically you said the things that needed to be stayed to get the paper. So we don't try. I mean, we still trust brain surgeons to be experts because we believe that there's a process there that requires a certain level of expertise in order to get inside your head with pointy little things. But when it comes to a lot of these other things no they're just simply experts because we've deigned them such they've been tapped on the shoulder twice by the by the stream of the straw cane of uh of government and they get the power so rob's right i mean we have i mean i would differ with you about the iraq war that's a that's thorny than that you might want to toss in the afghan withdrawal as a

as a experience as an incidence of bad bungled expertise. But it's that these institutions themselves have failed every stress test they've passed out on the treadmill, you know, 30 seconds after the belt started running. Tells you, yes, that whatever is producing our class of smart people, John, of course, excluded from this, is not not doing very much included in this i did i make it not make it clear i i included john in this i'm i'm waving the flag for i'm carrying the colors for expertise it's me and me and fauci are running for president yeah they're out can i just make one adjustment to the rob's point is i i think there's a difference between expertise and all these failures you're talking about, which is expertise should not include making fundamental trade-offs about what people want. That's what our members in Congress are for. So I think what's happened is that experts like Dr. Fauci have expanded their powers because Congress and the president allowed them to

take over issues which aren't really questions of expertise. So like whether to have lockdowns, is it worth slowing the spread of the disease in exchange for the great losses and trillions of dollars of losses of economic activity and people, medical problems going up and the loss in education? So that's not an expertise issue. That's just, you know, what do we want as a population? Do we want one or the other? So I think that's the real problem is that there are undeniable areas where experts help, but I think they've taken over the basic questions we should make, you know, make in terms of the values we want. Well, look, I mean, the premise of Rob's point is that today the tacit assumption of

expertise is that it's a singular thing. James mentions, you know, brain surgeon. We want an expert brain surgeon. But you can also ask for a second opinion if you're doubtful of what one surgeon is telling you. And then we make our own decisions. In the case of so many areas of government today, expertise allows one answer. Expertise is sort of collective, right? Trust the science. Trust the science, exactly. And that's the problem is experts disagree, but disagreement, as we've saw with the persecution of Dr. J, Bhattacharya, Scott Atlas, if you dissent from the party line, nowadays you're denounced, punished, et cetera. And so there, back again to your point, Rob, is that the citizen legislator,

they don't need expertise to bring a common sense understanding of trade-offs, as John puts it, and that's why they should have the final word on these things. Yeah. Well, if I have to get second opinion for a brain surgery, I'm going to ask a Mayan ceremonial tree banner just to see a different way of that. The lockdown, yes, the lockdowns, when this was all going on, we had, and we're forbidden to go to work. People were barred from the office for just a couple of weeks, mind you, turned into two years, destroyed downtown, absolutely wrecked the real estate market. People now in Minneapolis are not going back to work like they would before. So businesses are closing.

It's just fantastic. But one of the first things they did in our building up in the top floor, there was this wonderful little outside deck that you could have. And they had a problem because if people did come to the office during this period, they might move their chairs closer together. They might move their chairs closer than six feet on this wonderful outdoor deck with the wind blowing and taking the virus everywhere. Nobody was going to be here. So they had to figure out what to do. Do they wait down the furniture so that it cannot be moved? Do they

tie it in place or do they remove it? So people are required to sit outside at a distance and this wonderful deck, 15 stories up, shouting at each other through megaphones in order to be heard over the noise of traffic i will tell you this though they were pretty good chairs but really when it comes to lawn chairs when it comes to anything in their backyard i got something for you that you're going to love because it's affordable it's beautiful and it's that it's it's the best i've got these chairs these wicker things i don't know where i bought them humidity got into them they sag i had somebody actually fall through one of them the other day. Embarrassing.

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on my rundown here i was like can i make a pitch uh here for a better i think better political response to experts than to attack experts, which is, think about the mask mandate. We shouldn't have a problem if people want to wear masks, right? Why don't we rely on decentralized decisions? That's what the natural conservative answer is for most things, is if we're not sure, if experts are disagreeing, like Steve says, let's let the states decide let's let private companies decide you know nobody stopped united airlines from requiring masks i mean i think all the airlines showed what they think of the science behind masking they all said immediately they're not going to enforce starbucks and mcdonald's even even i mean it's impossible to eat a mcrib through

these things by the way but starbucks and m McDonald's, right, they can still require you to wear a mask when you come onto their private property. And then let states, cities, counties decide. I think that's the better conservative response is if we're not sure what the answer is, then let's have the traditional American response and let the decision be decentralized throughout our country, and then we'll figure out what the right answer is. Decentralized. That's amusing. Don't you know that the very same strictures that should apply in dense Manhattan ought to be the same in North Dakota, in rugby North Dakota, that the people in a VFW club in the outskirts of rugby should be required to do exactly what they're doing in New York City, or else this nation means absolutely nothing. Anybody got

a last one for John before we let him go? i know he's got probably to finish lunch and go teach somebody and then sell some of those 432 dollar books that he was waiting not to sell him he assigns them that's how he sells them it's the great cam in the world i'm sorry john i could probably get a pdf version of that book right a kindle edition for 99 cents because lord knows there's no you know rob rob's definitely working on a mini a comedy miniseries about you series about professors oh yeah that sounds big that was so big yeah all right so uh john um big uh supreme court uh decisions coming down in june right any is there any hint do we know anything i mean is there it's it's locked tight right i mean I mean, it's a crazy thing, right? Here's the interesting thing that would drive you crazy is that the decisions have already been made,

the opinions already, for the most part, drafted. Because right after, you know, the oral arguments for the cases you're talking about, the big abortion case, the big gun rights case, the justices vote the same week that they hear oral arguments. So they voted months and months ago. They know already how these are coming on. They've been drafting the opinions. They're probably getting close to finished. So it's amazing. The place does not leak at all, but the decisions are already done in a way. It's already in the can. What are they doing? Post-productiongi yeah marketing just taking a little you know like so so it doesn't leak is it because it's all like is it still typed i mean how do you not leak something that's on an email that's on a dock that's like what is it in a drop box something i

mean how do you actually in the beginning when the court started using computer networks? So when I clerked there, so I was trying to describe to someone what being a clerk was like. It's like I was like the Japanese office lady who brings in tea for the justice when they think deep thoughts. But I'm just like the right hand person. So you watch when I clerked there, they there, they were just using word processing and emails. And so what they did to prevent this problem you're talking about, Rob, is hacking, like, why are the Chinese hacking the Supreme Court? They actually created their own network that was physically separate from the outside world. So there was no way actually

from anyone from the outside world to interface with the Supreme Court network. My understanding now is that the Supreme Court actually is interfaced with the internet, and they have, like, if you could figure it out, you know, they have email addresses. So, like, I bet, you know, Justice Breyer is, I love Justice Breyer at SupremeCourt.gov. But they, so I, now they have real email number at yeah emanation at supremecourt.gov so jeffrey tubin has those addresses nailed down exactly right right so the that's really good so the the um interesting thing is i think they're just a subject to have being hacked as you know the rest of the U.S. government, which means I guess Xi Jinping already knows how the abortion case is coming out. Yeah, they're subject to be great.

So a phishing email then goes to somebody in their 80s and they go, oh, I guess I have to reset my password right now. And the next thing you know, all the stuff is spread all about. That'll be great. That'll be fantastic. In terms of like signs, none of the justices have given speeches or anything that indicate one way or the other how they might be deciding. There have been times when they have given speeches and people said, oh, Justice Ginsburg seems dour and unhappy in this speech.

And they tried to project forward where that meant she was on the losing side. But so far, we haven't really seen anything like that one way or the other. It's impressive. It's impressive. Kremlinology is what we have to bring to it now. Speaking of, I mean, and Kremlinology is back, by the way, because everybody was interpreting this photograph of Putin the other day. He appears to be gripping the table for support. His right has a tick his face is moon puffy from prednisone and he's slouched in his chair in such a way that indicates that he's very ill and then somebody pointed out the exact same posture and picture and gripping for about two or three years ago maybe wishful thinking perhaps anyway john it's a pleasure we look forward to the sitcom rob is

writing about law professors called you who it'll be up in netflix um which about 14 people will be watching in 2024 if i'm lucky well it's a squid game for 2023 guys that'll be a legal squid game i can't wait we'll talk to you again john when the guest we really want to talk to bails on us we have no other choice so it's been a pleasure see you in line at mcdonald's for that delicious juicy dripping mcrip thanks guys Before we go, we've got a couple of things. Stephen, you're going to be with us next. Hey, move those routers there. Oh, hey, it's me, your data center. And as you can hear, I'm making some big changes in here because AI is making some bigger ones everywhere. So I took a little trip to Nokia.

Super fast routers, optical interconnect, fully automated. The whole data center networking portfolio. And they deliver. That's them. Hey, Nokia, right on time. Get your data center AI ready. Someday is here with Nokia. Because Peter is in Israel, is that correct?

He's in the moment, yeah. Right. But we're going to be talking next week with you about your book, which I'm holding up you like now, called M. Stanton Evans Conservative Wit, Apostle Freedom. And we'll talk a lot about it and sell a lot of books. But briefly, if you had to give me the

elevator pitch for this book and tell me why I should buy it, what would it be? And keep in mind, we're not in one of those New York skyscrapers that goes up 100 floors. We're in my building, which the Star Tribune offices are on number 12. So, ding, doors closed, go. Stan is one of the unheralded heroes of the modern conservative movement from the 60s into the 90s. And was a modest guy who didn't tout his role and his achievements. And so I thought he deserved to be remembered and celebrated. He was my first mentor out of college. And in addition to being a top quality journalist and thinker, he was also a great wit. Did you ever know him, James,

when you were in Washington? No, no. As a matter of fact, I didn't. And when I got the book, of course, like everybody does when they're sent one, I went right back to the index to see, indeed, if I was quoted in some way and I wasn't. And then I look, so you got Lilacs and you got Long. Okay, I'm not in it. Okay, but Rob isn't either. Yeah, well, if I'd done the index, I would have done the, you know, you always hire those out. I would have done the William F. Buckley trick, what he did with Norman Mailer. I would have put Lilacs, James, hi, James, right?

That's the real trick, right? Well, what you do is, you know, the appendix has some of his great one-liners, right? That's the real trick, right? Well, what you do is, you know, the appendix has some of his great one-liners, right? Stan was one of my favorites. Young conservatives in 1964 had to get over the Goldwater defeat without grief counselors. He'd spin

these things off very deadpan, and he was just brilliant at it. I have to say that you sent me a copy of the book, and I told gutfeld greg gutfeld who was i guess an intern for him yes and kind of like looked up to him like idolized him and i was mentioning to greg that you'd send me copies oh i want i want to read it so i gave greg my copy and then i bought a copy oh you're a great man how much i uh i'm looking and i haven't read it yet but it's how much i'm looking forward to reading it i bought one wow yeah thank you for plugging this we'll talk more

about that next week we'll have lots of quips and excerpts and steven will expound about his book and why you should buy it um by the way that would have exceeded the 12 floors i would have been standing there with a frozen smile holding open the door while it dinged an alarm but still it was worth it uh that was enough to make me want to buy the book. Good elevator pitch. Before we go, a couple more things. Rob, I believe you have the obligatory Ricochet promo, which involves alcohol and staggering. Yeah, I want to make sure everybody knows what's happening here. We are doing a Ricochet bar crawl in

New York City next month. We're doing it in partnership with America's Future, which is a group of sort of young conservatives, and they're joining us. So it's going to be kind of a big bash. It's in New York City next month. Members only. So please join. It starts at City Vineyard, which is on the Hudson. Technically, the address is 233 West Street, but it's

actually right there on the Hudson River. It's beautiful. It starts at 3 p.m. Are you presuming that people will still be quaffing in the night hours? We're going to go until it's over. We're going to have a bunch of special guests. I don't want to give away too many names, but we're going to get a bunch of special

guests going to show up. So please, come enjoy some drinks. Meet some new people. If you're a member guests going to show up. So please come enjoy some drinks, meet some new people. If you are a member, we want you there. If you're not a member, here's the solution. We are offering 50% off our annual membership right now. Just go to ricochet.com slash special. Use the coupon code

future at checkout to get the discount as well as a free pass to this event. And I have to say this, and I'm going to get in big trouble for saying it, but I'm going to say it anyway. We really do need you to join Ricochet. We need you to join. We're not free of the attacks from left-wing agitators entirely. And we will probably have to make a financial settlement for a really stupid thing.

And it's going to cost us some money. So if you're looking for a reason to join Ricochet, at the very least, it could be just because we will probably end having to uh pay some money to a person who will legally um be owed this money even though it doesn't seem fair um i probably shouldn't have said what i've just said but just know that more more coming in the next month or two but if you're on the fence join and then i'll tell you all about it uh after the fifth drink at the meeting boy on uh on may 14th so it's saturday may 14th 3 p.m 3 p.m until whenever yeah whenever question mark question mark that'll be great i'm making the decision on whether i really want to go i really yeah come why not what do you mean no i do and so i'm just trying to figure out the whole uh logistics of the rest and whether or not i want to come in because i hate coming into new york every other city in the world is easy new york for some reason i just getting from the

airport into manhattan itself is always different so i'll probably do newark and then take the train new york is fantastic yeah that's probably what i'll end it's 20 minutes i'm serious 20 minutes okay also uh city vineyard is right on the Hudson. So if you stay in someplace on the west side, like, it really is 20 minutes. Right. Well, I'll make my decision today, and then we can post it on Ricochet in case that's the thing that finally gets people off the fence. Can't really think that it would, but it's entirely possible. I think it will.

Oh, well, Alex, I want to go and look down on him because he's a short man, And it would be a pleasure to just sort of stare from the heights of my commanding 5'8 manliness. We'll get a little special chair or something for you. Right. Or some coffee cans chock full of nuts that I can strap to my shoes. And that would boost me, I think, to eye level at the rest of it. Stephen, anything to regale us with before we go? We've got to get out of here. But, of course, we've enjoyed you being with.

And thank you for sitting in for Peter. Aside from everyone buying your book, M Stanton Evans, um, any parting shot? No, I got nothing. I'm,

I'm worn out keeping up with you guys. Well, the, uh, ever, ever pervasive mind of Rob Long, anything from you before we cap that bottle? Uh,

not at all. I was, this has been a lot of fun um it absolutely has and we're out you know short of my i know we got out of here in an hour this is perfect who needs guests just have you you and steven and me and and we're good don't let peter hear this just kidding can't wait to have them back podcast brought to you by bowling branch by fast growing trees which probably grew about three inches since we started talking about them and outer please support them for supporting us and join ricochet today.

If you wouldn't mind, by the way, if you could go to Apple and give us five stars, that'd be absolutely fantastic. We would love it. It makes more people see the podcast. More podcasts means more viewers, more listeners,

and that means more people contributing to ricochet, which means we survive and we want to survive. And you want us to survive too. We're going to hit 600. Can't wait. That's 10 podcasts. We're in the meantime, though,

we'll see you all in the comments. Next week, fellas. Next week. But this has got to stop, enough is enough I can't take this BS any longer, it's gone far enough Don't want to claim my soul, you'll have to come and break down this door I knew that something was going on wrong When you started laying down the law

I can't move my hands, I break out in sweat I wanna cry, can't take it anymore This time's gotta stop, enough is enough I can't take this BS any longer It's gone far enough You wanna claim my soul You'll have to come and break down this door I've been around a long, long time

Seen it all and I'm used to being free I know who I am, try to do what's right So lock me up and throw away the key This time's gotta stop, enough is enough I can't take this BS any longer It's gone far enough you wanna claim my soul you'll have to come and break down this door Thank you. Ricochet. Join the conversation.

Thinking of my kids, what's left for them, and then what's coming down the road. conversation. Enough is enough, I can't take this BS any longer, it's gone far enough, don't wanna claim my soul, you'll have to come and break down this door. But this has gotta stop, enough is enough, I can't take this BS any longer, it's gone far enough, don't wanna claim my soul You'll have to come and break down the store Break down the store Break it down. Hey, move those routers there. Oh, hey, it's me, your data center. And as you can hear, I'm making some big changes in here because AI is making some bigger ones everywhere. So I took a little trip to Nokia. Super fast routers, optical interconnect, fully automated. The whole data center networking portfolio.

And they deliver. That's them. Hey, Nokia, right on time. Get your data center AI ready. Someday is here with Nokia.