Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the firmament of Trump's cabinet picks. I don't think
anyone would claim that Pam Bondi has necessarily been the
shining star. I think everyone was mostly okay with her.
She wasn't Trump's first choice. His first choice was Matt Gates,
who frankly would have been Frankly, I think Matt Gates
(00:22):
would have been an even bigger disaster in a number
of ways. Matt Gates trying to be Attorney General is
about as insane as I don't know someone who played
high school basketball trying out for the Lakers.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Gates just isn't qualified to be the Attorney General.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
He had only practiced law for like two years in actual,
real active practice before going into politics full time. So
the idea of someone with that little legal experience becoming
the Attorney General I think was crazy from the get go,
and temperamentally, I'm not sure about Gates anyway. Bondi and
(01:01):
I don't think she's covered herself in glory, the chief
thing being the Epstein case, where no matter what you
think about the Epstein case, you have to come to
the conclusion that Bondi bungled it and looked like a
total moron and was being either was being a liar.
She was either lying on the front end when she said,
(01:22):
I've got the Epstein list on my desk and I'm
gonna We're gonna declassify everything. So if you're like an
Epstein maximalist that it's like the most important story and
it's concealing all of the hidden secrets of the government
from us, you think she's full of it. Or if
you're an Epstein minimalist, which I sort of lean that way,
(01:47):
and think this is not that important of a story,
you also conclude that she's full of it. In the
wake of the Charlie Kirk thing, Bondi has now made
this statement that I feel like is giving into decades
of liberal agitation. She says this, there's free speech and
(02:12):
then there's hate speech, and there is no place, especially now,
especially after what happened to Charlie in our society. We
will absolutely target you, go after you if you are
targeting anyone with hate speech. She then had to tweet
out to try to clarify that she meant hate speech
(02:34):
that devolves into threats of violence. She then tweeted hate
speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is
not protected by the First Amendment.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
It's a crime.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
For far too long, we've watched the radical left normalized threats,
calls for assassination, and cheer on political violence.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
That era is over.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Okay, so she tried to sort of clean up her comments,
but she uses this category that the left has tried
to make a thing for decades and which conservatives have
been railing against for years and years and years, this
idea of hate speech. So allow me to and the
(03:20):
basic summary of this. I saw a tweet about this
from Mark Hemingway. He's a senior writer at Real Clear Investigations,
who tweeted, quote, hate speech is a loaded term that
should not have been used. Instead of just admitting error,
why is BONDI trying to redefine the term into something
it's not.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So let me try and explain a couple of basic
things about First Amendment free speech law.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
All right.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
One of the first things to understand about the First
Amendment right to freedom of speech is that it does
not mean, well, a couple of things.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
It means.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
First of all, there are some people who will actually
say this.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
They'll say, well, just because you have freedom of speech
doesn't mean, you have freedom from consequences. You can say
what you want, but there might be consequences.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
There are some people who actually say that, and they're
complete numbskulls. No, that's the point of the First Amendment.
Freedom of speech is that you are immune from punishment
for it. Whatever we define as being the kind of
speech that's protected. The idea of it is that the
(04:32):
government can't censor you beforehand from saying it, or punish
you afterwards for saying it. Governmental punishments. Okay, now you
might the First Amendments protections don't necessarily extend to the
private consequences that might flow from what you say. Okay,
(04:58):
if I come on a radio show and I say
I think that abortion should be legal, well, the government's
not going to censor me for that, but Right to
Life of Central California and my board of directors over there,
they will probably subject me to a consequence if I
(05:19):
say that. If I say all of a sudden that
I support legal abortion, my board of directors is going
to fire me, and that's what they should do.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And I do not support legal abortion, so that's not
going to happen.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
So, first of all, yes, that's the whole point of
putting freedom of speech in the Constitution is that you
are protected from political, governmental, criminal consequences.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
For what you say. Okay, Now, this is with the caveat.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Freedom of speech as it is used in the First
Amendment is a term of art. It isn't literal. Basically,
it does not mean that any time air flows over
your vocal cords and causes them to vibrate into words.
It doesn't mean that all communicative acts are thereby legally protected.
(06:25):
Doesn't mean that every form of communication possible is legally protected.
The freedom of speech is a term of art that's
coming to us from the British prior British tradition, and
it includes certain kinds of normative values that it's trying
(06:46):
to protect, namely free political, social discourse. It's also right
there next to the free exercise of religion.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
The core of what the First Amendment is designed to protect,
as can be evidenced by its inclusion in a constitution
of a country, the core of what the First Amendment
is designed to protect is speech that has to do
with questions of political, social, religious, and other concern These
(07:29):
kinds of core.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
That's the core of the First Amendment.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
That's the core of what it's supposed to protect, and
as the First Amendment has been interpreted over the centuries,
that is the kind of speech that receives the most
protection under our law. The further away you get from
that core, the less protection you get. So, for example,
(07:59):
advertise speech has been in different times different contexts, looked
at in slightly different ways.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
By the government.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
False advertising laws are a thing that that a government
can make, although there's a lot of argument about that
and a lot of debate about that, but obviously that's
a little further away from those core normative values of
the free exchange of political ideas that's obviously at the
heart of the First Amendment. At the First Amendment is
(08:30):
an expression of classical liberalism. Classical liberalism has this concept
that there shouldn't be an imposition by the government for
the good, that free people exchanging ideas can in the marketplace,
ideas can come to find the good now. Even there,
(08:51):
though in the early Republic there were states that had
laws against blasphemy, there was a thought that blasphemy saying hateful, insulting,
derisive things about God, was so far away from the
(09:18):
core of what the First Amendment was designed to protect
that there were state laws on the books against blasphemy.
Now nowadays there would be objections to this, that this
represents establishment of religion, But I don't know. Those were
the generations of people who were around at the time
(09:39):
of the First Amendment's adoption, so maybe they knew something
we didn't. Regardless, there are certain categories of things that
over time in American law have been recognized as categories
of speech that don't deserve the full protection necessarily of
the First Amendment. One of those things is obscenity. Obscenity
(10:04):
is not necessarily protect It has a different degree of
protection under the First Amendment. Then again, say normal core
protected political speech. How do you know this, Well, if
I come on this radio show and start saying the
F word, left, right, and center, what's going to happen? Well,
(10:26):
the FCC is going to find the station and probably
I'm gonna get fired. Okay, iheart's not gonna look with
great favor on old Johnny.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
G Why because it's obscenity.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
The idea is that the core normative values the free
exchange of political thought and ideas, openness of political debate,
et cetera, et cetera. Obscenity is so far removed from
that that it doesn't have that same level of legal protection.
So therefore it can be censored by the government punished
(11:06):
after the fact. Nudity can you know, it can be.
Nudity and pornography are sort of different kinds of categories
of speech. Okay, when Janet Jackson had her you know,
boob out for all to see during a Super Bowl
halftime show on a network station a CBS got hit
(11:27):
with the biggest FCC fine in the history of the country. Why, well,
because naked ladies dancing around is not you know, the
core of what you know, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and
the boys we're thinking should be protected. When they were
drawing up the freedom of speech, it's not heightened political
discourse to see Janet Jackson's nipples, all right, that that
(11:54):
that's not the point of what the first amendments there for.
And then people have had big time argument. You know,
Larry Flint tries to do his argument that is stupid
Hustler magazine.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Oh, it was just freakingom of speech. I'm just standing
up for the constitution. No, that's beloney. Okay. All that aside.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Notice in none of these and there are other forms
of speech, ways of talking, forms of communication that have
always been subject in American life to criminal or civil penalties.
Were criminal penalties or civil lawsuits incitement. Incitement is a
(12:37):
form of communication meant to bring about imminent violent conduct.
If I'm in front of an angry mob that wants
to lynch somebody and I say go get them, I
can't make the defense when I'm charged whoa I was
(12:59):
speaking air was passing over my vocal cords into words
go get them is protected by the First Amendment freedom
of speech. No incitement, which is what my words were,
is something that is punishable. It's not protected under the
First Amendment freedom for freedom of speech. Similarly, defamation, libel,
(13:22):
and slander. If I publish something that is hugely deleterious
to your reputation and it's false without some kind of
you know, good reason or something like that, well it
wouldn't be a good reason.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
If it was false.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I could be sued for defamation, for libel or slander.
So these are all categories of speech that are not
afforded protection under the First Amendment that have not been
recognized in America that have been recognized rather in American
law as something that is in exception from this First
(14:01):
Amendment freedom of speech. A category of speech that liberals
have tried to make a thing and that have never
been a thing in American law and should not become
a thing in American law, though it has become a
thing in certain non American jurisdictions, is a concept called
(14:26):
hate speech. I just want to impress that upon you.
Hate speech is not a thing in American law. It
is not a thing that has a concrete definition. It
is not a thing that has been recognized in American
law by its very terms, by its weaponization by the left.
(14:52):
Hate speech is an incredibly dangerous concept because it is
totally malleable in such a fashion as to include very
mainstream political opinions, political opinions that were in the majority
in this country just a few years ago, or opinions
that are believed by either very large to possibly even majorities,
(15:16):
very large minorities to possible majorities in this country. There
are liberals who would tell you that if you think
there are only two sexes, that that is hate speech.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Liberals will say that.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
The left, the southern poverty Law Center, which for years
sort of dined out on this fact that they were
sort of identifying groups that were sort of neo Nazi
supportive or affiliated things like that. In modern times, they've
taken as that sort of threat in American life has
(15:53):
really decreased. They've taken to defining all kinds of mainstream
groups on the political so right as hate groups. They
define Jonathan Keller, my friend, Jonathan Keller's organization, he runs
California Family Council. They define California Family Council as a
quote hate group.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Why, well, because they don't believe in.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Gay marriage and they are opposed to transgenderism. Now for
Pam Bondy to give some sort of credit to that
and say talk about hate speech, is you know, there's
no room for hate speech like that.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Is insane.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
It is stupid for her to use this term that's
been weaponized by the left. We'll talk more about how
it's been weaponized.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Next. This is the John Girardi Show. Pam Bondi made.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
A couple of really I think boneheaded statements that I
feel like everyone on the right is criticizing her for
the hard ride, the soft right, the establishment right, that
the non establishment right, because in her zeal to defend
Charlie Kirk, she says, quote, there's free speech and then
(17:12):
there's hate speech, and there is no place, especially now,
especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society. We
will absolutely target you, go after you if you are
targeting anyone with hate speech. She then had to walk
it back by saying, well, I meant like hate speech
that crosses into threats of violence. But she's still continuing
with this fiction that hate speech is a thing. It
(17:36):
is not a thing, and so let me talk about this.
The left has used for decades now the amorphous concept
of hate. I mean, hate is a real word. It's
a genuine word in English that has a genuine meaning,
(17:57):
much like the word equity a real word in the
English language and has an actual, real meaning. But the
Left has utilized terms like this in specific ways to
achieve very specific kinds of political goals. Okay, in the
case of equity, equity has a real dictionary definition, meaning
(18:19):
it's a perfectly normal word. It means something very similar
to equality. But the way equity has been weaponized nowadays,
what it specifically has come to mean as a political
term of art is equality of outcomes and trying to
enforce a kind of equality of outcomes, and assuming that
(18:40):
any inequality in outcomes must be the result of some
kind of evil, ill or wrong. On the front end,
whether that's African Americans are being arrested, prosecuted, incarcerated, convicted
at rates higher than their share of the population, well,
that is an example of inequity, and therefore there must
(19:03):
be racism in the system. Somewhere one person has more
money than another person, well that's inequity, etc. Equality, on
the other hand, is the American concept of no, everyone
has an equal shot, everyone has an equality of opportunity.
(19:24):
We won't allow discrimination in hiring, in conducting of one's
business on the basis of skin color, national origin, race,
et cetera. So similarly with equity. So the word hate
hate has an actual dictionary definition. It's not a difficult
(19:45):
concept to grasp. But the left has sort of weaponized
hate to mean things that it's not. The left has
basically said, if you have even a deep seated, reasonable
ethical problem with the conduct of certain groups of people,
(20:12):
that that constitutes hate. If I say that I think
sexual acts between persons of the same sex are immoral,
that they run contrary to the nature of how we
as human beings are ordered by the way, I think
(20:37):
certain kinds of sex acts between persons of the opposite
sex are also.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Disordered, okay, Or that the use of the employment of
ordered sex acts with someone to whom you're not married
is also there's disorder there also. Anyway, if I am
to say though that I think sex acts between persons
of the same sex are immoral, that in their conception,
(21:04):
in their concept, is me hating that I have hatred
for this group. Now, I haven't said anything about disliking
the people. I'm just saying I think what they're doing
is wrong. I'm not saying we should deny persons who
do those sorts of things other kinds of basic civil rights.
(21:25):
I'm totally supportive of them having all the same panoply
of basic civil rights that I have, but I think
their conduct is wrong. This is defined by the left
as hate, and similarly other kinds of mainstream political views
(21:50):
that are deemed in some form or another to disadvantage
persons groups of people whom the left seems to favor.
Whether that's I guess not supporting of I don't know.
If hate has ever been applied to people who don't
support affirmative action or something like that.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
But you can see how twisted it is. I have
no animosity. My statement that I think sex acts between
persons of the same sex are immoral does not imply
any kind of animosity. It doesn't imply any desire for retribution.
(22:34):
I'm not talking about whatever emotional response I might have
that might involve hate. I'm just talking about this is
what I think is wrong and in fact, from a
certain perspective. If I genuinely think that those things are
wrong and not ordered towards someone's good and would want
them to stop, maybe I'm not being hateful at all.
(23:00):
I hope Leo recently appointed as a bishop. I think
he's now a bishop in one of the dioceses in Oregon.
This priest who he's now being made a bishop, who
worked for years with this organization called Courage, which basically
(23:21):
works with It's a Catholic organization that works with people
who have same sex attraction and helps them to lead
chased lives. That guy is going to be deemed by
that priest now a bishop would be deemed by the
left hateful because he thinks that same sex acts are immoral.
(23:42):
There's nothing more loving than that he wants these people,
as he sees it by his lights, to live by
what he thinks is good and right. And it's heroic
that this bishop has conducted his priestly ministry in this way.
(24:08):
So to placate the left's use of this term, as
Pam Bondi did, I think is just so wrong. All right,
when we return other stupid First Amendment blunders by Bondi,
that's next.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
On the John Gerardi Show.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Pam Bondi made some really dopey comments trying to discuss
people using threatening language or threatening violence, which, by the way,
threats of violence are another sort of exception to traditional
doctrine surrounding the First Amendment, although even that can get
kind of a little dicey sometimes if you think, well,
(24:44):
people who support this should be executed, like in the
abstract versus I want to kill you and your family
Mike Smith, who lives at one two three Main Street, USA,
The latter is certainly something that's prosecutable by kept trying
to say, well, we're going to prosecute hate speech that
(25:04):
devolves into threats of violence, because that's not protected by
the Constitution. It was really stupid. Hate speech is a
concept that the left has tried to formulate over time.
They try to characterize speech by conservatives, usually opposed saying
things that are in their view, hateful against chiefly the
(25:24):
LGBT movement, as hate speech and therefore something that should
be punishable.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
By law. Hate speech has never.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Been recognized as a category of speech under the First Amendment,
never been recognized as such an American law. And for
Bondi to use that term without understanding that it's a
loaded term that's been weaponized by the left for decades
now to as a way of just talking about I
guess threats of violence is ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
It's stupid.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
She could have just said, hey, I just shouldn't have
used the phrase hate speech. It's not really a real
category of law. We're gonna go after threats of violence. Okay,
you want to prosecute threats of violence? Sure, Okay, that's
an actual thing that has actual define body of law
around it.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Okay, go for it.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
But then Bondi goes on and she's got this little
hit she's doing on Fox News, and she starts talking
about compelled speech, like if a print shop doesn't want
to do a poster for a Charlie Kirk vigial event.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Here's what she had to say.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
That's horrific. It's free speech that you shouldn't be employed
anywhere if you're gonna say that, and employers you have
an obligation to get rid of people. You need to
look at people who are saying horrible things and they
shouldn't be working with you. Businesses cannot discriminate. If you
want to go in and print posters with Charlie's pictures
on them for a vigil you have to let them
do that. We can prosecute you for that. I have
(27:00):
har Meat Dylan right now in our civil rights looking at.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
That and me.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
All right, a couple of different things there, all right.
So she's talking about if employees say horrific things about
Charlie Kirk, businesses don't have to fire someone who says
that might be a good idea, But for the Attorney
(27:29):
General to say businesses have to fire someone for that,
that's not a good idea. Look, this is one of
the ideas about the First Amendment. This is why the
hate speech thing was such a dumb comment by her.
There are hateful things you can say that are covered
(27:50):
by the First Amendment. I can say, if I want to,
I hate Barack Obama, and maybe hate is you know,
I wish the ultimate good for him. But I think
Barack Obama was a slimeball and had the most horrible
(28:11):
impact on American politics, and I think he was wrong
on everything, and I think he was disingenuous, and I
think he blah. I hate Joe Biden. I think Joe
Biden was a slimeball. I think he was dishonest. I
think he was a jerk. Hate hate hate. I'm allowed
to say things that are hateful. I'm allowed to say
(28:33):
that people who support abortions are supporting murder, that abortion
doctors are murderers. I'm allowed to say stuff like that
that might be viewed as hateful. So to investigate me
for a quote hate speech that those are things, those
statements of mine that include maybe some things that some
(28:54):
people would perceive as hateful.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Protected by the First Amendment.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
We've even extended the protections of the First Amendment as
far as to protect Nazis marching down the street in
Illinois saying the Jews are horrible and blah blah blah,
blah blah, people who say horrible things about black people
and Nazis and Jews and all kinds of things. We
have had American court cases saying that the First Amendment
extends to them. So for the Attorney General to say
(29:26):
you have to fire someone like that, well, no, the
Attorney General shouldn't be the one saying that.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Private business, private associations.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Of people have largely speaking handled the problem of people
who are neo Nazis, of people who are avowed racists,
of people who are avowed open anti Semites. It's not
necessarily something for the government to prosecute per the terms
of the First Amendment. But then she starts talking about
(30:01):
a print shop not wanting to print a poster for
a vigil for Charlie Kirk. That that is discrimination on
the part of the business and you can be sued
for not printing that.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
This is.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Idiotic what Bondi is saying that you can be subject
to prosecution for that. No, for God's sake, we on
the right have been fighting court cases that have gone
up and down, back and forth to the Supreme Court
and back over this guy. Jack Phillips from Colorado, I
(30:39):
don't know how many of you guys remember this case.
Jack Phillips is a guy who owns a bakery in Colorado.
He keeps getting asked to bake cakes to celebrate a
custom cake to celebrate a gay wedding, and he keeps saying, no,
I'm not gonna make a custom rainbow themed cake to
(31:00):
celebrate a gay wedding. If a gay couple comes in
and wants to buy a cake off the rack, that's fine.
I'm not asking questions. I'm not endorsing that. That's fine
for them to do. I'm not refusing to sell to
a gay customer. If a gay customer wants a birthday cake, fine,
I'm just not gonna make a cake to affirmatively celebrate
(31:20):
gay marriage.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Or someone's gender transition. That was the next thing. He's
been fighting this in the.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Courts forever because the state of Colorado is idiotic. The
Supreme Court seems sort of afraid to like definitively answer it.
So this poor son of a gun has been in
litigation constantly for like a decade to try to just
vindicate this principle that you shouldn't be compelled. And with
the Colorado Human Rights Division or Colorado Human Rights Commission
(31:54):
keeps ruling against him because it's stacked with liberals that
he is engaging in horrific human rights violations by refusing
to bake a cake for someone, and they keep getting
sort of smacked back by the Supreme Court. Well, we've
(32:15):
been trying repeatedly to argue on the right that you
cannot compel someone to say something they don't agree with.
I feel like we're just gonna, you know, cut off
our nose to spite our face. If at the Republican
Attorney General then goes around to say that a print
(32:39):
shop that says, you know what, I don't really want
to print this. I don't want to print something for
a Charlie Kirk vigil. I really disagreed with so many
of Charlie Kirk's things, and you you know, find another printer. Now,
I might not like that printer, and I might think
that that's kind of lame that they wouldn't do that.
(33:03):
I don't think they're violating any law though. This isn't
a print shop refusing to serve a Christian customer, This
isn't a print shop refusing to serve an African American customer.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
It's a print shop.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Saying this theoretical print shop that Pam Bondi's made up
in her head, saying I don't like Charlie Kirk and
I don't support this, so therefore I don't want to
print it. And here she is, the Attorney General of
the United States saying you, we're gonna prosecute that. No,
that seems like an obvious thing. She can't prosecute. It
(33:37):
seems like First Amendment compelled speech, which is sort of
the flip side of the First Amendment coin. Not only
can you not be censored for engaging in protected speech
or punished after the fact for saying protected speech, you
also can't be compelled to say things you don't want
to say. So I'm at a point with Pam Bondi
(34:06):
where I'm just fed up. I'm not seeing any reason
why she should keep being the Attorney General.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
She doesn't seem I mean, I guess I would. Look.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
I am not the greatest lawyer in the world, all right.
I was in practice for a few years. I then
started running right to life. I got all caught up
in that, and I've been out of active practice for
a long time. I know enough to look at an
example like that a print shop not wanting to print
something for a vigil for Charlie Kirk and think, okay, well,
(34:40):
this is probably straying into First Amendment protected territory, like, okay, well,
you know, this is not a thing that we can
go after, and Bondi just steps in it time and
time again for stuff that. Again I'm not saying I'm
some great super lawyer or anything, but I know enough
to know this is not a thing that the Attorney
(35:01):
General that this is not a thing that any prosecutor
can prosecute, certainly not a thing that the Attorney General
should concern herself with. Yeah, if you've got threats of
violence in the wake of Charlie Kirk getting assassinated, Okay,
go after that, all right, that's fine. But to talk
about hate speech, which if you're a conservative lawyer you
(35:23):
should be, and especially a public official as Pam Bondi's been,
this is not her first rodeo. It's not like she
got up jumped to Attorney General of the United States after,
you know, being an ambulance chaser for two years. She's
the Attorney General of the United States. She had been
the Attorney General of Florida. She's been around the block
in both law and politics. She should understand that using
(35:46):
the word, the term, the idea, the concept of hate
speech is something totally counter to what everything in the
conservative legal movement has been arguing for decades. I think
she's a dope. I'm finally coming down on the side
of Pam BONDI is a dope. I don't think she's
(36:09):
helping Trump at all. I think, if anything, she's a liability.
I think the way she handled the Epstein stuff was idiotic,
no matter what perspective you look at it, and I
feel like she's not handling this well.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Frankly, when we.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Return, I want to talk about the attempt to have
federal involvement in the Charlotte and the Charlie Kirk murders
and why that might not be a great idea. That's
next on the John Growardy Show. It looks like the
Feds want to involve themselves in prosecuting the stabbing death
(36:46):
that happened in Charlotte as well as Charlie Kirk's murder.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
I don't know that that's a good idea. Let me
explain why.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I understand why the federal government, why the Trump administration
wants to get involved. These are cases that have had
nationwide notoriety and are reflective of nationwide problems. However, when
the federal government prosecutes crimes, usually federal criminal law has
to do with interstate conduct. Most criminal law is prosecuted
(37:13):
by state prosecutors enforcing state criminal laws. For your bread
and butter criminal offenses murder, assault, robbery, theft, etc. Because
most criminal conduct is intra state. Now, if it's drug trafficking,
usually that means crossing state lines in some way, and
the Feds can get involved in that. But for these
two cases, these are just as horrible as they are.
(37:36):
These are murder cases, intra state murder cases, and for
the federal government to get involved to prosecute it, they
probably would need to prove a bunch of things about
interstate conduct that are not really super relevant to those cases.
It actually makes the case harder.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Now.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
I think in North Carolina, the Trump administration wants to
get in because they want the death penalty and they're
afraid North Carolina won't get it. Utah is more likely
to get the death penalty, I think if the state
prosecutors do it so. I think that's part of the calculus.
But in general, just if we're talking about getting convictions,
I think federal involvement's just going to make it harder
(38:13):
rather than easier. So hopefully a smart attorney general, not
like Pam Bondi, would realize.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
That that'll do it. John's already show See you next
time on Power Talk
In the firmament of Trump's cabinet picks. I don't think
anyone would claim that Pam Bondi has necessarily been the
shining star. I think everyone was mostly okay with her.
She wasn't Trump's first choice. His first choice was Matt Gates,
who frankly would have been Frankly, I think Matt Gates
(00:22):
would have been an even bigger disaster in a number
of ways. Matt Gates trying to be Attorney General is
about as insane as I don't know someone who played
high school basketball trying out for the Lakers.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Gates just isn't qualified to be the Attorney General.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
He had only practiced law for like two years in actual,
real active practice before going into politics full time. So
the idea of someone with that little legal experience becoming
the Attorney General I think was crazy from the get go,
and temperamentally, I'm not sure about Gates anyway. Bondi and
(01:01):
I don't think she's covered herself in glory, the chief
thing being the Epstein case, where no matter what you
think about the Epstein case, you have to come to
the conclusion that Bondi bungled it and looked like a
total moron and was being either was being a liar.
She was either lying on the front end when she said,
(01:22):
I've got the Epstein list on my desk and I'm
gonna We're gonna declassify everything. So if you're like an
Epstein maximalist that it's like the most important story and
it's concealing all of the hidden secrets of the government
from us, you think she's full of it. Or if
you're an Epstein minimalist, which I sort of lean that way,
(01:47):
and think this is not that important of a story,
you also conclude that she's full of it. In the
wake of the Charlie Kirk thing, Bondi has now made
this statement that I feel like is giving into decades
of liberal agitation. She says this, there's free speech and
(02:12):
then there's hate speech, and there is no place, especially now,
especially after what happened to Charlie in our society. We
will absolutely target you, go after you if you are
targeting anyone with hate speech. She then had to tweet
out to try to clarify that she meant hate speech
(02:34):
that devolves into threats of violence. She then tweeted hate
speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is
not protected by the First Amendment.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
It's a crime.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
For far too long, we've watched the radical left normalized threats,
calls for assassination, and cheer on political violence.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
That era is over.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Okay, so she tried to sort of clean up her comments,
but she uses this category that the left has tried
to make a thing for decades and which conservatives have
been railing against for years and years and years, this
idea of hate speech. So allow me to and the
(03:20):
basic summary of this. I saw a tweet about this
from Mark Hemingway. He's a senior writer at Real Clear Investigations,
who tweeted, quote, hate speech is a loaded term that
should not have been used. Instead of just admitting error,
why is BONDI trying to redefine the term into something
it's not.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So let me try and explain a couple of basic
things about First Amendment free speech law.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
All right.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
One of the first things to understand about the First
Amendment right to freedom of speech is that it does
not mean, well, a couple of things.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
It means.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
First of all, there are some people who will actually
say this.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
They'll say, well, just because you have freedom of speech
doesn't mean, you have freedom from consequences. You can say
what you want, but there might be consequences.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
There are some people who actually say that, and they're
complete numbskulls. No, that's the point of the First Amendment.
Freedom of speech is that you are immune from punishment
for it. Whatever we define as being the kind of
speech that's protected. The idea of it is that the
(04:32):
government can't censor you beforehand from saying it, or punish
you afterwards for saying it. Governmental punishments. Okay, now you
might the First Amendments protections don't necessarily extend to the
private consequences that might flow from what you say. Okay,
(04:58):
if I come on a radio show and I say
I think that abortion should be legal, well, the government's
not going to censor me for that, but Right to
Life of Central California and my board of directors over there,
they will probably subject me to a consequence if I
(05:19):
say that. If I say all of a sudden that
I support legal abortion, my board of directors is going
to fire me, and that's what they should do.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And I do not support legal abortion, so that's not
going to happen.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
So, first of all, yes, that's the whole point of
putting freedom of speech in the Constitution is that you
are protected from political, governmental, criminal consequences.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
For what you say. Okay, Now, this is with the caveat.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Freedom of speech as it is used in the First
Amendment is a term of art. It isn't literal. Basically,
it does not mean that any time air flows over
your vocal cords and causes them to vibrate into words.
It doesn't mean that all communicative acts are thereby legally protected.
(06:25):
Doesn't mean that every form of communication possible is legally protected.
The freedom of speech is a term of art that's
coming to us from the British prior British tradition, and
it includes certain kinds of normative values that it's trying
(06:46):
to protect, namely free political, social discourse. It's also right
there next to the free exercise of religion.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
The core of what the First Amendment is designed to protect,
as can be evidenced by its inclusion in a constitution
of a country, the core of what the First Amendment
is designed to protect is speech that has to do
with questions of political, social, religious, and other concern These
(07:29):
kinds of core.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
That's the core of the First Amendment.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
That's the core of what it's supposed to protect, and
as the First Amendment has been interpreted over the centuries,
that is the kind of speech that receives the most
protection under our law. The further away you get from
that core, the less protection you get. So, for example,
(07:59):
advertise speech has been in different times different contexts, looked
at in slightly different ways.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
By the government.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
False advertising laws are a thing that that a government
can make, although there's a lot of argument about that
and a lot of debate about that, but obviously that's
a little further away from those core normative values of
the free exchange of political ideas that's obviously at the
heart of the First Amendment. At the First Amendment is
(08:30):
an expression of classical liberalism. Classical liberalism has this concept
that there shouldn't be an imposition by the government for
the good, that free people exchanging ideas can in the marketplace,
ideas can come to find the good now. Even there,
(08:51):
though in the early Republic there were states that had
laws against blasphemy, there was a thought that blasphemy saying hateful, insulting,
derisive things about God, was so far away from the
(09:18):
core of what the First Amendment was designed to protect
that there were state laws on the books against blasphemy.
Now nowadays there would be objections to this, that this
represents establishment of religion, But I don't know. Those were
the generations of people who were around at the time
(09:39):
of the First Amendment's adoption, so maybe they knew something
we didn't. Regardless, there are certain categories of things that
over time in American law have been recognized as categories
of speech that don't deserve the full protection necessarily of
the First Amendment. One of those things is obscenity. Obscenity
(10:04):
is not necessarily protect It has a different degree of
protection under the First Amendment. Then again, say normal core
protected political speech. How do you know this, Well, if
I come on this radio show and start saying the
F word, left, right, and center, what's going to happen? Well,
(10:26):
the FCC is going to find the station and probably
I'm gonna get fired. Okay, iheart's not gonna look with
great favor on old Johnny.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
G Why because it's obscenity.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
The idea is that the core normative values the free
exchange of political thought and ideas, openness of political debate,
et cetera, et cetera. Obscenity is so far removed from
that that it doesn't have that same level of legal protection.
So therefore it can be censored by the government punished
(11:06):
after the fact. Nudity can you know, it can be.
Nudity and pornography are sort of different kinds of categories
of speech. Okay, when Janet Jackson had her you know,
boob out for all to see during a Super Bowl
halftime show on a network station a CBS got hit
(11:27):
with the biggest FCC fine in the history of the country. Why, well,
because naked ladies dancing around is not you know, the
core of what you know, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and
the boys we're thinking should be protected. When they were
drawing up the freedom of speech, it's not heightened political
discourse to see Janet Jackson's nipples, all right, that that
(11:54):
that's not the point of what the first amendments there for.
And then people have had big time argument. You know,
Larry Flint tries to do his argument that is stupid
Hustler magazine.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Oh, it was just freakingom of speech. I'm just standing
up for the constitution. No, that's beloney. Okay. All that aside.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Notice in none of these and there are other forms
of speech, ways of talking, forms of communication that have
always been subject in American life to criminal or civil penalties.
Were criminal penalties or civil lawsuits incitement. Incitement is a
(12:37):
form of communication meant to bring about imminent violent conduct.
If I'm in front of an angry mob that wants
to lynch somebody and I say go get them, I
can't make the defense when I'm charged whoa I was
(12:59):
speaking air was passing over my vocal cords into words
go get them is protected by the First Amendment freedom
of speech. No incitement, which is what my words were,
is something that is punishable. It's not protected under the
First Amendment freedom for freedom of speech. Similarly, defamation, libel,
(13:22):
and slander. If I publish something that is hugely deleterious
to your reputation and it's false without some kind of
you know, good reason or something like that, well it
wouldn't be a good reason.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
If it was false.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I could be sued for defamation, for libel or slander.
So these are all categories of speech that are not
afforded protection under the First Amendment that have not been
recognized in America that have been recognized rather in American
law as something that is in exception from this First
(14:01):
Amendment freedom of speech. A category of speech that liberals
have tried to make a thing and that have never
been a thing in American law and should not become
a thing in American law, though it has become a
thing in certain non American jurisdictions, is a concept called
(14:26):
hate speech. I just want to impress that upon you.
Hate speech is not a thing in American law. It
is not a thing that has a concrete definition. It
is not a thing that has been recognized in American
law by its very terms, by its weaponization by the left.
(14:52):
Hate speech is an incredibly dangerous concept because it is
totally malleable in such a fashion as to include very
mainstream political opinions, political opinions that were in the majority
in this country just a few years ago, or opinions
that are believed by either very large to possibly even majorities,
(15:16):
very large minorities to possible majorities in this country. There
are liberals who would tell you that if you think
there are only two sexes, that that is hate speech.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Liberals will say that.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
The left, the southern poverty Law Center, which for years
sort of dined out on this fact that they were
sort of identifying groups that were sort of neo Nazi
supportive or affiliated things like that. In modern times, they've
taken as that sort of threat in American life has
(15:53):
really decreased. They've taken to defining all kinds of mainstream
groups on the political so right as hate groups. They
define Jonathan Keller, my friend, Jonathan Keller's organization, he runs
California Family Council. They define California Family Council as a
quote hate group.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Why, well, because they don't believe in.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Gay marriage and they are opposed to transgenderism. Now for
Pam Bondy to give some sort of credit to that
and say talk about hate speech, is you know, there's
no room for hate speech like that.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Is insane.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
It is stupid for her to use this term that's
been weaponized by the left. We'll talk more about how
it's been weaponized.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Next. This is the John Girardi Show. Pam Bondi made.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
A couple of really I think boneheaded statements that I
feel like everyone on the right is criticizing her for
the hard ride, the soft right, the establishment right, that
the non establishment right, because in her zeal to defend
Charlie Kirk, she says, quote, there's free speech and then
(17:12):
there's hate speech, and there is no place, especially now,
especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society. We
will absolutely target you, go after you if you are
targeting anyone with hate speech. She then had to walk
it back by saying, well, I meant like hate speech
that crosses into threats of violence. But she's still continuing
with this fiction that hate speech is a thing. It
(17:36):
is not a thing, and so let me talk about this.
The left has used for decades now the amorphous concept
of hate. I mean, hate is a real word. It's
a genuine word in English that has a genuine meaning,
(17:57):
much like the word equity a real word in the
English language and has an actual, real meaning. But the
Left has utilized terms like this in specific ways to
achieve very specific kinds of political goals. Okay, in the
case of equity, equity has a real dictionary definition, meaning
(18:19):
it's a perfectly normal word. It means something very similar
to equality. But the way equity has been weaponized nowadays,
what it specifically has come to mean as a political
term of art is equality of outcomes and trying to
enforce a kind of equality of outcomes, and assuming that
(18:40):
any inequality in outcomes must be the result of some
kind of evil, ill or wrong. On the front end,
whether that's African Americans are being arrested, prosecuted, incarcerated, convicted
at rates higher than their share of the population, well,
that is an example of inequity, and therefore there must
(19:03):
be racism in the system. Somewhere one person has more
money than another person, well that's inequity, etc. Equality, on
the other hand, is the American concept of no, everyone
has an equal shot, everyone has an equality of opportunity.
(19:24):
We won't allow discrimination in hiring, in conducting of one's
business on the basis of skin color, national origin, race,
et cetera. So similarly with equity. So the word hate
hate has an actual dictionary definition. It's not a difficult
(19:45):
concept to grasp. But the left has sort of weaponized
hate to mean things that it's not. The left has
basically said, if you have even a deep seated, reasonable
ethical problem with the conduct of certain groups of people,
(20:12):
that that constitutes hate. If I say that I think
sexual acts between persons of the same sex are immoral,
that they run contrary to the nature of how we
as human beings are ordered by the way, I think
(20:37):
certain kinds of sex acts between persons of the opposite
sex are also.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Disordered, okay, Or that the use of the employment of
ordered sex acts with someone to whom you're not married
is also there's disorder there also. Anyway, if I am
to say though that I think sex acts between persons
of the same sex are immoral, that in their conception,
(21:04):
in their concept, is me hating that I have hatred
for this group. Now, I haven't said anything about disliking
the people. I'm just saying I think what they're doing
is wrong. I'm not saying we should deny persons who
do those sorts of things other kinds of basic civil rights.
(21:25):
I'm totally supportive of them having all the same panoply
of basic civil rights that I have, but I think
their conduct is wrong. This is defined by the left
as hate, and similarly other kinds of mainstream political views
(21:50):
that are deemed in some form or another to disadvantage
persons groups of people whom the left seems to favor.
Whether that's I guess not supporting of I don't know.
If hate has ever been applied to people who don't
support affirmative action or something like that.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
But you can see how twisted it is. I have
no animosity. My statement that I think sex acts between
persons of the same sex are immoral does not imply
any kind of animosity. It doesn't imply any desire for retribution.
(22:34):
I'm not talking about whatever emotional response I might have
that might involve hate. I'm just talking about this is
what I think is wrong and in fact, from a
certain perspective. If I genuinely think that those things are
wrong and not ordered towards someone's good and would want
them to stop, maybe I'm not being hateful at all.
(23:00):
I hope Leo recently appointed as a bishop. I think
he's now a bishop in one of the dioceses in Oregon.
This priest who he's now being made a bishop, who
worked for years with this organization called Courage, which basically
(23:21):
works with It's a Catholic organization that works with people
who have same sex attraction and helps them to lead
chased lives. That guy is going to be deemed by
that priest now a bishop would be deemed by the
left hateful because he thinks that same sex acts are immoral.
(23:42):
There's nothing more loving than that he wants these people,
as he sees it by his lights, to live by
what he thinks is good and right. And it's heroic
that this bishop has conducted his priestly ministry in this way.
(24:08):
So to placate the left's use of this term, as
Pam Bondi did, I think is just so wrong. All right,
when we return other stupid First Amendment blunders by Bondi,
that's next.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
On the John Gerardi Show.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Pam Bondi made some really dopey comments trying to discuss
people using threatening language or threatening violence, which, by the way,
threats of violence are another sort of exception to traditional
doctrine surrounding the First Amendment, although even that can get
kind of a little dicey sometimes if you think, well,
(24:44):
people who support this should be executed, like in the
abstract versus I want to kill you and your family
Mike Smith, who lives at one two three Main Street, USA,
The latter is certainly something that's prosecutable by kept trying
to say, well, we're going to prosecute hate speech that
(25:04):
devolves into threats of violence, because that's not protected by
the Constitution. It was really stupid. Hate speech is a
concept that the left has tried to formulate over time.
They try to characterize speech by conservatives, usually opposed saying
things that are in their view, hateful against chiefly the
(25:24):
LGBT movement, as hate speech and therefore something that should
be punishable.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
By law. Hate speech has never.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Been recognized as a category of speech under the First Amendment,
never been recognized as such an American law. And for
Bondi to use that term without understanding that it's a
loaded term that's been weaponized by the left for decades
now to as a way of just talking about I
guess threats of violence is ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
It's stupid.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
She could have just said, hey, I just shouldn't have
used the phrase hate speech. It's not really a real
category of law. We're gonna go after threats of violence. Okay,
you want to prosecute threats of violence? Sure, Okay, that's
an actual thing that has actual define body of law
around it.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Okay, go for it.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
But then Bondi goes on and she's got this little
hit she's doing on Fox News, and she starts talking
about compelled speech, like if a print shop doesn't want
to do a poster for a Charlie Kirk vigial event.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Here's what she had to say.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
That's horrific. It's free speech that you shouldn't be employed
anywhere if you're gonna say that, and employers you have
an obligation to get rid of people. You need to
look at people who are saying horrible things and they
shouldn't be working with you. Businesses cannot discriminate. If you
want to go in and print posters with Charlie's pictures
on them for a vigil you have to let them
do that. We can prosecute you for that. I have
(27:00):
har Meat Dylan right now in our civil rights looking at.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
That and me.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
All right, a couple of different things there, all right.
So she's talking about if employees say horrific things about
Charlie Kirk, businesses don't have to fire someone who says
that might be a good idea, But for the Attorney
(27:29):
General to say businesses have to fire someone for that,
that's not a good idea. Look, this is one of
the ideas about the First Amendment. This is why the
hate speech thing was such a dumb comment by her.
There are hateful things you can say that are covered
(27:50):
by the First Amendment. I can say, if I want to,
I hate Barack Obama, and maybe hate is you know,
I wish the ultimate good for him. But I think
Barack Obama was a slimeball and had the most horrible
(28:11):
impact on American politics, and I think he was wrong
on everything, and I think he was disingenuous, and I
think he blah. I hate Joe Biden. I think Joe
Biden was a slimeball. I think he was dishonest. I
think he was a jerk. Hate hate hate. I'm allowed
to say things that are hateful. I'm allowed to say
(28:33):
that people who support abortions are supporting murder, that abortion
doctors are murderers. I'm allowed to say stuff like that
that might be viewed as hateful. So to investigate me
for a quote hate speech that those are things, those
statements of mine that include maybe some things that some
(28:54):
people would perceive as hateful.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Protected by the First Amendment.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
We've even extended the protections of the First Amendment as
far as to protect Nazis marching down the street in
Illinois saying the Jews are horrible and blah blah blah,
blah blah, people who say horrible things about black people
and Nazis and Jews and all kinds of things. We
have had American court cases saying that the First Amendment
extends to them. So for the Attorney General to say
(29:26):
you have to fire someone like that, well, no, the
Attorney General shouldn't be the one saying that.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Private business, private associations.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Of people have largely speaking handled the problem of people
who are neo Nazis, of people who are avowed racists,
of people who are avowed open anti Semites. It's not
necessarily something for the government to prosecute per the terms
of the First Amendment. But then she starts talking about
(30:01):
a print shop not wanting to print a poster for
a vigil for Charlie Kirk. That that is discrimination on
the part of the business and you can be sued
for not printing that.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
This is.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Idiotic what Bondi is saying that you can be subject
to prosecution for that. No, for God's sake, we on
the right have been fighting court cases that have gone
up and down, back and forth to the Supreme Court
and back over this guy. Jack Phillips from Colorado, I
(30:39):
don't know how many of you guys remember this case.
Jack Phillips is a guy who owns a bakery in Colorado.
He keeps getting asked to bake cakes to celebrate a
custom cake to celebrate a gay wedding, and he keeps saying, no,
I'm not gonna make a custom rainbow themed cake to
(31:00):
celebrate a gay wedding. If a gay couple comes in
and wants to buy a cake off the rack, that's fine.
I'm not asking questions. I'm not endorsing that. That's fine
for them to do. I'm not refusing to sell to
a gay customer. If a gay customer wants a birthday cake, fine,
I'm just not gonna make a cake to affirmatively celebrate
(31:20):
gay marriage.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Or someone's gender transition. That was the next thing. He's
been fighting this in the.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Courts forever because the state of Colorado is idiotic. The
Supreme Court seems sort of afraid to like definitively answer it.
So this poor son of a gun has been in
litigation constantly for like a decade to try to just
vindicate this principle that you shouldn't be compelled. And with
the Colorado Human Rights Division or Colorado Human Rights Commission
(31:54):
keeps ruling against him because it's stacked with liberals that
he is engaging in horrific human rights violations by refusing
to bake a cake for someone, and they keep getting
sort of smacked back by the Supreme Court. Well, we've
(32:15):
been trying repeatedly to argue on the right that you
cannot compel someone to say something they don't agree with.
I feel like we're just gonna, you know, cut off
our nose to spite our face. If at the Republican
Attorney General then goes around to say that a print
(32:39):
shop that says, you know what, I don't really want
to print this. I don't want to print something for
a Charlie Kirk vigil. I really disagreed with so many
of Charlie Kirk's things, and you you know, find another printer. Now,
I might not like that printer, and I might think
that that's kind of lame that they wouldn't do that.
(33:03):
I don't think they're violating any law though. This isn't
a print shop refusing to serve a Christian customer, This
isn't a print shop refusing to serve an African American customer.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
It's a print shop.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Saying this theoretical print shop that Pam Bondi's made up
in her head, saying I don't like Charlie Kirk and
I don't support this, so therefore I don't want to
print it. And here she is, the Attorney General of
the United States saying you, we're gonna prosecute that. No,
that seems like an obvious thing. She can't prosecute. It
(33:37):
seems like First Amendment compelled speech, which is sort of
the flip side of the First Amendment coin. Not only
can you not be censored for engaging in protected speech
or punished after the fact for saying protected speech, you
also can't be compelled to say things you don't want
to say. So I'm at a point with Pam Bondi
(34:06):
where I'm just fed up. I'm not seeing any reason
why she should keep being the Attorney General.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
She doesn't seem I mean, I guess I would. Look.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
I am not the greatest lawyer in the world, all right.
I was in practice for a few years. I then
started running right to life. I got all caught up
in that, and I've been out of active practice for
a long time. I know enough to look at an
example like that a print shop not wanting to print
something for a vigil for Charlie Kirk and think, okay, well,
(34:40):
this is probably straying into First Amendment protected territory, like, okay, well,
you know, this is not a thing that we can
go after, and Bondi just steps in it time and
time again for stuff that. Again I'm not saying I'm
some great super lawyer or anything, but I know enough
to know this is not a thing that the Attorney
(35:01):
General that this is not a thing that any prosecutor
can prosecute, certainly not a thing that the Attorney General
should concern herself with. Yeah, if you've got threats of
violence in the wake of Charlie Kirk getting assassinated, Okay,
go after that, all right, that's fine. But to talk
about hate speech, which if you're a conservative lawyer you
(35:23):
should be, and especially a public official as Pam Bondi's been,
this is not her first rodeo. It's not like she
got up jumped to Attorney General of the United States after,
you know, being an ambulance chaser for two years. She's
the Attorney General of the United States. She had been
the Attorney General of Florida. She's been around the block
in both law and politics. She should understand that using
(35:46):
the word, the term, the idea, the concept of hate
speech is something totally counter to what everything in the
conservative legal movement has been arguing for decades. I think
she's a dope. I'm finally coming down on the side
of Pam BONDI is a dope. I don't think she's
(36:09):
helping Trump at all. I think, if anything, she's a liability.
I think the way she handled the Epstein stuff was idiotic,
no matter what perspective you look at it, and I
feel like she's not handling this well.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Frankly, when we.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Return, I want to talk about the attempt to have
federal involvement in the Charlotte and the Charlie Kirk murders
and why that might not be a great idea. That's
next on the John Growardy Show. It looks like the
Feds want to involve themselves in prosecuting the stabbing death
(36:46):
that happened in Charlotte as well as Charlie Kirk's murder.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
I don't know that that's a good idea. Let me
explain why.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I understand why the federal government, why the Trump administration
wants to get involved. These are cases that have had
nationwide notoriety and are reflective of nationwide problems. However, when
the federal government prosecutes crimes, usually federal criminal law has
to do with interstate conduct. Most criminal law is prosecuted
(37:13):
by state prosecutors enforcing state criminal laws. For your bread
and butter criminal offenses murder, assault, robbery, theft, etc. Because
most criminal conduct is intra state. Now, if it's drug trafficking,
usually that means crossing state lines in some way, and
the Feds can get involved in that. But for these
two cases, these are just as horrible as they are.
(37:36):
These are murder cases, intra state murder cases, and for
the federal government to get involved to prosecute it, they
probably would need to prove a bunch of things about
interstate conduct that are not really super relevant to those cases.
It actually makes the case harder.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Now.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
I think in North Carolina, the Trump administration wants to
get in because they want the death penalty and they're
afraid North Carolina won't get it. Utah is more likely
to get the death penalty, I think if the state
prosecutors do it so. I think that's part of the calculus.
But in general, just if we're talking about getting convictions,
I think federal involvement's just going to make it harder
(38:13):
rather than easier. So hopefully a smart attorney general, not
like Pam Bondi, would realize.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
That that'll do it. John's already show See you next
time on Power Talk
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