CEQA - How Liberals Sue for the Fishies

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I want to talk about a reallyimportant bit of California environmental law and why
I think it's stupid and harmful.And that law is called SEQUA. Now,
any of you who are involved inconstruction or building projects, especially the

(00:20):
housing developments things of that sort,will know a little bit about SEQUA.
SEQUA CEQA is the California Environmental QualityAct. It was a law that was
passed in California in nineteen seventy andother another one of the incredibly liberal things

(00:42):
that Ronald Reagan did when he wasgovernor of California. In addition to legalizing
abortion, he also passed SEQUA.And what SEQUA does is it basically I
think when it was passed in nineteenseventy, people did not envision Clearly,
people didn't envision the way in whichit would be used today. So what's

(01:06):
the issue. Well, if areal estate developers building a project and it's
going to adversely impact the environment,who has standing to sue? It?
All has to do with much ofit, anyway, has to do with
standing to sue. Standing is areally important legal doctrin. It's basically it's

(01:30):
basically the question of who is allowedto file a lawsuit over some harm that
has happened or some actionable event.In most cases, standing is fairly obvious.
If someone crashes again, I alwaysuse the car crash example. So

(01:52):
someone crashes a car into agent I'lluse our intrepid producer here at Power Talk,
Agent Squires. If someone crashes acar into Agent Squire's house, I
will feel really bad for him.I will feel really upset on his behalf.
But I can't sue the guy whocrashed into his car. I can't
sue him. If I file alaw suit, I go in front of

(02:16):
the judge and the judge says,why are you suing? Why should I
not dismiss this case because you don'thave standing to sue. I would say,
well, Judge, I was reallyupset when this guy crashed into my
friend, Agent Squire's house. Andthe judge would look at me and say,
well, you being upset, that'snot enough for standing. So to

(02:36):
have standing, you have to showsome kind of actionable harm that happened to
you, physical harm, economic harm, et cetera. It has to be
some sort of tangible harm that impactsyou. So me being upset on behalf
of my friend, No, I'mnot allowed to sue. Agent Squire's is
allowed to sue if someone crashes acar into his house. So the doctrine

(03:00):
of standing is basically the doctrine ofwho has the right to bring this lawsuit?
And this was the issue with environmentalconcerns that there was a thought,
well, if some real estate developeris harming the environment through his building project,

(03:27):
who can speak for the endangered animalswho are impacted? Who can file
a lawsuit on behalf of the fishies? Unless a real estate project or something
is actually directly with a short enoughchain of causation impacting some group of actual
people, nobody really has standing tofile a lawsuit. So you have to

(03:52):
make up some way to challenge.Basically, in order to regulate the environment,
in order to protect the environment,you need to come up with some
system to allow someone to bring alawsuit to stop certain kinds of development if

(04:14):
it is unduly harmful to the environment. Now you'd think that this should be
in the hands of the public,of some kind of public actor being able
to enforce California environmental laws and bringlawsuits to challenge something, or have some
process or some sort of environmental reviewprocess that sat with the government, So

(04:42):
the California EPA or something like that. But no, in our infinite stupidity,
we developed SEQUA. Here's a pieceabout SEQUA from two years ago.
This is from the regulatory review theInequalities of California's Environmental Quality Act, written

(05:03):
by Catherine McKean. Lawmakers originally intendedthis law, the California Environmental Quality Act,
to benefit people and the planet,but in the fifty years since California's
adoption of SEQUA, its environmental reviewrequirements may have also been used by non
environmental groups to fight sustainable and equitabledevelopment. Increasingly, some critics insist that

(05:28):
reforms are needed to restore SEQUA toits original intent. So what SEQUA does
is basically, Okay, we havethese California environmental standards, laws, etc.
Who's enforcing it. Well, we'renot having the government enforce it.
It's not just the EPA enforcing it. We allow private actors to enforce California

(05:54):
law by filing lawsuits against a constructionproject, business undertaking a construction project,
Individual, private persons, or privateorganizations. The Sierra Club can file a

(06:16):
lawsuit against a construction company to saythis construction job is violating environmental law on
this in this way. But it'snot just limited to environmental groups. It's
not just limited to private persons.Anyone can do it. So one of

(06:44):
the things that's happening is that youhave basically like non disinterested parties businesses trying
to stop certain kinds of development projectsin ways that seem self interested towards their
bottom line. It's not all justI mean, look and no environmental lawyer

(07:05):
is doing this without an interest forhis bottom line. But it's not just
nonprofit organizations following these lawsuits. AsCatherine McKean writes in this piece in the
Regulatory Review, she says lawmakers originallyintended this law to benefit people in the

(07:29):
planet, and in the fifty yearssince its adoption, its environmental review requirements
may have also been used by nonenvironmental groups to fight sustainable and equitable development.
So non environmental groups are using thisto block real estate projects that they
don't like, and in fact,the statute has been used to do things

(07:55):
that are are just flat out superharmful, maybe even for the environment.
It's been used to fight the constructionof homeless shelters, to block denser urban
housing. Okay, many of youhave heard the phrase nimby not in my
backyard. So this is the tendencythat people who already have homes in a

(08:18):
certain area, they don't want abunch of new housing to be constructed,
and especially they don't want high densityhousing apartment complexes because they think, well,
apartment complexes bring more crime, theybring people with lower socioeconomic bracket,
and this will lower the value ofmy home. But in the meantime,
California desperately needs more housing. Sosequa, this enlightened lefty thing has been

(08:43):
used to stop this very urgently neededthing of more middle and lower middle class
housing. It's been used to delaysolar projects, to challenge public transit proposals.
It even barred the enrollment of overthree thousand new students at UC Berkeley

(09:05):
in twenty twenty two. And sobasically California does this in a lot of
respects where California just sort of takesthe posture of we're not just going to
have the state enforce a given bodyof law. This is also the case,

(09:31):
by the way, with labor law, employment law. We're not just
going to have the state enforce it. We're also going to encourage private individuals
to enforce it. Okay, Californiahas this in a particular way with labor
law as well, but basically theidea that California is almost outsourcing its environmental

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law enforcement to private actors suing andwithout any sort of clear sense of like
the motives of these people who mightbe suing, and whether the outcomes they're
pushing for or in any way areare really drastically harmful to some other purpose.
And that's the thing that I thinkthese environmental wackos refuse to acknowledge,

(10:18):
is that there has to be agive and take. Yes, any construction
project is going to have some kindof adverse environmental impact, and it's probably
also worth it. It's probably worthwhilegiven that human beings are part of this
environment in which we live. It'sprobably a good thing to build more houses

(10:39):
so that in every house in Californiadoesn't cost five hundred thousand, six hundred
thousand dollars. So maybe there's atwenty three year old in this state who
could maybe somehow buy a house withoutbeing a millionaire first. But no,
I think these liberals, these liberalenvironmental groups are supported by and maybe even

(11:01):
staffed by ultra elite, wealthy peoplewho already have their eight hundred thousand San
Francisco house, eight hundred thousand dollarsSan Francisco house, and they basically just
do not care if another thing evergets built. And not just houses,
but also the infrastructure, the infrastructureneeded to sustain houses, you know,

(11:24):
stuff like water, stuff like reservoirs, stuff like dams, stuff like you
know, it's you know, buildingup the agricultural sector. They don't care
about any of it. They havethis environmental vision where human beings are not
front and center and if anything,are a little more than harmful interlopers.

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Now, when we return, Iwant to talk about how SEQUA is being
used to try to block the buildingof a new redis that even Gavin Newsom
wants to build. That's next onthe John Girardi Show. SEQUA, the
California Environmental Quality Act, is basicallythis cudgel that environmental wackos use to prevent
any new thing from being built ordeveloped in California. It's a major reason

(12:18):
why construction in California is so expensive, because basically you're afraid as a developer
that some jerk can just swoop infrom the outside and file a lawsuit to
stop your project on some kind ofspecious environmental grounds, and sequa is kind
of this remarkable thing because it's abig, massive exception to the traditional American

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legal doctrine around standing. Who isallowed to sue someone who has standing?
As I gave the example, ifsomeone crashes a car into agent Squire's house,
I don't have the right to sue. I might be really mad,
i might be really upset, butI'm not allowed to sue. Only Agent

(13:05):
Squires can sue, or you know, if he passes away, then the
heirs of his estate or whatever.But I'm not allowed to sue. I
don't have the standing to sue,even if I'm like really upset, because
I haven't suffered the harm. Theydidn't crash into my house. My property
wasn't damaged. I haven't suffered ina physical harm. I haven't suffered some

(13:30):
kind of economic harm. I'm justupset for my friend, and that's not
enough to give me standing to sue. What is happening with environmental law in
California is that for years, harmsto the environment are able to be vindicated
in court by private entities filing lawsuitswho are not themselves directly impacted by a

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thing. Okay, basically that we'vecreated a right of action, a right
to sue, private cause of actionthat is extended to people who are not
directly harmed by a given building project, real estate project, et cetera.

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Here's a good example. California environmentalgroups appeal court ruling in favor of plan
to build a new reservoir. Thisis looks like this is a Sacramento be
thing. Maybe it's a Fresno bthing. By Ari Plachta. A coalition

(14:45):
of environmental groups appeal to court rejectionof their challenge to California's plan to build
sites reservoir in a valley north ofSacramento, its first major new major reservoir
in decades. They argue the projectwould harm and here's why. They argue
the project would harm Sacramento River ecosystemsand threaten imperiled fish species. The groups

(15:09):
include the Center for Biological Diversity,the Sierra Club, Friends of the River,
California Sport Fishing Protection Alliance, CaliforniaWater Impact Network, and Save California
Salmon for the Sake of the Deltacommunity and the fish and wildlife already struggling
in this sensitive ecosystem. I hopethe true environmental harms of this reservoir will
be taken seriously, said John Boose, Senior council at the Center for Biological

(15:33):
Diversity. There are still numerous hurdlesbefore the site's reservoir, and that's because
the state's strong environmental laws demand athorough review for potentially damaging projects. In
a May ruling, a Yolo CountySuperior Court judge cited against advocates and determined
that the project's environmental review was sufficient. Governor Gavin nuws Some celebrated the decision,
saying the projects had cleared a majorhurdle. He had sought to speed

(15:56):
the California Environmental Quality Act process throughan Infrastructure Streamline ning law that requires courts
to decide on environmental challenges within twohundred and seventy days when feasible. California
needs more water storage and we haveno time to waste. Projects like the
site's reservoir will capture rain and snowrunoff to supply millions of homes with clean
drinking water, Newman Newsom said afterthe ruling. With a maximum capacity of

(16:18):
one point five million acre feet ofwater, state officials say at its max
state officials say, at its maximum, the proposed four point five billion dollar
reservoir will store enough water to supplythe yearly usage of three million households.
To do so, state agencies wouldinundate nearly fourteen thousand acres of ranch lands
in Glen and Caloosa Counties with waterdiverted from the Sacramento River through a new

(16:41):
system of dams, pipelines, anda bridge. Environmental advocates with the group
Friends of the River and other groupshave long opposed the project, voicing concerns
that diverting water would harm struggling fishpopulations and the ailing ecosystem of the Sacramento
San Juan River Delta. So theSacramento River come in from the north,
the San Juquin River coming up fromthe south. They both meet at the

(17:03):
delta. It's the point where therivers sort of converge and branch off into
a bunch of tiny little branches thatflow out into the San Francisco Bay from
the delta. Water from the SanFrancisco from the Sacramento and San Juan rivers
then gets pumped south into two majorcanal waterway systems. The Central Valley System,

(17:27):
which was built by the federal governmentand provides a lot of agricultural water
for us in the San Lauquin Valley. And then the California State Water System,
which is run by the state andwhich is largely bringing water to southern
California for private individual home use,and liberals are constantly the whole state is

(17:53):
sort of like grind grinding to ahalt as far as its water provision because
of chinook salmon populations, delta smelt, and other kinds of fish in the
Delta. So the contention here is, hey, we need more water storage.
Even Gavin Newsom, It's a funnything about being governor is that at

(18:15):
a certain point the buck stops withyou and you just kind of have to
be the adult in the room inthe way that you don't have to if
you're just a state assembly member ora state senator. So there are certain
things like this where Newsom is socompelled by the obvious need of the state
that he's actually somewhat being the adultin the room. So even Newsom is

(18:38):
saying, Hey, we really needto build some kind of water storage system,
and we need to streamline the sequelprocess to get through, Let's get
through all the fight. He's notproposing to abolish SEQUA because he knows if
he does that all of his environmentallefty supporters will just pitch an absolute fit.

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But basically what he's saying is,look, can we just have a
streamline process where we just get adecision from any judges about sequel challenges within
two hundred and seventy days? Butjust you know, can we at least
just get this done in nine months? And so here's Newsome fighting for this.
But who's opposing it? A bunchof environmental groups who and their claim

(19:26):
is not that any human beings aregonna be harmed by this. I don't
know. Maybe they can make someclaim that some fishermen might possibly downstream be
harmed by this, but like that'sthe thing. Environmental law is so different
from everything else. Like if wewere just using normal doctrines of standing,

(19:51):
I don't know that these groups wouldhave any ability to be in this courtroom
at all. The judge would askthem, well, how are you,
why are you filing this lawsuit?How we're how would you be harmed by
this dam And they'd say, well, we wouldn't be harmed, your honor,
but we think all these fishies wouldcertainly be harmed, and the judge
would say, well, you're nota fish and you don't have any right

(20:15):
to the fish, and they're notyour property or something that are being harmed.
So I'm sorry, but I'm dismissingyour lawsuit for on the grounds of
lack of standing. Get out ofmy courtroom. That's how it would operate
in a normal universe. And sohere you have the state government saying the

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state government, which Gavin Newsom represents, Okay, the state is saying,
we, you know, California environmentallaw is our task to enforce. We
did the environmental review for this thing. We think it's fine, we think
we should build it. They've alreadydone it. But because of SEQUA,

(21:03):
the California Environmental Quality Act, itallows private people to interject themselves and try
for and for private individuals who don'thave any direct stake necessarily in the outcome
here. It's no, there's nodirect harm that they are facing. They

(21:25):
are allowed to try to sue to, in their eyes, enforce California environmental
law when because they think that thestate hasn't enforced their own laws well enough.
So here's the State of California tryingto build this law. Its own
environmental agencies have done the environmental impactstudies, they think it's fine. But

(21:49):
no, you have private people cominginto sue on top of it to try
to stop this and gumming up thiswhole project. And that's the absurdity of
California's environmental law. I guess Iunderstand the idea of, hey, someone

(22:11):
needs to be able to, ina sense, speak for the fishies.
Someone needs to be able to representthe interest of the environment against businesses,
construction projects, et cetera. Well, let the California EPA do that.
Why do we let private groups likethe Sierra Club? And how does the
Sierra Club make its money. Itmakes its money by being active and doing

(22:33):
stuff. If they just say,ah, we decided not to file a
lawsuit about the site's reservoir because yeah, well, let's stay of California said
it was fine. How does thatlook to their donors. I mean,
they're they're they are incentivized to filefile more lawsuits for stuff. So yeah,
California environmental law is insane and it'sstopping even a water storage project that

(23:00):
is so sensible. Even Gavin Newsomwants to get it done. When we
return the major construction projects that aregoing to be necessitated by the high speed
rail and how it is going tojank things up for years to come.
That is next on the John GirardiShow. All right, folks, let's

(23:22):
talk about eminent domain and eminent domainseizures. What does that mean. Well,
the federal government and state governments allhave processes for the government to take
your land for the sake of somekind of public project. That's right.

(23:48):
The government has the right to takeyour land for the sake of some public
project. Now they need to payyou for the land. They need to
pay you the fair market value ofthe land, but they have the right
to do it. Classic example is, all right, we got a road
one way going east, one waygoing west. We want to expand it

(24:08):
to two lanes going east, twolanes going west. So two lanes to
four lanes. Well, if youdo that, you're gonna have to take
a chunk out of missus Smith andmister White and mister Gray's front yards.
Okay, you have to take achunk out of it. So the government

(24:32):
has to go to you know,mister Smith and mister White and miss Gray
whatever whoever their names are, hasto go to them and say, hey,
we're taking a chunk of your frontyard. We are going to pay
you this amount because we did afair market assessment. Blah blah blah blah
blah. We think your house isworth this much. We think this chunk
of your land is worth this much, so we're going to take it.

(24:55):
But here's money for this. Butif mister White feels that that valuation is
not is incorrect, under values hisproperty, he can go to court and
say, hey, I am challengingthis. I think i'm my land is
worth more. And you know,they go through the legal process and maybe
they have a settlement, whatever happens. But that's what eminent domain is.

(25:22):
Okay, it involves you have toand and California has had to do this
with the high speed rail project.I have no idea how and as difficult
and expensive as eminent domain seizures ofpeople's property is, you know, when
you're cutting across a corner of somefarmers field out in Madera County, I

(25:44):
cannot imagine how much more expensive andmore difficult it's going to be once we
start trying to do eminent domain seizuresin big American cities. Well, that
is pretty much what the City ofFresno is going to start getting into.
So piece in Thresno b by TimShehan. Construction on major changes to a

(26:04):
central Fresno railroad crossing won't begin forabout two years, but the city is
already turning to the court system toacquire some of the needed property through eminent
domain. Over the past few months, the Fresno City Council has adopted five
resolutions officially declaring that particular pieces ofland are needed for the one hundred and
fifty million dollar project to rebuild theintersection of Blackstone and McKinley Avenues at the

(26:30):
BNSF railway tracks. The streets areeach to be lowered by as much as
twenty five feet to funnel traffic beneaththe existing railroad tracks. So basically the
railroad tracks are going to stay flat. Right now, they have like railroad

(26:51):
crossings at that intersection, and youknow the big arm that goes down ding
ding ding ding, and then thetrain goes by. So instead we're just
gonna have We're gonna make that intersectioninto basically like an underpass. So you've
got to sink that section of roadtwenty five feet down. That's a lot

(27:14):
and so cars will be able justto drive underneath it. Now. Among
the businesses on the targeted properties arethe Carl's Junior fast food restaurant at the
northwest corner of Blackstone and McKinley,the Dutch Bros. Coffee in a shopping
center on the northeast corner of theintersection. There's Dutch Bros. Over there,

(27:40):
a ceramics business, an autobody shop, and an auto smog shop.
All right, so how will eminentdomain affect the Fresno Railroad project? Eminent
domain or condemnation, is a legalprocess in which a government agency can go
to court to acquire property for apublic project when the agency and the property
owner cannot agree on price or terms. Okay, the first step is adoption.

(28:07):
The start of the eminent domain processdoesn't mean that negotiations on any of
the properties are beyond repair. Thecity is willing to continue negotiations with the
property owners, but in order tomaintain the project's schedule, this step in
determining the necessity of the parcel iscritical, said Nancy Bruno, a supervising
real estate agent with the city's CapitalProjects Department. Now the Blackstone McKinley construction

(28:29):
timeline. And by all of this, I mean presumably, I don't think
this is the high speed rail systemspecifically. Okay, this is a basf
existing rail line, but this isall part and parcel of this effort to
pour tons of money into downtown revitalizationthat seemingly is all centered around rail,

(28:56):
around the high speed rail system,and here an updating the existing rail stuff
that is going. You know,the high speed rail is going to be
flowing right alongside the normal rail,and gosh, I just feel like this
is gonna be an absolute money pitto very little public benefit. I feel

(29:19):
like all this downtown revitalization that iscentered around the idea we're going to have
this high speed rail station downtown andpeople are gonna come there and we'll have
businesses around there, and I justdon't think anyone is going to use it.
It would be one thing if thehigh speed rail project was really gonna

(29:41):
go from La to San Francisco andFresno was a hub in that, but
for now it's not. For now, it's merced to Bakersfield, and I
just don't know how many people inFresno are really realistically going to use it
when you can just get in yourcar and hop on the nine and just
get there as opposed to getting tothe station forty minutes early, paying whatever

(30:06):
you have to pay for for aticket, get on the train. Train
has to probably make a couple ofstops, So it's not like it's gonna
be blindingly fast. You get toBakersfield, and then what do you do.
Hopefully wherever you need to go iswalking distance from the train station,
or you just need to take anuber or rent a car or something.
I just don't think it's gonna bevery practical. And I think, I

(30:29):
mean, this is due to decisionsthat were made, and you know,
it's not like Jerry Dyer came upwith this plan. He sort of inherited
this plan. I think he's makingthe best of it that he can.
But like, I just don't thinkthis is a good idea. So here's
what just this one project, Blackstoneand McKinley. It's a big time intersection,

(30:56):
big time intersection. Right, it'svery close to You've got San Joaque
Memorial High School very close by.You've got Fresno City College very close spy.
Blackstone and McKinley is a really bigintersection. Here's how this is going
to gum things up and is rightalongside the forty one. The grade separation

(31:23):
of the rail crossing at Blackstone andMcKinley has been a priority traffic project for
years for pedestrian vehicle safety and trafficflow on two of the city's major thoroughfares.
The city reports that four people havedied in either train versus pedestrian or
train versus vehicle collisions near the intersectionover the past ten years. Dozens of
trains, both BNSF freight trains andAmtrak passenger trains passed through the intersection each

(31:44):
day, creating an average delay fordrivers of nearly three minutes for each train.
Acquiring all the properties needed for thegrade separation is expected to run through
the summer of twenty twenty five.Okay, so it's going to take them
through summer. It's going to takethem another year to get all the properties.
Engineering designs are expected to be completedby mid to late twenty twenty five,

(32:05):
and construction is slated to commens inthe spring of twenty twenty six.
And continue into the spring of twentytwenty nine, so Blackstone and McKinley will
be gummed up from twenty twenty sixto twenty twenty nine. It's likely that

(32:30):
several dozen properties will be at leastpartially affected by changes in street elevation for
the two roads and the retaining wallsneeded to shore up the embankments, effectively
cutting off street access to the sites. In the case of Dutch Bros,
The popular coffee business, City trafficengineer Alex Gonzalez told the city council in
June thirteen that retaining walls along McKinleyAvenue and a new driveway into the small

(32:52):
shopping center will render inaccessible the exitfor the existing drive through lane. The
owners of at least six properties nearthe Blackstone McKinley intersection have agreed to terms
to sell their land to the city. Those include a quintet of houses south
of McKinley at Glen Avenue and CalaveraStreet, and the owner of a one
point three to seven acre commercial propertythat is home to several businesses on the

(33:13):
west side of Blackstone Avenue, justnorth of the Carls Junior Restaurant. Those
six purchase agreements add up to atotal of more than four point seven million
dollars. The city has already spentfour point seven million dollars to acquire all
the properties that are going to beimpacted by this thing. So for three
years, this intersection, which againBlackstone and McKinley, Like Fresno City College

(33:38):
is just west of there, SamwakeiMemorial High School is just east of there.
You get off the I mean,just envision this, how would you
get to Fresno City College. Well, probably for a lot of people,
depending on where they are. Youget on the forty one, you get

(33:59):
off at mcare, you go weston Blackstone to Fresno City. Blackstone and
McKinley is gonna be a nightmare forthe next three years for well, not
for the next three years, fromtwenty twenty six through twenty twenty nine.

(34:20):
That's gonna be a huge, hugenightmare. That's just gonna be an absolute
zoo And I guess, I guess, I just don't. I'm not sure
if I see the benefit there.I mean, yeah, the end project
looks very beautiful and very nice,and they have this beautiful, colorful map,

(34:43):
you know, showing how lovely it'sgoing to look when it's all done.
I mean, yeah, I've beenat that intersection when a train is
going by and think, oh mygosh. Of course, now the train
is coming by, and it doesit does hold up traffic. And obviously
it's terrible that anyone dies at arailroad crossing. I guess though, I'm

(35:07):
just the city just seems to bemaking a lot of decisions around trains,
and I really wonder if that isnecessary wise, and we're going to have
I mean, if you think thisconstruction project is going to be bad,

(35:27):
just I mean, all of theconstruction that's happening is going to keep happening
in downtown Presno. And by theway, they say it's going to take
three years, tack on at leastanother six months for that. So we're
talking twenty twenty six, quite possiblythrough twenty thirty when we return. I
want to talk a little bit aboutthis June teenth thing, which is today
next on the John Durardy Show.Today is June teenth, and I remember,

(35:54):
like many of you, hearing aboutthis and being I'm told that this
was obviously a thing, that thisis a thing that African Americans have been
celebrating for forever, And what doyou mean, You've never heard of it?
And I have a sense that mostAmericans had never. If you had

(36:15):
asked them in say twenty fifteen,what Juneteenth was, ninety nine percent of
Americans or a huge majority of Americanswould have told you. I have no
idea what this is. The thingin itself doesn't seem like it's anything bad.
This is a day in which Africanslaves in Texas learned that they were

(36:40):
free and that slavery was abolished,and so it's a commemoration of the emancipation
of African American slaves, but seeminglydone in a way that is distinct from
the date of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.I have nothing, again the inherent idea,

(37:01):
but it is curious that this hasbeen pushed so, particularly by people
on the left right now, andI suspect that the reason for the push
is to build up more of theso called anti racist narrative, the anti

(37:24):
racist narrative being no, no,no, anti racism is not equality for
all. It's promoting effective discrimination onbehalf of black people and against white people.
Past discrimination can only be countered bycurrent day discrimination the other way.
That's that's the thesis of the quoteanti racist. Ebram can can be kind

(37:49):
of school of thought. And Ihave a sense that, given a lot
of the sloganing by some of theseleft wing Black Lives matters folks, is
Juneteenth is our Independence Day? Ithink it's it's deliberately picked because it's near
the fourth of July, and theidea is to set up dueling quote independence
days, and that I don't like. I think that it's an attempt to

(38:10):
further divide America on the grounds ofrace, and that is a thing I
very much dislike. That'll do itfor John gj Alady Show. See next
time on Power Talk.