November 27, 2025 • 36 mins
The A&G Replay on November 27, 2025 Hour 3 contains:
- Progress towards reality & college students afraid to speak out
- Joe in London: Pub Runs out of food
- Sandefur SCOTUS Birthright Citizenship Part 1 and 2
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty Armstrong and Jetty, and he.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Armstrong and Getty Strong Happy Thanksgiving. It's the Armstrong and
Getty replay. I hope you eat as much as you can.
I hope you're in pain by the end of the day.
I know I will be.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Now Here are some delicious Armstrong and Geddy leftovers.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Get filled up with more of Armstrong and Getty with
our podcast Armstrong and Getdy on demand. Your loved one
or maybe yourself wants.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
An Armstrong and Getty hoodie, T shirt, hat or more.
They're at Armstrongygeddy dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
A bout a bike. I'm gonna become bike riding guy,
the one of those guys where is the really skin
tight clothes walks around the Starbucks. I'm not, actually, but
I pictured you more shirtless over Tenned Methy. Probably stolen
bike down right. You're going like Tour de Front riding
a kid's bike. I'm somewhere in between. I'm gonna be
(01:13):
in probably jeens, tennis shoes and a T shirt. But
I am on a real bike, not a child's bike
I took out of someone's backyard, the suburban gentleman, look
exactly why not.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
We were talking yesterday about an absolutely blockbuster report in
the Hill about how vast majorities of college kids don't
believe the garbage they've been indoctrinated in, but they're afraid
to say it.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
That is one of the more important things for people
to know that I can remember. I mean, this is
important information. Yeah, and we hammered this pretty good yesterday.
But seventy eight percent of students told us a self
censor on their belief sound surrounding gender identity, seventy two
percent on politics in general, sixty eight percent on family values.
(02:02):
They value what are traditionally known as family values, but
they dare not speak it on college campus.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
And more than eighty percent so they'd submitted classwork that
represented their views in order to align with professors. You
give them a chance and they will tell you what
they really think. And we are on the cusp. I
think of a huge move toward the youngsters of recognizing
(02:31):
what's being done at colleges. It's not education at all,
it's indoctrination. But those poll numbers were stunning and.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Encouraging.
Speaker 5 (02:39):
Well.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
The important thing to me, though, is just realizing that
as human nature, that we're all so susceptible. I don't
know about all, but so many people are susceptible to this. Yeah,
of keeping your mouth shut if you think most people
don't agree with you. I keep my mouth shut in
most social situations about political stuff. But right, yeah, well,
and the whole concept of a preference, just which I
(03:00):
find so interesting that you because everybody around you is silent,
you think, oh, I'm probably one of the only people
who believes this. Right, they agree with the powerful people
who are telling us all what we ought to believe.
But no, you're all sitting there thinking the same thing. Yeah.
And I don't know how many times, probably everybody's had
this situation where that is going on, and somebody says,
(03:21):
you know, I'm a gun owner, and I'm me too,
me too, and that's oh, geez, okay, so we're not
all well and that's whatever the topic is. And that's
the crazy thing, you know, to if you find yourself
in college and thinking, you know, this this stuff about
you know, the gender beenning madness. A man can just
become a woman, And that's really a woman and all
(03:41):
the other stuff they teach these poor kids, all the
critical theory stuff. If you have the courage to stand
up and be that rebel and think, you know what,
ten percent of us are together, I'm going to stand
up and say so, then all of a sudden, eighty
five percent of the classes on your side. You are
a But you know you're not nearly as alone as
(04:02):
you think. Yeah, you can't blame people though, I mean, oh,
it's not blame them at all. First of all, everything
that's been presented to all of us led us to
believe that this is what most people on college campus
has thought was this stuff.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Well that's part of the insidious plot. That's what propaganda is.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Sure, and telling everybody, including the teachers who are going
to grade you, that they're wrong, completely wrong, is not
always your best move, right. Oh yeah, Well that's why
eighty percent of the kids submitted work that they didn't believe,
because they had to get some to get their grades
and move on in life. Nearly four out of five.
(04:39):
I don't believe this, but I'm gonna pretend I do
to get along. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, but that's you know,
that's indoctrination, especially of youth, is all about fighting unfairly
and bullying and convincing kids that everybody believes it, and
anybody who dissentses ab person. So yeah, I don't blame
(05:01):
the kids at all. No, I want to fight against
the evildoers or bullying them anyway. Morgad News and if
San Francisco's doing it, it's gonna spread. San Francisco has
embraced a new tool to clear homeless camps. I've noticed
city officials pointing to cleaner streets is evidence that more
active approach is working. I feel like my reporters say
(05:24):
it's cruel and nasty. I feel like my reporting, with
my own circumstances was leading the way long before the
Wall Street Journal or others picked up on this. On
the East coast, San Francisco's a complete if you haven't
been in a long time, it's a completely different looking
city than it was a year ago. It's amazing.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Indeed, between July of last year and July of this year,
the city arrested or cited more than one thousand and
eighty people on illegal lodging charges. That's over ten times
the number of arrests during the same period a year
earlier under the progressive former administration. Last time I was
in downtown San Francisco, I a homeless person one and
(06:02):
that person was being talked to by somebody from the
city about how you got to get out of here.
So the residents and business owners complaining about safety as
encampments grew have finally been heard.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Now.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Of course, the activists say, you're merely shifting the homeless
population around the city and putting homeless people a greater risk.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Shut up.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Most of them need to shdrug addicts. Yeah, yeah, shut up.
So San Francisco is doing a good job. It is possible,
even under some of the bizarre court rulings recently. And
also and this is out of San Francisco as well.
Once seen as a model of progressive drug policy, San
(06:41):
Francisco stands now as a morbid example of how harm
reduction has gone astray. This is one of the shibboleths,
one of the gods of the left is that you've
got to help junkies do drugs safely and comfortably. Look,
(07:01):
I get the clean needles thing, I get the impulse there.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
What's the theory on that, though, how's that supposed to
end that people will on their own decide, you know what,
I don't want to live in my own filth on
the street at some point, yes, okay, yes, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
In fact, this gal, who's the executive director of the
National Harm Reduction Coalition, called the shift in San Francisco
away from the harm reduction quote moronic and antithetical to
what we know works. But the problem in San Francisco
and other progressive cities is that harm reduction has become
completely divorced from recovery. What began as a campaign to
(07:41):
keep people alive long enough to recover from addiction has
devolved into a philosophy that no longer considers recovery as
necessary or even desirable. The question of whether or not
harm reduction is successful comes down to whether it's treated
as a gateway to recovery or as an alternative to it.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
So there you go.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
It has become an alternative to getting off of drugs.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
What percentage? So I'm I'm not a big financed by
you the taxpayer. I'm not big on the UH on
rehabs and that sort of stuff, because they are incredibly
unsuccessful and nobody pays any attention to that. But of
people that I mean, not just for regular people, of
people that are so far down the whole drug road
that you're sleeping on the street next to another drug addict.
(08:24):
How many of those people ever clean up? I wonder
half of one percent. I'll bet it's I'll bet it's very,
very low.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah, I'm guessing you know, a pretty good chunk of
them continue using into their forties fifties, and then they
succumb to you know, the sort of thing middle aged
addicts do. As you know, a coroner once said in
response to the question who's your most common customer? Uh,
(08:53):
they said male fifties alcoholic, and I'm sure drug addict. Now,
because that was, gosh, fifteen years ago, I think they
would probably say, yeah, middle aged drug addict or a
young drug addict.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Anyway, more good news, though. Don't want to get focused
on the bad news. Want to get focused on the
fact that.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
A lot of the insane policies of the left are
being abandoned, even in places like San Francisco. Different topic,
but kind of the same area. Boston Children's Hospital, the
Harvard Medical Research and Training hospital that specializes in children's care,
had previously insisted that they do not perform genital surgeries
(09:34):
as part of gender affirming care on patients under the
age of eighteen, but a journal of Clinical Medicine Studies
published a couple of years ago that was improved. Blah
blah blah describes chess surgeries for those who are fifteen
as well as genital surgeries for those over seventeen. And
the Trump administration has subpoenaed all sorts of information from them.
(09:54):
And because of that, at least partly, and this is
from the New York Times reload plays, there is hospitals
are limiting gender treatment for transminers. Both of those phrases
ought to be in quotes because they're made up.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Even in blue states.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Three prominent medical centers in California recently announced they would
stop the treatments, citing pressure from the Trump administration and
from sanity.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
So that's good. There's a lot of real madness being
rolled back. Good progress domestically. Love it. Let's not focus
on the grim stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
The Armstrong and Getty Show, Yeah, your show, podcasts and
our hot links Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty, The Armstrong
and Getty Show.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
So my Sweetheart, Judy and I spent eight days in
London and had an absolutely wonderful time. I loved England
as I suspected I would. It's a very interesting place.
I've become a fan of day drinking, and not in
that like vacation drinking all day long way, but in
(11:06):
the like you have a pint at lunch at a
pub and then you go do what you're going to do.
You're not quote unquote drinking. You just have a beer
because it's nice and it makes you feel slightly more cheerful.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Why did we eat? How did we develop our attitude
we have in the United States over the years, because
I remember when I was in Italy thinking the same thing.
Everybody would come in the restaurants, like people who are
working their jobs. They'd have a glass of wine, eat
their food and then go back to work. And that
is seen in the United States. It's just insane, just
absolutely crazy.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, the Europeans have what I would call a very
European look or view of drinking that I found refreshed.
Speaking of pubs. So we rented a flat in Mayfair
if you know where that is, doesn't matter. New Bond Street,
lots of like crazy high end shopping, mostly populated by
(12:00):
Kuwaiti oil money. Oh wow, by the bye, guys walking
up the street with four chicks and the beekeeper out
really going into perfume stores and spending just one godly
amounts of oil money a lot real.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
That's not an exaggeration. You saw a guy walking up
the street with four women in the beekeeper out in
eight days many times? Yes, wow, I mean one to
six women in the beekeeper wow. Yeah. Anyway, they are
basically sex slaves or cleaning your house slaves or whatever,
(12:33):
and everybody just tolerates that with no rights.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
That's correct, yes, And Brits are not super duper happy
about the completely wildly unfettered immigration from Muslim lands over
the last twenty years.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
More on that another time.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
But anyway, but out our windows onto the street, there
was a little like I just had half a block
long street and there was a pub on each side
of it. At the other end it was one hundred
yards from us maybe as we looked out the window,
and it was so cool every day and more and
more as the week went on. At four thirty or so,
(13:09):
certainly by five o'clock there would be so many people
standing in and outside the pub having a pint with
their coworkers and friends and a laugh and a conversation
before they went home for the day.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Sounds like a recipe for sexual harassment. Oh my god.
And it wasn't. They were drinking.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
No, they were talking with people because they worked with people,
and they met their buddies, and they talked about the
football match, which is soccer, and it just it was
so nice.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Anyway, yeah, and I thought, wow, I could get used
to this in a hurry. Although the pub thing, we
went to this one historic pub. We met our next
door neighbors from home. Weirdly enough, they were over there
at the same time, decided to get together. We go
to this pub, hundreds of years old, pub, drenched in history, legendary,
the Prince something or lord what's its there, I don't
(14:09):
even remember the name, but it was very atmospheric. But anyway,
so we're sitting there having dinner and or we're having
you know, a couple of pines, and we decide it's
time to eat, and we order like four small plates
off the menu, and the waitress come back and says,
I'm so sorry, we're actually out of the calamari and
the pucker fish or whatever the hell it was, and
(14:31):
also the beef Wellington, and we're like, oh okay, it's
like six o'clock at night, all right, all right, all right,
we'll order those other things. Then she comes back in
like two of those three are out. So should she
ever get around to admitting we're not actually a restaurant.
We don't have any food at all. We just have
a menu. We just hope we're working out the wind.
(14:53):
Most people start drinking, they forget if they're hungry. So
at one point I said, it would save time if
you just told me what you do have, but we
end up with this mess of food. Did you say
that I shouldn't have? But I didn't know. And finally
so at the end of the evening and it was lovely,
she comes and says, can you tell me what you
(15:16):
actually ordered?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
And got?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Boys? And I'm like, wait a minute, that's your job.
We're some pot No, no, no, you tell us. And
it was just part of it is Tipping is not
really a thing there. Now they've got a service charge
that's like five, six, maybe ten percent, but you feel
(15:42):
it because they're not earning it. They're like, look, I'm
getting my six percent. Oh okay, No, matter what gotcha?
So if you have to like order twenty four foods
before I bring you three, just because we're playing this
little game of we might have it, we might not,
why don't you order find out so you know it's
(16:02):
it's pluses and minuses, because the whole tipping thing is
it's stressful, especially if you don't know the local customs.
But yeah, Michael, how was the food over there? Overall?
In England? Uh?
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Overall kind of good, not great, But once you realize
how to order and what to order, it's it's better.
But yeah, the Brits are not famous for food for
for good reason. If you say, hey, what's a great
meal around here, people will send you to an Italian
restaurant or an Indian restaurant for a good reason. But
(16:35):
the other thing about workers that I found interesting. We
had a tour guide at the British Museum who was
just terrific. He was a professor of history.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
And he said, yeah, that exhibit is shut down because
there's just no employees. There's no one to work. I said, what,
that's odd? He said, oh, yeah, since COVID, everybody stays home,
they live with their parents. They're collecting government checks, you
can't get people to work.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Wow, And I thought that was so interesting and exactly
what you hear from so many employers in the States.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Yeah, we had that conversation with my family in the
Midwest of the United States. I don't go to other
countries and give them my money. I stay in the
United States and for you. But we had the same
conversation on how number of restaurants, including the one we
were at, was really they they weren't seating all the seats,
(17:23):
not because they were crowded, but because they didn't have
enough help. How is that still a thing? Yeah, I know,
it's amazing and universally universal apparently.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Armstrong and show.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
The president decides to do something with an executive order
or whatever often that they promised on the campaign trail,
their voters get all excited, Yay, they did it day
one like they promised, And then then I get an
alert on my phone. Some judge somewhere I've never heard
of it said no, you can't do that. And then
it stops, and everybody's like groans, like, oh, they can
(18:25):
do that, and it keeps happening over and over again,
and do we want that system to continue that way?
Or not as part of what the Supreme Court was
arguing about yesterday. And as one of the justices said,
there are six hundred some federal judges and while I
do not question their motives, sometimes they are wrong. So
do we want them to be able to hold up
the whole country?
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Let us discuss the very interesting and multifaceted oral arguments
yesterday before the Supreme Court with Tim Sandefer, vice president
for Legal Affairs at the Goldwater Institute, among other auspicious titles,
author of eight books, include most recently Freedom's Fories, How
Isabel Patterson, Rosewilder and ein Rand Found Liberty and Age
(19:05):
of Darkness.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
I've recommended it many times. It's terrific. Tim. How are you, sir?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Just great?
Speaker 5 (19:10):
Thanks for having me back.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Guys published poet, got to throw that in there. True, Yes,
a polymath as they say.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Anyway, Tim, So, ostensibly everyone's talking about that we're going
to discuss birthright citizenship in front of the Supreme Court,
and that did come up. But would you agree that
the more significant discussion was about nationwide injunctions by individual
federal judges?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
That was the focus of the argument, and it was
a very interesting argument, but I don't think that it's
a hard question. I think the answer is obviously nationwide
injunctions are perfectly fine. They're the ordinary way of doing
business in the courts, and people who complain about them
either don't understand the system or are trying to get
away with something illegal.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Yeah. I don't always like that it happened, but I
can't see what the alternative would be. Somebody pointed out,
so you're gonna let I guess it was you that
pointed it out yesterday in Twitter. The idea that so
every time a president does something, it's got to work
its way all the way through the courts up to
the Supreme Court, and then a decision by the Supreme Court.
(20:14):
Before the Supreme Court might say sometimes nine nothing, you
can't do that.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Oh and during that whole period of time, the government
is still doing the illegal thing.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Right right?
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Wow, So clearly it's two to one for a judicial
takeover of the government. But I will stand up for liberty. Uh,
Is there no middle ground? Has got to be three
judge panel and not a single Yahoo in a rural Tennessee.
Speaker 5 (20:38):
Yeah, I think I think having a single unit ya
who in rural Tennessee is perfectly fine, because that's what
the appellate process is. Sort of, that's why you appeal cases.
And by the way, that's why you should avoid appointing
yahoos to the federal bench. Might mention that too. The argument,
the argument against nation right injunctions always seems to boil
down to, well, this is a democracy in the major
(21:00):
I already should always get what it wants. And the
answer to that is no. What happened to all of
my friends who used to say, this is a republic,
not a democracy. The whole point of our system is
that the majority has to act lawfully, and if it
acts unlawfully, I can go in front of a judge
and get that give an order from that judge prohibiting
the government from violating my rights. And the idea that
(21:21):
we should do this piece meal, that only a judge
down here, that his order only applies there. Meanwhile, the
government can do illegal things to everybody else in the
country until the case reaches the US Supreme Court makes
no sense at all.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
The underlying theme here being, folks, that what we really
need to fear is the power of the government in
this country. That's kind of the idea of forming it.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
So there's no question that these nationwide injunctions were relatively
or practically completely unknown for one hundred and fifty years.
Then there are a handful of them, and the number
of them is now skyrots every day.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
It seems like on my phone, I see a judge
jumped in somewhere.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
Actually, right, I actually don't think that that's true. I
think that what happened was we just started calling them
by a different name. You know, there were an injunction
injunctions against unconstitutional government actions since before there was a constitution.
One of the points that was brought up during the
arguments was that British judges used to do this before
the American Revolution, and that was considered perfectly legitimate. It's
(22:18):
just that nowadays we call the nation right injunctions, or
we have some judges who write sloppily and don't explain
what they're actually saying or something. And okay, that's a problem,
I suppose. But the idea that you should limit the
injunction power of federal courts is what that is is
that's open door to the majority violating individual rights on
a scale that I mean, they already do it, but
(22:40):
you can imagine what it would be if we took
away one of the most important protections for individual rights
in this country, which is getting an injunction from our
federal court to protect their freedom. And that's insane.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
So I didn't want to get to this part too
fast because you're a lawyer, and this part can't be
fixed with the law. It seems to me that we've
got a cultural problem in that presidents are way more
likely than they used to be to want to challenge
the Supreme Court, either to like legitimately they don't think
the law is correct, or they don't care if they're wrong.
(23:14):
They just want to get the political credit for trying.
And perhaps I don't know this, but it seems like
a likely response. The six hundred some federal judges out there.
There's a lot more of them who are willing to
let their politics get ahead of their judge reasoning and
jump in and stop somebody they hate.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Yes, you're absolutely right about that, and especially the thing
about the President and Congress being willing to do things
that they know are unconstitutional because they know that the
judges are going to strike it down and they can
blame the judges and say, oh, those evil activist judges,
or they can get away with their unconstitutional things. So
it's win when if you want to do something unconstitutional.
And honestly, every president's done this to some degree. Obviously
(23:53):
Franklin Roosevelt did this a lot. But the one that
I always six in my memory is George W. Bush
when he signed the McCain fine Gold campaign finance law
and said when he signed it that he thought it
was unconstitutional but that he would leave it to the
courts to deal with. Well, I'm sorry, but if you're
the president, you take an oath to support and defend
(24:14):
the constitution of the United States. And if you ignore
that oath and sign something that you know is unconstitutional
just because you think the courts will clean up your
mess for you, I think that's disgraceful.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Well, a lot of the pieces I've read that have
been following the growth of this use that as kind
of like the patient zero, because he said it out loud,
and then other presidents thought, hey, I can do that,
I just won't say it out loud, and Obama did it,
and Biden did it, and Trump did it in whichever order,
and then Trump again and and it So how do
we fix this.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Well, there's a long answer and the short answer. The
short answer is elect good presidents. The long answer is
that we have to restore respect for the Constitution in
this country. I think it's the long term damage that's
been done to Americans understanding and appreciation of the Constitution
is horrifying. We have prominent law professors. There was a
(25:06):
law professor at at Georgetown Law School a few years
ago published an article in the Washington Post saying the
Constitution is obsolete. I don't respect it at all. Well,
you're a teacher of constitutional law for crying out loud.
And if we don't respect the Constitution, we don't love it.
It cannot protect us. The Constitution is just a promise,
and if we don't honor that promise, then it's not
worth the paper it's written on.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
We should have written law specifically putting him in jail.
In my opinion, Tim Sandefer is online from the Goldwater Institute.
A little constitutional humor for exactly design.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
For punish one man.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
That's a good idea, so you know, blah blah blah,
disclaimer about it's difficult to read the tea leaves of
the oral arguments, blah, blah blah. Did it strike you
that the justices, the sane ones that we like, we're
leaning in any particular direction as to the nationwide injunctions judges, etc.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
That we've been discussing.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
Some of the judges have made clear for a long
time that they're against these what they call nationwide injunctions.
Justice Thomas in particular. Some of the others are a
little harder to read. Justice Barrett for example, and Justice Roberts,
who have become really the swing judges on this issue.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
I thought the.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
Most interesting judge if you want to if anybody wants
to go and listen to the argument online, I thought
Justice Jackson was the one who is the most interesting.
She clearly understands how this area of the law works,
and she rightly says there's no there there that nationwide
injunctions are perfectly legitimate. They always have been and there's
no problem. So she'd be the one that I find
most interesting. But how to predict I think you're going
(26:38):
to get. I think Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett are
going to side with the liberals and say we don't
have a problem per se with nationwide injunctions. But maybe
some of them aren't very good, but as a as
a blanket matter, they're okay. And then they're going to
want to hear the underlying case about birthright citizenship, which
obviously is a huge deal.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
To me.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Is it even worth getting into what happened on that
topic yesterday or do you.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
Think it's Well, they really just talked about whether or
not they have a legitimate case in the first place,
and they haven't really briefed it or argued it yet.
But that's important because in order to get an injunction,
you kind of have to first show that you have
even an arguable point to make, and that was what
they were arguing about. And I will say, I know
this is talk radio, and we're all supposed to think
that we clearly have the right answer and everything. I
(27:25):
think the birthright citizenship question is a very hard question.
I don't think it's an easy question on either side.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Let's talk about that when we come back from the
break hear. I want to hear the arguments on both
sides of that. That's interesting And clearly you've probably seen
the breakdown on who speaks the most words the chicks
talk too much? Is that given?
Speaker 5 (27:45):
Well, Jessin sodomoy are does love cutting off lawyers and
not letting them answer her question?
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah, the chicks talk too much. I think that's been nice.
And the new gal talks more than anybody. That shouldn't
happen in any organization.
Speaker 6 (27:57):
Jack Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and Getty Show. Jack
Armstrong and Joe Getty The Armstrong and Getty Shows.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Discussing the oral arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday with
Tim Sanderfur, vice president for Legal Affairs at the Goldwater Institute.
It was advertised as a birthright citizenship hearing it or discussion.
It really was much more a discussion of individual federal
judges and nationwide injunctions and that sort of thing. But
(28:35):
to the question of the Fourteenth Amendment, Tim, you said
before the break that it's not an easy call. I'm
glad to hear you agree. I've thought the same thing.
What should we know about the fourteenth Amendment even come
to a semi intelligent opinion on this?
Speaker 5 (28:51):
Well, the first sentence of the fourteenth Amendment says, all
persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject
to the jurisdiction thereof, are US citizens. And all of
this case. All of these arguments turn on that phrase
subject to the jurisdiction thereof. What does that phrase mean.
It's really tough because the word jurisdiction is one of
those words that can mean all sorts of different things.
(29:13):
It basically means power, but there's all sorts of different
kinds of power, and so that's what the argument turns on.
Some people think that it means you have to follow
the law. If you're born here and you have to
follow the law, then you're subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
and then that means you're a citizen. But that doesn't
really make a lot of sense because even foreign tourists
who come here for a vacation have to follow the law.
(29:34):
I mean, they have to stop at the red lights
and they can't steal things, So that can't be what
that means, right. Instead, the other side argues, jurisdiction thereof
means some kind of loyalty or allegiance, that there's citizenship
jurisdiction as opposed to follow the law jurisdiction, and that difference.
You can see that difference for example, in this if
(29:56):
you're a foreign spy, now you sneak into the country
and you spy for some foreign country and you get
it arrested, you can be prosecuted for espionage, but you
cannot be prosecuted for treason. Why because you're not a
US citizen and you don't owe loyalty to the US,
so you cannot commit treason against the US. And so
there's two different kinds of jurisdiction, is the argument. And
(30:19):
so those who are against birthright citizenships say, subject to
the jurisdiction thereof means that your parents owed loyalty to
the United States as opposed to some foreign country, and
that would mean that illegal aliens, if they have a
child here, that child is not a citizen in the
United States. Now, that's also there's a problem with that.
There's a couple problems that. One of the problems with
that argument is that nobody has ever said that that's
(30:40):
what it means. In the one hundred and fifty years
since this has been in the Constitution, everybody has active
like if you're born here, you're a citizen all of
that time. And so suddenly discovering that we're at it
turns out that we've been misreading the Constitution for one
hundred and fifty years would be a huge, enormously radical
transformation and how our system works. That would cause tremendous
(31:03):
disruption nationwide, and that would be a real problem. But
all of this, the real problem here in answering this
question is that when the Amendment was adopted, there were
no such things as illegal aliens because there were no
laws against immigration. And that means if you're an originalist
and you think the competition should be understood the way
it was originally intended, the framers didn't ever think about
(31:24):
this because it wasn't against the law back then. So
we don't know what they would have thought about this
question right.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Right Well, at the point that this enormously radical, disruptive
president is overturned, that's when you tag me and Tim
and I come in and explain to the good folks
that look, the nature of global transportation, the movement of
people or peoples from one place to another has changed
so vastly.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
God, Joe's a living constitution guy. You can hear it coming.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Out of what No, don't you dare know that the
very nature of cummings and goings from countries has been
so radically transformed. A Chinese national with not the slightest
notion of making life in the United States. Can can
depart China, arrive here, give birth, go back to China,
(32:16):
all in the span of seventy two hours. I'm inducing
labor in this case, or getting very lucky, and that
child had citizenship. That's an eventuality unimaginable back in the day.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Is the kids?
Speaker 5 (32:29):
I think so? And that's sort of true. But on
the other hand, the Chinese question came up back then
because there were so many Chinese in California in the
eighteen sixties. And Senator's rast, well, isn't this going to
make the children of the Chinese immigrants who back then
did not intend to scy in the United States. They
intended to go back to China. The senator's rest, does
this make their kids us? Senator US citizens? And the
(32:50):
Senator from California said yes, and then he was immediately
thrown out of office. So what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Nobody knows what that means a single case from eighteen
ninety eight, or is there more precedent?
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Really there really isn't. There's really just a handful of
presidents and no Supreme Court case has ever said that
birthright citizenship is the is in the Constitution. There have
been some that have kind of mentioned it or kind
of assumed it, but none has said so outright.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
I am surprised. The polling shows that only about a
third of Americans want to do away with the way
we do it now. I'm surprised by that. I do
want to get to this. This is a journalistic question,
but I think it has an effect on people's respect
for the law. It has come up recently. It has
become a pattern that anytime the media mentions a judge,
they mentioned what president appointed them. Do you think that's
(33:37):
a good idea or not? They didn't just barely got
a minute.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
I think it's fine. I think people should know where
these For instance, I think it would help a lot
of judges. You know, a lot of Republican appointed judges
have been ruling against the Trump administration, and I think
it would be helpful for people to know that these
questions are not things where it's all partisan. The law
is not just partisan politics. It's something much more profound
and much more important.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Yeah, well, I agree, but it implies that judge I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
True.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
I used to think I didn't used to think about
it ever. If a judge ruled. I just thought, well,
that's interesting. Now it's all who appointed him. Oh, of
course he said.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
That that is true. That is a risk. But I
think we should air on the side of informing people
as opposed to keeping people in the dark.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
So that's that's true.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Tim Stander for the Goldwater Institute on the line, Tim,
final question, I've called for a monarchy.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
You in favor of it? Yes or no?
Speaker 5 (34:31):
No, I'm against him monarchy. I'm for the constitution.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Joe. One more question. As a published poet, I was
thinking about this yesterday he won the Nobel Prize. Bob
Dylan good poet or not lousy poet?
Speaker 5 (34:42):
Now read Robert Hayden or Richard Wilbur instead.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
How about Ringo Star Octopus's Garden, Tam. It's always great
and enlightening. Thanks Millian for the time. Let's talk again soon.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Thanks guys.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
All right, I was actually thinking about this listening to
Dylan lyrics. Why do they stick in everybody's head so much?
Why do people keep going back to them? If it's
just gobbledegook, like a lot of real poets claim, it
can't be. It wouldn't lodge, it wouldn't it wouldn't make
the market made, would it all right?
Speaker 4 (35:15):
He was famously moody about his career and his music
in his Life's Philosophy. I think some of his stuff
is absolutely brilliant, and I think some of it's gobbledegook humhm.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Maybe maybe more on that another day, or maybe not.
We got plenty of stuff to tell you. I hope
you can stick around if you missus. Sigmund I thought
that tim thing was really really good and you want
to listen to it again and get the podcast Armstrong
and Getty on demand. Armstrong, arms Strong and Geeddy on demand.
We're not boring. A lot of news is boring and
(35:46):
tedious and depressing. It makes you angry. You don't want
to live your life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong,
He's Joe Getty. We're Armstrong in Getty. We try to
bring you the truth and help you figure out this
crazy modern world. About something about a comedic tone. We
have a one ore. Yes, listen to Armstrong. You get
it on demand on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty Armstrong and Jetty, and he.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Armstrong and Getty Strong Happy Thanksgiving. It's the Armstrong and
Getty replay. I hope you eat as much as you can.
I hope you're in pain by the end of the day.
I know I will be.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Now Here are some delicious Armstrong and Geddy leftovers.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Get filled up with more of Armstrong and Getty with
our podcast Armstrong and Getdy on demand. Your loved one
or maybe yourself wants.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
An Armstrong and Getty hoodie, T shirt, hat or more.
They're at Armstrongygeddy dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
A bout a bike. I'm gonna become bike riding guy,
the one of those guys where is the really skin
tight clothes walks around the Starbucks. I'm not, actually, but
I pictured you more shirtless over Tenned Methy. Probably stolen
bike down right. You're going like Tour de Front riding
a kid's bike. I'm somewhere in between. I'm gonna be
(01:13):
in probably jeens, tennis shoes and a T shirt. But
I am on a real bike, not a child's bike
I took out of someone's backyard, the suburban gentleman, look
exactly why not.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
We were talking yesterday about an absolutely blockbuster report in
the Hill about how vast majorities of college kids don't
believe the garbage they've been indoctrinated in, but they're afraid
to say it.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
That is one of the more important things for people
to know that I can remember. I mean, this is
important information. Yeah, and we hammered this pretty good yesterday.
But seventy eight percent of students told us a self
censor on their belief sound surrounding gender identity, seventy two
percent on politics in general, sixty eight percent on family values.
(02:02):
They value what are traditionally known as family values, but
they dare not speak it on college campus.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
And more than eighty percent so they'd submitted classwork that
represented their views in order to align with professors. You
give them a chance and they will tell you what
they really think. And we are on the cusp. I
think of a huge move toward the youngsters of recognizing
(02:31):
what's being done at colleges. It's not education at all,
it's indoctrination. But those poll numbers were stunning and.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Encouraging.
Speaker 5 (02:39):
Well.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
The important thing to me, though, is just realizing that
as human nature, that we're all so susceptible. I don't
know about all, but so many people are susceptible to this. Yeah,
of keeping your mouth shut if you think most people
don't agree with you. I keep my mouth shut in
most social situations about political stuff. But right, yeah, well,
and the whole concept of a preference, just which I
(03:00):
find so interesting that you because everybody around you is silent,
you think, oh, I'm probably one of the only people
who believes this. Right, they agree with the powerful people
who are telling us all what we ought to believe.
But no, you're all sitting there thinking the same thing. Yeah.
And I don't know how many times, probably everybody's had
this situation where that is going on, and somebody says,
(03:21):
you know, I'm a gun owner, and I'm me too,
me too, and that's oh, geez, okay, so we're not
all well and that's whatever the topic is. And that's
the crazy thing, you know, to if you find yourself
in college and thinking, you know, this this stuff about
you know, the gender beenning madness. A man can just
become a woman, And that's really a woman and all
(03:41):
the other stuff they teach these poor kids, all the
critical theory stuff. If you have the courage to stand
up and be that rebel and think, you know what,
ten percent of us are together, I'm going to stand
up and say so, then all of a sudden, eighty
five percent of the classes on your side. You are
a But you know you're not nearly as alone as
(04:02):
you think. Yeah, you can't blame people though, I mean, oh,
it's not blame them at all. First of all, everything
that's been presented to all of us led us to
believe that this is what most people on college campus
has thought was this stuff.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Well that's part of the insidious plot. That's what propaganda is.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Sure, and telling everybody, including the teachers who are going
to grade you, that they're wrong, completely wrong, is not
always your best move, right. Oh yeah, Well that's why
eighty percent of the kids submitted work that they didn't believe,
because they had to get some to get their grades
and move on in life. Nearly four out of five.
(04:39):
I don't believe this, but I'm gonna pretend I do
to get along. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, but that's you know,
that's indoctrination, especially of youth, is all about fighting unfairly
and bullying and convincing kids that everybody believes it, and
anybody who dissentses ab person. So yeah, I don't blame
(05:01):
the kids at all. No, I want to fight against
the evildoers or bullying them anyway. Morgad News and if
San Francisco's doing it, it's gonna spread. San Francisco has
embraced a new tool to clear homeless camps. I've noticed
city officials pointing to cleaner streets is evidence that more
active approach is working. I feel like my reporters say
(05:24):
it's cruel and nasty. I feel like my reporting, with
my own circumstances was leading the way long before the
Wall Street Journal or others picked up on this. On
the East coast, San Francisco's a complete if you haven't
been in a long time, it's a completely different looking
city than it was a year ago. It's amazing.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Indeed, between July of last year and July of this year,
the city arrested or cited more than one thousand and
eighty people on illegal lodging charges. That's over ten times
the number of arrests during the same period a year
earlier under the progressive former administration. Last time I was
in downtown San Francisco, I a homeless person one and
(06:02):
that person was being talked to by somebody from the
city about how you got to get out of here.
So the residents and business owners complaining about safety as
encampments grew have finally been heard.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Now.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Of course, the activists say, you're merely shifting the homeless
population around the city and putting homeless people a greater risk.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Shut up.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Most of them need to shdrug addicts. Yeah, yeah, shut up.
So San Francisco is doing a good job. It is possible,
even under some of the bizarre court rulings recently. And
also and this is out of San Francisco as well.
Once seen as a model of progressive drug policy, San
(06:41):
Francisco stands now as a morbid example of how harm
reduction has gone astray. This is one of the shibboleths,
one of the gods of the left is that you've
got to help junkies do drugs safely and comfortably. Look,
(07:01):
I get the clean needles thing, I get the impulse there.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
What's the theory on that, though, how's that supposed to
end that people will on their own decide, you know what,
I don't want to live in my own filth on
the street at some point, yes, okay, yes, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
In fact, this gal, who's the executive director of the
National Harm Reduction Coalition, called the shift in San Francisco
away from the harm reduction quote moronic and antithetical to
what we know works. But the problem in San Francisco
and other progressive cities is that harm reduction has become
completely divorced from recovery. What began as a campaign to
(07:41):
keep people alive long enough to recover from addiction has
devolved into a philosophy that no longer considers recovery as
necessary or even desirable. The question of whether or not
harm reduction is successful comes down to whether it's treated
as a gateway to recovery or as an alternative to it.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
So there you go.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
It has become an alternative to getting off of drugs.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
What percentage? So I'm I'm not a big financed by
you the taxpayer. I'm not big on the UH on
rehabs and that sort of stuff, because they are incredibly
unsuccessful and nobody pays any attention to that. But of
people that I mean, not just for regular people, of
people that are so far down the whole drug road
that you're sleeping on the street next to another drug addict.
(08:24):
How many of those people ever clean up? I wonder
half of one percent. I'll bet it's I'll bet it's very,
very low.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah, I'm guessing you know, a pretty good chunk of
them continue using into their forties fifties, and then they
succumb to you know, the sort of thing middle aged
addicts do. As you know, a coroner once said in
response to the question who's your most common customer? Uh,
(08:53):
they said male fifties alcoholic, and I'm sure drug addict. Now,
because that was, gosh, fifteen years ago, I think they
would probably say, yeah, middle aged drug addict or a
young drug addict.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Anyway, more good news, though. Don't want to get focused
on the bad news. Want to get focused on the
fact that.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
A lot of the insane policies of the left are
being abandoned, even in places like San Francisco. Different topic,
but kind of the same area. Boston Children's Hospital, the
Harvard Medical Research and Training hospital that specializes in children's care,
had previously insisted that they do not perform genital surgeries
(09:34):
as part of gender affirming care on patients under the
age of eighteen, but a journal of Clinical Medicine Studies
published a couple of years ago that was improved. Blah
blah blah describes chess surgeries for those who are fifteen
as well as genital surgeries for those over seventeen. And
the Trump administration has subpoenaed all sorts of information from them.
(09:54):
And because of that, at least partly, and this is
from the New York Times reload plays, there is hospitals
are limiting gender treatment for transminers. Both of those phrases
ought to be in quotes because they're made up.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Even in blue states.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Three prominent medical centers in California recently announced they would
stop the treatments, citing pressure from the Trump administration and
from sanity.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
So that's good. There's a lot of real madness being
rolled back. Good progress domestically. Love it. Let's not focus
on the grim stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
The Armstrong and Getty Show, Yeah, your show, podcasts and
our hot links Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty, The Armstrong
and Getty Show.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
So my Sweetheart, Judy and I spent eight days in
London and had an absolutely wonderful time. I loved England
as I suspected I would. It's a very interesting place.
I've become a fan of day drinking, and not in
that like vacation drinking all day long way, but in
(11:06):
the like you have a pint at lunch at a
pub and then you go do what you're going to do.
You're not quote unquote drinking. You just have a beer
because it's nice and it makes you feel slightly more cheerful.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Why did we eat? How did we develop our attitude
we have in the United States over the years, because
I remember when I was in Italy thinking the same thing.
Everybody would come in the restaurants, like people who are
working their jobs. They'd have a glass of wine, eat
their food and then go back to work. And that
is seen in the United States. It's just insane, just
absolutely crazy.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, the Europeans have what I would call a very
European look or view of drinking that I found refreshed.
Speaking of pubs. So we rented a flat in Mayfair
if you know where that is, doesn't matter. New Bond Street,
lots of like crazy high end shopping, mostly populated by
(12:00):
Kuwaiti oil money. Oh wow, by the bye, guys walking
up the street with four chicks and the beekeeper out
really going into perfume stores and spending just one godly
amounts of oil money a lot real.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
That's not an exaggeration. You saw a guy walking up
the street with four women in the beekeeper out in
eight days many times? Yes, wow, I mean one to
six women in the beekeeper wow. Yeah. Anyway, they are
basically sex slaves or cleaning your house slaves or whatever,
(12:33):
and everybody just tolerates that with no rights.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
That's correct, yes, And Brits are not super duper happy
about the completely wildly unfettered immigration from Muslim lands over
the last twenty years.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
More on that another time.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
But anyway, but out our windows onto the street, there
was a little like I just had half a block
long street and there was a pub on each side
of it. At the other end it was one hundred
yards from us maybe as we looked out the window,
and it was so cool every day and more and
more as the week went on. At four thirty or so,
(13:09):
certainly by five o'clock there would be so many people
standing in and outside the pub having a pint with
their coworkers and friends and a laugh and a conversation
before they went home for the day.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Sounds like a recipe for sexual harassment. Oh my god.
And it wasn't. They were drinking.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
No, they were talking with people because they worked with people,
and they met their buddies, and they talked about the
football match, which is soccer, and it just it was
so nice.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Anyway, yeah, and I thought, wow, I could get used
to this in a hurry. Although the pub thing, we
went to this one historic pub. We met our next
door neighbors from home. Weirdly enough, they were over there
at the same time, decided to get together. We go
to this pub, hundreds of years old, pub, drenched in history, legendary,
the Prince something or lord what's its there, I don't
(14:09):
even remember the name, but it was very atmospheric. But anyway,
so we're sitting there having dinner and or we're having
you know, a couple of pines, and we decide it's
time to eat, and we order like four small plates
off the menu, and the waitress come back and says,
I'm so sorry, we're actually out of the calamari and
the pucker fish or whatever the hell it was, and
(14:31):
also the beef Wellington, and we're like, oh okay, it's
like six o'clock at night, all right, all right, all right,
we'll order those other things. Then she comes back in
like two of those three are out. So should she
ever get around to admitting we're not actually a restaurant.
We don't have any food at all. We just have
a menu. We just hope we're working out the wind.
(14:53):
Most people start drinking, they forget if they're hungry. So
at one point I said, it would save time if
you just told me what you do have, but we
end up with this mess of food. Did you say
that I shouldn't have? But I didn't know. And finally
so at the end of the evening and it was lovely,
she comes and says, can you tell me what you
(15:16):
actually ordered?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
And got?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Boys? And I'm like, wait a minute, that's your job.
We're some pot No, no, no, you tell us. And
it was just part of it is Tipping is not
really a thing there. Now they've got a service charge
that's like five, six, maybe ten percent, but you feel
(15:42):
it because they're not earning it. They're like, look, I'm
getting my six percent. Oh okay, No, matter what gotcha?
So if you have to like order twenty four foods
before I bring you three, just because we're playing this
little game of we might have it, we might not,
why don't you order find out so you know it's
(16:02):
it's pluses and minuses, because the whole tipping thing is
it's stressful, especially if you don't know the local customs.
But yeah, Michael, how was the food over there? Overall?
In England? Uh?
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Overall kind of good, not great, But once you realize
how to order and what to order, it's it's better.
But yeah, the Brits are not famous for food for
for good reason. If you say, hey, what's a great
meal around here, people will send you to an Italian
restaurant or an Indian restaurant for a good reason. But
(16:35):
the other thing about workers that I found interesting. We
had a tour guide at the British Museum who was
just terrific. He was a professor of history.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
And he said, yeah, that exhibit is shut down because
there's just no employees. There's no one to work. I said, what,
that's odd? He said, oh, yeah, since COVID, everybody stays home,
they live with their parents. They're collecting government checks, you
can't get people to work.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Wow, And I thought that was so interesting and exactly
what you hear from so many employers in the States.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Yeah, we had that conversation with my family in the
Midwest of the United States. I don't go to other
countries and give them my money. I stay in the
United States and for you. But we had the same
conversation on how number of restaurants, including the one we
were at, was really they they weren't seating all the seats,
(17:23):
not because they were crowded, but because they didn't have
enough help. How is that still a thing? Yeah, I know,
it's amazing and universally universal apparently.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Armstrong and show.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
The president decides to do something with an executive order
or whatever often that they promised on the campaign trail,
their voters get all excited, Yay, they did it day
one like they promised, And then then I get an
alert on my phone. Some judge somewhere I've never heard
of it said no, you can't do that. And then
it stops, and everybody's like groans, like, oh, they can
(18:25):
do that, and it keeps happening over and over again,
and do we want that system to continue that way?
Or not as part of what the Supreme Court was
arguing about yesterday. And as one of the justices said,
there are six hundred some federal judges and while I
do not question their motives, sometimes they are wrong. So
do we want them to be able to hold up
the whole country?
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Let us discuss the very interesting and multifaceted oral arguments
yesterday before the Supreme Court with Tim Sandefer, vice president
for Legal Affairs at the Goldwater Institute, among other auspicious titles,
author of eight books, include most recently Freedom's Fories, How
Isabel Patterson, Rosewilder and ein Rand Found Liberty and Age
(19:05):
of Darkness.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
I've recommended it many times. It's terrific. Tim. How are you, sir?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Just great?
Speaker 5 (19:10):
Thanks for having me back.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Guys published poet, got to throw that in there. True, Yes,
a polymath as they say.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Anyway, Tim, So, ostensibly everyone's talking about that we're going
to discuss birthright citizenship in front of the Supreme Court,
and that did come up. But would you agree that
the more significant discussion was about nationwide injunctions by individual
federal judges?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
That was the focus of the argument, and it was
a very interesting argument, but I don't think that it's
a hard question. I think the answer is obviously nationwide
injunctions are perfectly fine. They're the ordinary way of doing
business in the courts, and people who complain about them
either don't understand the system or are trying to get
away with something illegal.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Yeah. I don't always like that it happened, but I
can't see what the alternative would be. Somebody pointed out,
so you're gonna let I guess it was you that
pointed it out yesterday in Twitter. The idea that so
every time a president does something, it's got to work
its way all the way through the courts up to
the Supreme Court, and then a decision by the Supreme Court.
(20:14):
Before the Supreme Court might say sometimes nine nothing, you
can't do that.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Oh and during that whole period of time, the government
is still doing the illegal thing.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Right right?
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Wow, So clearly it's two to one for a judicial
takeover of the government. But I will stand up for liberty. Uh,
Is there no middle ground? Has got to be three
judge panel and not a single Yahoo in a rural Tennessee.
Speaker 5 (20:38):
Yeah, I think I think having a single unit ya
who in rural Tennessee is perfectly fine, because that's what
the appellate process is. Sort of, that's why you appeal cases.
And by the way, that's why you should avoid appointing
yahoos to the federal bench. Might mention that too. The argument,
the argument against nation right injunctions always seems to boil
down to, well, this is a democracy in the major
(21:00):
I already should always get what it wants. And the
answer to that is no. What happened to all of
my friends who used to say, this is a republic,
not a democracy. The whole point of our system is
that the majority has to act lawfully, and if it
acts unlawfully, I can go in front of a judge
and get that give an order from that judge prohibiting
the government from violating my rights. And the idea that
(21:21):
we should do this piece meal, that only a judge
down here, that his order only applies there. Meanwhile, the
government can do illegal things to everybody else in the
country until the case reaches the US Supreme Court makes
no sense at all.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
The underlying theme here being, folks, that what we really
need to fear is the power of the government in
this country. That's kind of the idea of forming it.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
So there's no question that these nationwide injunctions were relatively
or practically completely unknown for one hundred and fifty years.
Then there are a handful of them, and the number
of them is now skyrots every day.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
It seems like on my phone, I see a judge
jumped in somewhere.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
Actually, right, I actually don't think that that's true. I
think that what happened was we just started calling them
by a different name. You know, there were an injunction
injunctions against unconstitutional government actions since before there was a constitution.
One of the points that was brought up during the
arguments was that British judges used to do this before
the American Revolution, and that was considered perfectly legitimate. It's
(22:18):
just that nowadays we call the nation right injunctions, or
we have some judges who write sloppily and don't explain
what they're actually saying or something. And okay, that's a problem,
I suppose. But the idea that you should limit the
injunction power of federal courts is what that is is
that's open door to the majority violating individual rights on
a scale that I mean, they already do it, but
(22:40):
you can imagine what it would be if we took
away one of the most important protections for individual rights
in this country, which is getting an injunction from our
federal court to protect their freedom. And that's insane.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
So I didn't want to get to this part too
fast because you're a lawyer, and this part can't be
fixed with the law. It seems to me that we've
got a cultural problem in that presidents are way more
likely than they used to be to want to challenge
the Supreme Court, either to like legitimately they don't think
the law is correct, or they don't care if they're wrong.
(23:14):
They just want to get the political credit for trying.
And perhaps I don't know this, but it seems like
a likely response. The six hundred some federal judges out there.
There's a lot more of them who are willing to
let their politics get ahead of their judge reasoning and
jump in and stop somebody they hate.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Yes, you're absolutely right about that, and especially the thing
about the President and Congress being willing to do things
that they know are unconstitutional because they know that the
judges are going to strike it down and they can
blame the judges and say, oh, those evil activist judges,
or they can get away with their unconstitutional things. So
it's win when if you want to do something unconstitutional.
And honestly, every president's done this to some degree. Obviously
(23:53):
Franklin Roosevelt did this a lot. But the one that
I always six in my memory is George W. Bush
when he signed the McCain fine Gold campaign finance law
and said when he signed it that he thought it
was unconstitutional but that he would leave it to the
courts to deal with. Well, I'm sorry, but if you're
the president, you take an oath to support and defend
(24:14):
the constitution of the United States. And if you ignore
that oath and sign something that you know is unconstitutional
just because you think the courts will clean up your
mess for you, I think that's disgraceful.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Well, a lot of the pieces I've read that have
been following the growth of this use that as kind
of like the patient zero, because he said it out loud,
and then other presidents thought, hey, I can do that,
I just won't say it out loud, and Obama did it,
and Biden did it, and Trump did it in whichever order,
and then Trump again and and it So how do
we fix this.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Well, there's a long answer and the short answer. The
short answer is elect good presidents. The long answer is
that we have to restore respect for the Constitution in
this country. I think it's the long term damage that's
been done to Americans understanding and appreciation of the Constitution
is horrifying. We have prominent law professors. There was a
(25:06):
law professor at at Georgetown Law School a few years
ago published an article in the Washington Post saying the
Constitution is obsolete. I don't respect it at all. Well,
you're a teacher of constitutional law for crying out loud.
And if we don't respect the Constitution, we don't love it.
It cannot protect us. The Constitution is just a promise,
and if we don't honor that promise, then it's not
worth the paper it's written on.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
We should have written law specifically putting him in jail.
In my opinion, Tim Sandefer is online from the Goldwater Institute.
A little constitutional humor for exactly design.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
For punish one man.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
That's a good idea, so you know, blah blah blah,
disclaimer about it's difficult to read the tea leaves of
the oral arguments, blah, blah blah. Did it strike you
that the justices, the sane ones that we like, we're
leaning in any particular direction as to the nationwide injunctions judges, etc.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
That we've been discussing.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
Some of the judges have made clear for a long
time that they're against these what they call nationwide injunctions.
Justice Thomas in particular. Some of the others are a
little harder to read. Justice Barrett for example, and Justice Roberts,
who have become really the swing judges on this issue.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
I thought the.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
Most interesting judge if you want to if anybody wants
to go and listen to the argument online, I thought
Justice Jackson was the one who is the most interesting.
She clearly understands how this area of the law works,
and she rightly says there's no there there that nationwide
injunctions are perfectly legitimate. They always have been and there's
no problem. So she'd be the one that I find
most interesting. But how to predict I think you're going
(26:38):
to get. I think Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett are
going to side with the liberals and say we don't
have a problem per se with nationwide injunctions. But maybe
some of them aren't very good, but as a as
a blanket matter, they're okay. And then they're going to
want to hear the underlying case about birthright citizenship, which
obviously is a huge deal.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
To me.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Is it even worth getting into what happened on that
topic yesterday or do you.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
Think it's Well, they really just talked about whether or
not they have a legitimate case in the first place,
and they haven't really briefed it or argued it yet.
But that's important because in order to get an injunction,
you kind of have to first show that you have
even an arguable point to make, and that was what
they were arguing about. And I will say, I know
this is talk radio, and we're all supposed to think
that we clearly have the right answer and everything. I
(27:25):
think the birthright citizenship question is a very hard question.
I don't think it's an easy question on either side.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Let's talk about that when we come back from the
break hear. I want to hear the arguments on both
sides of that. That's interesting And clearly you've probably seen
the breakdown on who speaks the most words the chicks
talk too much? Is that given?
Speaker 5 (27:45):
Well, Jessin sodomoy are does love cutting off lawyers and
not letting them answer her question?
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah, the chicks talk too much. I think that's been nice.
And the new gal talks more than anybody. That shouldn't
happen in any organization.
Speaker 6 (27:57):
Jack Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and Getty Show. Jack
Armstrong and Joe Getty The Armstrong and Getty Shows.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Discussing the oral arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday with
Tim Sanderfur, vice president for Legal Affairs at the Goldwater Institute.
It was advertised as a birthright citizenship hearing it or discussion.
It really was much more a discussion of individual federal
judges and nationwide injunctions and that sort of thing. But
(28:35):
to the question of the Fourteenth Amendment, Tim, you said
before the break that it's not an easy call. I'm
glad to hear you agree. I've thought the same thing.
What should we know about the fourteenth Amendment even come
to a semi intelligent opinion on this?
Speaker 5 (28:51):
Well, the first sentence of the fourteenth Amendment says, all
persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject
to the jurisdiction thereof, are US citizens. And all of
this case. All of these arguments turn on that phrase
subject to the jurisdiction thereof. What does that phrase mean.
It's really tough because the word jurisdiction is one of
those words that can mean all sorts of different things.
(29:13):
It basically means power, but there's all sorts of different
kinds of power, and so that's what the argument turns on.
Some people think that it means you have to follow
the law. If you're born here and you have to
follow the law, then you're subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
and then that means you're a citizen. But that doesn't
really make a lot of sense because even foreign tourists
who come here for a vacation have to follow the law.
(29:34):
I mean, they have to stop at the red lights
and they can't steal things, So that can't be what
that means, right. Instead, the other side argues, jurisdiction thereof
means some kind of loyalty or allegiance, that there's citizenship
jurisdiction as opposed to follow the law jurisdiction, and that difference.
You can see that difference for example, in this if
(29:56):
you're a foreign spy, now you sneak into the country
and you spy for some foreign country and you get
it arrested, you can be prosecuted for espionage, but you
cannot be prosecuted for treason. Why because you're not a
US citizen and you don't owe loyalty to the US,
so you cannot commit treason against the US. And so
there's two different kinds of jurisdiction, is the argument. And
(30:19):
so those who are against birthright citizenships say, subject to
the jurisdiction thereof means that your parents owed loyalty to
the United States as opposed to some foreign country, and
that would mean that illegal aliens, if they have a
child here, that child is not a citizen in the
United States. Now, that's also there's a problem with that.
There's a couple problems that. One of the problems with
that argument is that nobody has ever said that that's
(30:40):
what it means. In the one hundred and fifty years
since this has been in the Constitution, everybody has active
like if you're born here, you're a citizen all of
that time. And so suddenly discovering that we're at it
turns out that we've been misreading the Constitution for one
hundred and fifty years would be a huge, enormously radical
transformation and how our system works. That would cause tremendous
(31:03):
disruption nationwide, and that would be a real problem. But
all of this, the real problem here in answering this
question is that when the Amendment was adopted, there were
no such things as illegal aliens because there were no
laws against immigration. And that means if you're an originalist
and you think the competition should be understood the way
it was originally intended, the framers didn't ever think about
(31:24):
this because it wasn't against the law back then. So
we don't know what they would have thought about this
question right.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Right Well, at the point that this enormously radical, disruptive
president is overturned, that's when you tag me and Tim
and I come in and explain to the good folks
that look, the nature of global transportation, the movement of
people or peoples from one place to another has changed
so vastly.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
God, Joe's a living constitution guy. You can hear it coming.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Out of what No, don't you dare know that the
very nature of cummings and goings from countries has been
so radically transformed. A Chinese national with not the slightest
notion of making life in the United States. Can can
depart China, arrive here, give birth, go back to China,
(32:16):
all in the span of seventy two hours. I'm inducing
labor in this case, or getting very lucky, and that
child had citizenship. That's an eventuality unimaginable back in the day.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Is the kids?
Speaker 5 (32:29):
I think so? And that's sort of true. But on
the other hand, the Chinese question came up back then
because there were so many Chinese in California in the
eighteen sixties. And Senator's rast, well, isn't this going to
make the children of the Chinese immigrants who back then
did not intend to scy in the United States. They
intended to go back to China. The senator's rest, does
this make their kids us? Senator US citizens? And the
(32:50):
Senator from California said yes, and then he was immediately
thrown out of office. So what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Nobody knows what that means a single case from eighteen
ninety eight, or is there more precedent?
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Really there really isn't. There's really just a handful of
presidents and no Supreme Court case has ever said that
birthright citizenship is the is in the Constitution. There have
been some that have kind of mentioned it or kind
of assumed it, but none has said so outright.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
I am surprised. The polling shows that only about a
third of Americans want to do away with the way
we do it now. I'm surprised by that. I do
want to get to this. This is a journalistic question,
but I think it has an effect on people's respect
for the law. It has come up recently. It has
become a pattern that anytime the media mentions a judge,
they mentioned what president appointed them. Do you think that's
(33:37):
a good idea or not? They didn't just barely got
a minute.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
I think it's fine. I think people should know where
these For instance, I think it would help a lot
of judges. You know, a lot of Republican appointed judges
have been ruling against the Trump administration, and I think
it would be helpful for people to know that these
questions are not things where it's all partisan. The law
is not just partisan politics. It's something much more profound
and much more important.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Yeah, well, I agree, but it implies that judge I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
True.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
I used to think I didn't used to think about
it ever. If a judge ruled. I just thought, well,
that's interesting. Now it's all who appointed him. Oh, of
course he said.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
That that is true. That is a risk. But I
think we should air on the side of informing people
as opposed to keeping people in the dark.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
So that's that's true.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Tim Stander for the Goldwater Institute on the line, Tim,
final question, I've called for a monarchy.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
You in favor of it? Yes or no?
Speaker 5 (34:31):
No, I'm against him monarchy. I'm for the constitution.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Joe. One more question. As a published poet, I was
thinking about this yesterday he won the Nobel Prize. Bob
Dylan good poet or not lousy poet?
Speaker 5 (34:42):
Now read Robert Hayden or Richard Wilbur instead.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
How about Ringo Star Octopus's Garden, Tam. It's always great
and enlightening. Thanks Millian for the time. Let's talk again soon.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Thanks guys.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
All right, I was actually thinking about this listening to
Dylan lyrics. Why do they stick in everybody's head so much?
Why do people keep going back to them? If it's
just gobbledegook, like a lot of real poets claim, it
can't be. It wouldn't lodge, it wouldn't it wouldn't make
the market made, would it all right?
Speaker 4 (35:15):
He was famously moody about his career and his music
in his Life's Philosophy. I think some of his stuff
is absolutely brilliant, and I think some of it's gobbledegook humhm.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Maybe maybe more on that another day, or maybe not.
We got plenty of stuff to tell you. I hope
you can stick around if you missus. Sigmund I thought
that tim thing was really really good and you want
to listen to it again and get the podcast Armstrong
and Getty on demand. Armstrong, arms Strong and Geeddy on demand.
We're not boring. A lot of news is boring and
(35:46):
tedious and depressing. It makes you angry. You don't want
to live your life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong,
He's Joe Getty. We're Armstrong in Getty. We try to
bring you the truth and help you figure out this
crazy modern world. About something about a comedic tone. We
have a one ore. Yes, listen to Armstrong. You get
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