December 25, 2025 • 53 mins
Just how are you going to pass the time on Christmas Day after you've got the roast in the oven (at low temp, of course) and you've finished your obligatory annual screening of Die Hard? How about a special Christmas Day edition of the Three Whisky Happy Hour!
Lucretia took time out from the kitchen to host this ad-free episode which features a discussion of the law governing religious symbols on public property, and why they are NOT violations of the Estasblishment Clause of the First Amendment (the phrase "separation of church and state" is not even hiding in any of the emanantions an punumbras of the Constitution, so don't even look). Discussion also turned to wondering why liberals are increasingly hostile to religion—especially Christianity—and Steve offers his theory that the decline of patriotism among liberals, which also shows up in opinion survey data, is connected to the decline of religion among liberals, too. (He gave the full analysis of the matter in this Substack post a few months ago. One sentence summary: politics, the substitute diety for the left, isn't going well for them right now, which makes them angry.) And did you know that Christmas itself is now a"far right" plot? That's what Politico thinks. (Yes, we know: "Politico thinks" is an oxymoron.)
We manage to get in some good holiday cheer, such as mocking John's total ignorance of "throuples" *the latest thing for the "Modern Love" section of the NY Times) and we manage to get in our obligatory reference to—wait for it!—the Clean Air Act, and Sydney Sweeney. Because it's Christmas!
We'll be back sometime over the weekend with a regular episode in which we review the most significqnt events of 2025, and offer predictions for 2026.
Lucretia took time out from the kitchen to host this ad-free episode which features a discussion of the law governing religious symbols on public property, and why they are NOT violations of the Estasblishment Clause of the First Amendment (the phrase "separation of church and state" is not even hiding in any of the emanantions an punumbras of the Constitution, so don't even look). Discussion also turned to wondering why liberals are increasingly hostile to religion—especially Christianity—and Steve offers his theory that the decline of patriotism among liberals, which also shows up in opinion survey data, is connected to the decline of religion among liberals, too. (He gave the full analysis of the matter in this Substack post a few months ago. One sentence summary: politics, the substitute diety for the left, isn't going well for them right now, which makes them angry.) And did you know that Christmas itself is now a"far right" plot? That's what Politico thinks. (Yes, we know: "Politico thinks" is an oxymoron.)
We manage to get in some good holiday cheer, such as mocking John's total ignorance of "throuples" *the latest thing for the "Modern Love" section of the NY Times) and we manage to get in our obligatory reference to—wait for it!—the Clean Air Act, and Sydney Sweeney. Because it's Christmas!
We'll be back sometime over the weekend with a regular episode in which we review the most significqnt events of 2025, and offer predictions for 2026.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, whiskey, come and take my pain, hondys.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
My brain, Oh whiskey.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Why think alone when you can drink it all in
with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour. Join your bartenders Steve Hayward,
John You, and the international woman of Mystery Lucretia where
they slapped it up.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
And David, ain't you easy on the should taps? Got
to give me and let that whiskey flow. Welcome everybody
to this very special, Merry Christmas edition of the Three
Whiskey Happy Hour. I am joined as always by my
favorite and only co hosts Steve Hayward and join you.
How are you this evening, gentlemen?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
I'm good? But who are you?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I mean, nobody cares?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
No, you don't need an introduction, that's true.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Hi?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
John?
Speaker 5 (00:59):
Hi?
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Can everyone see Steve? Stupid Santa hat?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
It's Christmas? John? Why are you being such a grinch?
Speaker 1 (01:09):
You are looking a little grinchy tonight, And I don't
blame you because I have some bad news for you.
I came prepared through a sky happy Hour with a
bottle of Bookers, of which this is the well I
can't see the number on it, the seventy third one
off the production line, of which only one hundred and
(01:29):
two were made. Bookers is made by Jim Beam Distilleries,
which has been around since I believe it was seventeen
ninety six if I'm not mistaken. However, Wow, Jim Beam
is pausing production for a year. I heard this a
full year because all of these sort of goodie two
(01:54):
shoes gen zers would rather sit home and scroll the
Internet with TikTok videos and Instagram videos, and they don't
want to drink alcohol, They don't want to go anywhere,
they don't want to do anything. And in the article
I sent these two guys, the funniest thing about it
was was the the author made the comment that, look,
(02:16):
these people have uh, you know, free delivery to your
home and Uber. Imagine how much drinking we could have
done if we had somebody to uber us home every
single time we had a little bit too much to drink.
Of course, you're a little bit younger, John, but Steve
and I remember the days when we really didn't worry
about it all that much. What I mean is is
(02:43):
that the the enforcement of dui laws was nowhere near
as stringent as it is today.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
So I've heard of these wonderful times when one could
drive without a seatbelt and would smoke your cigarettes in
the car while driving and drinking simultaneously, and throwing winter
out the window as.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
You went down the highway.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
It. Yes, I hate to admit I probably did all
of those things at one time or another. I yes,
although I probably didn't often drive when I was really
really drunk, because why I didn't so well, you would
have designated drivers, which was always the bummer to be
(03:28):
the designated driver? You know now you just call an uber?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And both my kids when they were in college, I
would tell them, you know, they had an Uber account.
Don't you dare drive home, here's the Uber account. You
just call them. And so I never had any issues
with my kids getting DUIs or any things like that.
But they're older now and they know better. I'll just
leave it at that.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Well I will, since we're I'm having killed corn again.
This wonderful stuff I got it done.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Is at the end of the second bottle.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
No still, it's the end of the first bottle. I
poached from the second bottle to bring this down to
my office. See and let me mention that I have
the I've got the YouTube live stream up going on
my other computer, and I can see a chat window.
We've got eight people watching live. And if you guys
have a good question or something that you want us
to address and it fits, go ahead and put it
in the chat window and I'll try and bring it
(04:19):
up as we go.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Well, so I don't know if I actually made the
point clear. Jim Beam is shutting down production for a
full year because they have a glut of alcohol, not
just in their less expensive that I'd never dream Jim
Beam sort of regular stuff. But they're bakers, they're bookers.
What's the other one, Basil Hayden. I forget which of
(04:43):
the higher end whiskeys come under Jim Beam, But they're
shutting down. They're shutting down production of whiskey for a year,
the largest whiskey maker in America.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Well, the solution of this is obvious. We need to
bring back prohibition. That will sa that will send conception
up right. My my favorite Will Rogers line of all
time was his squip that, well, at least prohibition is
better than no liquor at all. I always thought was.
I mean, he said a lot of great ones, but
that's my favorite.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Well, I was just in Costco for Christmas Eve. I
didn't realize correlate that, but yeah, there were huge hard
liquor sales going on at Costco, like.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Twenty thirty percent off. Yeah. Yeah, So I'm planning to.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Go back the day after Christmas and filler up.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Did you I was gonna say, did you stock up
or not yet? Huh?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Not yet? There's got to be discounts after Christmas.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, but I can't imagine being Costco on New Year's Eve.
I am not big on crowds. I haven't left the
house all day today. I'm afraid of I'm xenophobic. I'll
just leave it at that. Or no, no, no, agoraphobic, achorophobic, well, chorophobic.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, but you know, xenophobia. That could be user special bonus.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah. All right, enough of that. We want to talk
a little bit today about Christmas in America and what's
kind of been happening lately. So I posed to these
guys that something very interesting is happening. And I saw
this just before I came on the podcast. Didn't get
(06:19):
to internalize it fully. But even even President Donald Trump,
who seems to be following in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson,
and Abraham Lincoln when it comes to his religion. Does
that make sense to you guys, that he's very much
pro Christianity, very much not sectarian or claiming to have
(06:44):
belonged to any church anyway. He's coming out and saying
that Christianity is making a revival in America. I want
to give you, guys two examples, and then I want
to ask John a question. The Sarah Sarah Huckabee, who
everyone is known, is a Christian and is not shy
about her faith. But when she was asked to, when
(07:05):
she had to justify I believe it was giving the
day off after Christmas something like that, she instead of
doing it in terms of, oh, religious freedom or you know,
the culture of Christmas, she came out and said, this
is the day that our Savior was born, God became
man on earth, and this is why I am giving
(07:26):
this day off. And if you don't like it, I
will pray for you. And I think that we've seen
a lot of that sort of thing since Charlie Kirk.
So I was listening to my favorite, my only favorite,
actually Outnumbered co host John You about to answer a question. Yeah, yeah,
(07:48):
you're their favorite victim.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Yeah, no, this is on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I'm the victim on that time.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, they love you, John, It's it's obvious, and they
think you're so smart, and they say and then they
go back and apologize for saying them because they know
you're going to be smarter than they are. It's very funny.
But I didn't get to hear your answer when they
were asking what is the First Amendment issue when a
city wants to have on I guess a public parking
(08:16):
lot a nativity scene. Is there a separation of church
and state problem? You might want to give the details
on that.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
John, Yeah, so yeah, So first, yeah, I'm not being
elevated to a host because I think only women can
be the host.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
This is like a Lucretia dream show.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Well, John, well that's not that's not an obstacle. More.
You just switched teams.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
And there's a guest, the man who's in the middle,
but they don't gang up on him the way Lucretia
gangs up on the two of us.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
So I.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
You know, it's you know, this is a takeoff on
a John F.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Kennedy joke.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
So you know Kennedy once said that he had a
reception for all the Nobel laureates, and he said, you know,
this is the smartest assemblage of people in the White
House since Thomas Jefferson eight alone. And I would say,
you know, four Fox hosts Women is the greatest collection
(09:15):
of feminine talent since Lucretia did a solo podcast. But
you know, so you know, on this show they asked
about this example of this mayor demanded that a Nativity
scene be removed from a public space, publicly owned parking lot,
(09:35):
and then said, because the Constitution requires a separation of
church and state. So I said, you know, this mayor
should go back to school because he will discover that
the separation of church and state is not a phrase.
It appears in the Constitution that the First Amendment only
forbids the government from establishing a religion, not promoting religions plural,
(10:00):
and that the Supreme Court had decided this issue several
times and it said, if the government wants to open
up a public space for religious displays at the holiday season,
it can. They just can't say only Presbyterians or maybe
even only Christians. So you've had displays which the court
is upheld, which would have a Christmas scene and a
(10:21):
Nativity as a Nativity scene, and then a Jewish Manora
for example, would be okay. I don't know if the
government has to allow every possible religion because it has
to have space concerns. And you know what if someone
just makes up their own religion and wants to put
like some I don't know, wiccan whatever those people are
(10:43):
some kind of wicked dispount even.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Know what that would be.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Would that be like the cauldron from Macbeth with the
three witches?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I don't know what the wickan would do.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
But my point is that the Supreme Court has I
think undone the mistakes of the Warrant Court, which was
to try to actually separate church and state and to
allow the government to promote and support religious belief generally,
so long as they don't pick out and single a
specific religion to support and to suppress all the others.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
You might remember, Steve, I'll let you come in on
this last year. We just around this time we discussed
the fact that the Iowa Capitol Building, as I recall
of all places you know, good good Christian girl from
Iowa that I am, actually allowed a Satanic display at
(11:35):
Christmas time. They removed Thomas Jefferson to put up a
Satanic display. So what do you think, Steve, Does that
mean that the government is being neutral to all religions?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I have to think about the satanic display business. I'd
forgotten about that, So you're minded me just now. I
think I could construct a case for a government to
say no, but it might take me a while. I
do think that the interesting thing here is, for a
while the Supreme Court was badly confused or worse on
these issues. And I'm thinking thirty forty years ago the
(12:10):
Lemon test, which I've forgotten what it is, but I
think it's gone now. But the point is that the
last ten to fifteen years the Supreme Court has become
something of a leading indicator. I mean, you've actually had
some nine zero decisions on the side of religious liberty
as we would understand it right. What is that the
alliance defending freedom people who cause riots when they show
(12:30):
up at law schools has won I think fifteen Supreme
Court cases so and so, and I say a leading
indicator because as you hinted at, is we're seeing this
return to church in America. We'll talk about the Charlie
Kirk Memorial service. In a moment because I think that
was quite significant. But there's the Supreme Court kind of
leading the way. I'll just say it. On the substance
(12:52):
of it, Yeah, I mean, I think there still are
some incoherencies. Is that a proper plural world? So, you know,
we had the extually it's twenty years ago or more now,
we had the Ten Commandments case, and here was a
case that they consolidate a case with, was it Alabama
and Texas because Texas has the Ten Commandments on the
(13:14):
capitol grounds all other stuff, and then Judge Moore in
Alabama wanted a big Ten Commandments inside the courthouse, And
essentially what the court said was, no, you can't have
the big Ten Commandments in Alabama because they're too big,
but you can have it on the grounds of the
state capitol because it's not too big. I mean, I
mean that's John. You can correct me if I'm too
(13:36):
grotesquely distorting what they said. But I thought that that
was an incoherent ruling because the implicit rationale was, well,
you don't take it as seriously if it's not so big,
but if you really put it out front and center,
it means you really mean it, and we can't have
displays of religion that really mean it, or go back
even further to the seventies, you had the pair of
(13:56):
cases I forget which ones they were, but as the
one that's said that the local school district could not
give away or loan textbooks that weren't using anymore to
the local Catholic parochial schools. But then in a separate
case nearly at the same time, they said the public
schools could give maps to parochial schools for their buses
(14:17):
that picked up students. And that's what prompted pat and
Wey in a hand to say, how would Supreme Court
handle an atlas in a book of maps? And I
understand the reasoning of why maps made sense. That wasn't
actually religion. It was simply a police power thing. But
still there's still, at the end of the day, this
tortured reasoning we've had towards religion in the public square
(14:38):
for decades. I think it's trending the other way slowly.
I kind of like it. Can I just add one
quick joke though, John, you mentioned the Kennedy line about
the greatest assembly of mine since Jefferson dined alone there's
a Reagan era version of that, which somebody said it
wasn't Reagan. Sadly, someone said, this is the greatest assembly
of brains in the White House since Richard Diamond Darman
(15:00):
dined alone, which he did often. Oh no, no, we hated
Richard Darman. He was horrible. He's a terrible person.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
It was.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Martin Anderson has said to me once, why do people
take an instant dislike to Richard Darman? Saves time?
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Don't say that as a joke about Ted Cruz, which.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Was right, Yeah, not fair, but I get it, yes, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
The one done them I'd make on Steve's description of
the cases is that there's I think there's been a
radical change by the Roberts Quarter religion because of the
Warrnancourt decisions. The a lot of like two bit local
officials like this guy we're talking about in South Carolina,
believe that the government had a telling purpose to exclude
(15:49):
religion from public life, and so they would allow Yeah,
satanic worshipers and cannibals whoever you want to mention, you know,
fly flag in front of the Boston City Hall, or
you know, have a demonstration of some kind. But they
would say we are required to stop religious groups.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And so the one thing that.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Religious groups did that was very clever in terms of
litigation was to say, if you interfere with us participating
on an equal footing with other groups, you've not only
deprived us of the free exercise of religion, even though
the government's saying, oh, we can't do that because otherwise
we'd be violating the establishment clause. But they've also said,
(16:32):
and this was I think part of what helped them
start winning even under the Renquesst Court, was to say,
you could think of religions as having as being free
speech organizations like the ACLU or you know, the Republican Party,
and so if you exclude religious groups, you're actually violating
their free speech rights and the right of belief to
pursue this idea that religion has to be extinguished from
(16:55):
the public sphere. And I think that's what is the
That was the change in the arguments that started to
allow religious groups really to.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Pile on the winds.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
And then you know, under the Roberts Court it's been
almost an unbroken winning streak.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
For right and it's also been much more how should
I say, true to the original intent of the First
Amendment under the Roberts Court than it was under the ranks.
You're right, and you can't blame those litigants for going
to the court and asking for some relief based upon
any way they thought they might get it. But of course,
(17:29):
the establishment clause doesn't mean you can't have a manger scene,
you can't allow a moment of silent prayer in schools.
It doesn't mean that school children, school aged children can
never be exposed to something that they might somehow feel
uncomfortable about. That was I mean, that had to be
the dumbest decision ever by the Supreme Court, and there's
(17:51):
been a lot of them, and so you know, the
Roberts Court, you're right, they took it further, but they
did it ach in my opinion, much more solid ground
ways that made a lot more sense. Not that there's
anything wrong with saying that you have a First Amendment
freedom of speech, right to practice your religion, but you
(18:11):
also have a dual, dually protected first and foremost in
the First Amendment right not to have a religion forced
upon you, a specific, established, government sponsored religion force upon you,
But that you have the freedom to practice your religion
(18:32):
without government interference. That's the most amazing thing in many ways,
it's happened in the history of civilization and why America
became the free place that it is. Was Sorry, I'm
pontificating here. It don't mean to, but I believe that.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Well I could do that too. I mean, I think
about you know, I always like to point out to
students that Britain embraced toleration with the Toleration Act of
what that's part of the sixteen eighty eight Revolution. But
just think about the title of the Act and the
actual language of it is, we will tolerate you. We
will no longer throw you in jail for not being
(19:10):
an Anglican. There were still religious tests for office, by
the way, that lasted well into the nineteenth century. They
just meant it. It is decriminalized being a nonconformist. Gee,
well that's real. And it was you know Washington's famous
letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport when he was
president saying, it's now no more that toleration is spoken of,
(19:30):
spoken as though it were by the indulgence of one
group that another group gets to enjoy their natural rights
of conscience. That was brand new, right, I mean was
huge that and along with John you probably singleed this
out too with students our constitution saying no religious tests,
republic office, first constitution anywhere that ever said that in
the world. I think right as I say, it was
(19:52):
not true in Britain until the twentieth century. For goodness sake. Now,
you know, we often talk about the theological political problem
and the nutlical philosophy and the rest of that. I
do have a one of our viewers on YouTube asks
about something. I mean, I've heard this, I forgot about it,
but what's the Blaine Amendment and how is that implicated
(20:13):
in all this I have forgotten.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
I have to say, oh, well, the Blaine Amendment was
this effort to so this was an effort to try
to change the constitution that failed. You know, Blaine, if
I remember correctly, was a losing presidential candidate for the
Democratic Party in the late nineteenth century, and he so
(20:35):
I believe, after you lost, there were a number of
these Blaine amendments that were added to state constitutions, which
in practical effect, I don't think they were all worded
the exact same way, but am practical effect for bade
money going to not just churches, but religious schools. And
(20:57):
I think it's interesting the Supreme Court these last few
cases has essentially held these amendments to be unconstitutional, even
if they haven't directly said so. So you remember, there
are several examples where the Court where states and cities
have tried to exclude religious groups from participating in grant programs,
(21:19):
for example, that are opened to everybody else. So the
one well known wass is I think this involved the
Lutheran Church. You know, nonprofits could go to the state
and say ask for a grant to I think in
this case repave the parking lot. And the government said
everybody but religious groups and churches can participate in this
(21:39):
grant program. And they would say, because the Blame Amendment
in our state constitution requires us to forbid any money
going to any religious organization. And this Freme course struck
that down for the reasons we gave. Really that they're
the government singling out religious groups for this favorite treatment
violates the free exercise clause.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Those Blane amendments.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
I don't think that court has said they're all unconstitutional,
but effectively you can see the writing on the law and.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
They've gone from other I'm just going to say really quickly,
sorry Steve, that not only have they done things like
parking lots, but in my state. Now I know that
they don't have a Blaine Amendment state equivalent, but in
my state, I can and do give twenty five hundred
dollars for a married couple directly to a Catholic school
(22:30):
in my community. And it is not an write off,
It is a tax exemption. It comes off of my
state taxes. But what I would say is, in many
places the Blaine Amendments are not necessarily overturned, but there
have been rulings that say, yes, if you are giving
a voucher program, for instance, to parents, they have to
(22:54):
be able to use those vouchers at the school of
their choice, which could include an does include Catholic schools
and other parochial schools. Sorry, Steve gollahad, that's all right.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Well, I just want to correct correct a rare factual
error from John U which is James Blaine was a Republican,
not a Democrat.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
In fact, he.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Lost to Grover Cleveland. And by the way backwards this
part I remember it was during that campaign of what
as an eighteen eighty eight I guess or whatever the
you'd have this democratic campaign. Crowds would march through the streets,
you know, with candles and dressed darkly, all solemn. They'd say,
James Blaine, blame James G. Blaine, the continental liar from
(23:37):
the state of Maine. That the great politics of the
old day. But I just mentioned as a cultural thing.
You guys may not have seen it, but Netflix has
a three part series out right now called Death by
Lightning about James Garfield his assassination.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
I've been watching it. It's from halfway through. It is good.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
It is terrific. I think I can't believe how good
it is. And it's now making people realize Garfield was
a pretty good guy. We didn't know that because he
was skilled so early. Right. But the person who plays Blane,
I forget the actor, but he does a very good job,
and Blaine comes across. Some of the characterizations, like Roscoe
Conkling are probably a little overdone, but it's drama. But
they make Blaine into a very sympathetic figure. I have
(24:19):
to say I should see it. It's really really.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Good, you see.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
The other thing I like about the show is that
it I think what's fair based on what my you know,
my reading and the histories at the time was how
important the Civil War still was twenty five thirty years later,
where you.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Know, people who have been generals and officers in.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
The Union Army are all being elected, right, All the
presidents served in the Union's.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Side of the war.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
And this is really important with Grover Cleveland, it's he
the first Democrat that wins. Actor were, yeah, yes, because
so you have an unbroken you know, Republican victories. You
know in the TV show they're still shouting about Lincoln, right,
and Grant made a comeback try for a third term
(25:04):
in that Garfield that year that Garfield was nominated, and right,
they were still talking about the hero of Appamatics was
I mean, we don't we've lost touch with that.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
I think how important that.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Civil War was for like thirty years after the Civil War.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Well, guys, I would be watching it tonight after this
podcast and before I go off to midnight mass, except
that I haven't yet had my my annual dosage of
die Hard, So that's what I'll be watching. You don't
watch Garfield tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Yet you watch it every every holiday season.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Oh guy, it's like the Peanuts, specially you watched two things.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Last night, Watching Right Special and the How the Grinch
Stole Christmas and scrooged. You know that great movie with
Bill Marie.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Oh you don't watch ELF?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
What about Elf?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
I've never seen that. I can't stand Will Ferrell.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Oh really, Oh no, it's it's uneven. But he's you know, well,
we'll say that for some other time.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
And I would have and I would have thought Steve
thinks he's living in the National Lampoon Christmas vacation. I
can he not be watching that?
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Well, because I can't stand Chevy Chase. That's one reason
why he's a.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Real chur And never mind, all right, back to what
Steve brought up, which is I think he probably didn't
mean to, but pointing out that John had a factual error.
And he's right. John almost never gets the facts wrong.
He sometimes gets the facts that I say and twists
them for his own purposes, but when they're his facts,
he never gets them wrong. But an interesting thing, an
(26:37):
interesting commentary today out of the Liberal Patriot, you know,
Rey to Shara and his his his group that is
desperately trying to save the Democratic Party. I think that's
probably their biggest endeavor. Going on right now? Wouldn't you
agree that what can we do to make sure the
Democratic Party doesn't completely implode? By the way, they are
(27:01):
sixteen million dollars in debt as of the month of November.
They brought in way less money than they spent and
they're still paying off Kamala's debt. And anyway, and part
of the pason go ahead, please Steve.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
And most of that deficit is the loss of Jewish donors.
I've actually seen the numbers now, yeah, it's the shift
of the decline of Jewish donations Democrats and Democratic Party
is huge, and about half of it has gone over
to the Republican Party. I've got the numbers, and all
this I don't have in front of me, and I
won't do it anyway, but there you go.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Sorry, but it's quite all right. That's an interesting factoid,
Thank you, Steve. But what I want to talk about
is an article that came out today in the Liberal
Patriot talking about the fact that there has been a huge, huge,
growing disparity between Republicans and Democrats on the question of religiosity.
(28:06):
Would we call it on the question of who? And
they have a four part test that they go by
to determine who is and who is not religious and
where they are religious. This bothers me a little bit
because they break it down by Black Protestant, Hispanic Protestant,
White Catholic, Hispanic Catholic. I'm not sure those things matter.
(28:29):
They don't at my church, that's for sure. But they
break it down all Christian versus all non Christian. If
you look at the numbers, and maybe Steve can pose
us if anybody's interested. Back in back in two thousand
and eight, eighty six percent of Republicans were Christian. That
(28:51):
number is eighty one percent today, Okay, all categories of
Christian For Democrats. In nineteen excuse me, two thousand and eight,
it was seventy four percent claimed to be Christian of
some kind. Today it is fifty four percent total. And
that includes just about any kind of thing you could
(29:13):
possibly put under the category of Christian, any nutty whatever. Sorry,
I don't mean to be rude about it. Is this
a problem? And the article sets it out as these
are people, these Democrats are the college educated elite that
live in the coasts like you two. They're not the
(29:36):
good old, good solid Americans who live in the hinterlands
like me, and they vote for things like more immigration,
they vote for things like more protection for trans in LGBTQ.
They make the comment in the article that most people
in the flyover states don't even know what the LGBDQ
(29:57):
plus plus plus letters stand for. Right, right, So anyway,
what do you guys think about? And at the point, finally,
the point of the article is this is going to
be a real problem going forward because the numbers just
don't match up. You can't win elections by just now
it's certainly not national elections by just concentrating on the coast,
(30:19):
the elites and so forth. Go ahead, Steve, you look well, oh.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
God, yeah, you know, I've got both barrels of my
twenty gay shotgun loaded for this one. Right. The author
of this John Halpin, and he's you know, his policy
instincts are progressive, his political instincts are much better. I
had lunch with him, you know, fifteen years ago, along
with ruy t Chera. He's his partner in the liberal
patriot right. Important to say liberal patriot because, by the way,
(30:45):
the decline of religious belief amongst Democrats tracks with the
decline and patriotism among Democrats, they don't. They've done separate pieces.
I think Ruy's done a separate pieces saying democrats are
also less patriotic. I think those things go together for
a reason. I don't think they're randomly correlated here at all. Right,
and put it this way. You know, I wrote that
(31:07):
long piece for the New York Post about Franklin Roosevelt
and revisionism what a week ago, and I did go
back to thinking about Roosevelt and Roosevelt, who, by the way,
he was a high Church Episcopalian, sort of like John,
maybe not John, okay, and so another.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Way Lucretian thinks were the same.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Then well okay, well well you know I remember Andrew Claven,
who you know, converted from Judaism to Christianity, and someone said,
what are you Episcopalian? He says, no, no, I'm a real Christian.
Lets I ran that by Rob Long the other day
and he said, yeah, I totally get that.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
See before you go any further, let me just I
don't want to interrupt, but I just want to say
that that fifty four includes all of those Episcopalians and
all the Rainbow Flags and all the Methodists who Mary
pallia amoris, couples, truplstruples, that's what they're called these days, trupls.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
You know, Pol John, you don't want to know.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Fifty of Democrats encompass all of those those.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
That would be a very interesting subject for a survey
of what those fifties four. I'll bet that would be
a huge golf there. Right. You know that what's the
old joke about Unitarians is there believe that there is
at most one God. And you know when a Unitarian
wants to run you out of town, they burn a
question mark on your lawn. You know, I got all
those jokes, right, I can, I can. I can do
those next to the episcopal episcopal jokes. But look here,
(32:40):
here's the point is. You know, Roosevelt, whatever you may
say about him, and for that matter, about John F.
Kennedy or even Bill Clinton, massive hypocrite. But somewhere deep
down inside I think you know, he does have the
residue of being raised as Southern Baptist in Arkansas, and
and I think that connects to why he was a
popular politician. I'll leave that for some other day to
(33:00):
talk about. But you think about Roosevelt, so what did
Roosevelt do on D Day, he led the nation in prayer,
a Christian prayer for the troops in the field. Before
D Day. He actually throughout the war he wrote a
preface to a little pocket Bible. Actually it was a
New Testament, even worse if you're not Christian. Right, And
(33:22):
he said, I recommend actually let me get the quote
because I you know, I do have it handy. He says,
as commander in chief, constitutional phrase, Right, I take pleasure
in commending the reading of the Bible to all who
served in the armed forces of the United States. If
if Trump said that today, Democrats would be calling for
(33:43):
his impeachment. Right, that's how far we have changed. And
really it's not how far the country has changed, it's
how far one party has changed. I think there's deep
reasons for that. You know, I wrote about this some
months ago on our sub stack that you know. Sixty
years ago the new thing on the sort of secular
left was God is Dead, and then Time magazine put
(34:05):
it under cover. Was a famous cover that in nineteen
eighty nine I put on the cover is Government Dead.
And I read the article and said, this is the
same article as there is God Dead. Because government is
the secular substitute for religion for a lot of people
on the left, and that I think explains why they're
so angry about things these days. Now, that's a thumbnail
for a much longer analysis that I probably could turn
(34:26):
into a book, but I'll stop there because I'm going
on too long.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
I'd be curious how many of these things correlate together. So, yeah,
you know, Steve Lucretia says there's been a decline in
religious belief in Democrats. You know, Steve says, you know,
there's other things that have declined in amongst Democrats. Maybe marriage,
you know, family foundation, you know, like you know, but
(34:53):
also maybe like increases and income, you know, throupoles or
whatever these you know, these new Christmas orinaments start talking
about are they have more of those drug use number
of teslas? I mean, you could go on and on,
like how it would be very interesting to see like
what the high the high correlation of different characteristics are
(35:17):
with the progressives or Democrats nowadays. And I bet religion
is not just the only patriotismist. Steed said, military service
I'm sure as in decline too, But yet I've prochoids
also with higher education levels, you know, higher income, you know,
more urbanization. I don't know, but I bet that has
(35:38):
a lot to bet there's a This is just one
of many things that are going on amongst Democrats.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
This is an interesting one. I mean, interested to think
hear what you think. Highly religious Americans highly religious. So
that's not the methodist, uh but woman with the rainbow
garments and you know, the whole thing marrying off through polls.
That's highly religious. People like me who go to church
(36:07):
more than once a week, you know, say they pray
every day, all of those kinds of things. Highly religious
Americans are less likely to say the government should give
more help to people in need. Think that one through
why because Christians, real Christians believe there is not government.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
It is your responsibility as an individual to help the
guy that's the Samaritan that you pass by on the street.
It is not to tax your fellow citizens to have
money sent in part to help the poor and then
the rest of it go to NGOs and funnel back
to leftists. Sorry that was an editorial side comment, but anyway,
(36:53):
I think that's very interesting that and of course democrats
favorite my favorite anecdote about that. It'll be quite as
the anecdote about al Gore and Tipper when he was
still married to Tipper and their children are sitting outside
at this lovely little coffee shop in Washington, d C.
(37:13):
And in home, a homeless guy comes by, and one
of the kids says, let's take him home. He needs
you know, he needs a bath, he needs a hot meal,
and and al Gore's response is no, no, no, much better
that we give some money to the government and let
the government take care of it.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Right, So that's going to have implications long term.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
I think as well, well, you've heard the I forget
we made this joke. I think it way predates the
Babylon b But it's you know, it's two liberals walk
along and they see the the person who's been assaulted
and you know, at the good Samaritan that is right.
They see the person who's been beaten up by a
criminal in the ditch, and they look at each other
(37:59):
and say, we must find a person who did this
and help him. That's that's that's modern liberalism, right. Yeah,
there's data on this, by the way, I know it is,
but it's true, there's data on this. And actually this
is Arthur Brooks early work that was really good, which
was who gives in America? Who's the most charitable? Turns
out it's not rich Conservatives or rich Christians. It's average
(38:20):
working class Christians who they tithe their churches that give
them money to the food banks. And and they're not
people who itemize. They're not taking a tax benefit for
this because they don't itemize. They do it because that's
what they think they ought to do. As you were
saying a moment ago. Whereas what does Hillary Clinton do
on there as underwear? Their underwear underwear? We're gonna take
(38:42):
a dollar fifty induction for bills used underwear.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Okay, all right, I have to do this because it'll
come back. We're almost done and it will come back
on the Babylon b But I'm gonna give a little
bit of leeway to a should it that's not the
right way to put You'll get it, Bill Clinton. I'm
going to speak a little bit on behalf of Bill
Clinton for a moment. So with the release of the
(39:06):
Epstein files, the more of the Epstein files, Bill Clinton
of course has figured prominent prominently in them, and one
of them that kept showing up over and over again,
at least on the things that I see and read.
Was Bill Clinton shirtless in a hot tub. I'm sorry,
(39:28):
I don't like Bill Clinton. I think he's a scum.
But I don't know anybody ever in the history of
hot tubs who's a guy who's gone in with a
shirt on into a hot tub. If you're in a
hot tub, you don't have a shirt on. But it
goes back to what we talked about last time, which
was framing a narrative in just the way that you
present the facts. Yeah, he was shirtless in a hot tub.
(39:50):
He did a lot of other bad things. I'm not
giving him any grace on those other things. But the
idea that he's somehow this terrible pedophile because he was
shirtless and hot, that just doesn't ring true. Sorry. Do
you guys have any comments about the Epstein files.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
No, that's I'm bored at this point.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
That was bored six months ago.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Yeah. Yeah, but but but your point, I mean, you
want to I know, we want to move to an end.
But the flip side, so you know, you talk about
religion and John Halpin and you know, our smart progressive
friends like Ruye and John, then you have the same
time here in the last couple of days. Uh, the
politico saying the far right is exploiting Christmas. I mean
(40:34):
this is like Sam, Well, it's what happens is well,
first of all, I mean that's just the political story
skips over the facts, which is Christmas markets in Europe
have been in some cases canceled. In other cases they've
had put up ballards to stop you know, truck not
truck brought people driving through. There's a number of examples
(40:56):
now of what looks like groups of aggress Muslims deliberately
trying to do some of their prayer observances on the
grounds of Christian churches. What's that about. There's no need
to do that. That's not okay. And so but you're
seeing maloney in Italy and others saying, you know, we're
for we're for Christmas. Boy, what a bold, controversial thing
(41:19):
to do. You know, we're for Christmas. Right. The other
one is there's a good story the other day in
USA today. I say good story, I mean the fact
that they reported at all. It's like conservatives are having
kids and getting married and liberals aren't. And this is
a real problem for liberals because you know, you play
(41:41):
out how that works. Right, We're going to out number
liberals someday, I'm told by the way, and I know
some of the people have done this. People have have
five or six kids and they go to Europe for
vacation and everybody stares at them. They can't what. They
can't believe that these American families have five six kids.
It's just because almost nobody does accept now. Of course,
(42:02):
the number of faithful people in Europe is much smaller
than America. That's part of the problem over there. But
guess what, the people who have high birth rates, it's
the seriously religious and faithful people in Europe are still
having kids because they actually have a reason to believe
in the future, no matter how incompetent their governments are.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
John, do you have any comment?
Speaker 2 (42:24):
He's still trying to figure out what all that other
stuff Steve said, haven't.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
You looked up troubles yet? No, you don't want to know.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
No, from access to these websites recommended by Steve Hayworth.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
You probably don't want to read that.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Can I just just say real quick? Since we have
a lot of good questions in the chat thread, but
some of them want to hold till I think we're
going to do another episode Friday or Saturday. We'll figure
it out where we well Friday, and we're going to
do sort of year end wrap up in a few things.
And so you know, one faithful reader and listener wants
to know Lucretia why you don't like a quil Lamar
(43:05):
and that will take more than thirty seconds, so let's
save that and a few others. So anyway, okay, sorry,
I just talk to listeners or you know, Okay, we'll
do what we can about that. I mean, I want
to say to a conference with him next fall, so there.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yes we are, I do want to say. And I
don't dislike him at all.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
I don't know him, so I don't agree with him,
disagree with age.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yes, And and by the way, my good friend John
and I have some agreement on our on the disagreement
with him, but I won't I'll leave that aside too.
I want to say that that that even small things
like Okay, I don't know if you knew this, but
for the first time since the start of the gause
of War, they actually had Christian celebrations in Bethlehem for
(43:51):
Christmas Eve. So that's a wonderful thing. But also just
look at the Trump administration. I mean, Trump is on
some great things. Malania's Christmas decoration of the White House
compared to that monstrosity clown show that Joe Biden put
(44:12):
on last year. We've never discussed that. It came out.
You know, this isn't new news, but it it points
to an understanding of the importance of faith, the importance
of one of the most holy days for Christians in America.
And I see between the Charlie Kirk thing, which you
(44:34):
said we come back to, we didn't. We don't have
time today. But I'm just seeing more and more everywhere
people willing to talk about their faith, people willing to
people not being embarrassed about it anymore in a way
that they probably were even ten years ago. And I
think that's a wonderful thing, because, as Steve pointed out
(44:56):
in his article juxtaposing the two different times time pieces
his subset article, when you don't have anything to believe in,
uh things, get things? You know that it explains the
crisis of our time. It explains the crisis of our
young people. It explains the crisis of people who who
(45:17):
really do they don't have children because they don't believe
there's a future. Those of us who believe there's a
future have hope. And so anyway, I'm not going to pontificate.
I'm going to move to the babylonde and give you guys, well,
I'm pulling it up. One last word, John.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Uh huh, No, no, no, go ahead, he doesn't have
a last word. Okay, No, no, I don't. I don't
what's the last There was no question.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Yeah, let's just I'll just give you a look at
the sunset out my window right now from my home. Awk.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Wow, are you in the middle of the storms?
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Yeah. My power was out last night for several hours
and it came back that surprising me. I thought it'd
be out for two days. But PG is actually trying
to do a good job these days, which kind of
amazes me.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Anyway, in the quarter of San Francisco lost electricity, right, Yeah,
most of downtown and.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
The way mos all just had to stop in the
middle of the street because without street lights they can't operate.
You are safe from that, right John.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Yeah, No, I'm not in San Francisco.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
So, yeah, you weren't in San Francisco.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
At the I wasn't in San Francisco in the power
outage happened, but it was a few years ago when
the power went out for two weeks because of the wildfires.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Oh right, I was excited.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah right.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
I was once without power for three and a half
weeks in upstate New York. That was That was an adventure.
I'll leave it at that. But now, first of all,
to both of you, I wish you both a very,
very merry Christmas. It is when we're recording, this is
actually Christmas Eve. So I hope, I hope your Christmas,
(47:02):
even your Christmas Day, is wonderful. And uh, that's the
same to all of our listeners. We'll be back with
you on Friday. And so in the meantime, a few
real quick uh bablon bees Texas issues and you'll reminder
not to shoot Santa a second.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
I'll never be sure who's under that costume.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
This one, This one hits way too close to home, guys,
because I will tell you that the thing I confess
most often at confession are the really bad words I
scream at people when I'm driving. All right, just okay,
because I'm anyway.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
Oh glad, I'd like to hear Actually, I was in
a car with you. You don't scream all kinds.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
I was on my best behavior, John.
Speaker 4 (47:55):
I mean what worries me is when you start taking
the guns out of the central console.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Well, no, but I will do.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
So much rather have the cursing.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
I was driving down a highway the other day and
the speed limits fifty five. But it's one of those
highways that has lights, and you know the cars that
can come off side roads. And I had the green
light on the highway, so it's fifty five. I was
probably only going to maybe sixty two. And I see
this car getting ready to turn onto the highway out
(48:25):
a red light sitting there, and it sits there, and
it sits there, and it sits there. And then right
when I get to the intersection, it turns in front
of me, and I have to slam my my break.
Somebody's on the other side of me. A slammy breaks.
Good breaks, thank God. And so then I start honking,
and then I pull around and I honk and I
(48:47):
say some not very nice things. But then the guy
rolls down his window, gets up next to me on
the other side and rolls down his window and says,
my dad's eighty three and I said that he shouldn't
be driving, and he says, I know that, but I
can't stop him. It's just crazy. But that that kind
of thing happens to me all the type. Okay, back
(49:08):
to the babble on bees. Uh oh, car, you honked
and swore at for driving too slow, just turned into
your church parking lot.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Oh yeah, that happened to me once.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
I hate to tell you what happens to me all
the time. I can't leave it with this, but let
me get these out of the way. New photos reveal
Epstein had a sick fetish for girls with giant black
squares for heads. It's one click here, since I don't
(49:43):
want anybody to think that I was actually speaking on
behalf of Bill Clinton. Click here to see all the
Epstein photos so far that don't include Bill Bill Clinton.
By the way, guys, Nicki minaj.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Is, I don't know, but okay.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
I'll end with this one because you guys will appreciate this.
And by the way, Lucretia would never never do something
like this to mister Lucretia. Disappointing. Thompson's submachine gun shaped
box turns out to be socks Oh, it's.
Speaker 4 (50:21):
Good since he already has one. He just wants the
box anyway, right.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
He wants another one? Trust me?
Speaker 4 (50:34):
Go ahead, Well, always drink your whiskey, meat, buy more
books and Steve, what does artificial intelligence have to say
about Christmas?
Speaker 3 (50:43):
So, now, John, I have broken AI this week. I'll
just yeah, this will be brief. I tried with a
prompt asking AI to produce a satire in the style
of first Woody Allen, then Robin Williams and Jerry Seinfeld,
and it struck out all three times. I mean, the
(51:04):
products were horrible and completely lame. But I will give
you the very best of the relatively speaking, was Jerry Seinfeld.
And here's what it came up with. And you know
Jerry Feinfeld, you know his style.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Right.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
What's the deal with the Clean Air Act? I mean air?
You don't even see it, It's just there. And suddenly
in the nineteen seventies the government goes, hey, we've been
looking into this air thing. Turns out it's disgusting. But
I have to say that the products of all those
prompts were really pathetic, and so we broke it with
(51:37):
the You're right about the Clean Air Act? This week? John,
it really does kill everything, so including.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
A New York gonna mention it somehow this episode.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
That's well, you know we've got we've got listeners to
say more Cleaneric.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Okay, anyway, okay, wait, I almost forgot. I almost messed
up big time on this and this is actually an
old one. I had to go searching seeking better counsel
because we know that John has on more than one
occasion made fun of the U the lawyer, the lawyer's
stable that uh President Trump keeps excuse me, seeking better counsel.
(52:16):
Trump hires Sydney Sweeney as news.
Speaker 4 (52:19):
Oh oh, I was waiting because I thought Steve had
forgotten to mention her all episode, all episode.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
But I saved the day for you, Steve.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
Merry Christmas, everyone, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 3 (52:31):
Everybody will be.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
Back this weekend Christmas, right, Okay.
Speaker 5 (52:36):
The news had come out in the First World War,
the bloody Red Baron was flying once more, the all
command all of his men, and calling on Snoopy to
do it again well the night off Christmas for him.
Below were Snoopy went up in search.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
Of his Poe spy, the Red Bear.
Speaker 5 (53:00):
Seriously, they bought with ice on his wings, snooping.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
Who it was gold.
Speaker 6 (53:08):
Christmas Well cost Christmas bang up as him Paver and
the thrill.
Speaker 5 (53:22):
That the baron had snoopy.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
Ricochet joined the conversation
Well, whiskey, come and take my pain, hondys.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
My brain, Oh whiskey.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Why think alone when you can drink it all in
with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour. Join your bartenders Steve Hayward,
John You, and the international woman of Mystery Lucretia where
they slapped it up.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
And David, ain't you easy on the should taps? Got
to give me and let that whiskey flow. Welcome everybody
to this very special, Merry Christmas edition of the Three
Whiskey Happy Hour. I am joined as always by my
favorite and only co hosts Steve Hayward and join you.
How are you this evening, gentlemen?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
I'm good? But who are you?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I mean, nobody cares?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
No, you don't need an introduction, that's true.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Hi?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
John?
Speaker 5 (00:59):
Hi?
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Can everyone see Steve? Stupid Santa hat?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
It's Christmas? John? Why are you being such a grinch?
Speaker 1 (01:09):
You are looking a little grinchy tonight, And I don't
blame you because I have some bad news for you.
I came prepared through a sky happy Hour with a
bottle of Bookers, of which this is the well I
can't see the number on it, the seventy third one
off the production line, of which only one hundred and
(01:29):
two were made. Bookers is made by Jim Beam Distilleries,
which has been around since I believe it was seventeen
ninety six if I'm not mistaken. However, Wow, Jim Beam
is pausing production for a year. I heard this a
full year because all of these sort of goodie two
(01:54):
shoes gen zers would rather sit home and scroll the
Internet with TikTok videos and Instagram videos, and they don't
want to drink alcohol, They don't want to go anywhere,
they don't want to do anything. And in the article
I sent these two guys, the funniest thing about it
was was the the author made the comment that, look,
(02:16):
these people have uh, you know, free delivery to your
home and Uber. Imagine how much drinking we could have
done if we had somebody to uber us home every
single time we had a little bit too much to drink.
Of course, you're a little bit younger, John, but Steve
and I remember the days when we really didn't worry
about it all that much. What I mean is is
(02:43):
that the the enforcement of dui laws was nowhere near
as stringent as it is today.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
So I've heard of these wonderful times when one could
drive without a seatbelt and would smoke your cigarettes in
the car while driving and drinking simultaneously, and throwing winter
out the window as.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
You went down the highway.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
It. Yes, I hate to admit I probably did all
of those things at one time or another. I yes,
although I probably didn't often drive when I was really
really drunk, because why I didn't so well, you would
have designated drivers, which was always the bummer to be
(03:28):
the designated driver? You know now you just call an uber?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And both my kids when they were in college, I
would tell them, you know, they had an Uber account.
Don't you dare drive home, here's the Uber account. You
just call them. And so I never had any issues
with my kids getting DUIs or any things like that.
But they're older now and they know better. I'll just
leave it at that.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Well I will, since we're I'm having killed corn again.
This wonderful stuff I got it done.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Is at the end of the second bottle.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
No still, it's the end of the first bottle. I
poached from the second bottle to bring this down to
my office. See and let me mention that I have
the I've got the YouTube live stream up going on
my other computer, and I can see a chat window.
We've got eight people watching live. And if you guys
have a good question or something that you want us
to address and it fits, go ahead and put it
in the chat window and I'll try and bring it
(04:19):
up as we go.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Well, so I don't know if I actually made the
point clear. Jim Beam is shutting down production for a
full year because they have a glut of alcohol, not
just in their less expensive that I'd never dream Jim
Beam sort of regular stuff. But they're bakers, they're bookers.
What's the other one, Basil Hayden. I forget which of
(04:43):
the higher end whiskeys come under Jim Beam, But they're
shutting down. They're shutting down production of whiskey for a year,
the largest whiskey maker in America.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Well, the solution of this is obvious. We need to
bring back prohibition. That will sa that will send conception
up right. My my favorite Will Rogers line of all
time was his squip that, well, at least prohibition is
better than no liquor at all. I always thought was.
I mean, he said a lot of great ones, but
that's my favorite.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Well, I was just in Costco for Christmas Eve. I
didn't realize correlate that, but yeah, there were huge hard
liquor sales going on at Costco, like.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Twenty thirty percent off. Yeah. Yeah, So I'm planning to.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Go back the day after Christmas and filler up.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Did you I was gonna say, did you stock up
or not yet? Huh?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Not yet? There's got to be discounts after Christmas.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, but I can't imagine being Costco on New Year's Eve.
I am not big on crowds. I haven't left the
house all day today. I'm afraid of I'm xenophobic. I'll
just leave it at that. Or no, no, no, agoraphobic, achorophobic, well, chorophobic.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, but you know, xenophobia. That could be user special bonus.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah. All right, enough of that. We want to talk
a little bit today about Christmas in America and what's
kind of been happening lately. So I posed to these
guys that something very interesting is happening. And I saw
this just before I came on the podcast. Didn't get
(06:19):
to internalize it fully. But even even President Donald Trump,
who seems to be following in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson,
and Abraham Lincoln when it comes to his religion. Does
that make sense to you guys, that he's very much
pro Christianity, very much not sectarian or claiming to have
(06:44):
belonged to any church anyway. He's coming out and saying
that Christianity is making a revival in America. I want
to give you, guys two examples, and then I want
to ask John a question. The Sarah Sarah Huckabee, who
everyone is known, is a Christian and is not shy
about her faith. But when she was asked to, when
(07:05):
she had to justify I believe it was giving the
day off after Christmas something like that, she instead of
doing it in terms of, oh, religious freedom or you know,
the culture of Christmas, she came out and said, this
is the day that our Savior was born, God became
man on earth, and this is why I am giving
(07:26):
this day off. And if you don't like it, I
will pray for you. And I think that we've seen
a lot of that sort of thing since Charlie Kirk.
So I was listening to my favorite, my only favorite,
actually Outnumbered co host John You about to answer a question. Yeah, yeah,
(07:48):
you're their favorite victim.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Yeah, no, this is on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I'm the victim on that time.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, they love you, John, It's it's obvious, and they
think you're so smart, and they say and then they
go back and apologize for saying them because they know
you're going to be smarter than they are. It's very funny.
But I didn't get to hear your answer when they
were asking what is the First Amendment issue when a
city wants to have on I guess a public parking
(08:16):
lot a nativity scene. Is there a separation of church
and state problem? You might want to give the details
on that.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
John, Yeah, so yeah, So first, yeah, I'm not being
elevated to a host because I think only women can
be the host.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
This is like a Lucretia dream show.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Well, John, well that's not that's not an obstacle. More.
You just switched teams.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
And there's a guest, the man who's in the middle,
but they don't gang up on him the way Lucretia
gangs up on the two of us.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
So I.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
You know, it's you know, this is a takeoff on
a John F.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Kennedy joke.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
So you know Kennedy once said that he had a
reception for all the Nobel laureates, and he said, you know,
this is the smartest assemblage of people in the White
House since Thomas Jefferson eight alone. And I would say,
you know, four Fox hosts Women is the greatest collection
(09:15):
of feminine talent since Lucretia did a solo podcast. But
you know, so you know, on this show they asked
about this example of this mayor demanded that a Nativity
scene be removed from a public space, publicly owned parking lot,
(09:35):
and then said, because the Constitution requires a separation of
church and state. So I said, you know, this mayor
should go back to school because he will discover that
the separation of church and state is not a phrase.
It appears in the Constitution that the First Amendment only
forbids the government from establishing a religion, not promoting religions plural,
(10:00):
and that the Supreme Court had decided this issue several
times and it said, if the government wants to open
up a public space for religious displays at the holiday season,
it can. They just can't say only Presbyterians or maybe
even only Christians. So you've had displays which the court
is upheld, which would have a Christmas scene and a
(10:21):
Nativity as a Nativity scene, and then a Jewish Manora
for example, would be okay. I don't know if the
government has to allow every possible religion because it has
to have space concerns. And you know what if someone
just makes up their own religion and wants to put
like some I don't know, wiccan whatever those people are
(10:43):
some kind of wicked dispount even.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Know what that would be.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Would that be like the cauldron from Macbeth with the
three witches?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I don't know what the wickan would do.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
But my point is that the Supreme Court has I
think undone the mistakes of the Warrant Court, which was
to try to actually separate church and state and to
allow the government to promote and support religious belief generally,
so long as they don't pick out and single a
specific religion to support and to suppress all the others.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
You might remember, Steve, I'll let you come in on
this last year. We just around this time we discussed
the fact that the Iowa Capitol Building, as I recall
of all places you know, good good Christian girl from
Iowa that I am, actually allowed a Satanic display at
(11:35):
Christmas time. They removed Thomas Jefferson to put up a
Satanic display. So what do you think, Steve, Does that
mean that the government is being neutral to all religions?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I have to think about the satanic display business. I'd
forgotten about that, So you're minded me just now. I
think I could construct a case for a government to
say no, but it might take me a while. I
do think that the interesting thing here is, for a
while the Supreme Court was badly confused or worse on
these issues. And I'm thinking thirty forty years ago the
(12:10):
Lemon test, which I've forgotten what it is, but I
think it's gone now. But the point is that the
last ten to fifteen years the Supreme Court has become
something of a leading indicator. I mean, you've actually had
some nine zero decisions on the side of religious liberty
as we would understand it right. What is that the
alliance defending freedom people who cause riots when they show
(12:30):
up at law schools has won I think fifteen Supreme
Court cases so and so, and I say a leading
indicator because as you hinted at, is we're seeing this
return to church in America. We'll talk about the Charlie
Kirk Memorial service. In a moment because I think that
was quite significant. But there's the Supreme Court kind of
leading the way. I'll just say it. On the substance
(12:52):
of it, Yeah, I mean, I think there still are
some incoherencies. Is that a proper plural world? So, you know,
we had the extually it's twenty years ago or more now,
we had the Ten Commandments case, and here was a
case that they consolidate a case with, was it Alabama
and Texas because Texas has the Ten Commandments on the
(13:14):
capitol grounds all other stuff, and then Judge Moore in
Alabama wanted a big Ten Commandments inside the courthouse, And
essentially what the court said was, no, you can't have
the big Ten Commandments in Alabama because they're too big,
but you can have it on the grounds of the
state capitol because it's not too big. I mean, I
mean that's John. You can correct me if I'm too
(13:36):
grotesquely distorting what they said. But I thought that that
was an incoherent ruling because the implicit rationale was, well,
you don't take it as seriously if it's not so big,
but if you really put it out front and center,
it means you really mean it, and we can't have
displays of religion that really mean it, or go back
even further to the seventies, you had the pair of
(13:56):
cases I forget which ones they were, but as the
one that's said that the local school district could not
give away or loan textbooks that weren't using anymore to
the local Catholic parochial schools. But then in a separate
case nearly at the same time, they said the public
schools could give maps to parochial schools for their buses
(14:17):
that picked up students. And that's what prompted pat and
Wey in a hand to say, how would Supreme Court
handle an atlas in a book of maps? And I
understand the reasoning of why maps made sense. That wasn't
actually religion. It was simply a police power thing. But
still there's still, at the end of the day, this
tortured reasoning we've had towards religion in the public square
(14:38):
for decades. I think it's trending the other way slowly.
I kind of like it. Can I just add one
quick joke though, John, you mentioned the Kennedy line about
the greatest assembly of mine since Jefferson dined alone there's
a Reagan era version of that, which somebody said it
wasn't Reagan. Sadly, someone said, this is the greatest assembly
of brains in the White House since Richard Diamond Darman
(15:00):
dined alone, which he did often. Oh no, no, we hated
Richard Darman. He was horrible. He's a terrible person.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
It was.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Martin Anderson has said to me once, why do people
take an instant dislike to Richard Darman? Saves time?
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Don't say that as a joke about Ted Cruz, which.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Was right, Yeah, not fair, but I get it, yes, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
The one done them I'd make on Steve's description of
the cases is that there's I think there's been a
radical change by the Roberts Quarter religion because of the
Warrnancourt decisions. The a lot of like two bit local
officials like this guy we're talking about in South Carolina,
believe that the government had a telling purpose to exclude
(15:49):
religion from public life, and so they would allow Yeah,
satanic worshipers and cannibals whoever you want to mention, you know,
fly flag in front of the Boston City Hall, or
you know, have a demonstration of some kind. But they
would say we are required to stop religious groups.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And so the one thing that.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Religious groups did that was very clever in terms of
litigation was to say, if you interfere with us participating
on an equal footing with other groups, you've not only
deprived us of the free exercise of religion, even though
the government's saying, oh, we can't do that because otherwise
we'd be violating the establishment clause. But they've also said,
(16:32):
and this was I think part of what helped them
start winning even under the Renquesst Court, was to say,
you could think of religions as having as being free
speech organizations like the ACLU or you know, the Republican Party,
and so if you exclude religious groups, you're actually violating
their free speech rights and the right of belief to
pursue this idea that religion has to be extinguished from
(16:55):
the public sphere. And I think that's what is the
That was the change in the arguments that started to
allow religious groups really to.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Pile on the winds.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
And then you know, under the Roberts Court it's been
almost an unbroken winning streak.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
For right and it's also been much more how should
I say, true to the original intent of the First
Amendment under the Roberts Court than it was under the ranks.
You're right, and you can't blame those litigants for going
to the court and asking for some relief based upon
any way they thought they might get it. But of course,
(17:29):
the establishment clause doesn't mean you can't have a manger scene,
you can't allow a moment of silent prayer in schools.
It doesn't mean that school children, school aged children can
never be exposed to something that they might somehow feel
uncomfortable about. That was I mean, that had to be
the dumbest decision ever by the Supreme Court, and there's
(17:51):
been a lot of them, and so you know, the
Roberts Court, you're right, they took it further, but they
did it ach in my opinion, much more solid ground
ways that made a lot more sense. Not that there's
anything wrong with saying that you have a First Amendment
freedom of speech, right to practice your religion, but you
(18:11):
also have a dual, dually protected first and foremost in
the First Amendment right not to have a religion forced
upon you, a specific, established, government sponsored religion force upon you,
But that you have the freedom to practice your religion
(18:32):
without government interference. That's the most amazing thing in many ways,
it's happened in the history of civilization and why America
became the free place that it is. Was Sorry, I'm
pontificating here. It don't mean to, but I believe that.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Well I could do that too. I mean, I think
about you know, I always like to point out to
students that Britain embraced toleration with the Toleration Act of
what that's part of the sixteen eighty eight Revolution. But
just think about the title of the Act and the
actual language of it is, we will tolerate you. We
will no longer throw you in jail for not being
(19:10):
an Anglican. There were still religious tests for office, by
the way, that lasted well into the nineteenth century. They
just meant it. It is decriminalized being a nonconformist. Gee,
well that's real. And it was you know Washington's famous
letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport when he was
president saying, it's now no more that toleration is spoken of,
(19:30):
spoken as though it were by the indulgence of one
group that another group gets to enjoy their natural rights
of conscience. That was brand new, right, I mean was
huge that and along with John you probably singleed this
out too with students our constitution saying no religious tests,
republic office, first constitution anywhere that ever said that in
the world. I think right as I say, it was
(19:52):
not true in Britain until the twentieth century. For goodness sake. Now,
you know, we often talk about the theological political problem
and the nutlical philosophy and the rest of that. I
do have a one of our viewers on YouTube asks
about something. I mean, I've heard this, I forgot about it,
but what's the Blaine Amendment and how is that implicated
(20:13):
in all this I have forgotten.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
I have to say, oh, well, the Blaine Amendment was
this effort to so this was an effort to try
to change the constitution that failed. You know, Blaine, if
I remember correctly, was a losing presidential candidate for the
Democratic Party in the late nineteenth century, and he so
(20:35):
I believe, after you lost, there were a number of
these Blaine amendments that were added to state constitutions, which
in practical effect, I don't think they were all worded
the exact same way, but am practical effect for bade
money going to not just churches, but religious schools. And
(20:57):
I think it's interesting the Supreme Court these last few
cases has essentially held these amendments to be unconstitutional, even
if they haven't directly said so. So you remember, there
are several examples where the Court where states and cities
have tried to exclude religious groups from participating in grant programs,
(21:19):
for example, that are opened to everybody else. So the
one well known wass is I think this involved the
Lutheran Church. You know, nonprofits could go to the state
and say ask for a grant to I think in
this case repave the parking lot. And the government said
everybody but religious groups and churches can participate in this
(21:39):
grant program. And they would say, because the Blame Amendment
in our state constitution requires us to forbid any money
going to any religious organization. And this Freme course struck
that down for the reasons we gave. Really that they're
the government singling out religious groups for this favorite treatment
violates the free exercise clause.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Those Blane amendments.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
I don't think that court has said they're all unconstitutional,
but effectively you can see the writing on the law and.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
They've gone from other I'm just going to say really quickly,
sorry Steve, that not only have they done things like
parking lots, but in my state. Now I know that
they don't have a Blaine Amendment state equivalent, but in
my state, I can and do give twenty five hundred
dollars for a married couple directly to a Catholic school
(22:30):
in my community. And it is not an write off,
It is a tax exemption. It comes off of my
state taxes. But what I would say is, in many
places the Blaine Amendments are not necessarily overturned, but there
have been rulings that say, yes, if you are giving
a voucher program, for instance, to parents, they have to
(22:54):
be able to use those vouchers at the school of
their choice, which could include an does include Catholic schools
and other parochial schools. Sorry, Steve gollahad, that's all right.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Well, I just want to correct correct a rare factual
error from John U which is James Blaine was a Republican,
not a Democrat.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
In fact, he.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Lost to Grover Cleveland. And by the way backwards this
part I remember it was during that campaign of what
as an eighteen eighty eight I guess or whatever the
you'd have this democratic campaign. Crowds would march through the streets,
you know, with candles and dressed darkly, all solemn. They'd say,
James Blaine, blame James G. Blaine, the continental liar from
(23:37):
the state of Maine. That the great politics of the
old day. But I just mentioned as a cultural thing.
You guys may not have seen it, but Netflix has
a three part series out right now called Death by
Lightning about James Garfield his assassination.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
I've been watching it. It's from halfway through. It is good.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
It is terrific. I think I can't believe how good
it is. And it's now making people realize Garfield was
a pretty good guy. We didn't know that because he
was skilled so early. Right. But the person who plays Blane,
I forget the actor, but he does a very good job,
and Blaine comes across. Some of the characterizations, like Roscoe
Conkling are probably a little overdone, but it's drama. But
they make Blaine into a very sympathetic figure. I have
(24:19):
to say I should see it. It's really really.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Good, you see.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
The other thing I like about the show is that
it I think what's fair based on what my you know,
my reading and the histories at the time was how
important the Civil War still was twenty five thirty years later,
where you.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Know, people who have been generals and officers in.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
The Union Army are all being elected, right, All the
presidents served in the Union's.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Side of the war.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
And this is really important with Grover Cleveland, it's he
the first Democrat that wins. Actor were, yeah, yes, because
so you have an unbroken you know, Republican victories. You
know in the TV show they're still shouting about Lincoln, right,
and Grant made a comeback try for a third term
(25:04):
in that Garfield that year that Garfield was nominated, and right,
they were still talking about the hero of Appamatics was
I mean, we don't we've lost touch with that.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
I think how important that.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Civil War was for like thirty years after the Civil War.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Well, guys, I would be watching it tonight after this
podcast and before I go off to midnight mass, except
that I haven't yet had my my annual dosage of
die Hard, So that's what I'll be watching. You don't
watch Garfield tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Yet you watch it every every holiday season.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Oh guy, it's like the Peanuts, specially you watched two things.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Last night, Watching Right Special and the How the Grinch
Stole Christmas and scrooged. You know that great movie with
Bill Marie.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Oh you don't watch ELF?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
What about Elf?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
I've never seen that. I can't stand Will Ferrell.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Oh really, Oh no, it's it's uneven. But he's you know, well,
we'll say that for some other time.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
And I would have and I would have thought Steve
thinks he's living in the National Lampoon Christmas vacation. I
can he not be watching that?
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Well, because I can't stand Chevy Chase. That's one reason
why he's a.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Real chur And never mind, all right, back to what
Steve brought up, which is I think he probably didn't
mean to, but pointing out that John had a factual error.
And he's right. John almost never gets the facts wrong.
He sometimes gets the facts that I say and twists
them for his own purposes, but when they're his facts,
he never gets them wrong. But an interesting thing, an
(26:37):
interesting commentary today out of the Liberal Patriot, you know,
Rey to Shara and his his his group that is
desperately trying to save the Democratic Party. I think that's
probably their biggest endeavor. Going on right now? Wouldn't you
agree that what can we do to make sure the
Democratic Party doesn't completely implode? By the way, they are
(27:01):
sixteen million dollars in debt as of the month of November.
They brought in way less money than they spent and
they're still paying off Kamala's debt. And anyway, and part
of the pason go ahead, please Steve.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
And most of that deficit is the loss of Jewish donors.
I've actually seen the numbers now, yeah, it's the shift
of the decline of Jewish donations Democrats and Democratic Party
is huge, and about half of it has gone over
to the Republican Party. I've got the numbers, and all
this I don't have in front of me, and I
won't do it anyway, but there you go.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Sorry, but it's quite all right. That's an interesting factoid,
Thank you, Steve. But what I want to talk about
is an article that came out today in the Liberal
Patriot talking about the fact that there has been a huge, huge,
growing disparity between Republicans and Democrats on the question of religiosity.
(28:06):
Would we call it on the question of who? And
they have a four part test that they go by
to determine who is and who is not religious and
where they are religious. This bothers me a little bit
because they break it down by Black Protestant, Hispanic Protestant,
White Catholic, Hispanic Catholic. I'm not sure those things matter.
(28:29):
They don't at my church, that's for sure. But they
break it down all Christian versus all non Christian. If
you look at the numbers, and maybe Steve can pose
us if anybody's interested. Back in back in two thousand
and eight, eighty six percent of Republicans were Christian. That
(28:51):
number is eighty one percent today, Okay, all categories of
Christian For Democrats. In nineteen excuse me, two thousand and eight,
it was seventy four percent claimed to be Christian of
some kind. Today it is fifty four percent total. And
that includes just about any kind of thing you could
(29:13):
possibly put under the category of Christian, any nutty whatever. Sorry,
I don't mean to be rude about it. Is this
a problem? And the article sets it out as these
are people, these Democrats are the college educated elite that
live in the coasts like you two. They're not the
(29:36):
good old, good solid Americans who live in the hinterlands
like me, and they vote for things like more immigration,
they vote for things like more protection for trans in LGBTQ.
They make the comment in the article that most people
in the flyover states don't even know what the LGBDQ
(29:57):
plus plus plus letters stand for. Right, right, So anyway,
what do you guys think about? And at the point, finally,
the point of the article is this is going to
be a real problem going forward because the numbers just
don't match up. You can't win elections by just now
it's certainly not national elections by just concentrating on the coast,
(30:19):
the elites and so forth. Go ahead, Steve, you look well, oh.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
God, yeah, you know, I've got both barrels of my
twenty gay shotgun loaded for this one. Right. The author
of this John Halpin, and he's you know, his policy
instincts are progressive, his political instincts are much better. I
had lunch with him, you know, fifteen years ago, along
with ruy t Chera. He's his partner in the liberal
patriot right. Important to say liberal patriot because, by the way,
(30:45):
the decline of religious belief amongst Democrats tracks with the
decline and patriotism among Democrats, they don't. They've done separate pieces.
I think Ruy's done a separate pieces saying democrats are
also less patriotic. I think those things go together for
a reason. I don't think they're randomly correlated here at all. Right,
and put it this way. You know, I wrote that
(31:07):
long piece for the New York Post about Franklin Roosevelt
and revisionism what a week ago, and I did go
back to thinking about Roosevelt and Roosevelt, who, by the way,
he was a high Church Episcopalian, sort of like John,
maybe not John, okay, and so another.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Way Lucretian thinks were the same.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Then well okay, well well you know I remember Andrew Claven,
who you know, converted from Judaism to Christianity, and someone said,
what are you Episcopalian? He says, no, no, I'm a real Christian.
Lets I ran that by Rob Long the other day
and he said, yeah, I totally get that.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
See before you go any further, let me just I
don't want to interrupt, but I just want to say
that that fifty four includes all of those Episcopalians and
all the Rainbow Flags and all the Methodists who Mary
pallia amoris, couples, truplstruples, that's what they're called these days, trupls.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
You know, Pol John, you don't want to know.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Fifty of Democrats encompass all of those those.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
That would be a very interesting subject for a survey
of what those fifties four. I'll bet that would be
a huge golf there. Right. You know that what's the
old joke about Unitarians is there believe that there is
at most one God. And you know when a Unitarian
wants to run you out of town, they burn a
question mark on your lawn. You know, I got all
those jokes, right, I can, I can. I can do
those next to the episcopal episcopal jokes. But look here,
(32:40):
here's the point is. You know, Roosevelt, whatever you may
say about him, and for that matter, about John F.
Kennedy or even Bill Clinton, massive hypocrite. But somewhere deep
down inside I think you know, he does have the
residue of being raised as Southern Baptist in Arkansas, and
and I think that connects to why he was a
popular politician. I'll leave that for some other day to
(33:00):
talk about. But you think about Roosevelt, so what did
Roosevelt do on D Day, he led the nation in prayer,
a Christian prayer for the troops in the field. Before
D Day. He actually throughout the war he wrote a
preface to a little pocket Bible. Actually it was a
New Testament, even worse if you're not Christian. Right, And
(33:22):
he said, I recommend actually let me get the quote
because I you know, I do have it handy. He says,
as commander in chief, constitutional phrase, Right, I take pleasure
in commending the reading of the Bible to all who
served in the armed forces of the United States. If
if Trump said that today, Democrats would be calling for
(33:43):
his impeachment. Right, that's how far we have changed. And
really it's not how far the country has changed, it's
how far one party has changed. I think there's deep
reasons for that. You know, I wrote about this some
months ago on our sub stack that you know. Sixty
years ago the new thing on the sort of secular
left was God is Dead, and then Time magazine put
(34:05):
it under cover. Was a famous cover that in nineteen
eighty nine I put on the cover is Government Dead.
And I read the article and said, this is the
same article as there is God Dead. Because government is
the secular substitute for religion for a lot of people
on the left, and that I think explains why they're
so angry about things these days. Now, that's a thumbnail
for a much longer analysis that I probably could turn
(34:26):
into a book, but I'll stop there because I'm going
on too long.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
I'd be curious how many of these things correlate together. So, yeah,
you know, Steve Lucretia says there's been a decline in
religious belief in Democrats. You know, Steve says, you know,
there's other things that have declined in amongst Democrats. Maybe marriage,
you know, family foundation, you know, like you know, but
(34:53):
also maybe like increases and income, you know, throupoles or
whatever these you know, these new Christmas orinaments start talking
about are they have more of those drug use number
of teslas? I mean, you could go on and on,
like how it would be very interesting to see like
what the high the high correlation of different characteristics are
(35:17):
with the progressives or Democrats nowadays. And I bet religion
is not just the only patriotismist. Steed said, military service
I'm sure as in decline too, But yet I've prochoids
also with higher education levels, you know, higher income, you know,
more urbanization. I don't know, but I bet that has
(35:38):
a lot to bet there's a This is just one
of many things that are going on amongst Democrats.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
This is an interesting one. I mean, interested to think
hear what you think. Highly religious Americans highly religious. So
that's not the methodist, uh but woman with the rainbow
garments and you know, the whole thing marrying off through polls.
That's highly religious. People like me who go to church
(36:07):
more than once a week, you know, say they pray
every day, all of those kinds of things. Highly religious
Americans are less likely to say the government should give
more help to people in need. Think that one through
why because Christians, real Christians believe there is not government.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
It is your responsibility as an individual to help the
guy that's the Samaritan that you pass by on the street.
It is not to tax your fellow citizens to have
money sent in part to help the poor and then
the rest of it go to NGOs and funnel back
to leftists. Sorry that was an editorial side comment, but anyway,
(36:53):
I think that's very interesting that and of course democrats
favorite my favorite anecdote about that. It'll be quite as
the anecdote about al Gore and Tipper when he was
still married to Tipper and their children are sitting outside
at this lovely little coffee shop in Washington, d C.
(37:13):
And in home, a homeless guy comes by, and one
of the kids says, let's take him home. He needs
you know, he needs a bath, he needs a hot meal,
and and al Gore's response is no, no, no, much better
that we give some money to the government and let
the government take care of it.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Right, So that's going to have implications long term.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
I think as well, well, you've heard the I forget
we made this joke. I think it way predates the
Babylon b But it's you know, it's two liberals walk
along and they see the the person who's been assaulted
and you know, at the good Samaritan that is right.
They see the person who's been beaten up by a
criminal in the ditch, and they look at each other
(37:59):
and say, we must find a person who did this
and help him. That's that's that's modern liberalism, right. Yeah,
there's data on this, by the way, I know it is,
but it's true, there's data on this. And actually this
is Arthur Brooks early work that was really good, which
was who gives in America? Who's the most charitable? Turns
out it's not rich Conservatives or rich Christians. It's average
(38:20):
working class Christians who they tithe their churches that give
them money to the food banks. And and they're not
people who itemize. They're not taking a tax benefit for
this because they don't itemize. They do it because that's
what they think they ought to do. As you were
saying a moment ago. Whereas what does Hillary Clinton do
on there as underwear? Their underwear underwear? We're gonna take
(38:42):
a dollar fifty induction for bills used underwear.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Okay, all right, I have to do this because it'll
come back. We're almost done and it will come back
on the Babylon b But I'm gonna give a little
bit of leeway to a should it that's not the
right way to put You'll get it, Bill Clinton. I'm
going to speak a little bit on behalf of Bill
Clinton for a moment. So with the release of the
(39:06):
Epstein files, the more of the Epstein files, Bill Clinton
of course has figured prominent prominently in them, and one
of them that kept showing up over and over again,
at least on the things that I see and read.
Was Bill Clinton shirtless in a hot tub. I'm sorry,
(39:28):
I don't like Bill Clinton. I think he's a scum.
But I don't know anybody ever in the history of
hot tubs who's a guy who's gone in with a
shirt on into a hot tub. If you're in a
hot tub, you don't have a shirt on. But it
goes back to what we talked about last time, which
was framing a narrative in just the way that you
present the facts. Yeah, he was shirtless in a hot tub.
(39:50):
He did a lot of other bad things. I'm not
giving him any grace on those other things. But the
idea that he's somehow this terrible pedophile because he was
shirtless and hot, that just doesn't ring true. Sorry. Do
you guys have any comments about the Epstein files.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
No, that's I'm bored at this point.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
That was bored six months ago.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Yeah. Yeah, but but but your point, I mean, you
want to I know, we want to move to an end.
But the flip side, so you know, you talk about
religion and John Halpin and you know, our smart progressive
friends like Ruye and John, then you have the same
time here in the last couple of days. Uh, the
politico saying the far right is exploiting Christmas. I mean
(40:34):
this is like Sam, Well, it's what happens is well,
first of all, I mean that's just the political story
skips over the facts, which is Christmas markets in Europe
have been in some cases canceled. In other cases they've
had put up ballards to stop you know, truck not
truck brought people driving through. There's a number of examples
(40:56):
now of what looks like groups of aggress Muslims deliberately
trying to do some of their prayer observances on the
grounds of Christian churches. What's that about. There's no need
to do that. That's not okay. And so but you're
seeing maloney in Italy and others saying, you know, we're
for we're for Christmas. Boy, what a bold, controversial thing
(41:19):
to do. You know, we're for Christmas. Right. The other
one is there's a good story the other day in
USA today. I say good story, I mean the fact
that they reported at all. It's like conservatives are having
kids and getting married and liberals aren't. And this is
a real problem for liberals because you know, you play
(41:41):
out how that works. Right, We're going to out number
liberals someday, I'm told by the way, and I know
some of the people have done this. People have have
five or six kids and they go to Europe for
vacation and everybody stares at them. They can't what. They
can't believe that these American families have five six kids.
It's just because almost nobody does accept now. Of course,
(42:02):
the number of faithful people in Europe is much smaller
than America. That's part of the problem over there. But
guess what, the people who have high birth rates, it's
the seriously religious and faithful people in Europe are still
having kids because they actually have a reason to believe
in the future, no matter how incompetent their governments are.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
John, do you have any comment?
Speaker 2 (42:24):
He's still trying to figure out what all that other
stuff Steve said, haven't.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
You looked up troubles yet? No, you don't want to know.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
No, from access to these websites recommended by Steve Hayworth.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
You probably don't want to read that.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Can I just just say real quick? Since we have
a lot of good questions in the chat thread, but
some of them want to hold till I think we're
going to do another episode Friday or Saturday. We'll figure
it out where we well Friday, and we're going to
do sort of year end wrap up in a few things.
And so you know, one faithful reader and listener wants
to know Lucretia why you don't like a quil Lamar
(43:05):
and that will take more than thirty seconds, so let's
save that and a few others. So anyway, okay, sorry,
I just talk to listeners or you know, Okay, we'll
do what we can about that. I mean, I want
to say to a conference with him next fall, so there.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yes we are, I do want to say. And I
don't dislike him at all.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
I don't know him, so I don't agree with him,
disagree with age.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yes, And and by the way, my good friend John
and I have some agreement on our on the disagreement
with him, but I won't I'll leave that aside too.
I want to say that that that even small things
like Okay, I don't know if you knew this, but
for the first time since the start of the gause
of War, they actually had Christian celebrations in Bethlehem for
(43:51):
Christmas Eve. So that's a wonderful thing. But also just
look at the Trump administration. I mean, Trump is on
some great things. Malania's Christmas decoration of the White House
compared to that monstrosity clown show that Joe Biden put
(44:12):
on last year. We've never discussed that. It came out.
You know, this isn't new news, but it it points
to an understanding of the importance of faith, the importance
of one of the most holy days for Christians in America.
And I see between the Charlie Kirk thing, which you
(44:34):
said we come back to, we didn't. We don't have
time today. But I'm just seeing more and more everywhere
people willing to talk about their faith, people willing to
people not being embarrassed about it anymore in a way
that they probably were even ten years ago. And I
think that's a wonderful thing, because, as Steve pointed out
(44:56):
in his article juxtaposing the two different times time pieces
his subset article, when you don't have anything to believe in,
uh things, get things? You know that it explains the
crisis of our time. It explains the crisis of our
young people. It explains the crisis of people who who
(45:17):
really do they don't have children because they don't believe
there's a future. Those of us who believe there's a
future have hope. And so anyway, I'm not going to pontificate.
I'm going to move to the babylonde and give you guys, well,
I'm pulling it up. One last word, John.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Uh huh, No, no, no, go ahead, he doesn't have
a last word. Okay, No, no, I don't. I don't
what's the last There was no question.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Yeah, let's just I'll just give you a look at
the sunset out my window right now from my home. Awk.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Wow, are you in the middle of the storms?
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Yeah. My power was out last night for several hours
and it came back that surprising me. I thought it'd
be out for two days. But PG is actually trying
to do a good job these days, which kind of
amazes me.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Anyway, in the quarter of San Francisco lost electricity, right, Yeah,
most of downtown and.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
The way mos all just had to stop in the
middle of the street because without street lights they can't operate.
You are safe from that, right John.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Yeah, No, I'm not in San Francisco.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
So, yeah, you weren't in San Francisco.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
At the I wasn't in San Francisco in the power
outage happened, but it was a few years ago when
the power went out for two weeks because of the wildfires.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Oh right, I was excited.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah right.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
I was once without power for three and a half
weeks in upstate New York. That was That was an adventure.
I'll leave it at that. But now, first of all,
to both of you, I wish you both a very,
very merry Christmas. It is when we're recording, this is
actually Christmas Eve. So I hope, I hope your Christmas,
(47:02):
even your Christmas Day, is wonderful. And uh, that's the
same to all of our listeners. We'll be back with
you on Friday. And so in the meantime, a few
real quick uh bablon bees Texas issues and you'll reminder
not to shoot Santa a second.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
I'll never be sure who's under that costume.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
This one, This one hits way too close to home, guys,
because I will tell you that the thing I confess
most often at confession are the really bad words I
scream at people when I'm driving. All right, just okay,
because I'm anyway.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
Oh glad, I'd like to hear Actually, I was in
a car with you. You don't scream all kinds.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
I was on my best behavior, John.
Speaker 4 (47:55):
I mean what worries me is when you start taking
the guns out of the central console.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Well, no, but I will do.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
So much rather have the cursing.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
I was driving down a highway the other day and
the speed limits fifty five. But it's one of those
highways that has lights, and you know the cars that
can come off side roads. And I had the green
light on the highway, so it's fifty five. I was
probably only going to maybe sixty two. And I see
this car getting ready to turn onto the highway out
(48:25):
a red light sitting there, and it sits there, and
it sits there, and it sits there. And then right
when I get to the intersection, it turns in front
of me, and I have to slam my my break.
Somebody's on the other side of me. A slammy breaks.
Good breaks, thank God. And so then I start honking,
and then I pull around and I honk and I
(48:47):
say some not very nice things. But then the guy
rolls down his window, gets up next to me on
the other side and rolls down his window and says,
my dad's eighty three and I said that he shouldn't
be driving, and he says, I know that, but I
can't stop him. It's just crazy. But that that kind
of thing happens to me all the type. Okay, back
(49:08):
to the babble on bees. Uh oh, car, you honked
and swore at for driving too slow, just turned into
your church parking lot.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Oh yeah, that happened to me once.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
I hate to tell you what happens to me all
the time. I can't leave it with this, but let
me get these out of the way. New photos reveal
Epstein had a sick fetish for girls with giant black
squares for heads. It's one click here, since I don't
(49:43):
want anybody to think that I was actually speaking on
behalf of Bill Clinton. Click here to see all the
Epstein photos so far that don't include Bill Bill Clinton.
By the way, guys, Nicki minaj.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Is, I don't know, but okay.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
I'll end with this one because you guys will appreciate this.
And by the way, Lucretia would never never do something
like this to mister Lucretia. Disappointing. Thompson's submachine gun shaped
box turns out to be socks Oh, it's.
Speaker 4 (50:21):
Good since he already has one. He just wants the
box anyway, right.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
He wants another one? Trust me?
Speaker 4 (50:34):
Go ahead, Well, always drink your whiskey, meat, buy more
books and Steve, what does artificial intelligence have to say
about Christmas?
Speaker 3 (50:43):
So, now, John, I have broken AI this week. I'll
just yeah, this will be brief. I tried with a
prompt asking AI to produce a satire in the style
of first Woody Allen, then Robin Williams and Jerry Seinfeld,
and it struck out all three times. I mean, the
(51:04):
products were horrible and completely lame. But I will give
you the very best of the relatively speaking, was Jerry Seinfeld.
And here's what it came up with. And you know
Jerry Feinfeld, you know his style.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Right.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
What's the deal with the Clean Air Act? I mean air?
You don't even see it, It's just there. And suddenly
in the nineteen seventies the government goes, hey, we've been
looking into this air thing. Turns out it's disgusting. But
I have to say that the products of all those
prompts were really pathetic, and so we broke it with
(51:37):
the You're right about the Clean Air Act? This week? John,
it really does kill everything, so including.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
A New York gonna mention it somehow this episode.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
That's well, you know we've got we've got listeners to
say more Cleaneric.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Okay, anyway, okay, wait, I almost forgot. I almost messed
up big time on this and this is actually an
old one. I had to go searching seeking better counsel
because we know that John has on more than one
occasion made fun of the U the lawyer, the lawyer's
stable that uh President Trump keeps excuse me, seeking better counsel.
(52:16):
Trump hires Sydney Sweeney as news.
Speaker 4 (52:19):
Oh oh, I was waiting because I thought Steve had
forgotten to mention her all episode, all episode.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
But I saved the day for you, Steve.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
Merry Christmas, everyone, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 3 (52:31):
Everybody will be.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
Back this weekend Christmas, right, Okay.
Speaker 5 (52:36):
The news had come out in the First World War,
the bloody Red Baron was flying once more, the all
command all of his men, and calling on Snoopy to
do it again well the night off Christmas for him.
Below were Snoopy went up in search.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
Of his Poe spy, the Red Bear.
Speaker 5 (53:00):
Seriously, they bought with ice on his wings, snooping.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
Who it was gold.
Speaker 6 (53:08):
Christmas Well cost Christmas bang up as him Paver and
the thrill.
Speaker 5 (53:22):
That the baron had snoopy.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
Ricochet joined the conversation
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.