September 19, 2023 • 20 mins
Join Jim and Greg as they're glad to hear that the debris of the missing U.S. Marine Corps F-35 stealth fighter jet have been found, but they're a bit curious about another order from the Corps. They also roll their eyes as Chicago political leaders refuse to prosecute criminals and protect businesses and instead make plans to open a government-run grocery store. Finally, Jim blasts the Biden administration for refusing Secret Service protection for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., even after a man was caught impersonating a U.S. Marshal while armed and trying to get close to Kennedy.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch Grubbsstool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America
and Jim Garrity of National Review.Three Martini's coming up. Very glad you're
with us for the Tuesday edition ofthe Three Martini Lunch. Good, although
a bit qualified, Bat and CrazyMartini's for Conservatives today and Jim. Yesterday's
(00:23):
Crazy Martini was that the United Statesgovernment and in particular the United States Marine
Corps, had lost a Stealth Fthirty five fighter jet. Well, the
good news is is that again thepilot is fine, he injected safely.
But we also think we know wherethe plane is now. The jet was
discovered in Williamsburg County, South Carolina, about two hours northeast of joint based
(00:46):
Charleston, and so any of thoseInternet conspiracy theories at the plane somehow magically
ended up in Cuba or anywhere elsethat apparently turned out to not be true.
But even before they found it,or at least before they announced they
found it, there was also anannouncement from the US Marine Corps that all
Marine Corps aircraft inside and outside theUS were grounded for two days resulting from
(01:11):
this incident. I don't know ifthat's standard. Jim, I don't know
if there was something the pilot reportedthat has raised some eyebrows. So I
don't want to speculate too much.But what do you make of the good
news that we think we know whereit is and the curious news, Well,
Greg, I'm not gonna lie.Slight disappointment that it was not abducted
by aliens, not a time portal, not a portal to the other sides
(01:34):
the world or anything like that.Howing said, that is now, it
does still make it leave the possibilitythat we have genuinely built a wonder woman's
style invisible jet that it literally can'tbe seen and it you know, we
didn't recognize it until it unfortunately crashed. Also a little unnerving, I mean,
thankfully ended up in this field,you know, didn't hit any people.
But is it normal proceed like obviouslywe wanted the pilot to survive,
(01:59):
but do you really just eject andthen hope it lands someplace? Okay that
that seems a little unnerving, andyou'd think, you know it's it's it's
South Carolina. The Atlantic oceans rightthere are a little frust a little frightening
that they couldn't steer it in adirection where there is a better chance,
you know, better chance of avoidingany innocent people. The forty eight hour
ground stops sounds weird, and Idon't recall this with any other we We've
(02:23):
had military air accidents and training accidents, uh, you know, not thankfully,
not regularly, but they certainly weren't, you know, exceptionally rare,
and I don't remember this particular movebeing announced. You kind of wonder if
this is something they discovered, somethingin the process of this that made them
more cautious about all aircraft being flownby the Marine Corps's that's a little unnerving.
(02:45):
Probably in two days this will pass. I assume that there are ways
to ensure that our enemies don't hearthis and say, ah, now's the
time for us to strike or toyou know, try to do something terrible
but weird and unnerving. And youhave this nagging feeling that we weren't told
everything that it feels like there's moreto this story. It feels like there's
something a little weird here. Thatusually when a military plane goes down,
(03:10):
we know when and where and howit went down pretty quickly, and maybe
that's an indication of just how goodthe anti stealth technology is, just how
good it is at evading radar,that it couldn't even be detected as it
was crashing. But you know,again, just this a little little bit
oddity. And I just mentioned somethingabout the somebody brought this up in the
(03:30):
concept, in the fact that it'staking nine months or more than nine months
to get the first of the Mone Abrams tanks over to Ukraine, nagging
feelings that are military isn't quite asgood at some of the basic tasks that
had to do as it used tobe. I don't want to be seen
as insulting or suggesting that this stuffis easy, but there are occasional things
(03:51):
adding up various issues we've had inthe Navy. Maybe it's the pace of
operations. Maybe it's a matter ofmaking sure everybody's got sufficient time for training
and supplies and all that stuff.But it does feel like things like this
are starting to add up a littlemore quickly than we'd like to see.
Am I crazy? Greg Or?Does that sound right? I can't say
(04:11):
that I've kept track of the numberand compared it to previous years, but
they do seem to be in thenews, and unfortunately, some of the
cases we lose the personnel. Thisone able to eject safely, so I
don't know. Maybe there was somethinghe reported, maybe there was imminent mechanical
failure and he had didn't have timeto get to the ocean. I don't
know what the situation is. Ihope that we're given as much public information
(04:32):
as we can. Obviously we don'twant to divulge anything. One of the
other rumors yesterday was with Chinese hadhacked the computer in the plane, and
I don't know if the hacking wassupposed to take it to Cuba or what
the situation was, but obviously that'snot the case. But we want our
military to be ready to go.We're obviously doing a lot to help the
Ukrainians, and a lot of peopleobviously believe we can be ready ourselves and
(04:57):
extensively help others. But in termsof ammunition, I shouldn't have talked about
that. The nuclear arsenal seems tobe old, to put it mildly,
and just making sure everything's up todate, working properly, because you never
know when you're going to need it. Anyway, good that they know where
it is good that the internet rumorsfor false, but like you said,
questions still to be answered. Allright, Jim onto a couple of stories
(05:19):
now for the remainder of the podcastthat you are the author of, starting
with this one over the corner ofNational Review, and we've talked a number
of times about the crime epidemic inAmerican cities, and Chicago in particular.
Pretty much every weekend, as itcomes to an end, we get a
report on the number of fatalities andshootings, especially on the South Side of
(05:40):
Chicago, the vast majority of itgang related. But it's not just Chicago,
it's other cities as well. Andas a result of that crime and
property crime and looting and shoplifting andvery little consequences for those who perpetrate those
incidents in Chicago and other cities inthis country, there are retailers that are
(06:00):
pulling out. We very seriously considereda Martini a couple of weeks ago about
giant grocery stores. There's one majorgrocery store left east of the Anacostia River
in southeast DC. It's a giantgrocery store, and they're losing money because
people keep shoplifting and there seem tobe no consequences for it, and so
the Giant CEO says, Look,we don't have any imminent plans to get
(06:23):
rid of this grocery store, butwe're not making any money here, and
if we can't make any money here, we're going to have no choice but
to close the store. Well,the same thing's happening in Chicago. Retailers
are pulling out because the city won'tdo anything about it. Brandon Johnson keeps
telling us that the kids who arecommitting these crimes, O, they're just
misunderstood. Why being so hard onhim, But meanwhile he is now embracing
(06:45):
the idea Mayor Brandon Johnson of agovernment owned grocery store, saying, the
city of Chicago is in the earlystages of planning a city owned grocery store
in a neighborhood with limited access tofresh food. The city's working with Economics
Security Project, a national nonprofit organization, on a feasibility study to create a
roadmap towards opening the store. Andthat's because at least six six grocery stores,
(07:09):
including four walmarts, have closed onchicago South and West sides over the
past two years, and so Jim. Obviously we're getting to the point in
Chicago and elsewhere there needs to bean opportunity for people to get food.
But when nobody's getting serious about protectingbusiness owners, it's not a real mystery
why they don't want to stick around. But I'm sure a government run grocery
(07:30):
store will be the picture of efficiencyand profitability, you know, Greg.
What prompted me to write about thiswas my colleague Luther ray Abel, who
had marked the anniversary of Boris Yelsonvisiting a Texas grocery store right as the
Cold War was coming to an end, and a lot of people have kind
of shared this anecdote that Yelson wasjust flabbergasted. This was during the presidency
(07:55):
of George hw. Bush. Theyvisited a supermarket and this wasn't a special
grocery store or anything like that.It was probably a good one, probably
an upscale one, but it wasn'tnecessarily, you know, the flagship of
the Kroger chain or something like that, or you know, the equivalent today
of like, you know, theWhole Foods, you know, signature store
or something like that. And Yelson'sjaw hit the floor, perhaps because he
(08:20):
was hungry, but also just ademonstration of the sheer variety of options at
a US supermarket and how it madea Russian or Soviet supermarket to look ridiculously
shabby and limited selection and short supplyand dingy and you know, just this
fantastic you know, contrast between whatthe free market can offer you versus the
(08:43):
consequences of a state run system.Now, sadly Chicago is looking at the
Soviet system and saying, hey,maybe we want to try that. And
it just is a demonstration of justhow much they'll bend over backwards to do
anything other than tackle those big problemsof crime and shop lifting and uh,
you know, large scale theft andthings like this. Now, the first
(09:05):
thought is that the city of Chicago. And by the way, if you're
one of our listeners in Chicago,I love your city. I've always enjoyed
it when I visited, has beena couple of years, been before the
pandemic, but man, I hada great time. And that's you know,
it's a there are good people wholive there. I know there are
some listeners saying no, there aren't. Yeah, there are, and these
people deserve better than the government they'regetting. Can't say I really like how
(09:26):
Mayor Brandon Johnson is doing it.But let's remember he won that Democratic primary
by the skin of his teeth,meaning you know, now voters may be
voting with their feet and moving outof the city. But if you look
at the city government of Chicago,all kinds of issues, crime, poverty,
homelessness, unemployment, it's it's gotsome real problems. I went and
I looked at was wallet hub thatdid the ranking of every US city one
(09:50):
hundred and forty nine and financial stability, and Greg, I should emphasize that's
out of one hundred and forty nine, so dead last. It did better
in a bunch of they're Chicago publicschools, which we've criticized for closing too
often and effectively being slaves to theteacher's union out there. It ranks sixty
seventh out of one hundred and fortynine. That's the good news. That's
the best one they got it.We gotta seventy first in the healthcare system,
(10:13):
eighty if and public safety again probablyyou know, they probably would have
been higher, but the person whowas taking the survey about public safety got
shot and killed. So that's that'sthe way of that one hundred and twenty
ninth and quality of the economy andagain credit were it to do in terms
of infrastructure pollution uh, Chicago rankedthirty seventh out of one hundred and forty
(10:35):
nine. So by all the otherstandards, that's the bright spot. That's
good. But you just look atthat. It's like, okay, a
city run When the city is doingthis at all these basic services, why
would you expect these supermarkets run bythe city to be that much better?
And I just kind of I justwant to spitball crazy idea here, Chicago,
what if you had safe streets instead? What have you actually arrested shoplifters
(10:56):
and petty theft and people felt safewhen they were going into the grocery store,
and grocery stores could feel like asRemy put it infamously in one of
his videos, the guy who makesterrifically funny songs for a reason, He
said, you know this guy shopliftscrest, but you won't believe which one
gets locked up at night. Andthe short answers, you know, like
why why are we having toothpaste behindyou know, locked up and behind a
(11:18):
case instead of locking up the peoplewho are committing crimes. I oh,
by the way, I did tooka look at the crime statistics for Chicago.
They want good news, Only fourhundred and thirty five people have been
killed as of September tenth. That'scompared to four hundred and eighty five people
last year, so technically that's down. Bad news is major crimes are up
(11:39):
thirty percent, including motor vehicle theft, which is nearly doubled from last year.
So some really big problems in there. My attitude towards government at almost
every level is the more you tryto do, the less you'll do any
of those tasks particularly well. Ibelieve in focus. I believe multitasking is
another word for doing more than onething badly at the same time. So
if I were Chicago, I wouldsay, hey, you know what,
(12:01):
let's try, you know, makingsafe streets. Let's start, you know,
targeting this mass scale shoplifting and thingslike that, and let's make it
easier for these supermarkets to operate,and then maybe they'll spread into these neighborhoods.
No, no, no, no, much easier to have the city
running grocery stores, because that's workedout well except for every other time has
been tried in history. Exactly what'sgoing to stop people from doing the exact
same thing to the city run grocerystore. I don't understand what this is
(12:24):
likely to solve. It's not likethey're gonna say, well, Brandon Johnson
is nice to us, and itspublic comments says that we're misunderstood, so
therefore we're not gonna We're not gonnashoplift this time. I don't think that's
kind of They might say thank youas they run out the store. I'd
run out the door. Wow.Oh, by the way, the football
team ranks thirty second, just incase you were wondering. All right,
(12:46):
let's talk about our crazy martini now, Jim, and this one is quite
sobering. Robert F. Kennedy Junior. We've talked about them before on the
podcast. Jim is not a bigfan of Robert F. Kennedy Junior.
And if you've listened to RFK Juniorover time, his opinions on the environment
as well as his opinions on healthcareand other things have attracted certain labels from
(13:07):
different people. But he's running forpresident. He's well behind Joe Biden.
He's right now hovering around ten percentin most polls of Democratic voters. But
RFK Jr. Has requested Secret Serviceprotection on the campaign trail. Every candidate
does not get that, but oncewho are considered significant candidates often get it,
and others who are believed to beat a security risk often get that.
(13:28):
I believe Ben Carson got it atone time in twenty sixteen, and
obviously once you're a front runner gettingclose to actual voting, you probably get
it as well. But so farhis request has fallen on deaf ears.
And as you write in the MorningJolt today, Jim, it's one thing
for him to want it and notget it. It's another thing to want
it and not get it when thereis a direct in person threat that was
(13:54):
nearly able to get close to thecandidate and there's still no action. So
explain real quickly what happened here,and I think it's not being granted by
the Biden administration. Sure, Imean, and maybe I suspect listeners like
myself heard the headline armed man arrestedat Robert F. Kennedy campaign event and
didn't quite grasp, you know,the seriousness of it. Apparently this guy
(14:16):
came there impersonating a US marshal Heclaimed that he was part of Kennedy's security
detail, and he told the campaignstaff when they stopped him that he needed
to see the candidate immediately. Thankfully, they kind of smelled that something was
up that they didn't recognize this guyheld him and cops came and checked him
out. Apparently had two guns,not just one. And I just want
(14:37):
to observe that this is now thesecond time that we've had an armed man
near a presidential candidate named Robert F. Kennedy at a campaign event in Los
Angeles, and you probably remember thelast one turned out really badly. I
think two's enough right now. Fora while now, Robert F. Kennedy
and his campaign have been requesting SecretService protection. The initial decision was no.
(15:00):
Now, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees this, has like
there's clear rules and there's clear lawsabout this, and usually you have to
be quote a major party presidential candidate. But they've made exceptions of the past,
and I think those exceptions make goodsense. One exception was Barack Obama
running in two thousand and seven.One exception was Merman Kane running in twenty
twelve for obvious reasons. Unfortunately,there are a bunch of racist nut jobs
(15:24):
in this country who would like toshoot some black man running for president,
and it made sense to give secretserves. I've heard from other reporters who
were covering Obama in the first coupleweeks from months of his presidential campaign in
two thousand and seven, and theywere shocked at the lack of security.
They just kind of believe that anyold person could have gotten up close and
God forbid, done something like that. So there are circumstances where it makes
(15:48):
sense, and I think it makessense for Robert F. Kennedy, one
big reason being his family name.Look, unfortunately, there are yahoo's in
this country who think that they willwrite themselves into the history books by shooting
somebody named Kennedy. In addition toobviously John F. Kennedy and Robert F.
Kennedy. Ted Kennedy had death threatshis entire life. Thankfully none of
them developed in any as far asI know, any serious assassination attempts.
(16:11):
But the question is fair, howmuch do we want to tempt fates?
Is there a cost to this?Yeah, apparently it runs something in the
neighborhood of thirty eight thousand dollars perday on the and you know, if
somebody says, oh, you know, it seems like a lot. On
the other hand, like again,the fact that this guy showed up and
was trying to get to Kennedy.To me, he says, the threat
is real. I'm sure he getsa lot of hate mail. I'm sure
(16:33):
he gets a lot of people sayingI'm gonna kill you, and maybe a
whole bunch of those guys are nevergoing to become of anything. Having said
that, if by you said,you know, in the introduction to this
Greg you mentioned that I'm not ahuge fan of Robert F. Kennedy.
I'm a huge fan of Robert F. Kennedy staying alive. Yes, I
that's that's really my I don't feellike I'm asking too much. And you
know, is this a cost,Yes, by the way, like you
(16:56):
know, at some point, ifRobert F. Kennedy doesn't believe he needs
the protection, he can turn itdown. But here's why I'm asking listeners
and the administration and everybody else tothink. Just just imagine the scenario,
and God forbid, this happens,that Kennedy gets shot, and you know,
either he survives or he gets killed, and it happens after the Biden
administration and congressional leaders declined to givehim secret Service protection. Now you know
(17:21):
the Robert F. Kennedy fan base, you know, there's a whole bunch
of conspiracy theorists out there. Hewould get really, really bad. Not
only that, like the it wouldbe very clear that the Kennedy campaign,
which oh, by the way,it's being managed by Dennis Kucinich, who
you may remember from his frequent appearanceof his short lived presidential campaign, frequent
appearances on Fox News when lots ofother Democrats wouldn't wouldn't appear on it.
(17:42):
And obviously Kousinitch's performance in Lord ofthe Rings trilogy, that's a little mean.
He's he's he's a good guy,good you know. But you know,
so Kennedy Acoustitch is now writing like, look, we've had somebody show
up at our event with a gun. What else do you need to see
to argue that he needs service protection? And I think Cousinitch is entirely right
here. This isn't too much toask, and the consequences of getting this
(18:04):
wrong are really really dire. Soyou know the other thing that's weird,
is you know, because people arepointing. The other thing is like,
you know, the Department of AllLands Concerty, the Department of Full Land
Security can say, yes, thisfigure deserves Secret Service protection and we will
provide it. If the DHS Secretary, along with you know, consultation with
(18:26):
congressional leaders, says yes, youknow, Greg right now, Biden can
call up McCarthy and Jeffreys and Schumerand McConnell and say hey, let's get
this done, and I think allfour of them would agree. I can't
imagine there's any strong congressional opposition tothis because, yeah, which you prefer
not to have that cost, Isuppose, but it seems kind of really
(18:47):
nickel and diming when we have thedeficit that we do coupled with if you
get this wrong, it goes reallyreally badly, and it just it strikes
me as a reasonable expense. It'sthe threat seems real. You just don't
want to gamble with this. Now. Is the Secret Service protection of guarantee
that nothing bad will ever happen toRobert F. Kennedy. No, But
once you give that, you cansay we the US government have taken reasonable
(19:08):
precautions to protect the life of RobertF. Kennedy Junior. And again for
a whole bunch of areas where thegovernment spends money, this seems like a
good area to spend it in.So I'm I don't And then that's I
just I don't understand what Biden getsfor not doing this. I think it
looks really bad. I think itlooks like he's insensitive or blockheaded about the
threat to exist to Kennedy. Andso that's my argument. And I'm you
(19:30):
know, we'll see if something changes. Occasionally, Biden can be shamed into
doing the right thing, like accuratelycounting how many grandchildren he has. And
I'm hoping this is one of thosethings where it turns into a drum beat.
There'll be a recognition that, yes, give Kennedy the Secret Service protection,
better safe than sorry, and anissue like this exactly. And I
just ran the math, Jim,Robert F. Kennedy can get two thousand,
(19:52):
one hundred five days of protection forthe cost of one f thirty five.
So good good tying our issues toget other and providing some good perspective.
Yes, yea, And he won'tneed two thousand, one hundred five
days he's going to need considerably lessthan that, about six months worth probably,
But anyway, I fig precaution isprobably the better move there. I
don't know if he has the fundsto provide private security in the meantime.
(20:15):
I assume me as some. Butin the end, there is a policy
for the government to put these precautionsin place for certain candidates, so we'll
see if it happens. Well explained, Jim, have a good day,
See tomorrow. See tomorrow, Greg, Jim Garretty National Review. I'm Greg
Corumbus of Radio America. Thanks somuch for vaining with us today. Please
subscribe to the podcast if you don'talready, tell a friend about us as
(20:36):
well. Thank you also for yourfive star ratings and your kind reviews.
Please keep those coming. Also,get us on your home devices. All
you have to say is play ThreeMartini Lunch podcast. Follow us both on
x He's at Jim Garretty, I'mat Dateline Underscore DC. Have a great
Tuesday. Join us again on Wednesdayfor the next Three Martini Lunch
Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch Grubbsstool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America
and Jim Garrity of National Review.Three Martini's coming up. Very glad you're
with us for the Tuesday edition ofthe Three Martini Lunch. Good, although
a bit qualified, Bat and CrazyMartini's for Conservatives today and Jim. Yesterday's
(00:23):
Crazy Martini was that the United Statesgovernment and in particular the United States Marine
Corps, had lost a Stealth Fthirty five fighter jet. Well, the
good news is is that again thepilot is fine, he injected safely.
But we also think we know wherethe plane is now. The jet was
discovered in Williamsburg County, South Carolina, about two hours northeast of joint based
(00:46):
Charleston, and so any of thoseInternet conspiracy theories at the plane somehow magically
ended up in Cuba or anywhere elsethat apparently turned out to not be true.
But even before they found it,or at least before they announced they
found it, there was also anannouncement from the US Marine Corps that all
Marine Corps aircraft inside and outside theUS were grounded for two days resulting from
(01:11):
this incident. I don't know ifthat's standard. Jim, I don't know
if there was something the pilot reportedthat has raised some eyebrows. So I
don't want to speculate too much.But what do you make of the good
news that we think we know whereit is and the curious news, Well,
Greg, I'm not gonna lie.Slight disappointment that it was not abducted
by aliens, not a time portal, not a portal to the other sides
(01:34):
the world or anything like that.Howing said, that is now, it
does still make it leave the possibilitythat we have genuinely built a wonder woman's
style invisible jet that it literally can'tbe seen and it you know, we
didn't recognize it until it unfortunately crashed. Also a little unnerving, I mean,
thankfully ended up in this field,you know, didn't hit any people.
But is it normal proceed like obviouslywe wanted the pilot to survive,
(01:59):
but do you really just eject andthen hope it lands someplace? Okay that
that seems a little unnerving, andyou'd think, you know it's it's it's
South Carolina. The Atlantic oceans rightthere are a little frust a little frightening
that they couldn't steer it in adirection where there is a better chance,
you know, better chance of avoidingany innocent people. The forty eight hour
ground stops sounds weird, and Idon't recall this with any other we We've
(02:23):
had military air accidents and training accidents, uh, you know, not thankfully,
not regularly, but they certainly weren't, you know, exceptionally rare,
and I don't remember this particular movebeing announced. You kind of wonder if
this is something they discovered, somethingin the process of this that made them
more cautious about all aircraft being flownby the Marine Corps's that's a little unnerving.
(02:45):
Probably in two days this will pass. I assume that there are ways
to ensure that our enemies don't hearthis and say, ah, now's the
time for us to strike or toyou know, try to do something terrible
but weird and unnerving. And youhave this nagging feeling that we weren't told
everything that it feels like there's moreto this story. It feels like there's
something a little weird here. Thatusually when a military plane goes down,
(03:10):
we know when and where and howit went down pretty quickly, and maybe
that's an indication of just how goodthe anti stealth technology is, just how
good it is at evading radar,that it couldn't even be detected as it
was crashing. But you know,again, just this a little little bit
oddity. And I just mentioned somethingabout the somebody brought this up in the
(03:30):
concept, in the fact that it'staking nine months or more than nine months
to get the first of the Mone Abrams tanks over to Ukraine, nagging
feelings that are military isn't quite asgood at some of the basic tasks that
had to do as it used tobe. I don't want to be seen
as insulting or suggesting that this stuffis easy, but there are occasional things
(03:51):
adding up various issues we've had inthe Navy. Maybe it's the pace of
operations. Maybe it's a matter ofmaking sure everybody's got sufficient time for training
and supplies and all that stuff.But it does feel like things like this
are starting to add up a littlemore quickly than we'd like to see.
Am I crazy? Greg Or?Does that sound right? I can't say
(04:11):
that I've kept track of the numberand compared it to previous years, but
they do seem to be in thenews, and unfortunately, some of the
cases we lose the personnel. Thisone able to eject safely, so I
don't know. Maybe there was somethinghe reported, maybe there was imminent mechanical
failure and he had didn't have timeto get to the ocean. I don't
know what the situation is. Ihope that we're given as much public information
(04:32):
as we can. Obviously we don'twant to divulge anything. One of the
other rumors yesterday was with Chinese hadhacked the computer in the plane, and
I don't know if the hacking wassupposed to take it to Cuba or what
the situation was, but obviously that'snot the case. But we want our
military to be ready to go.We're obviously doing a lot to help the
Ukrainians, and a lot of peopleobviously believe we can be ready ourselves and
(04:57):
extensively help others. But in termsof ammunition, I shouldn't have talked about
that. The nuclear arsenal seems tobe old, to put it mildly,
and just making sure everything's up todate, working properly, because you never
know when you're going to need it. Anyway, good that they know where
it is good that the internet rumorsfor false, but like you said,
questions still to be answered. Allright, Jim onto a couple of stories
(05:19):
now for the remainder of the podcastthat you are the author of, starting
with this one over the corner ofNational Review, and we've talked a number
of times about the crime epidemic inAmerican cities, and Chicago in particular.
Pretty much every weekend, as itcomes to an end, we get a
report on the number of fatalities andshootings, especially on the South Side of
(05:40):
Chicago, the vast majority of itgang related. But it's not just Chicago,
it's other cities as well. Andas a result of that crime and
property crime and looting and shoplifting andvery little consequences for those who perpetrate those
incidents in Chicago and other cities inthis country, there are retailers that are
(06:00):
pulling out. We very seriously considereda Martini a couple of weeks ago about
giant grocery stores. There's one majorgrocery store left east of the Anacostia River
in southeast DC. It's a giantgrocery store, and they're losing money because
people keep shoplifting and there seem tobe no consequences for it, and so
the Giant CEO says, Look,we don't have any imminent plans to get
(06:23):
rid of this grocery store, butwe're not making any money here, and
if we can't make any money here, we're going to have no choice but
to close the store. Well,the same thing's happening in Chicago. Retailers
are pulling out because the city won'tdo anything about it. Brandon Johnson keeps
telling us that the kids who arecommitting these crimes, O, they're just
misunderstood. Why being so hard onhim, But meanwhile he is now embracing
(06:45):
the idea Mayor Brandon Johnson of agovernment owned grocery store, saying, the
city of Chicago is in the earlystages of planning a city owned grocery store
in a neighborhood with limited access tofresh food. The city's working with Economics
Security Project, a national nonprofit organization, on a feasibility study to create a
roadmap towards opening the store. Andthat's because at least six six grocery stores,
(07:09):
including four walmarts, have closed onchicago South and West sides over the
past two years, and so Jim. Obviously we're getting to the point in
Chicago and elsewhere there needs to bean opportunity for people to get food.
But when nobody's getting serious about protectingbusiness owners, it's not a real mystery
why they don't want to stick around. But I'm sure a government run grocery
(07:30):
store will be the picture of efficiencyand profitability, you know, Greg.
What prompted me to write about thiswas my colleague Luther ray Abel, who
had marked the anniversary of Boris Yelsonvisiting a Texas grocery store right as the
Cold War was coming to an end, and a lot of people have kind
of shared this anecdote that Yelson wasjust flabbergasted. This was during the presidency
(07:55):
of George hw. Bush. Theyvisited a supermarket and this wasn't a special
grocery store or anything like that.It was probably a good one, probably
an upscale one, but it wasn'tnecessarily, you know, the flagship of
the Kroger chain or something like that, or you know, the equivalent today
of like, you know, theWhole Foods, you know, signature store
or something like that. And Yelson'sjaw hit the floor, perhaps because he
(08:20):
was hungry, but also just ademonstration of the sheer variety of options at
a US supermarket and how it madea Russian or Soviet supermarket to look ridiculously
shabby and limited selection and short supplyand dingy and you know, just this
fantastic you know, contrast between whatthe free market can offer you versus the
(08:43):
consequences of a state run system.Now, sadly Chicago is looking at the
Soviet system and saying, hey,maybe we want to try that. And
it just is a demonstration of justhow much they'll bend over backwards to do
anything other than tackle those big problemsof crime and shop lifting and uh,
you know, large scale theft andthings like this. Now, the first
(09:05):
thought is that the city of Chicago. And by the way, if you're
one of our listeners in Chicago,I love your city. I've always enjoyed
it when I visited, has beena couple of years, been before the
pandemic, but man, I hada great time. And that's you know,
it's a there are good people wholive there. I know there are
some listeners saying no, there aren't. Yeah, there are, and these
people deserve better than the government they'regetting. Can't say I really like how
(09:26):
Mayor Brandon Johnson is doing it.But let's remember he won that Democratic primary
by the skin of his teeth,meaning you know, now voters may be
voting with their feet and moving outof the city. But if you look
at the city government of Chicago,all kinds of issues, crime, poverty,
homelessness, unemployment, it's it's gotsome real problems. I went and
I looked at was wallet hub thatdid the ranking of every US city one
(09:50):
hundred and forty nine and financial stability, and Greg, I should emphasize that's
out of one hundred and forty nine, so dead last. It did better
in a bunch of they're Chicago publicschools, which we've criticized for closing too
often and effectively being slaves to theteacher's union out there. It ranks sixty
seventh out of one hundred and fortynine. That's the good news. That's
the best one they got it.We gotta seventy first in the healthcare system,
(10:13):
eighty if and public safety again probablyyou know, they probably would have
been higher, but the person whowas taking the survey about public safety got
shot and killed. So that's that'sthe way of that one hundred and twenty
ninth and quality of the economy andagain credit were it to do in terms
of infrastructure pollution uh, Chicago rankedthirty seventh out of one hundred and forty
(10:35):
nine. So by all the otherstandards, that's the bright spot. That's
good. But you just look atthat. It's like, okay, a
city run When the city is doingthis at all these basic services, why
would you expect these supermarkets run bythe city to be that much better?
And I just kind of I justwant to spitball crazy idea here, Chicago,
what if you had safe streets instead? What have you actually arrested shoplifters
(10:56):
and petty theft and people felt safewhen they were going into the grocery store,
and grocery stores could feel like asRemy put it infamously in one of
his videos, the guy who makesterrifically funny songs for a reason, He
said, you know this guy shopliftscrest, but you won't believe which one
gets locked up at night. Andthe short answers, you know, like
why why are we having toothpaste behindyou know, locked up and behind a
(11:18):
case instead of locking up the peoplewho are committing crimes. I oh,
by the way, I did tooka look at the crime statistics for Chicago.
They want good news, Only fourhundred and thirty five people have been
killed as of September tenth. That'scompared to four hundred and eighty five people
last year, so technically that's down. Bad news is major crimes are up
(11:39):
thirty percent, including motor vehicle theft, which is nearly doubled from last year.
So some really big problems in there. My attitude towards government at almost
every level is the more you tryto do, the less you'll do any
of those tasks particularly well. Ibelieve in focus. I believe multitasking is
another word for doing more than onething badly at the same time. So
if I were Chicago, I wouldsay, hey, you know what,
(12:01):
let's try, you know, makingsafe streets. Let's start, you know,
targeting this mass scale shoplifting and thingslike that, and let's make it
easier for these supermarkets to operate,and then maybe they'll spread into these neighborhoods.
No, no, no, no, much easier to have the city
running grocery stores, because that's workedout well except for every other time has
been tried in history. Exactly what'sgoing to stop people from doing the exact
same thing to the city run grocerystore. I don't understand what this is
(12:24):
likely to solve. It's not likethey're gonna say, well, Brandon Johnson
is nice to us, and itspublic comments says that we're misunderstood, so
therefore we're not gonna We're not gonnashoplift this time. I don't think that's
kind of They might say thank youas they run out the store. I'd
run out the door. Wow.Oh, by the way, the football
team ranks thirty second, just incase you were wondering. All right,
(12:46):
let's talk about our crazy martini now, Jim, and this one is quite
sobering. Robert F. Kennedy Junior. We've talked about them before on the
podcast. Jim is not a bigfan of Robert F. Kennedy Junior.
And if you've listened to RFK Juniorover time, his opinions on the environment
as well as his opinions on healthcareand other things have attracted certain labels from
(13:07):
different people. But he's running forpresident. He's well behind Joe Biden.
He's right now hovering around ten percentin most polls of Democratic voters. But
RFK Jr. Has requested Secret Serviceprotection on the campaign trail. Every candidate
does not get that, but oncewho are considered significant candidates often get it,
and others who are believed to beat a security risk often get that.
(13:28):
I believe Ben Carson got it atone time in twenty sixteen, and
obviously once you're a front runner gettingclose to actual voting, you probably get
it as well. But so farhis request has fallen on deaf ears.
And as you write in the MorningJolt today, Jim, it's one thing
for him to want it and notget it. It's another thing to want
it and not get it when thereis a direct in person threat that was
(13:54):
nearly able to get close to thecandidate and there's still no action. So
explain real quickly what happened here,and I think it's not being granted by
the Biden administration. Sure, Imean, and maybe I suspect listeners like
myself heard the headline armed man arrestedat Robert F. Kennedy campaign event and
didn't quite grasp, you know,the seriousness of it. Apparently this guy
(14:16):
came there impersonating a US marshal Heclaimed that he was part of Kennedy's security
detail, and he told the campaignstaff when they stopped him that he needed
to see the candidate immediately. Thankfully, they kind of smelled that something was
up that they didn't recognize this guyheld him and cops came and checked him
out. Apparently had two guns,not just one. And I just want
(14:37):
to observe that this is now thesecond time that we've had an armed man
near a presidential candidate named Robert F. Kennedy at a campaign event in Los
Angeles, and you probably remember thelast one turned out really badly. I
think two's enough right now. Fora while now, Robert F. Kennedy
and his campaign have been requesting SecretService protection. The initial decision was no.
(15:00):
Now, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees this, has like
there's clear rules and there's clear lawsabout this, and usually you have to
be quote a major party presidential candidate. But they've made exceptions of the past,
and I think those exceptions make goodsense. One exception was Barack Obama
running in two thousand and seven.One exception was Merman Kane running in twenty
twelve for obvious reasons. Unfortunately,there are a bunch of racist nut jobs
(15:24):
in this country who would like toshoot some black man running for president,
and it made sense to give secretserves. I've heard from other reporters who
were covering Obama in the first coupleweeks from months of his presidential campaign in
two thousand and seven, and theywere shocked at the lack of security.
They just kind of believe that anyold person could have gotten up close and
God forbid, done something like that. So there are circumstances where it makes
(15:48):
sense, and I think it makessense for Robert F. Kennedy, one
big reason being his family name.Look, unfortunately, there are yahoo's in
this country who think that they willwrite themselves into the history books by shooting
somebody named Kennedy. In addition toobviously John F. Kennedy and Robert F.
Kennedy. Ted Kennedy had death threatshis entire life. Thankfully none of
them developed in any as far asI know, any serious assassination attempts.
(16:11):
But the question is fair, howmuch do we want to tempt fates?
Is there a cost to this?Yeah, apparently it runs something in the
neighborhood of thirty eight thousand dollars perday on the and you know, if
somebody says, oh, you know, it seems like a lot. On
the other hand, like again,the fact that this guy showed up and
was trying to get to Kennedy.To me, he says, the threat
is real. I'm sure he getsa lot of hate mail. I'm sure
(16:33):
he gets a lot of people sayingI'm gonna kill you, and maybe a
whole bunch of those guys are nevergoing to become of anything. Having said
that, if by you said,you know, in the introduction to this
Greg you mentioned that I'm not ahuge fan of Robert F. Kennedy.
I'm a huge fan of Robert F. Kennedy staying alive. Yes, I
that's that's really my I don't feellike I'm asking too much. And you
know, is this a cost,Yes, by the way, like you
(16:56):
know, at some point, ifRobert F. Kennedy doesn't believe he needs
the protection, he can turn itdown. But here's why I'm asking listeners
and the administration and everybody else tothink. Just just imagine the scenario,
and God forbid, this happens,that Kennedy gets shot, and you know,
either he survives or he gets killed, and it happens after the Biden
administration and congressional leaders declined to givehim secret Service protection. Now you know
(17:21):
the Robert F. Kennedy fan base, you know, there's a whole bunch
of conspiracy theorists out there. Hewould get really, really bad. Not
only that, like the it wouldbe very clear that the Kennedy campaign,
which oh, by the way,it's being managed by Dennis Kucinich, who
you may remember from his frequent appearanceof his short lived presidential campaign, frequent
appearances on Fox News when lots ofother Democrats wouldn't wouldn't appear on it.
(17:42):
And obviously Kousinitch's performance in Lord ofthe Rings trilogy, that's a little mean.
He's he's he's a good guy,good you know. But you know,
so Kennedy Acoustitch is now writing like, look, we've had somebody show
up at our event with a gun. What else do you need to see
to argue that he needs service protection? And I think Cousinitch is entirely right
here. This isn't too much toask, and the consequences of getting this
(18:04):
wrong are really really dire. Soyou know the other thing that's weird,
is you know, because people arepointing. The other thing is like,
you know, the Department of AllLands Concerty, the Department of Full Land
Security can say, yes, thisfigure deserves Secret Service protection and we will
provide it. If the DHS Secretary, along with you know, consultation with
(18:26):
congressional leaders, says yes, youknow, Greg right now, Biden can
call up McCarthy and Jeffreys and Schumerand McConnell and say hey, let's get
this done, and I think allfour of them would agree. I can't
imagine there's any strong congressional opposition tothis because, yeah, which you prefer
not to have that cost, Isuppose, but it seems kind of really
(18:47):
nickel and diming when we have thedeficit that we do coupled with if you
get this wrong, it goes reallyreally badly, and it just it strikes
me as a reasonable expense. It'sthe threat seems real. You just don't
want to gamble with this. Now. Is the Secret Service protection of guarantee
that nothing bad will ever happen toRobert F. Kennedy. No, But
once you give that, you cansay we the US government have taken reasonable
(19:08):
precautions to protect the life of RobertF. Kennedy Junior. And again for
a whole bunch of areas where thegovernment spends money, this seems like a
good area to spend it in.So I'm I don't And then that's I
just I don't understand what Biden getsfor not doing this. I think it
looks really bad. I think itlooks like he's insensitive or blockheaded about the
threat to exist to Kennedy. Andso that's my argument. And I'm you
(19:30):
know, we'll see if something changes. Occasionally, Biden can be shamed into
doing the right thing, like accuratelycounting how many grandchildren he has. And
I'm hoping this is one of thosethings where it turns into a drum beat.
There'll be a recognition that, yes, give Kennedy the Secret Service protection,
better safe than sorry, and anissue like this exactly. And I
just ran the math, Jim,Robert F. Kennedy can get two thousand,
(19:52):
one hundred five days of protection forthe cost of one f thirty five.
So good good tying our issues toget other and providing some good perspective.
Yes, yea, And he won'tneed two thousand, one hundred five
days he's going to need considerably lessthan that, about six months worth probably,
But anyway, I fig precaution isprobably the better move there. I
don't know if he has the fundsto provide private security in the meantime.
(20:15):
I assume me as some. Butin the end, there is a policy
for the government to put these precautionsin place for certain candidates, so we'll
see if it happens. Well explained, Jim, have a good day,
See tomorrow. See tomorrow, Greg, Jim Garretty National Review. I'm Greg
Corumbus of Radio America. Thanks somuch for vaining with us today. Please
subscribe to the podcast if you don'talready, tell a friend about us as
(20:36):
well. Thank you also for yourfive star ratings and your kind reviews.
Please keep those coming. Also,get us on your home devices. All
you have to say is play ThreeMartini Lunch podcast. Follow us both on
x He's at Jim Garretty, I'mat Dateline Underscore DC. Have a great
Tuesday. Join us again on Wednesdayfor the next Three Martini Lunch
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