September 6, 2023 • 20 mins
Join Jim and Greg as they welcome former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers to the Senate race to replace Sen. Debbie Stabenow. But they also note why this race is an uphill climb for any Republican. They also groan as the talk of COVID cases and restrictions ramps up again - including mask mandates at elementary schools. Finally, they slam and laugh at a leading bioethicist from New York University calling for genetically modifying people to be intolerant to meat as a means of supposedly combatting climate change.
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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.Grab a stool next to Greg Corumbus of
Radio America and Jim Garritty of NationalReview. Three Martini's coming up. Very
glad you're with us for the Wednesdayedition of the Three Martini Lunch. We
have good, bad, and reallycrazy martinis for conservatives today, and Jim,
(00:25):
let's start with the good. Oneof the things that Republicans are hoping
to do, among many in twentytwenty four is to take back the Senate,
and obviously there are certain states whereyour odds of doing that are better
than others. Michigan definitely did notgo the way of the Republicans in twenty
twenty two. There were some thoughtsthat Gretchen Witmer could lose. You ended
(00:45):
up winning by roughly ten points,largely because they got the Democrats to turn
out on a constitutional amendment on abortion. But as Debbie Stabenow retires now there
are hopes for a competitive Senate race, but there hasn't been any particular name
that's popped up that's certainly gotten meoptimistic about my home state going into the
(01:07):
into the red column this coming electioncycle. But I think Michigan may have
recruited its best opportunity, not sayinghe's gonna win, but I think it's
the best opportunity to get this seat. And that is with Mike Rogers.
Mike Rogers was in Congress for fourteenyears, served as chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee. He decided not torun for reelection in twenty fourteen, so
(01:29):
it's going to be a full tenyears before his name has been on the
ballot. So that means he's gotto introduce himself to the people of Michigan
again. So he's doing that,among other ways, through his opening campaign
video, and so he first ofall reminds people what he's already done.
America is amazing, full of promise, freedom to make your own way and
(01:51):
do your own good. I'm MikeRodgers. Michigan's way of life is worth
defending. That's why I served inthe army. That's why I served in
the FBI taking down organized crime.That's why I led the House Intelligence Committee
in the hard years. After nineto eleven, I left politics to help
build cyber security companies that can stopforeign threats like China. But he's not
(02:13):
happy with the way things are goingright now with the Biden administration. I
thought I put politics behind me,But like you, I know, something's
broken. America under Biden and hiscronies is going in the wrong direction.
Open borders, a broken system ofjustice, one for the DC elites and
one for the rest of us.Biden's bad policies making gas and groceries more
(02:35):
expensive and home ownership harder. Schoolscare more about social engineering than, as
my father used to say, thethree rs reading, brighting, and arithmetic.
Politics has gotten so small and sopetty. We're failing to address big
problems. Families are struggling, butpoliticians are fighting over banning gas stoves,
while China is stealing our intellectual propertyand our jobs and Biden is letting them
(03:00):
do it. We can do better. So there's Mike Rodgers. He's sixty
years old. He spent a lotof time in the private sector. He's
also done some commentary over the lastseveral years for CNN. Not sure how
the BASS will respond to him exactly. Jim, it's been a while,
But when you look at the othernames that are out there. Peter Meyer,
who lost his primary for re electionto the House. He voted to
(03:21):
impeach Trump, and so the bass. I don't think it's going to be
super excited about him. There's alsoa businessman who lost a primary to John
James a few years ago, andnobody else really has much name recognition.
Now the Democrats have coalesced around AlyssaSlotkin. I would say she's the favorite
given what we saw in Michigan twoyears ago. But what do you make
of Mike Rodgers getting in here?Well, I think Rogers for starters will
(03:44):
not represent the easiest target for Democratswhat our listeners just heard there. I
think the most obvious bullseye on MikeRodgers back will be that he doesn't know
how to spell arithmetic. No,this is look I liked him when he
was in office. I think thisis a guy who's got the deep roots
in the state and kind of apleasant surprise to see him jumping back into
(04:09):
the arena. Usually it's a oneway trip, and I think, as
you mentioned, there aren't a lotof overwhelmingly strong candidates out there, certainly
into those who can unify the stateparty. Michigan State Republican Party has had
some very deep divisions lately, andI am kind of glad to see a
guy another guy who I like agreat deal, John James taking a cycle
(04:30):
off. He ran for House lastyear and won, and Sparsy just getting
his start in the House of Representativesstarted. I'm glad he doesn't have to
run statewide. He was the GOPSenate candidate in Michigan in twenty eighteen and
twenty twenty, so we'll see what'shappens. I've no doubt this is going
to be a challenging state for Republicans, and I think if Republicans don't win
the state in the presidential the race, it will be hard to win the
(04:53):
US Senate race, and probably viceversa. My guess is those two,
you know races will go in tandem. But you want to have you know,
football season is starting. You wantto have your best team on the
field. And I think Rogers makesa very strong case that he is the
strongest option for Republicans in this primary, at least so far. Yeah,
interesting to see who else gets in. But again, the bench is not
super deep on the Republican side inMichigan, and again it's an uphill climb,
(05:16):
but he does give them their bestchance. But you're right, it's
a very important point about how it'sgoing to be attached to the presidential race
because John James actually outpaced Trump intwenty twenty. But in the end,
Gary Peters, the charismatic were whirlingdervish as you would say, managed to
hang on, which was deeply unfortunate. John James would have been far superior.
(05:38):
So we'll see. We should emphasizethat Gary Peters is his name,
is his real name. It's notan alias. It's not something he uses
to so that he won't get onand do not you know, it gets
spam or phone calls or stuff likethat. That's that really is his name.
Yes, and every six years Michiganvoters are reminded that they have a
senator named Gary Peters. Oh yeah, that okay, all right, onto
(06:01):
our bad Martini now, Jim.And you know, Hollywood's just full of
sequels. Most of the sequels arenever as interesting as the original, and
in this case, the original wasnot good either. And that's dealing with
masks and mandates. We've been hearingmore and more talk subtle at first,
and now a little bit more commonabout the return of new COVID variants and
(06:26):
what to do about it. We'veheard Karine Jean Pierre saying, you know,
seasonal vaccines are coming. That's gonnastart up a whole new debate if
it hasn't already. And now we'vegot mask mandates. We briefly had a
mask mandate at Morris Brown College inAtlanta, but after the backlash, they
decided that they weren't going to continuethis. They had students and employees wearing
(06:47):
face masks for fourteen days starting Augusttwentieth or past that point now, but
it doesn't end there. In ourown neighborhood here Montgomery County, Maryland,
certainly a bastion of the parents gota notice from one elementary school, Rosemary
Hills Elementary School, that staff andstudents were going to have to wear kN
ninety five's in class for the nextten days, except when eating and drinking
(07:11):
because quote three or more people testedpositive for COVID nineteen. The three or
more suggesting Jim that that's going tobe the policy throughout the system. And
obviously different states, different localities aregoing to have different policies. Here in
Virginia, we have a governor specificallyelected in part on mask issues and so
forth. So you know, we'velearned since the rollback of the original mask
(07:35):
mandates that the paper ones, thecloth ones don't do that much good.
Even the kN ninety fives don't dothat much good because you know, most
people don't even wear them right,and even then it's not a fool proof
system. So do your own thing, I guess. But the idea that
mandates might be coming back. Ithink it's going to be a problem.
Oh this is a you know,you get another sequel. We didn't need
(07:56):
to see greg. I'm just reallyglad that COVID nineteen cannot be spread while
you're eating or drinking. I guessthe idea is that the process of chewing
sends a signal to the virus tosay, oh, you can't spread we're
eating or drinking. Don't don't leavethe nostrils, don't leave the mouth,
don't jump into another person, andeverything turns out hunky dory. I should
(08:18):
not mock that, but I know, because I know people will, you
know, argue that's medical disinformation orsomething like that, and or they'll just
say, well, no one's allowedto eat or drink for the entirety of
the time they're in school. Thatseems to be the thinking at work.
With this particular school board. Oh, by the way, if you decide
that your policy is that, well, anytime we have three or more COVID
cases reported to the school, everybodyin school has got to wear a ninety
(08:43):
five mask, including the kindergarteners andall these other kids who we're gonna have
a different time with it. Youknow what's going to happen is people will
just stop reporting it to the school. That's that's people react to incentives,
people react to consequences like that.So if you want to have accurate data,
you probably what's going to work verywell is if you feel the need
to wear a mask all if you'resick, stay home. That's entirely reasonable.
(09:03):
There's no need for you to cometo school, no need to come
to work. Nobody needs you coughingon them, No one needs you coughing
into your hands. And then youknow, pressing elevator buttons or turning door
knobs or stuff like that. Butthen the second thing is if you prefer
to wear a mask or right ahead. I've been to a couple social gatherings
lately and there are a bunch ofelderly folks who chose to wear masks and
I didn't give anybody in grief aboutit, because I'm a decent human being,
(09:24):
or I try to be. Andif somebody else chooses to wear a
mask, okay, fine. Youlook in a lot of cases. You
don't know their circumstances. Maybe they'reimunocompromised, maybe they're feeling into a little
under the weather themselves, whatever itis they if they're not telling you to
to wear a mask, leave thembe. Let them live their lives.
So they're making the decision that's bestfor them. And I think the overwhelming
majority of Americans have that attitude.But on the other side, there are
(09:46):
people like this school board and atcertain universities they're like, well, well
somebody's do you hear somebody cough?Everybody put masks back on again. There
were certain people who seem to geta little bit of an adrenaline rush,
seemed to get a little bit ofa some sort of thrill or something from
the ability to enact sweeping mandates andrequire people. And lord knows, there
are a bunch of uh, youknow, nattering nabobs, as Spiro Eggdo
(10:09):
would put it, who really enjoyedtelling me, oh, you're wearing it
wrong. You know, it's toolow on your nose, you all kind
of stuff. We don't need togo back to that. The total COVID
case numbers are very low. I'dreally love to see the number of Americans
who have not had COVID at thispoint must be extraordinarily low. I know
there people who say they haven't.I don't know if people have necessarily tested
all their blood and made sure theyweren't asymptomatic at some point. But you
(10:33):
know, the overwhelming majority of Americanshave had COVID, some have had it
more than once. Enormous numbers ofAmericans have been vaccinated, enormous number of
Americans have been boosted. Everybody hasmade their decisions about how much risk they're
willing to take. And honestly,at this point, you figure everybody's kind
of got antibodies in their system.Now that's been a while since COVID.
Maybe this new variant people won't haveit. But there's at this point,
(10:54):
there's no indication that this is theAndromeda string. This is something that's you
know, you know, much moreserious than paths of it. And like
I said, most of our immunesystems have some training against similar versions of
COVID, So there is no reasonto panic, there is no reason to
defcon one. If you feel comfortablewearing a mask, go right ahead and
do it. I'm not going tostop you, and I don't think anybody
else should give you any grief either. But you should not run around telling
(11:15):
otherwise healthy people that they should run, that they have to wear masks.
Don't you know this is no needto bring back these mandates. This is
all common sense and as we allknow, Greg, this has no place
in America in the year twenty twentys. Well, that's certainly the case.
Yeah, I've you know, I'veheard reports of the cases ticking upwards.
I have not heard that they're especiallyvirulent, which is usually the case as
a virus mutates that becomes less severe. So we don't know exactly what the
(11:41):
impact is going to be here.But the size and rapidness of the freak
out in some sectors has been prettydisappointing to say the least. Not surprising,
but disappointing. And of course you'vegot some people saying, oh,
election season, here we go again. But we'll see, we'll know it's
serious. Well, first of all, apparently Biden we'll be wearing a mask
(12:01):
because Jill Biden tested positive. Ihope Jill Biden makes a quick, quick
recovery. She's got access to thevery best doctors. I assume she's going
to be fine. It will bea little weird to see the president wearing
again, but we'll know it's serious. Gregg when he starts canceling campaign events.
I mean, when he goes backto the basement campaign. Unless this
is where velent, then you think, can we finally get past the point
(12:22):
where people publicly announce that they haveit. I'm not talking about the first
lady. I'm talking about his randoson Twitter. My symptoms are mild.
I'm going to isolate for five days, on and on and on. People
didn't used to do that when they'relike, I got a cold. Just
wants you all to know I'm takingtail and all and I'm staying away from
my kids for a couple of days. You know, stop the presses.
I have a headache, all right, It's not COVID. I just I
(12:45):
have a headache and I felt theneed to issue a press release. All
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That's moinkbox dot com slash martini,right, Jim. I'm grateful for
every one of our sponsors, butI'm especially glad that the moink box is
our sponsor today given the insanity ofour crazy martini today. Because, as
you know, there's now a waragainst agriculture as a result of this movement
(14:15):
towards climate change. John Kerry hastalked about this. We've seen the fight
over farms in Holland. Bill Gateshas talked about this. The cattle are
just creating too many emissions that arehurting our planet. So what do we
have to do. Well, wegot to kill all the cattle, obviously,
and that means we've got to weanourselves off of meat. I'm not
(14:35):
weaning myself off meat. I'm gettinga moink box. But nonetheless, there
are people who want to not onlytry to convince you to get off of
eating meat, they want you tobe genetically modified to no longer even want
meat. This fella's name is MatthewLaw. He was giving a TED talk,
(14:58):
which has hot air points. Wouldn'tbe a big deal except for the
fact that he runs the New YorkUniversity's School of Public Health Center for Bioethics.
Yes, bioethics. So here's whathe says, kind of an extended
clip about making people no longer desireeating meat. I want to consider a
class of solutions that have never beenconsidered before human engineering. It involves the
(15:26):
biomedical modification of human beings. I'llgive four examples. Here's one. Eighteen
percent of greenhouse gas emissions come fromlivestock farming, So if we eat less
meat, we could significantly reduce ourgreenhouse gas emissions. Now, some people
would be willing to eat less meat, but they lack the willpower. Human
(15:54):
engineering could help. Just as somepeople are naturally intolerant to milk or crayfish,
like myself, we could artificially inducemild intolerance to meet by stimulating our
immune system against common bo being proteins. And in this way we can create
(16:18):
an aversion to eating echo and friendlyfood. And we can do this,
for example, by having meat patcheskind of like nicotine patches. People can
then wear these patches before they goout for dinner to curb their enthusiasm for
eating meat. So Jim, eventhe sophisticated audience of the Ted Talk is
(16:40):
laughing at this idea. But themore this gets out there, the more
it slides towards the Overton window.This certainly has brave New World vibes from
all this, Huxley to it.I want to give this person no credit
whatsoever. This is kind of adystopian freak show. But what do you
make of it? Well, look, Christ of all, he says,
this is human bioengineering, and theidea of genetically altering human beings in order
(17:03):
to make a better and safer worldhas never been seriously considered before. But
I'm surprised people don't remember this more. Back in twenty twelve, there was
an Empire State University professor named CurtisConnors who looked at the possibility of using
lizard DNA to help people regrow limbs, and eventually concluded that humanity was so
(17:26):
terribly flawed that he could actually takethis DNA changing biological agent, turn it
into a gaseous form, and gasseda large chunk of New York City,
turning people into hideous lizard mutants.Now, thankfully Spider Man was there to
stop him. But and the pointof that example is to demonstrate, if
at any point you're trying to improvethe world, and you find yourself sounding
(17:49):
like a science fiction villain. Stop, do not go further, do not
start. How do I make thisidea a reality? My assumption is is
that like this guy watching is everydystopian sci fi movie and says that evil
empire knows what it's doing, theyreally got some good ideas. Yeah.
And the other would observe is thatif you ever, first of all,
like I in theory, I likethe idea of bioethics and bioethics, you
(18:14):
know people who study the moral dimensionsof genetic engineering and effects on the environment
and what we can do and whetherwe should do it. I don't know
about you, Greg. Every timeI read something with the byline describes the
author as a bioethicist, they aregenerally describing some sort of dystopian sci fi
s. They are generally describing themost unethical, cackling evil villain blah,
(18:37):
Now I will control society. AndI'm saying a thing like, what are
they teaching in bioethics courses? Arethey reading it back to front instead of
the other way. Are they recognizing, Oh, we have found new and
innovative ways to be unethical and tochange people's genes against their will and stuff
like that. Yeah. No,this is a terrible idea. And you
know, here's a crazy idea verymuch. You're going to notice a common
(18:57):
theme between the po towards masks andthe policy towards meat. If you don't
want to eat meat, don't eatit. I have yet to see people
running down the street with steaks intheir hand, even excellent steaks from Moink,
and shoving them into people's mouths againsttheir will. They're really good,
but generally you have to eat themeat by yourself. It's very rarely an
effort to kind of grab vegans andhold them down and shove shove delicious ham
(19:19):
into their mouth or something like that. Yes, this is a crazy idea.
And I think that also imustrates thatthere is a the impulse to control
others. The impulse to force decisionsupon others is much greater than we like
to admit. And every you know, as I'm contemplate and I'm writing my
novels, you know, good lessonwhen you're writing novels is that every villain
(19:40):
believes they are the hero of theirown story. There are a lot of
people running around who are absolutely convincedthey are heroes and absolutely convinced that they
can make a better world by forcingdecisions on other people. And let me
tell you, once you're doing that, you are no longer the hero of
the story. Yeah, ending meatis not going to save the planet,
and even if it did, Ichoose meat. So anyway, on that
(20:00):
note, have a great day.Hopefully we'll have something I'll give me a
little less insane tomorrow. But theway the way the world is trending,
I wouldn't bet on it. Butanyway too then Hi, bar to clear
grant you tomorrow. Jim Garretty,National Review. I'm Greg Columbus of Radio
America. Thanks so much for beingwith us today. Please subscribe to the
podcast and get some friends to doit too. We'd love to have them
along. Thank you also for yourfive star ratings and your kind reviews.
(20:22):
Please keep those coming. Get uson your home devices. All you have
to say is play Three Martini LunchPodcast, follow us on X He is
at Jim Gartty, I'm at DatelineUnderscore DC. Have a great Wednesday,
and join us again on Thursday forthe next Three Martini Lunch
Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.Grab a stool next to Greg Corumbus of
Radio America and Jim Garritty of NationalReview. Three Martini's coming up. Very
glad you're with us for the Wednesdayedition of the Three Martini Lunch. We
have good, bad, and reallycrazy martinis for conservatives today, and Jim,
(00:25):
let's start with the good. Oneof the things that Republicans are hoping
to do, among many in twentytwenty four is to take back the Senate,
and obviously there are certain states whereyour odds of doing that are better
than others. Michigan definitely did notgo the way of the Republicans in twenty
twenty two. There were some thoughtsthat Gretchen Witmer could lose. You ended
(00:45):
up winning by roughly ten points,largely because they got the Democrats to turn
out on a constitutional amendment on abortion. But as Debbie Stabenow retires now there
are hopes for a competitive Senate race, but there hasn't been any particular name
that's popped up that's certainly gotten meoptimistic about my home state going into the
(01:07):
into the red column this coming electioncycle. But I think Michigan may have
recruited its best opportunity, not sayinghe's gonna win, but I think it's
the best opportunity to get this seat. And that is with Mike Rogers.
Mike Rogers was in Congress for fourteenyears, served as chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee. He decided not torun for reelection in twenty fourteen, so
(01:29):
it's going to be a full tenyears before his name has been on the
ballot. So that means he's gotto introduce himself to the people of Michigan
again. So he's doing that,among other ways, through his opening campaign
video, and so he first ofall reminds people what he's already done.
America is amazing, full of promise, freedom to make your own way and
(01:51):
do your own good. I'm MikeRodgers. Michigan's way of life is worth
defending. That's why I served inthe army. That's why I served in
the FBI taking down organized crime.That's why I led the House Intelligence Committee
in the hard years. After nineto eleven, I left politics to help
build cyber security companies that can stopforeign threats like China. But he's not
(02:13):
happy with the way things are goingright now with the Biden administration. I
thought I put politics behind me,But like you, I know, something's
broken. America under Biden and hiscronies is going in the wrong direction.
Open borders, a broken system ofjustice, one for the DC elites and
one for the rest of us.Biden's bad policies making gas and groceries more
(02:35):
expensive and home ownership harder. Schoolscare more about social engineering than, as
my father used to say, thethree rs reading, brighting, and arithmetic.
Politics has gotten so small and sopetty. We're failing to address big
problems. Families are struggling, butpoliticians are fighting over banning gas stoves,
while China is stealing our intellectual propertyand our jobs and Biden is letting them
(03:00):
do it. We can do better. So there's Mike Rodgers. He's sixty
years old. He spent a lotof time in the private sector. He's
also done some commentary over the lastseveral years for CNN. Not sure how
the BASS will respond to him exactly. Jim, it's been a while,
But when you look at the othernames that are out there. Peter Meyer,
who lost his primary for re electionto the House. He voted to
(03:21):
impeach Trump, and so the bass. I don't think it's going to be
super excited about him. There's alsoa businessman who lost a primary to John
James a few years ago, andnobody else really has much name recognition.
Now the Democrats have coalesced around AlyssaSlotkin. I would say she's the favorite
given what we saw in Michigan twoyears ago. But what do you make
of Mike Rodgers getting in here?Well, I think Rogers for starters will
(03:44):
not represent the easiest target for Democratswhat our listeners just heard there. I
think the most obvious bullseye on MikeRodgers back will be that he doesn't know
how to spell arithmetic. No,this is look I liked him when he
was in office. I think thisis a guy who's got the deep roots
in the state and kind of apleasant surprise to see him jumping back into
(04:09):
the arena. Usually it's a oneway trip, and I think, as
you mentioned, there aren't a lotof overwhelmingly strong candidates out there, certainly
into those who can unify the stateparty. Michigan State Republican Party has had
some very deep divisions lately, andI am kind of glad to see a
guy another guy who I like agreat deal, John James taking a cycle
(04:30):
off. He ran for House lastyear and won, and Sparsy just getting
his start in the House of Representativesstarted. I'm glad he doesn't have to
run statewide. He was the GOPSenate candidate in Michigan in twenty eighteen and
twenty twenty, so we'll see what'shappens. I've no doubt this is going
to be a challenging state for Republicans, and I think if Republicans don't win
the state in the presidential the race, it will be hard to win the
(04:53):
US Senate race, and probably viceversa. My guess is those two,
you know races will go in tandem. But you want to have you know,
football season is starting. You wantto have your best team on the
field. And I think Rogers makesa very strong case that he is the
strongest option for Republicans in this primary, at least so far. Yeah,
interesting to see who else gets in. But again, the bench is not
super deep on the Republican side inMichigan, and again it's an uphill climb,
(05:16):
but he does give them their bestchance. But you're right, it's
a very important point about how it'sgoing to be attached to the presidential race
because John James actually outpaced Trump intwenty twenty. But in the end,
Gary Peters, the charismatic were whirlingdervish as you would say, managed to
hang on, which was deeply unfortunate. John James would have been far superior.
(05:38):
So we'll see. We should emphasizethat Gary Peters is his name,
is his real name. It's notan alias. It's not something he uses
to so that he won't get onand do not you know, it gets
spam or phone calls or stuff likethat. That's that really is his name.
Yes, and every six years Michiganvoters are reminded that they have a
senator named Gary Peters. Oh yeah, that okay, all right, onto
(06:01):
our bad Martini now, Jim.And you know, Hollywood's just full of
sequels. Most of the sequels arenever as interesting as the original, and
in this case, the original wasnot good either. And that's dealing with
masks and mandates. We've been hearingmore and more talk subtle at first,
and now a little bit more commonabout the return of new COVID variants and
(06:26):
what to do about it. We'veheard Karine Jean Pierre saying, you know,
seasonal vaccines are coming. That's gonnastart up a whole new debate if
it hasn't already. And now we'vegot mask mandates. We briefly had a
mask mandate at Morris Brown College inAtlanta, but after the backlash, they
decided that they weren't going to continuethis. They had students and employees wearing
(06:47):
face masks for fourteen days starting Augusttwentieth or past that point now, but
it doesn't end there. In ourown neighborhood here Montgomery County, Maryland,
certainly a bastion of the parents gota notice from one elementary school, Rosemary
Hills Elementary School, that staff andstudents were going to have to wear kN
ninety five's in class for the nextten days, except when eating and drinking
(07:11):
because quote three or more people testedpositive for COVID nineteen. The three or
more suggesting Jim that that's going tobe the policy throughout the system. And
obviously different states, different localities aregoing to have different policies. Here in
Virginia, we have a governor specificallyelected in part on mask issues and so
forth. So you know, we'velearned since the rollback of the original mask
(07:35):
mandates that the paper ones, thecloth ones don't do that much good.
Even the kN ninety fives don't dothat much good because you know, most
people don't even wear them right,and even then it's not a fool proof
system. So do your own thing, I guess. But the idea that
mandates might be coming back. Ithink it's going to be a problem.
Oh this is a you know,you get another sequel. We didn't need
(07:56):
to see greg. I'm just reallyglad that COVID nineteen cannot be spread while
you're eating or drinking. I guessthe idea is that the process of chewing
sends a signal to the virus tosay, oh, you can't spread we're
eating or drinking. Don't don't leavethe nostrils, don't leave the mouth,
don't jump into another person, andeverything turns out hunky dory. I should
(08:18):
not mock that, but I know, because I know people will, you
know, argue that's medical disinformation orsomething like that, and or they'll just
say, well, no one's allowedto eat or drink for the entirety of
the time they're in school. Thatseems to be the thinking at work.
With this particular school board. Oh, by the way, if you decide
that your policy is that, well, anytime we have three or more COVID
cases reported to the school, everybodyin school has got to wear a ninety
(08:43):
five mask, including the kindergarteners andall these other kids who we're gonna have
a different time with it. Youknow what's going to happen is people will
just stop reporting it to the school. That's that's people react to incentives,
people react to consequences like that.So if you want to have accurate data,
you probably what's going to work verywell is if you feel the need
to wear a mask all if you'resick, stay home. That's entirely reasonable.
(09:03):
There's no need for you to cometo school, no need to come
to work. Nobody needs you coughingon them, No one needs you coughing
into your hands. And then youknow, pressing elevator buttons or turning door
knobs or stuff like that. Butthen the second thing is if you prefer
to wear a mask or right ahead. I've been to a couple social gatherings
lately and there are a bunch ofelderly folks who chose to wear masks and
I didn't give anybody in grief aboutit, because I'm a decent human being,
(09:24):
or I try to be. Andif somebody else chooses to wear a
mask, okay, fine. Youlook in a lot of cases. You
don't know their circumstances. Maybe they'reimunocompromised, maybe they're feeling into a little
under the weather themselves, whatever itis they if they're not telling you to
to wear a mask, leave thembe. Let them live their lives.
So they're making the decision that's bestfor them. And I think the overwhelming
majority of Americans have that attitude.But on the other side, there are
(09:46):
people like this school board and atcertain universities they're like, well, well
somebody's do you hear somebody cough?Everybody put masks back on again. There
were certain people who seem to geta little bit of an adrenaline rush,
seemed to get a little bit ofa some sort of thrill or something from
the ability to enact sweeping mandates andrequire people. And lord knows, there
are a bunch of uh, youknow, nattering nabobs, as Spiro Eggdo
(10:09):
would put it, who really enjoyedtelling me, oh, you're wearing it
wrong. You know, it's toolow on your nose, you all kind
of stuff. We don't need togo back to that. The total COVID
case numbers are very low. I'dreally love to see the number of Americans
who have not had COVID at thispoint must be extraordinarily low. I know
there people who say they haven't.I don't know if people have necessarily tested
all their blood and made sure theyweren't asymptomatic at some point. But you
(10:33):
know, the overwhelming majority of Americanshave had COVID, some have had it
more than once. Enormous numbers ofAmericans have been vaccinated, enormous number of
Americans have been boosted. Everybody hasmade their decisions about how much risk they're
willing to take. And honestly,at this point, you figure everybody's kind
of got antibodies in their system.Now that's been a while since COVID.
Maybe this new variant people won't haveit. But there's at this point,
(10:54):
there's no indication that this is theAndromeda string. This is something that's you
know, you know, much moreserious than paths of it. And like
I said, most of our immunesystems have some training against similar versions of
COVID, So there is no reasonto panic, there is no reason to
defcon one. If you feel comfortablewearing a mask, go right ahead and
do it. I'm not going tostop you, and I don't think anybody
else should give you any grief either. But you should not run around telling
(11:15):
otherwise healthy people that they should run, that they have to wear masks.
Don't you know this is no needto bring back these mandates. This is
all common sense and as we allknow, Greg, this has no place
in America in the year twenty twentys. Well, that's certainly the case.
Yeah, I've you know, I'veheard reports of the cases ticking upwards.
I have not heard that they're especiallyvirulent, which is usually the case as
a virus mutates that becomes less severe. So we don't know exactly what the
(11:41):
impact is going to be here.But the size and rapidness of the freak
out in some sectors has been prettydisappointing to say the least. Not surprising,
but disappointing. And of course you'vegot some people saying, oh,
election season, here we go again. But we'll see, we'll know it's
serious. Well, first of all, apparently Biden we'll be wearing a mask
(12:01):
because Jill Biden tested positive. Ihope Jill Biden makes a quick, quick
recovery. She's got access to thevery best doctors. I assume she's going
to be fine. It will bea little weird to see the president wearing
again, but we'll know it's serious. Gregg when he starts canceling campaign events.
I mean, when he goes backto the basement campaign. Unless this
is where velent, then you think, can we finally get past the point
(12:22):
where people publicly announce that they haveit. I'm not talking about the first
lady. I'm talking about his randoson Twitter. My symptoms are mild.
I'm going to isolate for five days, on and on and on. People
didn't used to do that when they'relike, I got a cold. Just
wants you all to know I'm takingtail and all and I'm staying away from
my kids for a couple of days. You know, stop the presses.
I have a headache, all right, It's not COVID. I just I
(12:45):
have a headache and I felt theneed to issue a press release. All
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every one of our sponsors, butI'm especially glad that the moink box is
our sponsor today given the insanity ofour crazy martini today. Because, as
you know, there's now a waragainst agriculture as a result of this movement
(14:15):
towards climate change. John Kerry hastalked about this. We've seen the fight
over farms in Holland. Bill Gateshas talked about this. The cattle are
just creating too many emissions that arehurting our planet. So what do we
have to do. Well, wegot to kill all the cattle, obviously,
and that means we've got to weanourselves off of meat. I'm not
(14:35):
weaning myself off meat. I'm gettinga moink box. But nonetheless, there
are people who want to not onlytry to convince you to get off of
eating meat, they want you tobe genetically modified to no longer even want
meat. This fella's name is MatthewLaw. He was giving a TED talk,
(14:58):
which has hot air points. Wouldn'tbe a big deal except for the
fact that he runs the New YorkUniversity's School of Public Health Center for Bioethics.
Yes, bioethics. So here's whathe says, kind of an extended
clip about making people no longer desireeating meat. I want to consider a
class of solutions that have never beenconsidered before human engineering. It involves the
(15:26):
biomedical modification of human beings. I'llgive four examples. Here's one. Eighteen
percent of greenhouse gas emissions come fromlivestock farming, So if we eat less
meat, we could significantly reduce ourgreenhouse gas emissions. Now, some people
would be willing to eat less meat, but they lack the willpower. Human
(15:54):
engineering could help. Just as somepeople are naturally intolerant to milk or crayfish,
like myself, we could artificially inducemild intolerance to meet by stimulating our
immune system against common bo being proteins. And in this way we can create
(16:18):
an aversion to eating echo and friendlyfood. And we can do this,
for example, by having meat patcheskind of like nicotine patches. People can
then wear these patches before they goout for dinner to curb their enthusiasm for
eating meat. So Jim, eventhe sophisticated audience of the Ted Talk is
(16:40):
laughing at this idea. But themore this gets out there, the more
it slides towards the Overton window.This certainly has brave New World vibes from
all this, Huxley to it.I want to give this person no credit
whatsoever. This is kind of adystopian freak show. But what do you
make of it? Well, look, Christ of all, he says,
this is human bioengineering, and theidea of genetically altering human beings in order
(17:03):
to make a better and safer worldhas never been seriously considered before. But
I'm surprised people don't remember this more. Back in twenty twelve, there was
an Empire State University professor named CurtisConnors who looked at the possibility of using
lizard DNA to help people regrow limbs, and eventually concluded that humanity was so
(17:26):
terribly flawed that he could actually takethis DNA changing biological agent, turn it
into a gaseous form, and gasseda large chunk of New York City,
turning people into hideous lizard mutants.Now, thankfully Spider Man was there to
stop him. But and the pointof that example is to demonstrate, if
at any point you're trying to improvethe world, and you find yourself sounding
(17:49):
like a science fiction villain. Stop, do not go further, do not
start. How do I make thisidea a reality? My assumption is is
that like this guy watching is everydystopian sci fi movie and says that evil
empire knows what it's doing, theyreally got some good ideas. Yeah.
And the other would observe is thatif you ever, first of all,
like I in theory, I likethe idea of bioethics and bioethics, you
(18:14):
know people who study the moral dimensionsof genetic engineering and effects on the environment
and what we can do and whetherwe should do it. I don't know
about you, Greg. Every timeI read something with the byline describes the
author as a bioethicist, they aregenerally describing some sort of dystopian sci fi
s. They are generally describing themost unethical, cackling evil villain blah,
(18:37):
Now I will control society. AndI'm saying a thing like, what are
they teaching in bioethics courses? Arethey reading it back to front instead of
the other way. Are they recognizing, Oh, we have found new and
innovative ways to be unethical and tochange people's genes against their will and stuff
like that. Yeah. No,this is a terrible idea. And you
know, here's a crazy idea verymuch. You're going to notice a common
(18:57):
theme between the po towards masks andthe policy towards meat. If you don't
want to eat meat, don't eatit. I have yet to see people
running down the street with steaks intheir hand, even excellent steaks from Moink,
and shoving them into people's mouths againsttheir will. They're really good,
but generally you have to eat themeat by yourself. It's very rarely an
effort to kind of grab vegans andhold them down and shove shove delicious ham
(19:19):
into their mouth or something like that. Yes, this is a crazy idea.
And I think that also imustrates thatthere is a the impulse to control
others. The impulse to force decisionsupon others is much greater than we like
to admit. And every you know, as I'm contemplate and I'm writing my
novels, you know, good lessonwhen you're writing novels is that every villain
(19:40):
believes they are the hero of theirown story. There are a lot of
people running around who are absolutely convincedthey are heroes and absolutely convinced that they
can make a better world by forcingdecisions on other people. And let me
tell you, once you're doing that, you are no longer the hero of
the story. Yeah, ending meatis not going to save the planet,
and even if it did, Ichoose meat. So anyway, on that
(20:00):
note, have a great day.Hopefully we'll have something I'll give me a
little less insane tomorrow. But theway the way the world is trending,
I wouldn't bet on it. Butanyway too then Hi, bar to clear
grant you tomorrow. Jim Garretty,National Review. I'm Greg Columbus of Radio
America. Thanks so much for beingwith us today. Please subscribe to the
podcast and get some friends to doit too. We'd love to have them
along. Thank you also for yourfive star ratings and your kind reviews.
(20:22):
Please keep those coming. Get uson your home devices. All you have
to say is play Three Martini LunchPodcast, follow us on X He is
at Jim Gartty, I'm at DatelineUnderscore DC. Have a great Wednesday,
and join us again on Thursday forthe next Three Martini Lunch
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