'You're Wrong' With Mollie Hemingway And David Harsanyi, Ep. 166: A Conversation On Crime

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Welcome back, everyone, to a new episode of You're Wrong with Molly Hemingway, editor-in-chief of the Federalist and David Harsani, senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Just as a reminder, if you'd like to email the show, please do so at Radio at the Federalist.com. We'd like to hear from you. Let's start with the tragic story of Irina Zartuska, I think is how you pronounced her last name, who was murdered in cold blood on a Charlotte tram. My man named DeCarlos Brown Jr. who had been in, I believe, prison 14 times beforehand. The video itself is just horrific to watch. I don't know if you've watched the unedited video. There are so many angles to this story. And I think it's brought to for something that has been an issue, you know, the crime issue in America and murder and the Soros DAs and magistrates who release these prisoners, these terrible, psychotic people back into society. And what makes it, gives it another layer of tragedy is that this woman was a refugee from war, you know, which came to the United States. to build a life and she was just just horrifically murdered anyway i don't know i don't even know where to start with this topic yeah i almost don't know where to start either it is so horrible i can't watch the actual full video so i've seen snippets of it i don't i don't have the personal ability to watch an actual murder uh Don't want to do that. I don't even want it in my head. But just seeing aspects of the video, how she was just a sitting duck for this violent, you know, evil person. Also disturbing is how she did not die immediately. She was kind of left alone to die by the other people on the tram. Although some people did eventually help like a minute and a half after the attack, which seems like a long time if you're bleeding out. And can we talk about that for a second? There was this famous, do you remember this famous story? I think her name was Genevise, Kitty Genevies or something like that. And Q Gardens, Queens, or, you know, from where she was the story. Yeah, yeah, 19663, no one helped her and all that. Turned out wasn't exactly true. Exactly. I was going to say it turns out not to be a true story. Yeah, but, but still it grabbed the attention of people because I think a lot of that does happen in big cities, right? So. you know, if you were on the subway and you go to New York and especially years ago, there's crazy people on the subway. You kind of like avert your eyes and try to pretend they're not there. I'm not making an excuse for the people on that tram, but I can rationalize their thinking in the sense that they didn't exactly maybe know what was going on right away. And then finally one man came over, I think a minute and something into it. It's horrible that we act that way.

But I think we've been sort of programmed to act that way because there are so many mentally ill people on public transit, so many scary people, especially if you're, let's say, a woman by herself or an elderly person, right? It's, you feel a bit helpless. Anyway, I just want, I'm not, I'm rationalizing, not justifying what, what happened there. Okay, so there's so much in play here. And I think one of the reasons why this story has captivated so many people and also why so many people in the corporate media have rushed to suppress this story is because it gets into all sorts of things about our society that people are very conflicted about. Things like whether, you know, one of the things I saw someone commenting on was about how. Martin O'Malley had to apologize when he said that all lives matter during the heyday of the hysterical Black Lives Matter riots. We have an ideology that all lives don't matter, that certain lives are more valuable than others, and it's, or that, you know, that you're not allowed to care about certain people being killed. We had a complete nationwide... hysteria, freak out, and massive transfer of wealth. We redistributed $100 billion from corporations to the Black Lives Matter movement and the causes it supports. kind of a straight up extortion based on the idea that cops are just doing a genocide against black men. And that's not true to start with. It also kind of hid some difficult conversations about crime that we'd all kind of agreed not to talk about or not to, you know. If you want to talk, I don't actually think it's a good or healthy idea to talk about race and the commission of crimes. But if you're going to talk about it, it doesn't go in the way the BLM people want it to go, you know? And so you had this just insanity during the COVID days with the BLM where you weren't even like allowed to talk about. what it's actually like to be a law-abiding citizen at the hands of violent criminals of all races on the subway or whatever. We had the, what was that horrific feminist movement to criminalize normal male behavior? What was that called? Me too, me too. Okay, so we had the me too thing, and that follows decades of radical feminist idiocy about saying that men using their testosterone for good is somehow evil, that we made it so that we took away the norm that men on subways stand up for women. You know, these kinds of like very delicate...

social things that we'd built up over millennia to deal with the fact that evil exists and bad men exist and women are vulnerable. Tiny little Ukrainian refugees are actually completely unable to defend themselves against violent sociopaths, psychopaths, whatever. I don't know what those words mean. And now it's all coming home to roost and it's horrific. So I understand what you're saying about like justifying it. You're not justifying it. You're explaining it. But the fact is that any man worth his salt would in fact, like looks at that video and says and thinks, like I wish I could help out this poor woman, right? But we have made it so that that kind of activity is not only is it not encouraged. It's actively discouraged. that men think that they are protectors of women it's totally true i remember and you know being on the subway a lot and standing up you know for women who came in you know now i'm like i feel like i'm old like i should i get the seat from the young women but at the time you know i would stand up and i felt kind of weird doing it like i might maybe i'm doing something wrong here or holding a door for women like a too long at waiting time. You know what I mean? I just felt like, and that, I think, grows into should I get up and protect this woman from someone who's aggressive, you know, towards her or whatever. And it doesn't have to be individuals, though there are individual heroes like that guy in the subway. I'm sorry, I forget his name. Daniel Perry was it? Penny. Penny, who was prosecuted for trying to protect people from someone like this individual. It has to be a communal thing where it's not just one man who's strong and can handle someone like that, but a bunch of people, you know? I mean, it has to be something that society does, I think. But I wanted to go back to something you talked about to racial elements of this. Like George Floyd died. It is not analogous to what's happening here at all. And yet, in that one, everyone... in the media of all institutions basically claim there was a racial element to it when I still don't see that racial element. The only racial element is that there was a black person being arrested and a white person arresting them. I've never seen. But there were four cops arresting him. Right. And two weren't two black, one Asian, one white. And we transferred $100 billion of wealth into the pockets of the trans movement, the Palestinian movement, and radical racist ideologies like BLM. because of this. And the vast media pushed. Yeah. And I'm never, I'm not saying there's never going to be a racist cop out there. But the vast, the majority of the big cases that this whole BLM thing revolved around had no racial component, meaning there was no evidence that the people, the cops were acting in a racial way. But I think it's okay to talk about the racial element of crime in the sense that black people commit.

in, you know, as far as their percentage of the population, a lot of crimes and a lot of homicides. I think it's like almost 50%, they are like 20% of the population. But the thing that we have to remember is that most of that criminality is actually directed at black people, that other black people are victims, and we should be their champions. Like, there's no reason this should be happening in their society either. Like, I don't know if this killer had a, he seems like he was an unhinged killer and should have been in jail. I don't know if there's a racial element to it. I think it's okay to talk about that. I just don't want it to become predominantly about that. Now, when the murderer did say after he killed. So there were people of different races on the tram. He kills, including women who were sitting with empty seats behind them. He sits behind her. And then afterwards, he says, I got the white girl. So I wouldn't say there's no racial element. Fine. Yeah. He says. He got the one. Yeah, for sure, then. I didn't. I honestly hadn't seen that. Okay, fine. That's, that's not fine, but it is, that's a fact. That's a fact. My point only is that when Donald Trump says, I need to send troops to help Chicago deal with a crime problem, he's talking about criminality against black people in black communities, right? And, you know, I think. I see a lot of people say, I'm all over the place because this is a big issue, but I see people say we don't need more cops. We just need to keep the people arrested in jail. And I think that that's true. But more cops also helps. It's a preventative measure. I looked it up. So this is an amazing stat to me, but from nine, just because I know New York better than other cities, but from 1990 to 2000, wrote it down here, the murder rate in New York City fell from 2,245 murders to 642 murders. So 31 per 100. thousand people were killed in new york which is an amazingly high number in nineteen ninety eight in two thousand and you know in that same time frame the police force uniform police officers went up from twenty thousand to forty thousand so i think you need more cops on the streets and you know and the national guard is doing the job of local communities like in charlotte like there should i'm not saying it would have stopped this murder but When cops are around, people act differently. I don't want to live in a police state. I don't disagree with you. But in this case, this violent murderer had been arrested 14 times. So it wasn't that cops weren't around to arrest him. It's that the justice system in North Carolina and Charlotte was organized in such a fashion as to constantly let him out to terrorize the population again. No, I totally agree with that. That's not a cop problem or like a number of cops problem. That is straight up a don't let people out after they have shown themselves to be. living in a manner incompatible with civilization. This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you.

know the road, and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast. Now the coverage of this story was predictably in the sane. I'm going to read you a CNN headline. I feel like I do this every week. Here's how it goes. How the lives of a Ukrainian refugee and a Charlotte man with a criminal history converged in a fatal stabbing. It's again... I hate to use the word Orwellian, but this is exactly what that word means. And I find it weird that the left... takes the side of criminality. I don't even understand what they're doing with this. Why can't they simply say, of course, this is horrible. Like, they keep saying, oh, we only care about this because it's a white woman. Or we only care about this because it was on video. Yes, sometimes there are incidents that, like, that's why I was talking about Kitty Genevievees, that, like, enrage people and bring them together to try to do something about a problem. That's widespread. And... I just, I don't understand their positioning at all as a political matter. Obviously, we know for a fact that this story is such a major global story because of the video. And the reason we know that is that she was actually murdered in late August and the story didn't get going until the video was released. I do believe the officials in her city worked very hard to suppress the video from being. out there, you know, you had the mayor thanking media corporations for participating in censorship of the story, which you didn't see happen with the George Floyd killing. By the way, I want to say I feel very similar about the George Floyd death in that I can't watch someone die. I don't want to watch someone die on video, but I saw enough about it to kind of understand the cop was using a hold on him that led to. potentially led to his death, I should say. He has been convicted of murder. And that cop, I mean, that cop is, I think there's a very strong argument that he was a scapegoat for national hysteria, Derek Schopen. And. It's very awful, I think, the way that people lost their minds and were unable to think rationally about that situation. I saw David French. I actually mute the term David French from my social media mentions, which is a wonderful thing. But somehow I still saw that he was saying, like, before he could express any opinion on Arena Zerutska, he had to say, he had to reference St. George Floyd. And it was actually kind of a disgusting reference, I think. Yes, they're both people whose death was captured on camera. George Floyd was kind of a career criminal, a career drug addict. He was not, you know, what you want the men in your society to be, right? Even though he received like state honors for his funeral.

There is no argument that Arena Zrutska in any way led a life that... could reasonably lead to this type of interaction with someone. You know, career criminals do have a lot of police interactions. And career criminals who are causing problems in their community for decades are going to have a lot of police interactions. Arena's roots and then, therefore, when you're being this way and you're also high on drugs and you are not taking care of your body because you're a career addict, you know, you're going to have like a weakened body. Arena's roots goes just complete innocent victim of a man. But it's not just the man. It's like the man and how people who are elected or appointed to protect citizens completely neglected their responsibilities or in some cases went out of their way to support crime and criminal behavior. And so what I mean there is like, The Democrat Party is well funded by George Soros and his entities. That can be both directly, but also mostly through all these nonprofit organizations that work as arms of the Democrat Party. George Soros had a plan like in 2008, I think it was, to take over all the secretaries of states, of different states, so that he could weaken election rules to help Democrats. And it was a very effective strategy. He followed that up with an effort to put in what are called Soros prosecutors, soft on crime. horrific on victims type people who would enact racial justice through being soft on crime. And he put a lot of money into this project. He got a lot of left-wing Democrat DAs elected and other people to support this. And our cities are being destroyed by these Soros prosecutors. So when I see this man... you know, killing this innocent woman. It's not just about that individual. It's also about people in power who went out of their way to enable this kind of situation. And it's like, what do you do with people like that? I don't think the Democrat Party or their funders can be trusted, really, to have a role in... in our governing affairs. Like, it's really nefarious what they've done. People are dying. And it's not just the murders. It's also, sorry that I'm going on so long here, but. Please go. I think one of the reasons why this resonates with people, I wrote the subway twice today. And I'm pretty alert person.

A lot of the bad part about riding the subway is not about risk of being murdered. It's about like a million things leading up to that. Do you know what I mean? Like... it's bad to be with people who are urinating on your car or who are just acting crazy or who are being aggressive. They might not murder you, but it's still a very bad experience. And so I think this resonated with a lot of people because the reason why you worry about someone getting in your face in a subway car is because you're worried that they're going to murder you. You might not get murdered, but that's the whole like breakdown of society. And so. It kind of legitimizes all this fear that people have been walking around with because of how horribly our cities are run. Yeah. I mean, on the Soros prosecutors, you blame Soros, you say it's evil. I agree with all that. But what about the voters? The voters elect these people. They deserve to be condemned as well. I mean, you're going to elect, in New York City is going to elect Zohran Mamdani, probably, who's a socialist who's wanted to defund the police, not in some, you know, not in theory, but legitimately take money away from the police force. He said stuff like jailing criminals just makes people feel good. It doesn't help or whatever, he said. They deserve it as well. There's nothing. People think, like we say. Prosecutors are soft on crime, but it's not exactly right to say that. What it is is that certain prosecutors do something that's incredibly authoritarian, which is allow people they've decided to be soft on out of jail and others not. So like in New York, what's that guy's name? I forget. But the prosecutor in New York City, for instance, let's riders do what they want. Oh, Albin Brat? Yeah, Alvin Bragg, but prosecutes bodega owners who defend themselves. Do you know what I'm saying? It's worse than just being soft on crime. It's authoritarian in a way. I don't know Charlotte that well. I do know these magistrates that allow these people out of prison don't even have a law degrees. Now, I'm not saying lawyers are great or they do any better, but it seems like they're just activists. Now, again, having a degree doesn't make, we know that you could go to Harvard and be terrible and have a PhD and maybe even worse. I just want to say, I think the judge. The judge in question who most recently helped this guy get out so that he could kill Irina Zerutska, she does have a law degree from like a diploma mill law school that's widely considered the worst law school in America, but she does have, I believe, a law degree. I read that she had not passed the bar. Again, neither of these things are required to be a magistrate judge. And I'm not even sure if they should be. My bigger concern with her is that she has a... severe conflict of interest. She's part of the like criminal rehabilitation complex that doesn't actually rehabilitate criminals, but she like is involved with an organization that gets money to supposedly rehabilitate criminals. And so for her to be involved in letting people out when she personally benefits from it, to me, that's a major problem.

I'm not against rehabilitating criminals. I think it's important. But jail is for punishment, not rehabilitation. Rehabilitation is the secondary reason. Mark was pointing out that the first job of our criminal justice system should be to protect the law abiding citizens. Yes, you want to be a humanitarian in how you are handling criminals. Or yes, you want to work on rehabilitation. Those are fine things to also be concerned about. But they cannot. come even close to harming the actual goal, which is to protect the citizenry. And we have gone like 180 degrees in the opposite direction, I feel like, where we are. Criminal justice industry seems mostly about protecting criminals and doing very little to protect law-abiding citizens. Recidivism is major. I mean... It's a small group of people that are constantly involved in criminality. So obviously, if you put them in prison and keep them there, crime will go down, in my view, at least it seems. And again, I pointed this out many times. It used to be a lot worse. There used to be many more murders. But not only does that not matter to someone living today, they shouldn't have to live with this kind of thing anyway, but doesn't it feel like our trajectory is going in a bad direction back to how it used to be? I mean, that's how I feel when I go to cities today. I feel like I'm constantly being surrounded by, you know, mentally ill people, drug addicts, beggars. That is the first sign of something bad happening in society. Yeah, I don't know how big of a deal it would be to reverse course though. Like I just mentioned I rode the subway twice today. And recently Washington, D.C. did this revolutionary thing of not encouraging people to break the law and ride the subway for free, which they had been doing. They were like, I mean, Paying for the Metro is something we expect law-abiding people to do. But if you're not, you just hop the turnstile and it's no big deal. And they recently changed their system so that they discourage that. And it makes the subway experience so much better, you know? Like it's just... Of course. I mean, in New York, they weren't even enforcing that law. I'm not even sure if they're enforcing it now. Now, what happens is a guy jumps to turnstile. Next thing is like, you know what? There's no cops around to do what I want. Maybe I'll grab that woman's purse. And then, you know, and it grows and grows. And others see that there's anarchy on the subway. Anyway, so it's horrible. You know, watching that video, it's just the anger I feel watching it and that poor woman who's defenseless, no one helping her against this monster. And yeah, like Chicago mayor says, there's always crime in urban areas. Yeah, that doesn't mean we have to say it's okay and live with it.

And it just feels like Trump's the only one saying that we should do something, that every urban mayor is like, there's no problem. I just don't even understand how they can take that position. This is Molly Hemingway, encouraging you to listen to my favorite podcast, issues, etc. Every day you get in-depth interviews with host Todd Wilkin asking expert guests, substantive, thought-provoking questions on all of the important news and issues of our day. The expert guests are in culture, law, ethics, philosophy, theology, and apologetics. Expert guests? Expansive topics. Always extolling Christ. issues, etc. This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road. and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast. Well, I do think that Democrats have a serious problem here. Like a lot of people are looking around going. Crime is such an obvious issue that so many people care about. I think we talked last week that there was a poll that showed that 80% of Americans think crime in cities is a major problem. 19% think it's just like a problem problem. And 1% think it's not a problem at all. It's worse than that, not Americans. People in Washington and New York, people in the cities think that. Do I'm saying? It's not like some suburban person thinks that the city's terrible. But like... When you're in a 99 to one issue, you would think what in the world is going on with Democrats fighting an effort to push back on crime? Also, just historically, I feel like we always have this pendulum swinging back and forth between too much favorability toward criminals and then... being too, like too much power to the police. And we are, we have swung so far into the direction in favor of criminality that it's kind of shocking. And, you know, we referenced, you just said like, they're voting for these people. Oh, I do want to say, yes, they're voting for these people. But cities were the first place. I mentioned how Soros and other Democrat donors had worked to weaken election laws. in areas they controlled, in states they controlled, in cities they controlled. And that is important in the sense that one of the metrics for...

winning elections used to be how excited you got people to vote for you. Like, you actually had to show up on election day. And if people didn't really care that much, they didn't show up, right? You already have the situation where cities are overwhelmingly Democrat and controlled by the Democrat Party. But with the changes to election laws from... voter interest into who has the most money to spend on ballot operations that may have literally nothing to do with voter interest. You start being able, if you have enough money to push through initiatives or people based solely on your ability to get a ballot into the ballot box. I'm not even talking about fraud, although obviously fraud is a problem when you're having. unsupervised voting. But it's also just about being able to run an operation that doesn't reflect the actual voter interest. Does that make sense? Yeah. Like, if you don't have to show up, if you, if someone says, hey, I ordered this ballot for you. I came to your house. By the way, I'm your church leader or leader of your immigrant group or. your boss, please fill it out and then I'll take it back to the mailbox for you. It's not really, it's not, it's not a free and fair election situation. And so that's why people who care about election integrity are so important, I think, because you can have really nefarious consequences to moving from voter interest into ballot operations. I hear everything you're saying, but we shouldn't gloss or whitewash the fact that that urban people vote for crackpot socialists all the time, whatever, you know, despite all of that. And I always want to say, well, they deserve what you deserve the democracy that you get. But then I see someone murdered. And I'm like, this is ridiculous. It should not be happening. On the Democrat Party issue, though, you know, this is happening at a very bad period of time for them in that voters are very frustrated with Democrat governance of cities, even if they're about to elect Zohran Mamdani and other, you know, radicals. But the left-wing base of the Democrat Party is so left-wing. The donor base of the Democrat Party is so left-wing. It makes it hard to have a course correction on their support for violent crime. Does that make sense? Like they, their fringe base wants to be even softer on crime right now. So how do you, how do you get everyone to be kind of like more reasonable when the people who are your activists are not reasonable at all? You win elections. I mean. success, everyone follows. Donald Trump wins an election. The entire right takes the ship and moves it in a different direction, you know, the institutions of the right, all that. You can still, I think, change that dynamic with a victory somewhere. But you're going in the opposite direction with Zohran Mamdani or whoever Minneapolis has, I think, some socialist guy running, right? Who's probably going to win. So I don't know. I wonder if the Democrat Party isn't.

in such a bad place. And I'm not saying that they're not going to win a bunch of elections in the next year. They will. But when you look at the longer term or like midterm health of the party, they're having some issues. And I wonder if they're not primed for a Donald Trump style takeover in their own party. Meaning, yes, they have some political talent. We've talked about Gavin Newsom being a good, like for them, a good political talent. But. They need some shaking up and they have such central control at party headquarters. Like, it's insane to remember that it was just, what, a year plus ago, that they've prohibited a real primary from taking place against a president who they probably would have been well served to allow a primary. I think that would have made them stronger. Sorry, incumbents who face primary challenges rarely win. I think 80% of the time they lose. But the central control of the Democrat Party... has kept some much needed like freshening from happening. And if it's, if they keep on being that restrictive, I think they might risk having an outsider like a celebrity or just someone who is not beholden to the Democrat party machine coming in and taking over the party and forcing some reforms, much like Donald Trump did the Republican Party. I think the establishment Democrat. Party, Democratic Party is completely empty. It's like a vast empty. They have no new ideas. They have no energy. That vacuum needs to be filled. So say what you will about socialism. It's an ethos. And I think that that is filling, filling that vacuum. There is no excitement there. There are new ideas. Now, this happens to every party, I think, after a while. You run up ideas. Like, even if you go back to the... to the rise of Reagan, which was a decade or two in the making, incidentally, I think that the, the emptiness of the then-dominate liberal Republican Party was filled. And then you had Donald Trump, the same thing happens. So the problem is that you can get something pretty radical right now, I think. I've said this before, but the left wants its own Donald Trump, right? The left wants its own populist movement. But the problem is they completely... misunderstand, I think, Trump's appeal, which is much more common sense moderate than radical populist, right? And they're far too ideological. I don't think it's going to work. Yeah, I think they're going to win some elections. I just think that's the way of America. A bunch of people vote Democrats and then... When Republicans are in power, they're mad about stuff to go the other way. It happens all the time. But there is an emptiness. They were like, what does what does Gavin Newsom or anyone else stand for other than just stamp being anti-Trump? When I look at ads on TV against Republican candidates, it's always talking about Trump. I don't know how, I just don't think that that's the makings of successful movement for Democrats. So.

I also wonder what's going to happen after Trump's gone for both parties, but we're going to have to see. But yeah, and doesn't it seem very much like the socialist party, like you say, has taken over the donor class too much? So the establishment itself is already sort of socialistic. And now you have the activist class that way. There's not going to be any competing force, really, other than some of the elected officials. I was going to say on that note, Tim Carney had a great tweet pointing out that the donor class of. the Democrat Party is at their far left. And it makes people who are Democrat think that the donor class for the Republican Party is at the far right. It's actually not true. The donor class of the Republican Party is also like at the left part of their party. It's just something to keep in mind when evaluating parties that they're not complete mirror images, sometimes they're dealing with exactly the same phenomenon. But it affects each party differently. I'm a fan of a two-party system. People always complain about it, but I think it creates coalitions of right and left, typically, and maybe the dynamics of that changes sometimes. But I think there's a donor class. They have certain interests. There's a populist, you know, activist class. They have certain interests. And usually you find some candidate that can balance those interests and run. If you all are on the same side, which is kind of a socialistic side that's going to that's going to portend poorly. I mean, there was a chance, right, that Bernie Sanders could have won an open primary last time or even before that, right? Like, it was close. And he would be the most radical major candidate who ever ran. How is September the worst month of the year for the taxpayer? The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast with Chris Lisa Murkowski. Every day, Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet. Government agencies have to spend every single dime by the end of September, plus take out more debt for another CR. In the last 48 days, the federal debt is up by a trillion. We have a severe debt problem. Whether it's happening in D.C. or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watchdog on Wall Street podcast with Chris Lisa Murkowski on Apple. Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast. All right. That's always a downer to talk about such a horrible event, but hopefully we can make things a little better. Let's talk now about the Israeli strike yesterday on Qatar and Doha. Qatar, everyone says, I don't know, I like to say Qatar. I was surprised that it happened, but I thought it should have happened 700 days ago.

I liken it to, so I should say, the Israelis precision bombed the headquarters of Hamas in the capital, really the only city in Qatar. And we're not exactly sure who they got who they didn't. It doesn't really matter to me that much. I think the key is that Hamas leaders shouldn't feel safe anywhere. I don't believe Donald Trump's condemnation of Israel at all. I think he gave the green light. I think he knew about it. The people who they hit were not diplomats. They all had promised forever war against civilians and Jewish people. Israel has a right to go after those people who were billionaires sitting in five-star hotels in Qatar. Not only... fighting this war against civilians they had celebrated the murder of six civilians in jerusalem the other day but they are condemned their own people to destitution and tragedy you know and we went after bin laden in pakistan there's no reason israel shouldn't be able to go after these people in katar I think this does change the dynamic because the entire point and tactic and strategies of these people is martyrdom of their own people to bring the world to their side, which is working. And Israel can't allow that. They have to finish this thing. I don't know. Those are my initial thoughts on it. What did you think? So I... I'm sorry about this, but I'm a little unclear on what the status of negotiations were in terms of brokering an end to the war. Like, why were the Hamas leaders in Qatar?

Why were they in Qatar? They have been in Qatar for a long time, even before October 7th. I think most of these leaders were in Qatar because they're safe there or they thought they were safe and that they would not be assassinated by Israelis in Gaza and that they could pretend to negotiate. By the way, what's today? Today is the 10th. On the 7th. Israel agreed to a ceasefire deal. They rejected it. Donald Trump said on Twitter that this was the last chance for them to make a deal and that this was his final. word on it. The next day, they took responsibility for killing six Israeli civilians. The day after that, Israel attack them. This fake, drawn-out diplomacy that they're involved in would mean, you know, it's just meant to continue this thing and allow them to survive. Do you There is no diplomat that sits at a table negotiating and says, as soon as we can, we're going to do October 7th again to you, which is what one of the leaders there said. I don't understand what your question there was. What was their purpose there? Well, I... I like to study original sources here, and I don't have original sources. So I'm going based on like, you know, I follow a wide variety of people on Twitter, see different perspectives on this. And one of the things that someone who had found to be somewhat reasonable on this topic, like definitely not as pro-Israel as I am, but not like cartoonishly un-pro-Israel. And said something about Hamas was actually in Qatar to work on. negotiations, but maybe that's just completely not true. No, it's not true. Okay, well, I mean, I... No, go on. I'm just saying. I think that's true. I mean, they were ostensibly there for that. Oh, they were. I mean, yeah, they were at the negotiating table. So that seems like not a great thing, right, to murder people while they're at a negotiating table. Let me put it this way. Imagine if you can in... 2002 al-Qaeda is up and is down in cancun in the five-star hotels with a headquarters there claiming that they want to negotiate that first of all the only reason there are negotiations here is because they took hostages and the Israelis by the way David the thing that annoys me so much is everyone's like this is a horrific genocide This is the worst, you know, like this is that what Israel's doing is so beyond... This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home.

And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast. The pale that it's the worst thing we've ever seen in history. Okay. So why are you not releasing the hostages or the bodies of the hostages? Like it doesn't even, even Japan did an unconditional surrender at some point, right? Like, and they were pretty resistant to that. It's just hard for me to take seriously that Hamas is really working here to make up for what they did on October 7th when they're literally doing nothing, right? They're not doing the one thing they could. Easily do. They are doing the thing that they want to do, which is this. Sinwar said this, the martyrdom of his people is what he wanted to do. But the thing is this. David, you said, imagine al-Qaeda's in Mexico City. I think the context would matter. Was this like Mexico had said, why don't you come here? We can talk. You'll be protected. You know, we need to get you out of the place where the U.S. is bombing you right now so that you can have, like, actual get work done. We'll protect you. And then we bomb Mexico. That would be a problem, right? What if Mexico? was funding. What if Mexico made 9-11 possible by bringing not only funding Hamas, but bringing in Iranian funding for Hamas and being the conduit for that? Are you saying that's what you're saying about Qatar? Yeah, that's what I'm saying about Qatar. By the way, you mentioned the genocide. If not funding of 9-11, you got Saudi Arabia, but we still treat them as a non-hostile entity, you know. But then Saudi Arabia... I don't understand the funding mechanisms there. If individuals funded Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, who were part of the royal family, whatever it was, I think Saudi Arabia, once 9-11 happened, helped us in many ways, right? I don't know what we should have done was right, or what we did was right or not. Qatar has this ridiculous position of playing both sides all the time. It's a country of 300,000 people. with a bunch of slaves basically working for them to lift themselves up as this, you know, power. And I don't think it's the same thing. As far as the, I just want to reiterate this. The genocide thing is a hoax. There is no genocide there, as you've mentioned. And I think they've been incredibly successful in convincing the world there is. I was a member for a few days, Molly, of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. I joined. It kicked me out.

But as an expert on this, the BBC said we are leading experts on this. I'm telling you there's no genocide. But anyway. So back to the... One last thing on the Al-Qaeda thing. We did get bin Laden without permission from an ally in Pakistan. We did the same thing that they did. The people in Qatar who were just killed are all on the United States Justice Department. They're all sanctioned as terrorist. Everyone who maybe died, maybe didn't, were sanctioned by our own government as terrorists. We shouldn't be... I'm mad at Israel for for undermining Qatari sovereignty. We should be mad at Qatar for harboring people that we admit are terrorists who killed 41 American citizens, who signed off on the killing of Americans. You say harboring, right? Yeah. But they were public about hosting these people, right? Yeah, so. Well, isn't there a difference, David, between Pakistan lying. And, or not lying, but like not really doing a good job of looking for bin Laden and not being a, you know, that was, that was an, bin Laden was in hiding. The Hamas people were not in hiding. They were there for diplomatic reasons. You might question their good faith and I think there's good reason to, but it's, it's. It's a bit tricky. Like, I'm not saying it's wrong. It's just there are costs associated with what Israel did. And I think... What is the cost? Well, it can sour relations between... So they did notify the United States that they were planning to take this action. Trump said that he immediately directed Steve Witkoff to tell the Qatari officials and that Wickev didn't do it immediately, but he did. And by the time he told them... the attacks were already underway. It is a, you know, it's a sovereign country with its own rules, and to do this type of strike inside that country is a hostile action. I mean, I don't think Qatar is great. I don't actually think any of the Middle Eastern countries are great, but... You do have to work with them. And so it can cause people to be less. I'm just, what if I told you this? What if I told you this? Here's my theory. And honestly, I don't teak my own horn, but I think my theories about what's been going on have been okay. What if Qatar knew about this and knew it was going to happen because they're, they want to now. disassociate themselves from Hamas without losing face after this last negotiation fell through what if the president of the united states says this stuff but totally gave the green light i don't for a second believe that israel sent fighters into katar a few miles away from a u.s military installation without the president of the united states signing off on it i just

Trump signing. I just don't believe that that could possibly be true. And what if Saudi Arabia or some other Arab country helped Israel fly the 1,400 miles with its fighters that would have to get, they could not do it without refueling somewhere, help them do it either in Syria, possibly Syria or possibly Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was contemplating building a few years ago, building a moat. around Qatar. They hate them so much. Yes, every Arab country. Yeah. The Saudi Arabians had... not allow Qatar planes to go over their airspace until like last year. Like they there was a huge breakup between those countries. Most of the Gulf states hate Qatar because it is friendly with Iran, which is their mortal enemy. And that is a complicated region. In their defense, they're trying to be the Switzerland of the Middle East, right? Like they're trying to play friendly with opposing sides. Let's talk about Qatar in another way as well. They drop literally like everything everyone says about APAC and Jewish control is literally what Qatar does. They have they have dropped tens of billions of dollars into our schools to to to normalize radical ideas and Islamism. They have dropped tons of money into our institutions. They have dropped tons of money into our think tanks. God knows how many of these influencers online are paid by Qatar. You saw that story about India paying a couple of those influences and they all were like out there being pro India all of a sudden. I mean, Qatar almost surely does that as well. I mean, we know the Wall Street Journal reported. We just don't know who. They are not our friend, I think, in any real way. And I don't know. For me, when I look at this. You don't oppose countries doing that. You just oppose. Cutter. Well, yeah, I don't think all countries are the same. I have no problem with countries trying to make their case to the American people that we should be friends with them, that we should do something with them. But the secretive way in which Qatar does that and the ideas which they want us to express, yeah, I have a problem with that. I as a... journalistic person I wouldn't you know as a writer I would never take a penny from any country ever or actually any industry ever in that way I mean unless maybe they put an ad on something I was doing or whatever what about like would you go on a trip sponsored by only good countries probably but I haven't done that either I mean I think like as long as you're being open about what you've gotten I think I mean, I know a lot of these groups go to trips to Israel. People go on trips to Israel, which I think is a good thing because I think Israel is a free and excellent place. I would never take a penny from Qatar to go there like people do. Really? So like as long, I mean, would you change your mind based on it? You know what I mean? Like, why not?

Like what I think they're evil people over there. I think the royal family there is evil and I would not take a penny from them. It has nothing really to do. Like if I got a. I want to make sure that I'm that I'm not taking money from people I think are evil. I love this thing where they're like, oh, well, Israel, yeah, but Israel's not the same. You can go to Israel. There's a guy, Owen Jay Jones, I think is his name. It's just this complete anti-Israel. I think an anti-Semite in England, huge journalist there. He's in Israel now, and he's tweeting all kinds of terrible things about Israel. I mean, Israel is generally a free country, not as free as I wish it. It could be. It's not to say that. In Qatar, Christianity's outlawed. You cannot, you know, the idea, the idea that these things are the same and that they're both just our allies, it's not true in the same way. I think there's a moral. Listen, I get people turning against Israel and stuff that doesn't change my mind about stuff. I don't care that young people don't like Israel. It doesn't change the truth. And I can just continue to make those arguments. But anyway, this weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast. I just don't understand why if the Canadians had imperial Japanese generals there while we were fighting in Okinawa that we would allow that. I just don't think that we would. These are not diplomats. These people signed off on the murder of 1,200 people. Again, you have to distinguish between them harboring people illicitly and hosting like a diplomatic meeting. But I really. I'm enjoying your points and I'm loving your theory that like the other countries went along with this because they realize Hamas is a huge problem and they, you know, I think it's an, I have no idea the validity of it, but I find it interesting. The validity is excellent. The Sterling, the Hamas people don't realize or many people don't realize is Muslim Brotherhood. That's where they come from. That's what they are. That's why they're outlawed in Egypt. That's why Egypt closed its border. does not allow them in. Saudi Arabia is Muslim Brotherhood is the enemy of the royal family. They do, they hate that Qatar hosts those people. And I don't buy that they're not super happy about this bombing. Okay. Is it too far afield to ask you what you think about the Venezuelan boat bombing?

No. Okay. So what do you think about that? Because it's kind of, to me, it's kind of related, you know, Western interests, our military going down and bombing them. I have many thoughts on it. I mean, I have conflicting thoughts, I guess I'd say. I think the United States has every right to I just preface this whole thing by saying I don't believe in international law I don't think it's a real thing I did not if you don't if it does not adhere to the Constitution if it does not adhere to our ability to participate and make I don't think that Russia and China have any right to decide what the United States the people of the United States do or don't do okay I'm fine with bombing a narco ship out in the sea. I just want us to be careful about how we use that power because it can be abused. You know, I was not crazy when Barack Obama droned an American citizen, even though that American, do you remember that store? Oh, yeah. Not because the guy probably didn't deserve it, but because Barack Obama could easily say that about anyone he wanted to abroad. You know what I mean? So I think we have to just think about the way we use power. I have no reason to believe that we weren't right in bombing that, you know, destroying that ship. And... I'm okay with it, but maybe there needs to be a process that we go through that doesn't just rely on the decisions of a single man, the president, doing it. I don't know. Does that make any sense? Yeah, I don't know. It's kind of interesting to me, just like as a topic area, the open sees, what laws apply, how to handle it. It's an old issue for the United States, you know, going back to piracy. I like a US foreign policy posture that's more focused on our region. than far away regions. So I don't mind, like, it seems like we've been pivoting a little bit back to caring about what's happening in South America and Central America. I think that's good. And I am more hawkish on some of that stuff than I am when we're talking about far field areas. Very surprised to hear you use the word hawkish. I know, I hate that word. I know, but go on. I hate that word. We don't have a better word, I think, right now. I think that what some of these countries are doing to our people, like it's just a more direct threat sometimes, like the allowance of drugs through Mexico or, you know, other issues like that. And that we should be more aggressive toward them. But.

I do. I thought that I like Ray and Paul a lot, but I thought him referring to To Kill a Mockingbird in this case was very, you know, he tweeted out that these people had due process rights that were violated and that we should read To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird. I was talking to a friend who said that To Kill a Mockingbird is like the book version of World War II. It's the only thing some people know or reference when they're talking about. due process. And it doesn't really seem to be a fitting, a fitting reference for this situation. But I'm glad we're doing, we're being more aggressive about being about the way other countries are handling what they're sending our way. I mean, it felt like a warning to me more than anything that's going to change. I mean, it's within itself the dynamics of what's going on. There's this other area of this debate where JD Vance is out there saying we can't let these people poison us and so on. And I agree with that. And, you know, I agree with that. But something I never hear anyone say anymore is like, hey, also, you should stop doing drugs. Like, you should take care of yourself. There's no self, there's no self responsibility in our rhetoric anymore. And it drives me crazy. I know it's a weird tangential thing to care about here. But there's a way to avoid overdosing on drugs. And that is not to do them in the first place. And once we, you know, then they'll have no one to sell it to. And now people think that that's so jejeune, but. You know, just bothers me. Oh, men. What did happen to that? You know, people are like, oh, you could take this weed once and it would be laced with fentanyl, which is true. And also maybe think about your drug consumption. Yeah. Don't do it. I think it's a problem that we don't ever make people take responsibility for their choices. Like if they're not doing well in life, it's some big corporations ruining. If you're doing this, it's the, you know, it's the Mexican drug warlords. You know, I mean, I'm not saying those aren't problems. They are. But at some point, you have to take responsibility for yourself. This might be a weird transition. But I was thinking that when I was reading that brief excerpts of Kamala Harris's. new book. Did you see this part where she said that she couldn't really say anything to Joe Biden about how he shouldn't run again because it would be viewed as self-serving? And what, like, at what point do you take responsibility for yourself and for your leadership role? If not then. Yes. Okay, this thing I need to say, I'm not going to say because it might be viewed. poorly that's me every day every day i have to go say things publicly while my supposed peers are mocking me it's not fun i don't love doing it i just have to do it because i have this position where i get to go on tv and say uncomfortable truths if i were to say like oh i

If I say it this way, people will think that I'm, you know, a reflexive Trump supporter. Yeah, guess what? They're going to. But that doesn't mean that you're weak and that you don't say it. You still have to say the true thing, even though, you know, all these, like, weird DC types will make fun of you. And if Kamala Harris didn't have the courage or leadership ability to tell Joe Biden, I have to say something that you're not going to like and that you're going to think is self-serving, but it's not. You know, like she has no business being in any position of leadership. It's like when I say something good about pharmaceutical companies, everyone's like, oh, you're paid by them or India, you're paid. But no, I do it for free. And I know what people are going to say when I say those things, but you have to say what you believe is true. I mean, it's literally she. hold herself up in this excerpt from her book as a truth teller. And yet then she's like, I couldn't tell the truth. My favorite part of that is where she says she's mad that the Biden administration didn't defend her from Fox News claims that she was a DEI hire, which Biden said she was. literally and explicitly. But isn't that just like a tacit admission that, you know, sex and race-based hiring degrades like a person's accomplishments, a career? I mean, why is she mad about a DEI tag when DEI is supposed to be this wonderful thing? I don't understand it. They never, they just don't make any sense. I loved that excerpt because she writes the way she talks with like, um, He's sort of swirling gibberish, you know, and it's a fun read. I'm going to write a column about it, I think the ghostwriter, ghostwriter just put what he wanted to say into an AI thing and said, say this like Kamala Harris, because I bet he did, whoever it was or she did. Just like you tell AI, give me some tautologies, please. I think that I have ghost written books for some, you know, for famous people. And I think you do, you know, I didn't have AI nor would I ever use AI to write. But I definitely, you try to put yourself in their mindset and take their voice. She thinks if she just says something with really earnest way, that it will come off that way for others. I'll give you an example from this piece where she says, She talks about Roe v. Wade and auditorium filled with black women and how she was going to overturn, you know, to restore those rights. That roar told me they could see it clearly for the first time. This could be and it should be. It was not because of gender or because of rape, but the race, but despite those things. Like that is, that's nothing. That is just vacuous. It's just a bunch of words that are like formulated in a way that you think sound like something. Anyway. remember we were talking about how the democratic party has no energy and it's just emptiness and it will need to be filled she is the perfect example of why that is so she literally she doesn't believe in anything she says nothing new she has no ideas she sounds like some you know relic of the past and um

Again, I think this is why you see a rise of socialism where there's a lot of energy. And there's an earnestness in socialism and a morality to it, even though it's completely misguided, that you don't have when people are just trying to come up with things to say to placate people, right? And that's what she is. She's a disaster. She might be the candidate. I don't know. Who else is? I mean, I kind of love her. I kind of love her now that she's less of a threat. I would party with her. Also, I said something nice to her, nice about her to my daughter this week. I was playing, you know that song Everybody Loves the Sunshine? No. Okay. By Roy Ayers, and I have it on vinyl. So I was like putting it on the turntable. And I was remembering that one time she went into a record store and she came out with four albums, they were all good and that was one of them. And I'm like, I felt it was genuine. I don't think she had a vinyl consultant going in there with her to pick them. I think she should have just become like a HR leader at a corporation or something, you know, risen to that level and had a really happy life. listening to good music. I just saw a story about, this is so weird, but anyway, I just saw a story about HR managers and there was this company, this tech company that got rid of them and had the actual engineers and stuff hiring people and productivity like skyrocketed because those people are just concerned with whether you can do the job, not all the extra stuff. Yep. How can you be a real? genuine person, if you spend decades, just constantly having other people write things for you and worrying all the time that what things that you are going to say are going to turn people off. I think you probably forget what you really believe at that at some point, don't you? I mean, it just seems like a really sad existence that these politicians lead in a way. I cannot even imagine. I would hate it, but. This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast. Culture. Culture. Culture. I have been sick, so I watched a lot of TV over the last few days. Okay. I want to, I think I mentioned this show before, but I want to talk about it again. It's called For All Mankind on Apple. It is an alternative history in which the Soviet Union reaches the moon first and sort of how history propels in a different direction.

Okay. There's a little bit of like feministy, annoying kind of preachiness to it, but it is a tolerable levels, I think, for the, for the, for the show, so only on the first season, that has some interesting, you know, thought experiments, I guess I'd call them. So I don't know. It's something I would, I would recommend. I watched, um, A movie called Highest to Lowest. It's a Spike Lee movie with Denzel Washington. It's also an Apple. Now, I should say that I am actually not a Spike Lee hater. I think some of his early movies were much better. What's that? Who is a Spikely hater? Oh, I don't know. I think people think he. I think people think his movies about race, especially the early ones, are more simplistic than they actually are. At least that's what I've felt. I think some of his movies fail, but I think he's a talented guy. And obviously, I think Denzel Washington's amazing. And he's very good in this, very good. Did you ever see 25th hour? Love that movie with Ed Norton. I do too. Yeah, excellent movie based on a book that was pretty good. Agreed. Highst of Lois is based on a movie called High and Love by Kurosawa. And I'm just going to give you the plot very simply is that. someone kidnaps he's a rich guy Denzel Washington plays someone kidnaps his son but it turns out he accidentally so he's willing to give all his money to get his son back but then it turns out that they actually had kidnapped his friend not the son and now the moral question is will he give up everything for this person who isn't his son oh the son of his friend who is not rich um who he's he grew up with But this is kind of a messier script. It gets very good reviews, but I just don't. It's fun to watch. But when you really start thinking about it, it is a bit confused in a way. But there's a guy, there's a rapper in it who plays the bad guy. His name is Aesap Rocky. Never heard of him. Yes. I think he's fantastic in it. Really good, really good. So anyway, worth watch. It's a talker, as we say in the business. I just would say you said ASAP Racky or something. It's ASAP Rock, right? It says ASAP Rocky here, but I don't know. Okay. A sap Rocky. Maybe it's someone else. I think it's. Okay. I know nothing about it. This is out of my, I saw my wife the other day. It's like I see commercials. I'm like, I think these are celebrities. Like when you get older and you don't know, you're old and you don't know who the celebrities are anymore. Anyway, I thought that was good. They could like put in any name on some of the gossip sites and I would like have no idea because that it's not true. Because they all sound made up. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Jeffrey writes in this as well, and he's just a good actor. He's a great actor and also like a really dumb person, which is, you know, it's not shocking that actors can be really dumb, but it's a little disconcerting how dumb he is relative to how smart he thinks he is. How about you? Don't have much. Just been a little busy, but I, and then what I have is really not exciting, but I'll just go ahead. We watched You've Got Mail. You know, you've got mail. I know. From the 1980s. Have you ever seen it before or? It had, but probably not since then. And what was the original? What was it called? The shop around the corner. It's a remake of the shop around the corner, right? I don't know. I know that the other one. Seattle. Because the shop around the corner is a Hungarian film or a Hungarian story. And it's got Jimmy Stewart in it. And it's a really charming film. And then you've got mail as the remake. So I had seen You've Got Mail back when I was like a kid. And then I'd seen Shop Around the Corner sort of recently like it in the last couple years. And then I rewatched You've Got Mail. And it was fine. I... I was, again, watching with my kid who was wondering how it is that Tom Hanks got these roles where he was the romantic lead with beautiful women. Because he's certainly, you know, a likable, charming sort of guy, but he is not handsome. And it's just weird that we all pretended he was handsome enough to get with Meg Ryan for a while. Well, other hotties. They say that being funny will get you far with women. That's what they say. I'm not sure that's true. I don't find him that charming. I find him sort of annoying, honestly. But I don't know. I think it's plausible and Meg Ryan's plausible enough. They make her a little bit like a mousy in that movie, right? Don't they make her like, she's the book, bookshop. Give me a break. It wouldn't happen in real life, but I'm just saying. It's not as bad as like everyone says, I love you with Woody Allen and Julia John Roberts when she's 25 years old. That is not plausible. Yeah. So the other thing is that I watched a couple episodes of Northern Exposure. Oh, we did that too recently. And I think it holds up very nicely, like very, very well. What did you think? Yeah. I don't know why I stopped watching, but yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was rather well done. So I actually, I have to be honest with you. I didn't watch it when it was out originally. So it wasn't, yeah. Oh, I did. I did. I definitely watched that. And my husband was telling me that they filmed it in a small town like Rosalind, Washington. So anyway, that's it. I don't have much, I don't have much excitement. Why, two other ones. One I watch was, and I probably watch other movies that I don't remember, but High Plains Drifter, you know, an early 70s movie that I love, one of my favorites with Clean Eastwood.

Have you ever seen it? Nope. Oh, it's fantastic. You should see it. It's on Netflix, I think. Wait. I watched something else. Dances with wolves. Oh, that's awful. Which I'd never seen before. So at the time, I saw it in the theater. And I could not believe how boring that movie was. And I'm all for westerns. I just think that that's one of, I think it won best picture, one of those best pictures that shouldn't have been a best picture winner. I forgot what movie. I think maybe was it Goodfellas that was up that year that it beat. I forget, but. I. I thought it was, so I'd never seen it before. It was not something I was interested in when it came out, which was in, what year was that? 1990, so same time as I was watching Northern Exposure. And it was a little undercooked or... It was during this era of great paternalism toward Native Americans. You know, they have wisdom that the white men do not have. You know, and it was like kind of not dealing with some of the issues that it brought up itself, like how violent some of the native tribes were versus others. But it was also a pretty violent movie. So I don't know. Really culture, but I do want to mention that I have the article in Imprimus, the Hillsdale publication that goes out to like 10 million people. I know if you have ever been in contact with any like American or conservative institution, you're probably on the Hillsdale mailing list. I wrote for that once. Yeah, it's fun, right? I mean, I've already been getting like tons of feedback and I wrote. I wrote sort of a summary of a bunch of stories I'd written for the Federalist on the significance of the recently released Russian hoax documents, kind of explaining why they were so meaningful, and I've gotten a lot of great feedback. Great. Congrats. Yeah. The last thing I just wanted to quickly mention because you brought it up last time was I watched Happy Gilmore 2. How was it? It was actually good. I mean, let me put this way. It's idiotic, obviously, but it was much better than I thought it would be. And I had this weird thought watching it. I'm like, if they, it would have been funny if they had made a serious movie of this. Meaning like it actually has some underlying, I know this sounds crazy, but there's some underlying lessons on the importance of being a parent and stuff that were weirdly serious that I think the movie.

if you would have stripped of all the ridiculousness, would have been interesting with Adam Sandler in it. His own daughters are in it. And addiction, too. There's a whole part on addiction. I know it sounds crazy, but you should watch it and tell me if you don't, if you feel that or don't watching it. One of my best friends works in film, I think I mentioned this years ago once. I have never seen her look so horrified as when I told her that I sort of secretly loved Adam Sandler movies. It was like a part of her died. You know, her life's work is devoted to these really important films. And I was like, I like a good old rom-com with Adam Sandler. She was just like, oh, I've never. There's no actor whose movies are so diverse in the sense that he'll be in like, what was that movie about the diamond dealer guy? And then he'll be in something so goofy. All right. I mean, that's it for me. Okay, great. If you'd like to reach the show, please do so at Radio at the Federalist.com. We'd love to hear from you. And until next week, you lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray. My life, my life, my life, my life in the sunshine.

This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast.