Latest / 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary / Defending Capitalism, Dem Wins vs. Jewish Survival, Virginia Mom's CPS Misery | Last Call

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Defending Capitalism, Dem Wins vs. Jewish Survival, Virginia Mom's CPS Misery | Last Call · 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Grab a stool next to Greg Karambas of Radio America
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: and Jim Garrity of National Review.
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: Three martinis coming up. Welcome to the last call of
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: the week for the Three Martini Lunch. This is our
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: weekly recap of some of the biggest stories of the week.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: In this edition, a robust defense of capitalism as the
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: left lurches towards socialism. Michigan's Jewish Democratic Attorney General telling
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: other Jews the world's needs, meaning the Democratic Party agenda,
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: is more important than their self-interest or even their survival.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: And Virginia cops and other government officials drop the hammer
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: on a mom saying, for letting her five-year-old son take
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: a walk alone. And in our Chaser of the Week,
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: actor Ryan Reynolds disparages the 1980s. You know we're not
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: going to let that one stand. But we begin with
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: a great defense of capitalism. In the face of leftists
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: like Texas Senate candidate James Tallarico... trying to tie it
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: to white supremacy. Jim, we kind of pick up with
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: our good martini today, where we left off with our
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: crazy martini yesterday. Yesterday, there was that clip from about
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: six years ago where James Tallarico was saying, in order
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: to fight climate change, we've got to dismantle capitalism. And
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: then his campaign put out a statement going, oh.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: No, I was off.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: I'm a capitalist now. And I love oil and gas
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: and all that nonsense. You know, he really doesn't. But
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: he's trying to win in Texas. But the issue still
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: came up on Newsnight with Abby Phillip and her panel
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: of mostly lefties. But there's always at least one, sometimes
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: two Republicans on there. So Camille Foster was one of
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: the conservatives. And this issue came up about somehow capitalism
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: being inextricably linked to white supremacy and And he dismantles
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: it very, very well, first of all, extolling the greatness
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: of capitalism. But as Jemele Hill, who used to be
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: with ESPN and found every racial or gender or LGBT
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: problem in sports, that was her whole thing. She's now
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: a political columnist, which is what she's always really wanted
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: to be, I think, over at The Atlantic. And she's
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: trying to make him prove that they're not inextricably linked.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: He's not having any of it.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: It's one thing to not think capitalism isn't working ideally.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: It's another thing entirely to insist that it is oppressive,
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: that it is bound up with white supremacy. I've always
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: preferred Adam Smith's description of capitalism. capitalism as the natural
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: system of liberty the idea that people can own property
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: that they can exchange it freely with one another for
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: profit that they can find ways to put their resources
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: to good use those private property and and profit in
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: a way that is actually beneficial to everyone else that
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: there can be gains from trade that are mutually beneficial
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: these are foundational ideas that have created more wealth than
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: any other system in human history That is what capitalism is.
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: That is not white supremacy.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Do you think capitalism has always worked that way?
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: I've just described the actual... It has not always worked
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: that way. I've actually just described the basic facts.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Of the economy.
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: That ain't how it's always worked.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: Slavery is an institution that is older than writing.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: It predates capitalism.
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: The notion that white supremacy and all these other things
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: are bound up with capitalism in an intrinsic and fundamental
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: way is so absurd and laughable that it barely needs
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: to be defended.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: What do you mean it barely needs to be defended?
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: It barely needs to be defended.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: You actually have to articulate what the connection is. How
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: are these two things the same? I'm talking about private property,
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: the right to exchange and sell it.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: With whomever you like.
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: But you're talking about capitalism in the purest form of
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: how it.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Was intended to work versus how it's actually working.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: I'm talking about how it's working right now today. What
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: is the white supremacist dynamic.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Of private property?
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: So again, great defense of capitalism by Kamala Foster. And
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: he's not taking her bait of trying to have him
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: prove that it's not tied to white supremacy.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: He's like, no, no, no.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: If you want to say that it is linked, you
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: have to explain to me why that is the case.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: So great job by him. And of course, she had
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: no answer.
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: I was going to say, Greg, yesterday's episode, we kind
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: of closed on this notion of the omni-cause, the idea
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: that in the end, all causes of progressivism, all causes
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: on the left start to blur together. And also they
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: insist that that they are all interconnected. Blank is a
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: blank issue. In this case, basically, the argument from Jemele
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: Hill is overturning and getting rid of capitalism is a
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: white supremacy issue and things like that. Well, what comes
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: out of that discussion is I'd really like to hear
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: more of the high number of young people who tell
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: pollsters that they feel negatively about capitalism. They have They
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: don't support capitalism. They oppose capitalism. I really like to
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: get people to say, what do you mean by capitalism?
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: And I get that they probably mean it as the
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: status quo. Folks like you and I would say is
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: that what the United States has isn't really capitalism.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: In fact, Greg, true capitalism has never been tried. I
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: say that.
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: Kind of tongue in cheek, but we have, you know,
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: this is not an unregulated, true free market economy by
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: any stretch of the imagination. And I have this sneaking
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: suspicion that if you ask people, what really bothers you
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: about our system of trading goods and services and prices
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: and things like that, they'd probably say things like, oh, well,
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: you know, higher education is too expensive. OK, that's highly
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: regulated by the government. And we've said for a long
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: time that the more the government keeps saying, oh, we're
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: going to give you bigger student loans, we're going to
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: give you more student loans, we're going to, you know,
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: like there's a great deal of market distortion in that.
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: There's no downward pressure on prices from on the part
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: of universities because the government has always come in saying,
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: don't worry, we'll give you even bigger loans. You know,
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: There's no sense of like, oh, if we don't lower prices,
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: we won't be competitive. Students aren't going to want to
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: come here. By the way, it was actually the Washington
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: Post today. There are now 15 schools in the United
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: States where tuition, room and board, all that kind of stuff,
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: it adds up to more than $ 100, 000 per year. My
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: older one does not go to those 15. Last year,
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: by the way, it was $ 200, 000. So just kind of
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: an indication that even when people say, oh, inflation isn't
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: quite as bad, the rate of increase in tuition and
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: room and board and all the costs associated with higher
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: education has always gone up higher than the rate of inflation.
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: High inflation, like we had during the Biden years, particularly 2022,
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: does not do anything to mitigate those costs anyway.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: But when people say, oh, health care is too expensive.
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: OK, health care, again, is not free market economics by
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: any stretch of the imagination. When's the last time you
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: went in for any type of medical service and you
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: saw the prices listed? Generalist, well, the insurance company is paying.
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: I pay my premiums. Maybe I have a deductible. There's
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: no clarity in pricing. The one area where you do
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: have clarity in pricing is LASIK eye surgery, which is
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: because it's.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Not covered by most insurance plans.
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: So doctors compete for patients, and then they have to
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: list their prices and say, hey, I have lower prices
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: than the next guy. Housing, hey, the rent is too
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: darn high, as that famous gubernatorial candidate said.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: You go down the list.
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: If you had fewer regulations that allowed people to build
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: housing wherever they wanted, you would increase the supply of housing.
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: And all of a sudden, with a lot of different options,
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: there'd be competitions for prices and there'd be more.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: So every time somebody is.
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: Complaining about capitalism, they're usually complaining about a part of
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: the economy that is heavily regulated by the state. And
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: then you don't really have this free exchange and negotiation
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: of prices and things like that. Again, this is probably
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: not something that Jemele Hill wants to hear. But good
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: for seeing this on CNN in the 10 p.m. hour
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: for dozens of viewers. CNN is a fine, fine network.
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: And I might be on it later today.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: So as usual, the left is good at slogans.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: They're not very good at actually backing that up with
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: facts and history and good logic. But nonetheless, good for
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Camille Foster for laying that out and not taking the
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: bait for making headlines. her defend it, which of course
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: she couldn't. So good work all around.
• 7:45
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• 8:56
  Speaker 3: be back there for our chaser as well. But for
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: this one, this is a doozy. Just a couple of
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: weeks ago, the Democratic Attorney General in Michigan, Dana Nessel,
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: announced she is not going to the Democratic Convention. And why?
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: Because she doesn't feel safe there because she's Jewish and
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: there are just too many hostile faces and voices and
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: who knows what they would do at the Democratic Convention
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: there in Michigan. However, Yesterday, she gave a speech to
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: Jewish organizations in Michigan. And let's just say her tone
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: has oddly shifted here. I mean, she never actually said
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: don't vote for Abdul El-Sayed or anything like that. I mean,
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: she's a hardcore lefty. But this is a bizarre way
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: of telling Jewish people how to vote. This story is
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. And it says in her
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: own speech, because the main focus of the story is
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: on Abdul El-Sayed, seeming to apologize, but not really, about
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: his comments about the terrorist attack against the Jewish school
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: in Bloomfield. But in her own speech, it says, Nessel
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: acknowledged that Jews were being forced into a stark choice
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: thanks to members of her own party who seek the
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: destruction of Israel as a Jewish state and place the
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: Jewish diaspora in jeopardy. Yet the attorney general stressed that
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: the election was bigger than Israel and invoking Purim's Queen
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: Esther argument. urged Jewish voters to put their own feelings
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: of personal safety aside. Quote, we have a moral imperative
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: to place the needs of the world above even our
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: own self-interest and yes, even our own survival, she told
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: the crowd. Messel said that other societal concerns, climate change,
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: artificial intelligence, the threat of nuclear war, loom larger than
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: support for Israel alone and would worsen under continued GOP rule. Quote,
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: what is defending the historic homeland of our ancestors in
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: demanding that candidates acknowledge its right to exist if the
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: planet upon which it rests is no longer inhabitable. And
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: she said later to that news organization, JTA, I think
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: it's so easy for people to lash out at what
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: they perceive are direct attacks on their faith, on their
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: cultural beliefs, on their historical ancestry. It's very easy for
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: people to be mad and to say, I reject that.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: I just hope people will consider that there are many
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: other factors at play. So, Jim, first of all, she
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: completely misunderstands the story of Queen Esther, who worked to
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: save the Jewish people, a personal risk to herself. But nonetheless,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: no one was asking the entirety of the Jewish people
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: to sacrifice themselves here. But the idea that the democratic
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: agenda is more important than your survival, this is definitely
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: a bad martini, but there's a lot of crazy here, too.
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: I was going to say... It feels like, look, you know,
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: there's only going to be a certain number of lifeboats.
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: And some of you are not going to make the cut,
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: it appears. I'm glad you, because I saw a really
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: intense argument amongst Jewish leaders, theologians and commentators about whether
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: she was appropriately interpreting the Queen Esther one.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: And I, you know, I'm not Jewish. I won't get
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: into that. I'm just going to observe.
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: When you're saying to people, we have this political priority.
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: and it's more important to us than your survival, you
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: really can't be shocked that people are not quick to
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: sign on the dotted line. That's really not the sales
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: pitch that's going to work most effectively for you, particularly
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: if you are a Jewish Democratic leader saying to other
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: Jewish Democrats, for our agenda.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: To be enacted, we might have to die. No, no,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: that's not. I imagine this is the context of climate change, right? Now,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: here's the thing.
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: Greg, in the interest of bipartisanship, in the interest of
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: building bridges, I am willing to work with the environmentalists.
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: I would really love to see a direct action to
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: reduce the carbon emissions coming from Islamist terrorist groups. And
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: on that list, I will throw on the Iranian mullahs.
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: A lot of them have assumed room temperature and have
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: reduced and are no longer contributing to global warming. Drug cartels,
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: I don't know exactly how many carbon emissions are produced
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: by– I suppose– oh, no, their cocoa plants give off chlorophyll.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: They help the environment. They absorb it. So maybe they're
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: pro-cocaine and all that stuff.
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: There are some operatives of Russia, China, North Korea– Some
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: might say this is harsh, but if Kim Jong-un succumbing
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: to cholesterol is the kind of thing we need to
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: have happen to reduce carbon emissions, That's a sacrifice I'm
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: willing to make. And here's where Nessel's argument really gets ridiculous. Like,
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: as you mentioned, she was not willing to go to
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: the Democratic State Convention because she didn't feel safe there.
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: And I remember thinking, you're the state attorney general, right?
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: Your job is to enforce the laws. Your job is
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: to protect everybody else's rights. If you won't stand up
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: for your own rights, why should anyone trust you to
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: stand up for theirs? This is like almost the point
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: of self-parody. And I think there is this, I imagine
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: if you're a Jewish Democrat in Michigan, you're probably going
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: through some sort of identity crisis right now. You're probably
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: going through some sort of like, oh my God, my
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: party's gone nuts. They nominated a guy who not so
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: subtly hates me, who sees everything through the lens of Israel.
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: By the way, remember when they said young people didn't
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: care about foreign policy? Well, all of a sudden they
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: care in the sense of like Israel's the root of
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: all evil. But I think the obvious answer, look, if
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: I were a Jewish Democrat in the state of Michigan,
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: I'd be like, hmm, You know, Mike Rogers doesn't look
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: so bad right now. He's not some, you know, I
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: don't see Mike Rogers campaigning around with Nick Fuentes. OK,
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: like you don't like there is a real difference there
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: between the anti-Semites on the right, who I think are
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: appropriately or maybe even insufficient. I'd like to see even
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: more widespread condemnation. But you don't see Republican candidates running
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: around with their nut job folks. Hassan Piker, when Abdullah
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: Syed invited him to campaign with him on several college campuses,
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: and you still see anybody who's in a sufficiently safe
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: blue seat in the House is sitting down and doing
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: interviews with Hassan Piker.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: So it's like, again.
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: If your argument is some of us have to die,
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: you've lost the plot, particularly when you're a state attorney general.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Isn't that part of your duties there?
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: So, yeah.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: She's term limited. Am I correct, Greg? She is, yes.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Can't get rid of her soon enough. Yeah, exactly.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: We have a moral imperative. Imperative to place the needs
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: of the world... above even our own self-interest. If she
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: had stopped there, it would be a terrible argument. Why
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: would I vote for people who don't share my interests
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: and would not be promoting policies that are good for me?
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: But when you throw in even their own survival, you've
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: just completely lost the plot. Now, Rogers has two challenges here.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: One is to get people to move away from Syed.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: And then two is to take that extra step to
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: actually vote for him and make it really a two-vote
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: swing if they normally vote Democrat and then go for him.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: So The polls are still tight. Detroit Free Press just
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: had El-Sayed up. So even though this I think right
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: now Rogers is succeeding in making this campaign about El-Sayed
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: instead of El-Sayed succeeding and making it about Trump, it's
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: still going to be tough. And there's a long way
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: to go here.
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I was going to say, like, on the one hand,
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: I've heard people making the argument that the polling is
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: oversampling Democrats and you look at them and else, you know.
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: In fact, I recently heard the argument that if you're
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: a Democrat in Michigan, you may not want to admit
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: to a pollster. You're not going to vote for El-Sayed.
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: I hope that's the case. But if you're a Republican,
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: you cannot act on that assumption. You have to assume
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: that the polls are accurate and that you're behind and
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: campaign really hard.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: So good luck, Mike Rogers.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: All right, Jim.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: Next, the insanity that's happening not that far away from
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: us in Virginia. It's down in the Williamsburg area, which
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: is about two to two and a half hours away,
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: depending on traffic, sometimes three. But a mother of five
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: was convicted last week of contributing to the delinquency of
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: a minor. Her offense, this is according to Reason Magazine
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: or Reason.com, allowing her five-year-old son to walk about half
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: a mile by himself in their gated community. Until recently,
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Carrie Ann Parkinson lived in Leafy Williamsburg, Virginia. She and
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: her husband, Dallin, moved there from Utah so Parkinson could
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: attend William and Mary Law School. In June, when she
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: was preparing for the bar and also happened to be
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: eight months pregnant with her fifth child, she and her then-youngest, Sam,
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: went for a bike ride as they often do. They
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: stopped for her son's favorite activity, collecting goose feathers from
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: the path near their community pond. When they got home,
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: he asked if he could walk back and get some more.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Parkinson said, yes, it's a short walk along a sidewalk
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: separated from the street by 10 feet of grass. Sam
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: would have to cross two streets with crosswalks, which she'd
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: seen him do safely hundreds of times, including six times
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: that morning. Off he went. She made lunch. A passerby
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: saw Sam and alerted security. One of the community's security
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: guards escorted the boy back and gave Parkinson an earful.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Pretty soon there were three cop cars, just as many cops,
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: a security vehicle, and two child protective services workers at
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Parkinson's door. CPS ended up investigating her for abuse and neglect.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: The cops, meanwhile, charged her with contributing to the delinquency
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: of a minor. CPS found the allegations substantiated and placed
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Parkinson on the state's Child Abuse and Neglect Registry, where
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: she will remain for seven years. The ordeal reached its
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: nadir last week when a judge convicted Parkinson of the
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: delinquency of a minor charge of first-degree misdemeanor. This comes
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: with a six-month jail sentence. The judge did suspend that
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: pending good behavior in compliance with CBS's conditions. Parkinson assumes
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: this means she will not be able to volunteer in
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: her kids' schools, which might actually be a benefit, but
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: she fears it could also mean she will not get
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: her law license. And so, Jim, you know, we've had
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: five-year-old kids. Our kids are significantly older than that now.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: I would not probably let them walk alone half a
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: mile at five years old. But when we were growing up,
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: you know, our parents told us to go ride your bike,
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: hang out with your friends, especially in the summertime, be
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: back for dinner, that kind of thing. So I don't
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: necessarily agree with the decision she made, but the idea
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: that CPS and the cops had to get involved here,
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: this is way too much nanny state.
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: Three cars, three police cars responding to this, making me
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: suggest this is a quiet day in that community. Again,
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: I've been accused of being a Vulcan in my lack
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: of emotional response to news stories that are often hyped
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: in a way to generate this. I would like to
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: have asked the prosecutors, what was the delinquency? Because it's
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: contributing to the delinquency. How was this five-year-old harmed? How
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: are they delinquent? How are they going astray in society?
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: All they were doing was walking home, right? Now, I
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: think you and I would agree, five strikes us as
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: a little on the young side. And it's one of
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: those things where I think if you and I were
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: in law enforcement, why is this five-year-old kid?
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: You'd probably talk to the mom.
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: You might say to the mom, Hey, you know, five-year-old
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: is a bit young to have your kid walking around
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: the neighborhood unattended. You know, just be careful or something
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: like that. I've noticed in our often political debates, there
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: are two settings when someone.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Is accused of a crime. No one is above the law.
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: This is what you say when someone you don't like
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: has been accused of a crime and or is convicted.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Or this is a police state. This is a witch hunt.
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: This is, you know, clearly law enforcement and prosecutors are
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: being unreasonable in this. And the no one is above
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: the law kind of makes this argument that the law
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: must be applied. And if you break the law, if
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: you violate the law in any kind of circumstances, you
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: must face the full consequences of it. There can be
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: no recognition of any extenuating circumstances. There can be no
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: understanding of the context. The law must be applied, right? Now,
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: people say like, you know, if we have a speed limit,
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: it is conceivable that maybe I drive faster than the
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: posted speed limit. But there's a question when you get
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: pulled over, the cop has the opportunity to decide, is
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: this someone I want to write a ticket for or
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: can I let them off with a warning? Now, if
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: the cop is systemically saying, I'm going to write tickets
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: for everyone, but if it's a pretty girl, I'm going
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: to let her off with a warning. That does make
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: us feel a little bit like there's an inappropriate standard
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: being applied. If all of one race was getting one
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: treatment and all of another race was getting another treatment,
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: then you'd kind of say, okay, there's something in violation
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: of the spirit of the law going on here. But
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: we give cops discretion about whether or not they're going
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: to charge someone or let them off with a warning.
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: Prosecutors all the time get presented with cases and they
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: have to decide, is this a case that we can
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: convince a jury?
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: No.
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: Beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed here?
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: And can we sustain that conviction upon appeal? Or are
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: there evidence missing? Are there cases where the defendant is
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: very sympathetic? And let's say you're a president and your
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: testimony is just blatantly false in a whole bunch of ways,
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: but you're getting up into your 80s and the jury
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: is going to say, oh, this is a person with
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: memory issues, as was the case with Joe Biden. Prosecutors
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: are entirely reasonable to say, you know what? I think
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: a crime got committed here, but I have a real
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: tough time proving it or I can't prove it. And,
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: you know, the jury is going to be sympathetic to
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: the defendant. I'm not going to bring charges. In this case,
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: it is just very hard to believe that Carrie Ann
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: Parkinson is some sort of menace to society and that
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: she belongs on the child abuse registry list and that
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: she potentially doesn't get her law degree and all of
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: that stuff. Her five-year-old walked around the neighborhood alone. You know,
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: you and I could argue about the wisdom of this.
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: Kid was not hit by a car. Kid was not abducted.
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: Kid was not, you know, the kid did not go
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: on a terrible crime spree. The five-year-old did not rob
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: a liquor store. Again, I'm looking for that delinquency here
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: and I'm not seeing it. So this just seems utterly ridiculous. And,
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: you know, there are days I have my disagreements with
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: the libertarians. But Reason Magazine does a really good job
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: of spotlighting cases like this, of which, you know, the
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: police state has kind of.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Gone absolutely out of control.
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: Hopefully the attention will increase pressure for a better outcome
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: for her and her family, but just deeply frustrating on
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: multiple levels, Greg.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Just a good thing that geese aren't some protected species
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: or else the feathers would lead to some sort of
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: kicking down the door and raid of the house.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: The green police, the EPA, you know. That's exactly right.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: You know what I say when someone says we should
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: protect the geese? Boo hiss. Because by the way, geese
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: poop everywhere. Can we just observe that?
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: Every sporting field, every school ground, playground, geese, I feel
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: like they have this amazing capacity to generate waste.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: So almost like the federal government.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: All right, Jim, on to the chaser now. And Ryan Reynolds,
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: he is going to be in a new movie called
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Mayday on Apple TV. He stars as a U.S. Navy
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: pilot who builds a friendship with an eccentric ex-KGB agent
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: obsessed with 80s American culture. This according to Variety. And
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: so on the red carpet, Ryan Reynolds is asked about
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: that time of the 80s. And oh, the nostalgia has
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: blurred the lines of how awful it is. And just
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: like Dan Osborne, Ryan Reynolds can't keep the F-bomb out
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: of his comments.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: And the 80s was a.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Brutal, brutal time for people. It was a f *
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: * * ing mess.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: And, like, you know, people forget that it was, like,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: there was a tremendous strife, sociopolitical tensions everywhere. You know,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: we're still, like, pretty fresh off, like, a Cuban Missile Crisis,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: which is only, like, what, 15, 20 years before.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: So.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: You know, it's a tumultuous period. But you look back
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: at it now and you're like, oh, yeah, Top Gun, cocaine. Like, no,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: it was like a really scary.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, cocaine wasn't a good thing about the 80s. Ryan Reynolds,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: I think that tells us a little bit of a
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: window into your world. But, you know, the 80s had
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: its challenges, of course, Jim. The Soviets were still, you know,
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: pretty strong.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: There were terrorism.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: We had the Iranian hostage crisis bleeding into the early 80s.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: There were definitely challenges. But compared to the tumultuousness of
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: the 70s, the eight years of Ronald Reagan creating Morning
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: in America, the pub culture was awesome. The music was awesome.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: Like we said, there was so much freedom as a kid,
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: and none of it ended up on social media.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: It was awesome.
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: So I've enjoyed a great deal of Ryan Reynolds' work,
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: so I'm a little disappointed to hear this. I'd also
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: point out, though, that a lot of Hollywood celebrities, sometimes
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: they're very open about their politics.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they're Less outspoken.
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: I think up until now, Ryan Reynolds hasn't been particularly
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: outspoken in his political views. But I kind of noticed
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: that when you ask the question on the red carpet,
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: some celebrities are very good at deflecting and not taking
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: the bait.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Others, not so much.
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: But when Reynolds says this was a time of great
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: violence and great strife, we should point out that March 12th, 1988,
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: 2 a.m., someone kicked in a door at a home,
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: grabbed another man by the throat and punched him in
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: a dispute over a girlfriend. The perpetrator of that, of course,
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: was Troy Jackson, who we talked about in the previous martini.
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: And the woman in question that they were fighting over
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: was his cousin, And I understand the man who was
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: attacked was Ryan Reynolds. So all of a sudden this
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: all fits together. It makes sense that why Ryan Reynolds
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: would think of the 80s. But it was not Ryan Reynolds.
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: But the first two parts of that are true. Look,
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: you know, is a portion of the reason you and
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: I have such great nostalgia for the 80s. the fact
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: that we were kids and teens then. And yeah, like that,
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: you know, like you, you know, we didn't have to
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: pay mortgages then. We didn't, you know, like life was
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: simpler and easier other than like maybe bullies and stuff
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: like that. You know, was there probably, you know, um,
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: were there problems in the eighties?
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: You know, this was the era, as he mentions cocaine. Uh,
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: this was when, you know, cocaine was turning into crack.
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: This is when there was a much higher crime rates
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: compared to the, even with the COVID surge.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: The eighties had their problems. Um, but there was a reason.
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: The interesting thing is like you look back at the, the, uh,
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: The overwhelming tone in the pop culture of that era
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: was remarkably positive, was remarkably cheery, optimistic. I don't know
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: if you want to say there was a Reagan effect
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: or other things. Economic boom. Whatever it was that was
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: going on, Americans were feeling pretty good about themselves. And
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: I think it says something that you see this wave
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: of 80s nostalgia, Stranger Things, things like that. Kind of
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: this sense of like, I feel like there's a sense
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: that we have lost that.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: It was also.
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: with the internet coming along in the mid-90s or so,
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: it was one of the last eras of the monoculture.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: One of the last times.
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: Reagan was able to keep up with what was going
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: on because he was watching primetime television and saying, where's
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: the beef? Referring to different strokes. And Nancy Reagan was
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: able to do those things. Like being in tune with
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: the same thing that everybody else was watching was kind
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: of an interesting power that I think is just, you
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: can't do it because we no longer have the monoculture.
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: And everyone's watching a million things at once. This is
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: much longer than we usually do in our Chaser segment,
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: so I'll wrap it up. But there's a possibility we
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: could do some sort of like entirely 80s-focused episode of this,
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: just talking about the legacy of the 80s and why
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: Ronald Reynolds is not remembering it all that accurately.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: No. Well, he's from Canada, too. So keep in mind
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: the 80s in Canada might not.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Have been that great.
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: It was under Pierre Trudeau. Maybe it was a nightmarish,
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: terrible time back then.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, no doubt.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: But, you know, pop culture back then, you had movies
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: that were unabashedly anti-communist, and very much pro-American. You know,
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: you had high school kids, you know, Wolverines fending off
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: the Russian invasion in Red Dawn. You had Rocky single-handedly
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: starting the beginning of the end of the Cold War
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: by knocking out Ivan Drago. And of course, the Bears
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: were world champions right in the middle of the decade. So,
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, what's not to love?
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: Well, I was going to observe that, you know, you
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: could say, oh, well, if it's militarism and this excitement
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: of American, you know, aren't you learning to trust the state?
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: Aren't you just saying that the military industrial complex is
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: a good thing?
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: But, Greg, I'm going to observe that.
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: Let's say your father gets taken hostage in some generic
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: Middle Eastern country. Iron Eagle taught us that as long
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: as you have Louis Gossett Jr. as your mentor, you
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: can just steal a U.S. combat plane and do it yourself.
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: And that's the American spirit. We're not going to wait
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: for the government to save hostages. We're going to steal
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: planes and do it ourselves. It's individual responsibility. And that
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: was the message of the 1980s.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: That's the last call of the week for the Three
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: Martini Lunch. A reminder to please subscribe to the Three
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: Martini Lunch Monday through Friday and get your friends to
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: join us as well. We'd love to have them listening.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: Thanks also for your five-star ratings and your kind reviews.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Please keep those coming. They're a huge help to us.
• 29:03
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• 29:05
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• 29:08
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• 29:11
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• 29:17
  Speaker 3: us on Monday, Labor Day, for the next 3 Martini Lunch.