Latest / 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary / Virginia Paroles Soar, NYT's Israel Blunder, Dems Target Gunmakers | Last Call

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Virginia Paroles Soar, NYT's Israel Blunder, Dems Target Gunmakers | Last Call · 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch. Grab a stool next
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: to Greg Karambas of Radio America and Jim Garrity of
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: National Review.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Three martinis coming up.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: Welcome to the last call of the week for the
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Three Martini Lunch. This is our weekly recap of the
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: biggest stories of the week. In this edition, Virginia is
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: now granting parole to felons exponentially more under the new
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: Democratic governor than under her GOP predecessor. The New York
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Times is forced to make a correction after allowing a
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: bizarre comment about the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel to
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: be published. And Democrats in Illinois want to make gun
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: makers pay when firearms are used to kill or injure people.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: And in our Chaser of the Week, Mitch McConnell is
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: back in the Senate.
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: But is he really there?
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: But we begin with Democrats going easy on criminals yet again. Well,
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: as we inch closer to Election Day 2026, it's worth
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: reminding everyone again that elections have consequences. And we are
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: learning that the hard way here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Last year, of course, Abigail Spanberger, easily elected governor, a
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: lot of different factors for that. But unfortunately, she pretty
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: much went in the opposite direction of the successful policies
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: of former Governor Glenn Youngkin. And one of those is
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: when it comes to parole. We head over to ABC7,
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: local D.C.
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: Affiliate here.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: There's a big shakeup on the Virginia Parole Board, which
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: is impacting victims and families. This year, Governor Spanberger appointed
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: all new members to the Virginia Parole Board, which decides
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: if Virginia's most dangerous criminals get parole or serve the
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: rest of their sentence behind bars. Inmates being granted parole
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: was virtually nonexistent under former Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin. Around
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: 1% of inmates were granted parole during Youngkin's parole board's tenure.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: So far, Spanberger's parole board has approved around 10% of
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: parole requests, which means that's 10 times more than the
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: previous parole board. And they highlight a family here where
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: a woman was killed back in 1998, second degree murder.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Her family begged the state or the Commonwealth, whatever you
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: want to say, to keep this killer locked up. No, no,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: he's totally rehabilitated. Makes you think of Shawshank Redemption where
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Morgan Freeman's like, no threat to society here. Yeah, yeah,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: totally rehabilitated. I can tell you I'm a changed man.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Now in the movie, he didn't get paroled when he
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: said that, but apparently it works in Virginia.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: So Greg, as of April... Governor Abigail Spanberger had a
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: 47% approval rating with 46% of voters disapproving. We're basically
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: about evenly split. And traditionally, Virginians have, you know, they're
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: pretty generous in their assessment of their governors. This was
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: the lowest of any, you know, the low of any,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: you know, new governor. And everyone had kind of observed, wow,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: this is like, that's, this is talk about, you know,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: botching your honeymoon or your first couple months in office.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: This was during the Big, are we going to redistricting
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: referendum that eventually got struck down by the state Supreme Court.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Spanberger has said she didn't support redistricting, then turned around
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: and became an enthusiastic cheerleader for it. So there was some,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: there was also another poll that said it had rebounded
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: up to 50, uh, like 57% or, you know, like
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: significantly better. Uh, but now there's a new one from Virginia, uh,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Commonwealth university that has her, uh, again, 44% approving 47%
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: disapproving indicating that she is underwater. Not exactly a mystery
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: of why she would be underwater or have a significantly
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: lower approval rating. One is that she ran, as this moderate,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: she ran on focusing on cost of living. Now, we
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: should point out, governors have a limited ability to influence
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: the cost of living in their state. They could lower taxes.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: There's no indication she wants to do that. In fact,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: she has rejoined a regional electricity compact with other states
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: that puts more pressure on using non-greenhouse gas emitting renewable energy,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: which makes electricity rates go higher. Hey, Greg, was it
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: a hot summer?
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: Yes, it was.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: People use air conditioning, we discussed with our last sponsor.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: So she's done nothing on that point. And then, of course,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: there's the, as I mentioned, the redistricting referendum. But now this,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking back to that, you know, look, and we
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: kind of knew Spanberger was likely to win the entire time.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: We had a very flawed Republican candidate there. I don't
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: remember her running ads on how she's going to increase
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: the number of violent offenders back on the streets. In fact,
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: a lot of her ads, she was a tough, she'd
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: worked in the CIA. She'd worked as a postal inspector.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: She'd been a federal agent. It was all about her
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: being tough on crime. And now all of a sudden
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: we're putting more violent criminals. Oh, wait, what? Like, again,
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: who were the Virginians who were saying, There are too
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: many violent criminals who are behind bars for too long.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Too many violent criminals are not walking our streets freely
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: the way they should be. Again, you and I are
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: very skeptical of any claim of the status of a
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: moderate Democrat. As I have emphasized many times, a Democrat
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: is described as moderate. They mean the tone of voice.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: They mean the speaking tone. It doesn't pound the table
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: a lot. It has nothing to do with their ideological position.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Spanberger is another left liberal progressive Democrat, and the policies
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: coming out of her administration are completely consistent with that. Depressing, frustrating,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: but very predictable.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you what else is predictable. One of those
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  Speaker 3: in Florida. This week, the New York Times was doing
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: some damage control after a strange line in a story
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: about the 10-7 terrorist.
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: Attacks in Israel.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: Jim, we'll start with the New York Times with Yet
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: another mea culpa that, of course, always goes in the
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: same direction. Something that they messed up on their editorial
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: page or something that they messed up in the editing.
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: Process for a specific story.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, the biggest ridiculousness we've seen from the New
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: York Times was probably the whole furor and resignation and
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: protest over Tom Cotton's op-ed back there in 2020.
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: But I got another doozy today as.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: The New York Times was reporting about the reaction in
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: Israel about a new documentary there. And it relates to
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: the 10-7 terrorist attacks by Hamas. And this is the
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: paragraph that's got a lot of people up in arms,
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: rightfully so. And hat tip to your colleague at National Review,
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Philip Klein, for flagging this. Here's the paragraph in the
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: original story. Israelis are deeply divided over how to apportion
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: blame for the policy, military, and intelligence failures that preceded
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: the attack and the war. And here's the sentence. But
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: Israelis still largely view themselves as the victim of October 7th.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: The militants' attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel and
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: about 250 more were taken hostage. And so, Jim, I
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: don't know how else you would interpret what happened on
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: October 7th, 2023, then the Israelis were the victims of
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: all these Hamas terrorists coming across the border and slaughtering
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: people in the most barbaric way possible and taking others
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: hostage and treating them unspeakably horribly, some of them for
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: a very long time. So once again, the New York
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Times is finding itself having to make a correction here
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: for something that should have been caught well before it
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: got published. The New York Times Communications over on X says,
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: we have added the following editor's note to our recent
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: coverage of the Israeli government's reaction to the NAZA, or N-A-Z-A, documentary. Quote,
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: because of an editing error, an earlier version of this
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: article included a statement that was intended to convey Israelis'
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: perception of the government's military response to the October 7th
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: terror attack in relation to the attacks, but inadvertently suggested
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: that Israelis' experience as terror victims was a matter of perception.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: It has been removed from the article.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: So, Jim, not a complete shock that this got through
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: the editors at the New York Times. And I guess
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: a editor's note buried at the end is better than nothing.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: But if you were playing fair here, this never would
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: have made it out in the first place.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Greg, way back in the days of the blogosphere, to
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: the bloggers taking on Dan Rather, the Pajama Hadeen, this
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: is back in 2004. The argument you heard from a
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: lot of mainstream media figures, particularly left of center mainstream
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: media figures who perceived the blogosphere as being largely right
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: of center, was that the mainstream media was better because
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: it had layers and layers of fact-checkers. And boy, whoever
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: said that, do they regret that phrase. Because every time
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: the mainstream media makes a big glaring mistake, most of
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: us would put, oh, where are your layers and layers
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: of fact-checkers? Now, by the way, there are some publications
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: that do put a lot of effort into that. Apparently,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: The New Yorker used to be famous for it. Less
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: tough on this than they used to be. Didn't... notice that,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: you know, a whole bunch of stuff about Graham Platner.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: But they did. I don't know if they had layers
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: and layers of fact-checkers on the idea that he was
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: a military history buff who just never noticed that his
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: symbol on his chest was the symbol of the Nazis.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: Fine, whatever.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: The SS. But I'm thinking also in particular of the example,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: every conservative I know who has written for the New
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: York Times op-ed page. says that everything they say, there's like,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: do you have a source for that? Can you put
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: a link to where you get that figure? Nothing is
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: taken at face value. And they feel like it's a
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: little bit like a proctological visit. Everything gets checked, including
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: the words and, the, and but, and if, and.
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: Stuff like that.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: But on the one hand, if that's your standard, great.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: But they've long suspected that left of center op-ed contributors
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: do not get subjected to the same scrutiny. I think
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: with sentences like this, where in these, if not layers
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: and layers of fact checkers and layers and layers of editors,
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: that sentence never read weird to them. That nobody was like, well,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: wasn't it obvious that these Israelis would think of themselves
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: as the victims of the 10-7 attacks?
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, they were the.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Victims, ergo, they would think of themselves that way. This
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: is not the Loch Ness Monster. This is not an
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: impenetrable mystery of why the Israelis would feel this way.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: And you could even put the comma, Israelis, comma, understandably, comma,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: see themselves as the victims of the 10-7 attacks. And
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: if you want to get into how the Israelis responded
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: after that and whether there'd been too much punishment of
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: the Gaza Strip, okay, fine, you can get into that.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: But recognize that there's a reason they feel this way. Apparently,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: this got through every single editor. As my colleague Phil
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Klein observes, it's very hard to believe that's an accident.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: It's very hard to believe that they're, you know, like,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: this is your job to read the submissions of the
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: op-ed and go through it. And not just for fact-checking,
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: but also, like, is this a quality argument? Is this
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: a clear argument? Is this a persuasive argument? And I
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: just kind of don't see that... It's very hard to
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: believe that everybody on their job was just really bad
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: at their job that day or that they didn't on
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: some level agree that the Israelis make too much of 10-7.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: They're always posing as victims when they have done all
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: kinds of terrible things to Hamas and Hezbollah and the Palestinians, blah, blah, blah.
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's right.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: There's certain people who just see Israel because they're more
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: powerful as the oppressor, no matter what the situation is,
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: even them. being attacked and losing over a thousand of
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: their citizens. And like you said, there's kind of a
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: double standard in how the New York Times in particular,
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: but I think this is true in other media outlets
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: as well, they demand absolute verification for everything, someone leaning right.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: will submit, but on the left, it's not the same
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: because when they do issue corrections, there's not a lot
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: of New York Times or CNN or MSNBC or whatever saying,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: you know what, this story that was favorable to the right,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: we just didn't get right. It actually wasn't as nice
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: to the right as we thought. It's always, it's always,
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: the errors are always, you know, denigrating the right or
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: in this case, Israel or, you know, it's the mistakes
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: always seem to go one way.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say Sarah Palin did not
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: ultimately succeed in her libel suit against the New York Times,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: but there had been an editorial. And by the way,
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: for those wondering, you look at most newspaper op-ed pages,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: the house editorials that don't have a signature or don't
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: have a name attached to them, that is the editorial
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: board of the newspaper or publication itself saying, this is
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: what we, our editorial board as a staff believes, right?
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Then usually you have your letters to the editor and
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: then you have usually the op-ed columns on the other
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: side of the page. There was a House editorial with
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: the New York Times that said the shooter of Gabby
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Giffords was motivated by a map on her Facebook, on
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Sarah Palin's Facebook page. That was not the case. The
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: shooter of Gabby Giffords was a cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: lunatic who believed paranoid schizophrenic, who believed that punctuation was
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: part of how the government was controlling people and stuff
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: like that. And they never established any of that. There
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: had been something that looked like crosshairs or a bullseye
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: on her Facebook page, but nobody ever linked that And
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I think what's fascinating is that everybody in the New
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: York Times remembered the controversy about, oh, did Sarah Palin
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: motivate this guy? None of them remembered the fact that
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: they didn't and nobody went back to check. And so
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: it just ended up as this assertion in one of
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: their editorials. She filed suit against it, won her first
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: couple of rounds, ultimately did not win. It's very hard
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: to prove libel or slander in the U.S. And as
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: a reporter, that's generally good news. But if it's the
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: government media talking about you, I understand why people feel
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: that way. Generally, you have to prove actual malice or
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: reckless disregard. Now, this to me felt like reckless disregard,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: but apparently the judge felt differently.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: In our profile of Jim Garrity, the line about him
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: walking around the neighborhood kicking puppies turns out not to
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: be true. We regret the error and we have taken
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: it out of the original story. Just Cujo.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Just one.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: Maybe a couple of Patriot fans, but other than that,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: it's not a problem.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 14:57
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  Speaker 3: that most Democrats hate guns and look to restrict our
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: gun rights as often as they can. This week, guest
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: host Scott Bertram of Hillsdale College and I discuss the
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  Speaker 3: latest left-wing attempt in this direction, this.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: Time in Illinois.
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  Speaker 3: All right, Scott, on to your home state of Illinois, which,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: of course, is always pursuing far-left legislation because the Democrats
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: control everything. And the Chicago Sun-Times reporting a first-of-its-kind state
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: law would force gun manufacturers to pay for a portion
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: of the financial toll of gun violence in Illinois. Gun
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: violence costs the state about $ 20 billion annually, according to
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: estimates based on data from the U.S. Centers for Disease
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Control and Prevention. That figure includes direct costs like emergency services,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: medical care, law enforcement resources, and funeral expenses. It also
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: includes indirect costs like mental health treatment, loss of income,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: and child care. This bill is the RIFLE Act, the
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Responsibility in Firearms Legislation. They couldn't come up with an
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: E word, so RIFLE is misspelled in this acronym. Everybody's
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: got to have an acronym now. Plus legislation and act
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: are the same thing. But anyway, the argument here is
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: that from the sponsor is, well, when cars are defective
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: and they lead to accidents, they can get sued. When
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: pharmaceutical companies have a bad product and people die, they
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: can get sued. Same thing should go for guns and Scott,
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: I'm listening to this and I'm like, well, the guns
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: aren't malfunctioning. They're just in the hands of evil people.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: So I'm not sure the logic coming here. But of course,
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: it's much easier to sue gun companies than it is
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: to crack down on crime in Chicago and elsewhere in
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: the state.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: And look, Illinois is broke. Illinois has no money. Illinois
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: wants to have money to spend on these far left
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: daydreams of both Governor J.B. Pritzker and the legislators in Springfield.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: So just take this as the equivalent of that guy
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: in the corner with the pencil and the cup, trying
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: to find some money from some sucker somewhere who's going
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: to help him out, or a nice slip and fall lawsuit.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Oh goodness, it was icy, and it's your fault, and
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: you've got to pay me because I need money. This
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: is what Illinois is doing with ideas like this. You
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: rightly point out, when a car is defective, the automaker pays. Sure,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: but that's not the comparison to make here. Because the
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: gun is not defective. The person using the gun is
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: defective in these situations. And so this, you know, we
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: don't ask automakers to pay when cars are used in
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: terror attacks. Like in Michigan, where I live now, we
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: had the attack on Jewish school children where the guy
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: took his car and rammed it into the building back
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: in March. This Hezbollah terror attack, Hezbollah connected terror attack.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: No one's saying, well, the car manufacturer should pay. No,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: because the guy was defective. The terrorist decided to use
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: the product in a way that was not designed to
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: be used. You don't design a car just so it
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: can be ran into a building to try to kill
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Jewish children. Later in the story, Greg, this is my
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: favorite part, and it sometimes, of course, buries it way
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: at the end. The law would require the state's law
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: enforcement agencies to provide the Illinois State Police with the
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: name and manufacturer of firearms recovered from shootings, which would
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: include homicides, suicides, non-fatal injuries, and unintentional shootings. So we're
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: not talking about only murders. We're not talking about only suicides.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Any shooting where a gun is recovered would be added
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: to the list. And then the gun maker would make
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: an annual payment to the state treasury fund to support
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: victims and violence prevention efforts. The amount a manufacturer pays
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: is proportionate to how many of its guns are tied
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: to shootings in the state. So again, it's not just
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: about murders. It's not just about anything like that.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: It's any shooting.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Anywhere in any category that puts you on a list
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: and then send you a bill later on to the
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Illinois Treasury Department.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the ultimate goal here, of course, is
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: to put gun makers out of business. It's not some
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: sort of, you know, deep responsibility situation here. They want
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: to put gun makers out of business because they hate
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: the Second Amendment. If they can't put them out of business,
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: they're going to sue them for so much that the
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: prices of guns are going to be out of reach
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: for many people who would otherwise have firearms for self-defense.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: So that's their ultimate goal here, cloaked in the very
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: thin veneer of responsibility for all these homicides, suicides.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: And whatever.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: And again, not going toward... or not going after the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: source of the violence, meaning not cracking down on crime,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: not trying to find those shooters, but after the fact,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: assigning blame to the manufacturer of a gun, perhaps used
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: in a shooting. It's a backwards way of trying to
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: address the problem that Illinois faces in some of its
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: larger cities.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: And we're going to talk about how cracking down on
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: crime actually works a little bit later in the podcast.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: So stay tuned for that. I'm sure that'll shock you.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: That getting tough on crime actually works. But in the meantime,
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: we have talked about fast-growing trees before on 3 Martini Lunch,
• 21:00
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• 21:04
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• 21:08
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• 21:11
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• 21:15
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• 21:18
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• 21:21
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• 21:25
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• 21:28
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• 21:30
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• 21:34
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• 21:37
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• 22:12
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• 22:21
  Speaker 3: and our chaser, Mitch McConnell back on Capitol Hill. We
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: saw him but didn't hear him on, I guess it
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: was Monday when he first came back to the Senate. Yesterday,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: he was in a markup for the farm bill and
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: they're going through all the votes. And I'm going to
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: play the whole clip, even though you're going to hear
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: a lot of other people voting, because it starts with
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: all the Democrats and they're all voting no. And then
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: because I think McConnell's the senior member of the committee,
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: he gets to vote first for the Republicans.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: And so he isn't quite sure how to vote.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it's because of all the Democrats
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: that came before him or he's just not quite sure
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: what's going on here, but it took two senators and
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: an aide to get him to vote the way they
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: thought he wanted to vote.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: Senator Fetterman.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: No.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: Senator Schiff. No by proxy. Senator Slotkin.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: No by proxy.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: Senator McConnell. No.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: No.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: Senator McConnell.
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: All right. All right. So there you go.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: It took Senator Hovind, Senator Bozeman from Arkansas and an
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: aide peeking in there to no, no, you want to
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: vote aye for the for this on the markup. So, Jim,
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: we said it on Tuesday. You know, it's just probably
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: a few more days. They're going to be in session
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: before the election.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: And.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: Still, the fact that we were kept in the dark,
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: I think we know now why we were kept in
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: the dark. His condition was not good. And at the
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: same time, Andy Beshear decided to make the story about himself.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: And so the Republicans are probably trying to fend him
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: off as well. But man, this is not a good look.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, Mitch, get that man some cocaine. Look, we all
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: kind of suspected he was in rough shape. That's really
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: depressing to see. It certainly seems like he's going to
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: remain in that office until January 3rd when the new
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: senators gets sworn in. Certainly sounds like you quietly said no.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: He did at first.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Before having to be prompted by others, no, you want
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: to vote yes on this. Look, in all likelihood, he
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: probably could have and should have resigned. I think we
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: saw him freezing up on camera a couple of times.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: That probably wouldn't have been a— and by the way, under
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Kentucky law, he's required to be replaced by somebody of
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: the same party. So it's not like, oh, he had
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: to stay in office because otherwise Beshear would have appointed
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: a Democrat or something like that. And a really sad
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: end to one of the most distinguished careers in Republican
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: politics in the Senate. And again, we saw this with
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Dianne Feinstein. We saw this with other senators who have
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: stayed way past their sell-by date, so to speak. These
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: people should be able to enjoy retirement. And, you know,
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: you really hate to see it. I guess he'll be
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: able to function between now and January. But there's still
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: going to be votes after the election. And it's just
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: not good to see the continuing rule of America's gerontocracy.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: I don't know how well he's going to be functioning.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: He's going to have staff, basically, I think, telling him
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: what to do here, unfortunately. Bashir's been weird about this, though.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: In the Constitution, it says the governor has the power,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: the state constitution has the power, to make the appointment.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Federal Constitution says that too. But then the Republicans passed
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: a law, not a constitutional provision, that said it had
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: to be a Republican. And Beshear has not only suggested
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: he's willing to just barge in and nominate a replacement,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: whether McConnell resigns or not, but that he wouldn't necessarily
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: have to follow that law because the Constitution doesn't say that.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: As the chief law enforcement officer of Kentucky, I think
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: he's on pretty thin ice there. And that's probably another
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: reason why this is happening. but uh it's just it's
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: just not good.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: I've decided that i just don't want to follow that
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: law so i'm not going like you know no doesn't
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: really work that way plus the thing like now what
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: you traditionally would do in a circumstance like that is
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: that a governor would find all right who's the most
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: liberal republican i can find in the state of uh
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: uh you know in the state of kentucky and you
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: know who's our arlen specter who's our charlie christ who
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: we can put into that seat but uh Looks like
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: we won't have that problem. It'd be nicer if everybody
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: could just kind of say, OK, state law requires another Republican.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: You find another Republican and everybody say the state is
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: able to have two fully functioning senators. Too much to ask, apparently.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: That's the last call of the week for the Three
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: Martini Lunch. Please subscribe to the Three Martini Lunch Monday
• 26:31
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• 26:34
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• 26:36
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• 26:39
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• 26:41
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• 26:44
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• 26:48
  Speaker 3: us on Monday for the next 3 Martini Lunch.