Latest / Brian Thomas / Judge Napolitano

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Judge Napolitano · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: 830 at 55 KRC, the talk station. Happy Wednesday. Extra
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  Speaker 1: special always at this time on a Wednesday because we
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  Speaker 1: get to hear from Judge Andrew Napolitano. Welcome back, Judge Napolitano.
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  Speaker 1: It's great to see you. I get to see you anyway.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, hear your voice. Good to have you back
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  Speaker 1: on the show. Thank you, Brian.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning. Always a pleasure, my friend.
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  Speaker 1: And I... Okay, so... I read your column, and it's good.
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  Speaker 1: It's a little depressing, I have to admit. But you
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  Speaker 1: didn't intend it to be uplifting. It's a warning to everybody.
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  Speaker 1: Our failed Constitution, a great historical analysis of all the
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  Speaker 1: times those in elected capacity have pretty much torched some
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  Speaker 1: element of the Constitution in the United States. And you
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  Speaker 1: conclude with, well, we need to do something about it.
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  Speaker 1: Liberty survives only when the governed insists that the government
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  Speaker 1: remain within its constitutional limits. If it won't, we must
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  Speaker 1: alter or abolish it.
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  Speaker 2: That is not me. That is Thomas Jefferson in the
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  Speaker 2: Declaration of Independence, almost word for word.
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  Speaker 1: Indeed. Are we at that time, considering the ongoing, multiple
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  Speaker 1: across administrations, abuse of the Constitution, going all the way
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  Speaker 1: back to the Alien Sedition Act back in 1798, criminalizing
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  Speaker 1: criticism of government officials? Yes, we live in a country
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  Speaker 1: that has a Constitution that actually had the Alien Sedition Act.
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  Speaker 2: Well, we're certainly at a time where we have to
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  Speaker 2: alter the government so that there is no incentive for
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  Speaker 2: government officials to violate the Constitution. Whether we abolish the government,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, both of these things cannot happen overnight. I'm
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  Speaker 2: not talking about violence. I'm talking about amending the Constitution.
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  Speaker 2: That is an enormous uphill path. But something needs to
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  Speaker 2: be done because the Constitution has just been abandoned. It
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  Speaker 2: just doesn't restrain the government anymore from wars to spying
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  Speaker 2: to suppression of speech to creation of debt to the massive,
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  Speaker 2: massive spying on all of us now to a president
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  Speaker 2: imposing his own taxes, which he calls tariffs, all these.
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  Speaker 2: They're doing so even in the defiance of the Supreme Court.
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  Speaker 1: Where is all of this?
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  Speaker 2: Going to lead us indeed right now we are no
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  Speaker 2: longer a republic we are a failing bankrupt empire 800
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  Speaker 2: 850 military and intelligence installations around the world a budget
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  Speaker 2: to support this of several trillion dollars i'm combining intelligence
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  Speaker 2: and uh and military and a congress that's a phrase
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  Speaker 2: afraid to say no well.
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  Speaker 1: Any failing social welfare state they spent us into oblivion
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  Speaker 1: with the overspending and running the printing press to in
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  Speaker 1: support of you name it. And every one of these
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  Speaker 1: failures and every one of these erosions of our freedoms
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  Speaker 1: and liberties and digging us further into is further into
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  Speaker 1: a hole monetarily is always based on something. Oh my God,
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  Speaker 1: we've got to fix this problem. And who's better in
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  Speaker 1: the position to fix this than we, the federal government,
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  Speaker 1: there's starvation in the world. We need to create a
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  Speaker 1: social welfare program. There's evil people in the world. We
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  Speaker 1: need a giant military to fend them off, keep everybody afraid.
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  Speaker 1: And they keep funding it. I, this is, But I
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  Speaker 1: guess ultimately we get to the point where let's magically
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  Speaker 1: wave our wand, Judge Annapolitano, you and I, and come
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  Speaker 1: up with a document that we start over with that
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  Speaker 1: you and I can find acceptable. But then we end
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  Speaker 1: up placing it in the hands of these people who
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  Speaker 1: will then use the crisis of the moment to ignore
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  Speaker 1: it like they've done with our current document.
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  Speaker 2: Well, two of the problems are the creation of the
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  Speaker 2: administrative state in the Wilson era and the creation of
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  Speaker 2: the security state, sometimes called the deep state. in the
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  Speaker 2: Harry Truman era. I'm not a fan of Truman at all,
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  Speaker 2: but to his credit, shortly before he died, he denounced
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  Speaker 2: the CIA and said, this is not what I created.
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  Speaker 2: These people have become a private army. They're overthrowing governments.
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  Speaker 2: The CIA that I created was intended to spy on
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  Speaker 2: foreign governments, not on Americans. So we have two permanent
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  Speaker 2: parts of the American government. I have called them the
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  Speaker 2: fourth and fifth branches, which are not transparent. They don't
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  Speaker 2: answer to anybody, and they have the ability to threaten
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  Speaker 2: Congress into continuing to fund them, especially the security state
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  Speaker 2: or the deep state. Those two states have to be eradicated.
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  Speaker 2: That saves the government trillions a year, and it liberates
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  Speaker 2: members of Congress from being terrified by the intelligence community.
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  Speaker 2: The intelligence authorities come up for reauthorization every three or
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  Speaker 2: four years, and every time it looks like they're going
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  Speaker 2: to be clipped, members of Congress are paid visits by
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  Speaker 2: members of the intelligence community, and they suddenly change their minds. Gee,
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  Speaker 2: I wonder what happens in those private visits. That type
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  Speaker 2: of stuff has to stop. When government operates in secret, Brian,
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  Speaker 2: who is running the government?
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  Speaker 1: Amen, brother. It's a rhetorical question. Contemplate it yourself, listening audience.
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  Speaker 1: All right, real quick here, First Amendment, free exercise of religion,
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  Speaker 1: freedom of assembly. We all enjoy it. We all love it.
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  Speaker 1: You and I are big fans of it. The more
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  Speaker 1: speech you have, the more enlightened we become, the better
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  Speaker 1: we can come up with solutions to our problems. What
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  Speaker 1: of speech that threatens the existence of the United States
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  Speaker 1: of America? We've had these conversations before, like the McCarthy era. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: my God, commies are talking about communism. That's the antithesis
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  Speaker 1: of capitalism in the United States of America. They need
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  Speaker 1: to be dealt with. I don't know that we necessarily
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  Speaker 1: lock them up. We, of course, ostracize them, which is
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  Speaker 1: still possible to do here. But what of, and see,
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  Speaker 1: communism doesn't involve religion. It's a political philosophy, so it
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  Speaker 1: doesn't fall into that free exercise part. What happens when
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  Speaker 1: a religious organization or certain segments of a religion specifically
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  Speaker 1: are dedicated and committed to overthrowing the government and engage
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  Speaker 1: in actions in furtherance toward government overthrow? Violence, destruction of property,
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  Speaker 1: threats to individuals. There's got to be some point at which,
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  Speaker 1: wait a second, there is a threat living here in
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  Speaker 1: our backyard. And while they are protected by religious freedoms
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  Speaker 1: and they are protected by the freedom of assembly, they've
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  Speaker 1: crossed the line. Go ahead.
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  Speaker 2: The Supreme Court has ruled that a claim to religious
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  Speaker 2: freedom cannot trump, no pun intended, this was long before
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  Speaker 2: he was on the scene, cannot trump the enforcement of
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  Speaker 2: the ordinary criminal law. So a person can't burn down
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  Speaker 2: a government building and say, my religion compelled me to
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  Speaker 2: do it, or my religion authorizes it. That's absurd, and
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  Speaker 2: the courts are very clear. In terms of threats, there
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  Speaker 2: must be a present apparent ability to carry out the threat.
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  Speaker 2: So if Hillary Clinton is giving a speech a bunch
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  Speaker 2: of people show up with pitchforks and say, there she is,
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  Speaker 2: let's get her. They have the present apparent ability to
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  Speaker 2: harm her. That speech is prosecutable. But if the speaker
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  Speaker 2: is a thousand miles away, the speech is not prosecutable
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  Speaker 2: because there is no present apparent ability for the command
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  Speaker 2: of the speaker to come about. That's pretty much the
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  Speaker 2: Brandenburg case. Brandenburg, with which you're familiar, took place in
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  Speaker 2: Hamilton County, Ohio. Not on your watch or mine. That's
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  Speaker 2: a long time ago. The case is 1969. The events
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  Speaker 2: are about five or six years before that. Brandenburg is
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  Speaker 2: an effort to protect as much speech as is humanly possible,
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  Speaker 2: but not speech which actually causes violence. So God forbid
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  Speaker 2: we had in Washington, D.C., what's going on in Paris,
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  Speaker 2: even as we speak, and there are people in the
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  Speaker 2: midst of the crowd encouraging it, those people can be
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  Speaker 2: prosecuted for that speech. And if you don't know what's
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  Speaker 2: going on in Paris, just turn your television on.
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  Speaker 1: It's burning. Yeah, I'm a little worried about it. We
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  Speaker 1: seem to be only about one step behind Paris in
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  Speaker 1: terms of how far they've gone. But if you are coordinating...
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  Speaker 1: Let's go back to the religious organization. There is a religion.
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  Speaker 1: It's got a place of worship. They are indoctrinating their
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  Speaker 1: people to hate and detest the United States of America.
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  Speaker 1: There are a whole lot of organizations out there that
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  Speaker 1: feel that way. Look at all the different organizations that
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  Speaker 1: have showed up to protest the French government, right? You
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  Speaker 1: can get a whole bunch of people together. If you
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  Speaker 1: are coordinating efforts to engage in criminal activity, you don't
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  Speaker 1: have to actually engage in the criminal activity under RICO,
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  Speaker 1: for example. It's just efforts in furtherance of criminal activity.
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  Speaker 1: So while they aren't personally involved in the crime, the
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  Speaker 1: destructive activity, they're working with others to have it come about.
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  Speaker 1: That is prosecutable, is it not?
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  Speaker 2: Generally, yes. I mean, it would depend if the person
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  Speaker 2: is on the sidelines cheering or actually, to use your word, coordinating,
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  Speaker 2: facilitating the flow of cash or the movement of weapons
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  Speaker 2: or the movement of people into the crime scene. Those
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  Speaker 2: are pretty basic criminal law questions and the masking the
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  Speaker 2: defense in the First Amendment doesn't work.
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  Speaker 1: Just needed to hear it from the master, Judge Anna Napolitano,
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  Speaker 1: Professor Napolitano.
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  Speaker 2: It hasn't been that in a while, but I do
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  Speaker 2: miss those days. It's very gratifying to see some of
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  Speaker 2: one's former students become state and federal prosecutors and judges.
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  Speaker 1: So I have that joy. I imagine it is. And
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  Speaker 1: there's a couple of very influential professors and teachers in
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  Speaker 1: my life, and I occasionally give them out loud credit
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  Speaker 1: for being so influential. Judge Annapolitano, Judging Freedom is the podcast.
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  Speaker 1: You're regular folks on the program today.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, Professor Morandi from Tehran, who always was an American,
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  Speaker 2: who always gives us the inside look as to how
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  Speaker 2: the Iranian people are viewing what's happening. Professor Glenn Deason
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  Speaker 2: from Norway, why is Europe burning? And Phil Giraldi, the
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  Speaker 2: ex-CIA agent, warning, what will happen when the relationship between
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  Speaker 2: Israel and the United States evaporates, which is what the
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  Speaker 2: Israelis expect to happen soon?
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  Speaker 1: Judge Annapolitano, we'll talk to you next Wednesday here on
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  Speaker 1: the 55KRC Morning Show. Thanks, as always, for your willingness
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  Speaker 1: to engage in these talks with us. I appreciate getting
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  Speaker 1: the column early. I'll tell my listeners to look out
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  Speaker 1: for it. Our failed Constitution comes out at midnight.