Latest / 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary / 1619 Project Creator’s School Experiment For Her Daughter Backfired

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1619 Project Creator’s School Experiment For Her Daughter Backfired · 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.
0:04
Speaker 2: Grab a stool next to Greg Karambas of Radio America
0:07
Speaker 2: and Jim Garrity of National Review. Three Martini's coming up.
0:13
Speaker 3: So glad you're with us for the Monday edition of
0:15
Speaker 3: the Three Martini Lunch. And Jim, you know, sometimes you
0:20
Speaker 3: got to be somewhat happy when someone really far on
0:23
Speaker 3: the left gets a dose of reality. But at the
0:25
Speaker 3: same time, they don't really learn the lesson that they
0:28
Speaker 3: should have learned from the whole situation. Well, that's what
0:30
Speaker 3: we got yesterday in the New York Times Magazine from
0:34
Speaker 3: Nicole Hannah-Jones. She, of course, is infamously the author of
0:38
Speaker 3: the 1619 Project and, you know, the whole assertion that
0:43
Speaker 3: slavery is the founding element of this country and it
0:46
Speaker 3: still infiltrates everything we ever do. Uh, she's, she's been
0:49
Speaker 3: full of nonsense for a long time, but, uh, it
0:52
Speaker 3: turns out she believes her own nonsense or at least
0:54
Speaker 3: it for a long time. Uh, and when it comes
0:57
Speaker 3: to her own daughter's education, uh, this is the New
1:00
Speaker 3: York post version of the story. The writer behind the
1:03
Speaker 3: New York times controversial 1619 project deliberately sent her daughter
1:06
Speaker 3: to poor big Apple schools as a sacrifice, quote unquote,
1:10
Speaker 3: to try to boost the education system. And no one
1:13
Speaker 3: is angrier than the kid. The teen is now boiling mad,
1:17
Speaker 3: badly behind her peers after finally being allowed to enroll
1:19
Speaker 3: in a more rigorous high school. Nicole Hannah-Jones enrolled her
1:22
Speaker 3: only child in two struggling Brooklyn public schools beginning in
1:26
Speaker 3: 2015 as part of a battle to change what she
1:28
Speaker 3: characterized as systemic racism, despite having the connections and time
1:33
Speaker 3: and status, she says, to get the girl into the
1:35
Speaker 3: city's best schools. That status included top-notch education of her
1:39
Speaker 3: own and financial security she and her husband had recently purchased.
1:42
Speaker 3: bought a $ 1. 5 million brownstone in Bed-Stuy back in 2018.
1:46
Speaker 3: But by her own account, Hannah-Jones' daughter knows she was
1:49
Speaker 3: cheated by her parents. Quote, so you had money to
1:52
Speaker 3: send me to one of the best schools, and you
1:54
Speaker 3: chose not to? The girl yelled in one fight, according
1:57
Speaker 3: to the essay. Quote, because other kids are disadvantaged, you
2:00
Speaker 3: didn't want to put me in a great school? Hannah-Jones
2:03
Speaker 3: wrote of her decision, we thought by sending her to
2:05
Speaker 3: a mostly low-income and black school, we could help improve
2:08
Speaker 3: it for all the children there. We believe strongly that
2:10
Speaker 3: if families like ours went to schools like this one,
2:12
Speaker 3: it would challenge other families with similar values to do
2:15
Speaker 3: the same. She felt an obligation to do that. Well,
2:19
Speaker 3: now that she has some time to reflect on this,
2:22
Speaker 3: the girl's still mad. Another quote is, I never really
2:24
Speaker 3: got the education I wanted. One of the things that
2:34
Speaker 3: she learned was that she thought this kid was doing
2:36
Speaker 3: well in math in fourth grade. Turns out the teacher
2:39
Speaker 3: was never correcting her. Also, her English papers were all
2:43
Speaker 3: full of grammatical mistakes and badly formed sentences and so forth.
2:46
Speaker 3: No corrections whatsoever. So they were just funneling her through
2:49
Speaker 3: the system, just like we hear constantly about poor and
2:52
Speaker 3: failing schools. So, Jim, the end, she's still in this
2:56
Speaker 3: conflict about her values and her child and which one
2:59
Speaker 3: she should use. There really shouldn't be a conflict here,
3:02
Speaker 3: because if you valued a good education, you'd send your
3:04
Speaker 3: child to the best school.
3:06
Speaker 1: Greg, again, I hate to be my stereotype, but there
3:08
Speaker 1: is a lot to unpack here. For starters, look, you
3:11
Speaker 1: and I would love to knock around McCall Hannah-Jones like
3:14
Speaker 1: a piñata, metaphorically. And she deserves a great deal of
3:18
Speaker 1: criticism for a lot of the things she has said
3:20
Speaker 1: and written and done over the years. But I think
3:23
Speaker 1: this was really an extraordinary essay, because rarely do you
3:25
Speaker 1: see someone say, I made a mistake. I made a
3:29
Speaker 1: really bad and consequential mistake. I made a really bad
3:32
Speaker 1: and consequential mistake for my child. And I did it
3:36
Speaker 1: because of my ideology. Like, in some ways, this is
3:39
Speaker 1: a remarkably honest essay, except in certain ways. People, you know,
3:43
Speaker 1: immediately everyone in at least, you know, my social media
3:46
Speaker 1: world noticed, you know what words they didn't see in this?
3:50
Speaker 1: Teachers unions. Now, you mentioned there's an exceptionally bad performance
3:55
Speaker 1: on the part of the teacher. not correcting incorrect math problems,
3:59
Speaker 1: not correcting bad grammar, bad spelling, all kinds of errors
4:02
Speaker 1: and stuff like that in the essays, leaving her daughter
4:06
Speaker 1: with the impression that she is a much better student
4:07
Speaker 1: than she actually is. So again, I feel like she
4:11
Speaker 1: can get almost there, but not quite pointing out the
4:14
Speaker 1: problems there. I also point out that to the extent
4:17
Speaker 1: that Nicole Hannah-Jones points towards any problems, it's a very
4:21
Speaker 1: familiar chorus of underfunded schools, blah, blah, blah. Well, wait
4:24
Speaker 1: a second. New York City public school system spends 52,000
4:27
Speaker 1: per student? For a long time, conservatives have argued that
4:31
Speaker 1: there is no discernible connection between spending per student and
4:35
Speaker 1: educational outcomes. And we should stop, you know, teachers unions,
4:38
Speaker 1: but also Democrats. Anybody should stop assuming, well, if you
4:41
Speaker 1: throw more money at the problem, the kids are going
4:43
Speaker 1: to do better. A whole bunch of factors go into that. Indisputably,
4:47
Speaker 1: the parents at home, and Nicole Hannah-Jones, whatever else you
4:51
Speaker 1: want to say, is not an uneducated woman. She's a
4:53
Speaker 1: successful professional woman. You'd think the house is full of books.
4:57
Speaker 1: You'd think there'd be the supportive environment. How did you
5:00
Speaker 1: not notice that your child was doing so poorly in school?
5:03
Speaker 1: And I think there are quite a few people who said, oh, sorry,
5:05
Speaker 1: I can't help you with your algebra, honey. I'm too
5:06
Speaker 1: busy writing the 1619 Project. That kind of nagging question
5:11
Speaker 1: of why are we with the mid-teen years and recognizing
5:14
Speaker 1: that her education is subpar. Also, Greg, this is all
5:19
Speaker 1: occurring in the New York City public school system. It
5:22
Speaker 1: is run by the New York City Department of Education,
5:24
Speaker 1: not the New York City Department of White Supremacy. There
5:27
Speaker 1: are no evil right wingers. There are no conservatives to blame.
5:31
Speaker 1: There are no like this is an entirely Democratic run city.
5:35
Speaker 1: And by certainly by your and my standards, very progressively
5:38
Speaker 1: run city. There's nobody else to blame other than the
5:41
Speaker 1: party and the city officials have been running this for
5:43
Speaker 1: a really long time. And I'll make one last observation
5:46
Speaker 1: about this. I don't want to say there was anything like.
5:49
Speaker 1: Nicole Hannah-Jones, you know, at least would probably say every
5:51
Speaker 1: parent should have the option to send their child to
5:55
Speaker 1: an excellent public school. Yeah, we'd all like that to
5:57
Speaker 1: be the case. We know that there are some public
5:59
Speaker 1: schools that are, you know, like not only are half
6:02
Speaker 1: below average because that's what happens when there's an average,
6:04
Speaker 1: or half below median because that's what a median is.
6:07
Speaker 1: We know that there are certain schools that are getting
6:08
Speaker 1: really good results and we know there are schools that
6:10
Speaker 1: are really, you know, lousy results. Most of us as parents,
6:13
Speaker 1: we want to give our kids something, everything we didn't
6:16
Speaker 1: have when we were growing up, right? We don't want
6:18
Speaker 1: our kids to be spoiled, but we also are kind
6:19
Speaker 1: of like, we remember not having some sort of advantage,
6:23
Speaker 1: not having some sort of thing that would make our
6:26
Speaker 1: education easier, our lives easier, and we try to give
6:29
Speaker 1: that to our kids. And interestingly here, Nicole Hannah-Jones resisted
6:32
Speaker 1: that because she talks about her education in the sense
6:35
Speaker 1: that she went to a school that was excellent but
6:38
Speaker 1: largely segregated, and she wanted her kids to go to
6:40
Speaker 1: a school that was mostly minority and to prove that
6:43
Speaker 1: mostly minority schools could be excellent. Well, unfortunately, the one
6:47
Speaker 1: who paid the price for that judgment was her daughter.
6:50
Speaker 1: And there's kind of this thing in the pursuit of
6:53
Speaker 1: an abstract idea of, oh, we believe that this poor
6:56
Speaker 1: performing public school can be really excellent. We didn't do
7:00
Speaker 1: everything we could to send our kid to the best
7:02
Speaker 1: school possible. I think, you know, the entire concept of
7:05
Speaker 1: this progressive idea of we can't have school choice. We
7:08
Speaker 1: can't have vouchers. We can't have parents having the option
7:12
Speaker 1: of sending their kids to religious schools or private schools
7:14
Speaker 1: or stuff like that. Yeah, is there an argument that
7:16
Speaker 1: that skims off the top performing schools or the top
7:19
Speaker 1: performing kids? Is there an argument that that skims off
7:22
Speaker 1: the kids who have the most engaged parents? Yeah, there's
7:25
Speaker 1: some validity to that argument. But in the end, you
7:27
Speaker 1: cannot expect people to not put their kids' interests first.
7:31
Speaker 1: I guess unless their name is Nicole Hannah-Smith-Jones.
7:35
Speaker 3: So I'm sure she's come to the conclusion now that
7:38
Speaker 3: she and her husband can afford to send their daughter
7:40
Speaker 3: to a better school now, that other parents should have
7:42
Speaker 3: that freedom and that choice.
7:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, that paragraph must have been lost in the editing process.
7:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I didn't read that part. But, you know,
7:49
Speaker 3: she's not the only one who thought that way. Years ago,
7:53
Speaker 3: years before I met Mrs. Karumba, so obviously years before
7:55
Speaker 3: I had any kids, a friend from church had a
7:57
Speaker 3: bunch of people over for dinner, and somehow the topic
8:00
Speaker 3: got onto public education. And so, knowing I didn't have
8:02
Speaker 3: any kids at that point... He says, would you send
8:05
Speaker 3: your kids to a public school? And I said, well,
8:07
Speaker 3: it depends how good the public schools are. And there
8:09
Speaker 3: was a public school teacher there who literally said, you
8:12
Speaker 3: should send your kids to the public school because they're
8:14
Speaker 3: the public schools. And if they're not good, it's only
8:17
Speaker 3: when people who do care about their kids' education send
8:21
Speaker 3: their kids to the public schools that it'll get better.
8:23
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I'm not a guinea pig. And my
8:25
Speaker 3: kid is certainly not a guinea pig in your long
8:27
Speaker 3: game to maybe make public schools better. My job is
8:30
Speaker 3: to get the best opportunity for my kid. And that's
8:34
Speaker 3: what we've done.
8:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, if we had a magic wand and could make
8:37
Speaker 1: every parent engaged and every parent joining the PTA and
8:42
Speaker 1: doing the bake sale fundraisers and doing everything they could
8:45
Speaker 1: to make the school the best. That would be wonderful. Great.
8:48
Speaker 1: We don't live in that world. We have to prioritize.
8:50
Speaker 1: My kids, one's in college already, one's out. We go
8:55
Speaker 1: to public schools. We are blessed and cursed with the
8:58
Speaker 1: most engaged parents you're going to find on the planet.
9:02
Speaker 1: All of whom are type A personalities and all the
9:06
Speaker 1: tiger mom stereotypes and all that kind of stuff. I
9:09
Speaker 1: can sit back and relax because there are a ton
9:11
Speaker 1: of parents who have 300% of the necessary amount of
9:14
Speaker 1: engagement in their kid's education. It's kind of like Harvard,
9:18
Speaker 1: except a little more competitive. A little more competitive, higher pressure, and...
9:22
Speaker 1: So there are school districts where we have the opposite problem.
9:25
Speaker 1: We kind of need to put quaaludes in the water
9:27
Speaker 1: around here. People are really high strung.
9:29
Speaker 3: I remember years ago, Jim's contribution was usually to chaperone
9:32
Speaker 3: a field trip where Jim's two rules were, come back
9:35
Speaker 3: with the same number of kids you left with and
9:36
Speaker 3: bonus points if they're the same kids.
9:38
Speaker 1: Absolutely. And by the way, it was a free tip
9:40
Speaker 1: to Jamestown or Gettysburg or Williamsburg. It was really just
9:44
Speaker 1: awesome just going to do that. And, you know, occasionally, yeah,
9:47
Speaker 1: the kids barfed. Cleaning up barf was my commitment to
9:51
Speaker 1: the public school system.
9:54
Speaker 3: Well, as Mrs. Karamas likes to say, Virginia history is
9:56
Speaker 3: American history. So yeah, you get a lot of good
9:58
Speaker 3: opportunities around here for that. Well, if you forced your
10:01
Speaker 3: kid to go to a terrible school for a decade,
10:03
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11:29
Speaker 3: All right, Jim. There's gold in them hills. Well, actually
11:38
Speaker 3: gold in the United States, courtesy of Venezuela. Of course,
11:42
Speaker 3: we had a little regime change down there at the
11:45
Speaker 3: beginning of the year. Maduro is out and Delce Rodriguez,
11:49
Speaker 3: who is basically his vice president, is in. But somehow
11:52
Speaker 3: Trump and Delce are getting along. I don't know if
11:54
Speaker 3: that's necessarily changing life day to day for the Venezuelan people,
11:58
Speaker 3: is their life getting better? Is it more affordable? Is
12:01
Speaker 3: there justice and that kind of thing? I haven't heard
12:03
Speaker 3: a lot about that. But the good news is, as
12:06
Speaker 3: you write about in the Morning Jolt today, is that
12:08
Speaker 3: Venezuela has now decided to move its gold stash from
12:13
Speaker 3: London to the United States. And we're not talking about
12:18
Speaker 3: just a pittance here. We are talking about a lot
12:21
Speaker 3: of money in the hundreds. Think $ 900 billion you referenced
12:24
Speaker 3: in today's Morning Jolt. And so, you know, going to
12:27
Speaker 3: the New York Federal Reserve, which, of course, brings out
12:31
Speaker 3: all the diehard with a vengeance memories with Jeremy Irons
12:34
Speaker 3: and so forth. But basically, as you point out in
12:36
Speaker 3: the jolt today, Jim, this is an issue of trust.
12:40
Speaker 3: We've got their gold now. So that means they trust us.
12:43
Speaker 3: And we're going to be doing some more business with them,
12:45
Speaker 3: hopefully with oil and some other things.
12:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, first of all, Greg, I'm slightly disappointed, but not
12:49
Speaker 1: really surprised you'd not begin with, there's gold in the
12:51
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve. They just stole a load of it. So yeah,
12:56
Speaker 1: as soon as I saw this, this is a lead
12:57
Speaker 1: story in the Financial Times in the weekend edition. So
13:00
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, this is, and by the way,
13:02
Speaker 1: so what you see in Die Hard with a Vengeance,
13:04
Speaker 1: obviously it's fictional, but yes, there is a giant storage
13:08
Speaker 1: vault of gold bars and gold bullion owned not by
13:13
Speaker 1: private individuals, entirely by central banks of countries in order
13:18
Speaker 1: to back up their currency. And a lot of it
13:19
Speaker 1: is stored in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
13:22
Speaker 1: in lower Manhattan. It is super secure. Apparently, a former
13:26
Speaker 1: official was once asked about the scenario in Die Hard
13:29
Speaker 1: with a Vengeance and said the subway tunnel does not
13:31
Speaker 1: run near it. You could not break in by blowing
13:33
Speaker 1: up the subway tunnel or something like that and all
13:36
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. So it is pretty darn secure.
13:38
Speaker 1: So since 2019, Venezuela stored its gold in the Bank
13:47
Speaker 1: of England in London, which is the second largest storehouse
13:50
Speaker 1: of gold in the entire world. And the United Kingdom looked,
13:54
Speaker 1: they had an election in Venezuela. Maduro said he won.
13:56
Speaker 1: He obviously didn't. And the United Kingdom government said, we
13:59
Speaker 1: no longer recognize Maduro as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela.
14:04
Speaker 1: In light of that, they were no longer allowed access
14:06
Speaker 1: to the gold because they were no longer the legitimate government.
14:08
Speaker 1: A lot of court fights over there. UK court system
14:12
Speaker 1: kept saying, well, actually, no, if you're not the legitimate ruler,
14:14
Speaker 1: you don't have access to that gold. Only the legitimate
14:17
Speaker 1: ruler can make withdrawals of that gold from there. And obviously,
14:20
Speaker 1: as we know, Venezuela was having all kinds of terrible
14:22
Speaker 1: economic problems because of the fact that he tried to
14:24
Speaker 1: enact socialism and surprise, surprise, that didn't work very well.
14:27
Speaker 1: And so basically from about, you know, from 2019 to now,
14:30
Speaker 1: that money has been in that vault, but there's been
14:31
Speaker 1: a question of like, okay, who's legitimate? The opposition groups
14:35
Speaker 1: in Venezuela and the Delce Rodriguez organization with the Trump
14:39
Speaker 1: administration negotiating and playing kind of go between has said, okay,
14:44
Speaker 1: we're going to move the gold from London to the
14:46
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, And then the Venezuelan
14:49
Speaker 1: government is going to be able to take out loans
14:52
Speaker 1: using that gold as collateral to do rebuilding from the
14:55
Speaker 1: two earthquakes that they had that were very devastating down there.
14:58
Speaker 1: This is somewhat good news in the fact that you've
15:00
Speaker 1: got the opposition groups and the Del Ciro Rodriguez regime
15:03
Speaker 1: finding some areas of common cooperation and stuff. I also
15:07
Speaker 1: had noticed, once I got into this, this is a
15:09
Speaker 1: deep dive in today's morning. Joel, first of all, the
15:13
Speaker 1: amount of gold in the New York Federal Reserve is
15:17
Speaker 1: actually down a couple percentage points in the last couple
15:19
Speaker 1: of years. This might be seen as a sign of, oh,
15:23
Speaker 1: we're not 100% as confident in the US banking system
15:25
Speaker 1: and system of laws and security as we were a
15:28
Speaker 1: few years ago. It also is a sign that just
15:30
Speaker 1: generally a lot of countries are bringing their gold back
15:33
Speaker 1: to their own home country vaults. And the reason for
15:36
Speaker 1: that is a fear that some people think this is
15:40
Speaker 1: a result of the sanctions that were put on Russia,
15:43
Speaker 1: that all of a sudden Russia lost access to hundreds
15:45
Speaker 1: of billions of dollars of assets, not gold. Russia apparently almost,
15:48
Speaker 1: you know, not since the Tsar has kept any gold overseas.
15:51
Speaker 1: But basically the idea was, well, wait a sec, we
15:53
Speaker 1: better keep some of that gold in our vaults and
15:55
Speaker 1: feel confident that that way, in case, whatever reason, we
15:58
Speaker 1: suddenly become very unpopular on the world stage, at no
16:01
Speaker 1: point will the US or the UK or any other
16:03
Speaker 1: government shut down our access to it. So then on
16:08
Speaker 1: the question of, is Venezuela getting better? I don't want
16:10
Speaker 1: to overstate it. I don't want to overstate it. But
16:12
Speaker 1: there are a bunch of good signs. Last week, Human
16:15
Speaker 1: Rights Watch visited Caracas, met with Delcy Rodriguez. They've said
16:19
Speaker 1: that there was a pause in the most overt forms
16:21
Speaker 1: of repression, but they want to see institutional reforms. There
16:26
Speaker 1: are about 83, 72 confirmed political prisoners have been released
16:29
Speaker 1: by the regime. Now, there's still like 448 that are
16:31
Speaker 1: still in prison. Still a long ways to go. The
16:35
Speaker 1: government has confirmed 17 news sites that had been unblocked
16:39
Speaker 1: by the regime, and people can now access them in Venezuela.
16:42
Speaker 1: The Paraguayan president visited and Maria Karina Machado, the Nobel
16:47
Speaker 1: Prize winner, is planning to return. She's been living in
16:50
Speaker 1: exile for nine months. She also is looking for having
16:54
Speaker 1: elections next year. Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno said he wanted
16:58
Speaker 1: to have it on Simone Bolivar's birthday, July 24th of
17:01
Speaker 1: next year. That's not a guarantee or something. But you
17:04
Speaker 1: look at all this stuff, there are little signs of improvement.
17:08
Speaker 1: Is this enough for us to trust Delcy Rodriguez, the
17:11
Speaker 1: former right-hand man of Nicolas Maduro? That remains to be seen.
17:15
Speaker 1: Trump and Delcy Rodriguez are going to meet this week
17:17
Speaker 1: at the UN meeting up in New York. Is this
17:20
Speaker 1: what we want to see in Venezuela? Not yet, but
17:24
Speaker 1: I do think you can say we've seen some steps
17:26
Speaker 1: in the right direction. Hopefully things continue on this path.
17:29
Speaker 3: Now, once the gold is there, And there's 14 dump
17:32
Speaker 3: trucks that you see in the neighborhood. And there's a
17:35
Speaker 3: threat of a bomb at some school, maybe named after
17:38
Speaker 3: President Chester Arthur, maybe not. Beware. Beware. It's a misdirection.
17:43
Speaker 1: I looked at this. I could not see any reports
17:47
Speaker 1: of any gold being stolen in transit from one central
17:50
Speaker 1: bank to a Federal Reserve yet. There was a big
17:52
Speaker 1: heist up in Canada a few years ago over at
17:54
Speaker 1: the Toronto airport. That one was only $ 24 million or so,
17:58
Speaker 1: but that was not related to a central bank heist.
18:01
Speaker 1: But it is interesting it went up to Canada, isn't it, Greg?
18:04
Speaker 3: That's right. Canada factors into Die Hard 3 also. So
18:09
Speaker 3: hope we didn't give away too much. But again, that
18:10
Speaker 3: movie's been out for 30 years, so I don't feel
18:12
Speaker 3: bad about any spoilers there. All right. Up next, Massachusetts.
18:17
Speaker 3: They're perfectly fine with abortion up to the moment of birth,
18:20
Speaker 3: but they're totally in it for the care of the newborn.
18:23
Speaker 3: We'll talk about that next. All right, Jim, on to
18:30
Speaker 3: our crazy and potentially chilling martini here. But of course,
18:33
Speaker 3: they just, they mean well. They just want to do
18:36
Speaker 3: the best for new moms in Massachusetts. But of course,
18:38
Speaker 3: last time we talked about Governor Maura Healey, she was
18:40
Speaker 3: signing that piece of legislation that allowed for abortion anywhere,
18:44
Speaker 3: anytime in Massachusetts. And we had all the clapping seals
18:46
Speaker 3: behind her. Just cheer, cheer, cheer that babies that are
18:49
Speaker 3: full term could be snuffed out right before they were born.
18:52
Speaker 3: But now, of course, because Massachusetts is also where the
18:55
Speaker 3: Lindsay Clancy case came And we know where the left
18:58
Speaker 3: is on this case. It's like, Lindsay Clancy's the real
19:01
Speaker 3: victim here. We got to make sure that, you know,
19:03
Speaker 3: postpartum care is the real story here, not the murders
19:06
Speaker 3: of three babies. So Mara Healy's out there talking about
19:09
Speaker 3: how the state's going to do more for women who
19:12
Speaker 3: have recently given birth, which might sound good on the
19:14
Speaker 3: surface until you realize exactly what she wants to do.
19:17
Speaker 2: Everybody in the state, when you have a baby, you're
19:20
Speaker 2: going to have a home visit. You're going to have
19:22
Speaker 2: a home visit within days, weeks, and that will be
19:27
Speaker 2: an opportunity for a health care provider to make an assessment.
19:31
Speaker 3: To make an assessment. Jim, some people are saying this
19:34
Speaker 3: program is voluntary. That's not how that sounded from Governor
19:36
Speaker 3: Healy right there. Look, if there are resources you want
19:39
Speaker 3: to make, you know, expecting mothers and their husbands aware of,
19:45
Speaker 3: that's fine. But to say that you're definitely getting a
19:47
Speaker 3: visit from some sort of state service outfit that might
19:52
Speaker 3: have a doctor involved with it, I don't want the
19:54
Speaker 3: state coming to my home without my permission, and I
19:57
Speaker 3: certainly don't want them making an assessment that will go
20:00
Speaker 3: on some file somewhere.
20:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, this really feels and smells like a camel's nose
20:04
Speaker 1: under the tent. Because first of all, I know it's
20:08
Speaker 1: been a while since my guys were born. They're teenagers.
20:12
Speaker 1: But I remember the hospital. It felt like there was
20:14
Speaker 1: like a million and one resources for new mothers and
20:17
Speaker 1: for new parents in general. And like, you know, not
20:19
Speaker 1: just like pamphlets and stuff, but like lactation specialists and
20:22
Speaker 1: the nurse. And there was basically all kinds. And some
20:24
Speaker 1: of them, I imagine, were by nonprofits. Some of them
20:26
Speaker 1: probably were by church groups or something. There was all
20:28
Speaker 1: kinds of options. designed to do this. And this is
20:31
Speaker 1: a good thing. As you and I will attest, and
20:34
Speaker 1: probably every parent listening to this podcast, having a kid,
20:36
Speaker 1: having a new baby, that is one of the biggest
20:38
Speaker 1: and most intense changes you're going to go through with
20:40
Speaker 1: your life. It can seem overwhelming. It's great to have
20:44
Speaker 1: lots of resources. But to have state officials or state
20:48
Speaker 1: agents coming, knocking on your door, checking on you, that
20:51
Speaker 1: feels a little unnerving. Because the other question is like,
20:55
Speaker 1: what happens when you say, oh, we're doing fine, but
20:58
Speaker 1: the assessor thinks you're not doing fine? Now, do we
21:00
Speaker 1: have circumstances in which the state can intervene between someone
21:03
Speaker 1: taking care of their children in case of abuse? Absolutely.
21:05
Speaker 1: We have that. But that is generally in response to
21:08
Speaker 1: some sort of report from a teacher or another parent
21:11
Speaker 1: or some sort of, you know, generally, it's not a
21:13
Speaker 1: general spot check by the government, random searches and stuff
21:17
Speaker 1: like that. Wasn't there also, if this is, you know, again, assuming,
21:20
Speaker 1: you know, if it's all voluntary, fine, then you check
21:23
Speaker 1: the box at the delivery in the hospital, but you're
21:25
Speaker 1: filling out the birth certificate, please do not knock on
21:27
Speaker 1: my door to check on me. But if there isn't,
21:30
Speaker 1: and this is mandatory, I have no idea how this
21:32
Speaker 1: doesn't make a Fourth Amendment, you know, search and seizure
21:35
Speaker 1: type issue here. I expect it'll be challenged in court
21:38
Speaker 1: if it is not voluntary. And even if it is,
21:40
Speaker 1: somebody might argue that this is a overstepping the bounds
21:44
Speaker 1: of the state. I'm not familiar with the Massachusetts state constitution.
21:46
Speaker 1: As we learned, Greg, Massachusetts state law can be a
21:49
Speaker 1: little quirky, can be a little different from all the
21:51
Speaker 1: rest of the states, particularly when it comes to motherhood
21:53
Speaker 1: and things like that. Yes. So we'll see how this
21:55
Speaker 1: checks out. But it really does sound like evil. Again,
21:59
Speaker 1: if you're a governor, please don't say don't worry. Don't
22:02
Speaker 1: think of his big brother watching you. Think of it
22:04
Speaker 1: as big mother watching you.
22:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, that. Yeah, absolutely. In the case of Governor Healey, because,
22:09
Speaker 3: you know, we've heard some of these stories about kids.
22:12
Speaker 3: I don't know what age, maybe like early teens or
22:14
Speaker 3: tween years. They get start getting asked questions like, is
22:16
Speaker 3: there a gun in the home and other things that,
22:19
Speaker 3: you know, your typical liberal government sees as a major
22:21
Speaker 3: red flag. And then, you know, if you're people of
22:24
Speaker 3: faith and whatever it is, you know, all of a
22:26
Speaker 3: sudden they start building the file on you. Now that
22:28
Speaker 3: could be the stuff of conspiracy theories. Maybe they really
22:31
Speaker 3: are just trying to make sure that you're not overwhelmed.
22:34
Speaker 3: But the way this was presented by Governor Healey is
22:37
Speaker 3: not encouraging at all. So, stay out of my home.
22:40
Speaker 1: Anytime you want to give the government a power, think
22:42
Speaker 1: of how could a jerk abuse this power? And that's
22:46
Speaker 1: a good way. And if you think, oh, this would
22:48
Speaker 1: be really bad if somebody abused this power, then the
22:50
Speaker 1: government probably should not have that power.
22:52
Speaker 3: Exactly. Very well said. Very well said. All right, 2028
22:56
Speaker 3: is not that far away, especially the start of the campaign.
22:59
Speaker 3: And some people are preparing in serious ways to make
23:02
Speaker 3: sure that they are ready. All right, Jim, you know,
23:11
Speaker 3: midterm election day, less than two months away, really about
23:14
Speaker 3: a month and a half away. And that means right
23:16
Speaker 3: after that, the 2028 presidential campaign will kick off. There's
23:19
Speaker 3: going to be quite a few Democratic candidates. Maybe not
23:21
Speaker 3: quite as many on the Republican side, but one of
23:23
Speaker 3: the ones that we've talked about a lot because it's
23:26
Speaker 3: making it blatantly obvious he's interested in running is J.B. Pritzker,
23:29
Speaker 3: Democratic governor of Illinois. At the moment, he's running for
23:31
Speaker 3: a third term as governor, but he's also doing the
23:36
Speaker 3: thing that makes people really put up the antennae. Because
23:39
Speaker 3: I remember when John Engler was governor of Michigan and
23:43
Speaker 3: people were thinking of him maybe as a presidential candidate.
23:45
Speaker 3: He's by far the best governor of Michigan in my lifetime.
23:48
Speaker 3: And and people I know very well were like, well,
23:51
Speaker 3: if he drops 50 pounds, you know, he's serious. Well,
23:53
Speaker 3: he didn't. And so he didn't run. And then I
23:55
Speaker 3: remember towards the end of the first Trump administration and
23:59
Speaker 3: really in that four years of Biden, Mike Pompeo lost
24:01
Speaker 3: a lot of weight and like, oh, he's running. He didn't.
24:04
Speaker 3: But some people do end up running after they've dropped
24:08
Speaker 3: some pounds. And that's the deal with Pritzker. Now he
24:10
Speaker 3: revealed on CBS this morning. that he's dropped about 80
24:13
Speaker 3: pounds since going on a GLP-1 situation. He's got a
24:17
Speaker 3: history of being overweight in his family. His dad dropped out, unfortunately,
24:21
Speaker 3: at the age of 39. So he's trying to take
24:24
Speaker 3: a more serious approach here. But it's also to look
24:26
Speaker 3: better on the trail. You know, we've referred to him
24:28
Speaker 3: as the penguin from Batman Forever a couple of times. But,
24:32
Speaker 3: you know, when you think of the necessary steps, you've
24:36
Speaker 3: got your staff, you've got your fundraising, you've got your
24:39
Speaker 3: media guy. Whatever it is, if you've got too many
24:42
Speaker 3: extra pounds, this is a pretty good sign that you're
24:45
Speaker 3: serious about running.
24:46
Speaker 1: One more past example to add to your list, Greg,
24:50
Speaker 1: was Mike Huckabee, who if you see footage of him
24:53
Speaker 1: as a governor, I don't think the guy looked obese.
24:57
Speaker 1: He looked like probably 300-some pounds. And then when he
25:00
Speaker 1: ran for president, he was a significantly slimmer man. And
25:04
Speaker 1: I've always thought that if you had past positions that
25:07
Speaker 1: were going to cause problems on the campaign trail, one
25:10
Speaker 1: of the ways to dodge that issue is to lose
25:13
Speaker 1: like 100 pounds. Because then you could say, that's not me.
25:15
Speaker 1: That doesn't look anything like me. Oh, yeah, I guess
25:18
Speaker 1: it was just some other governor or something like that.
25:20
Speaker 1: So first of all, good for you, JB Pritzker. As
25:24
Speaker 1: somebody who's had my own weight issues throughout my life,
25:27
Speaker 1: losing 80 pounds is not an easy thing to do.
25:30
Speaker 1: I don't care if you did it with GLP-1s. I
25:31
Speaker 1: hope diet and exercise are part of it. But hey,
25:34
Speaker 1: good for you. Having said that, for anybody who's watched
25:37
Speaker 1: JB Pritzker over the last year or two, Greg, did
25:39
Speaker 1: anyone notice? And I say that in part because I'm
25:43
Speaker 1: remembering Al Franken, talking about the late Chris Farley. Chris Farley,
25:47
Speaker 1: late in his life, came to guest hosts Saturday Night Live,
25:50
Speaker 1: and you could just tell he was in rough shape.
25:52
Speaker 1: He was, you know, and Franken had said jokingly something like, Chris,
25:57
Speaker 1: you could lose 80 pounds and still be the fat guy.
26:00
Speaker 1: And everybody kind of laughed about it, but I think
26:01
Speaker 1: this was Franken's way of saying, buddy, I'm worried about you.
26:04
Speaker 1: You really don't look like you're unhealthy. If I remember correctly,
26:07
Speaker 1: I think Farley died within a year or two. So
26:10
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things where, look, good for you, J.B. Pritzker.
26:14
Speaker 1: With that said, Taft was a long time ago. And
26:17
Speaker 1: I think that there's just this image that people have
26:19
Speaker 1: of what a president ought to look like. Good for
26:22
Speaker 1: him for getting there. But I think it's going to
26:24
Speaker 1: be a little while before we think of Pritzker as
26:26
Speaker 1: just another politician on that stage.
26:27
Speaker 3: Don't vote against J.B. Pritzker because of his weight issues.
26:30
Speaker 3: Vote against J.B. Pritzker because he's a horrible governor who's
26:33
Speaker 3: wrong on virtually every issue. Of course, that's going to
26:35
Speaker 3: be true of every Democratic candidate, I think, in this race,
26:38
Speaker 3: or at least the vast majority of them.
26:39
Speaker 1: There we go. Yes. Exercise healthy skepticism when it comes
26:42
Speaker 1: to J.B. Pritzker. But otherwise, good for you, J.B.
26:45
Speaker 3: Pritzker.
26:46
Speaker 1: Hope you're around and out of office for a long,
26:49
Speaker 1: long time.
26:49
Speaker 3: Jim Garrity, National Review. I'm Greg Karambas of Radio America.
26:52
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26:53
Speaker 3: sure to subscribe to the podcast. If you don't already,
26:55
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26:57
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27:00
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27:11
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27:12
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