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Back to the Basement, Biden’s Fracking Fiction, Real Cable News?

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Listen to “Back to the Basement, Biden’s Fracking Fiction, Real Cable News?” on Spreaker.

Join Jim and Greg as they serve up three crazy martinis! First, Jim explains why it’s so weird for Joe Biden to have no public events today and to continue the basement campaign just two months before the election. They also explain why Biden’s recent insistence that he will not ban fracking runs contrary to his repeated promises during the primary season to stop fracking and even shut down fossil fuels entirely. And they welcome a new cable news channel that claims to be focused on facts and not opinion but they also explain the challenges of keeping that promise.

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Dissecting the Supreme Court’s DACA Decision

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Listen to “Supreme Court Saves DACA” on Spreaker.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration did not give a sufficient explanation for wanting to end the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program.

Also known as DACA, the program was created through an executive order from President Obama in 2012 to give legal status to people in the country illegally after coming here as children.

Supporters of the Trump policy were stunned at the court rejecting the president’s ability to terminate one executive order with one of his own.

So how should the court’s decision be interpreted? Why did the majority rule against the administration? And is the court deliberately deferring decisions on hot-button issues?

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Supreme Court Amends Civil Rights Act

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Listen to “Supreme Court Amends Civil Rights Act” on Spreaker.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act affords protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In the majority opinion for the 6-3 ruling, Justice Neil Gorsuch concluded that the court was required to interpret the Civil Right Act in the broadest terms possible.  Dissenting justices argued the authors of 56-year-old legislation were clearly not referring to sexual orientation and gender identity when drafting the law.

So did the majority exercise their role properly or did they engage in overt judicial activism? What should legal conservatives make of Justice Gorsuch’s role in the case?  And what impact will this ruling have on society?

We ask these questions and more to Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver.

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Pelosi’s Relief Bill: Vital Aid or Fleecing Taxpayers?

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Listen to “Pelosi’s Relief Bill: Vital Aid or Fleecing Taxpayers?” on Spreaker.

This week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled a new coronavirus relief bill with the eye-popping price tag of nearly $3 trillion.

One trillion of that is designated as financial assistance for cash-strapped states and localities, but is taxpayer money the best way to deal with this challenge?

Openthebooks.com CEO Adam Andrzejewski joins us to explain why he thinks Pelosi has the wrong idea and he uses Illinois as just one example of the states that were in a fiscal mess even before the virus hit.

Andrzejewski also details how a number of ostensibly charitable hospitals are just sitting on many billions of dollars in endowments but instead of using that money to respond to the crisis, they are taking money from taxpayers…and so are the wealthiest colleges and universities.

Finally, Andrzejewski discusses the mushrooming debt brought on by trillions in emergency spending, what the impact of that will be, and whether fiscal discipline still has a pulse in Washington.

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Heavy-Handed Government: McCarthy Talks Flynn Case, COVID Cops

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Listen to “Heavy-Handed Government: McCarthy Talks Flynn Case, COVID Cops” on Spreaker.

On Thursday, the Justice Department announced it’s desire to drop the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, a move that does not come as much of a surprise following last week’s revelation that FBI agents went to interview him in the White House with the intent of getting him to lie or to admit something that could get him fired or prosecuted.

In a statement, the DOJ said the January 2017 interview was “untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn” and that the interview was “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis” and that it was dropping the case “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.”

So how did this case move from a Flynn guilty plea to the Justice Department wanting to dump the matter?  Was Flynn the victim of a very shoddy process or are other lawyers right that the FBI used standard tactics in speaking with Flynn?

Former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Andrew C. McCarthy says the FBI conduct towards Flynn was highly improper and amounted to little more than an effort to get him to lie without any underlying criminal predicate.

McCarthy and Radio America’s Greg Corombos also discuss whether most Americans will see this as a decision made on the facts and the law or through their partisan lenses.

In addition, McCarthy discusses Ventura County, California, officials announcing that COVID-infected patients may be forced to leave their homes if others in the residence test negative and there is only one bathroom.  Is that constitutional?  And what does it say about how governments are responding to this crisis?

Don’t miss McCarthy’s insights on these two critical issues.

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‘The Wake-Up Call for Americans’

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Listen to “‘The Wake-Up Call for Americans'” on Spreaker.

As the coronavirus restriction ease faster in some places than others, stories are emerging of disturbing confrontations between police and the public.

In recent days, police in Texas brought out an MRAP and deployed a SWAT team after a bar owner defied the governor’s order to stay closed and recruited some armed citizens to help her. NYPD officers were filmed tackling social distancing violators to the sidewalk. Multiple parents have been arrested for playing with their kids in closed parks.

Rutherford Institute President John Whitehead says the lockdown orders and how they are being enforced ought to be a wake-up call for all Americans that our first, fourth, and fifth amendment rights.

Whitehead explain why he thinks we’re moving uncomfortably close to martial law in parts of the country and that heavy-handed police tactics are now used to stop people from doing anything the government doesn’t like, regardless of whether it’s constitutional.

Whitehead also details what role he believes police should be playing in our communities and what citizens can do to improve things.

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Ex-Deputy National Security Adviser: ‘They Were Trying to Blackmail Me’

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Listen to “Ex-Deputy National Security Adviser: ‘They Were Trying to Blackmail Me'” on Spreaker.

On Wednesday, handwritten notes concerning Trump National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn revealed FBI agents were approaching their January 2017 interview with Flynn for the purposes of trying to prosecute him or get him fired.

The news comes as no surprise to K.T. McFarland, who served as deputy national security adviser under Flynn, who says federal agents were looking to pin a crime on Flynn and President Trump where there was none  The FBI also put the heat on McFarland to give up information it could use to incriminate Flynn or Trump.

In an interview, with Radio America’s Greg Corombos, McFarland says the FBI set a perjury trap for Flynn and she knows what one looks like because they tried to set one for her too.

“They were trying to blackmail Gen. Flynn. They were trying to blackmail me to either admit guilt to crimes we did not commit or to implicate others.  In my case, it was to implicate Flynn or to implicate President Trump in crimes I didn’t think they had committed,” said McFarland.

She says the FBI tried to nab her in a perjury trap.  And how does a perjury trap work?

“They control all your files, all your text messages, phone logs, emails. They have them. You don’t have them. They have them and they let you see a little bit here and a little bit there and then they quiz you on it.

“If you make any kind of mistake, you get the wrong date, you say, ‘I think that was Tuesday night’ and it was really Wednesday morning, then they can jump and say, ‘Well, you should have known that. We think you’re lying. Therefore, you’re committing perjury,” said McFarland.

Listen to the full podcast to hear the two reasons the FBI and intelligence community wanted Flynn out of the White House, what crimes the FBI wanted McFarland and others to point them too, and what needs to happen to make sure these sorts of tactics don’t happen again.

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Double Standards: Comparing Media Coverage of Biden & Kavanaugh Allegations

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Listen to “Double Standards: Comparing Media Coverage of Biden & Kavanaugh Allegations” on Spreaker.

Five weeks ago, Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer for Joe Biden, accused the likely Democratic presidential nominee of a 1993 sexual assault.  Despite the emergence of information that seems to provide some corroboration for the charge, no Biden surrogate had not been asked about the matter until this week.  Biden still has not been asked.

This approach from the media looks a lot different than the feeding frenzy that took place in September 2018, when the media went rifling through Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s past after Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of assaulting her in the early 1980’s.

Even with Ford unable to name the location or the year of her alleged assault and none of the supposed witnesses backing up her story, the media waged a relentless effort to find a pattern of such conduct by Kavanaugh – even giving credence to assertions that he was a gang rapist.

So what are we learning about the media and some politicians who seem to have very different standards for such accusations, depending upon the circumstances?  And what is the responsible way for the media to approach any story like this?

We get answers from Judicial Crisis Network President Carrie Severino, co-author of the #1 bestseller “Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Court.”

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What Coronavirus Modeling Tells Us About the Climate Debate

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Listen to “What Coronavirus Modeling Tells Us About the Climate Debate” on Spreaker.

Many different models of coronavirus infections and deaths are constantly in the news, and one promiment voice in the debate says the speed with which the models change gives us a very good look at the flaws in climate modeling and the “extreme” solutions being offered by advocates of the Green New Deal and other proposals.

Christopher C. Horner served on President Trump’s landing team at the Environmental Protection Agency during the presidential transition in late 2016 and early 2017.  Hormer also spent 20 years at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and is now an attorney and board member at Government Accountability and Oversight.

Horner says models have two areas ripe for intentional or unintentional manipulation – the assumptions built into the models and the quality of the data fed into them.

“If you want carbon dioxide to be a control knob, then you build that into your model.  That’s an assumption.  And you can have other assumptions about the impact of clouds as you believe it to be or sun.

“Even the UN says, ‘Well, we don’t quite know the sun’s impact on climate.’  So, maybe come back to me when you do.  That seems like a big one,” said Horner.

Horner says the rapidly fluctuating coronavirus infection and death projections even while consistently assuming social distancing and other mitigation efforts shows climate models are anything but predictive for decades or centuries from now.

In this podcast interview with Radio America’s Greg Corombos, Horner explains how the coronavirus response is a red flag for those considering dramatic economic action on the climate but he also explains how the two issues are different in very significant ways – and that climate models even admit their sweeping proposals wouldn’t accomplish anything.

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What Will Be the Economic Toll from COVID-19?

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Listen to “What Will Be the Economic Toll from COVID-19?” on Spreaker.

On Thursday, the Department of Labor reported more than 4.4 million jobs lost in the past week.  Over the past five weeks, 26.4 million people have filed first-time jobless claims.

What are the short-term and long-term economic impacts of this hemorrhaging of jobs, productivity, and revenue?  How much has the Paycheck Protection Program helped? And how aggressively can our economy re-engage when we’re already hearing some schools may not be opening in the fall and the Centers for Disease Control believes the coronavirus could be worse in the coming winter than it is now?

Brian Wesbury is chief economist at First Trust Advisors in Wheaton, Illinois, and formerly served as chief economist for the Joint Economic Committee of Congress.  He walks us through these difficult questions, explains the indicators for and against a rise in inflation, and sizes up the recent volatility in the oil markets.

Don’t miss this critical conversation on the state of our economy.

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