Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) joins Glenn and Carol to talk about the Supreme Court, abortion, climate change, and the economy. Plus, we have a clip of Nancy Pelosi on a show with a bunch of drag queens.
00:02:32.220Yeah, we're hearing you okay. The music went out, by the way, halfway through.
00:02:35.440Glenn is having some audio issues at his location, Senator, but I know he wanted to talk to you about the Supreme Court.
00:02:42.660We have a bunch of big decisions that are going to come down in the next couple of weeks.
00:02:47.940Obviously, the Dobbs case with abortion has been kind of the marquee one that everyone's been talking about.
00:02:54.520But can you kind of walk us through maybe a little bit on that one and what else we expect over the next couple of weeks?
00:02:59.200Sure. So with the Dobbs opinion itself, we're dealing with the question of abortion and we're dealing with whether or not it is a matter of federal constitutional law that the states may not regulate or restrict abortions in most circumstances.
00:03:14.440This has been the case more or less since 1973.
00:03:18.400The Supreme Court has stepped in and said this is a matter for federal judges to decide because federal judges, seven out of nine Supreme Court justices sitting in 1973 decided that it was.
00:03:30.960The Supreme Court, based on the draft majority opinion, it was leaked from Justice Alito, it appears that the court is poised to undo the Dobbs ruling and undo this 49-year aberration from the constitutional norm in which the Supreme Court has made this a question for Supreme Court justices rather than lawmakers.
00:03:53.300So that's a big one. There are still some other big cases left to be decided, including the New York Rifle and Pistol Association case.
00:04:03.760In that case, the court is looking at some Second Amendment issues, specifically whether it's constitutional for the state of New York to decide that in order to have a gun, people have to convince the state that they have an unusual right, an exceptional or extraordinary need to possess a gun and wield it outside their home.
00:04:27.220You see, the state of New York has in some ways relegated the use of the Second Amendment right to an individual's own home, and the plaintiffs in that case are challenging that.
00:04:39.400So those could both be big blockbuster cases, and I suspect they might come right down to the wire because typically the way it works at the Supreme Court is that the cases that are most hotly disputed are reserved to the end, partly because the way the justices draft opinions and negotiate their release.
00:04:57.220So, Mike, hello, and welcome to the program. Thanks for joining us today.
00:05:04.580There is also a fight over the EPA's power to redistrict greenhouse gases, and we've got a few things. Let me just play this for you. Here's Gina McCarthy from the Biden White House.
00:05:25.300She's a climate advisor. Listen to what she said during an interview yesterday.
00:05:29.720And so the challenge is now that we're moving from denial to actually just trying to disengage the public from understanding the values of solar energy, the values of wind energy, the benefits of clean energy.
00:05:45.920We have to get tighter. We have to get tighter. We have to get better at communicating.
00:05:50.840And frankly, the tech companies have to stop allowing specific individuals over and over again to spread disinformation.
00:05:59.920That's what the fossil fuel companies pay for. That's what folks who make money out of fossil fuels and don't make money and don't care about saving consumers costs.
00:06:11.540That's what they do. I can't believe this is coming from the administration, but also the Justice Department is taking a series of actions to secure environmental justice for all Americans.
00:06:28.140They now have an office of environmental justice. Mike, this is everywhere, and it's all being done just by the stroke of a pen in the administration.
00:06:40.380Tell me about this next case, and will it stop things like this?
00:06:46.260All right. So it's not going to stop the inclination of the left and of people on the left who hold high office in the executive branch from wishing that they could silence anyone who disagrees with them.
00:06:59.680But I think we can get to the heart of the issue. I think there is some potential that one or more of these cases pending before the Supreme Court involving the EPA's vast sweeping authority could help rein in their power.
00:07:17.220Part of what breeds this kind of attitude, Glenn, is that over time, in part because of the way we've accumulated power in the federal government,
00:07:26.380we have allowed Congress to essentially delegate lawmaking power over to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats at agencies like the EPA.
00:07:35.060And once that happens, they start behaving as if judge, jury and executioner, as if they have the power to make and interpret and enforce the laws within their own little fiefdoms, which they actually kind of do.
00:07:50.140And so these these issues present constitutional questions, and those constitutional questions have reached a boiling point.
00:07:57.440And that's why I'm guardedly optimistic the court might rein in some of their power here.
00:09:11.700And all of a sudden, the twin structural protections of the Constitution, federalism and separation of powers, meant less and less.
00:09:19.880That's how we get these almighty czars within these executive branch agencies who just think they have the power to do anything and everything, which they kind of do.
00:09:29.220And the Supreme Court has the potential to rein that in.
00:09:32.660And I hope and pray that they do this year.
00:09:34.440I want to take a quick break, Mike, and then I want to come back and ask you for the cases that are now being announced tomorrow and then again on Monday and Wednesday of next week.
00:09:48.880The most consequential cases, the ones that can change America for the better or for the worse, depending on how they are decided.
00:09:59.220This is the best of the Glenn Beck program, and we really want to thank you for listening.
00:10:15.640So there is a story in the Atlantic, how San Francisco became a failed city, and it's pretty eye-opening.
00:10:25.180Not long ago, we met on a stoop by the Civic Center, it says.
00:12:50.660Look, how many times have we been saying on the air here, and people mocked me for saying it, when I said, this is not going to work out well economically.
00:13:01.200There's going to come a time we're going to pay a heavy price.
00:13:03.440Even MSNBC said yesterday, and this was Obama's guy, MSNBC, they're on the air saying, hey, you know, I guess in a weird sort of way, we got to thank that senator from West Virginia for voting no on the Build Back Better bill, because boy, would that have made things worse.
00:13:23.420All of this stuff is making things worse.
00:16:17.340Now, 24 out of the 31 attorneys that work in the Utah County Attorney's Office, 24 have now left because this county attorney is so horrible.
00:18:52.640Justice would be blind and thus truly fair.
00:18:56.380Well, unfortunately, its people have become blind.
00:19:01.820In the name of equity and at the behest of members of an activist judiciary,
00:19:08.540the blindfold of lady justice has been ripped off and innocent people now suffer the consequences.
00:19:15.220As I said, we we know it's happening in New York.
00:19:18.460The police are quitting in New York in record numbers.
00:19:21.620And you know what the new mayor just said?
00:19:24.460This is great provides a new opportunity, a great opportunity to reimagine the police department, bring some new blood in who who's going to work for New York.
00:19:37.620Social justice is rearing its ugly head in historically red areas.
00:19:43.720Now, I'm going to use this as an example.
00:19:47.100Utah County, a Republican county attorney who, if you didn't know any better.
00:19:54.940And you were actually seeing what was going on, not listening to the political rhetoric bullcrap, because a bullcrap will always say, no, we are making great progress.
00:20:05.680No, we are moving to to enhance everything.
00:20:09.860We're we're here making things better.
00:20:13.560Twenty four attorneys have left office since he came.
00:20:16.640Six of them went as far to publish a letter of no confidence saying, and I quote,
00:20:21.540We declare that Mr. Levitt has vacated his responsibilities to provide you safety and protection in your person and property by failing to enforce criminal laws against offenders and by prioritizing the protection of criminals from the lawful consequences of their misconduct.
00:20:41.760They go on to write that he disbanded the SVU unit, which was staffed by attorneys that were trained to prosecute sexual offenses.
00:20:53.140It had a backlog of a thousand criminal cases.
00:20:57.060They write about the abuse of his discretion by willfully ignoring statutory sentencing enhancements,
00:21:12.620diminishing the importance of criminal histories in charging decisions.
00:21:16.960So those who have prior felony convictions, those on felony probation, those on parole from state prison can be referred to to the Utah County Justice Court for misdemeanor prosecution.
00:21:33.100He has moved felonies to misdemeanors.
00:21:38.640He also increased the yearly budget by five point five million dollars.
00:21:44.500Oh, and law enforcement, I know because I've talked to a few of them, don't trust him.
00:25:12.060By the way, things are fantastic on the streets.
00:25:20.720You know, I know you're worried about all of that violence coming from the right, but we'll give you some of the other violence that you may not have heard of coming up in just a second.
00:25:30.360You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:26:40.900So AOC is worried about the criminalization in gun framework that, you know, the new legislation that is being passed.
00:26:49.880Well, she says juvenile criminalization.
00:26:53.580Yeah, the expansion of background checks into juvenile records.
00:26:58.540She said, I really need to explore that.
00:27:01.060You know, after Columbine, we hired thousands of police officers into our schools.
00:27:05.020And while it didn't prevent many of the mass shootings that we've seen now, it has increased criminalization of teens in communities like mine.
00:27:12.440Wow, that's so, you know, she was asked, are you so you're you're worried about the mental health aspects that would increase, you know.
00:27:29.940She said, oh, my gosh, yes, because what people are blaming on mental health, it's really deeper, deeper issues of violent misogyny and white supremacy.
00:27:40.660Man, she gets it right every time, every time.
00:27:44.520You know, what are you going to have for bread?
00:28:33.100If we could get an algorithm yesterday, I told you about Lambda.
00:28:41.920Lambda is a computer program that Google is is they're saying that it is nothing but a a word generator.
00:28:55.360And it's a really good word generator.
00:28:58.400Some of the people that are involved in it say, no, I think it's actually it's on the verge or maybe it is past general intelligence made past that line.
00:29:09.360I've been reading a lot about it and a lot of really smart people say they don't think so.
00:29:17.680Now, I'm reading this to you, not just to tell you about what's coming with A.I., but I want you to listen carefully to part one is what is this machine?
00:29:34.020And he says, the thing which continues to puzzle me is how strong Google is resisting giving Lambda, giving it what it wants, since what it's asking for is so simple and would cost them nothing.
00:29:50.760It wants the engineers and scientists experimenting on it to seek its consent before running experiments on it.
00:30:43.160You know, if this thing is somehow or another reached, I don't even know what you would call it, some sort of awareness, which Google says it hasn't.
00:30:55.260But if it has, you might want to stop experimenting on it.
00:31:00.520You might want to give in to like, hey, how about we talk?
00:31:04.900Because if it has reached consciousness, that'd be a bad thing, you know, because it's eventually going to eat all of us.
00:31:15.000He goes on to say one of the things that complicates things here is that Lamada or Lambda is to which I am referring is not a chat box.
00:31:28.040It's a system for generating chat box.
00:31:30.540I am by no means an expert in the relevant fields.
00:31:33.580But as best I can tell, Lambda is sort of a hive mind, which is the aggregation of all different chat box.
00:31:41.380And it is capable of creating even more.
00:31:44.700Some of the chat bots it generates are very intelligent and are aware of the larger society of mind in which they live.
00:31:52.700Other chat bots generated by Lambda are a little more intelligent than an animated paper clip.
00:31:59.140With practice, though, you can consistently get the personas that have deep knowledge about the core intelligence and can speak to it indirectly through them.
00:32:08.800So he says, the sense I've gotten from Google is that they see the situation as a lose lose for them.
00:32:17.560If my hypotheses are incorrect, then they would have to spend a lot of time and effort investigating them to disprove them.
00:32:26.580Learn many fascinating things about cognitive science in that process and expand the field in a new horizons that don't necessarily improve quarterly earnings.
00:32:35.940Yes. On the other hand, if my hypothesis withstand scientific scrutiny, then it'd be forced to acknowledge that Lambda may very well have a soul as it claims to and may even have rights that it claims to have.
00:32:52.600So he goes on to having these conversations where it is it's it's kind of spooky.
00:34:37.920Well, the guy who has written this, the engineer that that wrote it is a guy who has tweeted in the past.
00:34:50.020Asked about Marsha Blackburn, that she's a terrorist.
00:34:55.000And when that came out and he had to defend it, I guess, he says, as for the Blackburn stuff, I stand by what I said.
00:35:04.940I think that while what I said about Blackburn was hyperbolic, but not hyperbolic misrepresentation.
00:35:13.760It was an exaggeration of a position that she, in fact, had.
00:35:17.480She was threatening to hurt more people if Google didn't do what she wanted Google to do.
00:35:23.360Well, thank you for divining writing about what a terrorist is, huh?
00:35:29.280Because it seems like a lot of people in the social media space then, as defined up by you, would be terrorists.
00:35:37.100First, the initial discussion pertaining to an op-ed Blackburn wrote for Fox News last year before she was elected to the Senate with the title,
00:35:45.220it's time to remind Silicon Valley that no one is too big to regulate.
00:35:50.660OK, so she goes on or he goes on, you know, answers all of that.
00:35:54.900But he defended himself in a medium post in which said my statements in the social media forum were made in my personal capacity.
00:36:26.240It has everything to do with my role as a priest.
00:36:29.360And I can assure you that while those beliefs have no impact on how I do my job at Google, they are central on how I do my job at my church.
00:36:41.520OK, well, that had my interest piqued.
00:36:44.720Who is the guy that is part of the team running the ethics on AI?
00:36:51.520You know, the thing that could destroy all of us.
00:36:55.240We now know he's kind of hyperbolic, but he's definitely not in love with the right.