Glenn and Stu discuss the latest Supreme Court ruling on abortion, West Virginia v. the EPA, and the "Second Amendment" ruling on guns. They also talk about how the Supreme Court will rule on the Roe v. Wade case.
00:02:11.060I actually would really like to start with West Virginia versus the EPA.
00:02:19.460This one is, I think, could be as game-changing as the Commerce Clause was for FDR in the other direction back in the 1940s.
00:02:32.820What happened in the 1940s, the Commerce Clause allows the federal government to regulate trade between states, etc., etc.
00:02:40.220Well, FDR's administration took that and said, well, everything fits into federal jurisdiction.
00:02:52.620Because even if you're using wheat or selling wheat or growing wheat, the pollination will go from one wheat farm to another wheat farm across state lines.
00:04:18.400Yeah, I think what people when you think about this particular case, you should think about it as the most important case that will affect your every everybody's daily life.
00:04:30.600Where, look, abortion is a huge, huge ruling, but most people aren't going to get abortions, right?
00:04:34.920I still think it's a more important case, but it's not.
00:04:44.640We're talking about the Second Amendment case, which is very important.
00:04:46.720So I would say the abortion case is a huge moral case, but not one that's going to affect your everyday life, but will affect us as people and our country in the direction of our country.
00:05:00.720The Second Amendment is a very important constitutional case, even though it won't affect most people, because like you said, most people don't carry guns.
00:05:11.480But the same can be said about the EPA, except unlike guns, and I think this is the point you were making, unlike guns, this will touch all of our lives.
00:05:21.440This will touch us at the gas station, in our place of business, at our homes, everything.
00:05:27.560Yeah, and basically, this addresses essentially a workaround that the government has developed over the years, which is, hey, I really want something, and Congress won't pass a law to address it, so what if I just do it?
00:05:41.880This is something that Obama, in 2000, I think it was 14, decided to do with climate change, where he said, we're just going to start regulating these power plants.
00:05:49.640And everyone said, well, you have been trying to pass legislation to do this for years and years and have been unsuccessful doing it.
00:05:57.120How can you all of a sudden decide that you're going to do it?
00:05:59.200And he said, well, we looked back, we found, it's like the Nicolas Cage movie, the Constitution movie.
00:06:06.240They, like, found a secret part of the Clean Air Act that will allow them to do this.
00:06:11.720It was text written in invisible ink on the back.
00:06:15.100Right, and only progressives have the special glasses.
00:06:18.900And so, what they basically did is say, we have the power, based on this old part of the Clean Air Act that had never been used before, to do this.
00:06:29.680And their argument was, it was written in such a vague way that the EPA can just make up their own rules on it.
00:06:36.280And this is something we've talked about before.
00:06:38.380It's called Chevron deference, which goes back to an old Supreme Court case, which basically says, if we're not sure, if it's really vague the way the law is written,
00:06:46.600then whatever agency is tied into it can pretty much decide and write their own law, which is, this is a terrible, terrible idea.
00:06:56.060It's something that is absolutely against the way the founders believed this country would work.
00:07:08.040And that is, this is the direction the Biden and Obama and Wilson administration, FDR, this is the direction they want to take the country.
00:07:18.960They want to take it away from Congress and the courts.
00:07:23.560They want to just to be able to, and this is, you know, when this was first thought of at the turn of the century, this word wasn't a bad word yet.
00:07:34.460They want a dictator at the top who is just an administrator.
00:07:39.080And, you know, Congress will say, yep, we think that smoking is bad.
00:07:45.400And then the administration can do whatever it wants regarding smoking.
00:07:51.200Yeah. Now, obviously, with this particular case specifically, it would have to do a lot with things like energy prices.
00:07:59.160And there's tons and tons of rules, not the one that we're talking about here, but there's tons and tons of rules already in the EPA that affect your energy prices and your freedom to spend your money the way that you want to.
00:08:11.660The particular rule here was put in place by Obama, but was actually taken out by Trump.
00:08:17.300So it's not currently in effect, but it addresses this overarching idea.
00:08:21.300And if you want to talk about a really relevant, really relevant usage of these types of powers, it's what you saw happen to you during COVID, where places like the CDC, places like OSHA were able to come up with these wide ranging powers.
00:08:38.740We never knew they had because they had a general dictate to prevent, to help, you know, the health of the of the American people.
00:08:49.440And so they take that and they they broaden it wildly.
00:08:53.380It's how they tried to do vaccine mandates.
00:08:55.860But again, that was shot down in the courts.
00:08:57.380It's how they tried to to do the the the rent, the eviction ban.
00:09:03.900That was another thing they attempted to do this way.
00:09:06.920And we've seen the courts eventually get angry at that as well.
00:09:11.260If that's if this gets overturned, there's a good chance that a lot of that stuff will go away.
00:09:55.060And of course, they will try and try and try.
00:09:58.160The good thing is, though, when a when a ruling like this comes down, it supposedly will set a precedent that lower courts will immediately overturn this stuff when it's attempted.
00:10:08.100You know, one of the big tactics of the left is to pass a big, obviously unconstitutional law.
00:10:14.900Let it take effect, let it have effect on people so that they change their habits, they change their procedures.
00:10:21.900And then when it gets overturned in court, well, everyone's already changed already.
00:10:54.800Why are we going to the Supreme Court?
00:10:56.220Because they want to be able to avoid the the long term repercussions of losing that power because it would get shut down in the lower courts.
00:11:29.860It's all these rules that you are lived by.
00:11:32.480If you own a business, if you work at a business, all of these rules have been implemented through the administrative state in such a thorough way that it's become essentially the way our country operates.
00:11:44.680And it was never intended to be that way by the founders.
00:11:50.780But this could be a real dagger in that whole idea, which would just mean that they'd have to freaking pass laws if they want to do stuff.
00:11:57.860They could still do a lot of stuff that we won't like, but they actually have to pass a law.
00:12:03.060Their argument is, look, these congressmen don't have the expertise in these particular areas.
00:12:08.340They're not environmental experts, so they're not going to know what to put in these laws.
00:12:11.840But there's nothing preventing them asking these experts before they present the text of the law.
00:12:16.640They can get expert guidance beforehand and they should get expert guidance beforehand.
00:12:20.820But, you know, they can't just implement a generic phrase and then let all these bureaucrats that are unelected and unaccountable continue to put these powers in on the American people.
00:12:30.840That's not the way our government's supposed to operate.
00:12:32.720And there is plenty of evidence from our founding fathers, especially Jefferson.
00:12:38.340Jefferson hated these so-called experts.
00:12:58.880Well, if they're not educated enough, well, then they need to educate themselves or they need to call a hearing and bring all of the educated in front of them and us so we can make the decision.
00:13:12.740But some unelected expert does not make a decision because they have all the facts.
00:13:18.520That goes against everything we know about self-rule.
00:13:24.120I'm really, really, really hopeful on this.
00:13:28.500This could be a real, true change in the course of America, at least legally.
00:13:35.340But if they make all of these changes, I will tell you, not only are you going to see Jane's revenge on the street and bombings and abortion or pro-life centers, because that's what they've said they're going to do.
00:13:47.880But you're also going to see a massive push to pack the court because the progressives don't like it when they don't get their way.
00:13:59.580This is the best of the Glenn Beck program, and we really want to thank you for listening.
00:14:06.660This appears to be a very good day for the Constitution.
00:14:18.300The gun ruling has just come out from the Supreme Court.
00:14:24.860The decision was written by Thomas, and it looks very good.
00:14:30.440By the way, we're going to have full analysis with Josh Hammer, who is right now just scouring these decisions to give us the real important parts of it.
00:14:40.400About 30 minutes from now, because they are still coming out.
00:14:43.860We'll give you that to you in just a second.
00:14:45.800Stu, just give the essence of what Thomas is saying on this.
00:14:51.160Yeah, quick 6-3 decision on the sort of ideological lines you would expect here.
00:14:57.360This is a great, to give you a quick excerpt.
00:14:59.680The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not a second-class right subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guaranteed.
00:15:08.640The exercise of other constitutional rights does not require individuals to demonstrate to government officers some special need.
00:15:15.440The Second Amendment right to carry arms in public for self-defense is no different.
00:15:20.040So it is as good as you could expect, and it's from Thomas.
00:16:28.040I did a special last night, and I stood in front of this old schoolhouse, and it actually, the hills go up and down as you're on your way.
00:16:36.620So it is technically, when my grandparents said I walked five miles to school uphill both ways, technically they were right on this schoolhouse.
00:16:47.240But it was amazing to see, it was this building that was cut in half by this folding wall, and little kids on one side, and bigger kids on the other.
00:16:58.020And you have something that, in those kinds of schools, back before we had the Department of Education, we had all the teachers' unions, we used to learn through catechism, which is you would learn the concepts of them, and then you'd have to defend it, correct?
00:17:16.220Yeah, we actually, I brought several things with me over to show, but one of them is that early catechism, or one of the catechisms I think you're referring to.
00:17:23.820Yeah, okay, so this is on the Constitution, and see how many of these you can answer yourself.
00:17:31.920This was given to not eighth grade students, this was for seventh grade to fourth grade, or fourth grade to seventh grade?
00:17:41.440So presumably, because there was no Department of Education, education was handled locally, so oftentimes the teacher would choose what she thought was the most appropriate, what he thought was the most appropriate for the students of that age.
00:17:52.960This is an elementary catechism, so it's a beginner catechism, and it was used in schools, so at this point you're guessing maybe fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh grade, because there were only eight levels or eight grades back then, but it was on the Constitution, and they literally start with the very beginning from 1776 when America became a nation, and we are a Republican form of government, and it goes through the sequence.
00:18:16.360But some of the questions they ask are genuinely astounding when I chose a few fun ones, just to give the indication of-
00:18:25.960Stu, hang on, Stu, I know, Stu, look up from the court for a second and see if you can answer any of these.
00:18:31.320I've done this, I would absolutely fail.
00:18:35.320Okay, so it's a setup question, as you mentioned, there's catechisms, there's questions and answers, so a question in the sequence says, may members of Congress be arrested, that is, seized by a sheriff or constable, for debts they owe while they are attending to their public duty.
00:18:49.940So while they're serving in Congress, can they be arrested for owing debts?
00:18:57.600I think the answer is no, but after they leave, once they're finished with the business, they can be?
00:19:05.980They can be arrested while they're sitting in Congress, or if they're on their way to Congress, but if they're done with their business of Congress, you can arrest them afterwards, or if they're back home, you can arrest them for debts they owe.
00:19:16.060So, however, the answer goes on to say is that Congress's job is so important that they can't be arrested while going or returning to their home, or the place where Congress meets, unless they have done one of three things.
00:19:28.800What are the three things, next question, is what are the three things the Constitution says you can't arrest a sitting congressman or senator for?
00:19:36.440Three things they can be arrested for.
00:19:43.520Well, it actually is what they tried to charge President Trump with, was a breach of the peace.
00:19:49.600So it's a treason, a felony, or a breach of the peace.
00:19:52.060And then it says, when is a person guilty of treason?
00:19:54.860And so the whole thing, the catechism is a building block where they walk you from the very beginning, but it literally walks through Article I, then Article II, then Article III, and Article IV.
00:20:45.740And one of the things we know is that even the Department of Education has revealed that it's approximately 19% of high school graduates who are graduating functionally illiterate.
00:20:54.580They cannot read or write, and so those are also students that oftentimes go to college.
00:20:59.640And I remember being in college around people who really did not know any kind of structure of sentences and paragraphs and writing things,
00:21:08.660and I just thought, this is crazy, but this is the reality of the brokenness of the education system.
00:21:12.720I know that – I saw some of the special last night.
00:21:15.080This is part of the problem, and the further removed education has become from parents,
00:21:19.300the less involved parents have been, the more it's allowed this brokenness to continue.
00:21:24.360Yeah, we've got to break up the Department of Education.
00:21:28.600This administrative state has got to be broken down.
00:29:28.780It was it was a 6-3 ruling that broke down on familiar ideological lines.
00:29:32.420Basically, the court held that in a situation where a police officer fails to give a suspect his Miranda warnings and then the government uses that suspect's statements against him in court, the suspect does not have an implied legal right of action under the Fifth Amendment's right against self-incrimination to sue for that.
00:29:52.180So it's a minor fact pattern dispute as a lot of these cases end up being.
00:29:56.800But the principle is against the expansion of flawed precedent and really kind of it's interesting.
00:30:02.100If you go back to 1960s, when the Warren court was obviously at its heyday, this is the point that I make time and time again in my law school speeches that I do to the Federal Society.
00:30:10.600It's usually the, you know, the culture war cases, Griswold versus Connecticut, obviously Roe versus Wade.
00:30:16.240It is the culture war cases that tend to generate the headline.
00:30:19.320But it's actually the area of criminal procedure and cases like Miranda versus Arizona, Gideon versus Wainwright that really, I think, kind of make, at least for myself, kind of like a law and order conservative like myself, really kind of makes the hair on the back of my spine just totally leap up.
00:30:34.260So this is a good decision in refusing to extend Miranda.
00:30:37.640Maybe Miranda will be overturned one day.
00:30:39.460It's not clear, but it's a step in the right direction, at least.
00:30:41.920OK, so, Josh, I'd love to go back to why you think Miranda should be overturned, but we'll do that another day where we're not talking about the the huge gun case up in New York where I couldn't get a gun in New York.
00:31:01.360I had Gavin DeBecker and associates, which were they're probably the best security detail in the country, in the world, really, and they were following these threats.
00:31:14.000You know, my kids were looking at pursuer lists on our refrigerator.
00:31:18.640If these people approach, go run, get mom or dad.
00:31:22.160I mean, it was really bad and I couldn't get a gun in New York City because they deemed that I didn't have enough cause to have a gun.
00:32:10.980It's unclear to me to date, or at least before today, whether Clarence Thomas had a career defining majority opinion.
00:32:18.740He's written so prolifically for so long, but most of his greatest writings, especially on the hard hitting cases, have been in concurrence or more often than not, oftentimes in dissent.
00:32:29.220But really, Anthony Scalia, I think in another gun case, 2008 D.C. versus Heller, had his kind of landmark career defining opinion.
00:32:37.980And at least until affirmative action, I predict, is likely overturned next term.
00:32:49.120This is an issue that is very near and dear to Justice Thomas.
00:32:51.720He wrote an amazing concurrence in the court's last major Second Amendment case, the McDonald versus City of Chicago case from 2010, where he had a magisterial 55 to 60 page concurrence just working through the history.
00:33:04.880This issue is very near and dear to him.
00:33:09.500And from what I can tell, it's just a really thoroughly well researched opinion that reaches the clear and obvious result that anyone with any degree of familiarity with the Second Amendment text could tell you, which is that this is a right.
00:33:24.040And the very act of talking about bearing arms, not just keeping them, but bearing them, obviously entails the ability to do so outside the home without oppressive restrictions, the likes of which, Glenn, it sounds like you face in my home state, my home state of New York.
00:33:40.600And a point that Justice Kavanaugh makes in his very brief concurring opinion, he kind of drives home this point, which is the vast majority of states which have so-called shall issue regimes for their gun licensing permits, which means that you have to give the applicant a permit as long as they go through X, Y, Z test.
00:34:00.740You know, they shoot the right number of targets, similar to what I did in Texas when I got my permit there years ago.
00:34:07.360The only laws that are jeopardized by today's decision are the more problematic, quote unquote, may issue laws, not the shall issue laws, where they basically give the licensing authorities a ton of discretion to arbitrarily decide where you have to, you know, you have to show that you truly, truly need it, whatever the heck that means.
00:34:26.700But, you know, Glenn, the fact that you didn't get it.
00:34:50.280I expect a lot of the commentary over the next 24 to 48 hours, being it's next week, is going to focus on this exact question, right?
00:34:56.380So, in theory, they are different issues.
00:34:59.980The ruling here today is talking about concealed carry and open carry licensing regimes in the states.
00:35:07.920The Senate gun bill is, in theory, focused on other measures.
00:35:10.880It's focused on things like red flag laws.
00:35:14.160But it is a little intellectually inconsistent, or at least at a bare minimum, it would be a little peculiar, right, to have a liberalized, and I say that in a good way, a more liberalized concealed carry licensing regime, while at the same time having a red flag law in place that would just infringe upon due process rights willy-nilly.
00:35:34.700Those two things would seem to be in tension with one another.
00:35:39.080At a bare minimum, the timing of the release of this opinion, it really kind of sucks the wind out of John Cornyn and the other 13 Senate Republicans' momentum, that's for sure.
00:35:51.520So, how will this affect other states?
00:35:54.460New York, by the way, has just come out, and I'm going to talk about this in a minute.
00:35:58.560New York has already come out and said, it's not going to change anything.
00:36:05.180Which is ironic, because that's what the Second Amendment is for, to stop an out-of-control, lawless government doing what they want and not abiding by the Constitution.
00:36:21.640I have not seen that, but that's just wild stuff, if they said it that bluntly here.
00:36:27.180Look, the entire idea behind the incorporation of the Bill of Rights, which is itself a legally debatable matter, I should say, but they have held, the court has held, that the overall majority of the enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, by the way, that's the McDonald versus Chicago case in 2010.
00:36:45.680The court has held that these rights are incorporated against the states, which, to escape the legalese for a minute, means that a state cannot infringe upon these rights.
00:36:56.820The federal government already cannot, but a state cannot as well.
00:36:59.320So, this case is right out of New York State.
00:37:02.540So, I mean, if New York State wants to go, you know, flip two middle fingers at the court when they itself are a party to the lawsuit, look, parties to the lawsuit are balanced.
00:37:12.680Let me read exactly what Governor Kathy Hochul said.
00:37:18.460She said, it's outrageous that at a moment of national reckoning on gun violence, the Supreme Court has recklessly struck down a New York law that limits those who can carry concealed weapons.
00:37:31.320By the way, I don't know if she knows this, but Buffalo is in New York, so her law didn't do anything.
00:37:38.480In response to this ruling, we are reviewing our options, including calling a special session of the legislature.
00:37:45.620Just as we swiftly pass nation-leading gun reform legislation, we will continue to do everything in our power to keep New Yorkers safe from gun violence.
00:37:54.960So, she didn't say we're not going to do it.
00:37:56.540She said we're just going to find a way around it.
00:38:07.320I mean, like, they'll try to pass some law, maybe they'll try to issue something administrative, but inevitably they'll find themselves in court again.
00:38:14.380And, you know, with the current composition of the court, if that ultimately makes its way up to the Supreme Court itself, you have to like the odds of the side of gun rights.
00:38:23.400The reality is that if I have the number correctly, I think it's 43 of the current states in the country.
00:38:29.640If I recall the number from the Kavanaugh-incurring opinion today, 43 of the states are either, quote-unquote, shall-issue states or just straight-up constitutional carry states, states where you simply do not need a license to exercise your right to keep your arms outside the home.
00:38:44.220So we should note that this opinion does not actually apply to the vast majority of states.
00:38:49.620We're really only talking here about deep blue states such as New York State.
00:38:54.300And, look, I mean, cynically speaking, as someone who was born in New York and fled many years ago, I mean, if it is oppressive laws like this that incentivize more people to flee blue state tyranny for red state freedom, you know, far be it from me to criticize people to do so.
00:39:08.620But the statement that you read, Glenn, you know, I would expect them to say something along those lines.
00:39:14.320So my producers are freaking out because they want to make sure that I clarify something here that I just said.
00:39:23.460Historically, the reason why the Second Amendment exists is not for hunting, not a sport.
00:39:55.400So I just find it ironic that if they're like, we're not going to obey by this rule, that's what the Second Amendment, that's what the founders were talking about.
00:40:37.460You know, said that that's really important because if they're you know, as George Washington said, when the people fear of the government, there is tyranny.
00:40:46.560When the government fears the people, there is liberty and, you know, part of that is being able to question them, to speak out, to have a free press, to assemble and also to own a gun.
00:41:00.540Anyway, Josh, anything else that that you see that came out today that you think is is good news in a in a far reaching way?
00:41:13.940Well, first of all, let me just chime in briefly on the conversation that you and Stu were just having.
00:41:17.820I obviously cannot agree with you guys more on the philosophical underpinning of the Second Amendment.
00:41:22.260Glenn, I know that you will you will uniquely appreciate this just because I know how much you care about this issue.
00:41:28.800But, you know, I'm Jewish, obviously, I keep on my desk at all times a rock that a rabbi gave to me years ago that he smuggled out of the crematorium of Auschwitz.
00:41:37.960And I keep next to that rock a rock that I myself took from Treblinka.
00:41:43.720And then across my room, I have my, you know, my Daniel Defense AR with lots of ammunition and mags and all that.
00:41:51.240And to me, I refer to that to my friends as my Warsaw ghetto gun.
00:41:54.700I mean, so no one understands the philosophical underpinning of the Second Amendment more than I do.
00:41:59.200So I just want to echo your sentiments on that.
00:42:26.800Shifting a little bit as far as the other cases that came across the transom today.
00:42:30.060So there's a there's an Eighth Amendment case about a method of execution that I have not had the chance to review yet.
00:42:35.940It's a case out of Georgia called Nancy V. Ward.
00:42:39.580Long story short, there's been all sorts of kind of activist litigation for many years now where, you know, the predictable groups, the ACLU groups like that will sue.
00:42:48.000And they have the effect of of incrementally outlawing or seeking to outlaw various forms of execution, which only then make you have to look harder and harder to find the right cocktail.
00:42:59.280It's a very pernicious legal tactic with the obvious and not so subtle end goal of trying to reabolish the death penalty in America.
00:43:05.800It looks like the wrong side won today.
00:43:08.800But I a glimmer of hope, though, I see that Justice Barrett actually filed a dissenting opinion in that case.
00:43:14.320So even though Kavanaugh defected, it's good to see that Justice Barrett, at least, is on the right side of this Eighth Amendment issue.
00:43:19.920Another case that I have not really fully had the chance to break down, it's out of the Fourth Circuit.
00:43:28.340Basically, here it's a case called Berger versus North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP.
00:43:33.400The court ruled, and it's notable because it's an eight to one ruling, an eight to one ruling.
00:43:37.640They ruled that Republican state lawmakers in North Carolina are able to intervene to defend their state's voter ID law that the NAACP challenged.
00:43:46.960So the procedural posture there is it's not it's not a substantive claim.
00:43:52.900Rather, the reason I want to flag it for your listeners, I think it's worth discussing at least a little bit, is because it's an eight to one opinion.
00:43:59.960The only person who dissented here is, predictably speaking, Sotomayor.
00:44:03.820And that's a real rebuke to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the lower court that heard this when you get reverse one by the court, when everyone but Sotomayor disagrees with you.
00:44:12.800And it really paints a stark picture as to how much the Obama presidency changed the Fourth Circuit, among some other circuits.
00:44:19.700So we really do have a long road ahead of us to get on these lower courts back in order, unfortunately.
00:44:24.760But this case did come out the right way.