The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 69 - #NoMeansNo Unless #LoveWins

00:00:00.000 In the days of hashtag MeToo and hashtag NoMeansNo and politicians and media moguls dropping left and right for sexual coercion,

00:00:09.340 consent has taken center stage as the indispensable prerequisite for mutual action.

00:00:14.840 Unless, of course, that means a confectioner declines to participate in a gay wedding ceremony,

00:00:19.360 in which case he must be stripped of his First Amendment rights and he'll do it and he'll like it, baby. 0.53

00:00:23.620 Just relax and enjoy it.

00:00:24.800 We will discuss Masterpiece Cake Shop, the Supreme Court, and why no only means no until hashtag Love Wins.

00:00:31.740 Then, Roaming Millennial and Amber Athey join the panel of deplorables to discuss what the resignation of John Conyers tells us about Democrat strategy,

00:00:40.040 the Supreme Court's upholding of Trump's travel ban, and the joyful post-Michelle Obama return of 1% chocolate milk to school lunches.

00:00:47.880 I'm Michael Knowles and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:54.800 The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments on Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

00:01:03.200 This is the famous Christian Baker gay wedding case that you've heard about for years.

00:01:07.400 If the Supreme Court hasn't totally given itself over to nonsense on the First Amendment, the Baker, Jack Phillips, will win this case.

00:01:13.920 And there's actually good reason to be hopeful for free speech and religious liberty here.

00:01:17.800 This Supreme Court has been generally excellent on First Amendment issues, Citizens United, obviously.

00:01:23.460 The fear is that Anthony Kennedy showed us in the Obergefell decision that when it comes to gay marriage,

00:01:29.620 he stops thinking like a lawyer and starts writing like a lyrical 19th century poet.

00:01:33.760 In that case, he found a right to intimacy somewhere in the Constitution,

00:01:38.960 which seems that it doesn't jive that well with the hashtag MeToo climate, does it?

00:01:43.000 If there were a constitutional right to intimacy, then Harvey Weinstein would get off scot-free.

00:01:48.720 Kevin Spacey, Al Franken, Roy Moore even, he'd be seated immediately.

00:01:52.320 The right to intimacy is obviously ridiculous.

00:01:55.540 I think Scalia said at the time that the right to intimacy isn't found in marriage also, by the way.

00:02:02.140 Ask the nearest hippie.

00:02:04.220 How I miss that man.

00:02:05.620 It's ridiculous, but that said, the court's swing vote, Justice Kennedy, has been pretty good on free speech.

00:02:10.960 So we'll see where he falls here.

00:02:13.440 Religious liberty and free speech, by the way, would not have had a shot of winning the day

00:02:17.740 had President Trump not won the presidency and appointed Neil Gorsuch to the bench.

00:02:22.320 If Hillary had won, this case would be over already. 0.99

00:02:24.560 We wouldn't be talking about it.

00:02:26.280 So thank you to America for electing Donald Trump.

00:02:28.700 And also to Mitch McConnell, who doesn't get enough credit for this.

00:02:31.820 Mitch McConnell staved off the Democrat hordes who were clamoring to put Merrick Garland on the bench just after Justice Scalia died.

00:02:39.200 So to the merits of the case, there's a lot of fake news out there,

00:02:42.280 so let's break down what we know.

00:02:44.420 In 2012, before Colorado redefined marriage to include monogamous same-sex unions,

00:02:49.660 a Colorado gay couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins,

00:02:52.720 ordered a custom wedding cake from Jack Phillips' boutique, Masterpiece Cake Shop.

00:02:58.080 Phillips, a devoted Christian, declined the order because his religious beliefs prevented him from participating in it

00:03:05.240 by lending his artistic services to gay wedding ceremonies.

00:03:09.240 His religious beliefs also prevent him from making custom cakes for lewd bachelor parties, divorce parties, and Halloween.

00:03:16.200 He won't make a custom cake for Halloween.

00:03:18.720 Those are his religious beliefs.

00:03:20.600 This is his artistic cake shop.

00:03:23.280 The couple, he explained, was free to choose from any of the generic cakes for their ceremony,

00:03:27.660 but he wouldn't create a custom piece for the event.

00:03:31.080 So what happened?

00:03:32.380 Craig and Mullins went to one of the other countless cake shops and they got their cake made for their ceremony.

00:03:38.580 There are apparently plenty of cake shops that are willing to bake cakes for gay wedding ceremonies.

00:03:43.120 We're anticipating probably a 30% boost in revenue this year from gay wedding cakes alone. 0.79

00:03:48.620 30% boost.

00:03:49.720 Yeah, there are all these new ceremonies.

00:03:51.860 Every other cake shop is willing to do it.

00:03:53.940 Some people are owned by devoted Christians or Muslims or whatever, and they have these religious beliefs,

00:04:00.180 and they don't want to participate in the wedding and lend their artistic expression to it.

00:04:04.320 Problem solved, right?

00:04:06.280 Apparently not.

00:04:07.380 Because Craig and Mullins decided to make it their mission to force Phillips to craft the gay marriage cake

00:04:13.320 or else to shut down his store, to lose all his business.

00:04:16.480 They filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

00:04:19.180 They claimed discrimination.

00:04:20.140 The case has now made it all the way up to the Supreme Court, and they just heard oral arguments this morning.

00:04:26.240 We should make this point very clear.

00:04:28.000 This case has very little to do with gay marriage.

00:04:30.720 It has very little to do with gay marriage per se.

00:04:32.880 Gavin McGinnis said he used to support gay marriage until he realized that it was mostly a political act to screw with Christians. 0.67

00:04:39.180 And cases like this are where Gavin got that idea from.

00:04:42.540 George Will, too, by the way, thinks the Supreme Court should side with the state and make Phillips craft the cake.

00:04:47.420 A lot of conservatives, the conservatives who are like conservatives, but not that kind of conservative.

00:04:52.600 You know, the ones who are, I'm a Republican, but I don't like any Republican stuff.

00:04:55.880 They insist it doesn't matter.

00:04:57.880 Who cares?

00:04:58.580 It's just a cake.

00:04:59.640 It's so trivial.

00:05:00.520 It's just, just make the cake.

00:05:02.060 The left is obviously making the same point.

00:05:04.520 Republicans are terrified of gay wedding cakes for some reason.

00:05:07.720 They say people can't help who or what they fear, but let's be honest, being afraid of a gay wedding cake is a choice. 0.98

00:05:12.540 Oh, they're afraid, isn't that?

00:05:13.680 They're just afraid, you silly people.

00:05:15.380 So it doesn't matter.

00:05:16.700 Well, okay, if it doesn't matter, then drop the complaint.

00:05:19.700 It doesn't matter, right?

00:05:20.680 It doesn't matter.

00:05:21.520 It's a silly case.

00:05:22.420 Okay, good.

00:05:23.160 Then you back down.

00:05:24.920 Then the other side in the culture working back down.

00:05:27.080 Then drop the suit.

00:05:27.940 If it doesn't matter, just go to another cake shop.

00:05:30.900 Actually, the couple did go to another cake shop, but they know that the cake matters.

00:05:35.140 The cake does matter because it's a symbol and it's a mechanism of coercion.

00:05:39.840 Who gets to decide how you use your artistic talents?

00:05:42.280 You, your conscience, or the government?

00:05:44.500 Who gets to decide which messages are optional and which are compulsory?

00:05:49.060 George Will is either being obtuse here or he's missing the point.

00:05:52.260 He claimed in his column on the subject that the primary purpose of cake is to be eaten.

00:05:56.780 Sure, right, that's the primary purpose of cake.

00:05:58.740 But wedding cake is different than regular old cake.

00:06:01.920 That's why regular old cake costs $11 and wedding cakes cost into the thousands of dollars.

00:06:06.980 I know this now.

00:06:07.820 I'm looking at wedding cakes.

00:06:09.100 Nobody has turned me down yet because my money is green.

00:06:11.680 As Princeton professor Robbie George rightly points out in today's New York Times, a former newspaper,

00:06:16.780 wedding cakes are the centerpieces of weddings and they symbolize an idea.

00:06:21.720 That's why we have them.

00:06:22.740 That's why we don't just only serve cannoli or something or donuts at weddings.

00:06:25.960 There are wedding cakes.

00:06:27.140 They symbolize an idea, namely, that a wedding has taken place, that a marriage has begun.

00:06:33.040 Some people don't believe that that is the case when it comes to same-sex monogamous unions.

00:06:37.860 The state has no right to force an individual into expressing an idea with which he disagrees,

00:06:43.460 even if that idea has been adopted as the official state line as of like five minutes ago.

00:06:48.980 This is the other aspect of insanity in this case.

00:06:51.800 Until the day before yesterday, nobody would have fathomed redefining marriage to include same-sex unions.

00:06:58.100 Now, that which is not forbidden is compulsory.

00:07:00.960 And by that light, it's not so bizarre that this whole case, which is really about compulsion and free speech,

00:07:05.940 it centers on whether or not an individual is required by law to express so recent, so utterly novel an idea as gay marriage.

00:07:13.940 It isn't about gay marriage, it's about the state and the culture warrior left flexing its muscles

00:07:19.340 and pounding individual liberty and conscience into submission.

00:07:23.500 So, some claim that a ruling in favor of religious liberty and free speech,

00:07:27.240 a ruling in favor of Masterpiece Cake Shop and Jack Phillips,

00:07:30.280 that will destroy all sorts of anti-discrimination legislation in the country.

00:07:34.800 But there is no evidence for that.

00:07:37.460 As the cake shop's lawyers, Phillips himself, have made clear,

00:07:40.860 the custom cake is an artistic piece that clearly comes along with free artistic and philosophical expression.

00:07:47.780 That's why they're so expensive.

00:07:49.160 That's why the bakery is called Masterpiece Cake Shop.

00:07:51.800 It's not called Commodity Cake Shop or Food Cake Shop or Regular Old $10 Cake Shop.

00:07:57.720 It's a masterpiece.

00:07:58.900 It involves artistic expression.

00:08:00.360 By the way, it is also ironic that the left, which has degraded and deconstructed art so much

00:08:05.860 that now, you know, a tricycle on top of a newspaper is art

00:08:09.600 or a giant block in a park or a smear of color on a wall, that sort of thing,

00:08:13.200 now those people are telling us that confections delicately crafted

00:08:17.440 to be exhibited at the centerpiece of wedding ceremonies, masterpieces,

00:08:22.320 those are not art.

00:08:24.180 But that is neither here nor there.

00:08:25.660 The point is that it isn't discrimination.

00:08:27.080 It isn't that the artist can choose which customers he will serve.

00:08:31.640 If, hopefully, the Supreme Court rules in favor of religious liberty here, 0.88

00:08:35.100 it's not that the artist can say, I'm going to sell to you but not sell to you.

00:08:39.200 The artist has to sell cakes to everybody, as he repeatedly offered to do in this case.

00:08:43.400 The portrait photographer has to take photos of everybody.

00:08:46.340 The painter has to paint paintings of everybody.

00:08:49.220 But these artists don't need to convey ideas with which they disagree.

00:08:52.300 A Christian painter is not required by law to paint an image of Satan stomping on the head of Christ.

00:08:59.680 A Christian photographer is not required by law or the Constitution to recreate the piss Christ.

00:09:05.480 Consider the reverse, actually.

00:09:07.020 To drive the point home with not so subtle a brush,

00:09:10.180 there's an evangelical pastor named Joshua Fierstein, I think.

00:09:14.000 He called a Florida-based bakery that calls itself LGBT-friendly.

00:09:18.860 He called it up and ordered a cake decorated with the phrase, quote,

00:09:22.760 we do not support gay marriage. 0.95

00:09:25.120 Now, as you might expect and as Fierstein expected, the bakery hung up.

00:09:29.360 That's entirely their right.

00:09:30.520 They didn't want to express that idea with their art.

00:09:33.300 They have every right, moral and constitutional, to refuse to express certain ideas in art.

00:09:39.440 Anti-discrimination laws entitle you to an artist's products but not to their creativity.

00:09:44.020 The left now insists on this schizophrenic argument.

00:09:46.160 Freedom of choice and consent are the essential prerequisites of modern life

00:09:50.060 until you contradict their ever-changing orthodoxy.

00:09:53.700 Because hashtag MeToo only matters until hashtag love wins.

00:09:58.160 Speaking of hashtag love wins,

00:10:00.440 we will now bring on our all-lady lovely panel of deplorables today,

00:10:04.080 Roaming Millennial and Amber Athey. 0.68

00:10:06.120 Roaming, does this matter or am I just an insane culture warrior?

00:10:09.960 I think this absolutely matters and this story and others like it that we've seen

00:10:14.520 always bother me and they frustrate me every time they're brought up.

00:10:18.100 And you know what, like you said, I think this is absolutely freedom of religion

00:10:21.400 and it's a freedom of speech issue.

00:10:23.140 But I'm going to go further than that and say,

00:10:25.120 despite these anti-discrimination laws that exist,

00:10:27.720 I don't believe that small business owners should be compelled to give their services to anybody

00:10:32.280 they don't want to for whatever reason.

00:10:34.380 I believe that if you're in the marketplace, if you own your business and you're your own employer,

00:10:39.840 you should absolutely have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.

00:10:44.000 And if people don't like that, they're free to take their business elsewhere.

00:10:46.640 To me, this is a question of big government and keeping a hold of our rights in the marketplace.

00:10:52.280 Well, you know, this is an aspect of the Civil Rights Act that muddled the conversation on this, of course,

00:10:58.260 which is that you no longer can refuse service to people just because you don't like the look of their jib or something.

00:11:05.540 And the question is, how far can you take that?

00:11:07.740 I mean, is there any shot that we would return it to a time when I could walk into a restaurant

00:11:12.800 and they would say, I'm sorry, we don't serve anybody who even vaguely reminds me of Rachel Maddow here?

00:11:18.020 Or, you know, are we going to have to construct some more complicated, less clear version of freedom of expression

00:11:28.280 and, you know, freedom of commerce given the 1960s?

00:11:33.180 I mean, even in light of America's past, I don't think that the fact that prejudices existed in a widespread manner 50 years ago

00:11:42.200 means that we should have laws that are unconstitutional and limit the freedom of business owners now.

00:11:47.100 Now, if, you know, if someone does have a rule that they don't want to serve Rachel Maddow-looking customers...

00:11:53.900 Even to think about it is so hurtful.

00:11:57.200 Right. But you're allowed to go somewhere else and you're allowed to tell people,

00:12:00.920 hey, this is what this person is doing. Do not give them their business.

00:12:03.980 Why do we want to fund the businesses of bigots in any case?

00:12:06.860 I would rather know who they are so I can go and shop somewhere else.

00:12:09.480 That's the irony is it is people tilting at windmills.

00:12:12.180 Probably wasn't the case in the 1960s.

00:12:14.220 But these days, if you had some racist shop owner, you would be run out of town on a rail.

00:12:19.380 It just, the culture has changed so dramatically since then.

00:12:22.440 Now, Amber, who is going to win?

00:12:24.940 It seems to me this all comes down to Anthony Kennedy.

00:12:27.420 Is the baker going to win or his big, oppressive, coercive government?

00:12:31.780 I actually think this is towards the baker because there was a discrimination case at a Denver area bakery where that baker refused to make cakes for traditional marriages.

00:12:45.500 And the Diversity Commission ruled there that it, or excuse me, the Diversity Discrimination Commission ruled there that it was not discrimination against that person's Christian beliefs for a baker to refuse to make a cake for a traditional wedding.

00:13:00.060 Well, this happened in three cases, apparently, in Denver.

00:13:03.600 So it's only discrimination when you're discriminating against the politically correct class.

00:13:10.520 But when it's the politically incorrect class, it isn't discrimination.

00:13:13.740 But how is the Supreme Court going to rule?

00:13:15.640 Well, they definitely seem sympathetic to the fact that in the role reversals, it was not considered discrimination.

00:13:20.960 Reading through a lot of the arguments today, they seem to be grappling with the idea that art is free speech and to what extent can the government compel someone to provide a service and how does that infringe on their art?

00:13:34.380 So basically all the things that you talked about in your monologue.

00:13:36.960 The thing that really bothers me about this issue is, as Roaming Millennial said, if someone is willing to discriminate against you, why would you want to give them your business anyway?

00:13:47.880 Why would you want to then turn around and give them your money after you just found out the only reason that they're willing to provide you with that cake is because the government is forcing them to do so?

00:13:58.340 I mean, let's say you go to a restaurant and you have the absolute worst service of your life.

00:14:02.700 Your waiter comes in, they spill water on you, your food is terrible.

00:14:05.860 And then at the end of the meal, your waiter says, well, we're going to give you a gift certificate so you can come back and eat here again instead of comping your meal.

00:14:13.780 I mean, what person in their right mind would want to go back to that restaurant?

00:14:17.840 A free meal? I don't know, man.

00:14:19.480 It depends how terrible the service was, I guess.

00:14:21.700 But you make an excellent point.

00:14:23.960 And it also sounds like a setup.

00:14:26.360 I mean, these guys went there, they ordered the cake, the baker said, no, I can't do that.

00:14:32.020 I won't make your Halloween cake either.

00:14:33.460 And they went and they got a cake at any of the gazillion other bakeries that would make a custom gay wedding cake.

00:14:39.600 But they've made it their mission to destroy this guy's life.

00:14:42.580 Roaming, was it all a setup?

00:14:45.480 I think so.

00:14:46.740 I think this is absolutely politically motivated.

00:14:49.140 I think that they're trying to prove an ideological point here that goes beyond the plight of just looking for a wedding cake.

00:14:56.020 I think they've absolutely made this a political issue.

00:14:58.480 And I really hope that you, regardless of whether you're Christian or not, and, you know, personally, I'm Christian and I wouldn't have a problem with the cake thing.

00:15:05.560 But regardless of how you feel about that specific issue, this is just about being compelled to do something that you don't believe in.

00:15:13.420 And to express an idea that you don't believe in.

00:15:15.560 Right, and I think that's something that everybody should be able to get behind, whether you're, you know, Christian and atheist, whether you're conservative or liberal.

00:15:24.040 And, you know, Stephen Crowder, who's on YouTube, I'm a big fan of his.

00:15:27.700 He's done an experiment before where he's actually gone into Muslim bakeries and asked for gay wedding cakes to be made.

00:15:33.380 And guess what?

00:15:33.820 They're not crazy about the idea either, but you don't see any lawsuits against them because it's not a popular thing to talk about.

00:15:38.940 You rarely say, other than Crowder, who's out of his mind and is like the last journalist in America, but other than him, they, you never see people going into Muslim bakeries. 0.98

00:15:47.840 You don't see people going into Jewish kosher bakeries.

00:15:50.880 It seems to always be these Christian bakeries.

00:15:52.840 I wonder why that is.

00:15:53.800 So I am going to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.

00:15:56.560 But before I do that, I have got to tell you, folks, our third episode of The Conversation is coming up on Tuesday, December 12th at 5 p.m. Eastern, 2 p.m. Pacific,

00:16:05.240 featuring the one and only Ben Shapiro, the boss man himself, the slayer of leftist snowflakes.

00:16:14.120 So subscribe today to be a part of The Conversation and ask Ben live questions, which he will answer for everyone to hear.

00:16:20.040 Now, Ben's episode of The Conversation will stream live on the Ben Shapiro Facebook page and the Daily Wire YouTube channel,

00:16:25.180 and it will be free for everyone to watch, but only subscribers can ask the questions.

00:16:28.680 To ask a question as a subscriber, log into our website, dailywire.com,

00:16:32.520 head over to The Conversation page to watch the live stream.

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00:16:44.240 Once again, subscribe to get your questions answered by Ben Tuesday, December 12th, 5 p.m. Eastern, 2 p.m. Pacific, to join the conversation.

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00:17:02.520 But you get The Leftist Tears Tumblr, folks.

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00:17:21.300 Again, before we say goodbye, I do need to thank one of our sponsors.

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00:19:16.300 That's the only way you're going to hear from the lovely, brilliant, all-female panel of deplorables, Amber Atheon Roaming Millennial. 0.98

00:19:23.200 We'll be right back.

00:19:23.940 DailyWire.com.

00:19:24.620 I am pretty surprised that Democrats went this far.

00:19:37.720 John Conyers, the longest-serving Democrat rep, the longest-serving rep, period, in the House of Representatives.

00:19:45.240 He's been there since the Johnson administration.

00:19:47.800 He has resigned because of sexual assault and sexual harassment allegations.

00:19:52.280 He's had pressure from his colleagues all the way right up to Nancy Pelosi.

00:19:56.200 Amber, are they gearing up to go after Trump?

00:19:59.940 What is this about?

00:20:01.340 Why are they throwing—other than this guy's old and desiccated and of no use to them anymore—why are they going after him?

00:20:07.080 There are a couple of things at play here.

00:20:09.260 So, first of all, Democrats have been hammered by the right for going after Roy Moore and Donald Trump because they haven't been taking care of their own harassers in their own house.

00:20:18.580 At the same time, though, it's very politically expedient to get rid of John Conyers because now he's calling for—he endorsed his son today.

00:20:27.540 He endorsed his son.

00:20:28.680 And then apparently his grandnephew is also running for the seat.

00:20:33.140 So not only are they going to replace Conyers with another Democrat, they're going to replace Conyers with probably one of his own family members.

00:20:40.340 And we saw Democrats do the exact same thing during the trial of Senator Bob Menendez.

00:20:44.780 They were asked repeatedly if he should resign if convicted, and they refused to say—because guess what?

00:20:50.860 Chris Christie was still governor of New Jersey, so they were worried that if they came out and told him to resign if convicted, he would have to resign when Christie was in a position to replace him with another Republican senator.

00:21:02.160 So in my opinion, they don't really deserve that much credit for calling—for Conyers to resign because this is just pretty much political expediency.

00:21:09.780 And it's always nice to see people keep the family in the family business, you know, the public business, the people's business.

00:21:16.920 Roaming, we've heard whispers throughout the campaign and so on about all of the women who are alleging misconduct by Donald Trump, and it kind of disappeared.

00:21:27.280 It didn't really go anywhere.

00:21:28.420 Some of it appears to have been discredited, but not all of it.

00:21:31.200 Is that what they're saying now, we're willing to throw out this old guy who doesn't mean anything anymore, we're willing to throw him out and trade him so that we can finally go after Donald Trump?

00:21:41.920 Is that the strategy we're going to see?

00:21:43.320 I think it's absolutely the strategy, and not only are we seeing the Democrats kind of throw Conyers under the bus, but we're also seeing them do that in large part to Bill Clinton as well, because he's no longer politically useful.

00:21:55.040 So it's very convenient for them to say, oh, look, now we're all of a sudden the party that actually cares about the sexual harassment allegations, when the people in their party that are facing these charges, not even charges, these rumors, I mean, nothing I've seen has, I would think, be enough to convict anybody.

00:22:12.680 But when we look at what the Republicans are facing, it's a little bit more difficult, and I think they're absolutely gearing up to start on the allegations against Trump again.

00:22:22.200 And I think what also doesn't help Republicans' case is that although Nancy Pelosi originally kind of stood by, describing him as what, an idol or a hallmark or something like that, she did the turnabout really, really fast, saying that he should resign.

00:22:38.020 Contrast that to how we have Trump handling Roy Moore right now.

00:22:43.280 He's actually come out and said, yeah, this guy, he should definitely be voted in, and I understand why the Republicans might think it's important to at least get some Republican in in Alabama, but if we look at the larger picture, it doesn't look good for the Republican case of, yeah, we're not rapey, frankly.

00:23:00.500 Right, and obviously in the case of Roy Moore, his opponent Doug Jones does support fourth trimester abortions, so it gets complicated on that political issue as well, not to say nothing of the Senate majority.

00:23:11.520 We see these figures coming up in 2018, 2020, there's talk that they'll nominate Kamala Harris or she'll be a real contender.

00:23:20.680 So you can see it building toward this campaign, this hashtag MeToo campaign that is totally fact-free.

00:23:28.520 It looks like the economy might do quite well under Trump.

00:23:30.980 It looks like he's doing an able handling of foreign affairs, so they're going to have to make it all this feelings-based MeToo stuff.

00:23:39.340 Are there any credible allegations against Trump?

00:23:42.820 I'm not saying that there are or there aren't, but are there any allegations that we see that are going to jump to the fore and be the ones that they're going to smack him with, either Roaming or Amber?

00:23:54.940 I'm not really sure, to be perfectly honest with you, because the ones that were brought up during the election obviously were pretty much brushed aside.

00:24:03.540 So I find it somewhat hard to believe that they would necessarily be re-litigated to the point that people would find them more credible in 2020 than they did in 2016.

00:24:14.960 That being said, one of the cases is in a lawsuit right now, so we'll see what happens with that.

00:24:21.220 But I just don't think that people are going to want to dredge it back up now that they pretty much already decided that they're okay with overlooking that to put Trump into office.

00:24:32.580 It's unlikely that that's going to become a major issue again.

00:24:35.580 They've already dealt with this.

00:24:36.700 They've already made their opinion on this.

00:24:38.240 That's a good point.

00:24:39.100 And they can always use the Clinton excuse of, oh, it's old news.

00:24:41.820 Say, well, it's only old news because you stalled for 10 years, and now you made it old.

00:24:44.920 Yeah, it's old news.

00:24:45.740 Come on, stop. 1.00

00:24:46.140 Don't talk about it.

00:24:46.660 Other news from the Supreme Court.

00:24:49.520 The Supreme Court has upheld President Donald Trump's travel ban from six Muslim-majority countries.

00:24:56.620 Now, this is being portrayed as the end of the world, the end of America.

00:25:02.080 Even if America didn't already end with the tax cuts, now is it definitely – this is really the end of America.

00:25:06.420 But ironically, Barack Obama also restricted travel from precisely the same countries during his presidency.

00:25:13.840 Roaming – you might have seen this.

00:25:15.600 You're on Twitter all the time.

00:25:16.520 You're always tweeting.

00:25:17.820 There was this trending hashtag, hashtag no Muslim ban ever.

00:25:23.120 Is this a Muslim ban?

00:25:25.060 This is absolutely not a Muslim ban, and if it is a Muslim ban, it's one of the least effective Muslim bans that you could have designed. 0.91

00:25:31.880 You know, the largest Muslim countries, places like Indonesia, they're not on the list.

00:25:37.200 This doesn't affect Muslims who aren't from the areas that were highlighted of concern, you know, places like Iran, Libya, and stuff like that.

00:25:44.360 So if it doesn't affect Muslims who aren't in those countries, and most Muslims aren't in those countries, I feel like you have to really reach to call it a Muslim ban.

00:25:53.320 Is it – obviously, I saw some statistic that only one of the countries on the list is in the top ten most populous Muslim countries in the world, and none are in the top five.

00:26:04.320 So you're absolutely right.

00:26:05.020 This is not a Muslim ban.

00:26:06.920 But, Amber, is it genuine ignorance, or are they just being obtuse when they flip their lids over President Trump's travel restrictions, but they probably didn't even know that Barack Obama imposed travel restrictions?

00:26:21.320 Is that comparison legitimate, and why didn't the Democrats freak out at the time?

00:26:26.780 Well, it's such an obvious political play, and I mean, let's not kid ourselves.

00:26:33.200 All politicians are hypocrites, so it's not really that surprising.

00:26:36.760 I mean the base, though.

00:26:37.720 It's easy – well, it's easy rhetoric, right?

00:26:41.380 So, like, Democrats can say that Trump is bigoted towards Muslims, and then when the tax reform bill passes, they can say that tens of thousands of people are going to die.

00:26:49.360 It's this really aggressive, ramped-up rhetoric that somehow people buy into because, I mean, most people don't want to die, I would guess.

00:26:59.080 But it's really transparent.

00:27:01.680 As Roaming said, this isn't a Muslim ban.

00:27:03.460 This is about protecting American sovereignty and also making sure that people are coming into the country properly vetted, and the countries that are on this ban list apparently do not properly vet their citizens.

00:27:14.940 So, I mean, Democrats can play this game, but the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of Trump, so they've pretty much already lost here.

00:27:22.080 Love it.

00:27:22.700 I also love that we have Neil Gorsuch on the court because if Hillary Clinton had won, all of these decisions that we're just dancing covfefe about wouldn't happen, baby, would not happen.

00:27:33.120 So, on to the most important – I'm sorry, Roman, go ahead.

00:27:35.620 I thought this was, like, what, 7-2?

00:27:36.640 I was impressed.

00:27:37.860 It was 7-2, I think, like, Ginsburg, and then one other.

00:27:40.500 That was higher than I thought it would be, actually.

00:27:42.780 It's because Elena Kagan is smart.

00:27:44.940 It was Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissented, but Elena Kagan sided with the conservative – you know, the conservatives broadly.

00:27:54.040 Great side.

00:27:54.620 See, they're not all conservative.

00:27:56.960 But apparently Antonin Scalia asked David Axelrod when that first nomination came up during the Obama years, the one that eventually went to Sonia Sotomayor.

00:28:05.340 He said, listen, I'm under no misconception that you're going to send someone who agrees with me on the Constitution, but at least send us somebody smart, not to put too fine a point on it.

00:28:15.940 Send us Elena Kagan, whom he knew socially and, I suppose, professionally.

00:28:19.940 And they sent Sotomayor, who is not smart at all.

00:28:22.980 And then later on he got Kagan.

00:28:24.880 So it is nice to see that she can have some seriousness of purpose and she isn't just a lefty hack on the court.

00:28:32.940 There is a much more important story than any of these.

00:28:35.780 You know, we're talking about coercion, big government, the travel ban, foreign policy.

00:28:41.020 Forget that.

00:28:42.240 One percent chocolate milk.

00:28:43.720 Michelle Obama's tyrannical policy of banning one percent chocolate milk from school lunches has wonderfully been overturned by Donald Trump's Department of Agriculture.

00:28:54.780 Little boys and girls everywhere can now drink one percent chocolate milk at lunch.

00:28:58.920 I'm sure they're very happy about this.

00:29:01.420 Roaming.

00:29:02.240 This, again, seems like a trivial issue.

00:29:04.040 Who cares if the kids have chocolate milk? 0.98

00:29:05.640 But does it send an important message and is it materially significant that this administration is giving people, even down to little kitties, even maybe chubby little kids, is giving them choice and giving school districts choice over what they serve those children?

00:29:22.340 I think this is absolutely an important issue.

00:29:24.720 And as someone who is, you know, no longer in school, no longer facing these school lunches, it may not affect me personally.

00:29:30.400 But I saw some of the lunches that were presented under Michelle Obama's initiative, and I'm sure we all saw how unsatisfying, you know, just not enough calories, just unpleasant to look at.

00:29:40.880 So I think this is absolutely a step in the right direction.

00:29:43.680 And childhood obesity, it's not something to be lapped at.

00:29:46.560 It's absolutely a serious issue.

00:29:48.320 But I think really it's something that needs to be tackled at the at the home level.

00:29:52.520 It's not something that we can just, you know, big government fix at in schools.

00:29:56.940 It will be, what, eight hours a day you might have kids, and even then we don't have them during the summer.

00:30:02.140 So to try and fix something that's so dependent on family intervention at the government level, like childhood obesity, it was never going to work in the first place.

00:30:11.680 And you bring up this point, it's nothing to be laughed at.

00:30:15.100 It's funny because I think for the photo, I don't remember, I think we selected a silly photo of a fat child.

00:30:20.300 But it's occasionally to be laughed at, but it is a serious issue.

00:30:22.960 And that's the point.

00:30:26.400 Transgenderism is actually not to be laughed at.

00:30:28.920 People who suffer from this illness, obviously drag queens can be kind of funny, but transgender dysphoria is nothing to be laughed at. 0.78

00:30:36.540 But it isn't the pressing issue of the federal government.

00:30:40.060 Antonin Scalia, one time, I got to meet him one time, and we asked about these questions.

00:30:44.180 And he said, not everything that is hateful or odious is covered by some provision of the Constitution.

00:30:49.820 We don't need the federal government to go in and invade every aspect of our lives and run our lives for us.

00:30:56.000 Little kids can choose their own chocolate milk.

00:30:58.720 There was this issue.

00:30:59.620 I think Michelle Bachman was the champion of it.

00:31:01.820 The Lightbulb Freedom of Choice Act.

00:31:04.080 Because after Al Gore's stupid movie, they made us use all those hideous fluorescent light bulbs that destroyed the lighting quality of our home and poisoned us with mercury.

00:31:12.320 And they banned all of the good light bulbs.

00:31:13.880 And they're expensive up front.

00:31:15.280 Yeah, they were expensive.

00:31:16.980 And they banned all the good ones that burned all of the energy and looked really warm and nice.

00:31:21.060 Michelle Bachman came back and said, here's the Lightbulb Freedom of Choice Act.

00:31:24.080 And they all mocked her.

00:31:25.080 They said, wow, what a stupid issue.

00:31:27.200 If it's a stupid issue, then you back off.

00:31:29.580 Why is it a stupid issue when I want to hold my side of it and the side of freedom and choice, but it's not a stupid issue when you pass legislation to limit what kind of light bulb that I can have?

00:31:40.640 Amber, we're talking about these cultural battles.

00:31:44.940 Meanwhile, Donald Trump is reforming taxes.

00:31:48.220 He's packing the courts.

00:31:50.140 He's packing the courts with good originalist justices.

00:31:52.840 He's deregulating at the federal level.

00:31:54.760 Is this administration going to be a culture war administration, as many have thought, or is the culture war just distracting from the economic focus of the administration?

00:32:04.800 How are we going to look back on Trump?

00:32:07.540 It still remains to be seen.

00:32:09.620 We're still waiting on the full repeal and replace of Obamacare.

00:32:12.800 So we'll see what happens with that.

00:32:14.000 But I think this is definitely a great start.

00:32:16.120 I personally, I kind of love the cultural battles.

00:32:18.480 I think this milk story is amazing.

00:32:20.340 I was on free lunches for a couple of years back when I was in middle school.

00:32:24.480 And let me tell you, when you have a school lunch in front of you that has charred pizza and brown lettuce, you are really, really grateful for that carton of chocolate milk, which, by the way, is only about like 150 calories per carton and is really good post-workout.

00:32:38.800 So Michelle Obama and her like nutrition guidelines need to just go somewhere else. 1.00

00:32:43.400 I'll have to remember that.

00:32:44.320 I am shedding for the wedding.

00:32:45.540 So chocolate milk will go on the list of things that I am able to have.

00:32:49.480 Yes, electrolytes after you work out.

00:32:50.660 That's very important.

00:32:51.880 And they are symbols.

00:32:53.000 A lot of times people say, well, it's just semantics, especially with gay marriage.

00:32:56.660 You say you're just arguing over semantics.

00:32:58.680 Semantics means meaning.

00:33:00.680 It means meaning.

00:33:01.640 We're arguing over symbols because we're arguing over the symbolized.

00:33:05.800 Now, you bring up Obamacare.

00:33:08.220 Just on this point, I'm still so happy.

00:33:09.880 I'm still dancing covfefe over tax reform.

00:33:11.780 The tax reform did something that we didn't quite expect.

00:33:15.460 It repealed the Obamacare mandate in the Senate that might make it to the final bill, which seems to set the stage.

00:33:21.400 It creates so much political pressure to now repeal all of the Obamacare regulations and reform all of those health care regulations.

00:33:29.240 It also might set the stage for entitlement reform.

00:33:31.900 That's what Rubio and Ryan are both saying.

00:33:33.860 Roaming, are we going to – am I just having a fever dream right now?

00:33:37.000 Am I just exploding out of my head, or is it possible that we're going to get all of these legislative goals like health care and like entitlement reform that we thought were impossible with Trump?

00:33:50.440 Well, I would like to say that it's possible.

00:33:52.700 I mean if there's ever a time that it would be possible, it should be now.

00:33:55.800 Republicans have both houses.

00:33:57.700 They have the White House.

00:33:58.840 I say let's do this.

00:34:01.000 But, you know, you of course still have those people who shall remain nameless but are John McCain that seem to be committed to holding things back.

00:34:09.920 And I really think that, you know, the constituents – look up how your representatives are voting.

00:34:17.040 Please look up how your senators are voting.

00:34:18.900 And if they're not voting in favor for things like tax reform, you need to be writing to them and your specific representative because they're only going to listen to you if you're a constituent.

00:34:27.860 I mean even not really listen to you, but at least, you know, make a note of it.

00:34:30.880 And I think it is – entitlements are an important discussion to have.

00:34:35.040 We can't really say we're serious about tax reform and serious about tackling the deficit unless we look at government spending.

00:34:41.240 And the biggest part of that is entitlement.

00:34:43.520 So absolutely, this needs to be part of a giant conversation we have about big government and government spending.

00:34:48.680 By the way, it is usually McCain obstructing, but I got to give it to him on tax reform.

00:34:53.480 He showed – I was shocked.

00:34:55.120 My chin hit the floor.

00:34:57.060 And the only guy who didn't vote for it is Bob Corker.

00:34:59.640 I'm still too salty about health care.

00:35:01.180 I'm still too salty.

00:35:02.320 I know.

00:35:02.900 It was really hard.

00:35:04.240 Well, you know, yesterday he tweeted out – he said – or his social media intern tweeted out and said,

00:35:08.800 we're only 50 followers away from 3 million.

00:35:12.160 And then all these angry Dems unfollowed him because of tax reform.

00:35:15.440 So I don't know.

00:35:16.300 You know, I'm a pretty happy guy.

00:35:17.840 I'm pretty grateful.

00:35:19.120 Go over – I've re-followed John McCain because of tax reform.

00:35:23.220 And I'm laughing at Bob Corker.

00:35:24.880 I don't even care about Corker.

00:35:26.000 The guy's not going to get to be reelected anymore because he's been a jerk for the last year that he's been in the Senate.

00:35:32.480 And he voted against it.

00:35:33.620 Wah-wah. 0.79

00:35:34.000 Too bad.

00:35:34.440 Ha-ha-ha.

00:35:35.200 Ladies, you've made me feel better as you always do. 0.98

00:35:37.980 Such a delight.

00:35:39.360 Roaming millennial Amber Avey.

00:35:41.160 Thank you for being here.

00:35:42.260 I'll see you again very shortly.

00:35:44.240 That's our entire show today.

00:35:45.440 What an excellent covfefe show.

00:35:47.840 I will be back tomorrow.

00:35:49.940 Get your mailbag questions in.

00:35:51.280 We will be changing your life on Thursday, hopefully for the better.

00:35:55.300 And in the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.

00:35:56.680 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:35:57.580 Come back tomorrow.

00:35:58.200 We will do it all again.

00:35:59.260 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Marshall Benson.

00:36:08.120 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:36:10.220 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:36:12.160 Supervising producer, Mathis Glover.

00:36:14.480 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:36:17.040 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:36:19.160 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

00:36:21.400 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:36:23.580 The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:36:27.360 Copyright Forward Publishing 2017.

00:36:29.260 We'll see you next time.

00:36:30.400 Every time.

00:36:30.900 Good evening.

00:36:32.340 Good evening.

00:36:33.600 Good evening.

00:36:34.520 Hey.

00:36:35.160 Good evening.

00:36:35.880 Good evening.

00:36:36.200 Good evening.

00:36:36.860 Good evening.

00:36:38.020 Good evening.

00:36:39.160 Good evening.

00:36:39.780 Good evening.

00:36:40.700 You know, man.

00:36:41.320 Fraktionpit.

00:36:41.540 How possible.

00:36:42.140 Good evening.

00:36:43.840 How niceollen sulphatei dilates.

00:36:45.000 Good evening.

00:36:45.620 Very this is a virtual Luca.

00:36:52.620 racial clockwork.

The Michael Knowles Show - December 05, 2017

Ep. 69 - #NoMeansNo Unless #LoveWins

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