CGR WEDNESDAY 071223 David Shestokas SCOTUS Review

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And now, Chosen Generation where no topic is off limits and everything is filtered through biblical glasses. And now, here's your host, Pastor Greg. And welcome back or good morning, ma'am. Good morning. Good morning. You don't want any more dead air time, my friend.

Let's, you know, we're back together again. Good morning. All right. Let me make a couple of other quick adjustments here. Every program changed. The stream deck program decided that it needed an update and locked me out. Zoom updated apparently last night and locked me out so I couldn't access Zoom. I couldn't access the, I still can't access.

I have recurring regular guest links like the one we're on. I'll tell you how I finally was able to get through to get on here. And Zoom wanted me to do a bunch of nonsense updates before it would even let me access the program. The only way that I finally got to this was is that you logged on to the link that I have sent you. And I went to the to the email notification that I get. And that's how I was finally able to get in.

You're welcome. And I and I called I called their customer service. And I got, you know, the automated woman voice. And I talked to AI, which ran me around and around and around and around and around and around and around. I spent 10 minutes with them going nowhere. Are we on the air?

Yeah, no, we're on right now. I know. I'm explaining. I already told them that I already told them that and they can see it. And I'm explaining to you my audience what what, why this is the reason why we're starting late.

And then and then it restarted the programs just automatically restarted my computer. Anyway, that's obviously your your frustration this morning is shared with millions across the country that depend on these things and why update stuff that's working perfectly fine, who don't have the ability to be able to put it out in the way that I'm expressing it, and call these people out for doing this nonsense. Because that's exactly it's nonsense. Well, it often seems at least to me, I'm obviously no tech guy. But it seems to me that some of these things where they do these updates and stuff are tech people making themselves a viable, valuable, they they know they get they make work to make sure that they have an ongoing job. So they update stuff that's working just fine. That's sort of like I would that's that's what big big corporations and that sort of like the where you see roads that are always under repair.

You know, they're, they're always under repair. And that's just some government making work for the contractors that contribute to the politicians. Yeah, or or or, or they're not getting the results that they want that that the the other the other side of this is, is that is that they're not getting the results that they want. So that, you know, and and this goes to the SCOTUS issue right now, right? Because what do we have going on with SCOTUS, we have Senate Democrats that are trying to create an ethics bill that they're trying to force through. And and they have it tweaked in such a way, because they're going after specific members on the court, in particular, they're going after Clarence Thomas, Clarence Thomas, yes, they want Clarence Thomas off the court, because Clarence Thomas sticks to the Constitution. We don't have the full hour, but we do have this half hour, I wanted to talk with you, David, about the this your view of how SCOTUS I don't know, deliberated and and and and and some of the decisions that they made in this session that just concluded included young, they were they were incredible in this session that just concluded, or at least they come across as incredible, actually, as a practical matter, all they did was make decisions in defense of freedom.

It was I mean, if you if you make all that I'm kind of a simple lawyer, I always boil something down to the lowest most reasonable denominator. And when you talk about the 303 website, you know, everybody's talking about whether or not it's got to do with LGBT rights and other things that doesn't have anything to do with that. It has to do with government not being able to compel speech. Everybody wanted to one of the sorry things of all these cases that they did so so well for the American people with all they did was essentially expand and protect freedom. And you can boil that one down to that situation where they were trying to have a website designer in Colorado, and Colorado had to say that you would have to design a website for a gay marriage that you did not support. You know, the decision had nothing to do with gay marriage. The decision had everything to do with free speech or lack of government being compelling your speech.

And I think it's really important for people to start to see what the real issues are when they talk about a SCOTUS case, as opposed to talking about the minutia, that they try and turn the decision into a policy matter on the minutia. And so that's one where it's got to do with free speech for everybody. It's not free speech for the Christian website maker. It's free speech for the atheist website maker that doesn't want to put forward a Christian message, or a gay website maker that doesn't want to put together a message that says we're opposed to gay marriage.

It's free speech. That's the same situation with the college, you know, these alleged orders of Biden to get rid of student debt. It's got to do with the president can't make up law. You know, it's got to do with the president can't make up law that we don't have a dictator that in fact, if he's, if something's going to change, the Congress has to enact a law to change it. That's a protection for all Americans. It's got nothing to do with the policy of student loans. It's a protection for all Americans. It treats all Americans like that is the president can't make up something either for or against you.

And so that's a protection for all Americans. That's the same thing when we come to the affirmative action cases. You know, ultimately, they just said, no, when you do something in favor of a particular race, you do something to discriminate against another race and all discrimination is wrong. They, they move forward in so many fronts on the principles of actual equality before the law, not diversity, equity and inclusion, but actually equality before the law for all Americans.

And I, I think that's the message that's missing in all the commentary I see, see it because everybody's debating the policy, the pluses and minuses of the policy, whether it's the, whether it's the affirmative action thing and, or the website design thing or, or the, or the other matters, the student loan matters, everybody's bound up in the policy as opposed to the policy of the particular case, as opposed to the grand principle that all Americans' freedom is protected, not just some, not just favor them, favored classes or favor Americans. And that's what, that's what was so great about the court last week is they move forward to protect the, protect the rights of all Americans. And of course, when they do that, that interferes with the political establishment and their ability to impose things on other Americans.

And that's why they have troubles with the court. Because, because of course, when you make everybody equal before the law, then you do not say that people that are in authority are above the law. You don't say that people in authority can impose their speech and their views on you. You don't say that people in authority can make decisions based upon race. You don't say that people in authority can say, ah, let's see, we're going to pretend that these $30 billion in loans don't have to be repaid.

You know, they're, they're all tied up in those things. But all they ever did, all they did was expand freedom for everybody. But in doing that, they diminished the power of government.

And in diminishing the power of government. So that's why, that's why they want to do something. So as an example, with with the student loan forgiveness, Biden can't sign an executive order saying he's gonna carte blanche do that. Now, Congress could be persuaded to put forward a bill that would do the same thing. And if Congress put it forth in the house, and then the Senate validated it, and they voted in favor of it, and then sent it to the president's desk, then it becomes a law established using the proper the the the appropriate roadmap.

That's exactly right. It's a schoolhouse rock thing, you know, that is, you know, it passes the Senate passes the house, then it's fulfilled by the Presentation Clause and either signed by the president or overridden by Congress if he vetoes it, then then that becomes a law. But even under those circumstances, there's, there's there's some some issues, restraining the Congress, because there are provisions within the Constitution about not interfering with the with contracts.

And these are these are contracts. And they're made very well, there may very well be some limitations, even on the authority of Congress to say, oh, that you don't, you don't owe this money to somebody else that you that you agreed to have a debt with. And so there's other kinds of limitations on what Congress can do. Congress still has to work within the Constitution, should they do something like that.

I would suspect that, you know, perhaps Congress might pass a bill that says the United States government is going to pay off the loans, but it would be likely unconstitutional for Congress to pass a law that says these loans don't longer exist, because now they've now they've favored the right. But really, in essence, for them to do that, all you're doing is is is is on paper, taking out of one pocket and putting it into another pocket on the same person. It'd be like taking it out of my you know, my chest pocket and putting it into my pants pocket. You know, my shirt pocket to my pants pocket. It it literally is my money and I'm and I'm you know, but it's not because the government doesn't have any money.

No. All they're supposed to do is keep track of our money, right? The money the money actually, you know, belongs to us. So it but but but that would be the way in which it would have it would have to happen. And as you said, yeah, they it wouldn't be a matter of necessarily forgiving, per se, although, is there not provision, depending on the situation, I know that the president has the ability to, to grant clemency, whatever, however you want to, you know, the however you want to term that relative to, you know, commuting sentences and things of that nature. But again, but that's on the criminal side of the house. That that's right.

Yeah. So so so but does Congress have the I mean, essentially, when Congress does and you know, the these bailouts that they've done, and and and that they continue to to bring forward, right, you know, whether it's banks that they're bailing out, or airlines that they're bailing out or whoever, when they're doing a bailout, it's essentially a, it's it's a backwards loan forgiveness, because what they're doing is, is these people owe someone somewhere, some thing. And the government is stepping in and saying, Well, we think probably for the sake of somebody, that we ought to step in here and and and and and give these private entities free money. Yeah, allow the private entities to continue to do business even though they screwed up. Because that's why that's why a particular industry or particular particular business may need a some sort of loan bailout or guarantee is they screwed up. Generally speaking, one of the one of the major successes of the United States of America is not only been promotion of folks on based on meritocracy, but basically, they've allowed people a lot of people are allowed to fail as well.

And that is that is how progress is made in the economy by having failed businesses closed because they were mismanaged and they weren't run properly. Well, that was that was the housing bubble. I over the weekend, I watched a film called the big short.

I've watched the margin call. I've, you know, I think anybody who is watching what's happening right now, has has, you know, gone back and certainly many were affected by that. And I was affected by the 911. You know, and and the ones the only ones there that got well, the, the airlines got bailouts. Now, now in that instance, that, you know, the airlines didn't cause, you know, what happened, and what impacted them, rental car companies were dramatically impacted, I can tell you, because I was, I was a vendor that was impacted by all of that. And they didn't get any bailouts.

But anyway, I was looking at, you know, the bubble and what and what happened there. And that was absolute miss gross mismanagement. Because they they they they were they were literally handing loans out to people on their houses that that didn't even have verifiable income. Yeah, right.

That's exactly right. They they were, it was mismanaged by the banks. On the other hand, while the banks were mismanaging matters, they were pushing that mismanagement by certain kinds of government policies as well. Oh, sure.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, it was it was it was a snowball thing. But but at the end of the day, you know, and the and the agencies that that that would have policed it that would have come in and done the policing on it, those that gave the ratings for for the for that brand of product wouldn't change the ratings in spite of mass news reports of, you know, and and I mean, you know, a one of the things that you that you see in the film and I know that it's a film but you know, you going into neighborhoods where people have just literally walked away from you know, when when the when the adjustable rates went up. People literally just pack their stuff and walked out of the house.

Yeah, well, the debt was the debt was in excess of the value of the of the property. Yeah, I mean, and and yeah, and and and whole neighborhoods, you know, I watched this where we were in Modesto, where where people had moved out from the Bay Area and gotten these, you know, loans, these low rate loans, but they were all adjustable rate loans. And and when that when the when the rate went up, they literally just packed what they needed, put it in their car and moved back to the Bay Area. And entire neighborhoods were vacated overnight.

It was insane. Yeah, well, that's, that's, again, that would be the whole industry in many respects, not managing their risk properly. What was the bank supposed to do? They're responsible for the money of the depositors they're supposed to be. But but when they know that the government's going to step in and make the depositors hold, then they get to be reckless.

And this is it. This is this is a problem with the with corporate welfare, if you will. It allows it allows businesses to be reckless in the management of their they don't have to have any fiduciary duty, either their shareholders or their customers, because they have an idea that the government's going to come in and catch those things. So this is this is a problem, because, again, we're one of the things that America should allow people to succeed on. They should allow them to fail on merit as well. And while that can cause dislocations from time to time, it will in fact, cause banks and other things to act more responsibly if they know that if they're they fail, then they fail. You know, then they act more responsibly in the first place. There are there are a lot of people right now who who were watching that particular situation, who are looking even at at, you know, the stock market and so forth and saying, we're in the same ballpark we were then we're we're we're we are back in that in that area once again.

And and there's a lot of people that are predicting a a potentially significant crash. You know, the economics of that are at, you know, a separate separate question. But the fact is, is Congress dabbles in his junk way too much and probably very often outside their constitutional authority. Well, there you go.

That's Yeah. And and that's the point. I want to back up to that constitutional piece for just a second. Relative to I know we talked about, you know, freedom, we had two particular cases that were of interest to those that are concerned about the religious liberty within our country, the woman and the website and then the gentleman who was was basically let go because the government changed the contract and and he had been, he had told them, I this is my Sabbath.

And and and and so on. I was talking with someone the other night about, you know, the religious liberty aspect. They had had said that they didn't, you know, weren't going to take the vaccine.

And now they are being they've been terminated, because they they wouldn't take the vaccine and they wouldn't take the vaccine and go through that process, predicated on their religious beliefs. And and that is apparently being just absolutely obliterated and discarded. So my question in our final 10 minutes here is, when we when we shift this to it, well, it's just about liberties. Do we dilute the significance of faith, and the role that faith plays and the rights that that that people of faith have predicated on constitutional guarantees? Absolutely not, because the constitutional guarantees themselves spring from I, you know, I love to go back to the Declaration of Independence. And the constitutional guarantees ultimately are the execution, again, of the Declaration of Independence, the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And of course, those are those come from the creator.

They're endowed by the creator. So, you know, if we go back to the very simple principles of expanding liberty for for everyone, then we are ultimately executing, executing the promise of the Declaration and executing the endowment from the creator of the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's what that's what the government's supposed to protect. That's the only reason for their existence.

That's the only thing they're supposed to do. And, you know, it's just so if we get to that, and that's what the supreme all these cases in the Supreme Court, that's what they all did. And that's why the people in power want to attack the Supreme Court, right? Because anytime you expand freedom, you dilute or deminimize government authority. And they and getting rid of some government authority, you're stepping on the government's toes. And so that's what their issue is with SCOTUS.

That's what it comes down to. And when we say stepping on the government's toes, that that that that really is an oxymoron. Yeah, because Yeah, be exactly, you know, the Emperor has no clothes and the governor and and the and the government has no toes. That's because the reality is and and that, you know, folks, I, I try very hard as I as I'm messaging to you, to say, I'm, I'm not quote unquote, anti government, I am, let's, let's recognize what the government is supposed to be, who they're supposed to be. And and then and then demand that they stay within the lines.

And right now, we don't have and have not, I would suggest that we haven't for a number of years, we have not had a true constitutional republic representative government. We've had we've had quasi tyrants in in in different positions in and and that has trickled into the the administrative state, David. Yeah, no, that said that you're exactly right. And that, and that again, you know, we started this out with with the whole thing about the Supreme Court, and they want to attack Judge Thomas, Justice Thomas, they're they're attacking Justice Thomas, not because he flew on a couple of airplanes and went on a couple of cruises or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, not because he went on a couple of trips, but because he is for reining in the government and maximizing the freedom of the American people.

Right. And this is what this makes him a dangerous man to the government. He's in a he's in a position of authority to tell the government, no, you stay within your lanes. And that's that maximizes freedom.

And that's and that's why they attack them. Just, you know, you always want to say who benefits from for an attack. So who would benefit from a more malleable Supreme Court? Oh, I guess I guess the folks in Congress don't want to make up laws.

Oh, I guess a imperial president that wants to pretend he's a dictator. That's that's who benefits. The American people don't benefit from a more malleable Supreme Court. And so that's what everybody should when you hear an argument, you go, geez, who benefits from the from the execution of the policy behind this argument? You know, and that's when you hear the attacks on the Supreme Court, your attack on Justice Thomas or any of the other justices, you know, the attack isn't about them. The attack is about maintaining the power structure or expanding the power structure.

Anytime you try to straitjacket the government, the people that are in the government kind of fight against the straitjacket. And this is a problem. Now, I will caution that, you know, there are issues with the the, you know, worldview at when you have a Supreme Court justice, that that weighs in with with a with a a personal agenda and and and indicates that that is that their bias is the reason that they're going to rule in a certain manner, outside of any, any, any, any legal precedent, that that is something that needs to be critiqued and needs to be identified and and and, you know, and and called upon, you know, the the the decisions that they made regarding the repeal of DOMA, as an example, that was done specifically in the Supreme Court's upholding and that there were justices there that said, this is pretty, you know, I'm doing this because of basically my bias. Yeah, that's, that's obviously the wrong approach to judging. It's a wrong approach to judiciary and wrong approach to justice. There's supposed to be a situation where you take the facts and the law, you apply the law to the facts and you come to the decision as opposed to saying, OK, this is the outcome that I want and I will figure out and make up something to ultimately reach the outcome that I that I want. And this is this is a problem.

This is a problem. Although there is actually, strangely enough, a long tradition in the Supreme Court where dissents are written. It's sometimes in the way that you talk. There are much people are much more free to write a little bit, a little bit outside the lanes while they're writing a dissent.

And they can talk because it's not about to become the law. And sometimes it's persuasive. Now, Justice Thomas has been in the dissent many, many times over the years. And some but some of the things that he wrote in dissent are now finding favor with the majority of the court. And so there's a there's a long, long history of when when a justice writes a dissent of being a little more powerful, a little more straightforward than than you might be when you're writing an opinion that's going to guide the execution of the law in all the law reports around the country. So it's something to consider, whether what you're talking about is something that's in a dissent or something that's in a majority opinion, that's actually becoming law. Right. There's a there's a difference there. Well, I don't want to misquote, but I believe that it was Elena Kagan, right?

Yes. I believe that that she made comments when it came to the Obergefeld case. And and and the situation I believe with DOMA as well, where where where she voiced her, her personal animus toward towards a particular value and and and in support of, of a different value.

And and that was something that, you know, that that she said, you know, this is this is why I'm going to vote this way, or this is why I, you know, I'm gonna make a decision, make the decision the way I'm going to make it. And again, you know, we've seen that historically, even as you said, with the court where individuals have made, you know, the removal of the Bible, the removal of prayer, as an example from schools, that wasn't done predicated on any form of precedent, there was no precedent for that. They they they listened to one individual that came in and testified and said that they thought that, that the really that the reading of religious materials in school was detrimental to the mental health of a child. And and and they and they acted upon that. The irony there is is look what look what they're, you know, testing kids to today.

Final minute, David. Well, that's and that's kind of the other kind of situational problematic when Americans don't know history, then they can be sold on a, on a change that is inconsistent with the Constitution in the first place, because then they don't have any rules. If you remember, everybody can probably remember that.

In fact, I don't know if they even know. But 12 of the 13 new brand new states all had established religions within them. When the Constitution was adopted, and when the First Amendment was adopted. So there was no intent on the part of the people who adopted the First Amendment or the Constitution to abolish religion.

No, you know, it was it was it was to ensure that no singular church and that the United States would not adopt a singular church in the way that England had and we're out of time. David Shostakovich shostakovich.com our constitutional originalist checking out. I'll be back Richard Battle joins me on the other side leaving a legacy for your child. We'll talk about that coming up right after this the unopened present. I'm your host Pastor Greg back with more right after this brief break.