India, Lawfare, and Political Decision Disasters

Summary

Summary of "India, Lawfare, and Political Decision Disasters" – The Victor Davis Hanson Show

Release Date: May 8, 2025

In this insightful episode of The Victor Davis Hanson Show, hosts Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler delve into a myriad of pressing issues ranging from international conflicts and legal warfare to energy policies and the state of American higher education. Joined by an unnamed expert guest, the discussion offers a comprehensive analysis of contemporary political and social dynamics affecting both national and global landscapes.

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1. India-Pakistan Conflict: Historical Context and Current Tensions

The episode opens with an in-depth exploration of the enduring conflict between India and Pakistan. The guest articulates the historical missteps during the Cold War era, highlighting how the United States' alliances inadvertently alienated India in favor of Pakistan.

"I think we erred in the Cold War because India, given its post-colonial anger at the West and Britain, it's got over that now. I think a lot of people in India realized that the British gave them a uniform language and some institutions that were very valuable." [07:05]

This strategic misalignment has long-lasting repercussions, contributing to the volatile nature of the India-Pakistan relationship. The discussion underscores Pakistan's nuclear capabilities and its willingness to leverage them preemptively in existential threats, drawing parallels with North Korea and Iran.

"Pakistan over the years has said explicitly that a small country like that, juxtaposed to India, if there was an existential tension, it wouldn't not be afraid to preempt and use nuclear weapons." [10:45]

Victor and his guest analyze the shifting U.S. alliances, noting a strategic pivot towards India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership. This realignment aims to counterbalance China's growing influence and foster a robust democratic partnership.

"We're trying to develop this new relationship with India as a democracy and as a way to play off China and Russia." [28:56]

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2. Lawfare and Political Decision Disasters

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the concept of lawfare—using legal systems to achieve political ends. The conversation delves into former President Donald Trump's executive orders targeting specific law firms, notably Perkins Coie, perceived to be complicit in the Russian collusion investigations.

"He just says, given your behavior and some of the things that they do, we just don't want to do business with you." [25:34]

The hosts discuss the broader implications of such actions, including the erosion of legal protections and the misuse of government power to silence opposition. They also touch upon recent federal court decisions that aim to curb these lawfare tactics by limiting jurisdictional overreach and enforcing stricter guidelines on injunctions.

The episode further examines cases where government agencies, like the USDA, have employed lawfare against ranchers and landowners, leading to unwarranted prosecutions over property disputes. The intervention of Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins is highlighted as a corrective measure to drop these unjust cases.

"Federal lands should be put off of all people activity and they should belong to an elite, properly educated, properly trained left-wing stewardship." [34:22]

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3. Energy Policy: Critique of Renewable Over Nuclear

Hanson and Fowler engage in a critical discussion on energy policies, particularly opposing the over-reliance on wind and solar power. They argue that these renewable sources lack the consistency and reliability of nuclear energy, leading to systemic issues in energy grids, as evidenced by California's ongoing challenges.

"If you have wind and solar, you don't have a constant source that can immediately surge enormous upon enormous amounts of megawatts into the system." [47:38]

The guests elaborate on the inefficiencies and infrastructural shortcomings of renewable energy projects, citing examples like Spain's temporary 100% wind and solar production and California's failed battery storage initiatives. The conversation emphasizes the need for a balanced energy strategy that incorporates reliable nuclear power to ensure grid stability and energy security.

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4. PBS/NPR Bias and Funding Issues

The show transitions to a critique of public broadcasting entities like PBS and NPR, alleging a pervasive left-wing bias influenced by federal funding. The hosts argue that this bias undermines the objectivity of news and cultural programming, steering public opinion in a manner detrimental to conservative viewpoints.

"The Corporation for Public Broadcasting knows that it is a politically left-wing entity that tries to, through its news divisions and its cultural offerings, offer a slanted view." [40:50]

They discuss the challenges faced by these organizations, including dependence on federal funds and the limitations imposed by political agendas. The conversation suggests reducing or eliminating federal interference to restore journalistic integrity and diversity of perspectives.

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5. College Presidents Opposing Trump's Executive Orders

A focal point of the episode is the alarming trend of over 600 college presidents signing a letter opposing what they describe as unprecedented government overreach and political interference in higher education. The letter, while not explicitly naming Trump, implicitly targets his administration's executive actions that threaten academic freedom and institutional autonomy.

"As leaders of America's colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference." [67:11]

Hanson and his guest scrutinize the letter's content, highlighting issues such as coercive use of public research funding, racial and ideological pressures, and the undermining of due process within academic institutions. They argue that such collective resistance is both a defensive reaction to political imposition and a necessary stand for preserving the integrity of higher education.

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6. Happiness Among Married vs. Single Women

Towards the end of the episode, the hosts discuss a poll by the IFS Wheatley Institution regarding the happiness levels of American women. The findings indicate that married women with children report higher levels of happiness compared to their single counterparts.

"21% of American women who are married with kids are very happy, and 54% are pretty happy." [73:15]

They interpret these statistics to suggest that traditional family structures may contribute to greater personal fulfillment and stability, contrasting with the comparatively lower happiness rates among single women without children.

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Conclusion

The episode of The Victor Davis Hanson Show presents a robust analysis of complex geopolitical conflicts, the manipulative use of legal systems for political gains, energy policy inefficiencies, media biases, and the struggles within the higher education sector. By weaving together historical context, current events, and personal anecdotes, Hanson and Fowler provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of the multifaceted challenges facing modern society.

Notable Quotes:

• "Pakistan is a very volatile place, and it has all these deep ethnic and caste and religious and geopolitical fault lines. So anything can happen, and anything might happen." - Guest [07:31]

• "We're trying to develop this new relationship with India as a democracy and as a way to play off China and Russia." - Guest [28:56]

• "The Corporation for Public Broadcasting knows that it is a politically left-wing entity that tries to, through its news divisions and its cultural offerings, offer a slanted view." - Guest [40:50]

• "As leaders of America's colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference." - College Presidents Letter [67:11]

This episode serves as a critical lens through which listeners can examine the interplay between politics, law, and societal well-being, urging a reevaluation of strategies to address these enduring issues.

Transcript

[Victor Davis Hansen]

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[Jack Fowler]

Foreign. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Victor is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marsha Busky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. And he's the man in possession of a website, the Blade of Perseus. Its address is victorhansen.com. you should be wanting to go there daily and you should be wanting to subscribe. And I will tell you why later in this episode, which we are recording on Monday 5th May, and it will be up on Thursday the 8th. I will tell you why you should be subscribing. Victor. We are going to begin the show with a little mix of things. Your thoughts on this brewing and who knows what will happen between today and later in the week. But this brewing conflict, struggle, whatever you want to call it, between India and Pakistan. And then we have Donald Trump saying he wants to reopen Alcatraz and put our most heinous criminals there. We take those stories. We have college presidents trying to join efforts to take on Donald Trump's actions, his executive orders. There's a new issue of Strategic Lawfare. Who's happier, Victor? Single women or married women? All these things. Hopefully we'll have time again. Get your get time.

[Unnamed Guest]

Have time for your cat Lady Vance statement.

[Jack Fowler]

No, no, but there's polls, Victor. We're just going to talk about the polls. Polls. The polls have done the work already. So anyway, we'll, we'll, we'll start off with India Pakistan when we come back from these important messages.

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[Jack Fowler]

We are back with the Victor Davis Hansen show. So Victor, I think over two dozen Indians were slaughtered in Pakistan. They were tourists and it exacerbated the permanent tensions between these two bordering nations. Both with significant populations and significant militaries. Both of them in their ways allies of the United States of well, I don't know how much Pakistan is.

[Unnamed Guest]

After all, Mr. Bin Laden was living there under auspices.

[Jack Fowler]

Victor, what are your, what's your take on this conflict and the consequences? And what should America's position be vis a vis the two nations?

[Unnamed Guest]

I think we erred in the Cold War because India, given its post colonial anger at the west and Britain, it's got over that now. I think a lot of people in India realized that the British gave them a uniform language and some institutions that were very valuable. But not after in the 40s and 50s India drifted into the orbit of the Soviet Union even though it was still a democracy.

[Jack Fowler]

And we the underlying nations, right. It was one of the leaders in.

[Unnamed Guest]

That underlying nation, the third World. And we back Pakistan and its illiberal government. And they'd had elections at times but you know, they were, they were violent and it was on the border of Afghanistan and it was the home of a lot of radical Islamicists. And the net result was that in the Cold War realpolitik we sort of alienated India even though it was more, much more democratic than Pakistan. And now we discovered during the 20 years in Afghanistan that that was an open border where the Taliban operated with exemption. And Taliban were probably deeply integrated in the government of Pakistan in some cases. So a lot of Americans don't have a soft spot for Pakistan. We have more immigrants from India than we do Pakistan. Pakistan is a Muslim country. India is a poly faith country. I mean there's Christians, but it's primarily Hindu, but there's Sikhs and there's Muslims. I think you could argue that Muslims might be treated more equitably in India than non Muslims are in Pakistan. But that'll be controversial, I'm sure. I'll hear somebody write me about saying that and then I don't know the actual nuclear ratio, but I have a feeling that Pakistan's got somewhere between 150 and 200 nuclear weapons. Probably India's got three to 400. India's army is much bigger India's population is well over a billion people, much bigger than Pakistan. Pakistan has said Pakistan has been much closer to the US military. It's been trained by the UMass. It's been equipped more so than India until recently. Modi is now a big ally of the Trump administration. We're drifting closer to India than we are Pakistan. So we're in a transition. All that said, Pakistan over the years has said explicitly that a small country like that, smaller country like that, juxtaposed to India, if there was an existential tension, it wouldn't not be afraid to preempt and use nuclear weapons. It would have to, to get the edge. It said that. And it's like North Korea and Iran have boasted numerous times about preemptive use of nuclear weapons. I mentioned it in the end of Everything, in the epilogue with some of the things the Pakistanis have said. So it's a very volatile place, and it has all these deep ethnic and caste and religious and geopolitical fault lines. So anything can happen, and anything might happen. I don't know what the Trump. I don't know what Mark. Who's Mark? Whom Marco Rubio is calling, but I'm sure he's trying to allay tensions. But usually Pakistan is the aggressor. Not always, but usually. And we're trying to develop this new relationship with India as a democracy and as a way to play off China and Russia, given India's got a lot more, in my opinion, even though it's not as successful, I think its GDP is about the same, about 5% growth per year. But even though it is not as successful as China in terms of recent wealth, it has more potential. And I know it's more fragmented, it's got more ethnic and religious divisions. It's not authoritarian. So we hear more about it than China, and we have more. But my point is this. There are a lot of Chinese Americans with distinguished roles in American society, but they tend to be inordinately from Taiwan or they were refugees from the mainland. But India's a little different. We have thousands of people from India now who are coming with advanced degrees. It has enormous advantage over China in that it's English speaking. It has democratic institutions that are, you know, they're. They're 60, 70, 80 years old. It has the British influence. So it should be closer to the west and more successful than China eventually. And it may well be. I hope so. Yeah. But I wouldn't. Modi is a sort of Trumpian figure. You don't. I don't Think he, I don't think think when he says something to if he's not going to be an Obama like Biden figure. So if Pakistan tries something that he sees as aggressive, he will respond aggressively. I think he said on two occasions he's left the decision in the hands of his generals.

[Jack Fowler]

You know Victor, interesting about India from everything you just explained, as big as it is, the potential English speaking Democratic and if you went to an institution I'm not going to pick, I'm just going to say Hoover, which is this may not be true but you would have more folks who are make a area of study. Europe, China, Russia, the Middle east and India might not be really a priority.

[Unnamed Guest]

For India's really good. You know, Hoover's been really good at that. We have four or five people, not all Indian Americans, but are really pushing that relationship, the Hoover relationship with Indian researchers. And I think part of that is that so many of the CEOs and politicians in Northern California are Indian American. Our Indian nationals that are here on green cards. That was one of the key issues that the MAGA base disagreed with with the Trump the more well they're all maga, but on the immigration people were saying we have enough people. A lot of immigration reformists say it's not just illegal immigration that's a problem, the 2 million a year but we're letting in a million people even legally and we're not able to assimilate, integrate, intermarry that number of people given the lack of civic education or confidence in the melting potential. And so therefore we should restrict legal immigration down to 2 or 300,000. And that was a touchy point because Silicon Valley made the argument, well we need engineers from India. And then the counterargument to the counterargument was well you really don't because you're bringing in people. Yes, they have BAS, but they're replacing American BAS. You're not bringing in the cream of the cream PhDs from India who can. There's some. But what you're interested in is to lower the wages of coders from India and displace America. That's a big controversy. I don't have an opinion either way on it, but we should. I'm glad that we're having closer relations with India. In my community. I am speaking right now two miles from the second largest Sikh temple in California. And when they have a retreat they shut down the entire four lane thoroughfare next to it and there's thousands of people and my neighbors are Sikh. Two of the three four And I farmed next door to one of the first Sikh immigrants. My aunt, who was a college teacher at a local junior college for 40 years, 30 years, she taught him as a student. So my grandfather was one of the first people in this area in the early 1960s to have a Sikh immigrant. And I can name his name. His name is Tarzan Siotta. I really liked him. He once said to me, your grandfather was the only person when I came who was not prejudiced that I was farming and that I was very successful. Your grandfather would come over and asked me if I knew Punjabi techniques about water. And he was very respectful. And his daughter taught me at Reedley College. So I get along. I have a lot of good friends in the Sikh community here. Yeah.

[Jack Fowler]

Hey, Victor, before I have to read a little spot and I'm throwing this out at you because I wanted to have brought it up on the previous show, but this past Saturday's Kentucky Derby, sovereignty beat journalism, the horses. And I think there's something symbolic in that. Symbolic may be the wrong word, but, you know, sovereignty prevailed despite journalism.

[Unnamed Guest]

I used to follow that. I should follow that more. I have a close friend, John Harris. He's a wonderful person. You know, he's not in good health now, but you remember California, California Chrome, right? He was not owned by John Harris, but he was nurtured in the pasture.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

And that was a big thing for California and Central Valley in particular, that a horse that was so called, grew up here, won the Kentucky Jerby. Yeah, used to. I think you were with me once, didn't you? Didn't we go view?

[Jack Fowler]

We took a tour. Yeah. Of the.

[Unnamed Guest]

Of the entire. I mean, my God, it was quite impressive. They had the. They had a regulation size racetrack. And I thought about moving. When I saw the horse stalls, I thought moving in, they were pretty nice, cool, temperature controlled.

[Jack Fowler]

Maybe in your next life, if you're mix of India and this topic, we come back.

[Unnamed Guest]

Gentleman. I've said before, I liked his wife a lot, Carol Harris.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah. Very kind to me. Very. And the Harris ranch out in. Was it Coalinga? Is that where it's located?

[Unnamed Guest]

Yes, it's out in King.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah. Yeah. Delicious, delicious food.

[Unnamed Guest]

It was a very honest company. And, you know, they didn't have children. She's gone now and John is not in good health. But one time I had said something about that on the air maybe three years ago, and somebody wrote me and said, you shouldn't give a plug. I think they were competitor. But the point I'm making, I said, I Didn't give a plug. It was just true. The next day I went in to get my phone fixed and a Harris, a guy came in with a Harris Ranch Mexican American guy. And I said, you work for John Harris? I said, oh my gosh, I love John Harris. He's so, he's so honest. He teached all of his employees. But dignity, dignity. So I kind of proved my own point. Amen.

[Jack Fowler]

I have one of those hats. Hey, Victor. For our listeners, let's face it, our health care system is no longer serving the people it was designed to help. Appointments take weeks only to end in a rushed five minute consultation. Five minutes if you're lucky. Victor. Prescriptions are delayed, bureaucratic red tape gets in the way, and treatment options are limited to what some agency deems, quote, unquote, acceptable. It's inefficient, impersonal and increasingly untrustworthy. That's why All Family Pharmacy is different. They believe in medical freedom. Your right to choose what works best for your health alongside a doctor who respects that choice. No interference from government regulators or insurance companies. Ordering is simple and direct. Skip the waiting rooms and the long pharmacy lines. Just go online, place your order and your medications are shipped right to your door. They carry over 200 medications, including trusted names like ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, mebendazole, antibiotics and other essential treatments your family may need. You can also order emergency kits, customize your supply or buy in bulk to be fully prepared. Over 100,000Americans have already made the switch to All Family Pharmacy. Perhaps now is the time for you to do the same. Visit allfamilypharmacy.com Victor and use the promo code Victor 10. That's V I C T O R. The number one, the number zero to get 10% off your first order. That's allfamilypharmacy.com victor Take back control of your health on your terms. And we thank the good people from All Family Pharmacy for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Victor, I visited San Francisco several times, several times with, in your company. I've never, never took the tour to Alcatraz. Have you ever been to Alcatraz?

[Unnamed Guest]

I have. On an ALCATRAZ TOUR In 1972, a group, three or four of us went up to. We used to go to the bookstores to find classics books, Greek and Latin in Berkeley and San Francisco. Nobody wanted them and they were very hard to find text. And we were walking along Fisherman's Wharf that had those, you know, those little boats that say Alcatraz And I think then it was $10. We. We jumped on it. But it was weird. We went around the island and then we docked and we didn't. We didn't have enough money to pay for the tour. So we just. It was kind of go around and you docked and you got out and walked around. But I think there were tours of the interior blocks. I wanted to relive Birdman of Alcatraz with Burt Lancaster and Telly Sabalis.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, well, it may be relived again, Victor, as you mentioned earlier, you know, Donald Trump has said he wants Alcatraz, which I think was closed in 1963. He wants it reopened and expanded and to be used for the most hardened of criminals.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, there's going to be a lot of. That's going to be an ambitious project because remember when the Native American community took it over, there was a group called.

[Jack Fowler]

I don't remember that.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, they did. They stormed it and took it over for a couple years and occupied it. There was a group. You're too young, Jack. But it was a Native American rock group called Redbone and it was very popular in the San Joaquin Valley. And they wrote us a song about Alcatraz. And the physical structure is pretty decayed and I don't know if it could even be reinforced to make. To meet California earthquake standards. And it's a. It's, you know, you would have to have commute every day by ferry out there. There's no bridges or anything, so you'd have to have a commute for the employees to come back. And I don't know if you still have a Native American contingent that would say that it was sacred ground or belonged to the tribal communities. But there'd be a. And then you're in the Bay Area. Yes. And while you're doing this, the state prison at San Quentin, not too far away, also on the Bay, as I recall, is under a process of reimagining. It was to San Quentin along with Folsom, you know, and.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah. Shot Madden, Reno.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, it was a place that you don't want to go to. Yeah. And. But we're reimagining it. I think they're dismantling it as a high, you know, security prison and making it more transitional halfway house prison. And they're building a new section. But people can correct me if I'm wrong, it has some of the choices, lands, real estate. You could. If a developer bought San Quentin or Alcatraz, they could make a fortune because people would love to live out There with a view. Yeah.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, that's lucky Prisoners.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yes. My great uncle would Donald Trump. I don't know how much it would cost. I imagine it would be a billion dollars to rebuild the decaying infrastructure and then get, I don't know, it would be very, there'd be a lot of overhead for your workforce. Would have to live in San Francisco, maybe San Jose and then they would have to take a boat out there. There'd have to be security concerns and everything. And I, I don't know what, what the idea, what, you know what Alcatraz, maybe it's an iconic or symbolic act versus somewhere out in, I don't know, the Mojave Desert or something. You know what I mean? Where it's inaccessible. Trump prison desert. You wouldn't even need walls usually. Right.

[Jack Fowler]

I think a Trump prison in the bay is a kind of a middle finger to the.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, I think that's the whole idea that he wants to tell the left wing Trump hating community that you have to do your part for law enforcement.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, Victor, we have plenty more to get your take on and there's a couple of aspects of lawfare that are on the docket for your opinion and we will get to those topics and more when we come back from these important messages.

[Victor Davis Hansen]

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[Jack Fowler]

We are back with the Victor Davis Hansen show. Victor, let's see, where should we start? Three things. Let's let's get the two of the federal court actions out of the way, to put it that way out of the way. But so Perkins Coy, who was who co which was executive ordered by Donald Trump. And I thought they backed down. I thought they tried to come to some resolution because it seemed like had Donald Trump cut that law firm off from engagement with the federal government with cases with security clearances, it was going to be like a billion dollars of revenue.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah. I think all he was saying is that we're not going to use the following law firms, law firms to undertake federal cases and then we're not going to give their people security forms, law clearances because they were actively engaged in unethical conduct. And what he meant by that specifically was in 2015 and 2016, the whole Russian collusion demonstrable hoax was ginned up by Hillary Clinton's campaign and they used the DNC to write the checks. And then they paid Perkins Coey, who then paid fusing gps, who then paid Christopher Steele. So that Hillary's funding of Christopher Steele was hidden by three paywalls. So they were a major player in that Russian collusion hoax. And I don't think he's punished him in the sense he's going to charge him with anything. He just says, given your behavior and some of the things that they do, we just don't want to do business with you. We don't have any federal business with you. But there may be other punishments I'm not aware of besides the yanking of their members. Those law firms are the revolving door for senior administration officials that are lawyers. They go into the Pentagon, the State Department and then they go back and he's just. And to be fair to Trump, the number of lawyers who were blacklisted by all those law firms, those blue shoes or blue stocking or silver spoon in their mouth, whatever we call those Washington top notch law firms, if you had anything to do with supporting Donald Trump and said that you had questions about the election or the elector, anything, I'm not talking about demonstrating on January. If you defended people, you were not going to be back at that law firm. They were going to tell you, they weren't going to fire you. They were going to say the following. If we continue to hire you, then our clients, corporate clients, will punish us. Therefore, for the good of your fellow lawyers, would you please resign. That's what they did. And so I don't have any empathy for them at all.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, a federal judge stopped the temporary order blocking the executive order related and there was a, an executive order that was specific to Perkins Coy which leads us into though this judge shopping. And there was a case, there was a decision this past weekend by the D.C. circuit Court of Appeals that the entitled Trump scores major win as appeals court smacks down rogue judges. And this the court, I'm not sure Victor was the full court or was a three judge panel, et cetera but they started the process of taking kneecapping this judge shopping, judge picking, who knows if the Supreme Court is going to back them up on this but they tried to narrow the lanes by which judges can be selected and when judges are picked how they can rule on things or for example, one of the things is disputes over federal grant terminations belong in the court of federal claims, not in district courts. Another thing that the court ruled said issuing broad injunctions without requiring plaintiffs to post a bond could result in irreparable harm to the government. So this is a narrowing of lawfare.

[Unnamed Guest]

Saying and as I understand it in this instance and earlier ones, they're basically saying when these left wing entities want to stop the Donald Trump executive orders. And by the way, there's been more of these injunctions filed by these judges in the first hundred days of Donald Trump's than all of the Biden and Obama together. So what they're saying is there are avenues to express your anger at an administrative executive order and those are often found within the cabinets involved. So you can contact, you can make an appeal, you can file a writ, you can first go through the Process, process. Rather than just want us a judge to get into the internal business of hhs, which is an executive. It's an executive question. Under the Constitution, the president has the statutory right. Executive orders have gone. I think there was only one president who hasn't issued. I don't know if it was Franklin Benjamin Harrison. Just one, they all do it and that's consistent with the executive powers as outlined in the Constitution. And yet you have these left wing lawyers that are cherry picking left wing judges to interfere with the executive branch because they lost the election. If they really we haven't had the Supreme Court explicitly say, but if you really are, there's no real case history here. If you really want to stop the Trump executive orders, then you have two choices. You can win the election in 2028 or you can win a majority, a veto proof majority of filibuster proof in the House and Senate in 2026 and pass legislation that will contravene his executive orders. But Don, don't expect a low ranking district judge to enter in these complex bureaucratic squabbles and how you spend this money and that, that's what they're saying. They don't have the jurisdiction or the knowledge to go in and do that.

[Jack Fowler]

One other lawfare related topic, Victor, you know, several weeks ago we talked about a case out in South Dakota which involved the National Forest Service just ruthless bureaucrats tormenting these ranchers out there and bringing them to court. The trials hadn't started yet, but the, the, the husband and wife and one ranching family, they couldn't talk to each other, how to hire separate lawyers were looking at 10 years in prison over some like really pathetic property line case. Well and by the way, there's a website called Unwon Unwon which did some great reporting on this and other issues related to rural land use issues they reported. And so has the Secretary of Agriculture on her own, Brooke Rollins, she dropped the, she ordered the case to be dropped, that these folks will not be prosecuted. And then she also here's a tweet she if I can call it a tweet, an ex post. I am calling on any individuals who are currently enduring lawfare conducted by the USDA Department of Agriculture. And she's the Secretary of Agriculture to visit the link below and to submit a form. I think that's really cool.

[Unnamed Guest]

I do too. And I think that from what I've been following with it, you say take the U.S. forest Service. The Trump administration has nom made some nominations at the second, third, fourth, fifth level that are very corrective of what's going on. And I imagine that the left is going to go hysterical when they see some of these nominees because they're going to try to rebalance property rights and curtail the. They're going to try to protect people who have long standing grazing contracts with the. If you problem with the Biden and the early Obama National Forest Service and all of these land, these federal agencies that control this huge million acres of land is they don't want any private people on it. If you have a legacy cabin that you had at Huntington Lake and you had a 99 year lease and when it came up they were not going to give you an extended lease, it was going to be one or two years and they want you out. If it burns down, it's going to be almost impossible to rebuild their way of thinking. Federal lands should be put off of all people activity and they should belong to an, an elite, properly educated, properly trained left wing stewardship and these people should have unlimited access to all of it and to do what they want with it for the greater good they say. So they don't want people mining, they don't want people drilling, they don't want people living there, they don't want cows grazing there. They don't want hereditary rights of families over multi generations who are usually really good custodians. They don't want any of that. They just want to make it a pristine wilderness of which Sierra Club type members, you know, they go in and then they have a nice time and they look at the scenario and then they. That's how they, that's how they envision these national treasures. So as it's been pointed out, we have a lot of rare earth minerals in California, in the Dakotas and Wyoming that we could easily exploit and not be nearly so dependent on China. And we have technologies that are even trying to make batteries out of sodium and stuff so, so we could be self sufficient in so many areas if we just responsibly extracted the mineral wealth on federal lands. And a lot of the people I can tell you of having a house, I have private land up at Huntington Lake. The people who had those legacy cabins on federal national service land, they were the best stewards you could imagine. They took care of the lake, they watched out for fires, they were careful about brooks, they cleaned up around their very rustic cabins from the 1912, 15, 18 they'd been in the family and then sometimes when, and then they just burned down because of lax forest service. Usually what's happened when you look at these interactions between the National Forest Service and individual people who are renting or leasing or occupying legally land in their jurisdiction, the culpability is on the National Forest Service. They're the ones that have different ideas depending on the state in which they're in about. And we've talked about fire prevention. The left wing's idea of fire prevention is just, just fire burn, let it burn and then it'll make nice little decayed wood for bugs and salamanders and birds ecosystems. But don't let timber companies come in and thin out the forest. Don't let weaken people come in and cut wood for their fireplaces. Don't do any of that. Yeah, well, backfired horrifically in California.

[Jack Fowler]

For those who don't know who Brooke Rollins is Secretary of Agriculture. She ran the Texas Public Policy center for a number of years and she's such a, a smart, solid citizen. I, I think it's, I, I was a little surprised that she was picked to run Department of Agriculture, but so be it. She is a, she is a great conservative and she's done a great thing here.

[Unnamed Guest]

We've reiterated. I don't want to get into personalities but, but this administration is very different than the first Trump administration. He came in, he said he'd only been in Washington what, 15 or 16 times and he didn't. Nobody thought he was going to win the election. I'm not sure he did. So he came in and he was smothered by recommendations of the Republican orthodoxy and the bipartisan. What would you call it? Acela corridor. So in this administration, the second one, and I'm not criticized. I like Bill Barr, but there are no John Boltons, there are no Jim Mattises, there are no Rex Tillerson. There are, there's none of those people that were fixtures in the Washington diplomatic or corporate or political world. They're just not. Still don't understand the Rex Tillerson either or Omarosa.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

So they're very good people and they're force multiplier of the mega agenda. They're not doing one of two things that happened in the first administration. That idiot Trump. I'm going to use my bureaucratic expertise to stop the implementation of that idiotic order or the order is idiotic. And I know what he really meant. So I'm going to reinterpret it in a way that he might think is superior to his own. This group is. I'm here because I am in line ideologically with Donald Trump and my duty is to implement his agenda as Quickly, efficiently and effectively as possible. And he's brought in a lot of people who have that history of doing it. Doug Bergman, you know, at the Department of Interior, and we've got the Department of Energy secretary. Gosh, they're all. Or can do people.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah. And are doing. Which is, you know, you've talked about it here in many podcasts. And our friend Steve Hayward, who has his own substack now, he used to be on Powerline all the time. God bless Powerline.

[Unnamed Guest]

I like Steve a lot. I like reading what he writes.

[Jack Fowler]

He wrote a piece the other day of not tired of winning in the face of the all the this PR about bad polls, et cetera, and these things like what Brook Rallins has done. And then you have, well, npr, you know, Donald Trump taking the budget acts to PBS and npr. These are the things he said he was going to run on. He's ran on them and now he's executing it. And I, I have a feeling this all.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, there's been a lot of speculation about PBS and NPR because they, they keep saying, well, the corporate corporation for public broadcasting gets very little money and most of it's corporate surprise. But that's not the truth because the federal money is dispersed to the satellite stations to fund them so they can buy the product that the corporation Public Broadcasting either creates or franchises for them. So if you say you're not going to give money to these satellite stations, then they're not going to be able to pay the corporation of Public Broadcasting the type of revenues that they call non governmental, you know what I mean? Because they say they come from other entities, but they don't really. And so there's so many good arguments to let the corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR and pbs, just free range, go on your own. They compete with commercial stations and they have so many advantages. They don't pay taxes. They have certain advantages of being government entities. And it was a good idea in the 70s. I used to, when I was growing up that you there were three stations, the abc, NBC and cbs. And then there was a weirdo station or something, you know what I mean? And that was it. You have CUHF station and then when they came in, you got all these other choices. But that was 600. You turn on DirecTV. Every time I look at my DirecTV subscription, I find another station I never knew existed in the pack. 600 stations and there must be 10 children shows, you know what I mean? Of all different sizes and shapes. And they don't. And then when you look at their Political commentary. I used to be amazed because I drive from Fresno county all the way over to Palo Alto and every once in a while I wanted to turn on NPR to listen to the commentary. It was always, it was never an exception. It was always something. In the last 10 years, it was like this. Well, Donald Trump, the latest story of Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Donald Trump exceeded his statutory authority once more. We're going to cut to Germany where there's a new mem in Germany as Donald Trump is at all of Hitler. And they would do that. And then you turn on PBS and then is it Jonathan Capehart, the left, left wing guy? And then you think, yeah, well, there's going to be at least a Newt genre type guy, right? Or Molly Hemingway, conservative, or, you know, Kim Strassel, one of the iconic people who could devour him. And it's, it's, what's his name? David.

[Jack Fowler]

Brooke Brooks.

[Unnamed Guest]

David Brooks. And David Brooks's latest thing is he called the deliberate, willful, intentional destruction of the jurisprudence system by Judge Dugan, who broke her oath of office, denied justice to the victims in her courtroom. Heroic. She's heroic. No, no, no, no, no. To quote Reverend Jeremiah Wright, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not happening. She was not courageous. But he's not a conservative. He would say that he's not a conservative. So they knew what they were doing. That's a good phrase for everybody to remember. When you feel is Trump doing a little bit too much? No, they know they're culpable. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting knows that it is a politically left wing entity that tries to, through its news divisions and its cultural offerings, offer a slanted view. Yes, Sometimes it imports British movies and British TV series that are great, great. Downington Abbey was fine, but most of the content is left of center, just like Voice of America. And so it's time to let them be left wing. Let them be what they be. You know, they should say, let Reagan be Reagan. Let the corporate. Let it be what it wants.

[Jack Fowler]

All these used to be founded with conservative money philanthropies that are Ford, Pew, MacArthur that are now swollen with billions of dollars that only spend 5% of their assets a year. Let them fund it. You know, they've got the money, the money's there.

[Unnamed Guest]

I was spe a retreat. I won't say where or for whom. And some, one of the, what's the word? Overseer donors came up to me and said, are you angry about the pbs? I said, no. And she said to me, you could it was nothing. It was just five fighter planes, 500 million, right? And yeah, I guess she meant an F35 is what, 120 million? Oh, I guess we just lost one of these Hornets or something. They just threw them over the side the other day. But my point is I said, well, if it was my choice, I would love to have five F35s more than we have now because they would keep us safe. And these people are not keeping us safe. They're telling the world that we're a screwed up society that's racist, sexist, homophobic, nativist, xenophobic. That's what they say basically.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, maybe, maybe these people, they like to see their names flash quickly at the beginning or the end of some of these shows and tell them their, tell their neighbors.

[Unnamed Guest]

Years ago, remember Fresh Air and TALK of the I used to like Neil, what's his name? He was Talk of the Nation. He was really good. Neil Conan.

[Jack Fowler]

I didn't never listen.

[Unnamed Guest]

Very fair. He really was. But the, once there was a fresh air or something that was about indoor flowers and orchids, you know, and I thought, wow, this is going to be interesting because I, I like flowers and gardening. But the story was, the woman was, it was kind of a metaphor. I don't know if it was fiction or non fiction. She's doing all these wonderful things. She's, she's out there spraying it and then she's, her, her plants look greener but then she starts to get ill and then she doesn't feel well. And then we find out that her addiction to petrochemicals and organophosphates and organochloride pesticides has sickened her. And so she's into this American trap of trying to make her orchids and flowers look nice at the expense. Sense of organic farming, that's what that was. All it was, was there's a, there was a message in everything they said. Everything they said.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah. Hey Victor. Before we move on, I want to let our listeners and viewers know about our [e-mail] they make hot fast Solaire infrared grills. With rising prices everywhere, you want to make sure your hard earned money is spent well. So here's what you get when you buy a 20, 20, 21 inch and larger Solaire infrared backyard grill. American made, built to last with all stainless steel, welded design and commercial quality features. Radiant infrared burners that heat up to 1 to 1000 degrees in just 3 minutes regardless of the outside temperature. High direct heat that results in the juiciest and most flavorful food that you've ever had from a gas grill and limited lifetime warranty on the burners, grates and and stainless steel. Also, when you buy a Solaire infrared [e-mail] you support our advertiser, which helps them keep Victor's voice and values on the air. Learn more about Solaire infrared [e-mail] including their try before you buy demo rental program. That's besthotgrill.com besthotgrill.com we thank the very good people at Solaire for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen show, which they've been doing for quite a long time. Thank you, folks. Hey, Victor, by the way, I would take a little, you know, I heard a little bit when you talked about the weirdo station. You know, you had the three and the pbs. The weirdo station was the one which, which on. On Saturday afternoon at 5:00, I could watch Luca Libre wrestling on.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yes, I used to watch it. I used to watch Pepper Gomez and Pat Patterson and Ray Stevens. I watched all those when I got home from work. Work used to have a really good show. Do you remember? It was Bill Halsey and it was about a submarine and he had documentary. It was up. It wasn't called up periscope but it was the deep sea. And then this guy, he was right. It was in the 50s.

[Jack Fowler]

Wasn't Diver Dan, was it?

[Unnamed Guest]

No, it was Bill Halsey, the famous.

[Jack Fowler]

No, he would go.

[Unnamed Guest]

And we hit him hard with a bolo class. We will sail right into Tuko Bay. He was really good. He was there. He was, you know, he missed the battle of Midway because he had a skin disease, unfortunately. I like Bill Halsey. He was at the battle of Leyte de Golf and he went headstrong in the wrong direction to get it. You know, he was kind of like John McCain's grandfather was a great battleship admiral.

[Jack Fowler]

Was he at Pearl Harbor?

[Unnamed Guest]

What?

[Jack Fowler]

Was he at Pearl Harbor?

[Unnamed Guest]

McCain's out there. But he was, I think he made four star and he was in charge of the. A lot of the battleship contingents. And he was a fighter like Halsey. You know those old guys, if they found out, if there was a report that a Japanese fleet was 500 miles in a certain direction, they didn't care which way it was going. They just took off, you know.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

Meet it. They weren't kind of like Spruance and Nimitz, who were very careful, sober and judicious. Well, great admirals, both of them. I'm not weighing in on one side or the other. We were very lucky. We had brilliant naval commanders from World War II. Absolutely brilliant. And we had brilliant ship designers. Where are those guys that designed all the Essex class and the North Carolina and the Iowa class battleships and all these great heavy cruisers? I don't know where they are.

[Jack Fowler]

If we had them, where would they go build a ship? I read something recently about we have Italy building our military.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, Italy and the Netherlands, they're all building. Where were they? Just like Germany. They decommissioned all of their nuclear plants. And I was reading the other day they only have like one or two nuclear physicists at their major universities. That's a dead field. And they were the people, remember the Germans were that they were ahead of us on nuclear fission and stuff in terms of domestic power usage. They were the master builders of atomic energy plants. And now they're just gone.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, you've talked about what happened in Spain and Portugal and I ain't no expert on electricity or just about anything, Victor, but the quality or the source of electricity, if it's wind and solar, has. Let's just say it's worse than electricity produced by nuclear, which is of course more efficient. And it's the quality of, of that power that, or the lack of quality of the power of which is now wind and solar, that is going to just lead to continued chaos in, in throughout Europe.

[Unnamed Guest]

Because they're all interconnected, like your plumbing system. You need 60 pounds of water, you know, 40 to 60 pounds.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

In your house all the time to surge it. And so if I have my own pump, so if I have a leaky faucet or somebody left the water on, I have the pump, they'll go on and surge it so you can maintain that pressure. But if you have wind and solar, and you are bragging, as Spain did that for a moment about a month or two ago, they were 100% producing wind and solar. You don't have a constant source that can immediately surge enormous upon enormous amounts of megawatts into the system. So when, if there's any glitch, you know, and say at 2 o' clock, all Spain's in a rainstorm or the wind dies and that starts to dip down, then you need immediately to surge power into the system to keep the. So the proverbial pressure up, like your blood system. And if you don't have it, then you can't restart the generation and it just, it starts to shut down automatically to save the pressure where it can be saved. Right. Because if it tries to supply the whole grid, it will just all shut down. So they were trying to bring in, you know, the nuclear power sources from France as much as they could. But anybody. And here in California we tried to do this with Moss Landing. We tried to make this mega battery plant. So we have an excess of solar power during the day. It's very expensive per kilowatt, much more so than nuclear or natural gas. But we've had two, two cataclysms there where they caught fire. We blew up, we tore down. We did commission this wonderful natural gas oil burning. Moss Landing that was a reliable producer of lots of energy. We tried to make into a battery place and it doesn't work. It's cost billions of dollars. And now California will not give back money that's worth it to put solar panels on your home because they slash. They've tripled the price per kilowatt that you pay and they've cut by two thirds or so what you get for gener. So now people are buying batteries. And the problem with that is they're self sufficient. They generate their own electricity that fills their battery and then they use the battery but they don't. The state doesn't get any money for the grid, the overhead from solar panel homes. And we have too much during the day and we don't have enough to keep going at night. So after five or six o' clock we've got imported from, I don't know, Arizona, Utah. A lot of it's coal. We'll provide and this is just crazy. And it's expensive and it's. I said the other day I was talking about California. I said if we just took the California legislature and Gavin and we put them in a big helicopter, we flew up to Big Sur and we landed on Highway 1 and we said this highway has been shut down by one landslide for 800 days. And we know you don't like tourists. We know you don't like anybody enjoying the beautiful scenery of Big Sur. But people can't get tourists it. Can you fix that? And then we would go to Pacific Palisades and say here's Highway 1. That's still shut down. And people can't get to. They can't go from say Pepperdine to LAX in an expeditious fashion. Could you fix it? Now here's Visalia. Excuse me. Tulare to Delano 99. It is the main north south thoroughfare in California. This has not changed since 1960. It's only two lanes in each direction and it shuts down the entire thoroughfare from north to South Carolina, north to South California. If one wreck, would you please make it six lanes? And then we could go up to the Klamath river and say, gavin, legislature, please, why did you blow up these and make this ugly mudslide through the river of the Klamath? Why did you take 250 billion out of the California bond to build dams and said you blew them up? We could do that. Then we could take them up to Richmond. Say we need gasoline. We're the highest priced gas, not just because of the highest taxes, but the cost and the blends. And we need this refinery. And they're leaving because you regulate them out of business. You hate them. Who's going to give us gasoline? And you hate Elon. So you don't want. I don't know. And you won't build nuclear plants to charge the Teslas. So we could take them all around the state. And we could take them, I think, right near my house. I would be willing to lead that tour. And I'd say, California legislature. Gavin here is high speed rail. It didn't cost 15 billion. It's going to cost 30. And it's not even close to being built. You don't have the money even to do the station in Fresno. You're going to have to downsize it. And nobody's going to buy a ticket from Fresno, excuse me, from Bakersfield or Merced. Even if you built it right now and somebody paid the entire cost, it would still lose money when you ran it, because nobody wants to go there.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

And so that's what California is. And these people have destroyed it. But if you just took them on a tour and showed them exactly what they've done to beautiful people, maybe we need a good conservative to come in here and say, you know what? I'm going to shut down high speed rail. I'm just going to shut it down. And we're going to try to. If we can possibly get Amtrak in two different directions and improve the track, maybe we can do that. Make it go 80 miles an hour with not having to sit on the side rail. We can do that. We're going to make six lanes in the I5, six lanes in the 99, six lanes in 101. We're going to try to beef up. We're going to make that lockdown at Los Angeles Airport where you can't even get out of the airport without getting into traffic. We're gonna make some freeways to get you on. We could do all that. We need about 10 more dams to make sure In a wet year we have plenty of water. That's not hard to do. Gavin just keeps saying I'm gonna have a podcast, you know, and I, I don't like women and competing against. And he never does anything. He just sounding off. He's a complete. Yeah, I don't know what you'd call him. Functionary wax and effigy. But they need somebody to build the infrastructure of this state and get people working and it's not going to work. And when you have 2 to 300,000 of your upper income professionals leaving the state and you've got two or three hundred thousand of very poor people coming from different countries, it's, you know, when you drive in California you say 27% of the population that every fourth car is a person that was not born in the United States. So it's going to be very hard for some of them to be acquainted, especially recent arrivals. And that's not counting to know what the traffic rules and protocols are or.

[Jack Fowler]

To read the road signs.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, I think we just passed a law that every truck driver to be. Was that Florida or California must know English. I think that was a federal law. Maybe they'd be licensed. That didn't seem like it was asking much for a guy with a huge multi ton in California. You know, every once in a while when I was growing up, you see a trucker get in the middle lane, you know, know and now they, they look around and they get in the left lane and I've seen three trucks left middle and that's supposed to be an automatic fine, but they're completely in control.

[Jack Fowler]

Oh, hey Victor, we have time for I think one more big topic in your take on it and that will be about college presidents rallying to take on Donald Trump and his executive orders. And we'll do that. We'll get your take when we come back from these final important mess foreign we are back with the Victor Davis Hansen show. This show was recorded is recorded on Monday 5th May. It is up on the world wide webs on Thursday, May 8th. And on those same world wide webs you will find the Blade of Perseus. That's Victor's website. Victorhandson.com is the address. Yes. Do go there. Why? Well, you'll find it's a, it's a Hanson a Palooza. It's everything Victor does. You will find his weekly essay for American greatness, his weekly syndicated column, links to his various appearances, the archives of these podcasts, links to Victor's book and the ultra articles and video. What's that? Twice a week, Victor writes a piece exclusive for the Blade of Perseus. And once a week, an exclusive video. DO subscribe. It's 650amonth to stick your toe in the water. But if you want to subscribe for the full year, it's discounted to $65. You cannot be a fan of Victor Davis Hansen and not visit this place. So go there. And by the way, again, I've said this on a couple of prior podcasts. I think it'll make a great gift. You know, dad, if your mom. Dad. Are big fans of Victor, nice Mother's Day gift. Nice Father's Day gift. So, Victor, speaking of mothers, by the way, Victor and I do want to ask you about these college presidents. Mother's Day coming up. And when you're on Foxes, you picture your mom behind you. You've talked about your mom. Most lovely. No question. You loved and admired your mom. And I'm curious, with Mother's Day coming up. Mom, was mom a good cook? And if she was, did she have a special dish?

[Unnamed Guest]

She was a very good cook. And my father, he went through some life changes. When he was 50, he was a college administrat. He had farmed. And then when my mother became a superior court judge, he got into chauffeuring her and helping her. He was very accommodating. And he decided that he would take over the cooking responsibilities. But he did it very scientifically, read cookbooks. And he was a very good cook. He was like a chef. So he was. He was very good. We always. Sunday now, every Sunday afternoon, she had a small roast and then she had this huge green source. And then she. We usually had a baked potato. And then it was very funny. My parents never drank any alcohol whatsoever until they were 55. We just didn't have it. And then they had a pot. My mother really was kind of a pie. She made beautiful apple pies. She was a very. But she was very unusual person. She had two sisters and they were from. They grew up on a farm, very poor. But my grandfather, because he was afraid he didn't have sons. He didn't know who was going to inherit the farm. So he sent them all to universities and he mortgages. So my mother and her sister went to Stanford University. My mother delayed that to follow my father in a football scholarship to University Pacific. Then she went back to Stanford and got another BA. Then she got a JD. It was called an LLB, I think in those days, 1946, she was one of the first women graduates. And then my aunt got a master, a BA and a master's. So that my grandfather thought, well, surely they're going to be able to have incomes to help save the ranch. And my third daughter was severely crippled and she couldn't do. Her name was Lila and she lived her whole life in the house that I'm living here. But it was. I was very fortunate. I never. So many parents have, you know, in that generation especially that came of age after World War II. They were a tough bunch, really tough disciplinarians. Smoking. My father drank and smoked, but never in an abusive manner. So I really won the lottery. I have not one criticism to make and many compliments. I don't think I'd ever have done what I did, you know, I'd said, I remember in 25, I was 25, and my mom called up and said, well, we'd like to go to your graduation. You're getting your PhD. And I said, I'm not going to go. I said, there's no jobs. I just interviewed at the Naval Academy. I did a great interview. They said, we're not going to hire any white males who want to warn you. I said I wanted to go to Reed College. I said, we're not going to hire you. I have a book coming out. I finished quicker than almost anybody in the PhD program. And my mom said, what are you going to do? I said, I don't know what I'm going to do. And I think I like to come home and farm. And she goes, well, you are so educated, but come home, that's fine. Whatever you want to do is good. You can learn how to do it again and then maybe something. And that's. That was her attitude all the time. It was never. It was always upbeat, always work. Keep options open. You can do it, you can do it, you can do it. Always reaffirming. I was very lucky. She was very, you know, she had been the first female. At 17, she was the first female student body president of her high school class. It was very unusual in 1939 to be a woman present. And then she immediately. In 41, she took a year at the junior college and she organized a group of the Selma Enterprise local paper Lowell Pratt to campaign to organize farmers to help the Japanese relocation to they farm. I won't mention the name, but there were a couple of entities that we don't like to talk about in this area that were packers. Once these beautiful Japanese American ranches were forced because they went to places like manzanar they bought their ranch at discount prices. But there were other people who either farmed them or tried to organize people to hold them for Japanese farmers. And she was one of the people tried to organize that. And then she, you know, she came home and couldn't really get a job even with a Stanford degree. They hired her as a legal secretary and she got married and we had, she had four kids. One passed away and her sister. And then she, she just was the wonderful mom on this farm. We had an 800 square foot home. She was kind of the butt of abuse of local people. They'd seen say, wow, you, you went got a BA, you got a BA University Pacific BA at Stanford, law degree at Stanford and 38 years old and you've got, you're just a mom. And she thought that was great to be a mom. And then when I was nine years old, they opened appellate court. She was the head research attorney and then she was appointed a superior. I think she was the second appellate court judge in California to be a woman. She's very bright and so she was legalistic, you know what I mean? She would call me up instead of saying, I feel so bad that you, you have your taxes. She would say, go over your taxes and please do not take any deductions that are questionable. Not one. And she would hear a couple of farmers come over and she would come and visit and they were saying, but you know, I can, I'm going to get this in cash. And she'd say, Victor, please, please do not be influenced by that. You do not have any cash, income, anything that you have cash, you report every single penny. It was like that the whole time, very legalistic. And I was very lucky with my father too. He was just the opposite. He was a happy go lucky guy, but he was very bright and very supportive. I never really talked to my siblings what they thought if they had. I mean, I just assumed they had the same high regard for them that I did. Yeah, but that's beautiful, Victor, really beautiful. They were kind of worried about me because my two brothers were very bright, but they were very athletic and I was left handed. I played all these sports. My wife and I were to dinner the other night and one of the guys that showed up was a really small, sweet guy and he listened to our podcast, he had compliments for you, Jack. And he went on the Salma Enterprise and googled everything that I had ever done at Salma High School 50. And he gave it to us, he gave us Xerox and he said, you Said you were a bad athlete, but you led the JV football team in tackles and got an award. He. I didn't even forgot that he was showing me all these things. I said, yeah, but I was a bad athlete. Trust me.

[Jack Fowler]

Me.

[Unnamed Guest]

And I was left wing. I was the only person that had bad eyesight in my family. I wore glasses. I was left handed. I had my neck, my nose in a book all the time. So my dad was kind of. And I was sickly as a kid. I'd get all these. God, I got every type of illness.

[Jack Fowler]

You're still getting them.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, I do. You know, malaria, amoebic dysentery. When I was 18, when I went over, every time I went overseas, I ended up in the hospital. But anyway, the point I'm making is that they were kind of thought I was a. Kind of a weirdo, but in a good way. They were. But I was very lucky that I had two brothers that were very bright. My twin brother was a math whiz and he got a master's in biology in Epharm. My older brother was a very good writer, but he was a literary guy, so he didn't make a lot of money. That didn't matter. He was very talented. I have some of his stuff on my website. So I was very lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

[Jack Fowler]

That's terrific.

[Unnamed Guest]

Victims. They were the. They were right out of a textbook. You know, my father volunteered to go in World War II and had a really horrific time on a B29. His first cousin, who was his, basically his adopted brother, was killed last day at Sugarloaf. And he was very. I don't know, he was hyper patriotic. I know that he said that when he dropped me off at. I think I've told that story. He dropped me off at Santa Cruz at the dorm. It just happened to be in 1971 when there was a protest. He dropped me. I had to take my car home to get fixed. And then he dropped me back. He drove me back. And two things happened that day. He went into the co ed. We were co ed dorms, but we were the male side of the freeway. And two people were fornicated in the shower. And then he saw that the room next to me had drug prices. Hashish, coke on the door. And then he leaned against the wall. There was a big picture of Ho Chi Minh, but they had kicked in the Sheetrock so they hid all the places where they got rowdy and broke the. And he almost fell to the wall. And then he looked at the protests and he Said I feel sorry for you when this bunch takes over. I think that the other day I said dad, you were very present. This bunch take over.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, let's, I should have, I should have raised this at the end to, to go out on a high because we may go out on a rant, a low rant and thanks for that by the way. Victor. We'll end the show today getting your take on these college presidents. Over 600 now have signed a letter and they're most of the Ivies, not Dartmouth, not the, not the college president at Dartmouth actually couple of you know Hopkins has, in Stanford. There are a number of, of you know, elite prestigious college is not part of this but most elite prestigious are. What is it? It's this letter to take on Trump. And here's the beginning of the letter by the way. It doesn't mention Trump by name, does not mention his administration, does not target any specific executive order he's taken. But here's how it begins. As leaders of America's colleges, universities and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference. Now endange American higher education. We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. That's very nice of them. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live and work on our campuses. We will always seek effective and fair financial practices but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding.

[Unnamed Guest]

Victor, very easy answer, isn't there Jack? You just say why didn't they have a little coda at the bottom? And by the way federal government, we are no longer going to price gouge you at 50 to 60% surcharge on our HHS or Department of Energy grants. We're only going to do 15% in the way that we charge other private foundations that give us money. No more price gouging. Number two. We follow the 1964 and 1965 civil rights legislation, the recent Supreme Court 2020 decision against Harvard and University of North Carolina and therefore there will be no racially segregated safe spaces, dorms or graduation ceremonies. I know we call them alternate or auxiliary, but they're not, they're really racist. So we're not going to do that anymore. And we know that $60 billion has come from Qatar and China to affect and influence our curricula and our ideology. And we're not going to do that anymore. We're not going to take any more money from communist China. And their been reports that Harvard, for example, partnered with a entity that later was involved in harassing or persecuting the Weygers. And it did have a sistership with Beziert University on the west bank terrorist group. Some terrorists were involved and suddenly they decided they shouldn't do that. Jack Trump got elected and then we have $1.7 trillion. But we're going to, since we're private entities and since when you started the federal loan guarantee program, we raised the annual rate of inflation, twice the rate of annual inflation. We raised tuition. So we're going to promise to have tuition raises commiserate with the inflation rate and we are going to back our own student loans at Harvard and Yale and Stanford. We have multi billion dollar reserves and if a student wants financial help, we'll lend him money, will charge him interest and if he defaults, we lose the money. Therefore we have a, there's a moral hazard there and we're going to go make sure he graduates in four years and gets a job. They could do that. No federal money, no price gouging. We are not going to admit people on the basis of races. Stanford doesn't, I don't think Stanford signed that because they have. Yeah, a more reasonable president. That's the optimistic view. But if you go on the Stanford website last year you will see, see that the people who were admitted to the new class of incoming freshmen that came in 9% were white males. If I'm not mistaken, 34 or 35% of the nation is white males. And I would like to see the SAT scores and grades of the white males who were rejected commiserate with other groups so they know what they were doing. They were fined by the first Trump administration because they had taken money from China and not reported it. Confucius Institute. They had a member of the pla, People's Liberation Army Colonel I think she was, as a visiting professor, didn't tell anybody. I think they would be very, very careful not to sign that because the Stanford Faculty Senate quite unfairly censored Jay Bacharya and now he's the head of $50 billion of disbursement at HS. I don't think they'd want to go there. I don't think they want to talk about antisemitism on campus at Stanford because we had students tearing down Jewish posters, intimidating Jews and we had a 900 page liberal faculty authored investigative report at antisemitism and found that it was systemic from top to bottom antisemitism. So I don't think we want to talk about our grading policy which like Yale is probably 70, 80% AIDS. So there's so much culpability there that they don't want to. I think Stanford wisely just said, well, we'll deal with you when you come looking at us, but we're not going to provoke you because if you provoke us, you'll turn over this rock. And we've got a lot of stuff that we would not want to talk to you about because we violate due process when somebody's charged with sexual harassment or hate speech. We violate civil rights legislation by racial tribalism and prejudice. We don't report fully all the foreign money that comes in for nefarious purposes. We, we take advantage of the student loan and jack up tuition more than inflation and we really gouge you guys on federal grounds. We get, you know, 50%. So I think a lot of universities didn't want to go there and the ones that did didn't really tell people. Again, I can see that they don't want the federal government to come in and set their curriculum. But there's two final issues and then I'll shut up, Jack. And the first issue is they do not want the public to know what they doing. The more the public knows what they're doing, the polls, every poll that's taken shows a dramatic drop in confidence in higher education. That's number one. They just don't, they should, just shouldn't do it. And if they do, people are not going to like it. And the second thing is they love federal intervention when it's left wing governments. They love the federal government to come into a university and say, listen, your football team and your baseball and basketball team have all this money they make and they have all these athletes with. We want women's sports to have one athlete for one male. And you're going to take that money that you made out of those and you're going to give it to women or you're going to cut your, you know, and sometimes it was good. They told Bob Jones University, if you don't want black people to date white people, then don't take federal money. And they cut them off so they could set the same principle. If you don't want to treat people equitably and you tell white males that they're not going to have the same chance of getting in as black males or black women or Latino, then we're not going to give you any money. Right. It's the same thing. But they like federal intervention to force down the throats transgendered sports and all of this stuff. But they don't like it when it's not left wing.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, thanks for that, Victor. I just have to throw one last thing out here quickly. I don't mean throw it out, but just raise it quickly. I mentioned before about who's happier, married moms or single women. So there was a poll done by the IFS Wheatley Institution Marriage and Motherhood Survey conducted in march of women 25 to 55. And. And with kids. And with kids means that kids under the age of 18 and living with them. So who's happiest in. Of American women, married with kids, very happy. 21%. Pretty happy, 54%. So that means 75% of American women who are married with kids are very. Are happy. Very pretty. On the four category, married without kids, unmarried with kids. Unmarried without kids. Unmarried without kids. Only 10% are very happy, and 47% are pretty happy. So that's not, you know, that's 57%. But 44% of American women who are unmarried without kids are not too happy compared to married with kids, only 24. So, anyway, Victor, as we head into Mother's Day, it's just an interesting take, I think.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah.

[Jack Fowler]

Yes. This is kind of obvious.

[Unnamed Guest]

I had an apartment of 20 faculty members for 21 years, except for our one. If we took our one Mormon faculty member out who had a huge family, and you looked at the average number, it was less than one. And I had three children. A French professor said I was a reader. Yeah. I mean, they were not happy people, believe me. And you got to be very careful what you say or you get into. J.D. vance, backlash.

[Jack Fowler]

I know. I'm just.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, it's. It's. If you look at a lot of those demonstrations, you know, that you see with people with purple hair and the palette, all that stuff, you see a. An archetype person who looks very. You have to be careful. Tucker Carlson got in trouble the other day because he said that the Obamas were not happy. Merrily, they were on the edge of divorce. And then he went, by extraneous reasoning, he said, and therefore, that's what's wrong with most women, or that they're unhappy in their marriage and they take it out on the country. I don't know if that is true or not. Even if you didn't. I mean, the Greeks had this idea that you change diapers, so the people's diapers, you change, change yours. I think that's somewhere in the.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, that's why I have five kids.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jack Fowler]

I don't think the point of this is to diminish women who are unhapp. I think it's to say that, you know, women who are. Who take that I'm going to be married, mom, stay at home, mom, raise family, whatever. You know, somehow or other they're picking the worst road, but they seem to be genuinely much happier than those that take another road.

[Unnamed Guest]

Something to do with attention diverted from oneself. So if you're married and have children, you've got. When I call up my daughter, she has a. She has a daughter who is 16, a boy who is 8, and a daughter who is 10, who's severely divorced, disabled. It's kind of a Down syndrome called Smith McGinnis Syndrome. It's very serious, missing two genes. But when I talk to her, it's like this. Declan's got a bad sore throat. I'm running over to urgent care and I've got to make sure Maeve gets to school because she has a band recital and I've got to time it so I can get back here and get. Her and Lila had a meltdown at school and they just called me and they're pumping out the cesspool and can you tell me, should I put in special little pipes there? PG just came out and said, we're out of compliance because an oak tree is the wires going. And that's what she tells me every single day. And at the end, she gets very fulfilled, she's very happy. She has a ba. She was an event planner for a long time till she was 26, but she's never been happier. And she. She gets her chainsaw and goes out and works and she's digging. I said, well, it's going to cost you. Where you live in the foothills above Sacramento, it's going to cost you a fortune to pump out your two sets. You just bought this house. We helped, you know, we bought this house and then they didn't have. We didn't know the cesspool, so they had to put. I said, make sure you put pipes into the cesspool so you cap, so you don't have to do this. But it's going to be expensive up there to pump it out and then to put this. So, you know, these caps, so you know where it is next time. It'll be easy. And she called me and said, well, I. I saved 350. Dug it out myself. Good. Yeah, that was good for. She's so. She's. I have never. I've never seen her so happy and fulfilled. But, you know, sometimes it can be overwhelming. I mean, I used to. Just to finish this. I live on this farm, and we had all these nieces and nephews, my brother's and cousin's kids. It was like a big tribal compound for 20 years. And when the packing house, you know, the kids needed somewhere to go for break. And my house was the only one near the parking house. And we used to call our swimming pool the. What we call it Spin and Rinse. So they were all dirty. They'd just jump in with their clothes. So I would come home, and there would be 11 children in here, 11 all over the farm. And the pool would have a big. It looked like it was a dirty water spring. And I would be trying to clean it up. And then everybody would be screaming and yelling, and somebody come in and said, I dropped a Coca Cola. Don't step there. There's glass everywhere, and we've got to go do it. And I never felt. I always thought it was pretty good. It was happy. You look back and it's the happiest point of your life when you have all that activity.

[Jack Fowler]

I had five kids, and I enjoyed the chaos. And this was the house that two of my mar. Andy, my number two and number three kids, they would. Every night, there'd be 10 kids not named Fowler in my house and feeding them. And it was great. It was a great. It was a great period.

[Unnamed Guest]

So I remember one time this kid was here, and he was here, and he was here, some very poor family. And I said to him, I just noticed he was around, there were so many kids. And I said, how. How long have you been here? And he said, five days. I said, he has come from a broken home. And I said, well, where's your mom? He said, she just left me here. She thought. Thought I would be. I'd like it. So I said to my son, is he your friend? He goes, kind of. I said, he's been here for five days. He goes, yeah, he's hungry and we're feeding him and he wants to move in. So then his mother was down in la and she came back and said, oh, I forgot how long he was here. Anyway, that happened a lot. Stuff like that.

[Jack Fowler]

Anyway, Viva Lahanson's. Well, Victor, you've been terrific today. I want to say thank you to the folks who, of course, who watch and listen, and particularly for me, Jack Fowler, the folks that subscribe to Civil Thoughts, which is the free weekly email newsletter I write for the center for Civil Society, where we're trying to strengthen civil society. You can get it, too, if you go to civilthoughts.com, sign up. It's totally free. We're not selling your name. What you get is every Friday an email from me. And it's got 14 recommended readings and a pretty lousy joke too at the end, but I think you'll enjoy it. And again, do consider subscribing to the Blade of Perseus at Victor Hansen. I thought I had. I usually read something here of something. Oh yeah, A nice person says about this show. And here's one NATO SOCOM wrote. This is off of a YouTube comment. I don't know Victor personally, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out he actually cares about somebody other than himself. That's the most important thing to me. Are you selfish or do you actually care about other people? That's why I respect VDH's opinions even more. Because I know he's sincere. Which is extremely rare in today's world. Which kind of like melds with just what we were talking about. Yeah. Isn't that nice?

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, that's nice. I wish Gavin Newsome cared for people.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

Other than.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, he does. The one in.

[Unnamed Guest]

The.

[Jack Fowler]

One in the mirror.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, the one in the mirror and the one.

[Jack Fowler]

All right, Victor, you've been great. Thanks to every. Thanks folks for listening. We will be back soon with another episode of the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Bye bye.

[Unnamed Guest]

Thank you everybody for listening.

[Unnamed Advertiser]

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