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Yeah, something like that.
In fact, right now, we have another Chula Vista getaway.
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Up north, good.
Up
been to
idea now to deal with the Jeffrey Epstein list is to just remain silent.
Is that right?
So as I'm looking at the story, I had it on first thing when we got here this morning, the headline changed.
Now the White House tightens its grip on Jeffrey Epstein messaging by putting out different information to confuse people and change the subject matter.
So, you know, I just, here's the thing.
We should decide now.
Do we want to keep covering the Jeffrey Epstein thing or not?
We know that these guys are in quicksand and they're going down quickly.
Why should we extend an arm?
You know, just repeating the same old BS over and over.
We can't
pronunciation?
Yeah, I think we do.
Oh, you
at how to pronounce the name of British socialite who is known in particular for her association with financier and convicted criminal Jeffrey Abstein.
Now, the question is on her first name or that name thing, which is of French origin.
And in French, it can be pronounced either Guylaine or Gislaine.
But in British, as is the case for her, her first name is generally pronounced Guylaine Maxwell.
Guylaine.
Okay.
Guylaine,
It's funny, we're sitting at the same, well how is it said, how is it said, you know, we're looking and looking and reading through stories and they never mentioned her first time.
So we're sitting here flailing.
Now we know.
But that's behind the scenes, all right.
Now we know.
Yeah, Galeen.
Okay.
All right.
Just
sent
So why don't we get to that one?
It is the Tesla restaurant diners, the retro diners that are being built possibly throughout the entire
World that's right.
Tesla has launched a retro inspired drive-in diner that doubles as an electric vehicle charging station Now you can see I
was
Yeah, this story popped up and it's true.
It's true.
It is a diner vehicle charging station restaurant The first one and it's up and running
It is at West Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood.
Okay.
Perfect place for this.
Yeah.
Grotesque monster.
So it's a diner.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, yeah, I guess so.
Listen to this.
Okay.
The place has 80 supercharging stalls.
80.
80 of them.
Making it the largest urban supercharging station in the world.
I think somewhere there's a diner.
OK, there's more here.
OK, you do need your Tesla touchscreen in order to order ahead if you want to order food ahead of time or see what they're playing on one of the two giant 66 foot LED mega screens.
What?
There's one screen on each level.
So there's a two level.
Diner.
It's not much of a diner.
It's not a diner at all.
It's a diner with 66 foot.
Sounds like Camp Randall, you know, with a roof.
Yeah, yeah.
A tech reporter, sorry, your marriage shares the menu by saying that it's $13 for a hot dog.
You know, actually, the menu doesn't sound that expensive.
It makes it sound expensive, but it really is.
And $15 for fried chicken and waffles.
Okay, and then offering breakfast options as well.
The diner is open 24 hours.
Musk posted saying that the more diners are coming to other cities around the world back in 2021, get this, Tesla applied for a patent using the Tesla name for goods and services, including restaurants.
An interesting note, I found this in the story too.
Elon wants to now create X-Money.
We
kind of knew
It's
And this is his push.
He had
in interest in PayPal at one time.
And he was ousted.
And in fact, way back when, 20 years ago, he wanted to name, he didn't want PayPal, he wanted it to be x.com instead of PayPal.
So that's kind of the history on X and why he renamed Twitter, which is the dumbest thing in the world.
One of the dumbest things we've seen ever happen in the world into X.
which doesn't roll off the tongue at all in a conversation.
Stuck with it.
does that mean, just
you seen John's car yesterday?
Yeah.
Yeah, we checked it out.
I actually kind of like stuck my head inside.
It was really it was crazy
I was looking for these and Mg and E if you're in the district they
They sponsor a lot of these super charging stations.
You don't get a discount.
You get discounts at other places.
But the superchargers, they don't offer you the electric discount by using them.
So I'm kind of angry about
Yeah, level two.
There are three levels where you just plug it into the wall.
It's level one.
Level two is just a normal charge, which they recommend doing almost all the time and super charging where you're out in the highway and you got to go someplace and you're halfway through your trip.
You got to get that super charge in and buy a $15 hot dog and watch a show or a movie on the 66 foot LED screen on one of the two floors.
driving
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You can also get us on the Civic Media app where there is no dial and it's just kind of a mystery.
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That's right.
We were on Maggie Dawn's show yesterday and we promoted ourselves a lot so we hope we have new listeners statewide.
Yeah, for sure.
So it's a small family-owned business that my husband and I own and operate.
We are out in Cottage Grove.
We
have
a tasting room.
and a giant outdoor cocktail garden.
We're open year round.
We do tons and tons of events.
We, you know, from pro wrestling we have going on this Saturday on the 26th.
Pro wrestling.
Yeah, they build a ring out in our cocktail garden.
Oh my god.
It's an absolute blast.
Have you done this before?
Pro wrestling?
Yeah, this is like the third, this is the fourth year in a row we've done it.
We do it a couple of times this summer.
Kind of people, do
out there?
Anyone and everyone from kids to...
Oh, you know,
You know,
people of all ages have an absolute blast.
I will tell you.
But so we do tongues and tons of different events, family friendly, pet friendly.
Is
you
Well, luckily, the wrestling is not actually open to the public for competing.
So you're just a patron and watching others that are the pros doing it.
Well, maybe we could have a
Yeah, absolutely.
We're going to be doing a giveaway for 20 individuals and a guest where it's going to be like a private tour with myself and my husband going around the distillery back in the production area, kind of doing a tasting of some of our top products and it'll be a really fun event.
some of our
Oh, good,
Sam, Sam.
Really?
Sam?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's coming.
It's waxed and waned over the years.
Oh, really?
If I had to pick a team, it's the Cubs.
We talked to
grew up
So right now we're still in summer hours.
We're open.
It's a little bit different day by day.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we get open at 4 p.m.
and we're open till 9, 10 o'clock and then Fridays we actually are 3 to 11 and then the weekends we open at 11 a.m.
area.
Yeah, we have a playground outside.
So in our outdoor
cocktail gardens like an 11,000 square foot area.
We've got grassy areas.
We've got like perennial garden beds.
There's a stage.
We've got all sorts of cool like string lights.
It's beautiful at night.
And then we have a playground.
So family friendly for
I mean, not recommended, and we don't serve individuals under 21.
But it is a great time for socialization.
I apologize, Abby.
No, it's okay.
But it's a great time that people can come hang out,
and
there's something for your kids to do.
So you can have a human interaction with your family, with your friends, and your children have something to do.
That's the way it was done way back
we
you know,
and listen to
what we do here.
But the cocktail garden is also very heavily inspired by like German beer gardens.
Oh, it is.
It's literally just like,
it's
a park, right?
I can't wait to go out there.
You know, happens to be beer there, along with...
everything else.
We have mocktails, we have wine, we have beer, we have soda.
And then we have specialty cocktails of our spirits.
What do you
We have, like, 40 different spirits.
We make flavored rums, flavored vodka's, gin, whiskey, liqueurs.
We really focus on highlighting ingredients with local producers.
My listeners want
OK.
Downdrens.com.
That's D-O-U-N-D-R-I-N-S.com.
September 6th.
Thank you so much
Very warm and humid all day long.
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Not sure what others are saying because of loud background noise.
Are you always saying, what?
What'd you say?
Yeah.
Huh?
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Okay, so I couldn't use that as an excuse.
I didn't hear you.
I know.
Too bad, you know.
Let's move on.
All right, let's get to the topic at hand here.
Jim, welcome to the program.
We were on yesterday afternoon.
This decision was not made at that point.
Yeah, we had some new stuff coming out.
Yeah, we've got a new thing to talk about, and it's a huge decision, Jim.
What the heck is going on here?
It's just like striking, like bowling.
Hitting strikes every time he goes to the Supreme Court.
And this is not new regrettably, but it certainly is a part of the overall trend, if you will, from the Supreme Court.
And it sounds fairly wonky again, but it's an important group.
It's called the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
These are the folks who keep everything safe and secure, from toys to batteries, all kinds of things in the household.
And so we know that a number of months ago, three of the commissioners
I had decided to cast some votes to stop the import of poorly made lithium ion batteries and objecting to some staffing cuts.
That draws the attention of my president and he terminates them or tries to.
And that's the most important point.
They appeal this as they rightly can under the theory that president has no capacity legally, congressionally to do this.
can't fire commissioners and lower courts agree with that.
Say no, gotta be reinstated.
Supreme Court just yesterday says no.
Once again, the president does have this capacity to do it.
He is the commander in chief.
He is the Constitution vests the executive power in the president without any more reference than that.
It just in the names of Murray Boyle, Richard Trumka, Alexander Hunsaric.
And again, there even though again, they've got those partisan backgrounds, they come to this as do all these folks as commissioners.
They don't do things that are political, overtly partisan in nature, right?
They do things to keep us safe and secure.
That should be an issue that crosses parties, Republicans and Democrats, and it has been.
Not to say that they have not disagreed with things, but what you do is you strip this institution of its ability to do its job.
We know that the Supreme Court also said when it comes to the thing called the Merit Systems Protection Board, the National Labor Relations Board, all these things.
where the president also stripped those folks, stripped the commissioner of some folks, commission of those participants.
Again, giving him the authority just because he's the president, it's the constitution and saying, go ahead and do it.
The other piece of this once again, shadow docket.
We've got no explanation for it.
And yet, there we are.
There we are once again.
No,
Their appointments made to ensure that if there's any concern about this being partisan in nature that you've got roughly equal representation.
Exactly.
Perfect, of course.
It never is because you've got human beings here.
But again, the concept, which I think, John, you're all over here, is these are people, yes, appointed from those pockets, if you will.
But the question of whether or not a particular toy is safe for toddlers, is that really something that's on the partisan agenda of one party?
No, it should be everybody, right?
And again, the issues that they deal with are to keep us safe and secure.
The President doesn't like what you do.
You run a file of him.
And also, you're critical of staffing cuts, which is the other part of this.
And the answer is you're gone.
And that is the United States of America endorsed by our Supreme Court that we're living in in 2025, at least three of these so-called independent agencies.
I know you've talked about this as well.
This unified executive theory, this is it in practice.
This is I am the law.
Again, I'll
Well, I quote in Louis XIV, let's say, moi, I am the law.
I can do whatever I want.
And we're seeing it yesterday once again.
This is not a future problem.
This is here right now.
Yeah.
Come on.
I will tell you, I teach a class.
at the local university here.
And they keep saying to me, I thought we had the last of this back in June when you told about those 67 cases.
And I said, yeah, they're still
Again, showing up for work, which they should.
I think your point, Gordy, is just more that, gosh, can't you just work on your assignments for the fall and put together the term paper that describes what you did over the summertime and come back and do this?
They do not.
And again, it indicates that, again, that's the merit stock.
Now we've just, we're in this situation where routinely by my count, somewhere approaching, if not beyond 20,
different emergency orders since January.
And we're just going ahead, July, August, September, and then October, we start all over again.
This is not difficult for what a Supreme Court does.
And again, let the underlying litigation go ahead.
Let the lower courts have the trials and have the appeals.
That's how our system works.
Nope.
Run to the court on an emergency application.
from the Department of Justice, and you will get six members of our Supreme Court who will say, go ahead, do what you want.
Even while the underlying claims by these parties are unresolved, no judgment below.
What more outrage can there be about these kinds of things?
You look back, I happened to post some portions of the
Declaration of Independence on Independence Day, not identified by many people who are looking at that, but that's Marx exactly right, you're exactly right, noting that one of the concerns was just about doing things, they didn't use the word transparency, but one of the concerns with King George was, tell us what you're doing, do these things in a way that gives us due process, and give us a feel that even if the judgment against us is bad, we don't like it, that we've had our shot in court, and we know what the judges are doing,
That's a democracy, and of course, that's not what we had at the starting of this nation as colonies.
That's what we're supposed to have now.
And then again, you think about that hilarious but very sobering portion of Hamilton, where you have that comical King George coming forward and saying, you'll be back and singing that.
You'll wait and see.
And indeed, we appear to be, if not completely back, pretty darn close to being exactly.
what we had at the time of the Declaration of
It almost seems like the courts of our land don't mean anything at all.
They can make all the decisions they want and if you get it into the Supreme Court's area they negate
every damn decision these courts are coming up with and they're making sense they're actually reading the Constitution they're telling us why they're making these decisions with even long decisions you know 80 page decisions and yet the Supreme Court does whatever the hell it wants at this point you know we should have been at least
I guess they tip their hand when they got rid of the Chevron decision.
That was one of the major decisions, things that the Republicans did not like for so many decades and where they left departments up to handle what Congress intended to pass as far as laws are concerned for each like the EPA or whatever else, the Department of Education, they intended.
certain things to happen in those departments and the departments had control of that and they got rid of that and then they throw that through the decision into the lower courts to make the decisions for them instead of using expertise, they use the legal system.
to come up with the end result
and we use we use you don't want me you don't want jim santel deciding major issues about about uh engineering and medicine and science and well actually i trust you more than ever i know a very little bit about a thing about this wide or so yeah um and yet if my gut tells me that there's something wrong with the lower court decision that's enough
that too.
It's all a part of this overall.
It is, as you mentioned, Project 2025.
It is chipping away at the confidence that Americans have always had even in an imperfect system.
Nobody looks at this system and says, oh, it's every single day they're doing absolutely the right thing.
But we've got the checks and balances.
We no longer have that.
Interestingly, if I can throw another thing out
on the table
here, we also had, speaking about those lower court judges, you had a couple of judges also yesterday, big news day in rule of law things.
You had a couple of judges, one in Tennessee, one in Maryland.
We've talked about the Maryland judge before.
This has to do with Kilmer, Amando, Abrego Garcia once again.
He is ordered released.
He is ordered released by a judge named Waverly Crenshaw who says,
government has put a poor attempt together to tie a brago to this gang, MS-13.
He orders him released as he is not a danger to the community.
And then, and that's on the underlying criminal case.
Remember this, he's indicted.
And then he got Judge Zinnis, who's in Maryland.
She is handling the immigration case within minutes, maybe even seconds.
She issues another order and says, oh, by the way, if you are thinking of going and picking him up and deporting him now that he's no longer in custody, don't you dare.
That happened yesterday, within minutes of each other, two different jurisdictions, a Brego Garcia.
And again, it shows what the lower court judges are doing candidly to protect not just a Brego Garcia, but the fundamental notion of how these things should work.
And it's no small thing that it happened again yesterday.
We will see what the government does, Mr. Brego Garcia, plainly in the target.
We also have this outrageous situation.
where the Justice Bretman is saying that if, in fact, he is released, even while he's under indictment, they'll deport him again.
That's the kind of thing that's going on from our time.
So it's just wild.
But we do have lower federal judges to the extent that they can who are still saying, you know what, the Constitution means something.
We need to support them candidly and let them know that we are supportive of, if not the substance of the decisions, the method that they pursue in their work.
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Back with Jim Santel.
for a few more minutes
yes we've got a few more topics to cover you know i i do have a little summary of what the court has done so far they've handed the administration wins on its efforts to shrink the size of the federal government immigration enforcement
deportations, scaling back legal protections for transgender people, removing independent government watchdogs, and they're working, of course, on allowing states to gerrymander minority.
areas out of the voting process, essentially.
And what else?
We talked about something yesterday and I'm
1960s.
It guarantees people of color in this country the right to vote uninhibited also to address language barriers.
It looks as you just said, John, that they're going to be taking up an issue related to whether or not jury mandering is permissible under the Voting Rights Act.
It's a little bit more specific than that.
But we may see yet another.
There have been two in the past.
basically rescinding major portion sections four and five and Mending section two now we're going back again Maybe in the next term and saying let's let's further restrict this major landmark civil rights litigation legislation rather
in the 1960s have protected people, come to voting.
Let's take a look at that now.
And again, we'll see what happens in this coming term as
Yeah, it's crazy, because all these other states are thinking about the red states are thinking about redistricting, again, in midterm, in order to gain some advantage in the house.
So we'll see what happens with that.
It's crazy stuff.
The overarching question here, and I always look at the forest for the trees,
We've gone so far to the right with this Supreme Court that, you know, Democrats had a chance maybe to consider adding more Supreme Court justices to the bench to kind of neutralize this or take this out.
We should have done that.
I mean, it seems like at this point, we should have at least gone out on that limb.
I mean, the Republicans have gone out on that limb.
They've used this court to their advantage.
Why?
Can't we do something as adventurous or as crazy as maybe adding more Supreme Court justices in there to balance this thing out, to stop this plow, this incredible system that they are putting in place in this country that doesn't seem to follow the Constitution in any way, shape, or form?
A
One is,
changing the numbers of justices, you don't.
You do not need a constitutional amendment to that.
Check your constitution.
It doesn't tell us how many there need to be.
We know it's been lowest five, FDR proposed going up to 11, 13.
We're at nine because that's where Congress set it up.
So it's through a legislative change.
Now that can be a big hurdle, certainly right now, but at times in the past when we've had those opportunities, as you're saying, seizing on it and say, you know what?
nine is a number, 11 is not unwieldy, maybe 23 is too many, then you've got a committee, right?
But addressing that, Joe Biden rightly or wrongly went out and said, I am not in favor
of
And here we are.
And we've got nine.
We don't know exactly if one or two of them even retire in the next year.
You still have time in this Congress for a Supreme Court justice.
People look to Clarence Thomas.
People look to Sam Alito and say, gee, maybe they're going to leave to give this president another nomination.
You've got more than a year to do that.
And as we saw with Amy Coney Barrett,
Republicans, when they're in charge and they are right now in charge of the Senate, they can get that done in 13 days if they need to.
And so all kinds of things could happen here, not changing necessarily the ideological composition of the Supreme Court, but changing the people.
And with due respect to age and my own longevity and my own age, replacing some folks who are 60 and 70 with some people around their 40s, knowing that they will remain on the court.
for 40 more years.
That's the advantage of doing these replacements now.
Send the house.
Again, the Constitution has been interpreted to say no term limits, but there's some language that basically identifies different categories of justices and say, we're not going to kick you off the court.
We're simply going to change what you can do.
Oh, yeah.
That interestingly legislative thing they probably can do.
You've got some very interesting pieces pending there.
Again, would that pass in this Congress?
No, but could it pass again in a changed Congress in beginning January of 2027?
with a new house, a new Senate, could you do that kind of thing?
Yes, you could.
And again, would require the signature of a president that will still be Donald Trump, huge burden there, huge hurdle.
But there are remedies to this and people should not be desperate in thinking we are set with the Supreme Court for all time.
The other thing I'll offer is, you know what, for those justices, the three of them who are still out there,
To my perspective, saying the right thing, advocating on behalf of decency and common good and procedure, write them a letter and tell them you know what, they'll never write back.
Kenji Brown Jackson, I appreciate what you said.
Sonia Sotomayor, thank you for being this voice of reason.
Elena Kagan, good work.
Do that.
Let them know that you're out there supporting them.
OK.
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