The latest weapons, coupled with the fighting skill of the American soldier, stand ready on the alert all over the world to defend this country. You the American people against aggression. This is the Big Picture, an official television report to the nation from the United States Army. Now, to show you part of the Big Picture, here is Sergeant Stuart Queen. Ever since we first won our freedom, it has been the citizen soldier who has taken upon himself the responsibility to defend that freedom. There never has been a generation of Americans who has not borne arms in its defense. And there never was a generation that was prepared to bear these arms. War has always taken us by surprise. Today we can no longer afford the luxury of unpreparedness. Today wars move with the speed of sound and the power of the atom. The citizen soldier must be ready. He must be alert. Let's observe this American, the citizen soldier, as he marches down through the pages of history. Out of a world which has never ceased to tremble with the stamp of marching feet. Out of a world made tiny by the dangerous miracle of flight. Out of the bitter surprise, out of the battle and the sacrifice. There came at last a day of victory. There came at last a hope for peace. And yet there is no easy peace. Everywhere from Red Square to Red China, there are men to challenge our freedom. In this situation of danger, the first hope for survival lies in the strength and resolution of the American people. Their purpose is to grow strong in peace. But they will fight when their way of life is at stake. Their heritage is liberty. Their protection is vigilant. War is strength in reserve. This is a Minuteman of 180 years ago. This is a Minuteman of today, his name, Walter Bowen. This Walter Bowen is a fairly average looking guy with the same looks, same home, same crab grass as a lot of other Americans. How can you tell he is a Minuteman? Here's one way. Notice the fatigue pants he's wearing.  They only fade away. The boy next door is Sid Pollock, 18 years old, and as you will see, also a Minuteman. These days, there aren't many surprises in Walter Bowen's life, but when one comes, he is ready for it. Take a good look at this man, this citizen soldier. Take a good look at his young friend from next door, Sid Pollock. Up to now, they have kept war from entering this pleasant backyard. It didn't happen by luck. It happened because men like these were ready to defend their homes when the need came. In one way or another, each generation of Americans has had to fight for its own freedom. In his own time, Bowen was equal to that challenge. Walter Bowen's time to defend his home came in World War II. In a great victory in Europe, we shall tell more of later. To understand that victory, we must go back to the first time Americans turned out to defend their homes at Concord Bridge. 180 years ago, the weapon of war was the rifle, and the colonists, though unorganized, knew how to handle a gun. These men were made of flint and steel. They had handled the long-barreled flintlocks since they were old enough to walk. They tore their own shirts to make the linen patches to ram their loads home, and they could knock a squirrel out of a tree without damaging a pelt. When the British officer cried, Clear the way! Get along home, you rabble! They stood as still as trees. Then the British cannon opened up. Bare chests against cannon. The colonists stood the fire for six long minutes. Then, because they didn't have proper training, they broke. The bridge crossed. The Yankees hurried the British along the road to Lexington. They fired from behind stone walls, from the windows of houses. The British had never seen such marksmanship. Before the end of the day, nearly 300 of the King soldiers had died, and the Continental Army was born. Many of these Minutemen stayed for five long years of fighting. British ships ruled the sea. British troops held every major port from Boston to Charleston, but the depths of our wilderness gave us time, time to train huntsmen and plowboys into soldiers. And when at last, these soldiers won the victory at Yorktown. The Continental Army numbered 9,000 men. But when the new government was formed, how big an army did the Infant Nation provide for its defense? Newcastle, 5,000 men, 3,000 men, 1,000 men, here's the answer. The army will have an authorized strength of 80 men to guard West Point and Fort Pitt. That standing army of 80 men grew to 235,000 men during the War of 1812, all citizen soldiers. After 1815, the army shrank to 5,000. It swelled again for the Mexican War, diminished again, and then called the Civil War or the war between the states, depending on where you live. The world got its first look at total war. New inventions and tactics increased the mobility of armies. The South, largely rural, made brilliant use of an ancient weapon, cavalry, and won major victories under men like Jeb Stuart. The North reacted by creating a highly mobile cavalry under men like Philip Sheridan. When this war ended, the know-how and mobility set free in our people during the conflict, played its part in winning the new frontier of the West. But this was the mounted horseman's last stand. As always, technology changed the face of war. More and more, the development of firepower pinned armies down and gave the defense a great advantage. A few years before Walter Bowen was born, America became aware that the uneasy world of monarchies in Europe was about to burst into flame. And once more, we were completely unprepared. This war involved the opposition of millions of men in friendship, grinding out yard after yard of precious earth. For three years, the armies were deadlocked. When we declared war in 1917, we had fewer than 200,000 men under arms. And we were entering a war in which 65 million men were engaged. Once again, there was time. The French and British held for 16 months while we built an army of 4 million. One soldier broke through the stalemated trenches and won the victory. Once again, we had met the challenge because we had the time. So the war to end wars was over. And what did we do then to show what we had learned about history? The American army shrank from over 4 million to 120,000. The few tanks that had been built for World War I were cut up for scrap. On a few training fields, strange new vehicles rumbled through the smoke. But these were prototypes, not divisions. It was a time of great accomplishment. A million kids of Walter Bowen's age cheered Lindbergh on his historic flight. A million kids cheered Babe Ruth. And then, about the time they were learning to read. Even the shock of depression did not awaken us to the coming crisis. There was so much time. Let us see how America spent that time, year by year. Europe 1933, strengthened Italian army on parade. USA 1933, paraders demand legal beer. Europe 1934, German army builds up mechanization program. USA 1934, Congress slashes 55 million from army budget. Asia 1935, Japanese army, largest force in Asia, invades Chinese mainland to the west. USA 1935, thousands cheer as Alabama invades west to beat Stanford in the Rose Bowl. Europe 1936, Soviet Union sacrifices consumer production to train every individual in the service of the state. USA 1936, Walter Bowen's team finishes second in the city sandlothly. There was still so much time. Europe 1937, French build Maginot line, the greatest creation in trench warfare ever divide. USA 1937, America's bestseller is Gone with the Wind, a novel of the Civil War. Europe 1938, German tanks in Austria. Chamberlain flies to Munich for talks on Czechoslovakia. USA 1938, Sixth Avenue L in New York, Damali. Scrap iron sold to Japan. 39, Soviets invade Finland. German panzers take memo. Italy invades Albania. This was the year that in the United States we opened a world's fair with a theme of world peace. But before the summer was over, the war came to the Western world on September 1, 1939. From the open plains of Poland came a new word, blitzkrieg, as the Germans unleashed a force that was to be decisive on the ground in Europe, armored warfare. Never before had any weapon of combat been so devastating. In four weeks, with the help of a Russian invasion from the east, armored assault conquered 30 million people. Then we wrote the handbook of warfare. With Poland gobbled up, the Germans shattered Norway and Denmark. Then blitzkrieg came to the Netherlands, to Luxembourg, to Belgium. Troopers reigned from the skies and immobilized cities. Became Prime Minister of Britain. But defiance was not enough to hold back swift armored divisions fighting with the new concept of warfare. The super trench of the Maginot Line was breached. The French army of 3 million was thrown into confusion. Three weeks after Churchill took office, came the news of Dunkirk. And the Panzer Division was master of Europe. They paraded in the Champs Elysees. The Fuhrer stood on the channel coast and turned his eyes westward. Plans were made for the invasion. Assault upon Britain will be an armored operation requiring 40,000 vehicles ashore by D plus 2. The war broke out in the sky. London went through its trial by fire. This is the night of September 15, 1940, the day of crisis in the Battle of Britain. It was not until the next day, September 16, 1940, that Congress passed a draft law in the United States. Remember Walter Bowen? He had reached military age now and with 17 million other Americans, he registered for the draft. The American men waited anxiously as the numbers were drawn from the fishbowl. When their numbers were called, they reported for duty by the millions. At first, they didn't look as if they had the skill or equipment to deal with armored division. As a result, the Axis made one of the most serious intelligence errors of the war, underestimating the potential of the American fighting man. But the American soldier had a secret weapon, know-how, an absolute mastery of the tools where had they come from, these rookie reserves? From a hill in Akron, Ohio, from a dirt track in Ho-Hocus, in the Masabi, from a luberatorium in Texas, from an 80% grade hill in Washington, for hell drivers, even as kids, hot pilots of the handlebars. Some of them could shoot, some of them could type, but they all knew how to drive. Hitler thought he had to patent on mechanized warfare, but he never saw an American traffic jam on a Sunday. They could drive, they could build, and now they were ready to fight. For at last, America had seen the whites of their eyes. But civilian skills alone don't make a trained army in modern warfare. In Africa, we paid bitterly for all the years we had dreamed away. This was the price we paid for time. Fortunately, in this case, we were not too late. Our troops learned fast and we won the Battle of Africa. In Sicily, our fighting men came of age. Then came the assault on Fortress Europe. The Germans knew this was the biggest battle of their lives. If they could throw back the invasion, they might divide the allies and sue for a separate peace. On June 6, 1944, resistance was skillfully organized. The destruction was terrific. Although a foothold on the beach was won by nightfall, the Battle for Europe was far from over. A three-day storm prevented the supply build-up on the beaches. Though few people remember it now, the Allied armies were late at every single one of their objectives in Normandy. As the build-up continued, men dug in. Stalled. Let's look at the map. This is the front July 5, D-plus 29. Conn marked for capture the first day, still not taken. Cherbourg marked for capture D-plus 8, not taken till D-plus 25.  San Loh marked for capture D-plus 9, still in enemy hands, was chosen as the point for the breakdown. The attack began with the saturation of enemy lines. By now, we had added a few wrinkles to our know-how. The effect was devastating. The German commander My front lines looked like the face of the moon. 70% of my troops out of action, dead, wounded, crazed, or numbed. Walter Bowen's outfit, part of the American mechanized force. And now the world saw that America had created a mobile striking power such as the world had never seen. They came with bulldozer tanks to cut through the hedge road. They came with flail tanks to break through minefield. Third personnel carriers, they even had tanks to rescue other tanks. In 36 hours, tanks and infantry covered 25 miles. In Britain 8, they put 7 divisions over one bridge in 72 hours. August 13, the Americans had swept to the loo wild. They had taken lamans and were threatening to close the fallow's pocket. The Nazis counterattacked sharply at more time, seeking to break through to the sea, and infantry threw them back. When the Germans withdrew across the sands, they left behind 200,000 prisoners, 2200 guns and tanks. Now the way was open across France and the ganks were on the move. They fought in shot, cutting off Paris and opening away for the liberation of that city bugger branch. Punging across France, their southern flank was unprotected, but the planes took care of that. Right off the situation maps, in one week, they crossed the Marne, the Aine and the Meurs, over which four years of World War I had been fought. They traveled farther and faster than any army had traveled before in history. They were a cocky crew, these civilians in uniform, and they kept on rolling and winning till it met, they ran out of gas. France was liberated. The battle was not over, but the end was in sight, and every sane man in Europe knew what the end would be. After the Battle of the Bows, they were loose again. They rolled down the long road through Germany, through Koblenz and Koburg, through Erfurt and Bayreuth, and on deep into Germany, where Nazism was doing. The bowman is home now, cultivating his garden. But it has also taken something away. That something is time. The slack time he always had in the past to create and train an army against aggression. Today that time is measured not in years, months, weeks, but in seconds. And his young neighbor measure out their quiet days. Other men are watching them, thinking about them, assessing their strength and resolution. Across the sea in Russia, there are men who think about them this enormous military machine goes abroad or stays at home on the basis of one factor alone, what the free world has in reserve against it. In the Far East, a searching red tide floods or ebbs according to their estimate of what Americans are capable of, what we have in reserve. As Walter Bowen drives through the peaceful streets of his hometown, he knows he lives with danger. And he, his young friend and perhaps a handful of others like them are doing something about it. In centers like this, across the nation, a few minute men gather. Here they supplement their civilian skills with training in the complex know-how of today's army. There is much to learn for the new men and the veterans because the changes have been tremendous since Walter Bowen's old khaki pants in the war. There are no heroics here. This is a quiet, unspectacular business involving only a few hours a week. But it's important. These men and their instructors are the foundation of new units which must be ready in case of emergency. But the painful truth is that there are not enough men in these centers. Outside that window, too many go about their own concerns in this lesson of history. In the past, we had barely enough time, barely enough know-how to get by. There will be no future unless we are ready now. You don't have to go to a reserve center to understand this fact of life. That the enemy can pick the time, the place, and the form of attack. Thousands more men must go to reserve centers if we are to be ready to meet that attack in any form by our readiness to prevent its ever happening. Fortunately, our reserve training program makes it possible for men to achieve that readiness without leaving their homes or family. Every day of every week, America lives in a race with time, and history holds the stop-watch. The freedom of our nation, of all liberty-loving nations depends on this simple but important beauty. Today, more than ever, the world needs America's strength in reserve. And so today, thousands of young men throughout our country are attending weekly reserve meetings, advancing in their army reserve career as they advance in their civilian one. Their numbers are increasing as more and more men accept with pride the responsibility of the citizen soldier. But the defense of freedom is a gigantic job. It's a job that had its beginning with the founding of our country. It will not end until there is true peace throughout the world. It's a big job and it's everybody's job. Yours and mine together. This is Sergeant Stuart Queen. Invite you to be with us again next week for another look at your army in action on The Big Picture. The Big Picture is a weekly television report to the nation on the activities of the army at home and overseas. Produced by the Army Pictorial Center presented by the United States Army in cooperation with this station. You too can be an important part of The Big Picture. You can proudly serve for the best equipped, the best trained, the best fighting team in the world today, the United States Army.


s a teacher you're engaged with your students you write and you're you write for the masses sometimes and you're a progressive you don't use your knowledge as a cudgel you use it as a way to bring people along I wonder if Judge Neil Gorsuch gets these degrees uses all his knowledge the same way Scalia did to lord it over people to intimidate to bully you into agreeing with them or or or moving his agenda for example originally I think like the originalists and I think anybody who says we have to make laws keeping in mind original intent of our founding fathers that's a way of lording your knowledge over people and getting your way by saying I am so educated I know what John Jay and Alexander Hamilton were thinking so I'm going to get my way because I'm better educated than you somebody like Gorsuch and Scalia kind of use their education to steamroll their agenda senator franken you know accused judge Gorsuch of lacking empathy in that trucker case and there were some exchanges that that raised issues of that kind of temperament but I have to say when it comes to originalism I am a critic of it I'm not a adherent and certainly of the Scalia version of it but I don't think it's just about lording one's knowledge over others because there's a deep philosophy and I'll tell you what it is and I don't agree with it and I can say why but it's a theory of democracy that many people hold and the idea is that the words when they are understood the way the way that they were understood at the time they were written or as they put it they've shifted away from intent they used to talk about intent now most of them including Scalia talk about the meaning of the terms widely shared or widely understood meaning their idea is that it's the democratic process that produced those words and that's why they're sacred and the role of the judge is to just follow the democratic will which is found either through statute and he holds that same kind of originalism or textualism in statutory interpretation or when it comes to the democratically enacted original meaning of the constitution itself or its amendments so I disagree with that and we can talk about why but they they have a well thought out extremely developed theory of why democracy demands doing this and it's not even though it looks like it might lack empathy at times why it's a way of respecting the people's will it's not prejudice in search of a constitutional amendment right and Scalia would say you know do you want me with my personal views to be making judicial decisions or do you want the legislature or the constitutional convention and he said it's the latter now the problem with Gorsuch I'll just say is I don't believe he's an originalist at all I think that he said that he's given a speech but when you look at the reading he's kind of very different judicial philosophy and this hasn't come out as much in the hearings as I would want and it's the theory of natural law which is very much I have access to the truth through a pure account of reason and I can kind of tell you what that is his views even though he claims to be an originalist as much have are influenced by the the account of natural law and there wasn't a lot of discussion of that unfortunately in the hearings it's sort of a new theory I think people already bothered to learn something about originalism now maybe they don't want to learn the new theory of natural law but in a way that that's as or more influential on him I think from the theory of originalism but are there precedents in natural law that you can build a decision on no I think that's part of why what I was trying to express in these pieces that there really is no member of the current Supreme Court that holds this view you know even among the most foremost scholars including his dissertation advisor John Finnis the views that they hold are so at odds with our current jurisprudence that they would make it just completely radical so for instance as I say in the piece John Finnis holds the belief that there should be a national ban on abortion imposed by the Supreme Court because the fetus is a constitutional person entitled to equal protection of the laws that's not something that anybody on the current Supreme Court holds and it's radically different from our current law and that's the kind of thing I think that you would get with with a certain school of natural law or what's more specifically called the new natural law theory are there supreme court decisions handed down where they cite precedent other than the constitution or other than previous supreme court decisions I guess there's a third category I mean that's certainly true it's Blackstone I guess you could go back to the British law at one time but I'm not trying to be funny here to me natural law you might as well be saying it's kind of like in the godfather when Tom says I mean are you allowed to cite something other than point because this is my one of my favorite movies so it's when Tom says hmm wait in the godfather what was that you started your sentence but then didn't finish the reference uh Tom the consigliary yeah when he says we got hit him now why we still have the muscle I mean could a supreme court justice write a decision justifying a violation of the war powers act by saying as Tom says in the godfather we got to hit him now why we still have the muscle I mean or do you have to stick to precedent previous rulings it's why there's so much power in the supreme court and why this is so unbelievably important and I've been spending all my time trying to focus people as much as I can on it is they can really do whatever they want now they have to get a majority in order to make law but there's nothing restricting the kind of jurisprudence that they can invoke and certainly if a natural law thinker found himself onto the supreme court he could cite precedent he could cite the text of the constitution and he could add a whole cloth just cite pure reason and what it is that is laid down and for reason in the natural law in his view so yeah he could you know I think he's a principled person I don't agree with him but he certainly could go beyond those other two sources and in fact I think that he would that he cares so much about these issues of assisted suicide and limits on it in particular his hundreds of pages that amount to an argument against the right to privacy suggests that he doesn't have much respect for that view that that he thinks it's contrary certainly to the constitutional text and also I think he thinks it's contrary to what reason requires of us when you say natural law we kind of touched on this and on the last show I did with you I know what you realize I you're working off the Quran what are you working off with natural law the idea is that natural law has its source in divine command in God's word but that God also had to allow common access through reason to the meaning of the natural law and so the thought is that apart from text of the constitution or apart from precedence when we just reason with one another we can come up with you know what the deep requirements of not just the law but of morality are and so in particular his advisor the tradition that he's in stresses this theory of of fundamental or as they put it basic goods and suggest that it's the role of government to promote them now that doesn't come from some particular text it comes from the idea of reason now some people hold that these two things go together that the natural law and the constitution are really the same thing so that's what we should be doing but what is the the book in other words I can just say to you give me your wallet and I want your house and I made this decision based on natural law what is that it could be anything that simple I mean the godfather references about power right like I let's use the muscle while we can and go out and do what we have the power to do I think the natural law thinkers are are committed to a more subtle view which is that reason has a kind of force and if we just appeal to pure reason then that's what's going to lead us to doing the right thing and that's why we could stray so much I mean but who are they citing were so exciting reason it's unreasonable and they're giving reasons well I don't know I mean you know again I disagree with their conclusions but you and I can have an argument and you know your arguments I'm not saying this would always happen but your arguments in one instance might be bad and mine might be good and you know the the force of the better reason might might prevail and certainly it could go the other way just to get into his view is I think he thinks there are just a series of really bad precedents that run contrary to the requirements of the natural law and one of them is the failure to respect life and that's what his work is about and when it comes to euthanasia certainly the claim that that there's a constitutional right to assisted suicide he dismisses that and even to the right of the states to make laws enabling assisted suicide is very skeptical of that he thinks that it runs contrary to this idea that life can't be violated that's the core idea of his whole work and he's worried about these laws that that do not that's failed to respect life now that language that we're starting to use of course has an abortion resonance to it and he never gives a conclusion but he certainly gives as you put it before breadcrumbs suggesting that he might too think that rovers is weighed I think he does think frankly that rovers is weighed fails to respect life and that and as a matter of natural law it should be overturned and maybe even more specifically the constitution that protects natural law might actually require us to have a supreme court that protects the right of the fetus and that that's you know in reason not just in uh wow in some abstract precedence or in the constitutional tax I just remembered why I couldn't go to law school while you were talking I hung on every word but in the back of my mind I'm thinking was it sunny or Frankie five maybe it was Frankie five angels who said we got to hit them now why we still have the muscle maybe it was from godfather I don't I'm listening and I think that's why I never could get into academia I'm the same way I mean I've got this maybe the same mind and the same movie on the brain what is the line again oh yeah take the gun leave the cannoli that's Clemenza other way no it's leave yeah take the canal can always leave the gun leave the gun take the canal right see I know I'd get it wrong but let's it's not important although I do think you could probably build case law off the godfather Gorsuch the next step what happens in a month two months what what happens here what are we looking at I think the Republicans are hoping for a vote sooner than that and they've indicated that it could come as soon as within the next couple of weeks I don't remember the precise date that McConnell was giving but you know we just don't know because the it's all really up to what the Democrats are going to do and if they fill buster it's going to be a longer process and we have to see what will happen with this ability to get get rid of the the ability to have senators to fill buster Supreme Court nominees so it could be a long process I really I mean I think I've been clear that I think that this nominee failed to disabuse us of the ideas that he might hold very radical views I think given his writings that was his obligation at the confirmation hearing and I was willing to postpone judgment about whether to vote for him until we heard what he said but the way that he answered questions was just to me so evasive that it was almost you know worse that the hearings happen than they that they didn't I mean he was asked for instance about these questions he was asked by Senator Durbin about whether he holds the view that the fetus is a constitutional person and he just responded by citing Roe versus Wade and saying that of course that case holds that the fetus is not a constitutional person now I know what the case says and anybody who's taken a basic course in constitutional law knows what the case says Roe versus Wade what we want to know is what he thinks and whether he respects that precedent whether he would overturn it not respect it in the sense that knows it exists and would think carefully about it but whether or not he's committed to the idea that the case is wrong and the same about gay marriage he just failed to really tell us anything about his judicial philosophy and the underlying issues he even failed to say anything about Griswold why would national ampoules vacation be brought into Griswold I thought it was a great movie that's a case that really establishes the for the first time the fundamental modern right to privacy it's about the right to use contraception by married couples extended out to unmarried couples later on but it's the bedrock really of our privacy law that gay rights are built upon in a case about the right to intimacy among gay couples and striking down laws prohibiting so-called homosexual esotomy and it's also the basis for the right to an abortion in Roe and later in Casey and he didn't tell us even you know I think other justices have said that's not a case that's going to be overturned I believe in the right to privacy he didn't tell us anything the thing I don't understand with these hearings is you cannot have a litmus test for Supreme Court nominee a president isn't allowed just I think through precedent or just what we're accustomed to you can't bring a guy into the Oval Office and say I'm going to nominate you for the Supreme Court but I have to know where you stand on abortion I have to know where you stand on euthanasia that would be considered a violation of checks and balances correct well I mean there's no way to enforce it right the process is there's separation of powers the president picks the person the senate confirms and what president Trump told us ahead of time is that he's going to pick somebody who's devoted to overturning Roe versus Wade now when Gorsuch was asked whether Trump had demanded that of him he he not only said no he said he would walk out of the room if he had been asked that and you know I believe that that there was no explicit conversation but I think that the people who vetted him looked at the same things that I looked at and made a conclusion that you know Trump could fulfill his campaign promise that's not it's not an accident that they chose this person that doesn't mean that there was a conversation I understand that but if the president yeah isn't allowed to say where do you stand on Roe versus Wade I see why is the senate why is the legislative branch allowed to corner a nominee and get him on record yeah without a specific case in front of him I mean he's supposed to rule on a specific case right based on what came before is it fair to ask these questions yeah um there's disagreement about that I think this is not only fair but obligatory it's to try to understand the basics of his judicial philosophy and to understand his writings so this book that he published in the dissertation before it are explicitly about his philosophy anyway of the doctrine of privacy so you don't have to say you know why how would you decide this specific case that came before the court in order to ask about documented statements that he's made and actually published I think actually there's an obligation to do that because the role of the senate is to protect the constitution not just to look at the schools that the nominee went to and part of protecting the constitution is protecting aspects of our bedrock case law and if there's suspicion that this person is going to oppose or overturn bedrock parts of the constitution including not just I should say the right to an abortion but also the right to gay marriage which although it's recent I consider it a rightly decided case a lot of people's contemporary rights rest on the supreme court holding there and it would be a major upheaval of our current law to overturn it so yeah I think we need to know something about the nominees basic views about how to interpret the constitution and fundamental doctrines like privacy just wanted to tie in some issues that we discussed on today's show and on last Friday's episode one of the things I talked about was debtor's prison prisoners earning 50 cents an hour to build furniture and take calls for travel agencies I mean it's pretty amazing how many state prisons now are paying for their prisons by putting prisoners to work there is this cycle of debt that police departments like Ferguson, Missouri perpetuate they will pull an African-American over and just find the guy for a broken tail light and it just doesn't end they end up the Justice Department actually wrote about this when they studied Ferguson and they said the way Ferguson was able to pay for their social services and the city services was through pulling black men over and finding them and then these guys would get into a cycle of debt they couldn't pay the bills so the fines would go up and then they put a lien on their salaries and then a lot of them just ended up going to prison which I understood locking somebody up because they're unable to pay fines is against the constitution is that against the constitution well I mean there is an anemic unfortunately jurisprudence about prisoners rights and so lots of stuff that I think when you read the constitution or you think about its basic principles rights that should obviously extend to prisoners and to those convicted of minor or including major crimes rights that they should have unfortunately our case law is not as developed as it should be compared for instance to Europe I mean in Europe there's a right to vote in prison here it's two states that allow it in Europe there are all sorts of regulations about prisoners working here there's a lot of abuse so yeah what does the constitution say because I know which which amendment outlawed slavery and did they include the right to make prisoners work for free when they freed the slaves the 13th amendment outlawed slavery and it seems like it's relevant here that if there is a forced labor or an abusive labor or conditions that are extreme instances of servitude that you might invoke the anti-slavery requirement of the 13th amendment but the there's a weird quirk in it and that's that there's an exception right in the middle of it separated by two commas making an exception for those convicted of crimes for prisoners and that's put a damper in the attempt to use that amendment that's in the 13th amendment yes correct what happened after we freed the slaves african-americans were immediately arrested correct if they if they didn't have a job if they left they were given they became tenant farmers that's right i mean there were a series of pieces of legislation called the black codes passed not long after the abolition of slavery what i'm saying but in the 13th what my question is yeah enshrined into the 13th amendment yeah is this provision that you can force a prisoner to work did they anticipate jim crow did they anticipate the idea that black men would be wandering around you could arrest them for vagrancy and pretty much put them to work on a plantation that in the form of a prison certainly that's what happened that the provision was taken advantage of and all of these things did happen people were arrested former slaves were arrested for things like vagrancy and then re-emprisoned on the same plantation that in some instances that they had been slaves on now was that the intent of the framers of the 13th amendment i don't think so i don't think there's any evidence for that scholars disagree with it in fact i think and i i'm gonna talk about this in a forthcoming piece that it was really just a failure to reconfigure the amendment that had been used in previous instances of abolition of slavery in the territories and if you look in the 14th amendment i think it corrects that problem courts have not caught up to this point but the 14th amendment talks about persons not with no exception and it talks about equal protection of the laws no exception so the language that should have been used in the 13th amendment with no prisoner exception is finally used in the 14th amendment now that's my argument courts have not unfortunately as much as they should have recognized the the absolute nature of the prohibition on on slavery when was the 14th amendment passed after the civil war there are three amendments that are passed there's the 13th 14th and 15th amendments and they're each intended to try to transform the country from one that had widespread instances of slavery to one of equal citizenship for everyone including performer slaves uh the 13th amendment abolishes slavery and voluntary servitude the 14th amendment guarantees equal protection of the laws due process in the 15th amendment guarantees the equal right to vote right and the 14th amendment is that the most cited amendment don't they use it for everything from abortion to euthanasia to giving the election to george w bush i mean anything can fall under the purview of the 14th amendment it seems it's not any amendment i think actually it's the most important part of the entire constitution i'd make that argument anyway because it transforms the the whole country from one that has lots of instances of subordination to a demand of equal protection of the laws and that's a move really from an undemocratic constitution for the first time to one that at least aspires to an idea of equality and an idea of democracy technically it also applies the bill of rights which if you read them limit what congress can do and the federal government it applies them through a process known as uh incorporation to to apply to the state and local governments as well so it is it is a major thing it's a major so if you are like me and you want to learn about the law yeah giving a number to the 14th amendment it's not giving it credit it should be called something else is it is it the culmination is the 14th amendment the second act yeah of of the united states is it really what lincoln was fighting the civil war for is it the 14th amendment that yeah yeah i love that i mean we should give it a kind of name to express its significance i mean it really is a kind of um a new birth of the of the constitution remember in the 18th century this is a constitution that allows for slavery and postpones even discussion of the slave trade for several years after ratification what comes from that is a a a country that's not fully democratic because of the existence of slavery and subordination and the aspiration of the 14th amendment is to end that and to really create a a ideal of equality throughout the country not just limits on what the federal government can do so i'd be open to a name if you've got one but something big david feldman the david feldman amendment yeah i like that that is a nice that helps david feldman with his divorce case i you know louis through is on the show today he's with the bbc and we're going to talk about his documentary about Scientology Scientology is able to thrive in america because they're a religion so they have tax exempt status then they don't have tax exempt status and we have freedom of religion and after my interview with louis i was in the car listening to am radio and it was the michael medved show he's a right wing conservative which all of am radio is and his sponsors are franklin graham evangelical type and all these commercials for movies about christ and just everything was religion and i thought okay we have freedom of religion but wasn't it really freedom from religion and if the airwaves belong to the government and they're licensing you don't really own a radio station you get a license from the government is it constitutional isn't it a violation of the first amendment for radio to feature religion no i don't think so i mean i see it's certainly the principles that you're expressing our core to we have two religion clauses one about pre-exercise and one about um establishment and one says basically the government can't limit our ability to practice or use our religion the other says government can't act with a religious basis only it needs a secular basis that's the core meaning of the establishment clause and i think that's what you mean by freedom from religion but i you know i think radio if it prohibited religious speech would be way too restrictive and well just as a free speech principle generally we want to hear lots of views i think all views and religious views i think are part of that now if the government starts promoting as the government a religious message that's a very different thing so i think that um you know a crash on the town square the supreme court is right to say that that's unconstitutional because it risks the perception that the town is promoting that idea and certain kinds of prayers certainly that are limiting and exclusive to one religion if they take place in town meetings or in state legislatures i i think the same thing but we have to i think allow for a wide variety of voices on on radio and not just restrict them to so we don't but we don't have a wide variety of voice you know that's the problem yeah i think that so the answer i think is more diversity on the radio and uh you know i the fairness doctrine for instance is something that i've been thinking you know maybe we should bring back that you would require you know multiple perspectives on on radio not just allowing for this segmentation of the audience or at minimum i think there's just not enough you know you're trying to do this and i'm trying to participate in it but not enough progressive voices on the radio and so we need more of that as well i talked about the fairness doctrine last week that was pretty much killed under the reagan administration and you cannot have rush lemba or shon hanity with the fairness doctrine right exactly and you might not have trump unfortunately you know that i think that's the truth that this extreme kind of rhetoric that you get from those figures that you just mentioned has now been not just cordoned off to talk radio but has become echoed in presidential politics or you know the break bar station you and i do serious radio sometimes i mean a lot of trump was was born there from from that kind of conservative talk radio an opinion because of the fairness doctrine getting thrown out opinion has morphed into fact you cannot correct rush lemba there's no federal mandate to correct him when he says tax cuts for the rich juice the economy when there there's no fact based science behind supply side economics so what you have is you have guys like shon hanity and and rush lemba on the radio every day repeating a lie over and over again as opinion they fall under the purview of opinion and the fairness doctrine is gone so there's nobody who can give the opposite opinion which is a fact and it's uh yeah before you go the establishment clause is that part of the first amendment that's like a comma yep no it's right it's uh the first amendment has many rights and entitlements in it and there are two religion clauses one prohibiting the establishment of religion and that most obviously means that you can't have a church of the united states the way there's a church of england but it also means more broadly what you were talking about when you were talking about freedom from religion the idea that government can't endorse or coerce people into believing a religious doctrine right well this has been very edifying and because i had a mixed marriage and believed in the first amendment on christmas all the gifts were given to our children from establishment clause davis he would he and sometimes she depending on the year would come down the chimney and put freedom in everybody's i don't know what i'm talking about okay i love yes virginia there is an establishment clause so well did you learn something today professor yeah well i mean what we're you know your questions are terrific because they are it's just i really appreciated what you said in the beginning because i haven't had a career of doing these public intellectual pieces and writing about contemporary issues like the gorsuch nomination or i have a piece on prisoner voting in politico that touches on some of the subjects we're talking about there it's very recent for me but this radio show i feel like is the equivalent of it it's trying to in as clear as we can be uh you know think about these hard constitutional issues for an audience that's informed and wants to know more and a lot of these issues unfortunately are couched in a kind of secret language with shorthand and using cases rather than explaining what they're about and so i really appreciate what we're what you're trying to do which is to uh to generously give me the time to to try to explain some of these well you're a teacher and i appreciate it and let's do it let's keep doing this because i want to take away the curtain behind law and get people more involved in my in my divorce yes yeah thinking about the travel man and your divorce my divorce we didn't really get to the travel ban i have a feeling maybe next time it's going to be the news yes professor cori brechneider teaches political science at brown university he is a constitutional law scholar he can answer every question except what the hell are you doing on the david feldman show thank you sir thank you it's always a pleasure thanks so much david thank you coming to us today from los angeles is our resident film critic michael snider these are some of the movies he's going to talk about the side my Scientology movie the zookeeper's wife ghost in the shell boss baby and then we're going to talk about the san francisco giants and some binge watching the first thing i asked you was do you want to talk about any documentaries and the first thing you said was my Scientology movie and he happens to be our big guest on the show today louis through yeah literally is a terrific investigative reporter who has no filters it'll do anything to get the story he goes into provocative circumstances and he's really kind of unafraid to take on the big boys including the church of Scientology and we've seen specials and we've seen inside reports and we've seen tell all books about Scientology from the point of view of people that have left the church and some who have just investigated it but thorough decided to just take it on and he came to los angeles from his native britain and he delved into finding out about about the church and found disaffected members who had left and began interviewing him and decided that since he couldn't get anything with the head of honcho the guy who basically was hand-picked by elron hubbard to take over the church which is a massive business slash corporation a money-making venture for sure even though they're obviously dodging certain taxes and such by you know presenting as a church this guy would not talk to thorough and so he decided to take transcripts and old videos and write a script and hire actors to portray various people in significant moments in the church's recent history so that was pretty hilarious including a guy that he hired to play tom cruise who of course is the shiny smiling face of Scientology to much of the mind boggled world and it's tense and it's exciting and and these people are not going to you know be investigated without a pushback and so louis had to deal with a lot of negativity and a lot of shall we say threats i think threats are fair they're all one of video and they're all in my Scientology movie it's a very individual and idiosyncratic look because he's at the center of all the the tumult but he also like i said brings in a couple of former Scientology church members some of which are still very conflicted about having this and so it's it's fascinating and shades of gray but ultimately you do see that this is a kind of a sinister operation and i don't mean louis pretty innovative way of doing a documentary to recreate moments that had not been captured on camera except the nightline interview with ted copple that david miscarriage did but other than that to do improv in front of marty rathburn people who've actually experienced these things it had a time machine quality to it well i loved also the fact that you got the auditions as they look for people as he looked for people to play the various figures he wanted to pick than his scenes and scenarios and pretty hilarious and particularly the competition to play tom cruise i mean it's nothing this town where i live much of the year is a hot bed of out of work actors looking for any kind of gig and hey this was a gig and a paid one yeah i recommend it i think you can download it on amazon i'm not sure i had a screen but i totally recommend it it's very entertaining and again it's a little scary a little creepy uh yeah it's a magnolia picture so you can have access to it that of course is mark cuban's company and he's pretty dedicated to getting stuff out there even if it you know basically uh is controversial maybe even more interested in getting controversial things out there uh so uh in collaboration with john dower and uh and uh producer simon chin uh kudos to louis good stuff great and great score great score i don't know if you remember but the music was hitch cocky and it reminded me of vertigo it was it was and it was an original score yeah nice tension yeah lea remanese a and e series have you seen that about scienceology uh yeah i mean that also pretty great but this is a completely different channel then we see uh i'm losing you there sir are you there we've seen them yeah we've seen memoirs from paul haggis and uh you know there's a lot out there how many bars on your phone um what's doing that's pretty full all right i don't know why you're breaking up there right now maybe uh who knows what it is okay well it's good to have sound on a radio show yeah very funny that's true sound is very important paul prevents it edit paul prevents it edited the aristocrats with his eyes closed did you know that that's oh no actually i didn't it be interesting to see him do stand up with his eyes closed but it's perilous next to the edge of the stage gilbert godfrey that's why gilbert godfrey was so great on the aristocrats because he tells his jokes with his eyes closed and paul prevents uh was editing with his eyes closed okay the zookeeper's wife well you know there's a certain continued relevance to addressing the holocaust the horrific extermination of so many people during world war two uh by the third rike and its axis allies and the zookeeper's wife is a docket drama you know that phrase based on a true story can kind of get to you after a while but this is in fact based on a true story and they tried to stick pretty close to most of the facts i think albeit some things must have been dramatized but it's all about a real couple um antonina and jan zebinski and they basically owned and operated the barsaw zoo in poland in the capital city of poland i believe was the capital city um and in uh 1939 here come the nazis and that means they uh are at risk of losing the zoo for a variety of different reasons and the strafe bombing of war's off killed animals uh the nazi occupiers killed animals and meanwhile antonina and jan decide they're going to do something about their jewish friends were stuck in the barsaw ghetto they had jewish animals in the zoo well i looked at the nose on that elephant oh my god come on that's funny well hey i'm right not serious you should have said right not serious i know hey look you know we don't have time to sit in the writer's room and come up with the quips right now okay all right it's my fault and then he won't they say all these people jessica chastain plays antonina uh beautifully so and uh yohan heldenberg uh who is a pretty cool eastern european actor who's in a very interesting movie about um people in that area of the world who love country music among other things the broken circle breakdown they they are wonderful as antonina and jan and uh daniel bro who is a terrific german actor i mean first rate has been in a lot of great films where he plays the hero and somewhere he plays the villain most particularly in the most uh recent captain america film civil war he plays hitler's chief zoologist uh a guy named what's heck and he has a kind of flirtatious relationship with antonina and uh he is sniffing around the zoo the whole time uh he's trying to do all these kind of genetic experiments with hybrids and stuff animals in this case and so he's involved there and meanwhile the the couple's trying to smuggle the jews out you're always thinking uh this is definitely one for the never forget file you know we just have to keep reminding people particularly when anti-semitism does not go away it's a perennial it's a perennial it's like a seersucker suit you should always have one in your closet you can't get rid of it but anyway uh it's funny they called it the zoo the zookeeper's wife always thinking maybe yudin in the zoo then might have been a good name for it um and i have a feeling if matt daemon had an option to be called we bomb the zoo instead of we bought a zoo game it anyway i just thought solid stuff nicky caro directed it and it was written by angelo workman and um yeah it's not a great film but it's certainly one worth your time and it's a story worth telling and it's a true story yes from beginning to end uh you know they have to have their kids there that had to keep the kids safe it was brutal man brutal great the boss baby well um the boss baby is another animated entry in the uh attempt to bomb as many millions and millions of dollars as the studios can from family audiences and in this case you've got terrific voice actors i mean alex baldwin steve you semi lisa kudrow plus uh jimmy kimmel and toby maguire and essentially it's a an animated comedy about a suit wearing a briefcase carrying baby who just shows up at the suburban home of a husband and wife who work at puppyco.com or whatever and torment the older brother and you need suspension of disbelief here and it's a funny thing it requires a cohesion in whatever fictional world you're building and the boss baby which is basically a string of gags including uh from alex baldwin as the voice of this you know kind of mutant baby a glen getery glen lost jokes uh and many less sophisticated it lacks cohesion there are plot holes and incongrues and i see what they wanted to do but any chance the filmmaker said i did a smart sharp look at how the first born kid in a family feels put upon by a new brother or sister you know the tyranny of the infant all that's lost amid the flat jokes and knee jerk sentiment and i guess it's all supposed to give everyone an aww shucks feeling at the end but even the whole idea of a factory a heavenly factory that manufactures or spits out babies that was done and done equally clumsily in storks from a year or so ago um alex baldwin is always entertaining he's got a way with the line and it's interesting to see his voice come out of this this kid but you never really what did letterman say buy the premise and you buy the bit i didn't buy the premise i sure as hell didn't buy the bit and it's funny i saw an animated film that was a true work of art and it was nominated for a best animated feature in last year's oscars and um it kind of hasn't really had much traction here in the states it didn't win but it was wonderful it's called my life as a zucchini that's the american title or the english language title and it's a swiss french stop motion animated feature and uh it just uh is uh heading into its us uh theatrical engagement uh right around now and i i loved it and for the record the actual title in french is ma vie de courgette because courgette is the boy's nickname which translates into english as zucchini and essentially it's the tale of a boy who is orphaned in very tragic fashion this is an animated feature and he's brought to a foster home run by a very decent sort of caring bunch of adults and he's well treated but this movie is about his struggles with the lost city space the need to fit in with the other kids at the home all of whom want to get adopted and you know just general real world problems and it's all done with honesty and wit it's lovely and it's also kind of sad and and still it's hopeful and david i'm not joking i wept a little bit at the end of the film uh you know uh despite looking like it was designed to be primarily viewed by children it is so much more and it shows you what you can do with animation as opposed to the cheap um laugh product of boss baby it could have been had a little bit of depth like i said uh in regards to you know what happens when a new uh new born infant shows up at a home where there's already an older kid i think the last time michael snider wept at a movie was when he act had a pay for one right uh that must have been i can't even remember how far back that might have been so we've covered uh the science my scientology movie the zoo keeper's wife ghost in the shell oh ghost in the shell you know oh look um as a fan of animation and comic books and japanese manga and uh i guess what the word for their cartoons is anime i'm very familiar with ghost in the shell uh a dystopian futurist uh saga about uh essentially um a um what would you call it an android or a cybernetically enhanced human uh it's the future when human beings are cybernetically enhanced and one woman or girl her brain is salvaged after an accident one assumes and put into this life the body that being the body of scarlet show hanson you know she's playing a different character of course and it appears to be japan and it has it it's essentially you know this creature is going to be the perfect soldier they decided to build a weapon this is another familiar theme in uh sci-fi of this nature and she's supposed to stop criminals and terrorists and i don't know we've seen so many similar settings and issues and speculative fiction about uh artificial intelligence and androids as cybernauts and tech enhancement and this thing cribs its look from blade runner although it does so it's like blade runner on steroids because you know uh cgi animation has become so fantastic in the special effects realm but there's also elements of the matrix and yet it gets some of its tone from akira which like ghost is a manga turned anime uh but west world and humans are much deeper and more complex and emotionally satisfying things about artificial intelligence and and the question of sentience in robotics and and this sort of thing uh and even though there are um actual robots who are main characters in things like humans in west world here the human brain in the cybernetic body displays little of the humanity and emotion that it should and scarlet jumanston played an alien in human skin in the appropriately named under the skin which was a sci-fi film from a few years ago but she was much more layered in that than in this performance uh you know maybe it was the script but man it looks good ghost in the shell looks pretty terrific there's also by the way before we bail on this there's been questions of cultural appropriation the idea that this japanese um property features scarlet shohanston uh you know a white woman in the central role which is ostensibly a japanese person and in fact the brain that's within this body is a japanese woman's brain and admittedly uh takeshi katano the great japanese character is in this thing and by the way the only one in the whole movie who basically speaks all of his lines in japanese with subtitles and that's a little kind of boggling but with that in mind you know if you take it as a b movie you know bargain matinee another sci-fi romp and i guess it's okay it's got you know she's pretty wonderful i just feel like we've been here already you know are movies taking second place to television these days i was having now hmm um i i got to say that uh the long-form narratives that we are seeing in prestige television and also in networks like fx and amc um are in many cases outstripping a lot of the film output tell me about the expanse tell me about the expanse the expanse is it's nothing short of exquisite the expanse is a sci-fi saga um and the two guys who created it uh wrote these books about this kind of futuristic circumstance where humans have left the earth and have colonized um the moon fully colonized mars and have colonized the asteroid belt in some places where they've created artificial uh atmosphere and have built basic waystations and living units and and marketplaces and what have you and this show set in this milieu is not only you know a sort of a spaceships lying around um the political intrigue with the potential for war but it also has romantic subplots it has extraterrestrial uh biology uh threats it's got so many different storylines that are interwoven that if you just watch it you know half-heartedly or in a casual way you you'll either get lost or you won't follow it or you won't care but if you give it the time it is beautiful and complex and the effects are marvelous and it's the first thing i think on um sci-fi channel since maybe Battlestar Galactica that had any kind of weight in genuine drama and sort of an adult perspective and the only familiar faces i think in the first two seasons as far as i can see uh thomas jane plays a detective uh on the belt a belter uh on the asteroids uh shura dosh blue plays a un poncho on earth and in the first series the uh the son of richard harris one of his two great actor sons uh Jared Harris plays a kind of belter wheeler dealer and sort of uh gang boss and the sporting players a lot of them have never seen four are are right on and this channel sci-fi has done some kind of purile typical action uh the you know kind of shallow science fiction stuff before like kill joys and they've also done things like uh dark matter that sound a little more heavyweight than they are this is the real deal the expanse is absolutely worth the time it is hard science fiction in a lot of places and it's entertaining dramatic and deep legion what is legion a legion is actually part of the whole marvel universe but it's part of the marvel universe that comes from x-man land thus it's um part of the properties that marvel basically leased to fox so not disney don't interact not disney i'm sorry not disney no this is not you know the marvel um basically um contracted out properties to 20th century fox and sony when they were just getting rolling when they finally built their own studio situation and connected with disney they were able to build their entire interrelated cinematic universe that features all these top tour actors playing classic marvel characters and also with a television component that is ostensibly part of that same world but spider man and all spider man related characters and uh that went to sony and the x-men and the fantastic four and all of those interrelated characters were picked up by 20th century fox most recently because it made economic sense after sony kind of fumbled their second version of spider man they made a deal with marvel to co-produce spider man incorporate the character and his various supporting cast into the big marvel cinematic universe which is why you now see spider man running around with four and these you know and captain america and iron man and these big deal blockbusters about the avengers and that's allowing sony to have uh robert downey jr as sony stark appear in the spider man film that's coming up in a month or two homecoming and you know it's obviously economic sense for sony to have done it but there's nothing like that with 20th century fox what fox does have is such a massive x-men universe with all these characters that they took one of the characters not a major character but the bastard child of professor x the character played in the movies by patrick stewart and they have spun off a series by the guy who basically uh created and show ran uh and continues to do so fargo the fargo tv series based on the cone brothers film the same guy is in charge of legion and legion is about david howler the bastard son of charles Xavier and an israeli scientist and this guy has some serious problems he's perhaps schizophrenic and he's an incredibly powerful telepath and telekinetic and the guy is played in the series on fx by none other than matthew crawley of downton abbey uh dan stevens and he unrecognizable and the comedian aubrey plaza has a significant role in this as well and she's doing work like she's never done before and she's fantastic and legion uh the book it it deserves people's attention that's all that's all i'll say on it and just really you know maybe only genre lovers are gonna dig it but i don't think so if you like a puzzle if you like complex drama if you like really outrageous performances you know both of these shows are you know for you and you speak very highly of archer archer is coming back and i have to tell you it's the funniest animated show on television i don't know whether you paid any attention to it yeah it started out basically as you know what let's make a cartoon about the the biggest jerk who ever tried to emulate james bond a secret agent who's sort of inept on some levels but somehow indestructible and gets the job done and he works as a mother yeah he and it just so happens that this black ops unit that he works for is run by his mother and it's it is hilariously great and it could be uh it's the funniest animated thing i think on television right now and they've gone through a bunch of different iterations uh when the cia strips all of their um legitimacy away one season they they become basically um a drug ring you know they try to acquire and sell coke and that's one season another season they move from uh their new york base to los angeles and get uh their own private detective agency up and running it's all about the mother and her minions including her son sterling archer and his on again off again girlfriend lana who um is voiced by uh the woman from um the the talk uh and you should pilot it's the best work she's ever done she's a pretty good stand up and she's done some great you know kind of hosting tv shows and such but as lana cayne that's the name of the character she's this kind of leggy sort of bond girl but who's actually a totally competent secretion and she's uh archers paramour and they've actually had a kid since the show ran what three or four seasons they introduced a pregnancy but this season it's kind of a film noir and it's maybe archers fantasy uh at who knows but um it's plays archers age john benjamin yeah john benjamin is also the uh the father on the um bob's burgers bob's burgers yeah bob burgers on fox speaking of animated shows but he's in his glory as sterling archer and uh everybody in the voice cast is right on judy greer plays this kind of off the wall rich girl turned secretary for the agency i mean i mean it's great um christian slater shows up as himself ostensibly the actor christian slater in this cartoon series secretly works for the cia shades of chuck barris and i mean there's some funny stuff going on on the show and i i i find it wildly entertaining and very quickly your beloved giants how are they doing so far well uh since you pay little or no attention to baseball i'll just remind you that season hasn't started yet but as soon as it does i'll have a report in the meantime it's preseason anything goes uh these are the times when even the lowest teams find their fans dreaming of a championship whether rightly so or not when does one is opening day it's only a couple days from now um let me see here i'm i'm really not maybe it's this coming weekend maybe when this runs um we're going to be on the verge of it but the no uh official games as yet um i always believe in the orange and black attack as i like to call the giants i may live much of the year in los angeles and i do love it here but um you know i stopped my place in s f and damn it i hate the la sports teams and i'm a giants lifer giants 49ers and warriors you know for life and how's alex spennett i'm getting a lot of emails from his fans telling me that really yeah to have alex on the show alex is alex alex is always uh you know a handful alex is opinionated alex is a legend in broadcasting alex is my friend you know you can catch us every week on uh rocu but you know all i can tell you is invite him on if you like and and let the sparks fly what's the name of the show the alex spennett show it's called the alex spennett show it's on gab net dot net and my segment's mobile ciders culture blast the separate thing that that pops up on a weekly basis and if you have a rocu you can you can watch it well you can listen to it or watch it however you can watch him on the video my segment is audio but it's uh you know new movies and things that you and i don't get to and is he doing a daily show or a weekly show it's pretty frequent he does a nightly thing called the ramble it's uh citizen panels it's him you know going off on stuff there's plenty to go off on in this day and age yeah i should call him well now that we've worked that out all i can tell you is it's ever a pleasure uh... mr felden and sorry for any kind of i invited him slayton was in town and i said well why don't we ask alex to do the show and alex wouldn't do the show with bobby and me because now it's like a standoff who's going to call whom first whoa what's the problem i was this kind of has arrived well holy not he didn't do anything you know what i you know what i've been so busy and i've been having personal problems the thought and the thought of having dinner with alex and then it's gonna turn to the personal problems and then it's just gonna open up and i just don't want to talk about my personal life you know i mean you're talking about you're talking about your strange relationship to alex right here and right now i'm just gonna get the inquisition about how i ended up this way from him and i just don't feel like answering those questions you know what i mean you're you're an enigma wrapped in a riddle david you're like a stinks michael snider is our resident film critic how do people reach you sir you can follow me on twitter at culture blaster and you can certainly check in on facebook at michael sniders culture blast page uh like it listen to the stuff that i do with david and maybe the stuff i do with alex read articles whatever it's all there it's all good and it's always fun to chat with you mr feldman mr snider thank you thanks for listening i want to thank louis through his documentary my scientology movie is playing in theaters near you and i think you can watch it on all the streaming platforms amazon netflix itunes kelly carlins book a carlin home companion is now out in paperback dan pastor next to documentary fatherless will be on fusion tomorrow night i think it's at nine thirty also check them out on split cider and xweeney's law professor cori brett schneider will be teaching at brown university you can read them in time politico and of course the new york times and film critic michael sniders over culture blast we have a youtube channel it's just audio of this show go to youtube type in david feldman comedy subscribe to the channel you get all these shows for free on youtube or itunes or stitcher help me out give us a good review on itunes that helps share the love share the knowledge share the laughs copy and paste the link to this show and send it to your friends please i have a new stand up album that i'm working on pay what you want that's we have 10 minutes up on my website pay what you want a penny or a billion dollars and you can download the first 10 minutes we'll be posting about 10 minutes every month and building out this album tell me what jokes you like which ones you don't like hit the contact button stay in touch i answer all my emails have a great april fools day tomorrow from the show brisk studios in downtown manhattan that'll do it for us medicare for all this is the david feldman radio network