A low in wealth in the crosstalk were all things are considered im peter lobo on this edition of the program we discussed the passing of the 2 towering figures so breme Court JusticeRuth Bader Ginsburg and americas preeminent russian expert steven cohen both will be remembered for good reasons their legacies assures. You discuss this and more im joined by my guest glenn hes in and also he is an associate professor at the university of south used to norway as well as author of russias geo Economic Strategy for a greater eurasia and in budapest we crossed to george samueli he is the author of bombs for peace natos humanitarian war on yugoslavia generally rules and the. That music and johnny young you want and i dont appreciate what is going to its going to george in budapest a george of course and be the biggest news right now is the passage job just as ginsburg and whats going to happen next and on this program i really dont want to big or about the procedure of it all of you know it is inappropriate for trying to do this in the past its been argued that a right before an election you know Election Year you should do that if theres a bacon say you can go back and forth you know and all sides have changed their mind ok and theyre all eating their words and i can leave that aside and talk about the state of the court because you know not too many years ago i think george and i would probably remember pretty well you know them being born just as bork was a confirmation and prior to his nomination it was advice and consent is the person a jurist a good jurist it had nothing to do with politics now it has everything to do with politics and that was posed to be the one branch that wasnt supposed to be infected by politics it was about interpretating the constitution as the founders laid it down were losing that weve even lost it i would argue go ahead george. Yes youre absolutely right peter but i think the court has itself to blame for that because it waded into politics it waded into politics a long time ago and i mean part of it the blame also rests with the politicians who prefer not to take. Serious political legislative decisions and is that the left things to the courts and so all of the major rulings in the process last live past 50 years have been decided by the courts which is an unelected body and so therefore the stakes became ever higher when you think of all of the big rulings in the United States you know the School Prayer ruling that these will be decided instead the courts weighted in happily. And after all as the years went by the fights over who would stop the courts became ever more bitter. And so than that and that why were here and where we are which is here is a liberal Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg consistently votes with the liberals is now dead has a conservative president and a conservative ruled senate so now because the stakes are very high thats why the fight is going to be extremely better as they were in the case of camelot because there was a swing vote kennedy who was replaced by a conservative so you know its a game the courts are to blame for this and of course the irresponsible politicians have landed that this is really in this is about the. The growing illegitimacy of institutions and its been creeping along george has pointed out here how its been politicized and id like to point out here thats how the left is only this is really neat only the way the left has got its agenda through is through the courts here and thats whats given conservatives its almost an existential. Imperative now because when they see all of these major social legislation come into effect through the court not through congress here and this is why conservatives are up in arms and will definitely vote ok even though i would say gore should or should seek and. Havent really met expectations nonetheless this is going to motivate people. Will agree with that because this seems very much like a symptom of why theyre. Moving the country so i think that either country conflicts important because theres not just of course we see you know a lot of the Democratic Institutions in the u. S. Are coming on the greater and greater stress so we see them crossed in to meet us or in the who seems just more all seem more like mouthpiece all the rest a little partys. If you are and there are no dollars and you have a congress with ridiculous lelo support and most likely will see the president ial election election someone disputing the legitimacy of the outcome a matter of who wins. The fail to recognize that this 3rd branch of power which is the Supreme Court. Has for a long time been a problem that polarizes so much i think in the last few years and this does that escalate and then more and more with the conservatives block garland is you know or the argument that. Barack obama was a lame duck president. Is a result of it its been clear with our viewers there the argument was that if the senate and the president were in different in different parties that was mcconnells explanation here ok yes and no i mean thats just in his explanation he has the power to do it its not the law its not written in the constitution it is basically is rule ok so i keep going to here every month because they belong to karl and. This led to a let me let go legitimacy for the ogre search which was put in by chung and then the democrats tried to block as i remember Brett Kavanaugh 2 years ago in well what i would call a very despicable effort to smear him in the most awful way so is all the conservatives arguers now is to change the rules to some extent change the rule of the game and they will push for an out against her back even though the lection is promotion around the corner but as you point out is theres no specific rules as they think of the county other but again this is just shows us keeps escalating and it is again who knows what happens next summer you are going in with the democrats think power should simply add to more seats to the Supreme Court or watered down conservative presence so i guess again this is for a while how i see its consequences of the us is your shins fragment to go well the 2 Major Political parties still see each other as artist working for the same team or more this each other. Benami undermining this you know soul of the country and when you are in a war youre much everythings permitted which is why i say it is rulebook more and more being all torn away or are or of this looking for alternative ways of doing it now i just thought oh and one last point which is i think the. Supreme court is more vulnerable to police us ation than others because again this is where liberals and conservatives deviate goes for conservatives so you would see that the future has to be informed by the present or the past. And liberals deceit of the past and stop struct. What it means to change so thats why the conservatives sense to say you have to interpret gold see will excite that was written then we follow this it has to build on this excited writings while the liberals say no you have to interpret it the spirit of it and what the spirit is is of course their whole and most ideology so you see in the course very much. Logical error. Or political even though its close to being neutral yeah it is but in particular you cant get your agenda across through the ballot box here george i mean one of the most corrupt the elements which the Court Allowed was Citizens United and and if you look at the the the the implication that is that you have you have politicians that are appointed by special interests and joe owners and so those politicians will look to the court in keeping in mind they are joe nurse and what they want ok and so theyre going to be looking at the political coloration of a of a nominee theyre not going to be looking at advice and instead theyre not be looking at competence you know theyre going to the donors are going to get what they want because thats why they consider affairs and congressmen there and now youre supposed to you know all the all the regulations and any time you go to the Supreme Court and in this keep lets keep in mind the Supreme Court you know well everyones arguing all the time about you know theyre going to resent. Really. Versus wade you know its basically the Supreme Court is a very friendly to me chamber of commerce always and that doesnt get a lot of coverage ok and thats why these politicians are very very worried that someones going to come in and say you know Something Like the Citizens United is is inherently corrupting of politics go ahead yes well thats the thing that the politicians have found a nice way of avoiding or could vote and this is this is really being the case now or really ever since the days of the warren court. If they could just simply hide behind the Supreme Court to say well ok i mean whatever whatever i think thats the way the Supreme Court has ruled and that said no so i had my vote doesnt have to go on the record and this is a great get out clause flow all politicians and. So this we didnt particularly conservatives i would say ok if we think its a womans work and i dont yeah thats it and so also all of these are Big Decisions when you think of you know whether of the on the social issues you think of. Very much a gay marriage not one of them has ever been decided by a legislature because. And in fact the few votes that have taken place in legislature particularly on abortion or of course rolled out by saying i hate the super eagles rule row v wade is the law of the land thats a youre out youre out of luck and now this is this goes on all the time in america where you have judges we dont know necessarily the Supreme Court but federal judges they dont like trumps all is the only big ration so they are making issue a ruling that saves like an unelected judge just as i said in self that this is unconstitutional and thats an excellent decision made by the elected president is then nolen roy as they go up to the Circuit Court of appeals defending their what the political makeup of the Circuit Court of appeals is that they will buy the rule for the case but and again people become very shrewd about if they go the 9th circuit thats generally tends to be liberal lets go do this in the 9th circuit on the 9th circuit rules. Against the president not come because. Of the legal merits because of politics but you know then its because of the brink of war and then again the decision is largely made on you know well this is the way the conservatives were those who were the liberals so what you now have and that would be fine if you had your votes by people who are elected to represent the people but these are all unelected judges so the most important questions in america now decided by unelected judges and that really is a very very situation in the last 45 seconds that glenn here is just in weve been talking about how the Supreme Court decides the most important issues the. May decide the election and if theres only 4 justices oh i cant even imagine whats going to happen 30 seconds go. You know a lot of the problem if this will be this. Election outcome most likely will be i think theyll go over to me and ill just start. Every side wants to have favorable. More so to say the judges in place to decide actual outcome but i would just add one to very quick things a child did exactly the same thing with abortion it was. He didnt want to alienate a whole lot of some democratic side in 2016 that is i mean if it was there well its out of my hands. And it could be you know were going to go to a short break and if thats your break you want discussion on the major news. The world is driven by. The day or thinks. We dare to ask. Welcome to max hazard financial survival guide. Looking forward to your pension account. Yanks this is what happens to pensions in britain. Watched as a report. Well about the crossed up were all Things Considered im Peter Lavelle remind you were discussing some real news. Ok lets go to georgian but then budapest the 2nd towering figure that we have lost in the last couple of days the Stephen Cohen and i dont think theres going to be a lot of Television Programs made about him but they should be a towering figure in academia and i went to academia and he was a Guiding Light he was a bit controversial in his early days because he had reem re understood it and mapped out. What we understood about the soviet union russia and communism and sell he was an adviser to president s particular of george bush sr he played a pivotal role in academia and i would even say in Foreign Policy but then everything changed he was basically disappeared by the academy because he disagree with the the consensus. View of russia after the cold war and he was always one that would say engagement because he remembered the cold war and remember how detente for all of its failings works because it kept us out of the major conflict your thoughts about him because united moralists studied the same thing our lives parallel and george yes youre absolutely right peter he was a towering figure and he has been for many years i mean dont forget back in the 1970 s. The consensus view among. Analysts of the soviet union was that change was impossible but the soviet system how to reach. It kind of bureaucratic equilibrium you know that would be a brashear would be replaced by another pressure it replaced by another pressure and he broke that hes that now i think that the soviet system can change and and in fact that change is quite likely and when gorbachev and about and whatever else you can say had coverage of he certainly instituted drastic changes he was right and you have to say he was right and those people who criticized him repeatedly in print and on Television LikeRichard Pipes were wrong i mean they were absolutely wrong as a lot of this is a totalitarian system of totalitarianism by definition chemical change so he was right there and of course in subsequently when he has been an advocate but they dont he has been consistent he was an advocate for they dont in the seventys in the eightys ninetys and through the present basically hes saying that war is the worst possible outcome in relations between the United States and so if youre in and then russia and hes been consistent as all the talk about always an apologist for putin as they were that was always ridiculous he was a very clear cool headed analysts who wanted good relations between the 2 Nuclear Superpowers and thats what drove his analysis you know glenn it was very interesting ive seen a number i saw a number of interviews with stephen before his death and one thing he stressed all of the time is that during the cold war. There was an attempt to see how the other guy vs the world how the soviet union viewed the United States and that that is that is remarkably missing in our Foreign Policy right now is try to understand what the other guy hanks and i think that was what the success of cohens analysis of ending the cold war so lets. On his side they are diplomacy if you dont have diplomacy has to be based on having some recognition for the position of the other side and if you can understand them then perhaps you can meet somewhere in the middle as opposed to if you just see them as an inherent evil of count change or if its a little war in conflict just dont listen lucian. And because of this i think that yeah that was a great part of his success and again dentist almost went recognized famous all over this. But again he recommended and i hear advice to president ial administration he was to go to mass for the media during the cold war when there was this push for the taliban reckitt when they recognize that they have security costars as well so it doesnt beg the question what happened after the cold war well the cold war you have the unit color moment more or less the need to understand russia was more or less gone and again thats why he also disappeared because. His argument is merited was no longer attractive because what he effectively did was he contested the main us narrative of what happened after the cold war because if we lose there are alterations in the media what were told is that the u. S. Reached out to russia for friendship you know a guy the russians there is passed to democracy and you know it offered russia this membership in the european sound of nations and clinton took over and he is just you know his thirst for empire and hatred the moccasin meant as a relationship both broken and you know yeah they are the other we have the ukraine crisis later now we want to go and point out again trying to understand the other side was recognizing that the this is not actually what took place in russia very clearly it was not overt in that membership in europe in salley instead we had nato expansion which prevented a truly unification of the continent so he was never a critical need. Expansion and and of course same here is an expression of the bombing of yugoslavia but that a young man who took this all represented the cancellation of any real role for russia in europe after the cold war and also if you want to have a voice and protect its allies it would need to stand up for itself it could rely on the seat at the table in europe so i think this is all d very core if youre going to understand how russia reacted. But we dont want this 4th anymore and you know we were smear them so were trying to understand other side not you know doing the ground work of a diplomat no if you are now in apologists. Think those are your shamed outs and you me because he very clearly said i do not want to mention my war because then i will be the means of our cause and i will be complicit in this way that russias president it so i. Know its a big loss