Can the US continue to stand alone against the metric system?

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Can the US continue to stand alone against the metric system?

The New Criterion executive editor James Panero discusses taking a stand against the metric system on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," June 5, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST: Good evening and welcome to “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” Back when he was still a star on MSNBC and CNN, he was still touting his presidential candidacy, this show was warning America about the creepy porn lawyer.

Well, now his crimes have been exposed and he could be disbarred. A lawyer who is pushing that effort will join us in just a few minutes with details.

But first tonight, let's begin with a thought experiment. What if the Republican leadership here in Washington had bothered to learn the lessons of the 2016 election? What if they cared enough to do that? What if they had understood and embraced the economic nationalism that was at the heart of Donald Trump's presidential campaign? What would the world look like now, two and a half years later?

Well, for starters, Republicans in Congress would regularly be saying things like this, quote, "I'm deeply grateful for the opportunities America has given me, but the giant American corporations who control our economy don't seem to feel the same way. They certainly don't act like it." Sure, these companies wave the flag, but they have no loyalty or allegiance to America.

Levi's is an iconic American brand, but the company operates only 2 percent of its factories here. Dixon Ticonderoga, maker of the famous Number Two Pencil has moved almost all of its pencil production to Mexico and China.

And General Electric recently shut down an industrial engine factory in Wisconsin, and shipped the jobs to Canada, the list goes on and on. These quote, "American companies show only one real loyalty to the short term interests of their shareholders, a third of whom are foreign investors."

"If they can close up an American factory and ship jobs overseas to save a nickel, that's exactly what they will do, abandoning loyal American workers and hollowing out American cities along the way."

"Politicians love to say they care about American jobs, but for decades, those same politicians have cited free market principles and refuse to intervene in markets on behalf of American workers."

"And of course, they ignore those same supposed principles and intervene regularly to protect the interests of multinational corporations and international capital."

"The result, millions of good jobs lost overseas and a generation of stagnant wages, growing inequality and sluggish economic growth. If Washington wants to put a stop to this, it can. If we want faster growth, stronger American industry, and more good American jobs, then our government should do what other leading nations do and act aggressively to achieve those goals, instead of catering to the financial interests of companies with no particular allegiance to America."

"The truth is that Washington policies not unstoppable market forces are a key driver of the problems American workers face. From our trade agreements to our Tax Code, we have encouraged companies to invest abroad, ship jobs overseas, and keep wages low. All in the interest of serving multinational companies and international capital, with no particular loyalty to the United States."

"It's becoming easier and easier to shift capital and jobs from one country to another. That's why our government has to care more about defending and creating American jobs than ever before, not less."

"We can navigate the changes ahead if we embrace economic patriotism, and make American workers our highest priority, rather than continuing to cater to the interests of companies and people with no allegiance to America," End quote.

Now, let's say you regularly vote Republican, ask yourself, what part of the statement you just heard did you disagree with? Was there a single word that seemed wrong to you? Probably not. Here's the depressing part. Nobody you voted for said that or would ever say it.

Republicans in Congress can't promise to protect American industries. They wouldn't dare to do that. It might violate some principle of Austrian economics. It might make the Koch brothers mad. It might alienate the libertarian ideologues who to this day fund most Republican campaigns. So no, a Republican did not say that. Sadly.

Instead, the words you just heard are from -- and brace yourself here -- Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, it's true.

Yesterday, Warren released what she calls her plan for economic patriotism. Amazingly, that's pretty much what it is, economic patriotism. There's not a word about identity politics in the document.

There are no hysterics about gun control or climate change. There's no lecture about the plight of transgender illegal immigrants. It's just pure old fashioned economics how to preserve good paying American jobs.

Even more remarkable, many of Warren's policy prescriptions make obvious sense. She says the U.S. government should buy American products when it can, and of course it should. She says we need more workplace apprenticeship programs because four-year college degrees aren't right for everyone. Well, that's true.

She says that taxpayers ought to benefit from the research and development that they pay for. And yet she writes, quote, "We often see American companies take that research and use it to manufacture products overseas, like Apple did with the iPhone. The company's get rich, and American taxpayers have subsidized the creation of low wage, foreign jobs," end quote, and so on.

She sounds like Donald Trump at his best. So who is this Elizabeth Warren, you ask? Well, not the race hustling, gun grabbing, abortion extremist you thought you knew.

Well unfortunately, Elizabeth Warren is still all of those things, too. And that's exactly the problem not just with Elizabeth Warren, but with American politics.

In Washington, almost nobody speaks for the majority of voters. You're either a libertarian zealot controlled by the banks yammering on about entrepreneurship and how we need to cut entitlements. That's one side of the aisle, or worse, you're some decadent trust fund socialist who wants to ban passenger cars and give Medicaid to illegal aliens. That's the other side.

What there isn't is a caucus that represents where most Americans actually are -- nationalist on economics, fairly traditional on the social issues.

Imagine a politician who wanted to make your healthcare cheaper, but wasn't ghoulishly excited about partial birth abortion. Imagine someone who genuinely respected the nuclear family and sympathized with the culture of rural America, but at the same time, was willing to take your side against rapacious credit card companies bleeding you dry at 35 percent interest.

Would you vote for someone like that? My gosh, of course you would. Who wouldn't? That candidate would be elected in a landslide every single time. And yet that candidate is the opposite of pretty much everyone currently serving in our Congress.

Our leadership class remains resolutely libertarian, committed to the rhetoric of markets when it serves them, utterly libertine on questions of culture.

Republicans will lecture you about how payday loan scams are a critical part of our market economy, then they'll work to make it easier for your kids to smoke weed because hey, freedom.

Democrats will nod in total agreement. They're on the same page.

Just last week, the Trump administration announced an innovative new way to protect American workers from the ever cascading tidal wave of cheap third world labor flooding this country. Until the Mexican government stops pushing illegal aliens north over our border, we will impose tariffs on all Mexican goods that we import.

Now, that's the kind of thing you I propose to protect your country if you cared about your people. The Democrats, of course, opposed it. They don't even pretend to care about the American people anymore. Here's what Republicans said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY: Look, I think it's safe to say you've talked to all of our members who are not fans of tariffs. We're still hoping that this can be avoided.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: "We're not fans of tariffs." Imagine a more supercilious, more out of touch, more infuriating response. Well, you can't, because there isn't one.

In other words, says Mitch McConnell, the idea may work in practice, but we're against it because it doesn't work in theory. That's the Republican Party 2019. No wonder they keep losing. They deserve it.

Will they ever change? Joining us tonight to assess the future of that party and what it could be is Johnny Burtka. He is Executive Director of the American Conservative. Johnny, thanks very much for coming on tonight.

JOHNNY BURTKA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE: Thanks so much for having me on, Tucker.

CARLSON: So when Elizabeth Warren, and I just want to restate here. This is far from an endorsement of Elizabeth Warren, whom I couldn't vote for because she's so far out on the social issues, it would be wrong to vote for her, in my view.

But what Elizabeth Warren is clearer about how to make this country -- you know, how to focus on American jobs, clear on economic nationalism than Mitch McConnell, where are we? What is happening?

BURTKA: Here's the bottom line, Tucker. Middle and working class Americans of both parties are sick and tired of looking around their country and seeing the once great industrial cities, places like Detroit, Cleveland and Baltimore, lying in complete and utter ruin.

Tucker, did you know that in the city of Baltimore, there are neighborhoods where the life expectancy is comparable to that of Yemen and even worse than Syria and North Korea?

This is a travesty, Tucker, and much of the problem was caused by the neoconservative and neoliberal trade policies that devastated the manufacturing bases in these ones great cities.

I find it highly ironic that the same people who are advocating endless war in the Middle East for the past 20 years are the same ones devising the economic strategies that have turned our great cities into places that look like the Middle East, Tucker.

CARLSON: So why couldn't you -- it's really simple, look at the polling. Most people want what I just described in the opening script, which is a party that isn't socialist, but that cares about their economic wellbeing and puts that first and the country's economic wellbeing first. But that also isn't radical and crazy on social issues.

It doesn't think third-term abortion is liberation. Why couldn't you have a party that is economically nationalist and socially conservative? Why is that so hard?

BURTKA: Well, that's the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, Tucker. You might remember the famous Lincoln quote, when he was out on the campaign trail, saying that "Give us that protective tariff, and I will make us the greatest nation on Earth."

Tucker, the United States was the greatest nation on Earth, and we had a manufacturing base that was the best in the entire world. And over the past 20 years, we've simply handed that over to our greatest geopolitical rival, China.

And we know from Donald Trump's reelection that many of his voters fell in that exact camp. They were economically nationalist, and they were socially moderate to conservative. And I think there's a huge opportunity there. But it seems like the Republicans in Congress are stuck in the 1980s.

They're bent on the Reagan policy prescription, which was right for its time, but we're in a different era, 30 years later, and it's time for them to get with the program. It's not the party of Mitch McConnell, it's the party of Abraham Lincoln. So it's time to embrace economic patriotism and it's time to put forward an agenda that puts American citizens, families and workers first. And if they can do that, they can build a majority that will last a generation.

Now, there are a few Republicans in Congress that seem to be taking the hit. I know that on domestic issues, Senator Rubio has developed a plan to counter China's 2025 plan, which I've been pretty impressed by. And I know that others like Senator Josh Hawley have been willing to shed the free market orthodoxy to take on other issues like the problems caused by big tech and woke capitalism.

And I applaud both of them, and Rand Paul, same on the foreign policy, America First issues, but we don't need -- we can't afford to have three senators who are in line with the President on these issues. We need 30. We need 50. And we're not getting it.

CARLSON: Yes. Voters want it. They could win. That's the program that puts them in office. I agree with you, Johnny Burtka, great to see you tonight. Thank you.

BURTKA: Thanks for having me, Tucker.

CARLSON: While Republicans fuss about the details of Austrian economics and worry about tariffs, the U.S. border is getting closer and closer to total and utter collapse and it's not hyperbole.

Last May, the Border Patrol apprehended the highest number of illegal border crossers in 13 years. This is massive consequences for the country that we're not talking about.

Tammy Bruce is thinking about them, though. She is a radio host and President of the Independent Women's Voice and we're happy to have her on tonight. Tammy, thanks very much for joining us.

TAMMY BRUCE, PRESIDENT, INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S VOICE: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So walk us through what you think some of the more obvious ramifications of this border collapse might be?

BRUCE: Well, we already know, in the broad sense, and we've had this conversation for years, about the problems people face on the migrant trail when it comes to sex trafficking, when it comes to the coyotes, when it comes to sexual assaults, et cetera, and the problems that children face as well.

And then what happens in the aftermath when people are here in the country? The Kate Steinle situation, individuals who are being protected in sanctuary cities, criminal illegal aliens. But the fact of the matter is, this health crisis is an element that no one is really discussing.

The team at Independent Women's Voice -- as you noted, I'm President of -- has realized and has determined that our own government when we've been talking about of course, infectious diseases, like measles, we thought we eradicated it. We're on track now to the end of this week at probably at about a thousand cases in 26 states.

Typhus is moving through Los Angeles. The CDC is now warning about tuberculosis. We have new outbreaks of Ebola. Certainly Zika -- that's in Congo -- Zika, in Brazil, et cetera.

And what's not being dealt with here is the fact that you've got 144,000 as an example, moving across this border, none of whom, of course, we know if they've been vaccinated. We hear the admonition appropriately about the importance of vaccinations. But what we've also determined Tucker, is that the CDC only requires proof of vaccination for people applying for migrant visas legally.

If you are trying to enter using a non-migrant visa, the temporary visa visit, you are not required to show proof of vaccination.

So it's an interesting ball that's been dropped at the Federal level, and then of course at the border. The chaos here is certainly we're worried about American families and their health. But the people almost at the front line who are extremely vulnerable are the migrants themselves.

The Border Patrol announced last week that they've captured about a group of 161 people from Africa, Congo, Angola, et cetera, and of course, Congo now, it is dealing with another outbreak of Ebola.

Imagine with these kinds of groups emerging. Individuals coming in from Brazil with Zika; families coming up from El Salvador -- the mix of what these individuals are facing in the caravan and then when they're placed in communal areas, or end up homeless in cities where the infrastructure is collapsed, because they are so many.

IWV has started a petition. This is this is our news for today. Something has to happen. We've launched a petition iwv.org telling the White House that we must redouble the effort for border security.

Beyond all the other political issues we've heard about on this issue, this transcends that. This is about every family and every human being caught up in this chaos. Thank you. It's important. Thank you, sir.

CARLSON: Thank you. Democratic presidential candidates are pushing for violent felons to get their voting rights back. In a moment, we'll talk to a politician from Washington, D.C. who would like prisoners to be able to vote from their cells, that's just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, the ever resourceful Democratic Party has a time-tested solution for any electoral setback -- simply change who is voting. That's why they support open borders and lowering the voting age. But there's another way to expand the voting pool. Let criminals have the vote.

Just today, Beto O'Rourke released a plan that calls for letting all felons vote after leaving prison. Bernie Sanders has already gone further than that calling for felons to vote even while behind bars, and he is not alone.

Robert White is a city councilman in Washington, D.C., still the nation's capital. He has introduced a measure that would let convicted felons vote throughout their sentence, Councilman White was kind enough to join us tonight, and we're happy to see him. Mr. White, thanks a lot for coming on.

ROBERT WHITE, D-WASH. DC, COUNCILMAN-AT-LARGE: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

CARLSON: So when people commit felonies, they lose their rights. The Constitution is pretty clear about that. And voting is one of the rights they lose. What's the idea behind restoring it?

WHITE: Well, the Constitution isn't clear about that. When people commit a crime, when people are convicted of felonies, they don't lose their citizenship, they don't lose their civil liberties.

In fact, they don't even lose their right to counsel. Someone could commit a crime in front of the police and they would still have a right to counsel.

And what I would argue is that in a democracy, the right to vote is a much more fundamental right than the right to counsel.

CARLSON: They don't lose their civil liberties. People convicted of felonies are locked in a cage, often until they die. Sometimes they're executed, they're killed. Of course, they lose their civil liberties and the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery is really clear that involuntary servitude is banned, except as punishment for crime. And that's fine, except as punishment for crime.

So why would we lock a person in a cage, not allow him to have normal relations with anyone or even go outside, but he can still vote? I'm confused.

WHITE: Well, yes. So certainly you don't lose all or even most of your civil liberties. And in fact, I think that the right to vote is a basic right of democracy. In fact, when I catch your show, every once in a while, you were having a conversation not too long ago with a gentleman advocating for cities allowing noncitizens to vote in school board races.

And what you said to him in opposition was that citizenship is the right to influence democracy and I agreed with that.

CARLSON: Right.

WHITE: And so we can't decide -- you can't say that the right to vote is a right in some arguments and then in other arguments, you say, it's a privilege of democracy.

So I want us to be consistent and throughout the history of this country, we have expanded the right to vote, not contracted it.

A hundred years ago, yesterday, women got the right to vote. A hundred fifty years ago, African-Americans got the right to vote in this country. So what we've done over the course of history of this country is expanded the right to vote, not contracted it.

CARLSON: Okay. But hold on. The right to vote is not mentioned in the Constitution. I mean, you're the lawyer here, but the right to vote is not mentioned the Constitution that I'm aware of. The right to own a gun, to bear arms is mentioned.

But you're not trying to restore that right, that actual constitutional right to prison inmates, are you? Or is it just the one that might help you?

WHITE: Do they have a well-regulated militia in prison?

CARLSON: I don't know. I mean, the Supreme Court has interpreted in the Heller decision in Washington, D.C. as you know, because it's your city --

WHITE: I am all too familiar.

CARLSON: Yes, right. So the Heller decision says that the Second Amendment refers and protects individual gun ownership. That's what the Constitution explicitly says. But you're not trying to restore that right. You're only trying to restore the one that's not mentioned in the Constitution that could potentially help you. I'm just thinking maybe there's some self-interest involved here.

WHITE: Well, I'm not sure why there would be any self-interest. I mean, people are incarcerated of all political parties, right? And so I'm not sure that this is even a partisan issue. What this is, is an issue of --

CARLSON: Mostly Democrats actually, as you well know.

WHITE: It is the foundation of democracy.

CARLSON: Would you campaign in prisons?

WHITE: Would I campaign? I probably would, if it were necessary. Certainly, I would want to make sure that everybody who is able to vote has access to my message as a candidate, I think any candidate would.

But what we have to continue to do is incorporate people into our democracy. The most fundamental right in a democracy is the right to vote. And so you've mentioned some rights that people lose when they are incarcerated.

CARLSON: So wait, can I -- but that's not --

WHITE: But the majority of rights they don't lose.

CARLSON: Can I ask you a question? Super quick, the crime rate in D.C. is completely out of control, actually, particularly the murder rate is much higher than -- it's higher than Mexico, I think. Why wouldn't you spend more time convincing people in D.C. not to commit so many crimes and kill so many people and there will be fewer people in prison instead of their voting rights.

WHITE: Well, we can do more than -- we can't do multiple things at once. The crime rate in many cities right now are spiking.

CARLSON: And no one ever says that, like, "Hey, D.C. people, stop committing so many crimes." Why does no one ever say that?

WHITE: Well, we actually do say don't commit as many crimes and also what we do is try to make sure that we have the resources that people who commit crimes need so that when they come back to our city, they don't find themselves in the same state, but they still find themselves with opportunities. That means that they need access to our democracy.

CARLSON: Okay. I am not sure I follow the reasoning, but I appreciate your enthusiasm and above all, your willingness to come on. Mr. White, thank you very much.

WHITE Anytime. Thank you.

CARLSON: Lawyers in the semi-state of California are pushing to disbar the creepy porn lawyer and making the creepy porn former lawyer. One attorney tried to do that joins us after the break to explain why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TRACE GALLAGHER, CORRESPONDENT: Live from "America's News Headquarters," I'm Trace Gallagher in Los Angeles. President Trump is spending the night at his golf resort in Ireland during his first visit to the country as President. He insisted Brexit will not be a problem at all, but some analysts warn a hard deal could send economic shock waves across Europe.

Early tomorrow, the President heads to Normandy, France to take part in ceremonies marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

Back in D.C., Mr. Trump is facing a possible revolt within his own party. Republicans in Congress don't want tariffs on Mexican goods fearing that Americans will pay the price if the President's Mexican tariff plan takes effect.

He is demanding a tariff on all products from Mexico, unless that country does more to stop migrants heading to our border. The plan is set to take effect in five days.

News breaks out, we will break in. I'm Trace Gallagher. Now back to “Tucker Carlson.”

CARLSON: Well, it was just a year ago that the creepy porn lawyer appeared to be on top of the world. He was ruling the airwaves on MSNBC and CNN. Brian Stelter and the viewer hyping him as a presidential candidate.

Well, now the scam has ended spectacularly. The creepy porn lawyer was exposed as a fraud who robbed and exploited his own clients to enrich himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Avenatti allegedly embezzled and misappropriated millions of dollars in client settlement proceeds to which he was not entitled. The money was used to fuel a lavish lifestyle that had no limits, including making mortgage payments on a multimillion dollar home in Laguna Beach and purchasing a private plane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Not to brag, but we called it from day one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: You've profited from Stormy Daniels, you've done tens of millions of dollars with the free media on the basis of your relationship with her and she's working in strip clubs. You're exploiting her and you know that. Why aren't you paying her some of what you're making?

MICHAEL AVENATTI, ATTORNEY: Sir, this is absurd.

CARLSON: And you pose as a feminist hero, because you are shameless and the other channels let you get away with it, but you're an exploiter of a woman and you should be ashamed of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Stephen Larson is an attorney who represents one of creepy porn lawyer's former clients. He is pushing for CPL to be disbarred for what he did. He joins us now. Mr. Larson, thanks very much for coming on.

STEPHEN LARSON, ATTORNEY: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: Can you tell us what about his behavior, in your view, warrants disbarment?

LARSON: Well, my view is shaped by 30 years as a lawyer here in the state of California. I have been a judge, I've been a prosecutor myself for the last 10 years. I've been in private practice.

The legal profession means the world to me, and at the core of the legal profession, is honesty, trust, transparency, accountability to our clients. And for someone to do what Mr. Avenatti is accused of doing, not just by us, but now by the State Bar of California and two U.S. Attorney's Offices is beyond the pale. It threatens our justice system. It threatens the rule of law.

CARLSON: It certainly threatens to shape the public's view of your profession, which raises the obvious question, why hasn't he been disbarred already? I mean, just watching this on television, it was clear that the guy was a fraud and a menace?

LARSON: Well, our justice system depends on our process. And the process has been played out. Mr. Avenatti has not been convicted, he has not been found guilty. But just this week, the State Bar of California filed papers seeking to have him move to an involuntary inactive status.

They can only do that when they are convinced by clear and convincing evidence that he is a threat to the public or his clients, and that they believe that they will be successful, and a successful lead to disbarment, so it's a pretty unusual step for the State Bar to take.

Again, that hasn't been decided by the courts. It's working its way through the process. Part of our rule of law is people are innocent until proven guilty. We are confident that that's what the evidence will show and that's what will happen. But we do need to await the process.

CARLSON: Has he offered any sort of defense?

LARSON: None. We have not seen anything come forward, and he has the opportunity to do so. In fact, we brought an arbitration proceeding pursuant to our contract with our client and him. We brought it before JAMS. We wanted to have the arbitration, it required him to pay the arbitration fees, which he has refused to do.

We're now planning to dismiss that and move forward in the state courts, which is our right to do. He is doing, from our perspective, everything he can to delay this; again, it's within his rights. But at the end of the day, we are convinced that justice will prevail.

CARLSON: Can I just ask you a broader question, I can't resist? So you seem like a man of integrity and a serious person. You've been a prosecutor, a judge, private practice attorney. Most people don't like lawyers, not because of people like you, but because of people like CPL. There are a lot of sleazy lawyers out there, and almost none of them ever get disbarred.

Do State Bar Associations -- why don't they do something to improve the quality of lawyers? And maybe that would help all lawyers?

LARSON: Well, there's no question that we, as lawyers, and we regulate ourselves to a large extent. I mean, the State Bars on behalf of lawyers, we are largely a self-regulating profession.

CARLSON: I know.

LARSON: And we need to do a better job of that. The vast majority of lawyers, Tucker, are good people, and they're committed to the rule of law. Our judges are lawyers, I think by and large, in my experience are good people.

But given the sensitivity of the position, given the importance of the position of lawyers, one bad apple or a few bad apples can wreak havoc in the system. We do need to do a better job with regulating and policing.

CARLSON: That is totally true.

LARSON: Yes.

CARLSON: Nicely put. Mr. Larson, thank you for joining us.

LARSON: My pleasure. Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: The left calls itself the party of science, but at this point that seems more like a sarcastic description than anything else. Consider the issue of abortion.

If you cared about science, you would have been following the remarkable advances in ultrasound technology over the past 40 years. We know incalculably more about the developing child than we did in 1973 when Roe v. Wade became law. Scientifically, the early 1970s were the Dark Ages.

Look at the prenatal images available today. Go ahead. Seriously, assess them for yourself. Is that just another piece of flesh like a spleen or an appendix? Look at the picture. No, it's not. It's a human being, obviously.

And it's far too obvious, actually, for the purposes of the left. The abortion lobby doesn't want you to think about the reality behind their slogans. You might be horrified if you thought about it. So once again, they are suppressing science.

Lawmakers in Louisiana just passed a bill banning abortion after doctors can detect a fetal heartbeat. "The New York Times" didn't want you to know that. They were worried you might agree with it.

So their propagandist, a man called Alan Blinder, removed the tournament "fetal heartbeat" entirely from his story and replaced it with the phrase "embryonic pulsing." Haven't heard that term before?

Well, keep in mind that embryonic pulsing is not a scientific term. You won't find it anywhere in medical literature. It has no place in journalism. It is pure nonsense. Blinder apparently just made up determine himself in order to hide the truth from his readers. That is called fraud. It's also just another day at "The New York Times."

While the left's culture of death extends far beyond abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide, as well. The Netherlands has had euthanasia for many years. It led the world -- if you can call it that -- recently, doctors there euthanized a 17-year-old girl. She was not terminally ill. She wasn't sick at all, actually, she was depressed due to childhood trauma.

For that, doctors let her starve herself to death while refusing to intervene. They let her die. That's euthanasia. Despite horrors like this, activists are fighting to bring assisted suicide to the United States. Eight states already have it. Lawmakers in the state of Maine just passed a bill to legalize it this week. It awaits the Governor's signature.

Kristen Hanson is a community relations advocate with the Patient Rights Action Fund, knows a lot about this topic. And she joins us tonight. Thanks very much for coming on.

KRISTEN HANSON, COMMUNITY RELATIONS ADVOCATE, PATIENT RIGHTS ACTION FUND: Thank you for having me.

CARLSON: So this case in the Netherlands is horrifying. It's getting attention, but it's not unique. Tell us what you make of it.

HANSON: The system failed this young girl in the Netherlands and it's a tragedy. But we don't need to look to the Netherlands to see how laws that legalize assisted suicide here in America, abandon patients who are vulnerable to depression.

CARLSON: No, we don't.

HANSON: If we look at states -- no. So if we look at Oregon, the state that has this legalized longest in America, approximately 25 percent of patients -- a study in 2006 showed approximately 25 percent of patients were clinically depressed when they requested the lethal medications, and several of those patients were able to go on and receive the medication anyway.

These laws abandon vulnerable patients and it shows that -- the case here in the Netherlands shows that it's a short distance between justifying aiding people and killing themselves for terminal illness to rationalizing it for mental illness.

CARLSON: Of course, and the message that we're really saying, we're cloaking all of this in the rhetoric of personal liberation and freedom, your own choice, your own body, your own life. But what's really happening is we're sending a very clear message to the sick and the suffering, "You are inconvenient, you are expensive. You have a duty to die and get off the stage."

HANSON: Right. When does a right to die become a duty to die? These laws send the message that some lives are not worth living. And where do you logically draw that line? These laws are not about terminal illness, pain or suffering, it is saying that some lives are not worth living.

CARLSON: So a huge percentage of all deaths now in the Netherlands are by suicide, a huge percentage. I mean, the highest ever recorded in human history, by far.

And you have to sort of wonder at a certain point who is profiting from this? I mean, why wouldn't health insurance companies be all in favor of these laws? Well, of course, they would be, correct?

HANSON: These laws are ripe for abuse. And mistakes and coercion and abuse are common here in the United States. We have cases in Oregon and California now, where patients who have doctors requesting chemotherapy drugs for them were denied coverage for those treatments, even though they had curable cancers and were offered assisted suicide instead.

This creates perverse incentives for insurance companies to offer the cheapest option -- death.

CARLSON: That's unbelievable. It's unbelievable, and meanwhile, it's all about personal liberation. But what we can't see is that insurance companies have every incentive for you to just die. Yes, not surprising. Kristen, thanks very much for shining a light on that. It is horrifying.

HANSON: Thank you for having me.

CARLSON: A story that hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but is intriguing and sad. Three American tourists have died mysteriously at a single hotel in the Dominican Republic. Why? How did they die? Should we be worried about how they died? That story after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, there's a mystery tonight surrounding the deaths of Americans at a resort in the Caribbean. Several American tourists have died from a bizarre and still unexplained medical ailment. Our Trace Gallagher is on the story and he joins us tonight. Hey, Trace.

GALLAGHER: Hey, Tucker. There is no indication the first American woman who died at the Bahia Principe hotel knew the other American couple who died, but oddly they all checked in on the same day, May 25th.

Forty-one-year-old Miranda Schaup-Werner from Pennsylvania was on vacation with her husband, Dan celebrating their wedding anniversary. She was apparently happy, smiling and taking pictures and then her family says she got a drink from the minibar. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had a soda mixed with one of the small bottles of whatever alcohol it was, suddenly she called out to Dan and he came right over and she was unable to breathe. She collapsed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: Both her husband who is a doctor and paramedics tried and failed to revive her. Five days later, 63-year-old Edward Holmes and his 49-year-old fiancee, Cynthia Day, we're supposed to check out of the hotel, but staff found them in bed unresponsive.

Dominican Police say the autopsy shows the couple died of respiratory failure and pulmonary edema or water in the lungs. Though it would be highly unusual for both to die of the same thing at the same time.

Now when Miranda Schaup-Werner's family heard about the death of the American couple, they edcall the State Department. So far the State Department isn't aware of any connection between the cases. They are investigating. But the Schaup-Werner family thinks there is a link and wonders why the glass Miranda drank out of was never tested.

We should note tourism is the primary driver of the Dominican economy, and most visitors are Americans -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Bizarre story. Trace Gallagher, thank you for that.

GALLAGHER: Yes.

CARLSON: So what is causing these mysterious deaths? And what should Americans know before traveling to the region? Dr. Marc Siegel is, of course, our trusted medical source. He's a Fox medical contributor and joins us tonight. Doctor, thanks for coming on.

MARC SIEGEL, MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Hi, Tucker.

CARLSON: So I guess some of this is unknowable, you haven't seen the autopsy results. But is there a likely cause?

SIEGEL: Well, Tucker, the Police in the Dominican Republic are looking at gas leaks or carbon monoxide. But I think that that's highly likely -- a highly unlikely if this story about rapid onset of respiratory failure and fluid in the lungs is accurate, I think about poison.

And as Trace Gallagher just pointed out, they never tested the glass and I'm not so sure I believe everything coming out of there. Here are some poisons that can cause this.

Botulism is one, arsenic is one. Opioids is one. You could have opioids in a drink and fentanyl or something like that and you could stop breathing.

So when you see respiratory failure and fluid in the lungs, you think of poison. So I'm wondering about that. And I think that that absolutely has to be ruled out in this situation. It could be a maniac.

And by the way, the U.S. State Department has pointed out to us, Fox "Brain Room" told us that there's been 105 homicides of Americans in the Dominican Republic since 2002. So this is a cause of death down there, and it's something that you have to really be on the lookout for.

CARLSON: A hundred and five since 2002. It's not a very big island. So that would be, if true, and we don't know, but it sounds plausible, but that would be something that potentially the government of the Dominican Republic would not be interested in publicizing.

SIEGEL: Absolutely not. And you know, there are others like organophosphates, crab extract -- these things can cause it as well, and they wouldn't want you to know about it.

Now, the rapidity of onset is suspicious for some of the things I mentioned, like botulism, like opioids, but yes, I think that that's -- it's highly suspicious for that and they wouldn't want us to know about it.

By the way, the other main cause of death down there, non-natural cause is vehicular accidents. So as long as I'm advising people what to do down there, watch what you drink and eat. But watch what you drive, you know, you don't know the rules down there and you can easily get into a car accident in a foreign country like that.

CARLSON: So I mean, advice for other than be careful, you know, what car you get into; advice for people traveling down there?

SIEGEL: Well, I think you've got to remember, you're not in your own country. You know, if you go down there, it looks beautiful. It looks like everything is safe. I mean, I'm not going to tell everybody that's down there to watch what's in the minibar.

But, you know, there's a lot of things down there that can get you ill, and you're not entirely safe.

By the way, there's a lot of reasons I don't think this is an infectious disease because it happened too quickly and they didn't have other symptoms.

But reports of that particular hotel is that there's birds all over the place there. You can get sick from the birds there. You can get the flu. You can get a lot of contagious diseases, too, that you're not ready for in other countries, so you have to be on the lookout for that. It's not being in your own backyard. It's beautiful. Enjoy yourself, but be on the lookout.

CARLSON: I'm going to Atlantic City. Dr. Siegel, thank you very much.

SIEGEL: Hawaii. Good to see you.

CARLSON: Good to see you. Hawaii. Okay, better. Better. Well, elitist the world over look down on you for not using the metric system with their kilometers or whatever they're called. Now one writer is making a stand in our defense -- in defense of pints, pounds and yards. He is here with his case next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Almost every nation on Earth has fallen under the yoke of tyranny -- the metric system -- from Beijing to Buenos Aires from Lusaka to London, the people the world have been forced to measure their environment in millimeters and kilograms.

The United States is the only major country that has resisted, but we have no reason to be ashamed for using feet and pounds. So says "New Criterion" editor, James Panero. We spoke with him recently.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMES PANERO, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, NEW CRITERION: I'm joining tonight as an anti-metrite. I am taking a stand against the metric system, the original system of global revolution and new world orders.

CARLSON: God bless you. And that's exactly what it is. Esperanto died, but the metric system continues. This weird, utopian inelegant, creepy system that we alone have resisted. How long can we hold out against it, would you say?

PANERO: Well today, as you mentioned, the United States stands nearly alone in the world in maintaining customary measures -- the inch, the pound, the foot, the mile -- and we should stand tall on our own two feet, I say, because it was customary measures that measured out the Industrial Revolution and customary measures that took us to the moon.

The metric system, meanwhile, is the product of the French Revolution. It was imposed at the business end of the guillotine.

CARLSON: So why are our leaders so anxious that we join the rest of the world in using, you know, Rob Speyer's favorite standard of measurement? I don't understand.

PANERO: Well, that's right, because it's assumed to be progressive, it's assumed that everyone has gotten behind it. Let me take you back to a bit of history, 1793, the height of the French Revolution, the height of the French terror, the chopine, pouce, pied du roi -- that's the foot of the king, the measurement of France replaced it with the meter.

Now all customary measures use man and his labor as the basis of its measurement. What's an acre? It's the amount of land that a yoke of oxen can till in one day. A mile comes from relay passes or 5,000 paces -- a thousand paces of five feet each. A meter is what? It's an abstract division of the globe, that isn't even accurate.

CARLSON: So it's completely made up out of nothing.

PANERO: It is totally made up and here is something else, even worse than overturning custom has been the meters in position of 10. It's a 10-size fits all mentality.

Now, here's how it gets crazy. The French Revolution went all in for 10. They tried to impose a 10-day week, a hundred hours, a hundred minutes, a hundred seconds. They had a whole revolutionary calendar. Now the metric system with its tens is what remains of their radicalism.

Now that sounds reasonable. Actually counting my 10 is pretty good. We have 10 fingers. You can count your money in 10. It's good for abstract calculations.

It's not great for measuring things in the real world. There's a reason why our measurement system is twelves, eights and sixties. It comes from ancient knowledge, ancient wisdom from the Romans, 12; from the Babylonians, 60. Why?

Because those numbers divide up evenly into thirds, fourths, halves and enables common people to make calculations and to measure their lives without complex arithmetic.

What's a third of a foot? It's four inches. What's a third of a meter? 33.3 something centimeters, it doesn't even add up. You see the problem right there?

CARLSON: I do. I do see the problem. And I've never heard it as eloquently expressed as you just did. I think you give a lot of us heart to keep fighting against the global tyranny of the metric system and bless you for that.

PANERO: Well, thank you. You know, our system is quaint, but it's ours. It connects us to our ancestors through cups, through teaspoons and tablespoons. I can still cook the recipes of my grandparents. And it's that connection to the past that the French Revolution and the revolutionaries have always tried to destroy.

CARLSON: Yes, I'll accept the kilometer when we accept the euro. Never. Thanks very much. Good to see you.

PANERO: All right, thank you, Tucker.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: That's it for us tonight. The hour is over. We'll be back tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m., the show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink.

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