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We’ve reached peak news cycle. So much going on. And when that happens, we reach out to people who make it their business to cover the news: that’s the WSJ’s Bill McGurn and the Washington Post’s Bob Costa. They help us sort through the Kavanaugh controversy, the scandals in the Catholic Church, trade wars with China, and some predictions about the upcoming mid-terms. Also, Rob Long deconstructs the old show biz adage that “nobody knows anything.” Listen!
Music front his week’s podcast: Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do by Billie Holliday
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Awesome Keith Ellison joke in the beginning. The double standard is so obvious now, can anyone pretend that it doesn’t exist? Would a Democrat nominee for the US Supreme Court, if they were accused of something illicit happening over 35 years ago have to go through this? Or would the accuser get the Juanita Broaddrick treatement?
Rob, the Democrats were acting this way long before Trump became a politician. Remember the Bork and Thomas hearings. Bush was called Hitler. The Democrats are not imitating Trump but instead are attempting to delay the vote until after the election.
@peterrobinson, if you want to keep up more with the Catholic Church, join us over in the Ricochet Catholics Group.
What is going on in the Church today is as big as any other news story – I was glad you spent a few minutes with Mr. McGurn discussing the issues.
Interesting near the end concerning who is controlling morals, etc. Nassim Taleb in his “Skin in the Game” claims it is the least tolerant that set the rules. That seems true. I think everyone here understands the tolerance of the self proclaimed tolerant.
It doesn’t require any kind of blind faith in Ed Whelan to figure that it’s quite possible that “Doctor” Ford is “remembering” the wrong person, IF anything really happened at all.
Just one mistake in this “episode” description, or at least just one remaining after perhaps previous corrections:
Hear, hear! I signed on just to make this very point.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen people frame the Kavanaugh debacle strictly in terms of Trump. I’ve seen Trump supporters say the Democrats are just doing this to block Trump, for example.
But this has very little to do with Trump. If Rob thinks that the Democrats would not be behaving exactly the same if, say, Jeb Bush were President and nominated Kavanaugh, he really hasn’t been paying attention for the last 30-odd years.
I would like to join Rob’s mini-rant about Ford insisting on being called ‘Dr. Ford’ and look forward to her referring only to ‘Judge Kavanaugh’ in her testimony and media interviews.
But apparently Bob Costa got the memo. He referred to ‘Kavanaugh’ three times and ‘Dr. Ford’ once. It wouldn’t have been so noticeable if he hadn’t referred to them both in one sentence.
I compare it to a UFO abduction story. Under the influence of a therapist, some fragmentary memories (or nothing at all) are developed into a narrative, a false memory that the patient cannot thereafter tell from a real one.
The curious lack of detail in this particular narrative — Ford can’t even remember the year — suggests it may have started as a dream.
I have a few memories like that, quite vivid but which could never have actually taken place. For example, I remember seeing Saturn with its rings through the window of my parents’ station wagon, as a kid. The trouble is, you can’t see Saturn’s rings without a telescope!
P.S. @roblong if you’re not making the payroll, maybe it’s time to cut back on the number of podcasts or something?
Maybe it was when your parents took you on that road trip to Jupiter?
I doubt that they pay anything for most of them.
They need more libertarian / Austrian stuff.
This is my opinion about Kudlow. I like him as an interviewer, but he spent his whole life babbling about “King Dollar”. He’s just another Wall Street inflationist. Trump is an inflationist developer, “a low interest rate man.” 99% of all American citizens are inflationists. That is why the GOP isn’t really conservative, and conservatism / libertarianism can’t work or sell under this inflationist regime. There really isn’t that much difference between the parties, because of this. It creates all kinds of social problems.
Ronald Reagan wanted to get rid of central bank discretion, but his hands were tied by other objectives. The second the Soviet Union fell, the whole West should have looked into it.
I’m not an expert, but I think that geopolitical dominance and our ability to protect trade routes requires a loose central-bank.
So get behind Trump. He’s just a creature of our era, just like socialism is popular now.
Trump’s trade regime makes me very nervous, but there are some smart hedge fund guys that think he’s doing the right thing. That is just a fact.
This is way over my head, but I once heard that the only countries that should have tariffs are the ones with weak central banks. Little countries without powerful militaries.
P.S. show me a debt to GDP or anything like that anywhere on the planet that has a good trend line. There aren’t any. Do you really think that voting better and telling everyone to grow up is going to make any difference?
Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™
I think it’s been said in the past that the people who do the recording etc, get paid. At least for some of them.
I count 55 podcasts in the pull-down menu, of which I regularly listen to three. Maybe it’s just me, but if any of those are costing money – money that Ricochet apparently doesn’t have – trimming that back by, oh, say, 70 or 80%, wouldn’t be a big problem.
Right but not all of them need producers. Even if they do, Ricochet is excellent marketing in exchange. I never would have tracked down “Problematic Women” etc. etc. without it.
Obviously, this is all guesswork.
Sorry about editing that while you were replying.
No problem.
People need to shell out for good content. $2.50 a moth is no big deal. The flagship podcast is something I’m very grateful for. I generally loathe that type of analysis anywhere. I’ve picked up a bunch of other good ones here.
The output of Mises.org is incredible. It’s all free, but I give them five bucks a month anyway. Nobody, and I mean nobody, comes close to improving the world with good content like those guys.
I forget where I heard this, but you are a sucker if you don’t pay for your news and information. I shell out for some views of hedge fund type people.
P.S. does anyone know why so much (colloquialism) money flows into Vox.com? All they do is make everyone dumber every day.
Look at Think Progress. There is this guy from Minnesota, his name is Aaron Rupar. He went from being a serious reporter, to a complete prostitute for George Soros. He’s everywhere on Twitter. Then there is Ian Millhauser.
Support your content providers. The survival of The Republic depends on it.
I’ve been trying to include a cartoon with this post, but I can’t get it to work. Which is odd, since I got a Mugato photo to include in another thread. (The Remnant, I think it was.) Maybe ricochet allows jpg or png or something, but not gif? I dunno.
Anyway, it’s Non-Sequitur from 5-4-09. In the first panel, a kinda hippie/millennial type looking at his laptop, says to the older guy next to him at the restaurant who is reading a newspaper, “Enjoy it while you can.”
The older guy says, “Enjoy what?”
Millennial says “Your old newspaper. It’s all here for free online.”
Millennial continues, “Aggregate news sites are taking over, so all the newspapers will soon be out of business.”
Older guy says “Oh. So then where will those sites go for all their news links?”
Millennial looks baffled. “Um…”
Older guy says, “Enjoy it while you can.”
I have listened to at least one episode all the podcast series. I’ve listened to a lot of episodes of most of the series. But there are only so many hours in the day, so I miss a lot. Ricochet is a great deal and I’m glad to pay the membership fee. I get a lot more out of it than any other fee paying website.
On the problems with the Catholic Church, I’m distressed that the ongoing ephebophilia crisis. I’m even more distressed by the recent capitulation to red China. That’s because this is official church policy. With the first problem, there is at least de jure outrage.
I found his theory the most believable so far.
Great podcast. Loved the Keith Ellison joke at the start. I do wish though, as you mentioned that America is getting mean, fighting low in politics etc. Make a difference between the Left and the Right. I know we on the Right are not all pure Angels, but, the Left fights mean, low and dirty and they have from the start. We don’t ever sink that low. There is still a rotten deep state at so many levels that I can’t believe Donald Trump can get anything done at all! (See Project Veritas) We are in the middle of a soft coup right now and need some fighters in the Government at all levels. Please Mr. Sessions, resign! (Trey Gowdy please take his place) Republicans had better get off their tepid behinds and VOTE!! We are not out of the woods by any means. We are very threatened!
Explain to me how one can argue with any of this.
The podcasts have sponsors (at least the ones I’ve listened to do), which I presume help defray production costs, and maybe even turn a small profit — who knows?
Fixed!
Agree. Problematic Women is the best of the podcasts led by women.
Great topics. Great analysis. I love it. I’ve always been kind of suspicious of The Heritage Foundation but the podcasts a really good.
Ricochet should learn something from Tor.com. Tor displays a list of recent comments, regardless of where they happen to be. Right now there could be a lively discussion going on that you would like to read, but if you aren’t following that particular posting or podcast you will never know.
That’s a good point. Right now, Ricochet only shows you certain things that get “promoted” by someone, and even then they’re easy to miss.