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This week on the Big Show: Ricochet contributor and political consultant to the stars @theRickWilson on the Governor’s race in Florida and a look at other contests around the country. Then, the federal government is too damn big, pondering whether or not we are past peak fast food, RIP Ben Bradlee, and will China’s growth stunt our own? Also, keep your ears peeled for a rare Peter Robinson presidential impression.
Music from this week’s episode:
Deep Down In Florida by Muddy Waters
The opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
Not a fan, EJHill.
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When is live chat coming back?
In late November.
Peter has that “Fabio” quality, no? My only advice, Gentlemen of Ricochet, don’t hate them ’cause they’re beautiful…
Is James going to do any more Diner episodes?
Only Reagan level members will be allowed.
Have not seen this on my own devices, nor have we seen other reports of this in the support box. If you start seeing this again, let us know.
Not true! All members are welcome to participate in the live chat.
We had to stop live streaming while we were playing the member pitch call (it’s complicated…), but we’re done with that promotion for the time being and will resume the live stream after the NR Cruise in the third week of November.
Oh goodness, guys. It is a real category error to compare DoD to other federal agencies. It is huge and has the most federal employees of any agency with the VA as a distant second. It is responsible for more than half the government’s discretionary spending. And if you believe it’s financial house is in order, just ask GAO. There’s a huge amount of bureaucratic waste at DoD. And private defense contractors are committing outright fraud in fleecing the government.
This phoning-in you guys have been doing the last few podcasts has been really frustrating. You don’t even have to read up, just go have coffee with a few senior level government employees. I’ve been a member for 4.5 years and I love you guys, but the poor quality of content is threatening your relevance. You guys need to have some better quality guests and beef up on topics you’re discussing. People won’t join if you continue to be the conservative equivalent of The View.
I think that I heard Rob mention a meet up at the Mayflower in DC on Monday evening. I’ve just registered for The 7 Deadly Virtues on Tuesday. Are these events related or was I imagining the Monday night thing?
To answer the question posed at the beginning of the podcast, the government is unable to do things because it is not properly funded. If you went to an Ivy League school or any other decent college, you will know that this is an incontestable truth.
Didn’t we say that? I seem to remember one of us making that point — that the DoD is no one’s idea of efficient, that it wastes money, that it has problems. But that was the whole point — the DoD is, more than any other federal spending bucket, held to a higher standard of performance. If you tell people you’re going to invade Iraq, you have to actually invade Iraq. Not so with Interior or Agriculture or Education. That was the basic point. Sorry if it seemed like “phoning it in.”
And sorry, too, that you feel the guests haven’t been up to snuff. I’ve actually enjoyed Rick, and Michael Barone, and Alan Dershowitz, and Paul Rahe, and Pat Sajak. And that’s just this month.
Heck, I thought we’ve had great up-to-snuff voices on the show. Name me another podcast that had Peter Robinson and Rob Long!
And James Likeks!
As for guests, you’re just not in the big leagues of political talk until you’ve booked John McCain…
I’m the wife of a Veteran who served in OEF/OIF, so I appreciate the deference you give those in Defense, but they aren’t the only ones with hard-working, quality people. Nor is DoD the only entity responsible for protecting people and saving lives, but comparing DoD with the Interior is like comparing Canada with Cameroon. You guys consistently criticize government employees, but you don’t have any guests that understand how government functions beyond broad policy positions. For instance, you guys referred to the VA as single-payer type entity (on a previous podcast), which it isn’t accurate, then knock VA employees – a third of which are Veterans, by the way. And parroting politicos isn’t enough. I joined Ricochet, because I want to help reform and reduce government – but I’m just a stay at home mom in suburban Maryland.
Dershowitz is an exception to the recent guests – he understands that getting things done is more than criticizing the opposition and getting people you like elected, and he knows how to get it done . But he’s also a Democrat, and Democrats have an advantage over us in that they are better positioned to implement policy. Democrats don’t shine a light on mistakes. Conservatives add value because they take an adversarial position toward government. Elected people like Issa and Miller, but also non-elected people in government that need to be part of this conversation and aren’t. And you won’t attract them, unless we offer a more informed POV.
This isn’t a light-weight site, which sets it apart. And I so want it to be successful and a major player, which is why I’m giving this feedback.
@Karen: Suggest some names you’d like to hear and we’ll get them on.
Congressman Ted Poe. Ask him about Texas. Ask him about Rick Perry. Ask him about what it has been like to be a genuine conservative under President Obama and Speaker Boehner. What does he think Republicans can accomplish before 2016?
Karen, I’m sorry, but I still don’t really understand your point. Comparing federal cabinet-level departments isn’t comparing apples and oranges — it’s comparing federal bureaucracies of different sizes. That’s okay. It’s comparing small apples to big apples. And in any case, the difference in the size of DoD relative to other federal cabinet-level agencies just bolsters the point I was making, that DoD — despite its inefficiency and waste — “succeeds” because it has a clear set of deliverables. I still don’t see what about that is controversial. (Boring, maybe, but not wrong.)
And the VA medical system is the closest thing we have to what liberals imagine when they talk about a single-payer system. As a system it’s a mess. And a dangerous fraud, frankly, especially when recent events are factored in. Do you disagree? Do you think the VA health care system is working?
Yes, there are lots of “hard working quality people” in all areas of government. There are good people at the DMV. There are dedicated and talented teachers who are in public school teachers’ unions. But that doesn’t mean the systems and departments they work for aren’t hopelessly ineffective.
Finally, I love Alan Dershowitz, but he’s a law school professor. I’m not sure what he’s “gotten done,” to use your formulation. He’s smart and interesting and a great conversationalist, but hardly a political mover.
I get that you may disagree with our points, and you may simply be bored by the other non-Dershowitz guests like Paul Rahe and Michael Barone, who aren’t, in your eyes “doers.” But that doesn’t make them, or us, lightweights. Again, I’m sorry you think the content is “poor” — there’s nothing I can do, I’ve learned, to convince someone who simply doesn’t like something that they’re “wrong;” everyone has his or her own taste — but there’s nothing inappropriate about comparing relative effectiveness in federal agencies or saying that the VA is, basically, what you get when you talk about “single payer” systems.
Thanks for the opportunity to make suggestions! Here’s my list. Some might have been on before, but I’d like to see them come back. I realize some of these folks won’t come on, but I can dream.
1. David Walker – Director of GAO under Bush
2. Dan Bongino – Running for Congress, former cop and Secret Service
3. G. William Whitehurst
4. Gen. Stanley McChrystal
5. Mike Pence
6. Bill Frist
7. Richard Carmona – ask him about Ebola, since we don’t currently have a Surgeon General
8. Gen. James Mattis – he did a stint at Hoover recently
9. Mitch Daniels
10. Eric Shinseki
11. Condi Rice
12. Bob Gates
Well, that should get you started. :)
That’s a great list! I’d love to have Mitch on again, though I sense he’s taking a lower profile since leaving office.
And Mike Pence would be great, too.
Rob: “Fast food isn’t going anywhere. Fast food trends may go.”
Agreed.
I have noticed a change in the past decade or so. The change is increased competition from take-out (only) places like Quiznos, Firehouse Subs, Rudy’s (in Texas), FreeBirds, and the like.
Another change is ubiquity of dieting crazes and “organic” menus. I’m not knocking efforts of many people to reduce the amount of preservatives, thickening agents, and sugars they ingest. But there will always be a large market for people who simply don’t care about nutrition and just want something that tastes good.
McDonald’s will undoubtedly continue its appeals to health nuts. But eventually some savvy chain owner will figure out that he can make a bundle by giving people a bunch of fat, bacon grease, and sweets. Then President Obama, under the gun from Mrs Obama, will sign an executive order outlawing the stuff. Or maybe he will simply send his new Attorney General to threaten the chain with paperwork and investigations.
Someone did! It was CKE, who own Carl’s Jr. and Hardees. Unabashedly about the fat. (And pretty good for fast food, actually.)
The USS Detroit is on a diplomatic mission to sell Cadillacs to Nigerians in exchange for Ebola samples.
Sadly, Hardees commercials sometimes deter the people who want their burgers. I know plans for one got canned recently because local residents didn’t want a peddler of soft porn on their doorstep.
Well, VA isn’t really the closest thing to single payer, because it isn’t a payer, Medicare is. And Obamacare expands Medicare. Liberals might want a UK-style National Health Service, but that’s not what we’re dealing with in Obamacare. As for the VA, the IG was clear about what needs improving within the VA, but have Philip Longman on to talk about why the VA is The Best Care Anywhere. If you think VA care stinks, I’ve got some personal stories to tell you about DoD healthcare.
Every agency has a clear set of deliverables, but not all agencies are as much in the public eye as DoD. I don’t understand the usefulness of comparing agencies to each other, since they have vastly different budgets and missions. We breath clean air and drink uncontaminated water, does that make the EPA better or worse than DoD? Every agency needs improving, and some don’t even need to exist at all. Let’s have that discussion.
I mentioned Dershowitz, not because he’s a” doer,” but because he was more specific in addressing policy concerns regarding Israel, than other guests have been with their particular pet issues, IMO. I don’t hear a lot of specifics from Paul Rahe, beyond speculation and the usual talking points, though he’s a nice guy and asset to the site. Michael Barone is great, but if we want to take back the country, it has to be more than talking about the next election or polls. I think we’d attract more people if we had more guests directly involved in policy formulation and implementation. Thanks for discussing this with me Rob. I know you’re a busy guy and your time is valuable.
It’s not just the people that work under DoD that make it more effective than other Federal agencies, IT’S THE MISSION!
I understand that the primary purpose of any government is to protect the rights of life, liberty, and property. This requires the organization to equip to defend and perhaps take offensive action against an enemy or criminal. The history of civilization demonstrates that governments are well-versed in organizing for defense or war. Identifying the enemy, denying the enemy a foothold, and killing the enemy are all fundemental to the task of protection, and as Rob said, relatively easy to measure the result versus the goal.
What governments are not so well-suited for is taking positive action to make the citizens act better toward each each other for mutual benefit. The best it can do is set up conditions for that to happen through adherence to Rule of Law and an independent judiciary. J.Goldberg wrote in Liberal Fascism that the Government can’t love you, and that was a fatal conceit of the Progressive movement.
At the Federal Level, this means a monopoly on the offensive use of force against entities that would do harm to the United States. By and large, the people who populate DoD are those who recognize the sad reality that evil exists and must be defended against, so Peter had that piece right.
Most of the other Federal agencies are creatures of the Progressive imagination, and are now justified in terms that sound a lot like national defense, but are just rackets of protection for the politically connected. Since they have the aura of Washington DC and enjoy an astronomical distance of relationship between citizen and appointed official (as opposed to between voter and elected official), the only metric that counts is keeping the connected happy, and little accountability beyond that.
I don’t mean to imply that there is not a role for positive action by government at some level, but most of it must be local if any decent metrics for success and accountability are to be developed. Not to mention all of us cynics being allowed to see direct benefits of cronyism right in our own neighborhood instead of hearing about it in Fairfax County, VA.
mugs, AMEN. The federal government is not supposed to do what the States are capable of. They are not capable of managing the united defense, and a few specifically enumerated other things.
While I despise the metastasized commerce clause interpretations, there are still valid applications. Tariffs and reciprocity, Okay. Wickard v Filburn, not so much.
Notwithstanding any of this, the more Paul Rahe the better.
I was wondering who promoted my article – and provided some snazzy copy edits as well.
Great!
I read Karen’s first comment before I listened to the podcast. I was anxious to hear what was going to be said. I was expecting the usual “government workers are all a bunch of lazy, overpaid sponges” or words to that effect. I actually agreed with much of what was said. The DoD workers I know (and I’m married to one) take their job very seriously, probably because their work directly impacts the fleet. (If a pilot in theater pushes a button and nothing happens – they get the phone call.) They are also well aware of DoD inefficiency because they have to deal with it daily.
All in all, another great podcast.