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This week, we’re hash tagging like the cool kids as we tackle hash tag diplomacy, global warming, oops, we mean, climate change, no sorry, climate action, oh, whatever. Then it’s some serous DC wonking out with the WaPo’s Bob Costa, followed by political consultant Rick Wilson. Who’s running, who’s sitting, what’s it like to work for Jeff Bezos, and what is Rob Long really doing in Amsterdam? We’ve got those answers and more. Tune in!
Music from this week’s’ episode:
Hot Hot Hot by Buster Poindexter and His Banshees of Blue
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I find it ironic that the Dutch Republic has successfully managed sea levels for the better part of 500 years, so I have a question for Peter Robinson. Would you rather lose a few feet of coastline or the liberty bestowed on this great nation by our Founding Fathers? Choose well, good sir, because our future depends on it.
Climate Change
GOP hopefuls need to point out how electric bills are marching straight up. I learned yesterday mine will be going up by about 10%. Gasoline is bumping $4/gal. This has a lot to do with the stranglehold the Climate Nazis have on the Democratic Party, shutting down coal, strangling nuclear, proscribing oil and gas.
They need to point out how food is a lot more expensive because of the ethanol mandates (when you divert that much corn to being used as fuel, the price of everything edible goes up), and the man-made drought in California. Again forced down our throats by the Greens.
They need to point out how everyone but the 1% is going to be forced to drive a golf cart made out of plastic to meet fuel efficiency standards.
They need to point out how obeisance to the Church of Environmental Lunacy is costing everyone a lot of money. Money the middle class and poor have a lot less of than the deep-pocket coastal Leftist elites whose money insulates them from the effects their policies cause.
A Lileks mention! I am one step closer to finishing my Bucket List.
A question that, as the lawyers say, answers itself. Nicely put, Mugwump.
So long as Republicans in general fail to effectively combat Democrats’ lies about them and relinquish all control of the public’s focus to liberal media, Republicans must base their strategies on the liberal narratives which dominate. That is why Jeb Bush is an awful candidate, whatever his gubernatorial merits. The liberal media will make Jeb’s campaign about “another Bush” and not about Jeb himself. And we all know how well they amped hatred of the Bush family.
What’s really depressing is that the mere inclusion of a Bush in the Republican primaries, even if he is not a leading candidate, will be used by the liberal media to smear the entire Republican party. They will paint the current crop of Republicans as “more of the same” and repeat the mind-numbingly successful “War on Women” strategy by inventing a general persona for all Republicans.
As always, Republicans’ wishful myopia is matched only by their incompetent PR.
The argument against Rick Perry is apparently that he tried and failed. But then why was it okay for Romney to run a second time?
Having been through the national media machine once before and being over his back surgery, he would perform better this time around, charismatically. The difference in competition is considerable, though.
I know how you guys like the Lileks segues, but I couldn’t help wondering when Lileks was going to interrupt Costa during the meat of his talk.
I am certainly glad he didn’t and when the inevitable (like death and taxes) occurred, it was still priceless.
Rob, thanks for asking the QOTD: what is a Tea Party supporter?
In my mind, I am a Tea Party supporter, but not in the likes hated and ridiculed by the likes of McConnell, Boehner, Cantor, etc. etc.. So, in other words, I have been feeling disenfranchised and still feel that way.
So, establishment types, what is so wrong with being a supporter as compared to the organization? Why do you guys wish to do nothing and lose as compared to doing something and at least getting respect when you lose?
Mitch McConnell might indeed be a generally savvy ringleader. But let’s not forget the time that he split the Republican position against raising the debt ceiling by coming out of left field with an idiotic plan to empower the President with authority to unilaterally raise the ceiling himself. The notion that voters would not hold Republicans accountable for raising the debt ceiling if they relinquished that authority to the President was insane. Leaving aside McConnell’s goals and ethics, the man’s strategic decisions are not always reliable.
Besides, his political savvy should be understood in light of his calcified Senate career. Who wouldn’t know how to play the game so well after three decades in Congress?
Is this the right time to change the party leadership? Perhaps not, regardless of whether or not they deserve to be canned. But let’s not talk about the man as if he’s an MVP.
The unspoken question of the podcast: Should the government regulate runaway octothorpes?
“They don’t give a fig about those girls.” Rob nails it.
Perry’s record on immigration policy was also part of his troubles. Particularly his characterization that if you disagreed with giving in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, “I don’t think you have a heart.”
The difference between establishment and tea party is style? Really? Or did the guys just want to move on to the next topic and not waste time arguing that?
Near the end, Lileks was on a rant and both Peter and Rob tried to butt in. Lileks was having none of it and finished his rant. Now, that was priceless.
Dudes,
Michelle O’Barry’s ridiculous shametag has absolutely zero to do with saving innocents from the horrors of Sharia law. Zippo. Goose egg. Empty.
Instead, it has everything to do with appearances and appealing to political demographics that will happily sop up their crap with an extra-large sponge and re-post it everywhere social media “lives”, and the WH will reap some kind of approval bumpage along the way.
That’s it. That’s all it is. It’s craven. It’s worthless. Oh, and the one guy on the planet with the most resources to actually go Get Some Girls Back ™, is her sappified, palsied nincompoop of a failed lecturer husband, Barry O’Grandstand.
The Laughable Twins belong at a college, futzing around with campus politics and positioning for the next big board meeting. They have absolutely no place being in charge of the military, nor a lemonade stand. Michelle and Barry’s saccharine presence will be with us long after they’ve barked and bailed out of the WH.
This is not something to look forward to.
To echo other sentiments, making the case that McConnell is the guy we need to have in there helps explain why our budget goes up every year, why deficits tripled under Barry (after Bush set them at record levels), why the economy is in the tank with all the federal overhang of spending, debt, and massive regulation growth.
The people in Congress are largely the problem. Let’s say it again: They are the problem. We don’t solve problems by going right back to doing what we’ve always done and expect a different result.
Subject: Debbie Schlussel exposes Darrell Issa & Jeb Bush’s support for Sharia finance
Rob – ‘This is something we can talk about so we’ll look good.’ # provocative weakness
Procol Haram A whiter shade of pale leaves Boko Haram for dead.. But then I’m a product of the West what would I know…
She said there is no reason
And the truth is plain to see
But I wandered through my playing cards
And would not let her be
One of sixteen vestal virgins
Who were leaving for the coast
And although my eyes were open
They might just as well’ve been closed
how has “brilliant parlimentarian” Mitch McConnell thwarted anything Reid has wanted to do?
Like Jeb, McConnell gets the “effective, brilliant” label attached to him without anything to back it up.
Peter, we don’t dislike Jeb because we are tired of Bushes.
Jeb is a big government, Chamber of Commerce crony capitalist, amnesty, Common Core, Karl Rove Republican who would do nothing to limit the federal leviathan (I’ve never heard him mention anything of this sort).
Wat leuk! Mijnheer Long kan een beetje nederlands praten! Lees jij de volkskrant of het algemeen dagblad waneer jij in nederland bent?
Thought about Whiter Shade of Pale for the closing song, but I thought playing it would trivialize the issue as much as a hashtag did.
Thanks Butters. The problem with Jeb isn’t his surname, it is his positions.
My hash tag # provocative weakness or yours?
BY- I see now it was a hashtag. was reading the hashtag .. So much hashtagery has sent my eyes in a swirl…
Rob (paraphrased): A cynical ploy to fool the naive.
Bingo. Welcome to the results of our lefty-educated voting public.