Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
After a brief hiatus, the Ricochet Podcast returns this week with our old friends Pat Sajak and Mickey Kaus. We talk filibusters, drones, that dinner with the President, democracy Twitter-style, the benefits of free online courses, sequestration, immigration, and tax cuts. It’s a veritable verbal verisimilitude of vocal viscosity — in other words, our own homegrown filibuster.
Music from this week’s show:
- You Talk Too Much by Joe Jones
Democracy turns on EJHill.
Sign up today for Hillsdale College’s new FREE online American Heritage course. Go to Ricochet.com/Hillsdale
Subscribe to The Ricochet Podcast in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
Well, that and Jean Arthur.
I am currently signed up for and participating in my fourth Hillsdale class. About half way though my first class I began to resent the inadequacies of my own college education and then the absurdity of the education my son received doing his Bachelor’s degree at the University of Washington in the 1990s.
Listening to several hours of Senator Rand Pauls filibuster yesterday felt like one of the Hillsdale lectures. The classes I took with Hillsdale made the entire discussion totally relevant in a way it never would have been prior to taking those classes.
Abraham Lincoln was wrong to allow Sherman and Sheridan to indiscriminately kill civilians. As was FDR in allowing the incineration of German cities.
As was FDR in allowing the incineration of German cities. ·7 minutes ago
Huh? American “precision” daylight bombing, while hardly civilian casualty-free, was a model of how to conduct stratigic bombing while trying to minimize civilian casualties. Given the enemy’s willingness to wage war against the allies war making industries, the allies had no choice but to do the same. Failure to do so woudl have allowed the Germans to develop the V-1, V-2, Me-262 etc. in peace. The war woudl have been much different without the attacks on the industries developing those weapons.
P.S. Both Curtis LeMay and “Bomber” Harris get a bum wrap. They did the right thing, as did Truman in dropping the A-bombs.
I miss Mickey.
Before Peter enthuses too much about tax-cutting Republican governors, he needs to look to Virginia, where our Republican governor just engineered an increase in the state sales tax. In Northern Virginia, it’s a twenty percent increase.
And the John McCain goes to the Senate floor and says this, “If Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids.”
Yeah, we’d hate to bring liberty-loving young people into the Republican Party, wouldn’t we. What we really need is more old, white establishment types. That’ll win the future…
What about FDR’s internment of over 100,000 Japanese Americans in ‘War Relocation Camps’?
Yeah, we’d hate to bring liberty-loving young people into the Republican Party, wouldn’t we. What we really need is more old, white establishment types. That’ll win the future… ·2 hours ago
Edited 2 hours ago
He makes a good case for term limits and age limits!
Funny how we all had difficulty sitting through the State of the Union Address for 45 minutes, but we can watch a Rand Paul filibuster for hours.
I recall a segment about attracting voters. And the reality check comment that the ethnic vote is not going the Republican candidate way.
Republicans and conservatives, for those who might soon turn to a conservative third party, need to get it firmly in mind: most of the ethnic and race breakout groups vote only along the race and ethnic eye view. Even where the facts are not helpful to support the case of say, Medicare being solvent even though the funds are being pulled from it to go to the Affordable Care fund scheme, the hard-core groups will not see it or hear it and are actively campaigning for the president’s not-helping-Medicare plan. I can hardly imagine a payout that can be given to secure the votes from groups who are bound soley based on race or ethnic group, or probably gender and sexual preference.
I can hardly imagine a payout that can be given to secure the votes from groups who are bound soley based on race or ethnic group, or probably gender and sexual preference. ·2 minutes ago
I agree with you that, “most of the ethnic and race breakout groups vote only along the race and ethnic eye view” (even when the facts do not support the logic of their choice).
If our Republican leaders spend the next three years chasing after a ‘rainbow’, by attempting to compete with President Obama and democrats in Congress over which party can be more ‘generous’ to minorities and undocumented immigrants, we will just be accelerating our descent into financial ruin, as a nation.
Our message has to be loud and long:
‘A rising tide floats all boats’!
“And tomorrow We’ll experience ‘ ‘Partly Cloudy’ Trisha.’ Temperatures near 73 and winds 5-8 mph with gusts up to 12.”
So true. I will probably use this line later and forget the attribution.
Jame’s Hillsdale segue: amazing as always. I’ve started playing the “Guess when James is starting a seque” game. (I’m usually wrong.)
BTW, the Hillsdale course may be free, but they sure put a lot of effort into hitting us up for donations. And they are asking for a lot more than a Grande Latte.
Listening to several hours of Senator Rand Pauls filibuster yesterday felt like one of the Hillsdale lectures. The classes I took with Hillsdale made the entire discussion totally relevant in a way it never would have been prior to taking those classes. ·6 hours ago
I feel the same way! I’ve made a mental note, though, never to say this around my father, who spend a lot of money on that education.
I thought that waterboarding had only be used 3 times, but two of those were on KSM. So only 2 individuals.
One of the podcasters mentioned at the end that the CBO has identified $300 billion or so of duplicative programs.
Why don’t the Republicans already have a bill on the floor of the House eliminating/consolidating those? Afraid they might actually gain some credibility?
I loved Rob’s point about Liberal hypocrisy (don’t we always love hearing about that?). Homelessness, drones, wiretaps, Gitmo, or whatever is not really the issue, the excuse to make political points is really that actual issue. It is downright shocking sometimes to get sucked in to thinking that some issues are key core Liberal beliefs, only to find out that they are easily jettisoned without a comment once their guy is in office. There are no core Liberal beliefs except to acquire power over you and me.
Why don’t the Republicans already have a bill on the floor of the House eliminating/consolidating those? Afraid they might actually gain some credibility? ·March 9, 2013 at 12:09am
Pretty sure they actually have been doing some of that sort of thing.
I found that to be a rather bizarre podcast while discussing the filibuster. Rob Long stated that the people who are concerned about the particular issue of the drone strikes are “nuts” (and the rest of the podcast crew agreed with him), but then discussed the ways in which civil liberties in the US have been abused.
Well, which is it?
Well, which is it? ·6 minutes ago
There are some who can be ‘reliably’ relied upon to keep one foot in both camps.
That was a phenomenal episode, well done to all involved.