Thirty years back, filmmaker Whit Stillman charmed audiences with a comedy about two Americans abroad in chaotic Cold War Europe. He joins Rob, James and Peter to discuss his movie Barcelona, cinema as an artform and as a business, and reasons for hope regarding its revival as a crowd-pleaser.

Plus: Rob’s returned from Morocco, Peter’s got big news, and James has a plan for the post-CCP TikTok.

It’s the Cooke and Lileks Show today! The duo delve into the egregious State of the Union address and lament the erosion of the enumerated powers doctrine. They talk TikTok and the Energy and Commerce Committee’s unanimous bill against the company’s Chinese parent ByteDance; Charles has high hopes for the upcoming SCOTUS decision that will limit or overrule the Chevron doctrine; plus James has a few Oscar reviews and an ode to old Hollywood.

– Soundbite from this episode: Joe Biden decrying the Dobbs decision in his SOTU address.

This week the Three Whiskey Happy Hour gang join James for a riotous good time, even as discuss and debate their beloved nation’s precarious situation. They cover Joe Biden’s visit to the border, Donald Trump’s appeals to the Supreme Court, the latest on the war in Gaza, and a silly journalist’s constitutional illiteracy. Plus there are whiskey recommendations and a must-hear story about apish antics on the high seas.

And if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the Three Whiskey Happy Hour podcast!

The forces against free speech are at again! Whether or not you’ve heard of NewsGuard or the Global Disinformation Index, rest assured that they’re intently interested in where you get your information. Joining Peter, Rob and James today is David DesRoisers, Publisher of RealClearPolitics.com, whose scrupulously down-the-middle site was flagged by the groups above as a ‘disinformation site,’ and has lost a great many advertisers as a result. David’s here to remind us of the threats institutions like these are to a free press and a free society. (Plus, he’s inviting you to the inaugural Samizdat Prize Gala!)

The guys also have thoughts CPAC and Google Gemini.

We’ve got a special number for ya, folks. Instead of a guest or even politics, Charles Cooke, James Lileks and Peter Robinson talk football and music. Tune in for a recap on the Super Bowl—get Charles’ take on the season and the Lileksian review of the game’s ads; plus the two of them give Peter a serious crash course in post-Beatles pop music!

 

We’re reminded often to mind our “work-life balance”, but perhaps that distinction is drawn too plainly. Today we hear from David Bahnsen, author of the just-published Full Time: Work and the Meaning of Life, who makes the case that what we do for a living means a great deal more than what today’s wellness gurus would have us believe. They go over everything in between the midcentury trend toward retirement as the goal to the contemporary push to work in pajamas.

On the flipside Peter, Rob and James discuss the latest reminder that Joe Biden is not up for the job he’s got; and they dig into an unbelievable project to make ancient scrolls flash-fried  by the Vesuvius eruption in the first century AD readable once again.

Do you ever get that queasy feeling by the occassional thought that the people running our foreign policy agenda are, well… dumb? We do too. And so does our guest Rich Goldberg, who had to explain some basics to the House Foreign Affairs Committee earlier this week. He joins today to discuss everything from UNRWA and the tangled mess that is the United Nations, to Iran’s nuclear capabilities and our administration’s weakness in dealing with a middling power.

Steve Hayward fills in for Peter this week. He, James and Rob talk about the economics lesson our criminals are giving the US; plus there’s talk about pop sensation psyops and the comfort that some feel by the thought of a world controlled by malevolent grownups.

The GOP primary is basically dunzo. Time to look ahead towards the general election, the future of the Republican Party, even on to the generations that will take it over one day. To do so our merry Ricochet gang is joined by Governor Scott Walker, now the president of Young America’s Foundation.

Peter, James and the Reverend Dr. Long also cut into the razor wire debate.

One caucus down and it appears the whole GOP primary is decided. Thankfully when you get a guest like Henry Olsen (EPPC senior fellow and host of the must-listen Beyond the Polls podcast) everything stays fresh and interesting. Henry has thoughts on what’s left of this Republican primary along with the mess in the D camp; he runs us through campaigns we’re scratching our heads at, forgotten about—or would like to forget about; and he swats away many of the overconfident predictions about how a Trump/Biden rematch will shake out.

James, Rob and Peter applaud Javier Melei and the great free market that wants to spread good news; plus they say their piece about inclement weather and wonder what time it really is in New York.

Iowa braces for a cold Caucus Night and now the Trump, DeSantis, Haley and Ramaswamy teams have their work cut out for them to keep their engines from stalling. Blizzardous conditions are keeping us from visiting, so we asked Jim Geraghty, our man on the ground in Des Moines this week. He provides the scoop, the had-to-be-there insights and some informed speculation.

Plus Peter, James and Rob vent their lack of confidence in this administration to meet this week’s foreign flare up; and have some advice for Sanctuary Mayor Eric Adams.

The trio is back for 2024! The reunited gang is happy to welcome back Ayaan Hirsi Ali to discuss the West’s crisis of confidence and its fumbling attempt at post-Judeo-Christianity. Plus James, Rob and Peter have a few thoughts about Claudine Gay’s resignation, and they divulge their philosophies on new year’s resolutions.

 

Ok. We lied.

We swore that we we’re going to take this week off. But we’re not. So just like Janus, the two-faced God of Duality, we’re here to kick down the door of the New Year and not be content with bidding farewell to just 2023, but a whole century worth of old years.

James Lileks is your guide as we dance through a hundred years of New Years and then he takes your questions while heading into 2024.

We end our podcasting year with a special edition of the Ricochet Podcast as James Lileks takes you through the Christmas memory book. So gather ’round the hearth and revel in our gift to you. Merry Christmas and we’ll see you in the New Year.

The tippi-toppers of higher ed are out of breath—they’ve run themselves into nonsensicle circles. But today’s guest Glenn Loury is breathing easy. He, Peter and Rob discuss the Ivy League, Claudine Gay and the advancement of Black Americans, both due to and in lieu of Affirmative Action.

Stay tuned to the end for Rob Long’s 100% gurantee, “Impress Anybody on Planet Earth: Extra Special Eggnog” recipe.

Once upon a time Americans could reliably count on reporters to follow the money to stay up on what the world’s powerful players were up to. If you’ve ever despaired that those days are gone forever, we want to provide a bit of hope by introducing Seamus Bruner. We cover his new book Controligarchs. To be sure, the story is quite disconcerting, but the young Mr. Bruner is optimistic that we can win the fight against our age’s “altruistic” masters of the universe. His thoroughly researched, readable deep dive into our 30 mega-meddler billionaires is his latest effort to wake Americans up to the onslaught on our way of life.

Ricochet’s resident scholar Steve Hayward is in for James this week. He, Peter and Rob discuss this week’s pitiful showing from the presidents of our elite colleges in front of Congress; and they chat on David Weiss’ revised indictment of Hunter Biden.

Henry Kissinger is gone after a century on Planet Earth. The most influential diplomat of the last fifty years, he’s never been short of fierce criticisms from both the left and right. The great war historian Victor Davis Hanson returns to the Ricochet Podcast to give a careful review of the controversial emissary.

Plus Lileks, Robinson and Long are reunited after a couple weeks to evaluate Thursday’s much touted DeSantis/Newsom face-off, and they give their early impressions of Argentina’s triumphant Milei and the seemingly vindicated Geert Wilders.

Perhaps you’re failing to vibe with Bin Laden and feeling a bit behind the times. Then again, you could be a sane person with a moral compass. James, Charles and Steve cover this and more with Noah Rothman, author of The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressives’ War on Fun. Aside from his anti-Osama stance, Noah takes us through the relevant considerations about America’s interests abroad, the nearly abandoned project to promote democracy and the modern world’s Western neurotic, who’s always clamoring for a club to beat their own civilization with.

The hosts also think through anti-Israel influencers on the right — edgelords or something sinister? — and worry that the U.S. is picking a most inopportune time to be frivolous.

We’ve made it to number 666! Unfortunately among the three of them, James, Steve Hayward and Charles Cooke haven’t a single sinister plot to reveal. They do however have lots to say about Wednesday’s debate; progressive love for Hamas and what it means for the intersectionality coalition; and they wonder why there aren’t DACA protections for beloved pandas!

If you haven’t already, Steve highly recommends you read David Foster’s “The Hollow Men,” available right here on Ricochet.

The fight for our civilization is here, and today’s guest is no stranger to the fray. Christopher Rufo is a member of the New College of Florida board and the mastermind of a number of projects devoted to winning the culture war. He’s the author of the new bestseller America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything, which covers why the right’s been on the losing side, and today he chats with Rob, Peter and James about how we can turn the tide. If you’re seeking bold strategies on how to save our country, this is the podcast for you.

 

Even a pessimist would have reason experience surprise and consternation by the extent of our institutional crises. It’s revealed that American students know nothing of the history of the Holocaust and the story of the Jewish people in its aftermath. We’ve seen our government progressively possessed by the whims of influencer representatives. Even today’s guest Yuval Levin, who’s painstakingly documented this descent, is a bit bewildered. He joins Rob, James and Peter as they cover everything from Jewish students being forced to hide in a library, to priorities for Israel and of course on to the People’s House and the hopes we may yet hold out for it.

– Audio from today’s opening is new Speaker Mike Johnson’s first address to Congress.