Ricochet – Page 4 – Conservative Conversation and Community

A Covid19 Thanksgiving

By Susan Quinn

Retired consultant, avid biography reader and meditator

| November 27, 2020

This Thanksgiving Day will be precisely the way we always celebrate, and paradoxically unique in the annals of the Quinn Family.

Our plans began several weeks ago when we realized that the large group of people we ordinarily invite for the Thanksgiving meal were mostly holed up in their homes. (We live in a 55+ community.) They venture out occasionally, but have been socializing mainly in small groups. So, anticipating their reluctance to come over today, I was “uninviting” them; I realize some might still have wanted to come, but most would have been uncomfortable with the presence of so many people. (We were uneasy about it ourselves.)

Half Percent Podcast #24

Unforgiving Drill Instructors to Thanksgiving with President Bush: A Marine Officer Tells Her Story

November 27, 2020

Hosted by Nick Plosser

Jenna Stocker joins the podcast. Jenna spent 4 years as a Communications and Strategy Operations Officer in the Marine Corps. Growing up in a family of military vets, Jenna was an avid swimmer and earned an athletic scholarship to the University of Minnesota. After working at the Center for Security Policy in D.C. and briefly entertaining the idea of law school, she completed OCS and became an Officer of Marines. Jenna discusses her perspective on being a female in the Marines, the frustration of dealing with persistent injuries and what the Marine Corps means to her….and her very special Thanksgiving dinner with President Bush!

QotD: Thanksgiving

By Sisyphus

On Parler: https://parler.com/profile/Sisyphus004935826250/posts On MeWe: https://mewe.com/i/sisyphusachaean Lived in DC for over 50 years. Then I repented.

| November 26, 2020

I first read today’s quote in a fourth grade classroom seated next to a girl who claimed descent from George Washington. I suspected the claim at the time because George Washington had no biological children, but President Washington effectively adopted two of Martha Washington’s children, so, maybe. The Civil War was over two years old and the ravaged nation could see no end in sight. The proclamation below managed to acknowledge the ongoing ordeal while placing it in the context of Providence.

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

One Final Military Thanksgiving

By Jailer

Believer, American, Husband, Father, Airman, Blogger … Blessed!

| November 26, 2020

Today marks my final Thanksgiving Day in uniform. I have spent it largely alone, as the Middle East dust has been playing Old Harry with my sinuses, sharply limiting my opportunities for fellowship. I did make an exception to go serve the troops at the dining facility, or “DFAC” in our military lingo. I was entrusted with the corn-on-the-cob, collard greens and gravy. They kept me away from the carving knives, which was probably the right call, manual dexterity not being my strong suit.

I can’t help but feel a bit nostalgic–indeed, thankful–as I tic off each of these “lasts” through this final year on active duty, an extraordinarily fulfilling 35-year adventure from start to finish. The Air Force collected me from a disastrous early college experience, gave me a trade and sufficient structure to get me through those undisciplined early adult years, and then let me go back to school once I’d grown up enough to handle it. It sent me to amazing places and introduced me to even more amazing people–including my lifelong friend and soul-mate, who willingly signed up for the rest of the journey.

Gratitude…For My Hero

By RushBabe49

Born & raised in WA, work in aerospace industry. I play violin. I'm Business Survey Chair of ISM-Western WA.

| November 26, 2020

This year has been I think the second-worst in my 71-year life (the worst being 1999 when I had knee surgery, my mother died, and I had Coxsackievirus infection, all in the same three-month period). The government shutdown of society was and still is awful, and it cost me and Ray both our jobs. But the real worst part was finding out, in January, that Rush Limbaugh was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. We can get around the pandemic restrictions and job losses-there is something WE can do to better our situation. But my hero’s lung cancer; that’s something we can do absolutely nothing about. But, since then, I have given a great deal of thought to how much Rush has meant to me since I started listening to his radio show in 2001. This Thanksgiving, I will be saying mighty prayers for Rush to be able to continue his vital work.

I first was really introduced to Rush in 2001 by Ray. I had never actually listened to him before, and all I knew about him was what I had heard others say (the usual, he’s a blowhard, bigot, narcissist…). It only took about ten minutes listening in the car on the way out to dinner to get me hooked. I told Ray “This guy is really funny!” He made me laugh, and he said all the right things. I was only a budding conservative then, and he helped turn me into a rock-solid one. His analysis of current events was spot-on, and he helped make the complicated, understandable. He broke down the concepts and showed how conservative principles were the foundation of our great country. And he always said how much he loves this country, and hates to see how it is being torn down by the Left.

I Was Dead and Buried: A Soldier Visits His Own Grave at Shiloh

By Jeff Giambrone

| November 26, 2020

Post-war photo of William C. Phipps (The Indianapolis News, May 28, 1912)

There are many oddball stories associated with the American Civil War, and this is one of them; it concerns a soldier from Indiana who visited his own grave at Shiloh. The story was told in The Hocking Sentinel (Logan, Ohio), June 4, 1903:

William C. Phipps, of Indianapolis, accompanied the Governor’s party to Shiloh. April 4, for the dedication of the Indiana monuments, for the purpose of seeing whether he was still dead. He desired to view his resting place again. I was especially anxious to see this old battlefield,’ said Mr. Phipps, ‘for there I fought, bled and died in my youth.

A Week of Gratitude: Day 4 – Generous Old Men

By Alan Drake

| November 26, 2020

Shortly after marrying, my wife and I took a trip from Tucson, where we were going to school, to California. In-between Los Angeles and San Diego our little car started to overheat. Pulling into a rest-area and lifting the hood, I discovered that one of the brackets holding a pulley on the accessory belt had broken. While still attached to the frame, the pulley was no longer putting tension on the belt. Being a newlywed husband with only moderate skills at anything and no tools to speak of, I used a pair of nylon stockings to tie the bracket back to its anchor point (I think I got the idea from an old Cary Grant movie, “Operation Petticoat”). This was insufficient, of course, but it was enough for us to limp into Carlsbad, California, where I purchased a set of pliers and some bailing wire which I used to wire the bracket to its mount. The repair was good enough to get us home. (We wound up spending the day in Carlsbad and the next day in San Diego and we had a great time. Never mind that the car was broken.)

Back home, I mentioned the broken bracket to a friend from church. He referred me to his father, I’ll call him Jim, a retiree who had a mechanic shop in his garage. Jim re-welded the broken part for me for peanuts. Over the next few months he taught me how to fix a few other things on the car that needed to be repaired. During one of our first sessions he told me to remove a part from the front-end (I can’t remember which one) and it was like he was speaking Greek. I was embarrassed, but he calmly showed me what needed to be done.

Thankful for the Possibilities

By Preston Storm

Married father of a little girl and boy! Live on a farm in southwest Missouri and work for a municipal utility.

| November 26, 2020

Yesterday was my Wife’s birthday. We celebrated by going out to a local Italian restaurant owned and operated by an Albanian-born but New York City-raised chef. We live in Southwest Missouri. I’m thankful to live in a country where this is still possible.

Tonight my brother and I will be processing the doe I harvested Monday night. Several pounds of meat will be going into the freezer to help feed the family later. I’m thankful to live in a country where this is still possible.

An Inconvenient Hiccup and Resurrecting the Swamp

By Susan Quinn

Retired consultant, avid biography reader and meditator

| November 26, 2020

Now I finally get it. How could I miss the obvious?

For the deluded Left, the last four years were just an inconvenient blip on the screen of history. They hated it when Trump won the 2016 election, and made sure everyone—those on the Left and the Right—experienced hatred and frustration in one way or another.

But that was then and this is now.

Obligatory Thanksgiving Essay

By James Lileks

| November 25, 2020

I can’t remember a bad Thanksgiving.

Correction: I don’t remember a bad Thanksgiving. There are many reasons this is possible. I drank to oblivion! Unlikely. I drove it from my mind to keep the illusion of perfect family gatherings intact! Also unlikely, as I remember a few kitchen arguments and last-minute tensions that darkened the mood for a while. That’s expected. Something always goes wrong. The potatoes do not assume the proper density. Someone didn’t butter the lefse. The popovers were insufficiently puffy. But no one cares, and no one remembers.

I Had to Make My Son’s Bed for Him Today….

By Eddy Ericsson

I yam what I yam.

| November 25, 2020

I made my son’s bed today up in his bedroom. I don’t normally make his bed because he doesn’t either. How many times do I tell him to make his bed and he doesn’t do it? He has not made his bed once in the last three and a half months. I mean, he was really bad about it in the months before that, but nothing in the last three and a half months. My wife and I even had to clean out his room of old toys and put away laundry that had been in a basket for a while to put all the old clothes that don’t fit him anymore away.

He hasn’t done the dishes in the kitchen either. He was really inconsistent before that, but in the last three and a half months, absolutely nothing.

Hope for the Right Starts with a Spine and a Pair

By philo

| November 25, 2020

I guess the best place to start is an example of what the complete lack of a political spine and an empty sack looks like. Remember this:

“I think we ought to let Senator Clinton, who obviously is qualified, and obviously will serve, to get to work immediately.”

Life Is Beautiful. Even When It’s Not.

By Dr. Bastiat

I grew up on a hog farm in Ohio. I practice concierge medicine in Hilton Head, SC. I'm a bleeding heart conservative - I hate statism because it is heartless - it suppresses the potential of its subjects, it focuses on equal distribution of misery rather than maximizing potential for joy, and it tends to make liars and thieves of nearly everyone. I'm much more of an ideological conservative than a political Republican. I find the heterogeneity of the right stimulating, and the homoge… [more]

| November 25, 2020

I love my job. I really do. Most of the time.

Except at times like these. I just told one of my closest friends that he has a degenerative brain disease, and that he is going to fade away into dementia and helplessness over the next year or two. He’s only 70 years old. His wife has her hands full. She’ll be changing diapers before she knows what happened. There is no treatment. Well, nothing that works.

He buys good scotch. So I’ve spent a lot of time on his patio, drinking better stuff than what I generally buy, laughing and talking about funny stories. But early this morning, I sat in his living room, drinking coffee, talking about awful, horrible things. Unthinkable things. Things that happen to somebody else. Usually. Until it happens to you.

No Freedom, No Peace!

By Rodin

| November 25, 2020

Freedom has so many dimensions that it is easy to lose some in one area while retaining it in others such that the incremental loss goes virtually unnoticed. For example, property rights: As long as theft is illegal and courts enforce contracts, the people tend to let zoning law decisions slide and are understanding when police and prosecutors have higher priority crimes to deal with.

And then you get the pandemic. All of a sudden wholesale rights are disturbed for the law abiding. Then various criminals are favored as their conduct is let to pass while you are threatened for going to church, going to a restaurant, going to a gym, or not wearing you mask between bites.

Quote of the Day: Nettling the Humorless and Pricking the Pompous

By KentForrester

I grew up in the 50s in the blue-collar city of Compton, California, just before it turned dangerous. I spent my youth in pool halls and bowling alleys. I had no interest in school. To make money, I delivered newspapers, set pins in the bowling alley, kept score, and even shined shoes in dive bars on Compton Boulevard. I was drafted into the Army in 1958 and spent 18 months in Germany, where I started thinking hard about what I wanted to do with my life. So I returned to Compton Junior College f… [more]

| November 25, 2020

“What is satire if not a marriage of civil disobedience to a laugh track, a potent brew … that acts as a nettle sting on the thin skin of the humorless.” — Mona Eltahawy

Satire is a nettle sting on the thin skin of the humorless. I like the sound of that. I like it so much that I think that we on the Right ought to adopt that as our slogan for the next four years.

So Ricochetti, if your talent runs toward satire, the mating of criticism and wit, your time has come. Fortunately, the Democratic establishment for the next four years will be target rich with humorless scolds just ripe for satire. Think of just the more visible members of the Democratic establishment: Nadler, Schiff, Pelosi, Schumer, Maxine Waters, AOC, Omar, et al. Has there ever been a gallery more crowded with flawed humans outside of Rikers Island?

Thanksgiving Is a Time for Gratitude, Not Grievance

By Jon Gabriel, Ed.

Jon Gabriel, Ed.

Jon Gabriel (a.k.a., @ExJon on Twitter) is the Editor-in-Chief of Ricochet. He is a political writer and marketing consultant, contributing articles to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and USA Today among others. Until 2012, he served as Director of Marketing for the free-market Goldwater Institute, where he converted policy initiatives into compelling stories. In the private sector, Jon led marketing efforts for Cold Stone Creamery, Honeywell, and several technology companies. In his… [more]

| November 25, 2020

Political commentators spend most of their days following the awful things happening in the world. Bad news, after all, is what dominates the news cycle.

War, death, poverty, and injustice (and the occasional cat video) fill our laptop screens from the moment we wake until we go to bed. By the fourth day of the workweek, it’s easy to cycle between outrage and despair.

People on all sides succumb to this emotional low road, which is why there’s so much anger about failed politicians, terrible policies, and broken promises. Our grandparents would yell at the newspaper, our parents at the TV, but now everyone can hear our complaints. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube spread everyone’s misery worldwide.

Breaking: Trump Pardons Flynn

By Jon Gabriel, Ed.

Jon Gabriel, Ed.

Jon Gabriel (a.k.a., @ExJon on Twitter) is the Editor-in-Chief of Ricochet. He is a political writer and marketing consultant, contributing articles to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and USA Today among others. Until 2012, he served as Director of Marketing for the free-market Goldwater Institute, where he converted policy initiatives into compelling stories. In the private sector, Jon led marketing efforts for Cold Stone Creamery, Honeywell, and several technology companies. In his… [more]

| November 25, 2020

Late Wednesday, President Trump pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The three-star general had originally pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about talking with a Russian diplomat during the 2016 transition. The case fell apart when prosecutors declared they had improperly pursued the case. it has been tied up in the courts ever since.

All Debt is bad and sad and ergo should go away

By James Lileks

| November 25, 2020

Doc B – like our old long-lost friend Doc Jay, but probably less likely to look at your chart, say “screw it,” rip out your tubes and drive you to Vegas – wrote about a patient thrilled by the promise of college debt elimination. The patient did not have a firm grip on things like “economics” or “reality,” but she’s not alone.

As long as we’re talking about college debt relief, why not all debt? The New Yorker is here to tell you what it means in terms of PHILOSOPHY and also justice.

Biden, The Movie-Coming Attractions

By Doug Watt

| November 25, 2020

Although this essay is written for all the residents in the United States, it is written specifically for the residents of Georgia. Georgians have the opportunity to maintain Republican control of the Senate.

Some may see me as a defeatist, but I prefer to salvage what we can from what a Biden-Harris administration will bring to all 50 states. Georgians are going to be inundated with misinformation in the weeks before the Senate runoff election; it’s already begun with Leftists encouraging non-residents to move to Georgia and become temporary residents, to then vote in the runoff.

Those Are My Principles

By Ontheleftcoast

| November 25, 2020

But if you don’t like them, well, I have others.

During my twelve-and-half years as a member of this body, I have never believed that additional gun control or federal registration of guns would reduce crime. I am convinced that a criminal who wants a firearm can get one through illegal, untraceable, unregistered sources, with or without gun control.

It’s Time To Ask: Do We Want Them Teaching Our Kids?

By Bethany Mandel

Bethany Mandel is a part-time editor at Ricochet and columnist at the Jewish Daily Forward. She is a stay-at-home mother of four kids, six years old and younger. She also is a co-host of That Sethany Show and LadyBrains Podcast.

| November 25, 2020

From at least the summer, if not the late spring, I’ve been sounding the alarm on the critical need to reopen schools. It’s perhaps a strange wheelhouse for a homeschooling mother to find herself in (which I’ve been told by a number of editors who refused to run pieces on the topic), but one that I’ve occupied because I’m not just a mother, but a former kid. If I grew up during this time with the same circumstances I did as a child, my life would have turned out very differently. My single mother would have been at work a full day and left me alone at home, and I can tell you one thing: I definitely wouldn’t have been logging into “distance learning” on my own. I would have lost at least a year of my education and instead sat around watching television and engaging with Internet content that would have stolen my innocence along with it.

I have a number of friends in the foster care world, and I also know that while my circumstances would have been far from ideal, they would have been a walk in the park compared to the abusive and neglectful situations millions of American kids are facing right now.

An Inspiring Message of Virtue and Hope from a Brilliant Leftist…

By Dr. Bastiat

I grew up on a hog farm in Ohio. I practice concierge medicine in Hilton Head, SC. I'm a bleeding heart conservative - I hate statism because it is heartless - it suppresses the potential of its subjects, it focuses on equal distribution of misery rather than maximizing potential for joy, and it tends to make liars and thieves of nearly everyone. I'm much more of an ideological conservative than a political Republican. I find the heterogeneity of the right stimulating, and the homoge… [more]

| November 25, 2020

A friend of mine from high school (“Betsy”) went to a near-Ivy League level college. And she deserved to; she’s extremely hard-working and an absolute genius. I admire her. She’s brilliant, she’s beautiful, and she apparently married well because she is now an assistant teachers’ aide at an elementary school library at her daughter’s school, and she lives very comfortably. She lives in Tracy, California (about an hour east of San Francisco), and is an extremely politically active Democrat. She posted the following on her Facebook page today (emphasis mine):

The City Council of Tracy will be discussing whether to become a “Sanctuary City,” meaning the city will not enforce state and county rules that have been established to limit business activities during covid. I encourage people to read the Council’s agenda item to understand the implications of taking this action. I encourage people to read the report. My understanding is that the county and state can still do their own enforcement of business restrictions. The City of Tracy is really doing more education than enforcement already and is not really interested in punishing businesses. And, the City stands to lose a lot of state Covid-related money that has already been committed if the City Council declares we are a sanctuary city. I absolutely understand that businesses are suffering during this time. I’m just not sure that making a Tracy a sanctuary city will actually improve conditions for businesses. I’m happy to hear other perspectives if people want to share specific ways in which this declaration could help businesses and be worth losing the state Covid-related money the City is getting.

This is so wonderful, on so many levels. If I were to attempt to convince Betsy of the absurd structural defects of leftism, I would read this very passage to her. Very slowly. Which is silly, because she’s much more intelligent than I am.

Chumps for Trump vs. Thugs for Plugs

By Jim George

Semi-Retired attorney, George and George, law partner is wife Judi, my specialty is Admiralty and Maritime Law, two sons, Jim and Brock, active in community affairs, especially Symphony and Opera, fanatical Blue Angels Fan, served in Strategic Air Command, USAF. Have become Floridians very recently--closer to the Gulf and the Gulf Breezes--and, last but not least, The Blue Angels!

| November 25, 2020

I write this out of a sense of some of the most acute and severe frustration I have ever felt in my (very, very long) life, a life which has had its fair share of many of the same frustrations we all get hit with in this old life. I must say, looking at some of the posts on Ricochet, it would appear I am hardly alone in the way I am feeling, although my sense of helplessness, for want of a better word, might come from a slightly different place.

I write this as a veteran of many years as a practicing trial lawyer, the kind of a lawyer you rarely see on the billboards or on the TV ads aimed primarily at the hospital wards in the morning hours (what a sordid way to make a living, if that’s living!), but the kind, not to get all virtue signaling about it, who actually got down in the dirty work of depositions, Motions, briefing, more Motions, and actual trials– in actual courtrooms, not movie-like sets.

King of Stuff #206

Jim Geraghty

November 24, 2020

Hosted by Jon Gabriel

With guest Jim Geraghty

The King of Stuff welcomes Jim Geraghty, senior political correspondent for National Review, host of the “Three Martini Lunch” podcast, and author of the new thriller Hunting Four Horsemen. Jon and Jim chat about the death of polling, the success of down-ticket Republicans, and writing fiction.

Subscribe to the King of Stuff Spotify playlist featuring picks from Jon and his guest. Jim’s been listening to Vince Guaraldi and Jon’s stuck on early New Order. Again.

Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger #323

A Tour with Declan Walsh, Foreign Correspondent

November 24, 2020

Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

With guest Declan Walsh

Declan Walsh is a veteran foreign correspondent, whom Jay has read and cited for years. Walsh has reported from many spots, most of them troubled – very. He has recently been Cairo bureau chief for the New York Times. Now he is in Africa for that paper. He has just written a book about Pakistan (a country from which he was expelled). Jay tours the world with Declan Walsh – or a bit of it – starting with the reporter’s growing up in Ireland.

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