Welcome caffeine addicts to the Harvard Lunch Club political podcast number 210 for January 30, 2019 it is the Venti Macchiato edition of the show with your big gulp hosts Todd Feinburg, east coast radio guy, and Mike Stopa, west coast graph machine learning guy. We come to you every week, as you know, to bring you the best, the most interesting and the deepest analysis of the events of the day. I.e. we da guys, y’all!!!!
This week, we focus on two of the entrants into the 2020 presidential race, coffee guy Howard Schultz (in the right corner) and Flaming, economic idiot Kamala Harris in the left corner (and we do mean left). Kamals says abolish private health insurance. Howard says, not so fast. We report, you decide.
Our shower thoughts, profound as always. Our hidden gem – Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess. (If you haven’t heard it, you really must). enjoy!
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Ok, IF this president is not qualified to be president, how are Howard Shultz’s qualifications any different?
Kamila Harris will not go far in the primaries. Her past history as a prosecutor – that video of her laughing about prosecuting people for truancy is just devastating with the democrat base. She’s probably the worst candidate in the field. Talking about delays – waiting for an insurance company to decide coverage is nothing. In a government rationed health care system patients can wait months or even years waiting for treatment.
How long does it take an insurance company to decide coverage? 24-72 hours? Canadians would kill for a 72 hour wait for seeing a specialist.
Wait Times for Healthcare in Canada 2017 Report
Actually no… Niel Armstrong landed on the moon with almost the exact amount of fuel required for the mission. However the fuel required to back up the command module would be in separate fuel tanks – there was no danger that he would use too much fuel on landing.
As you can see the descent and ascent stages of the LEM have their own fuel supplies.
It was General Sherman! Jeez!
And he was truly not interested in running for president. He wasn’t being coy.
Regarding Stopa’s attempts to tell us what the typical American thinks, this is a guy who started the podcast talking about Richard Burton and singing a Camelot knockoff.
Regarding Feinburg’s comments on Neil Armstrong, I did watch the movie recently, and I’ll point out that he’s portrayed as playing with his kids, including wrestling with them.
The time that his boy asks if he’d go out and play with him, they were at a funeral event and both were in suits. While it was socially acceptable for the kids to go out and play, for an adult to do it in those circumstances would have been odd.
But more importantly, just because Neil Armstrong was a distant father doesn’t mean he was a neglectful one. And I note that his adult children remain extremely loyal to his memory.
The risk was that he would run out of fuel while landing and crash. Your point doesn’t seem relevant. Dead is dead.
OK I liked Stopa’s Camelot. You need to write a complete set of lyrics and go for it. But perhaps sing it with a bit more of a Brit accent. My guess is that your wife and kids hate it when you do things like that and much eye-rolling goes on in the Stopa household.
I go back and forth about K Harris – is she the second Obama (and next President) or is there more baggage there that the MSM will not be able to smother with a pillow until it stops moving? (The Willie Brown stuff and corruption of that type sounds especially bad in the MeToo era but Hillary had Bill ….)
Finally yeah it was Sherman (and I didn’t even have to Google it). I was fascinated by how he got his first name William: he was adopted/taken in by a relative whose wife was Roman Catholic. She demanded that he be given a Christian name to go with Tecumseh (who his father greatly admired obviously). Frankly I think the three name thing worked well for him and makes him (a bit) more remembered in history.
I actually knew this but I let Todd slide on it…(okay, when he said it I suddenly wasn’t completely sure :-).
Aha! I knew it was someone from a while back!
But don’t get frustrated, Right. This isn’t Jeopardy y’know!
Armstrong’s son Rick was a consultant on the film.
Okay, Col, if I can find some time I’ll do a full job on Kamala! The Musical. (and I can do a great Brit accent!).
Great podcast guys. Always enjoy it. In regards to Schulz, I think Nate Silver actually has a funny and insightful (can’t believe I am writing this) take on his prospects. “Gonna be ironic when Schulz is responsible for electing Bernie Sanders because well-off, mocha-drinking suburbanites who would otherwise vote their class interest are able to vote for Schulz instead of Trump.”
No, I was responding to what Todd said in the podcast, he thought they would use too much fuel and not have enough to get back to the command module.
I have never been in an American hospital, I havent visited the US since 1985. But I get the impression from TV that if someone needs a CAT or CT scan, they just roll the patient down the hall and put them in the machine.
From the 2017 report on wait times for Canadian Heathcare: (link)
I really doubt that women would be ‘happy’ to wait a month for an ultrasound.
You are correct. CT scans can be had in the emergency room of my suburban hospital inside of an hour.
Who said Trump wasn’t qualified for Prez? In what way is Schulz not qualified?
The point of my comment was that my wife was being critical of his being so contained, which is a popular critique of men today, and I countered that in order to perform in high stress situations, the ability to compartmentalize is frequently a prerequisite.
I knew too, I was just testing Mike’s knowledge.
For what sort of thing does an insurance company need to be consulted? When my doc refers me to a specialist, the referral forms are printed in real time.
And thanks for that clarification.
Schulz did. One of his talking points is that “Trump is fundamentally unqualified to be president” … How is Schulz’s qualifications any better or different than Trumps?
He could consider Trump to be unqualified for a range of reasons that don’t overlap with Schultz’s life experience. They are hardly similar outside of sharing the title of businessman.
Ok, I am sure that everyone who runs for president believes themselves to be uniquely qualified for the job. As much as Trump beats his chest over being the self-made man, Schultz sounds like he actually is. My thoughts on Schultz has been evolving over the past few days, I can see that of the likely democrat field, I think he’d be my pick. If he does run, I hope that Trump is Machiavellian enough to insist that he be included in debates. I dont think an independent candidate for president has won a state since George Wallace in 1968, so Schultz would have is work cut out for him.
There has not been a 3rd party president since before WW1, I have often wondered why Libertarians and Greens shoot their wads in presidential years trying to elect a president. If I were a 3rd party I would be looking at the mid term elections, excite my base and attempt to get a few representatives elected to congress. In a 50/50 congress holding the balance of power could be an exciting way to advance the partisan agenda – and once people come to understand it, maybe a presidential run isnt such a long shot anymore.