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We finally get around to our promised but delayed cage match about Ukraine and unanswered questions about January 6, and alas, all of Steve’s attempts to cheer up Lucretia with the week’s great news—the Hunter Biden indictment, the embarrassment of Ivy League presidents, Kevin McCarthy resigning, Trump winning Tom Friedman’s vote—proved unavailing. Futile, even. Why Lucretia even trashed McDonald’s, which is really fightin’ words for John.
But then we get down to business, with the bruising cage match. Steve did his best to play a “neutral” Sean Hannity, posing challenges to both John and Lucretia about both topics, but occasionally donning a Hershey’s Kiss-sized tin foil hat on a couple of points. Score the jabs about roundhouse blows at home, and send in your point total in the comment threads.
John and Lucretia were united on one topic, though: Both attacked Steve for his fondness for classic Genesis, which Steve discussed at length this week on Steve Gosney’s Rumble channel here (or YouTube version here) if you have the proper tastes in “rock music that went to college,” to quote Jody Bottum on prog rock. Natually, Steve takes out revenge with the exit music, with a fragment of a classic Genesis song that includes the fitting lyric, “Even academics, searching printed word. . .” Who can name that song without looking it up?
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Chamber of 32 Doors from Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
Also includes: “The rich man stands in front of me/The poor man at my back/They believe they can control the game/But the juggler holds another pack.”
Well done!
And don’t forget, “I’d rather trust a country man/than a town man. . .”
How to pronounce schadenfreude
Thanks especially for comment #3. The cretins I have to put up with! I’ll never have Supper Ready for them!
Maybe you could do Supper’s Ready — played in real time as opposed to edited in later — at the start of the next show, and that way they would be forced to sit and listen to all 23 minutes.
Fortunately, I could just turn off the sound and/or come back later. And I long ago figured out how to skip ahead 30 seconds (which I use frequently for ads and whenever Steve uses the same lame historical analogy applied inappropriately for the 15th+ time). I can certainly click 46 times if necessary.
John sees no evidence the Feds were involved ( Ray Epps free pass) but there is also no evidence that the trespassers were anything more than just that, a stiff fine would have ensured against a repeat occurrence. How does he justify outrageous sentences, given by his good friend judges after two years awaiting trial, in horrible conditions for misdemeanors. An actor was just arrested last week in public in front of his family for a J6 misdemeanor, held overnight and put in shackles, three years after the event. I’d like to hear his thoughts on this. Bees don’t need to conspire they all know independently what to do to protect the hive.
Since Steve reads the comments I’d like to ask if he can get me reinstated as a commenter on Powerline, I was banned a few years ago immediately and forever by Scott for saying ‘crazy shirt’. A warning would have sufficed.
Why so mean to me??
We’re like the government, Lucretia. We’re here to help. You should listen all the way through to Supper’s Ready. As Monk would say, “You’ll thank me later!” lol
John Yoo grants a benefit of the doubt to the government/legal system that it does not deserve. Just a few outrageous examples from January 6th:
John Yoo grants this benefit of the doubt along with his admission that the FBI/DoJ/DNC/MSM all conspired together to compose and conduct the Russia Collusion hoax. But according to John Yoo, the FBI and DoJ have been cleansed of those “rogue elements” (who just happened to be the entirety of the highest echelons of federal law enforcement). That claim is facially false.
Every person involved in the persecutions of
knew that the cases against each defendant were fraudulent, often created out of whole cloth by the FBI. Where were the leaks? Where were the whistleblowers? Where were the principled resignations?
Attorney General William Barr knew before December of 2019 that the FBI had possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and he said nothing as the New York Post was censored in 2020 for its honest reporting of the story. Barr also said nothing as the “Russian Disinformation” story cooked up by Antony Blinken and promoted by the “51 Intelligence Officials” skewed the 2020 presidential election. As the expression goes, a fish rots from the head down.
Everything in this comment is on the public record. John Yoo, how stupid do you think we are?
Didn’t the FBI who pushed Russia Collusion/Steele Dossier sharing the same fate as Jan 6 rioters? Both tried to effect the outcome of an election.
Something’s wrong with this sentence.
I would add everyone involved in the nonsense SWAT raids on Roger Stone, and all the other people who would show up at the FBI office if asked.
I don’t blame the podcasters here, but the Julie ads are really out of place.
Barr was never a Trump guy. He seems to have seen his main job as protecting the Justice Department, which had set itself on fire in a fit of anti-Trumpism, from itself.
One thing occurs to me about J6 is that a number of right wing groups had planned organized confrontations with police and came equipped with bear spray, shields, riot armor, and helmets. We now know that these groups were heavily infiltrated by Feds. Even if the Feds weren’t encouraging these riot planners, they at least knew they were coming. And nobody did anything to stop them ahead of time? Or prepare the Capitol Police for their actions?
A question I have is this: Do you think that protestors end up inside the Capitol without fed instigation? I believe no.
We don’t control the ads, which are local to your ISP and cookies from your own web searches. I don’t know what “Julie” ads even are, but I know I don’t get any.
Yes. This.
This point is beyond huge.
If there were officers from several agencies, including FBI, embedded in groups that planned any kind of unlawful activity – and they didn’t raise holy hell to get proper crowd control and defense in place – that’s insane, they risked (and helped to lose) several lives. Some that day and several afterwards from suicides.
If they *didn’t* tell the current administration what was going on, holy crap. Wtf are you thinking? That situation could have been HORRIBLE.
Take these things and combine them with actual knowledge of the actions of Pelosi, McConnell, and CPD/DCPD, and you got yourselves a hot narrative that segments of our federal government allowed that day to happen the way it did.
They could have had crazy security, massive presence, rounded up all the members of any group embedded in, and that day is a peaceful protest with a tiny number arrested and then charged.
It would be a long day because of all the challenges to state electors that would have occurred. All that evidence put into record, each one voted on and each one eventually counted because the votes were not there to stop what was going to happen.
Peaceful transfer of power with the voices heard from both sides would have happened.
But that’s not what happened.
And that’s what sinks to high heaven, and will likely come out in, oh, about 4 months from now when current Congress uncovers it.
I thought this was a great display of reasonable augments from all three of the hosts on all of the subjects. I have my own, but I do like hearing reasonable arguments.
If we could get John to know the things that Lucretia and Steve know about these subjects (always embarrassing that John doesn’t know so many facts in play), have the fire of righteousness of Lucretia, and the tactics of Steve – our own version of a Megatron Host – that combined uber-wonk would rally the troops and bring the fight to the cancer in our country!
On second thought, we are moving John slowly but surely to the right side… Lucretia is good at what she does. A regular strategic Sun Tzu…
Linda from arizona was a bit out of control at times and could have helped herself immensely had she offered the name Ray Epps and also some concrete data other than mentioning a single Congressman. All in all, lots more heat and noise than light—Steve was the winner.
Then John.
Then Linda, a distant 3d—and that was a big surprise.
I thought it would be a lot closer…a 3 way tie.
Net/net, it was a disappointing podcast this time.
Lucrecia, why don’t you give John some baby steps in the right direction? Ask him to read something I wrote about the insecure voting machines, or Teigen v. Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Lucretia was too strident, especially the way she often interrupted John, who did not respond in kind. I don’t completely disagree with her, but she’s not someone who I want advocating my side of the argument if the idea is to convince those who are undecided.
Lucretia’s combative style is great for preaching to her own choir. It’s a horrible way to convince those on the fence.
As for John Yoo being naive, I can’t buy it. It’s a mistake to infer from John’s tendency to argue amicably that he’s naive, which the way Lucretia says it, sounds like he’s stupid.
I know all three get along, and accept each others’ quirks. But it’s not obvious to an audience, especially one that’s new to the podcast.
Rather than being persuasive, Lucretia sounds shrill and rude. And like a conspiracist.
On another note, I read a droll comment elsewhere: Hunter Biden spent $1.5 Millon on hookers and blow, and the rest of it he wasted.
Lucretia and John–it’s Mulder and Scully, those two.
(Lucretia/Mulder tends to be right these days, dang it.)
John Yoo doesn’t recognize that the J6 prisoners have been ill-treated in prison , and denied constitutional rights. They have had the FBI fabricate and alter evidence used in their convictions -they admit to it. Yoo speaks highly of DC judges, who have displayed flagrant bias in their rulings as to deny exculpatory evidence . Oh some of these were appointed by Trump! Notice the same Establishment rationale that is employed by Merrick Garland in the legal rope-dope involving Hunter Biden.
Truth is Yoo gets his news from the same media sources as Chris Christie. He wouldn’t know Julie Kelly from Grace Kelly.
As far as the Ukrainian -Russian War he displays an almost pathological lack of concern for the loss of 250K lives . As to the “inevitability “ of these death counts, had Establishment figures like McCain, Graham and Rodham-Clinton not pulled the nit-witted levers of policy departures that were guaranteed to incite Putin, there need not have been any loss of life .
Lucretia was off during this podcast as she admitted at the beginning. She didn’t even bring up the stark reality that after this blood bath grinds to its inevitable end, the United States citizenry will inherit a 2-trillion dollar note to rebuild Ukraine . Such is the cost of advancing freedom across the world? No, not at all. The meddlers get it so wrong again .
John likes to tag things that don’t agree with the Administrative Lawfare and weaponized “justice” system as “conspiracies”. The phenomenon of Mass Formation explains much about our current peril. It is covered very well in the book “The Psychology of Totalitarianism“
Remarkable to think that a partisan hack like Merrick Garland very nearly got on the Supreme Court. Then again, FDR put a former Klansman on the court; who, I recently learned, was also very involved in efforts by the FDR administration to suppress freedom of speech, when he was a Senator
Isolationists tend to use far-fetched historical arguments; for example, that the Cold War was caused by the fact that there were a handful of American troops on the territory of the Russian Empire in 1918. (I swear to God I’m not making this up!)
A more recent isolationist argument of this kind is that Vladimir Putin‘s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was — belatedly! — caused by US actions in 2014 and earlier. But we don’t have to speculate about Putin‘s motives. Shortly before the invasion, he explained them in detail, in a long, pseudo-historical essay.
Ukrainians, or what Putin would call “Malorosy (Little Russians)”, are actually Russians who have been deluded or indoctrinated (by the Jewish Conspiracy?) into thinking they are a different nation. Those old softies Lenin and Stalin (Putin continued) were mistaken to have recognized Ukraine as a separate nation, by making it a separate Soviet Socialist Republic within the USSR.
The inspiration for Putin’s historical fantasy is that the Russian population is declining, taking with it Putin’s dreams of a restored Russian Empire/USSR. Given that Russia has spent hundreds of years trying to stamp out the Ukrainian language and nationality, with little success, that Putin thinks he can do it is more evidence he is off his rocker. It’s no wonder that Finland and Sweden, after 70 years of neutrality, were desperate to join NATO.
Why Putin thought the time to move was now is probably a combination of Biden’s weakness in Afghanistan, and his signaling that the US doesn’t give a damn about Eastern Europe; i.e., when Biden lifted Trump’s ban on the Nordstream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany. Putin really should have invaded sooner, before Trump and NATO could help Ukraine rebuild its military.
I think the so called scale of opinion from Lucretia to Yoo is directly related to their credulity in accepting the information value of MSM reporting. There doesn’t seem to be anything more than that to it.