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This week, we start the show with a deep dive on…Beto O’Rourke (hey, know thine enemy, folks). Then Las Vegas Review-Journal White House Correspondent Debra Saunders joins to discuss the Emergency Powers veto — what happened, what will happen, and why some Republican senators voted against it. Then Tim Carney stops by to discuss his new book Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse. It’s a fascinating discussion about class, family, and faith. Finally, we wrap things up with a sobering talk about the horrific mass shooting in New Zealand and ruminate on the college acceptance scandal. Booyah.
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E in Spanish is “eh.” Beh-to. If you want “bay-to” you have to spell it “beito.”
One problem that Texas is getting into, is that when the leftys flee the disaster they voted for in PRC (People’s Republic of California) to Texas, they start voting for the same disaster they just fled. Which explains Beto’s near-victory over Ted Cruz.
And Beto as the Democrat nominee isn’t just Trump’s worst fear. It is – or at least should be – the country’s too. Does anyone think fun-loving Beto would nominate anything close to conservative judges/justices, etc? But heck, he’s LIKEABLE! In that sense he’s no different from Clinton and Obama. And yet I can easily believe Rob Long and Jonah Goldberg and many others would vote for Beto over Trump in 2020. Or not voting at all, which contributes to the same result.
Think of all the people whose candidacy you would support for the Senate but would not support for the White House. The Senate is not a stepping stone, in my humble opinion, to the White House. Few Senators have risen to President, and Beto never served in the Senate to begin with. He lost to someone who is divisive, viewed as arrogant, and has been called “the most hated man” in the Senate. Beto ran so far to the left that Texans who didn’t want Cruz voted for him anyway. And Beto lost to Cruz. (I happen to admire Senator Cruz’s service a lot, which goes to show how much I care about ‘popular opinion.’ )
How many House Members or Senators have risen to President without serving as Vice President first? I can only think of one: the 44th President. That was a fluke.
I agree that the Democrats are always looking for someone to fall in love with, and that they would like Beto to be the next RFK. But Beto is unprepared and obviously so. He’s not even plausible. He ran an expensive (the most expensive) campaign in history, I think. He spent more than Jon Ossoff and came up short. Maybe he could run as Vice President. Maybe, if Democrats thought he could carry Texas. But I wouldn’t bet on either. It would be dumb to do it.
Regarding the college entrance scandal, I doubt many if any of the students involved were actually not smart enough for the schools their parents targeted. None of their test scores were THAT low. What their parents were basically doing is extra-gaming the already-corrupt system where students were not admitted based really on academic merit, but on a panoply of other “Affirmative Action” criteria such as “activities.” Where the kids of rich parents already have a huge advantage because mom and dad can pay for them to spend a summer in El Salvador or wherever a particular college might think somehow makes them a better person or student.
Or, maybe someone could explain to me how being a FAKE football player is less relevant to admission to USC or wherever, than being an ACTUAL football player would be?
Race is also an issue. Those schools all admit less-qualified students by race.
The overall admissions are “zero sum” in that if they have a hard limit of X admissions, if one person games the system and gets in then some other person who isn’t gaming the system quite as much doesn’t get in. But those who game it more aren’t therefore “unqualified.” Unless you want to claim that somehow the school has determined that only those X students out of the whole country/world are really “qualified” and the X+1th person and beyond are just too dumb for college. Or at least for THAT college.
By the way, can I trade places with Rob in that photo? I’d love to be that close to Lori Loughlin! She’s one of the most gorgeous women ever. (As opposed to AOC for example, who I’ve heard is “attractive” but I just don’t see it.)
Or if you can’t set me up with Lori Loughlin, then Neve Campbell will do. :-)
Not exactly, and certainly not always. The final syllable in “Don Quixote,” for example, is much closer to “ay” than to “eh.”
Ain’t Ricochet wonderful? We cover absolutely everything, including Spanish orthography.
And James triggered another memory. There was a recent Dilbert cartoon where some guy – maybe a new employee at the company, it wasn’t specified and really doesn’t matter – says to Dilbert, “Hi there, I’m very smart but I don’t know how to do anything.” Dilbert asks, “Where did you get your Ph.D?” Guy says, “I didn’t say I have a Ph.D.” Dilbert says, “You kinda did.”
“Betto” or “Beitow” … I don’t know! Surely his path to POTUS is through the Texas governor’s mansion.
I appreciate Rob’s call out to Conrad and his book “The Secret Agent” for its insights into today’s terrorism. How deeply Conrad understood his fellow humans.
As for the main scandal this week, it is shocking to find out that USC does not already have a School of Social Media which offers degrees in Instagram Arts and scholarships for those who are gifted enough to have already earned the title “Obscure Celebrity.”
There would be far too much competition for those slots, too.
There are so many wrong assumptions in this episode that it was hard to keep up.
I’m not a big Ben Sasse fan, and I find the Ben Sasse/Jonah Goldberg admiration society to be a bit unsettling, but the idea that Ben Sasse sold out his principles for Trump is laughable in the same way that Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Charles Grassley, or Lindsey Graham would do the same thing in voting for Trump instead of the Constitution.
As Hillary found in 2008, a white candidate has a hard time running against a serious minority candidate in the Democratic primary. Every attack, every criticism, is rebutted with a cry of “racism“. Even if Beto had beaten Ted Cruz, he would be a long shot.
BTW, that election was close because Texas voters were punishing Cruz for running for President instead of dedicating himself to his job as their Senator. You will note that more than one of the Senators running for the Democratic nomination for President had, in their last election, promised not to run for President. They understood their chances of winning were reduced if voters caught on that the Senate was just a stepping stone.
The non-controversial Republicans who ran statewide last fall won their re-election bids by 750,000-1 million votes. Cruz’s main problem wasn’t the people from California moving in and trying to turn Texas Blue, it was the people in the Bush wing of the GOP still mad at him for not knowing his place and beating out David Dewhurst for the seat in the 2012 Republican primary, and the wing of hard-core Trump voters in the state, who make a list, check it twice, and can’t get over any slight anyone’s ever made to their guy. They were still mad about the 2016 RNC Convention diss Cruz launched at Trump along with his refusal to get out of the race.
Greg Abbott won his re-election as governor by five times the margin Cruz did. That means about 800,000 people who voted for Beto also voted Republican for governor, and explained why O’Rourke opted against challenging Cornyn in 2020. He wasn’t going to get those same 800,000 voters, and anyone who runs for Senate next year in Texas will have to defend whatever progressive stuff the presidential nominee is saying at the national level.
Interesting approach to call out by name the freeloaders. Ricochet is going 180 degrees from the standard PBS-style approach of acknowledging those who pony up. In which group is the vanity more compelling?
I majored in a STEM field and went to an only slightly competitive college. I would never have gotten into MIT, even if I had applied. But I learned a lot in my old school and was very well prepared for my career. Since it was a state school, it cost a lot less than MIT. I don’t think in my case, or in most people’s cases, going to a high end school makes a big difference in the quality of the education. I do think that a lot of very talented people go to high end schools, and are better in their fields than I was. But I think that’s more a function of the students’ abilities and drive, and less of the school’s reputation. The school does help in the sense that when you see MIT or some such school on a resume, people assume the best of you. And there are better business connections, although I suspect this matters more outside of the STEM field.
As far as a high income if concerned, these parents are already very rich, and so making a large income with a prestigious school background should not be a concern for the children. Of course there are rich people who squander their money. And there are some rich people who are willing to break laws and ethics to get more money. The example these parents set for their children is horrible.
Fine by me. In fact, I prefer it to the begrudging respect Rob generally gives to them (I thought his pitch last week was inspired). My power has been cut off at least 4 times in the past two years – aren’t bills irritating? – and all the while I’ve been sending money to ricochet…
then again, those freeloaders are definitely better with their money then I am.
You’ll note that the highest profile parents are career women who no doubt feel guilty about having neglected their children when they were growing up (whether they actually neglected them or not). A lot of overcompensating going on, I suspect.
Rob Long’s approach to marketing is indeed unusual. First, he insults Donald Trump and Trump supporters, and then asks Trump supporters for money.
Perhaps the panelists’ blinders don’t let them see that the Republican Senators who voted to uphold the veto can simply state that they are merely moving the Constitutional issue forward, so that it can be adjudicated by the Supreme Court.
I’m pretty libertarian and I like Trump. I never get insulted by anything around here like everyone is always complaining about. Ricochet is full of good information, entertainment, and they do a really good job of aggregating new podcasts–except for a complete lack of Austrian economists –which all right thinking citizens know is a disaster for The Republic.
I think everyone should try to support and protect decent right leaning information sources however they can. JMO.
Adding to #19. you can hate Trump all you want, the real issue is how did he happen and is he actually getting much done? I blame the GOPe and the RNC completely. The RNC doesn’t know how to run a primary and the idea that the GOP has been conservative in aggregate since Nixon or Reagan is completely laughable. Plus people are sick of the media and sick of the cultural problems.
I did go to MIT in the 80’s and my experience is that the state schools have a very good education available, however, the student has to pursue it diligently. MIT sets the bar so high that you had to get a good education to barely clear it.
This is why I am eager to see if any of these pampered parents tried to bribe their kid’s into MIT. They are in for quite a shock. The IHTFP* would have been instantaneous**. I dropped from top of my class to middle of the pack instantly. I studied my rear end off to get to about the 60% percentile. We had free cross registration with Harvard and I took two classes there. The Harvard classes were “No show” A’s. I did attend class because I was actually interested in the material, but the Harvard students showed up sporadically. Occasionally, we would have a Harvard student in one of our classes. They would drop quickly or whine through out the semester.
*IHTFP: I Hate This F’ing Place. When the work load was crushing, you would find yourself muttering this randomly, typically in a state of exhaustion. If a parent asked, you would say, “the Institute Has The Finest Professors.” My response was “Iron Has Three Fundamental Phases.” (I was course 3 – Materials Science.)
**I changed my mind in the course of writing this. An Influencer would never get to IHTFP because they would not care enough – just like the Harvard students who would drop a MIT class in two weeks. Oh, no! I am wrong again, they simply would transfer to Harvard. Easy Peasy. What was I thinking?
Very interesting. No wonder Harvard accepted David Hogg
Didn’t Beto move further to the left as his 2018 campaign progressed? Who in their right mind thinks O’Rourke has the stones to stand up for anything, much less the far left? The problem with people who bask in the spotlight is they will do just about anything to stay in the good graces of the people that say they are “cool”. As an aside, how much money has he raised? Do you honestly thing that the Dem primary voters will let a white Irish guy get the nod?
None of the hosts seem to realize that Beto isn’t running against Trump until he gets past the primaries and the majority of the Dem primary voters are looking for someone to eat Trump alive, not for calm and quiet and back to normal types. Please explain how Beto will get past the primaries?
Beto got a lot of support from the left against Ted Cruz, who evidently isn’t a “true” Hispanic because Liberalism. It doesn’t seem likely that he would get the same degree of support running against other favorite classes of the left in the primaries. But “That’s A Good Thing” for the country, since it suggests that the dems will put another type of loony up against Trump in 2020.
Instead of simply asserting that the Flight 93 Election narrative is “absurd”, Rob needs to actually make the case. There are many people much smarter than he and his fellow NRers, who actually believe the last election was a decisive turning point and have spent a lot of time making the argument. He should also explain why Fox News watchers are so insignificant, not to mention “angry”, because if that’s the case, what does it say about National Review’s relevance and its readers?
Let alone that of Jonah Goldberg’s new little project, and even Ricochet.
2.8M daily viewers for FNC vs 90K monthly NR readers. But I guess he’s arguing that NR readers have more influence in DC than do Fox News viewers. Rubes v Rainmakers & Office Holders?
That comment of @roblong‘s got my attention also.
My suspicion that @roblong doesn’t spend much time on Ricochet has been confirmed.
Yeah, how dare he tell the truth as he sees it.