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Another slow news week…yawn. Uh, no. With so much to talk about, we present another super-sized Ricochet Podcast clocking in at just under 90 minutes. We’ve got our pal David French, who wants us to Stop Making Terrible Arguments for Blind Loyalty. That’s followed by two Ricochet members (that’d be Robert McReynolds and Max Ledoux) who wants us to give the President the benefit of the doubt at least some of the time. Seems reasonable, but you won’t want to miss the debate that ensues. Who won? Tell us in the comments. Also, RIP Roger Ailes, the whip smart, innovative, and yes, controversial, creator of Fox News (the Michael Wolff piece Rob refers to about Ailes is here).
Music from this week’s podcast: Happy Family by The Ramones
The all new opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
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This comes across as a little Marxist. Care to rephrase?
I agree, talk of impeachment is destructive and, at any rate, it’s not going to happen unless there really is evidence of Trump colluding with the Russians. I don’t think there is any evidence – we would know by now if there was any – though he sure fuels the fire and acts as if he has done something wrong when he (I think) hasn’t. He certainly feeds the narrative. I just wish he would move on to policy matters.
So you don’t read or listen to anything that doesn’t agree with your priors?
The procedure for impeachment is spelled out clearly in the US Constitution.
If conservatives conclude that Trump is selling out American interests to the Russians, it is their moral obligation to begin the process of impeachment.
If Trump were removed from office via impeachment this would not represent the subversion of our Constitution; it would represent obedience to it.
This is especially true when one considers Trump’s fascination with single payer health care and mandatory paid family leave. Socialized medicine and socialized family policy represent an effective means of subverting the American free enterprise system.
Conservatives need to wake up and realize that Trump donated money to people like Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Chuck Schumer only partially out of opportunism, but also out of a shared belief in big government. Conservatives need not worship Trump the way progressives worshipped Obama.
It’s also important to remember that Mike Pence does not share Trump’s admiration of socialist health care and socialist family policy (paid leave). Mike Pence does not want to make America more like Sweden. So, dumping the Trump has a lot of upside.
I believe it was the pro-Trump crowd that told us to support him for the election and ignore his erratic behavior because Congress would be able to use its impeachment authority to keep him in check. Now, you’re saying it is “dangerous” to suggest that Congress exercise its lawful authority.
Total bait-and-switch by the pro-Trump crowd on this one.
In a perfect Constitutional order, the Executive would not interfere with Legislative matters. But that’s not how things work now. Trump promised he would repeal Obamacare and build a “big, beautiful Wall.” He has done neither, and to the extent he and his staff has involved themselves in the legislative agenda, they have ensured that Obamacare will remain the law of the land without any major changes.
Daily Caller: “….House Republican leadership sources are concerned that unsuccessful Never Trump presidential candidate Evan McMullin secretly wore a recording device during a June 2016 leadership meeting, Axios reported Thursday afternoon.”
This is the guy a lot of the NR staff, including David French, supported for president.
The wall hasn’t been built yet? You are seriously arguing that in mid-May 2017? A requests for prototypes is out, and prototypes are being designed. Moreover, as Scott Adams pointed out, only a tyro or moron seeks to fund a project first. If you get 20 billion in funding, and then get proposals, guess how much the contractors are going to say the project will cost?
Just as lawyers aren’t the only citizens entitled to have opinions on the law, physicians are not the only citizens entitled to have an opinion on health care policy. You’re also flat wrong because the American health care system as a whole is leaps and bounds ahead of every other country’s health care system in innovation. Countries with socialized medicine (including Australia) are by-and-large piggybacking off of American innovation.
Now, if you want to compare America’s Medicaid and Medicare programs to Australia’s Medicare program, that’s a different question entirely. But Trump’s insipid remarks on this subject were not so constrained.
Conservatives need to realize that politicians like Trump are dispensable.
Once it became clear that Donald J. Trump would act just as recklessly as president as he did as the founder of Trump University, conservatives no longer had any obligation to continue supporting him.
Once Trump announced in his speech to Congress that he supports mandatory paid family leave, once Trump mentioned that he still supports single payer health care, conservatives were no longer obligated to support Trump.
This is no longer a binary choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. This is a choice between an erratic Donald Trump and an articulate Mike Pence.
Remember in the GOP primaries when there was a controversy over North Carolina’s transgender bathroom laws? Trump’s instinct was to criticize those who didn’t want men going into women’s bathrooms. Ted Cruz’s instinct was to support the Republicans in North Carolina. Mike Pence endorsed Cruz.
Dumping Trump would mean that the Republican party would no longer be headed by someone who changes political affiliations as often as he changes wives.
I understood Trump to be saying America’s medical insurance regime is so bad, it’s even worse than single payer systems.
I am arguing that $0 has been allocated for construction of the wall through September 30, 2017. If building the wall along the Southern border is such an urgent priority, why isn’t the President getting something done fast?
By the way, if Mexico is going to pay for the wall anyway, why does the cost matter? What does cartoonist Scott Adams say about that?
Shouldn’t we wait til he does something impeachable?
Obstruction of justice is impeachable. Now, he may or may not have committed obstruction of justice. My mind is open on that, but I tend to think asking the head of the FBI to lay off one of your staff members and firing him because he refuses falls into that category.
But your premise is that any inquiry into Trump’s conduct is “dangerous.” The pro-Trump crowd (you, Max, etc.) want to put their head in the sand and ignore any evidence suggesting misconduct. And worst of all, you attack the people doing the work necessary to uncover wrongdoing in the process.
Like giving classified information to the Russians and exposing our ally Israel in the process?
Like endorsing Ivanka Trump’s mandatory paid family leave proposal in his speech to a Joint Session of Congress?
Ok. You can argue that Trump’s support of his daughter’s mandatory paid family leave proposal isn’t an impeachable offence. But it does demonstrate that Trump more than willing to expand the coercive powers of the federal government if influential people whisper in his ear.
Why do conservatives want to engage in slavish devotion to someone like that?
Actually, I understand that funds for maintenance are actually being used for upgrades. Again, we are four months in, and a first full budget is still several months away. I think you’re grasping at less than straws.
A puzzle for Robert McReynolds, wearing his All-Source intelligence analysis hat, and for and Rob Long, wearing his searching for script material hat, albeit it is one for comedy rather than police/intel procedural …
Who ‘cracked’ the DNC email? Who ‘cracked’ Podesta? Just because the Ruskies would have motive, means and opportunity (MMO) does not mean others did not also have MMO.
Please read this Wired Magazine article about the Benghazi murder of gamer/diplomat Sean Smith. After you are done, I claim you will have to admit there very well might be a community of EVE Online gamers who would now have MMO to take revenge against Hillary, by any means necessary.
“Diplomat Killed in Libya Told Fellow Gamers: Hope I ‘Don’t Die Tonight’”
The world wide community of EVE Online gamers, particularly those who were either current or former people in the career field known variously as Information Management, Signals Intelligence, and other military electronics/IT categories, would have:
So as to cover their tracks, the EVE Online gamers would leave the ‘fingerprints’ pointing back to Russians/Romanians/etc.
The USA Intel community (public & private) investigating would likely suspect something but be both proudly embarrassed (managerial level) and proudly stoked (individual contributor level) that this occurred. They would just play along – “Yeah the Ruskies did it”
I think a lot of people are deluded into what would happen, if the elites tried to pull a fast one and got rid of Trump.
The left and the press would dance about and basically ruin your Pres Pence. Having slayed the beast.
Remember vast swathes of these people seriously believe they can get a redo of the election. They fully believe a special election will be called so Hillary can get elected properly.
Trump is here for the next 8 years, when he wins 38 states next time.
The only way it doesnt happen is he dies in office or he nukes the world.
Next time lets get Kurt Schlicter and David Limbaugh on to defend Trump. Failing that the Harvard Lunch Club guys.
Rush said this week that most of the other side probably think if they impeach Trump then Hillary gets to be President. I believe it. The majority of folks have no clue about such things. Before I have any serious conversation with my co-workers, I have to gauge their basic knowledge of civics. Most don’t pass. And most are graduated with 4 year degrees. SMH!
And I suggested he go after tangible accomplishments as opposed to allowing these nothing stories about Russia, Comey, and his tweets stall him.
How on earth did I do that? I clearly explained that if you want to criticize Trump, there is plenty to dive into from a substantive position. Criticizing his tweets to me smacks of intellectual laziness because there are legitimate things to point to.
Max and Robert. I honestly respect your perspective and your sincerity. If my comments ever bleed over into snark or are too strident I apologize. But let me ask, other than the Supreme Court, what makes him “successful” so far? He has not staffed the bureaucracy, the deep state is still running way too much. He has squandered his first hundred days on wiretapping tweets and cutting his staff off at the knees rather than passing anything substantial. As I write this I’m listening to commentary on how a Republican in Montana is running for his life against a guy that plays guitar at nudist colonies.
What could make you reconsider the “false premise” idea? If we get to 2018 without tax reform or any major priority on our agenda? If he goes through staff like the Czarina Alexandria went through prime ministers?
I honestly believe I can bend over backwards to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I also sincerely believe he is fundamentally unfit for the office, and that he is more likely than not to really hurt this country worse than Hillary would have – and I believe that would have been a tragic amount. I do not think he should be removed yet, but I think after we suffer his manifest incompetence a while we will come to that conclusion.
I completely agree. If Trump is to be impeached the legal reasoning and foundation for it must be rock solid. There must be a proven crime to merit the punishment. If Trump where to be removed from office because he’s unpopular – that would be the end of America’s claim to democracy. If you want to have the standard of “Maintaining the confidence of congress” like a Prime Minister in a parliamentary democracy, amend the constitution and repeal the 25th amendment.
The Constitution allows Congress to impeach and remove a president for any reason that Congress deems important. If the members of Congress believe that Trump is not serving the nation well, members of Congress can impeach Trump, remove Trump from office and then let the voters weigh in on Congress’s decision at the next election.
A couple of things I would point to is the decrease in illegal immigration and the up-tick in manufacturing. Now if one does not want to attribute the latter to him that’s fine, but you can’t deny it is happening and because of it confidence is up.
This line of thinking ignores both the modern role of the President and Trumps MO as a politician. Either Trumos tweets are meaningless or they are part of his grand political strategy as a master persuader.
I don’t think I could ever have a rational conversation with you about anything contentious. I know I don’t want to have any conversation with you about these issues. I’m an aggressive obnoxious person sometimes, you are too. Best leave each other alone.
I don’t care about your opinions about my profession and insights in to health care. They don’t matter a bit to me and neither do mine to you.
Health care in it’s current iteration folds in under 10 years and I am acting accordingly with my business interests.
Please don’t answer me.
Great podcast.
Regarding @max‘s refusal to drop the NeverTrump label- I can’t argue with taking a pundit’s previous positions into account when evaluating their current positions. I’ll point out, however, that before you start inferring their reasoning to make false claims, you should first figure out if the claims they’re making are false or true. It’s fine to ascribe evil motives to the communist who insists 2+2=5, but when a communist states 2+2=4 you’re obliged to note he’s correct. More to the point of podcast discussion, we should evaluate whether or not the President’s obstructing justice before we analyze the motives of those who insist that he is.
And that is, like it or not, gonna be an accusation that’s with us for a while, whether or not you think it’s a false narrative perpetuated by the left. In scandals “it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.” Trump’s administration is gonna be facing inquiries from the independent counsel and Congressional investigations, and Trump really should talk to some lawyers before tweeting at Comey or giving interviews about it.
It’s also why “talk of impeachment” is in the air, though I agree with those who think that an impeachment now would absolutely tear this country apart. If Trump was hit by lightning we could probably get more of the conservative agenda with Pence as President. But by impeachment (or Amendment 25 removal) now, with no obvious crimes, after an election where Trump took on the elites and swamp of both sides? There would be justified violence in the streets.
One point that should have gotten more air time- Where the heck is Congress!? With or without Trump as President, we sent them there to get results. They should be told in no uncertain terms to get them or be Cantor’d.
It probably depends why manufacturing is up.