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Some weeks, we have to hunt hard for topics. Other weeks, well, they rain down like a monsoon. The latter describes this week and to provide an umbrella we’ve got the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s White House correspondent Debra J. Saunders on the political topics (and a bit on San Francisco) and The Skeptical Environmentalist himself, Bjørn Lomborg, who at this moment, is the world’s second most famous Scandinavian authority in climate. Also, a new poll question (answer it!) and Lileks make a cameo appearance to award Ricochet member Kevin Creighton the highly coveted Lileks Post of The Week.
Music from this week’s show: How Soon Is Now by The Smiths
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I love everything about Peter…including his sighs and self-interruptions…especially his laughter.
If I was actually being dismissive, I would have ignored the comment altogether. Why don’t you engage on the points I’m making rather than nitpick my writing style?
Hey, thanks for the tip! I’m writing these comments on my phone and it’s easy to make typos. Had to go back and correct them for clarity’s sake. Did not change the intent of my comments one bit.
@blueyeti — Rest assured that we appreciate your participation in the discussion!
@annefy — When I fix a typo in a comment, I never add a note. The sense of the comment isn’t changed in such a case.
I have nothing to add in regards to your points- that’s why I’m not engaging. Your original comment to @milkchaser was, and I quote, “uh, the part of the show we are discussing had nothing to do with President Trump.”
I jumped in to let you know that (to me) it was obvious that @milkchaser was referring to the podcast – not anything specific in the comments that you were “discussing”.
@milkchaser has since commented that I was correct in my assumption, and specifically referred to the beginning of the podcast; you have now challenged him as to specifics.
What’s that got to do with me?
Here’s the thing about condescension: It implies that one is smarter than those being condescended to. That’s what is so repugnant about it. I recognize that Peter’s long-winded discursions were centered on a defense of Trump against the bogus Democrat accusations regarding the dreaded Ukrainian phone call. But, as if to season his reasonable defense of Trump, he felt it necessary to damn him for his style (as if a conversational phone call should resemble a Robinson-penned Reagan speech).
Examples:
Peter 7:58 “Crudely done, maybe” referring to Trump’s request of Zelensky for help investigating 2016 election.
Peter 9:32 “On the substance of this thing: It’s Donald Trump yakking… It’s crude, it’s maybe ill-judged… I think it is ill-judged” Something wrong with yakking?
Peter 16:05 “He [Trump] talked too much. He was unwise. He was more than imprecise in what he said.“
Deb 26:28 “Rudy Giuliani… because it just doesn’t make sense… I sorry, Rudy Giuliani just seems pretty unhinged when you watch him talk these days, right? And the fact that the President’s private attorney… he’s acting like he’s a US emissary. And the fact that he went and talked to people from Ukraine and Madrid… I think these are things that people will be looking at.“
For the life of me, I have no idea what the substance of her complaint is. RG made a trip overseas and talked to people? Who hasn’t done that? Or is it that he did so at the behest of the President? And that’s a problem, why? What are the chances that this is not the first time that Trump has sent one of his lawyers to a foreign country? Is there something wrong with sending your private lawyer to a foreign country? Something wrong with asking him to interview people who may or may not have information that could damage a possible/likely 2020 opponent? Seems like due diligence to me. Kind of foolish not to follow up on these stories.
Peter 28:09 “He’s a loudmouth. It’s ill-judged“
Peter 28:35 “And it’s just Trump yakking.” Followed up by petty disparagement of Giuliani’s work.
Peter 28:54 “It’s not illegal. It’s just scuzzy behavior.“
Deb 31:43 “It was inappropriate for Trump to say that… In fact he even tweeted ‘Do you think I’d be dumb enough to say this?’“
Peter 31:54 “Yes, we do!“
Deb 31:55 “Yes. YES!” And all three chuckle. “There’s a fatigue in Washington of having to defend him, where if he showed a little bit more discipline they wouldn’t have to.“
It wasn’t a typo. @blueyeti added a sentence. Specifically:
It wasn’t terribly important; I was just letting him know that it’s bad form to edit (by “edit” I should have said “add”) a comment without so noting. And no, I don’t note corrected typos, either. It’s usually pointless as the super embarrassing ones have usually been commented on and saved for all eternity …
Some of us don’t really think there is a need to defend Trump and that the Democrats’ attacks, especially this latest one, are as sincere as Capt Renault in Casablanca, complaining about gambling.
How do we know that discipline really would not spare Trump even one microsecond of grief? Because extraordinary discipline did not spare Brett Kavanaugh from the onslaught of Democrat lies. Gosh, one year goes by and people forget it even happened.
I’m just a simple Java programmer. What do I know about politics? Well, a lot actually, having worked at a variety of companies for decades. And here are things I’ve learned:
Trump is not afraid of Democrat reprisal. He expects it and he knows it is part of the game. He uses it.
Oh, wait a minute… Now I get it. He was supposed to get the CIA and FBI to cobble together a pretext for investigating it first (no matter how lame) and get the full force of US law enforcement and intelligence agencies to investigate this thing for partisan political purposes. Somebody needs to get Trump the phone numbers of Chris Steele and Joey Mifsud. They do good work.
We do a talk show. We’ve done literally hundreds of them for over 8 years. The hosts give their opinions. They are not here to be cheerleaders, they are not here to be critics either. They just call these things as they see them, from a Conservative POV. They praise people when they agree and they call them out if they don’t. If you seriously think they are “so-called Conservatives,” well, you’re entitled to your opinion. But I strongly disagree.
I’ve enjoyed the back and forth. Maybe Annefy is right — perhaps I should do it more often. I’ll think about that.
Signing off for the night.
Good night, John-Boy.
From what I can tell, this is complicating things, but I’m not an expert.
In general, it is a problem that Trump lacks civic executive experience and knowledge of things like that. His in precise language is going to cause problems from time to time.
Harry Hopkins.
Granted he wasn’t his lawyer, but aren’t Presidents allowed to send anyone they want as their personal emissary?
I agree with the guy our @MollieHemingway retweeted last night. If you’re tired, then shut up and go home. We don’t want or need you “on our side” any more.
Based on the approval rating numbers, looks like many are doing just that. It’s an interesting strategy to win an election.
Not if the president is Donald Trump. Then doing anything that is normal for a president to do is impeachable.
Personally I don’t give a damn what the whiney brats in the Washington fake news establishment think, or whether the poor darlings are fatigued. I have near 100% contempt for the lot of them.
I think anyone who believes Trump lacks discipline is seriously out of touch with reality. Trump is a billionaire who succeeded in real estate, TV, and politics. You don’t have to like him to acknowledge that you don’t get elected president on your first foray into politics because you lack discipline. Just look at the last month of the campaign as an example — Trump was doing 15 events per day (interviews, rallies, fundraisers, etc), whereas Clinton was doing 3 per week.
My impression is, this sort of thing has been routine in American history. It’s often referred to as a backchannel.
OK, I guess you caught Blue Yeti red-handed!
One key difference: Hopkins did not have attorney-client privilege with his boss.
I can tell you Brian Kilmeade is being very frank about Giuliani, which is a little bit of a career risk. Same thing with Karl Rove. Again, I don’t know much about any of this. I just want Trump to succeed.
Both of them will be guests on this very show in the coming weeks.
Stephen Cohen was discussing that last night on the John Batchelor Show.
I suggest that you book John Batchelor. Given his hours on the air, he may be hard to get but he’d make an excellent guest.
He is the best. Get his podcast. It’s broken down by topic. There is nothing like it. It’s free, too.
Love John (Richard Epstein is a regular guest on his show), but he seems like more like a host than a guest. I already have three hosts. Happy to be convinced otherwise, though.
He is fairly often a guest on AM 770 local programs. He may be doing it as a favor to friends at his home station, but it’s worth a try. I had a great time when I was on his program.https://audioboom.com/posts/6542405-hotel-mars-60-years-since-flopnik-vanguard-david-livingston-spaceshow-com-richard-easton-au
Truth. But he had armor-plated executive privilege. Why he could get away with ordering the Navy to attack U-Boats in spite of the Neutrality Act.
Is that the Stephen Cohen who used to apologize for the USSR and attack Ronald Reagan, back in the day? And now apologizes for Russia?
If he agrees with me, I may have to reconsider my position!
I agree that he’s still too pro Putin for my taste. But his support of Trump can’t be making his Leftist friends happy.