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This week, author and Manhattan Institute fellow Heather Mac Donald joins the show to discuss her important new book, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe. Also, Paul Manafort exits, auto promotion and Ricochet’s editorial voice (or lack of one), and a heartfelt “bye-bye!” to John McLaughlin, who’s long running show, The McLaughlin Group is a distant relative of this very podcast.
Public service announcement: if you’re not a member of Ricochet and enjoy this podcast, be one of the 1,500 and join today.
Music from this week’s podcast:
What It Means by Drive-By-Truckers
The brand new opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
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Let’s be careful out there, EJHill.
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Put ‘er up in the Fargo town square, shall we?
I suggest free coffee mugs to those members who join since the membership drive started. Instead of the regular Ricochet mugs however, they should have the added words “I’m one of the 1500!” on them. Rush did this with his newsletter, and I still have my “Charter Member of the vast right wing conspiracy” mug.
Just trying to help you all out . . .
Rob looks like a cop (Irish extraction) who knew two words, when I was a kid: Move Along.
Great listening, Gentlemen!
Hey Guys, that black band on the badge means the cops in the photo are remembering a fallen officer. Was this shot from a movie? If not, maybe the thing to do is photoshop your mugs on something else…
@timmcnabb
When your primary topic of discussion is the war on cops you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. The overwhelming majority of our ‘shops are lighthearted and we went through several versions knowing that we were walking a fine line. And anytime you walk that line you will cross it for some people.
Had this discussion taken place the week of the Dallas killings the editorial process goes differently.
Nobody is making a joke about dead cops, there are no exploited widows or orphans. There is nothing to identify or link them to a real situation.
I’m with Tim McNabb. The picture is obviously from a police funeral, of which there have been too many lately.
We’ve taken it down and will replace it with another one tomorrow. Thanks to all for the feedback.
Thanks, Blue Yeti. Good call.
For those tuning in for Heather McDonald, she comes on at about 22 minutes.
Wow. What a great antidote blaming Republicans for racial tensions. Here we have it where it belongs, on Heather McDonald.
I understand, and certainly know everyone at Ricochet are thoughtful and decent. However, Lord knows I have committed my share of unintentional faux pas.
You ever have a project, idea or something and you discuss it with your friend and every idea you throw out there they go, “ah that’ll never work” , “that’s interesting, but it’ll never work” ” wow great idea, but it won’t work”. That is Rob lately on these podcast and after a while it gets irritating. Don’t just be the guy to say it won’t work it is August the fat lady hasn’t sung yet, just try to be a tinsy weensy bit positive.
At 1:03 in the podcast Rob expressed a disbelief that Trump has any serious policy positions, or convictions. Here’s a homework assignment. You should look at Trump’s 2011 book on politics: Time to Get Tough—-Making America #1 Again. Apparently written to help defeat Obama in 2012, it starts with criticism of China that mirrors his speeches on trade agreements. It is written in his style of speaking so may not be ghost-written and may represent his ideological foundation. You should read up on his positions to discern his convictions, as they do seem consistent, on at least the topic of trade, over the years. Maybe he has other books on politics. Perhaps if his written opinions, instead of his personality, had been discussed in the primaries he would not have won the nomination
I think I read yesterday that more than 75% of Republicans support Trump. If Rob wants more members, it might help to recognize that rather than encouraging the other 25%. By the way, based on the Republicans I know, I seriously challenge that figure of 25% opposed and believe it to be much closer to 10-15%. If Trump continues his actions from this past week, he will win this election.
I agree with Heather that changing the narrative from the Oval Office will be a critical step in righting the disruptions that have plagued law enforcement from the early days of this horrendous Obama administration. These con men in charge of the country have played patently wicked mind games with the national psyche, and it’s a relief to hear her say she believes Trump will lead in the right direction.
Holy Cow! I thought being mentioned in Rod Dreher’s Crunchy Cons was all I needed to make peace with dying alone in a ditch, as it meant I would not be unheralded. Now a guy who wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan says I created a gorgeous line.
Years ago I saw a play with Brett Sommers, and there was a line about how what actors most want is an audience. An audience is indeed something actors (and people who like to write) crave, but a kind word from an admired figure is pretty doggone nice.
Thanks.
P.S. I was in fact in the basement, working on a woodworking project when I heard my name and Peter’s encouragement which was an extra dollop of special.
My stepdad was a cop. My mom carries around his badge to this day, and I carry his duty firearm from time to time. Thanks for understanding and being a such a good sport about it.
I was hoping that Peter had heard or read the transcript of Trump’s speech in Charlotte late this week. I would be interested in his analysis. Maybe next week.
How about “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) and the associated “War on Cops” as a stealth get out the vote narrative for the black community? Without a compelling reason for the black community to vote in November (i.e. first black president), expectations are that Hillary will suffer from an enthusiasm gap that Obama did not have with black community. Political operative solution would then be to have third-party organizations fund “community organizers” to agitate the black community, in-person online on-air, into action over a faux-crisis of some sort. Would also fund other community organizers to monitor news social media police scanners, so as to spark immediate local backlash over any random incident that fits their preferred agitation narrative.
Here’s how gorgeous it was, Tim: I wish I’d written it myself.
In discussing Ricochet’s editorial voice or lack thereof Rob mentioned that this was a particularly unique election, in that both candidates are so bad. It is also mentioned that Michael Stoppa has a pro-trump podcast. I am not sure that a lot of us reluctant Trump people are necessarily looking for someone to be a pro-trump cheerleader. There have been weeks where most of the content was how awful Trump is as a candidate. In that time there are very few mentions of Hillary Clinton.
In might be possible, considering the target rich environment, to create balance by pointing out how bad Trump is and how bad Clinton is on various conservative issues.
Rob commented that he thought most people had made up their minds.
I haven’t.
I waver back and forth from #almostnevertrump to #absolutelytrump depending, mostly it seems, on Trump himself. The Hillary hatred is built in and other than point out Trump’s foibles and how they impact my thinking, I am trying to stay away from advocating against him. I long ago (this season) gave up my illusion that the GOP was decidedly conservative. Trump and his supporters put the lie to that.
Can the #nevertrumpers convince me to NOT support Trump? No. They have only served to mostly annoy with the whining about his various faux pas. Do you not think we’re watching, too? We get it, you hate him, but it does seem like just so much ****hurt(trying to be super CoC friendly) after a while. I am this close to never listening to NTK again, but the recent episodes have been less anti-Trump and the flagship podcast has Peter on it, who I consider a voice of reason and to be about where I want to be.
Can the Trumpkins convince ? They drove me to Ricochet. I don’t like being in bed with most of them, but, at least the Ricochet Trump crowd offers reasoned arguments.
Only Trump can convince me, and if he continues to have weeks like this, and FINALLY turns his fire on Hillary, I’ll grudgingly shift from (ugh) Johnson on election day.
So, would somebody explain to me the selection of Drive-by Truckers’ “What it Means” as the music track for this podcast? The lyrics are a nice illustration of the crude misconceptions of all those who mistrust cops on out of tolerance of black criminality, but is there more to this song’s selection than that?
@RobLong, if you’re looking for a new angle on the “please join” spot (so annoying to paying customers!) tell them there’s a Ricochet member who, in his late 40s, quit his job (as did his wife), and moved to Cambodia to work with an organization that fights child sex trafficking. It’s a volunteer gig and they live off the kindness of strangers, as well as a some of their own personal savings … and that guy is a paying member of Ricochet!
This is not to blow my own horn, but every time I here you do that spot, I think to myself, “Really? It’s not expensive and I don’t want Ricochet to go away. If I can afford it, then everyone can.” Cheap bastards.
Man-swooning…
How might a brother support your work?
“You will, Peter. You will.”
-Oscar Wilde
Our personal web site is here: http://www.livingonthefarside.org/
And the website for the organization we volunteer with is here: http://agapewebsite.org
I hate it when this happens. I have been transformed into my nerdy supervillain alter-ego, the Grammar Nazi, by the following phrase in the OP:
No soup for you!
Or perhaps, in homage to Mr. McLaughlin, I should just say “wrong!”