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This week on The Big Show, we inch our way back to normal with our first show in weeks without a COVID-19 specific guest. That’s not to say we don’t talk about it — we do, and then some. But the new cycle means that we have to address those icky charges against Joe Biden and to do that we call on the Ricochet Podcast’s Senior Sex and Gender Correspondent, the great Mollie Hemingway (yes, she’s also a Fox News contributor and a Senior Editor at The Federalist, but we had her first). We go deep on Tara Reade’s accusations, and how the media is (or isn’t) covering this story. Then, our old friend (and WSJ columnist) Bill McGurn stops by to discuss his recent column Communists in Brooks Brothers, in which he describes the struggles of Martin Lee. Also, some news on other dissidents in Hong Kong, and a bit of politics. We’ve got a Lileks Post of The Week about ratting on your neighbors and some closing thoughts on what the heck may be going on in The Hermit Kingdom.
Music from this week’s show: Me and Bobby McGee by Kris Kristofferson
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Not to rain on @jameslileks ‘ ad-reading “parade,” but in the pandemic movie “Warning Sign” – one of my all-time favorites – the deadly virus originally escapes from the main bio-weapon lab via a guy wearing… CONTACT LENSES!!!
One of the great moments of the classic, early years of Saturday Night Live was when guest Kris Kristofferson was surprised by the real Bobby McGee (Gilda Radner) and her slightly truculent insurance-agent husband (John Belushi).
There is a tie between the two main stories of this podcast. The establishment hypocrisy on the two Kavanaugh/Biden situation is the latest in a long line of stories that have led to most conservatives distrusting, to a greater or lesser extent, what the establishment says. With the Wuhan pestilence, the establishment has said we should tank the economy and stay at home in order to save a vast number of lives. There are many who have doubts about the severity of this problem because of the establishment’s lack of credibility.
By “establishment”, I mean people and groups that have a lot of influence over the society, and are not conservative. They are seen as one large interrelated and like minded blob.
It’s the freedom versus security debate, wrapped into the question of how COVID-19 is to be treated, where you have a normal above-average flu season on one end and viruses like smallpox and polio on the other. People who are either truly into absolute security or are claiming they’re into it for political purposes want to treat the coronavirus like the latter, where it’s considered so contagious/virulent that no risk can be taken and no reopening is safe.
Those types are far more represented in the media than the people who want everything reopened yesterday with no precautionary measures kept in place, though that’s how some of the security fanatics are attempting to portray anyone who wants any sort of targeted easing. May will be the month of hyperbolic media freak-outs by those types, and then it’s going to be up to the public to decide what type of risk level they’re willing to accept for getting some of their freedom of movement and association back.
Copying it because I can only like it once. The President has made mistakes. But acted “loathsome”? No. He has held up Federalism while trying to ameliorate the economic effects.
Donald Trump talked about grabbing consensual women by the genitalia. Joseph Biden actually grabbed a non-consensual woman by the genitalia.
To me that difference matters.
If you study Trump’s brag carefully, you will find he is actually talking about his celebrity status permitting him to kiss women without asking first.
The rest is hyperbole — just like his comment about shooting somebody and getting away with it.
Oh sure Taras, so “Russia, if you’re listening … ” is just hyperbole too? Who are you trying to kid?
(My answer: everyone who Trump was trying to kid.)
It really bothers me when this gets misinterpreted.
Women like being around productive men. It’s been like this forever.
There, FIFY, as the kids say these days.
I know, but many of these people can’t think straight because they hate Trump so much or are dumb. Anti-Trump Republicans included.
The roars of laughter and applause that invariably greeted that line ought to give away what Trump was doing, at least to those of us with common sense.
Trump loves to needle his enemies; and it was clear Hillary was desperate that the 30,000 emails she destroyed stayed lost, whether they contained proof of illegality (probably), or were merely very damaging (certainly).
@kedavis — Only celebrities are permitted to edit other people’s comments!
Also, many Trump critics are not liars, just sincerely misinformed.
Nah, we do it to each other in the PIT all the time.
Mollie Hemingway is just magnificent in every way. I’m a heterosexual married woman (as is she) and I would totally ask her out.
I thought Trump asked the Russians to release Hillary’s messages if they already had them since all foreign intelligence services had probably gotten into her unsecure server.
Even if the Russians chose to hold on to the emails, to blackmail the presumptive next President (i.e., Hillary), Trump’s job was to keep reminding the voters about them. And, of course, entertain his supporters.
At least it wasn’t Mollie getting snuggled!
Of course it was a joke.
This raises an issue that has bothered me since I first learned about the briefing that James Comey gave President-elect Trump about the salacious “pee tape” element of the “Steele dossier.” Trump’s response was exactly what any ordinary adult’s would be in the same circumstance (paraphrasing): “That’s crazy!”
Yet the highest echelon of the FBI, DoJ, along with the entire Intelligence Community, the unanimous Democrat Party, and the vast majority of the Washington DC establishment took it so seriously that they permitted the crippling of an administration and the intentional destruction of dozens of lives. Tens of millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted. At least that much personal wealth was destroyed, all to investigate a theory that on its face could be correctly evaluated as
“That’s crazy!”
Of course “Russia, if you’re listening, … ” was a joke. Every ordinary person recognized it as such.
The entire Washington DC establishment is insane. That’s crazy.
The most ordinary guy in all of Washington DC is the billionaire who’s married to a supermodel.