Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The trio is back in action this week, and after a few weeks off, Rob is in full force! We’ve got Senator Tom Cotton to keep our attention (R- AR) where it should be: on Afghanistan. He then takes us through what was yesterday’s Wuhan lab conspiracy theory but which has since become today’s news. Cotton also breaks some news about Nancy Pelosi’s future ambitions – you don’t want to miss this!
Our hosts scrap a bit about the California recall but enjoy nothing but unity on Norm Macdonald and comedy, even in our politicized and polarized society™.
Music from this week’s podcast: Make ‘Em Laugh by Donald O’Connor (from the Singing in the Rain soundtrack.)
Subscribe to The Ricochet Podcast in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
Including/especially about voting for Biden.
Call me crazy, but I don’t think Biden is netting out.
I wish somebody would start a charity to help border agents quit. They don’t deserve this.
They are handling 200,000 a month and the thing at Dell Rio is just robot administration. They are just trying to avoid a humanitarian crisis anyway they can. The illegals can go back-and-forth between the USA and Mexico until they get cordoned off as administered.
The cartels are literally renting buses to take illegals up here from Central America.
The got-aways are normally 40% of the 200,000, meaning you add 40% and those are just criminals trying to avoid the border patrol. Fentanyl seizures are up 4x or something.
Then throw in Afghanistan and everything else.
But No Mean Tweets!
NPPs are an interesting group. The biggest misconception is to look at them monolithically, and it’s held even by professional political operatives. It’s a protest registration for Reps and Dems to disassociate from the two major parties. We find that they tend to reflect the dominant partisan affiliation in a particular area. So, in the Bay Area the NPPs will largely be left-wing progressives while the NPPs in the Sierra’s tend to be more right-wing. But you also have a sub-group who are truly without a partisan home.
The problem with putting together a successful coalition is that the tribalism is just too strong. There’s a big fault line through the Democrats that separates wealthy, high-income, white progressives from minority, religious, blue-collar, lower-income, middle class Democrats. In my experience, I’ve seen the latter only break with Democrats when it was in their interest, such as on the issue of climate change and proposed gas tax hikes, which will affect their pocket books. I’ve also seen it in education, where they support public charter schools and the upper class Dems are dead set against it.
But we’re getting those too. I don’t have it in front of me but he recently had something against DeSantis, I think.
The fact is if the 6 million republicans who voted for Trump showed up and voted in the off election, Larry Elder would be governor right now.
They didnt because state elections are not as energizing as the Presidential election. So people didnt show up to vote. And you got a democrat.
But pointing out that kind of fact doesnt help the Rinos, who believe that its the policies and the candidates, rather than the inability of the local party to generate turnout, which is its job.
But I am only a long experienced campaigner with a couple dozen election campaigns that I have wored on and ran.
I am not a hollywood writer who has never run an election in there life. Clearly they got the unassailable qualifications on me.
Do you think that’s really Biden? I doubt it.
First problem could be that IF the election had been as “energizing” as a Presidential election, the Dims come out in large numbers too, and Larry Elder still loses.
What if a bunch of those Trump voters are no longer there? It probably doesn’t make up the whole difference but a lot of people have moved out of California in the last year.
Probably not but the selling point of Biden was no mean tweets and mean tweets are coming from his account.
Before Norm McDonald got the SNL gig he wrote for Dennis Miller and Roseanne.
Rob, be careful with those ethnicity jokes or you’ll get canceled just like Trump. Moving your servers won’t help if the RINOs you like decide you are too controversial for them.
We tried a RINO already. His name was Mitt Romney. The media will just make up scandals for any RINO if he doesn’t have any of his own. It’s the same tactics as they used on Sarah Palin, when she went from the amazing powrful female governor to brainless former beauty queen contestant overnight. Once they figured out that these tactics work on the electorate, they knew Republicans will never win in a blue state or city again.
He was specifically speaking about California, not nationally.
And that matters…why?
I can’t blame the Democrats, they have an excellent strategy going here. The GOP could run Mother Theresa either in CA or nationally and she’d have a made-up scandal attached to her name in the Democratically-owned press by the end of the day. Not enough independent voters do their own research to look beyond headlines, and they still trust the press to tell them the truth at least a little, so… I really don’t see a way of getting an R elected either nationally or in blue states with lots of D and I voters for a very long time, if ever. Trump “insulated” himself against that by being a person no one expected flawless character from. And at least a few GOP voters realized the GOP gets zero points anymore for good character. And so it goes…
Loved to hear “Make ‘em laugh” and the stories about Norm McDonald. He was not my favorite comedian, but I did like the way he always looked like he was having a good time (as Rob alluded to).
You should take a look at Larry Hogan in Maryland and Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, both popular Republican governors of deep blue states. Are they Greg Abbott or Kristi Noem? Nope, but neither Abbott or Noem would get elected dog catcher in a blue state like MD, MA, or CA. And most of us here in CA would take Hogan and Baker in a nano-second because they would be a vast improvement over the current or past occupants of the governor’s mansion.
Also, you can malign Mitt Romney if you want, but he is a former Governor of Massachusetts. And that’s why it matters in California.
If Mother Teresa had 10,000 hours of off-the-cuff/easy to manipulate talk radio recordings and had supported Trump in a state where he is radioactive, then yes, she couldn’t get elected here either. Not saying it’s fair, only that this is the hand that was dealt to Republicans. And some of that is their fault.
The polling on Hogan was terrible right up to election day. It looked like Brown in a walk. I’m not saying everyone in the D party has received the memo that making up scandals is the guaranteed path to victory. And if Jeff Bezos is your best friend, as seems to be the case with Hogan, the press might actually leave you alone. With “friends”like Jeff Bezos, does the average GOP voter need enemies? Both Hogan and Baker obediently shut down their states and funneled billions of dollars to Bezos’ Amazon, it seems that GOP voters certainly don’t need friends (or Governors) like that.
If GOP politicians that are “electable” are going to spend $4T every time they turn around instead of $5T that a Democratic politician would spend, and only shut my child’s private school for two and three-quarters years instead of three, why should I be happy about that?
I’m going to guess that you don’t live in CA. Because if you did, you would know the answer to that question.
I don’t know what “shut down their states and funneled billions of dollars to Bezos’ Amazon” means and what not aware that Amazon and Bezos were hard up for money.
Part of it might be that with many stores closed by government order, many people ordered things from Amazon instead. Amazon may not have been “hard up” for money, but have you ever heard of a business that didn’t want MORE?
I absolutely live in CA. Newsom is horrible, but more horrible would be a Republican Governor that did exactly. the. same. things.
https://mashable.com/article/amazon-pandemic-earnings-triple
The lesson is that no small business should have been forced to close in the first place. DeSantis appears to have learned his lesson. Hogan’s friend Jeff Bezos probably won’t allow him to learn that lesson, especially this winter.
I’m not sure what Hogan and Baker have accomplished?
Would these be the same Democrats who chased Amazon out of NYC two or so years ago? Because those people loathe Amazon and Bezos.
Sorry, but I think the idea that any politician instituted lockdowns in order to funnel money to Amazon is ridiculous. And makes no sense on a number of levels if you actually stop and think about it for 5 seconds.
I never said that. That is ridiculous. I said that some Governors seemed more eager to close, and more reluctant to open. Some didn’t seem to care that their small businesses were being crushed, others did. Hogan and Baker don’t seem to be any friends to small business.
But that’s the entire point: a Republican governor, even a squishy one would be demonstrably better than what we have now. Hell, Jerry Brown was better than what we have now.
I am to aware of the connection that Larry Hogan has to Amazon (and I don’t really care). My point in bringing him and Baker up was to give examples of Republicans governing blue states.
Again, Larry Elder got shellacked by 26 (!) points by a very flawed governor. Ron DeSantis isn’t electable here under current conditions in this state. That’s a pipe dream and is the point Rob was making on this podcast. We have to play the hand we are being dealt, not the one we wish we could play.
And my condolences on being a resident of this place. I do love many, many things about living here. But the political climate isn’t one of them (as opposed to the actual climate, which I do love).
Those people abhor what they consider low-wage jobs etc, and they don’t want any of those jobs for themselves, but I think it’s clear that they don’t mind OTHER PEOPLE having those jobs, or even worse jobs: those people coming in from Haiti, for example.
They just don’t want to see it with their own eyes. Same thing with electric cars etc, using battery material dug up by children and prisoners and slaves in other parts of the world.
Do you really think those people in NYC etc don’t order from Amazon?
c’mon, man!
No, Jerry Brown would not be better. CA does have a lovely climate, but I can’t eat sunshine. I am facing loss of my church, my daughter’s private school and my job due to Newsom. And I have no doubt that Davis, Schwarzenegger, Wilson, and nearly every other CA Governor in history (possibly not Reagan) would have miserably failed the COVID test every bit as badly as Newsom did, and will continue to fail it this fall, as he locks down the state again under the idiotic delusion that lockdowns accomplish anything. This is ballgame, and only Governors like DeSantis seem to get it.
I would love to have an explanation of Elder’s loss from the 1619 Project and the BLM leadership, given that whites are now outnumbered in CA. I guess they only support people of color *sometimes*. They only want *a few* people of color to have a seat at the table. Pity that no reporter will ever ask them that question.
Of note is that Maryland and Massachusetts don’t conduct their elections by mail. Yet.