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This week on the Big Show, we start in frigid Minnesota, home of one James Lileks, who describes life in a Polar Vortex for those of us who live in more temperate climes. Then, we’re off to the swamps of Jersey for a visit from Commentary’s Noah Rothman to talk about his fascinating new book Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America. Then, it’s off to Venezuela where Annika Rothstein is on the ground in Caracas reporting on the collapse of a revolution. Finally, we end up back in the good old U.S. of A for some Super Bowl picks from the hosts. Who ya got?
Music from this week’s podcast: Not as Much as Football by Mojo Nixon
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Look at my comment #32. You can’t argue with it. The GOP has never been conservative enough when it mattered, so here we are. Then throw in the media and all of the nutty social stuff.
Watch any interview of Rep. Thomas Massey or this.
Ridiculous. While George W. Bush had his flaws. he handled the office well. His character was beyond reproach.
And on policy: The Iraq invasion, which the new isolationists abhor, could have had a great ending. We will never know because of Obama. Why the new Rightists can’t acknowledge that is beyond me. And his efforts to reform Social Security was nothing short of magnificent. Those efforts did not pay any dividends because of the Democrats.
The hatred that the Populists show for Republicans who are not named Trump is disgusting, and I will never forgive them for that.
See Medicare Part D.
I doubt it, but fair enough. These places have to be colonized not rebuilt, if you ask me. Afghanistan is going to get worse.
What does this mean?
43 grew government as bad as any of them if you ask me. 9/11 kind of tied his hands, just like the USSR did Reagan and Iraq 1 did 41.
The GOP never gets strategic because all they care about is getting reelected in a system where
Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™
No measure of debt to GDP ever improves. Why is that anyway?
Obviously, you do not know about W’s efforts to reform Social Security. I suggest you get acquainted with them, before you damn everybody to hell, because they fall short of your libertarian paradise.
Do you have a link? I have never, ever heard that it isn’t in bad shape.
Just to be fair to 43, Larry Elder is always adamant about pointing out that the intelligence on Iraq really did point to WMD’s being a problem there. I think he’s right, but you can’t get any conservatives to articulate that.
This all started when one of our diplomats basically gave the green light for Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait with a poorly worded statement. Then osama bin Laden went nuts about our having bases in Saudi Arabia.
The same thing happened with the Korean War.
The State Department is a menace.
No. It was a long time ago. what he basically tried to do was to partially privatize it. He would let people take 4% and invest it the way they see fit. It was only 4%; but if it worked well, it could have been increased. The Democrats shut it down immediately.
OK fair enough. I am familiar with what you are talking about. The way I interpreted that it sounded like he actually improved it.
The big problem is there is so much largess, graft, and rent seeking and an actual need for or perceived need for socialism, that it’s very hard to improve anything. Then the economy gets regressive and then you get kooky people controlling everything like Trump and AOC. It’s a very tough problem. Then throw in the fact we supposedly have geopolitical responsibilities.
It’s really a shame that Ted Cruz isn’t POTUS.
They also shut it down when he tried to do something about the situation in the financial world. His administration saw the 2008 crisis coming years ahead of time, but the Dems said it was all an attempt to reverse the gains against redlining. So, nothing was done, and 2008 came.
Bingo.
The big problem for conservatives and libertarians is the dynamic between the Fed, the financial markets, and voting. See my comment #36. There are a couple of guys in the House of Representatives that are working on this, but it’s very hard.
An utter failure is never “magnificent”.
Just to be clear, I’m not against RINO-ism or neocon-ism or socialism or Keynesianism or whatever, if it actually improves things, but it just doesn’t. You just can’t have the masses voting on this Central planning nonsense and expect it to turn out well. It’s not happening.
This is very good. I must admit that I am not sure to what you refer. But I’m glad you can say something good about W. The Social Security thing always bothered me. I admit that, now that I need it, I’m glad it is there. But partially privatizing it was such a good idea. But, of course, most Democrats will never agree to anything that gets us freer from the heavy hand of government.
This is disgusting. You are wrong, as usual. A worthwhile effort is always magnificent. It ain’t his fault the Democrats are such losers.
Something like Social Security and Medicare and maybe even some kind of universal medical coverage is a good idea as long as they don’t lie about it. That is not the reality. All they do steal from future generations, and then it collapses.
I won’t mention his name, but there is a very smart guy that used to be on this forum that flat out told me on Twitter the only way this is going to work is if they have net worth taxes. And just for the record, he’s in a profession that puts him in a position that you can’t argue with him.
I can say plenty good about him. There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and some of them were moved out to Syria and Libya. Muamar Qaddafy turned some of them over when he decided he didn’t want to be next. Some were used in Syria more recently. Some were used in IEDs in Iraq. He did good things. He tried to do other good things.
On the other hand, one of his weaknesses was he had too much respect for the office and never defended himself against the press and other Democrats. The President of the United States is just a hired hand. Like any hired hand, if you want to get things done, sometimes you have to fight for it harder and be willing to take on people who buy bytes by the barrel.
I swear to god if they would just get rid of all of the nonpublic goods produced at the federal level except for social security and Medicare and wipe out Central bank discretion, everything would be fine. Employment based insurance has destroyed people being able to take care of themselves without it so you need to do something about that, as well.
This is dead-on. I don’t like it, but that is where we are.
I disagree you vehemently on the second paragraph. But I congratulate you for being able to tell a good man.
Refresh my memory – which party had majorities in the House and Senate when Bush failed to fix Social Security?
I honestly don’t know. Even if was the Republicans, Democrats don’t need a majority to gum up the works. Their is a little thing in the Senate called the filibuster.
What has to do with your, in effect, calling Bush a failure? The way you think about people is disgusting. Bush had a grand idea, and he tried.
Don’t ever read anything I write again. I can’t stand it.
That may be what bugs them the most.
I voted for Cruz in the primaries, but to semi-quote Jonah Goldberg, “the primaries were over.” I’m not sure what credible claim is possible that Cruz would be doing better than Trump.
I would have more confidence in him leading a more systematic rollback of socialism, that’s all. Trump’s lack of civic and political experience hurts him sometimes. He should’ve gotten the wall done in the first two years.
Maybe. But I’m not confident that Cruz would have pursued it at all. Or many of the other things that Trump has succeeded at. Is there any evidence that Cruz would have had the same interest in a wall? Or many other relevant issues? If there had been, during the actual election, perhaps Cruz would have done better than he did.
I’m making a more general observation. Trump is obviously way superior on some things, particularly with the media, and supporting the right on social issues. It would be nice if the GOP would take some lessons.
Part of the problem seems to be that many – such as Jonah – seem to have convinced themselves that President Cruz, or even President Hillary, would have a more “orderly” White House, and etc. Which they sometimes seem to believe is more important than actual policy and results. But other than what comes from being shielded by the media, esp regarding Hillary, why believe that? With the email server etc, Hillary had plenty to be investigated, and be jailed for. And those were things she did while in high office, with a security clearance etc, not just during a campaign. Her staff would likely be turning over a lot too. Trump is not unique there either.
Here’s an account of how the Bush II White House frittered away the chance for Social Security reform:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2011/04/07/how-george-w-bush-lost-personal-accounts-for-social-security/
Just as Barry Goldwater set the table for the Great Society and Teddy Kennedy’s immigration reform by his disastrous 1964 campaign, so George W. Bush, by refusing to fight back against Democratic smears, set up the Democrat supermajorities that permitted the passage of Obamacare.
Actually, Bush would have been more successful if he had possessed the fighting spirit Trump has. It was a major mistake to not defend himself against the Dem lies. Trump would be better liked if he had the manners of Bush, but would those manners be an impediment like they were for Bush?
Only Cruz came close to the fighting spirit but you will never convince me that the squishes in the Senate wouldn’t have hated him just as much.
How successful would Bush have been if he had had a conservative Congress, not just a squishy RINO Republican membership?
I have never understood the lack of interest the Republicans have had in admitting there were WMDs in Iraq. Anything found a year or so after the war ended was ignored as they let the left claim these weren’t the WMD we were looking for. There wasn’t going to be a quick find. Saddam didn’t label them “WMD” but hid them among other things. When some made their way into Jordan and Jordan caught the al Qaeda guys before they could set them off, it barely got any news. Only Deroy Murdock covered it. That WMD went from Iraq, through Syria, to Jordan and the terrorists admitted they were trained in Iraq.
People forget the threat Saddam was. Once he was neutralized, the Dems felt safe enough to minimalize his threat.