The Class of ’87

It’s a bit unusual to find oneself adjacent to the biggest news story of the week, but that’s exactly what happened to our own Rob Long. He, like Brett Kavanaugh, Deborah Ramirez, Max Stier, and Robin Pogrebin are all member of the Yale University Class of 1987. We explore this story in this show in great detail with Byron York (he of The Washington Examiner and our own Byron York Show podcast). We also discuss the weird story coming of the Ukraine, whether or not dressing as a fictional character is racism, the Streaming Wars, and insect life in the Greater Baltimore area.

Music from this week’s show: Not Fade Away by Buddy Holly and The Crickets

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There are 52 comments.

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  1. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    …long before the greater honors of…

    Autocorrect can be rough this early in the morning.

    I was tempted to correct it but decided against doing so. Great catch.

    It was a Freudian slip!

    • #31
  2. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Rob’s point/question-to-Byron about how Trump leaving office will take the reputations of many previously-respected government agencies with him, was interesting. Some – including some on Ricochet – would like argue that is another reason why Trump should not have been elected to start with. But Trump not being elected, wouldn’t really have given those agencies undeserved sterling reputations. Trump didn’t make them bad. The reputations were clearly undeserved, they just hadn’t previously been exposed. So that’s another way Trump has done the country a huge favor.

    I cannot possibly exaggerate how much I like this post. It’s the same thing with the media.

    Why can’t people see this?

    • #32
  3. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Rob’s point/question-to-Byron about how Trump leaving office will take the reputations of many previously-respected government agencies with him, was interesting. Some – including some on Ricochet – would like argue that is another reason why Trump should not have been elected to start with. But Trump not being elected, wouldn’t really have given those agencies undeserved sterling reputations. Trump didn’t make them bad. The reputations were clearly undeserved, they just hadn’t previously been exposed. So that’s another way Trump has done the country a huge favor.

    Andrew Klavan, has made the point that the left infects an organization like the New York Times, eventually controlling it. And like the insect alien from MIB wear the organization’s reputation like a skin suit. Eventually they erupt from the skin suit and show their true selves.

    I think the end of the Obama Administration and the unexpected election results shows what they believe about themselves and about the American Peoples. Its amazing how quickly the democrat party machine installed itself into the deep state of the federal government, and how its decided to be ungovernable when there is a republican in charge.

    Could you imagine how city of Detroit or Chicago would respond if there where suddenly a republican elected? Mass resignations, illegal strikes, sick outs… destruction of records… it would be chaos.

    You can’t argue with this.

    • #33
  4. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    I can’t find the Iceberg post.

    • #34
  5. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    Jon1979 (View Comment):

    Prior to Bill Clinton’s election, George Will made a habit on the ABC round tables and elsewhere of pointing out the Republicans by the end of the 1980s had won five of the previous seven presidential elections. Now take that statistical bit of overconfidence and multiply it by a factor of 10, and you get to where many Democrats were after Obama’s 2012 re-election.

    The had completely bought into The Emerging Democratic Majority, to the point they truly thought they no longer had to care what people in Red States or Red-leaning areas thought. Trump’s win destroyed their world view, and many have coped by angrily claiming/believing Trump didn’t win.

    Like they say on the bank ads, past performance is no guarantee of future results. I am unfamiliar with that particular book, I assume it treads the same water as James Carville’s 2009 book “40 more years”. I like James Carville, if you’re going to be wrong get there early, so the sheep that follow get remembered for the wrongness.

    I think Trump has the right idea, compete for the democrat base voters – Make the democrats earn their base, they’re so ham fisted at it, that everything they say to their base alienates main street America. With the internet now capturing everything every candidate says, they’re unable to silo their tailor made messages to the one voter block. So when their messages bleed over to the unintended audience they loose credibility for pandering. 

     

    • #35
  6. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    The best Democrat, by far, is Montana Governor Steve Bullock, who is not an option in the Long Poll.

    Are you sure you don’t like him because Bullock sounds like The Bulwark?

    Which Democrat do I want elected?

    Reminds me of that Star Trek episode, I, Mudd.

    Spock: …party has his choice. Death by electrocution, death by gas, death by phaser, death by hanging…

    Harry Mudd: The key word in your entire peroration, Mr. Spock, was… d-d-d-DEATH.

    The answer to Mr. Mudd is obviously, death by old age.

    The answer to Mr. Long is Steve Bullock, followed in rough order by John Delaney, John Hickenlooper (withdrawn), Micheal Bennet, Amy Klobuchar, and Joe Biden, long before the greater honors of Harris, Warren, and Sanders.

    The Scoop Jackson etc. era is completely over. If it comes back it will be easily recognizable. In the meantime you have to deal with the fact that everything moves left all of the time. 

    • #36
  7. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    Jon1979 (View Comment):

    Prior to Bill Clinton’s election, George Will made a habit on the ABC round tables and elsewhere of pointing out the Republicans by the end of the 1980s had won five of the previous seven presidential elections. Now take that statistical bit of overconfidence and multiply it by a factor of 10, and you get to where many Democrats were after Obama’s 2012 re-election.

    The had completely bought into The Emerging Democratic Majority, to the point they truly thought they no longer had to care what people in Red States or Red-leaning areas thought. Trump’s win destroyed their world view, and many have coped by angrily claiming/believing Trump didn’t win.

    Like they say on the bank ads, past performance is no guarantee of future results. I am unfamiliar with that particular book, I assume it treads the same water as James Carville’s 2009 book “40 more years”. I like James Carville, if you’re going to be wrong get there early, so the sheep that follow get remembered for the wrongness.

    I think Trump has the right idea, compete for the democrat base voters – Make the democrats earn their base, they’re so ham fisted at it, that everything they say to their base alienates main street America. With the internet now capturing everything every candidate says, they’re unable to silo their tailor made messages to the one voter block. So when their messages bleed over to the unintended audience they loose credibility for pandering.

     

    There’s always a tendency to think voting habits for the people who are on your side are locked in stasis. Republicans have been working through the reality since 1992 that they can no longer take suburban voters (especially female suburban voters) for granted, while Democrats at the moment think all minority voters are theirs in perpetuity.  They’re also the same people who in 2016 thought Midwestern private sector union voters were theirs for life, even as they were wishing some union jobs like coal mining would die. Oohps.

    • #37
  8. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    She is, at this moment, 72 years old.

    My hair just got grayer.  Thanks a lot . . .

    • #38
  9. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):
    Could you imagine how city of Detroit or Chicago would respond if there where suddenly a republican elected? Mass resignations, illegal strikes, sick outs… destruction of records… it would be chaos.

    I think the embedded left would hunker down and make life miserable for the Republican (I’m assuming you’re talking about mayor).  They would drag their feet when it comes to implementing his policies, and try to sabotage his political campaign for the next election.

    • #39
  10. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    Stad (View Comment):

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):
    Could you imagine how city of Detroit or Chicago would respond if there where suddenly a republican elected? Mass resignations, illegal strikes, sick outs… destruction of records… it would be chaos.

    I think the embedded left would hunker down and make life miserable for the Republican (I’m assuming you’re talking about mayor). They would drag their feet when it comes to implementing his policies, and try to sabotage his political campaign for the next election.

    This is pretty much the position Rudy Giuliani was when he took over as mayor in 1994. He had some pockets of support within the city, and just the idea of a Republican winning as mayor changed the narrative a bit. But many of the same city council politicians were in place after his election as there were beforehand, and the local media folks weren’t excited about seeing him succeed.

    The key was that New Yorkers had to be pretty damned fed up with the status quo to vote a Republican into office, and the new mayor was bull-headed and enough of a mean SOB to be willing to take on the status quo in public with the powers the mayor had (and where NYC has a strong mayor form of local government). That forced anyone on the council or in the media opposing Rudy to have to defend the status quo of six murders per day in 1993 and the other plunges in quality of life the city had suffered.

    That would be the same situation in Detroit, Chicago and other cities seeing their quality of life fall through the floor. Any GOP mayor would have to be willing to fight hard for changes, and put the pols and any media fighting him on the side of maintaining the craptastic status quo, so that the people defending it might fear for their own positions in the future. Voters who already had gone against their normal Democratic voting patterns to support a Republican likely would at least give him a chance at first to succeed.

    • #40
  11. Bishop Wash Member
    Bishop Wash
    @BishopWash

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    I can’t find the Iceberg post.

    Here it is. 

    • #41
  12. Samuel Block Support
    Samuel Block
    @SamuelBlock

    James Lileks (View Comment):

     

    I also completely forgot to end this show with a song by The Cars to play Ric Ocasek out. Had that in my head all week. Well, this is what I should have closed the show with:

    One of their best. Great choice.

    The model for the “Candy-O” Vargas illustration was Candy Moore, who played Lucy’s teen daughter on The Lucy Show.

    She is, at this moment, 72 years old.

    So James, is there a book on naughty illustrations where you get all this information? (If memory serves, you had some comments about an artist whose favorite subject was women, in public places, who were subject to spontaneous undergarment malfunction.)

    Asking for a friend. ;)

    • #42
  13. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Samuel Block (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

     

    I also completely forgot to end this show with a song by The Cars to play Ric Ocasek out. Had that in my head all week. Well, this is what I should have closed the show with:

    One of their best. Great choice.

    The model for the “Candy-O” Vargas illustration was Candy Moore, who played Lucy’s teen daughter on The Lucy Show.

    She is, at this moment, 72 years old.

    So James, is there a book on naughty illustrations where you get all this information? (If memory serves, you had some comments about an artist whose favorite subject was women, in public places, who were subject to spontaneous undergarment malfunction.)

    Asking for a friend. ;)

    Hey, my friend wants to know too!

    • #43
  14. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    James Lileks (View Comment):

     

    I also completely forgot to end this show with a song by The Cars to play Ric Ocasek out. Had that in my head all week. Well, this is what I should have closed the show with:

    One of their best. Great choice.

    The model for the “Candy-O” Vargas illustration was Candy Moore, who played Lucy’s teen daughter on The Lucy Show.

    She is, at this moment, 72 years old.

    Speaking of rock trivia, was there a real Sharona?

    The answer is . . . . yes!

    Meet Sharona Alperin, Los Angeles real estate guru:

    https://www.mysharona.com/about/about-sharona/

    Thus ends my contribution to rock trivia for today . . .

    • #44
  15. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Samuel Block (View Comment):

    So James, is there a book on naughty illustrations where you get all this information? (If memory serves, you had some comments about an artist whose favorite subject was women, in public places, who were subject to spontaneous undergarment malfunction.)

    Asking for a friend. ;)

    Sounds like Elvgren.

    • #45
  16. Samuel Block Support
    Samuel Block
    @SamuelBlock

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Samuel Block (View Comment):

    So James, is there a book on naughty illustrations where you get all this information? (If memory serves, you had some comments about an artist whose favorite subject was women, in public places, who were subject to spontaneous undergarment malfunction.)

    Asking for a friend. ;)

    Sounds like Elvgren.

    I don’t think so. I looked up the name and found the illustrations (don’t judge). These were pictures of women who’s underpants just lost all elasticity and found themselves around the ladies’ lovely ankles.

    • #46
  17. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Samuel Block (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Samuel Block (View Comment):

    So James, is there a book on naughty illustrations where you get all this information? (If memory serves, you had some comments about an artist whose favorite subject was women, in public places, who were subject to spontaneous undergarment malfunction.)

    Asking for a friend. ;)

    Sounds like Elvgren.

    I don’t think so. I looked up the name and found the illustrations (don’t judge). These were pictures of women who’s underpants just lost all elasticity and found themselves around the ladies’ lovely ankles.

    Art Frahm.

    • #47
  18. Samuel Block Support
    Samuel Block
    @SamuelBlock

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Samuel Block (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Samuel Block (View Comment):

    So James, is there a book on naughty illustrations where you get all this information? (If memory serves, you had some comments about an artist whose favorite subject was women, in public places, who were subject to spontaneous undergarment malfunction.)

    Asking for a friend. ;)

    Sounds like Elvgren.

    I don’t think so. I looked up the name and found the illustrations (don’t judge). These were pictures of women who’s underpants just lost all elasticity and found themselves around the ladies’ lovely ankles.

    Art Frahm.

    That’s the one! Golly, how many experts do we have on this site?

    • #48
  19. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Samuel Block (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Samuel Block (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Samuel Block (View Comment):

    So James, is there a book on naughty illustrations where you get all this information? (If memory serves, you had some comments about an artist whose favorite subject was women, in public places, who were subject to spontaneous undergarment malfunction.)

    Asking for a friend. ;)

    Sounds like Elvgren.

    I don’t think so. I looked up the name and found the illustrations (don’t judge). These were pictures of women who’s underpants just lost all elasticity and found themselves around the ladies’ lovely ankles.

    Art Frahm.

    That’s the one! Golly, how many experts do we have on this site?

    As many as are needed.

    • #49
  20. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Jon1979 (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):
    Could you imagine how city of Detroit or Chicago would respond if there where suddenly a republican elected? Mass resignations, illegal strikes, sick outs… destruction of records… it would be chaos.

    The key was that New Yorkers had to be pretty damned fed up with the status quo to vote a Republican into office, and the new mayor was bull-headed and enough of a mean SOB to be willing to take on the status quo in public with the powers the mayor had (and where NYC has a strong mayor form of local government). That forced anyone on the council or in the media opposing Rudy to have to defend the status quo of six murders per day in 1993 and the other plunges in quality of life the city had suffered.

    That would be the same situation in Detroit, Chicago and other cities seeing their quality of life fall through the floor. Any GOP mayor would have to be willing to fight hard for changes, and put the pols and any media fighting him on the side of maintaining the craptastic status quo, so that the people defending it might fear for their own positions in the future. Voters who already had gone against their normal Democratic voting patterns to support a Republican likely would at least give him a chance at first to succeed.

    I doubt the Chicago system of Aldermen etc would be as easily managed.

    • #50
  21. Peter Robinson Contributor
    Peter Robinson
    @PeterRobinson

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Wow! Did Peter get suspended for last week’s language?

    I’m still washing my mouth out with soap.

    • #51
  22. Kevin Inactive
    Kevin
    @JaredSturgeon

    kedavis (View Comment):
    Candy Moore

    Unfortunately they will never suffer because the govt and bureaucracy leans left.  Average Americans have learned never talk to the CIA/FBI/whatever without a lawyer but beyond that nothing will change.  They are corrupt institutions now playing political games but they will not be reformed or disgraced because the majority of people working in govt are happy the power is available on their team. 

    • #52
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