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Let’s just disclose this right upfront: we had some pretty big technical issues during the production of this show (Skype went down during the Andy McCarthy segment — Andy is preparing a criminal complaint against them on our behalf) and James Lileks could not get his computer to recognize his mic (he blames a cheap Chinese dongle — oh, the humanity), so apologies, this is another Lileks-defecient show (kudos to @hangon for winning the Lileks Post of The Week honors for his post The New Energy Economy: An Exercise in Magical Thinking). That said, as previously mentioned, we’ve got the great Andy McCarthy (you must buy his new book Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency) on all of the legal machinations around impeachment, and political consultant to the stars (and NR contributor) Luke Thompson on why Trump did nothing wrong in his phone call with Zelensky and some expert analysis on the Senate races coming up next fall. Also, Peter Robinson is worried about Liz Warren; and finally, does the window seat control the window shade or should there be darkness throughout the cabin? We hash it out, but tell us your thoughts in the comments. Special note to Ricochet members: don’t forget to vote in this week’s Long Poll to the right (or below if you’re on a mobile device) of this post. What? You’re not a member? JOIN TODAY.
Music from this week’s show: Shot With His Own Gun by Elvis Costello
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There is no doubt Republicans (I can’t say we since I left the part more than a decade ago) are known as the “stupid party”…but it’s not because they refuse to primary Trump. Conservatives and right of center people constantly fall for these false scandals and outrages. We give oxygen to lies and obfuscations because many of us believe in a moral good and do not want to be lumped in with Trump’s unsavory character. This is a mistake. Reagan is gone. That party is gone and will never return. Something new has to take its place. Trump represents a transition. A placeholder to stem the tide for another 5 years. If we fall for this horse manure about Ukraine or Russia or whatever fantasy concocted to undermine the 2020 election we are only dooming ourselves. We should resist these manipulations with every fiber of our being. In the end, they may very well find something legitimate against Trump…and if that happens buckle up for Elizabeth Warren.
Queen Elizabeth is already (even though she hasn’t been nominated by the Democratic Party, let alone been elected President of the United States) demanding that corporate CEO’s endorse her proposals to destroy capitalism. Wall Street Journal. Might be behind paywall. Granted, Queen Elizabeth’s demand is in response to the CEO’s foolishly putting out a “Business Roundtable” statement that itself demonizes the principles of capitalism. But still, issuing edicts to private citizens is what totalitarian dictators do, and tells us much about what at Warren presidency might look like.
Indeed, many of the (nominal) Republicans who loathe Trump, are the same people who lionized McCain as some kind of great “statesman.”
Although it was more common for those on the left to praise McCain’s so-called “statesmanship,” just because he often went along with them. But of course when he ran for president, suddenly he was Hitler, just like any other Republican candidate.
And of course, By the standards of earlier times, Reagan was “soiled” too. He was divorced. If he had tried to run for president much earlier, he would have been considered unelectable for that reason alone.
Some years back, The Week ran a column by the sinister-looking David Corn, to the effect that Republicans shouldn’t run on family values because two of their recent nominees — Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole — were “divorced men”.
In reality, Corn was exploiting an ambiguity in the English language.
Bob Dole actually had divorced his first wife.
Ronald Reagan was divorced by his first wife, against his will. Jane Wyman married Reagan when he was a young star on the rise, and divorced him when his movie career was circling the drain in the late 1940s.
I explained Corn’s deception to Bill Falk, the editor of The Week. He was reluctant to believe me until I sent him pages from a hostile biography of Ronald Reagan, which confirmed Jane Wyman divorced him, and not the other way around.
Nonetheless, Falk refused to print any kind of correction or explanatory note.
Also, it is impossible to get a Republican McCain fan to explain in plain english why McCain advanced the ball conservatively for them. Happens every single time.
Question: why does that happen?
inventor of email? Dr Shiva?
fake vs real indian… Hilarious!
mark sanford? the guy who went missing in argentina with his mistress?
That’s not really the worst of it (him), either. But I no longer try to disabuse the Sanford-deluded. It always turns out to be hopeless.
They are turning purple because of illegal immigration and changing demographics as well as refugees from CA that are transforming AZ. Democrats got that right.
This isn’t really my bag, but it’s really important to get into the weeds about why the GOP lost in some areas in 2018. Devan Nunes has had some brutal analysis about California that you’re never going to hear in the media or from people that blame Trump. It’s a complicated subject.
I wholehearted agree Warren is a tougher presidential candidate than many think. I would take her very serious, but she also has some serious flaws.
We now know the “whistleblower” is just a democrat operative who collected intelligence into a hit piece that was then massaged into a complaint by experts. It blows my mind that I now believe in a “deep state”, something I would have laughed about 5 years ago.
I continue to be disappointed that the best we have to offer for leadership of the US is a leftie academic with no leadership experience and a crazy businessman. The twilight of America on full display.
I hope Romney primaries Trump as the one true conservative so Romney can be beat down and disappear and maybe the whole concept of conservatism can die. Tradition is great but we have been unmoored by just being leftists 20-50 years behind. We need more serious principles of government that we can articulate. The modern conservative is a radical lefty socially in 1960 on most issues except abortion. I want something more stable in my politics but also something more nimble than pining for the good old days that will never return. The American appetite for their neighbors money is unquenchable so at this point best we can do is manage the coming chaos of demographics, disintegrated families, etc without basing our decisions on what worked last generation.
It’s hard to argue with this. We are also running out of money.
“Conservatism is just progressivism going the speed limit.” — Michael Malice
Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™
Great observation.
Please don’t stop labeling the podcasts with the episode number. Indeed I’d like it a lot if you required all podcast titles to begin with the EN. The reason is that the (admittedly fairly ancient) Logitech Squeezebox devices I use to listen to podcasts list the episodes in alphabetical order, and this order cannot be changed on the devices themselves. Titles starting with the EN automatically sort themselves into the correct order (the latest one at the bottom of the list), which means I don’t have to go to the web to look up the name of the latest episode as is necessary with podcasts that don’t use the EN in the title.
Despite what Rob says, we have no plans to stop using episode numbers where appropriate.
Apple does not allow us the include the number in the episode title. Does your device allow them to be sorted chronologically? That makes the most sense.
For my own collection, I change the “ID3” (?) tags to be podcast title for “Artist” and the date for “Album.” That way, the podcasts get properly organized the same as my regular music collection. Full track names (and the file names on the computer) go Artist (podcast title) – Album (date) – Track Number (blank for most podcasts) – Track Name. I have a separate folder/directory for each “artist” (or podcast title) and for podcasts I have a sub-folder for each calendar year.
(Track Name for this particular “episode” would start with “The Elizabethan Era” and sometimes I add guest names or other notes such as the time point when a particular comment of interest was made, to make them easier to find later.)
This is what Nunes was talking about.
Nothing new to me. But I’m not aware of any way to force PRC (People’s Republic of California) to have honest elections. Not from the outside, on a federal level. Any such attempt within the state would be doomed because the baddies far outnumber the good guys.
Yes, and she will tell people that it’s someone else’s ill-gotten money they‘ll be taking and someone they don’t like that they‘ll be telling what to do. Getting the pronouns, the targets, and the story right has worked pretty well in the past. Beating that with a combination of incoherence and playing the same ratty little game doesn’t sound real plausible. But stranger things have happened. Recently, too.