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A debacle in Iowa, a triumphant State of The Union speech, a rip-off, a socialist, a small town mayor with a big win — you name it, we discuss it on this week’s edition of The Big Show, aka The Ricochet Podcast. To help us sort through it all, we’ve got the great Deb Saunders, White House correspondent for the Las Vegas Review Journal, and Mr. New Hampshire himself, Michael Graham (listeners, please send him some decaf– he needs it). Also, come on down, Ricochet member @nohaaj! You’ve got the highly coveted, much sought after Lileks Post of The Week. Finally, a White House speechwriter reviews the SOTU speech, another Long Poll Question®, and we close with another edition of What Are You Watching? What are you watching? Let us know in the comments.
Music from this week’s show: My Generation by The Zimmers
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If you want to know what is going on with this impeachment stuff and the future of The Republic I cannot recommend enough the interviews of David Rivkind on “War Room Impeachment”. If you have a Wall Street Journal subscription, he has written in there as well.
I’ll give you another observation I came up with this week. For some reason the crazy anti-trump or’s in Minnesota follow Heath Mayo and a guy who’s handle is @JKempcpa.
Mayo is literally having a convention. I think it’s opposite CPAC or something. It’s only $10 to get in.
I think both of them are dumber than stumps, but that is not my point.
Neither one of those guys operates off of what I would call “ground truth”. It’s all idealism, all the time. 100%. It’s not the right way to see reality.
At least until they die off and it becomes the Islamic Republic Of France.
Rogers was clearly far more bad-ass than Jim Malone (Sean Connery, in The Untouchables). He only said to send ONE to the morgue!
Great job of misrepresenting.
Smoke where a person used to be. Classic!
At any restaurant that’s about to close…. you can even request caffeinated. It probably won’t be.
He’s ineducable on this point. I suspect a lot of his self-esteem is wrapped up in demonstrating his moral superiority to Trump supporters even reluctant ones.
Fred, Gary, I know of a public figure who, right up to the day of his death, was habitually unfaithful to his wife with numerous mistresses, at least one of whom he beat up (according to the memoir of a close friend).
He was also recorded by the FBI as he laughingly egged on a friend who was raping a woman.
If “Trump’s personal character is that of a disgusting pig”, what words would you use describe the character of this individual?
P.S.: People who acquit Trump of what Scott Adams calls the “‘fine people’ hoax” quote his exact words to prove their point. Do you have a quote from a reliable source to back up your position? If you do, I haven’t seen it so far!
That man should have a holiday in his honor!
Rivkind’s main point, I think, is we can’t impeach Presidents based on speculating what is in their mind. This is the road to chaos. They could have raised all kinds of political hell by just leaving it as oversight. $50 million of government force for nothing. They were going to let Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and General Flynn and that historian in the UK rot in jail to get Trump.
Gary’s beef is with the RNC and GOPe. Decades of not really being conservative or libertarian or whatever. I don’t really understand it all, but I think it’s also with the fact that the parties have lost control that they used to have. Jonah Goldberg talks about this all the time.
“Disgusting pig” is a pretty ugly descriptor to apply to anybody. Donald Trump is no paragon of virtue, or class, or anything else that is desirable in a person, but I do wish that those who object to him so ardently did a better job of “high-roading” as it were.
No, he didn’t say that Neo-nazis are good. In fact, he was rather generous to the opposition. Neo-nazis are allowed to embarrass themselves, I bet they’ll be doing it all the way til the end. My gripe was with the thousands who showed up to intimidate them. (Keep in mind that I proudly walked past the Albert Block Jewish Center at the campus Hillel House daily during all this Charlottesville hoopla.)
So, yeah. He isn’t exactly ideal, but he’s our President. Just like it said something about our country that people would elect a black man in order to prove that we’d be willing to vote for a black man, it turns out that we’d vote for an uncouth, uh… I’m not quite sure what Trump is…: pop culture icon?…
Suffice it to say, my experience has not shown this to be an especially serious country. Easy come, easy go!
Anyway. Point is, if 2016 hit you hard, I’d argue that you were slightly out of the loop. Trust me, things were bad before Trumpie. Of course he isn’t going to turn things around. He is, after all, an uncouth… something. But apparently we’re a whole country of uncouth somethings; some of us rant about the disgusting pig in the White House, some of us voted for him.
Apparently it’s all bad.
But keep in mind, young people (like me) are watching, and we’re forming opinions. I love seeing adults at their best, but I’ve been fairly disappointed on this front. The vanguard – or the Bulwark – have been unsuccessful in establishing a distance between themselves and the childishness of the President. Perhaps what’s so grating about this man is that he displays our own culture to us, albeit in a concentrated form.
Maybe we’ve got work to do…
My estimation is that this presidency will prove a rejuvenate one – I mean, the Left is shifting towards nominating Michael Bloomberg, for goodness’s sake! It wasn’t long ago that I thought that the pseudo-folksy, pseudo-Indian might have a solid shot at getting to the Oval Office. Now, that woman is presentable, at least in certain settings, but if she had her way, it would be a catastrophe. I think it’s worthwhile to consider whether it’s worth pushing friends away in order to be rid of an uncouth something.
I hate to be the one to tell you this, Sam’l, but you are now and have been for several years an adult. It may not feel like it, but you’re over eighteen.
I love this.
I have this new theory about idealism vs. ground truth. The latter is so important right now, or you will look like an idiot.
All of the political leadership like this is just terrible. Why is anyone enthused about any of the “Republicans” on MSNBC? I wish someone would pop into that Heath Mayo thing coming up in DC and see what those guys are like. I couldn’t do it without a lot of drugs.
I know…. I do my best, but some of you have some real experience under your belts. Plus – and I could be totally wrong here – I tend to think your generation encountered real grown-ups.
So just know that I’m still figuring this out. And I’m not very good at it…
Same with all of us, Sam’l, until the very day we die.
This is excellent if you have the time.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/07/podcast-trumps-acquittal-romneys-stand-and-bidens-fate/
Here is another thing that everyone is getting worked up about that I don’t get. Do you get it?
UnConstitutional on it’s face. Can’t put anything about Filibusters into law – Constitution says each house makes it’s own rules.
Always bearing in mind that the text of the Constitution has any legal weight at all only so long as Republicans have a majority on the Supreme Court.
(Of course, this implies that any “conservative” who was rooting for the Democrats in 2016 was either delusional or, simply, a liberal in conservative clothing.)
Of course, the “some others” Kristol has “joined with” are probably not Republicans.
Nor does Kristol ever explain exactly who might be that “responsible and electable candidate in the Democratic primary” you’re supposed to vote for, so this effort is likely to cancel itself out.
Excellent point.
It would be amusing to have a serious podcast interview about this. Someone that would force him to speak clearly and make it obvious if he’s making sense or not.
Quite possible. However I’d argue that there’s more reason to believe that Romney is capable of occasional moments of egotism, or even pettiness, than there is to assume that the first Republican President to put in a sincere effort to reach out to the black community is a friend to neo-Nazis.
I’m entirely open to being more generous, or at least less venomous, when ascribing motivations to others. This is not our country’s strong suit at the moment. But, hey! We’ve really got some very fine people on both sides 😉, so maybe it can be turned around.
@peterrobinson for the UK mysteries you need Acorn TV or Britbox.
Regarding Romney and whether or not he’s following his conscience, watch this and then also listen to that Federalist podcast that I posted above
I see what you did there.