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The news cycle these days is crushing — warping time upon itself like a black hole. So how does America’s Most Balanced Podcast® respond? By booking a third guest, of course. On today’s lineup, we’ve got Casey Mattox;the Vice President for Legal and Judicial Strategy at Americans for Prosperity, a group dedicated to (among other things), getting Amy Coney Barrett through the nomination process. You can help by visiting their website UniteForBarrett.com and signing a letter that will be sent to your Senator. Do it! Then, our good friend (and fellow board member) Dr. George Savage stops by to give us an M.D.’s perspective on the President’s condition and what his course of treatment might be. Finally, Henry Olsen, he of the Horse Race podcast right here on this network visits and dispenses some punditry on how the President’s health may affect his re-election effort. No spoilers here, sorry. Finally, the Lileks Post of The Week is back and it’s a doozy: did Harry Truman actually approve the use of the use of the A-Bomb at the end of WWII or did the military just deploy like a new submarine or aircraft? We get into it and then some.
Music from this week’s show: Instant Karma! (We All Shine On) by John Lennon
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I loved the Harry Truman stories.
This seems to run counter to the argument around polls and that Trump will be doing worse after catching COVID. But hey – Trump’s the source of all nastiness in politics. Even though he’s only been president for 4 years.
Yeah. It’s just him.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/trump-turnaround-biden-lead-cut-to-49-47-covid-debate-dont-hurt-president
I think Rob is frustrated because he can’t convince anyone to change their mind about Trump. I get frustrated too whenever I try to convince my wife I know what I’m talking about . . .
I know this isn’t a new thought, but it’s a bummer that @roblong prefers not to talk to the (his!) members directly about Trump, etc. in the comments.
Not necessary since so many people here know exactly what he’s thinking, his motivations, his politics, even why he moved to New York.
Of the four people Rob shares podcast hosting duties with on Ricochet, I’d say right now he’s probably furthest away from James and Peter and closest to Jonah on the upcoming election, with JPod falling somewhere in the middle (since his own self-described crushing morosity causes JPod to whipsaw from one extreme to the other on The Commentary Podcast, depending on what the previous day’s events were).
But there’s still a line between saying you think Biden’s going to win and the Democrats are going to take the Senate, and rooting for Biden to win and the Democrats take the Senate, which is the location where the hardest of hard-core #NeverTrump types are. So Rob can be annoying (we won’t know for 30 days if he’s right), but he’s not infuriating as The Lincoln Project types are, where their dislike of Trump has caused them to seek to defeat not simply him, but anyone connected to him (case in point, from one of TLP’s True Conservatives on Saturday:)
I’ve said before that I think Ricochet would be a more attractive product if the founders were more present in the text area (and I’ll pause to insert my usual recognition of and thank you to James Lileks for burning some of his midnight oil here).
I understand that the cost/benefit is different for them than for us. Ricochet gives many of us a rare chance to scratch an itch, to have a voice and get attention and recognition and some pale approximation of fame. Rob et al don’t feel that need — or, probably more accurately, can’t satisfy that need with a conversation in a private chatroom with a mere 6,000 members. So that incentive probably isn’t there for them. It would still be good for the business, I think, to have them here more often.
The anti-Trump thing is a challenge. We don’t have a brilliant track record here of being gracious to anti-Trump people (and vice versa), and anti-Trump people so often seem obsessed with talking about Trump. Perhaps after the next election, when the question of whether or not one should vote for Trump is for better or worse moot, we can put that bloody axe down.
Unless we win, in which case of course we should round them up and send them off to re-edu–
[ Ahem. Sorry. For a moment there I was channeling my inner leftist. ]
Well stated.
That’s not strictly true. I live in Fairbanks, and haven’t encountered or heard of one yet. Maybe something like that has happened in Anchorage, but I still haven’t heard of it..
So I would probably have to travel out of state (and endure isolation when I came back). Alaska is politically divided too with an occasional protest here and there, but we’re not in each others faces.
I suspect that it’s the same way in much of the Western states like Idaho, Wyoming, etc.
Media wise, you can’t escape it. You’re going to see references to it in entertainment (Amazon, Netflix, etc), but thankfully, there are places where you don’t have to endure physical confrontation.
He was present at the “live chat” on the first debate, at least for a while. I didn’t hang around through all of it, but it looked to me like nobody was paying much attention to Rob’s “Wow the president doesn’t look good here” type comments.
@jameslileks on the other hand, received several greetings and other positive messages.
That’s because you wear heavy hoods so your eyeballs don’t freeze. :-)
For what its worth. I really like the history discussion. If you like the Manhattan Project / Oppenheimer history check out von Neumann. Almost all computers today are based on his design. Cellular automata, Game Theory, MAD. Its not all sunshine and lollipops though, when he thought the States would be overtaken by the U.S.S.R. missile tech, he pitched an unprovoked preemptive strike which is … ethically dubious to put it mildly (some of his teachers where afraid of him).
Its none of my business (Canada is run by clowns so we can’t lecture anybody on anything), but, the way you guys pick the person who gets the nuclear codes is a bit … insane. Its like who gets the best zinger wins. Why not try a more oxford style debate? Say each side (not the news reader / talking head moderators) can submit X questions/topics in advance that get to the core of the problem (should we fundamentally change how the legal system works? Should we have universal health care? Should we pull back from the pointless forever wars? etc) There are two comfortable chairs and one podium. Randomly choose who goes to the podium first. Each person gets 15 minutes to argue their case, then they sit down. Then the other side gets 15 minutes to counter argue. Then it swaps again for a 5 minute rebuttals etc. Then you move onto the next question. Do it through video chat if need be, it takes a few hours.
The media is so bad that depending on which sources you watch, you have a completely different view of the world. This could be the one time that on the fence voters hear an in-context description about what each party plans to do with your country instead of out of context edits chosen to make people look their worst. Also find a way to get around these new shielded political movements (Greta/anthropogenic global warming, BLM the phrase/BLM the organization, nice old fella Joe/Harris-Sanders-extreme left nonsense).
You should get out more. I’m not saying they’re right, I’m a budget hawk, but there are plenty of Alaskans who are against budget cuts altogether. I prefer to not get into political arguments with my neighbors, but they’re out there.
And we should have a state constitution that treats the legislature with more respect. I was appalled at the discovery of how much power our governor has. Think about how screwed we would have been if we had had a governor like Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer or Minnesota’s Tim Walz in our present system of state government with a weak legislature?
We will probably never know if Dunleavy would have survived a recall election, but the threat of one did cool his jets.
We can’t do this by appointing a dictator.
I can’t tell if you were responding directly to what I said, but I will pretend you are =p
Maybe you are lucky. I’m in purple Florida and travel up and down the eastern seaboard a bit. My exposure to people cursing at you for being conservative is not low.
I prefer having the opportunity to pummel the founders mercilessly in the comments knowing they will offer up no defense.
I’m still undefeated in founder pummeling.
That’s what billboards and the walls of public restrooms are for.
The United States has weakened their parties with a combination of campaign finance laws and primaries. Party elders don’t get much of a say in who gets a nomination.
In Canada, Australia, and the UK, you have to do years of service in a particular party before having a chance to head it. In the UK, you have to pay a fee to the Labour Party to become a member and vote in the Labour Party elections.
What that means is you can get a Trump, a Bloomberg, or a Saunders who are only nominally members of their respective parties at the time they run.
It’s more “democratic” but eventually it turns our elections into clown shows.
In Canada, like the other English speaking parliamentary governments, parties have also been weakened, just not as much. All the major Canadian parties have leadership elections that bypass the MP’s who have to directly serve under them. So now you have Trudeau in black face.
I still love that post that reminded us that if you say what sounds like “Justin Trudeau” in French, it means a shallow puddle of water…
Well, my streak has been broken. I think I have listened to 514 of these podcasts. Unfortunately I went to the comments before listening. Mr. Long has put me on the edge of stopping the podcast many times. I don’t care that he doesn’t like President Trump. I dislike his constant drum of vague, negative comments regarding the President. The President is chaotic, incompetent, disorganized, etc., etc. Comments that are never supported by facts or empirical evidence.
I’d recommend this one as well. The historical parts are particularly interesting.
It’s worth listening. Just ignore Rob, especially until you get to the good discussions on Truman etc. It’s good stuff, really.
I never listen to these podcasts for Rob anyway. I didn’t join Ricochet so I could hear or read Rob, either. I joined – and I listen – because of Lileks. And that’s why I stay.
This 1,000,000,000 times.
This is a big deal and Republicans that are freaking out about Trump don’t have this in their heads enough. Then you throw in the fact that the media wanted Trump thinking it would get Clinton elected. Gary et. al. l need to understand this.
There is all manner of systemic issues that you better think about instead of freaking out about Trump. Most Never Trump are too stupid to do this.
If you start at 1:51:00 they have a very good discussion about lockdowns and the politics of lockdowns. It’s not too long.
This is 1000% must listen on lockdowns.
I forgot to say something. On the Thaddeus Russell video above, they get into how academia gets ring fenced from intelligent economic theory. It was pretty eye-opening for me. I thought the whole thing was outstanding.
Two points. This is very real and totally true, and Jon is saying what I’ve always said, stay the hell away from the organized Never Trump resistance. They are all doing whatever it takes to get more of Omidyar’s money or they just can’t think straight. The independent ones are worth listening to.
If we get single-payer shoved down our throats it is going to be a nightmare. What is wrong with better court selections?
Even if Trump doesn’t win re-election, it won’t prove that Rob was correct about the reasons for it. Basically, it’s kind of a 50/50 thing. And if Rob said that Trump will lose because the moon is made of green cheese, and Trump does lose, it doesn’t mean Rob was correct about the moon being made of green cheese. (And even if the moon IS made of green cheese, claiming that’s the reason Trump lost, still isn’t necessarily correct.)
(italics added) Someone from Ricochet HQ recently stated or strongly implied that so many GLoP Podcast listeners uniformly believe that “Trump is the greatest President in the history of the universe. That’s a given.”
With podcasters and listeners each knowing what the others believe, who needs comments?
In the absence of individual voices, being heard or spoken, stereotypes reign supreme. So if you wish to reinforce stereotypes, avoid conversation. If you wish to have stereotypes dispelled or put into context, join the conversation.
Rob contributes to his stereotype by staying away and Ricochet HQ accepts stereotypes because they don’t join in. Which seems wholly in contradiction to their slogan.
Funny, I found Ricochet by accident (maybe 6 years ago??) looking for a Mark Steyn interview or show. I listened to the podcast and really enjoyed it and haven’t missed one since. It was also through Ricochet I discovered the wonderful Andrew Klavan (I’m currently enduring a Klavanless weekend) and there’s a few other podcasts I dabble in from time to time. The site is great probably because it’s not just confirming your bias, I think that’s why conservatives aren’t the ones on Instagram posting videos of themselves screaming at the latest Trumpism. We’re more open to an opposition point of view. So while you can take or leave Rob’s childish anti Trumpism, he did build this site along with Peter and for that we should thank him.
I truly believe the Ricochet flagship podcast is the best podcast out there – there’s no doubt you end up a little wiser after every episode. It saddens me that there just isn’t anything remotely as good in Australia.
Not getting eaten by dingos is the best you can hope for in Australia.
In all seriousness, what’s with all the woke nonsense in Australia and New Zealand. Aren’t you supposed, be independent-minded cockney cowboys?