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This week, Powerline’s (and Berkeley’s!) Steve Hayward sits in and we anoint Roy Moore as a loser, Al Franken as a memory, and discuss with Ricochet alumni Claire Berlinski her fantastic and now famous piece The Warlock Hunt. Also, what exactly is Mueller mulling? And our guys pick their favorite movies of 2017.
Music from this week’s episode: Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? by Amy Winehouse
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Loved this podcast. Claire is right on the button for the unforeseen effects of accusations against men who have no way to defend themselves, particularly for seemingly harmless events. Some of the women accusing them undoubtedly have genuine complaints, but what of the women with an agenda who choose to destroy a man’s life without merit?
But — the FBI incursion into the presidential election is even more disturbing. All my life I’ve thought these people were protecting us ordinary mortals and have had nothing but the utmost respect for those who chose that profession. I remember TV shows that reinforced that respect with characters like Efrem Zimbalist Jr., who personified the fine character of the men in the FBI. Remember Robert Stack playing Elliot Ness who played a significant role in bringing down Al Capone? The FBI legacy has been destroyed by the actions of an agency run amuck with political ambition. I am sick at heart.
The segues are back! @jameslileks unleashed!
One thing that has bothered me since the beginning of the sexual purges is that women are not consistent as to what constitutes harassment. Every man has seen a guy (man X) who can get away with anything and have a woman laugh it off as ‘ Ha Ha , that’s just X , he’s harmless’ while if man Y were to do or say the very same thing to the very same woman he could encounter an opposite reaction.
Peter says that Ed Gillespie was a “very good candidate.”
If the Republican Party recruits more of these types of “very good” candidates, the Republican Party will “very good” itself into oblivion.
Gillespie lost by 8.9 percentage points. The last time a Republican candidate lost the governor’s race in Virginia by such a large moment was 1985, before Peter and Reagan’s “Tear Down this Wall” speech.
I was pretty shocked that, when James was talking about assembling an investigation team, he was talking about assembling an investigation team and not creating a segue for ZipRecruiter.
Claire seemed to think that the United States had gone crazy with Trump.
When one looks at the ways that American males and females try to interact and get along these days perhaps the answer is just that far too many men feared Hillary Clinton for an instinctual reason thinking back to divorce horror stories, harassment claims, lies, etc.
I think I heard one of Claire’s cats. I heard James’ dog too, but for reason we were not entertained with Transatlantic cat-and-dog fight.
I read Claire’s piece at the American Interest and nodded in agreement at every word until the end.
In what world does she live in? Simple: A world where the view of her home country is shaped by her enemies – popular culture and a news media that hates everything that eminates outside of those 147 highly urbanized counties where the urge to turn us into some new imaginary EU State is the strongest.
That America needs or wants a Daddy-in-Chief is jaw dropping. Who doesn’t feel anxiety about this? Well, millions of us. Even those who are queasy about Donald Trump’s style aren’t looking for him to be their daddy. Or anyone else in the Federal Government for that matter. If anything, Trump is hated because he’s too much of a throwback. His masculinity and treatment of women is certainly on par with the three wisemen of the First Church of the DNC – St. Jack, St. Bobby and St. Teddy of Massachusetts.
Claire is so out of touch with the reality of America she now takes to regularly retweeting liberal writers and liberal ideas. For example she recently tweeted out a Bloomberg article that found the OIG’s release of the Strzok-Page texts a blatant invasion of privacy. “Why should anyone have been reading those messages, no less leaking them?” she asks. (Edit: They were released by the press office, not leaked. There’s a difference.)
Really? Two employees of the FBI contemplating a coup of an elected President through a so-called “insurance plan” and doing so on government time with government phones is no business of the people of the United States? If you condone an FBI so powerful that it can do that your precious right of privacy is worth exactly what? A hill of beans, that’s what.
Come home, Claire. We are not the United States of France. Not yet.
I miss the Powerline podcast, with Steve, Hinderaker etc.
Here’s a headline for Claire and everyone else: “Minnie Driver reveals outrage at ex-boyfriend Matt Damon for saying rape is not the same as ‘a pat on the butt'”
You just have to know the correct work rules: 1. Be attractive. 2. Don’t be unattractive.
There’s a comic strip out there where a handsome guy passing a woman’s cubicle says “Looking good Susan!” and she replies “Aww, you’re sweet!” The next panel an overweight shlub says the same thing and she’s on the phone saying “HELLO, HUMAN RESOURCES?!” with a panicked look on her face. This is the stage where we are at now.
I’ve worked in an office for the past 20 something years now and while I’ve never been subject to any kind of complaint I have to admit I’ve had to re-evaluate how I work with women. Mr. Bean sums it up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uGnENk7GUI
I was fortunate enough to meet Claire (I won’t describe what she looked like because I can’t handle the inevitable harassment lawsuit), and was careful to bring my Rubber Duckie along with me just so that no one would feel uncomfortable due to the meeting.
So much of this current panic is the result of people either simply behaving in dumb ways or being wildly thin-skinned. Adults simply talking to one another is actually a fairly simple process when the Warlock Hunt is not underway.
@claire, what news sources do you use? My home pages are Drudge & Instapundit after listening to NPR from Exxon Valdez to Copenhagen II. I know what Drudge is, like I did with NPR. There is stuff on there that isn’t anywhere else. Sometimes with good reason, to be sure
The primary reason for the big loss in Virginia what that the Democrats found the way to bring out Presidential year voters to an off-off-year election – hatred of Trump. The Democrat turnout was way up. The Republican turnout was also up, but not nearly as much. I’m not saying if the hatred is justified, just that it exists.