#Us Too

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

Subscribe to The Ricochet Podcast in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.

Now become a Ricochet member for only $5.00 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing.

There are 14 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Goldwaterwoman Thatcher
    Goldwaterwoman
    @goldwaterwoman

    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.

    • #1
  2. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    The segues are back! @jameslileks unleashed!

    • #2
  3. Rightfromthestart Coolidge
    Rightfromthestart
    @Rightfromthestart

    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.

    • #3
  4. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    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.

    • #4
  5. Eeyore Member
    Eeyore
    @Eeyore

    Arahant (View Comment):
    The segues are back! @jameslileks unleashed!

    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.

    • #5
  6. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    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.

    • #6
  7. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    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.

    • #7
  8. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    The Cloaked Gaijin: Claire seemed to think that the United States had gone crazy with Trump.

    I read Claire’s piece at the American Interest and nodded in agreement at every word until the end.

    I’m not sure what, precisely, is now driving us over the edge. But I’d suggest looking at the obvious. The President of the United States is Donald J. Trump. Our country is not what we thought it was. We’re a fading superpower in a world of enemies. The people now running the United States cannot remotely persuade us, even for five minutes, that they know what they’re doing and are capable of keeping us safe. Who among us doesn’t feel profound anxiety about this? Daddy-the-President turns out to be a hapless dotard. Women who had hopefully imagined rough men standing ready to do violence on our behalf so we could sleep peacefully in our beds at night have discovered instead—psychologically speaking—that Daddy is dead.

    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.

     

    • #8
  9. kylez Member
    kylez
    @kylez

    I miss the Powerline podcast, with Steve, Hinderaker etc.

    • #9
  10. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    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'”

    • #10
  11. Mitchell Morgan Inactive
    Mitchell Morgan
    @MitchellMorgan

    Rightfromthestart (View Comment):
    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.

    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

    • #11
  12. Duane Oyen Member
    Duane Oyen
    @DuaneOyen

    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.

    • #12
  13. SteveSc Member
    SteveSc
    @SteveSc

    @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

    • #13
  14. FredGoodhue Coolidge
    FredGoodhue
    @FredGoodhue

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):
    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.

    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.

    • #14
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.