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This week, in an unparalleled act of commitment, we persisted and Naomi Wolf is our guest this week. It’s a fascinating, surprising, and yes, hopeful conversation and we’re very grateful she agreed to join us. But see what you think. Then, the delightful Deb Saunders –on hiatus from covering the White House– joins us to talk about how the current White House is covered vs. the last one and the differences between covering the two. Also fascinating if less surprising. Also, Rob Long shares his name with someone more famous than him (for the the time being), James updates us on his SQUIRREL! issues, and Peter is wants more productivity in his life. We’ll try and get to that soon.
Music from this week’s show: Will The Wolf Survive? by Los Lobos
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Ms. Wolf will be made to care. Today’s Democrats do not allow diversity of opinion.
Amazon may be the thing now, but wait until the Progressives realize how ecologically inefficient Amazon and other shipping services are. How much carbon is expended by the greater use of fuel required to deliver individual items using small to medium-sized trucks to homes and apartments, rather than having them delivered in bulk using more-efficient large trucks to a store in your town/neighborhood? How much extra packaging is required to deliver all of these items individually or in small lots rather than the smaller amount of packaging when delivered in bulk to a store in your town/neighborhood? These questions are being ignored now, but I wonder how long it’ll be before the Progs consider it as another way to cut emissions.
I would agree with you if I believed the Progs were sincere about their claimed ecology concerns.
I don’t believe they’re sincere. And beyond trying to make my life miserable, they’ve given little indication that they give a rat’s *ss.
The ecology is just another vehicle – like COVID – for the progs to install their world vision.
This is worthy of further discussion. I think I’ll start noodling a thread with specific predictions about what has permanently changed. And how “normalcy” is a silly, non specific word.
There’s one I’ll make right now. The government and Big Tech have flexed their muscles and pushed the boundaries. And I think they got away with a lot more than they thought they would. They have figured out which buttons were the most effective. Only a fool would think they won’t exploit the power they’ve claimed.
There will be no “normal”. There will be no “normalcy”. But there will be a “new normal”.
Amazon is trying to get ahead of the curve by having a fleet of electric trucks (although then you get into the ecological damage and inefficiency of the batteries etc..) and putting solar panels and even windmills at their facilities. But really, nothing can overcome the packaging issues that you mention. Even if they’re using recycled materials, those materials still end up in landfills at the customer end. Bigger stores do better at that too: if you’ve seen the “return to warehouse” packing crates etc at walmart stores and others, you understand.
I very much agree Annefy.
The people who are at the upper middle level of power in any political organizations are always so glib about the suffering of that those further down the food chain are experiencing.
Amazon basically purchased the US Post Office, under the Dem majority in power in 2007. In fact this was basically the first and only thing of interest they did that spring.
Most Dems had gotten in by promising to do something about the ever increasing wars we were still stuck in, as the 90 days of Shock and Awe had been replaced by years of our service people riding up and down on the “Highway of Death” in Iraq. But the concern over this never ending war was swept away once Bezos sent his army of lobbyists in to see that he had access to free shipping.
Who actually paid for that free shipping? Small businesses did, as to offset Amazon’s free shipping, rates on small businesses were jacked up. Also international mailing went sky high. My small publishing firm had been shipping books to Canada and Europe for under 15 bucks. The price nearly doubled.
Bezos used the money he saved on shipping to buy WaPo. Then that newspaper was turned into a propaganda arm almost always in service to his Dem friends in Congress. WaPo’s stories were typically overly friendly to the Dem leaders who’d gotten him the big break.
Once Amazon received free shipping privileges from Congress, people soon learned to buy products through Amazon rather than through the entrepreneurs’ own websites. This meant that although the products were still being purchased, now the purveyor of the goods had to always give Amazon their 40% of the profit.
Or they could withdraw from contracts with Amazon, and pay for shipping, which suddenly had become around 35% of the profits. However doing that meant their products were not as visible.
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Amazon can float debt, buy a competitor with it, and then their stock goes up. Every single time. This is a sign that something is wrong with the financial system.
First segment: Fantastic.
Second segment: A perfect example of D.C. disconnect from the American people. Liz Cheney and Ben Sasse as presidential contenders? They have no idea how completely despised these people are, even by their own constituents. Trouble beating Lisa Murkowski? She’s the most hated woman in the state. Trump losing steam? Look at his numbers whenever he speaks in public, or his crowds whenever he travels. This is a Never Trumper visualizing her desire, not reporting on the facts.
This is well said. Thanks, Vince, for putting into words my reaction.
And I want to repeat something from my first comment on this post. I’m kinda shocked by the light hearted demeanor of the Rico hosts. It makes me think that they’ve been largely insulated from the effects of the 2020 election and the COVID related abuses of power.
Edited to add: I, too, have been largely insulated … so far. I’m not so foolish as to think that’s going to last. Nor am I indifferent to the suffering of those who are not insulated.
It’s clear that Naomi Wolf is engaging to stop the atrocities. A lot of conservatives, our hosts included, just seem to be watching it.
Peter didn’t say they’d be contenders, he said they are likely to run. Which they are.
Sasse won re-election in 2020 by 63 points. Cheney is up next year. If she’s despised as much as Sasse is, I think she’ll be fine.
It’s their actions since January that have shown their true colors, and earned their scorn (too mild a word, but I’ll go with it). The establishment is like a general who never visits the front, always fighting the last battle, oblivious to changing dynamics.
The guest alluded to them being up and comers, which I would have expected Peter to challenge if he were paying attention to the base.
By normalcy I mean no restrictions imposed by the state, schools open, no masks, travel anywhere, restaurants and bars open. I think that’s how most people expect things to end up, and would describe that condition as “normal.”
Well, I look forward to the post defining what it will be.
If anybody said anything that sounded like Ben Sasse had any merit I would have remembered that. lol
WaPo was whoring for Democrats long before Bezos sold his first book.
It was a Friday morning and I was in a chipper mood. I also prefer upbeat to ANGERY, despite what I might feel about an issue.
I do, however, experience a sluice of red-hot barber-wire irritation when accused of being largely insulated. and hence perhaps thought to be blithely tra-la-la’ing along, content with the last year because heck, I’m okay. Between the riots and the economic effects of COVID, it has been a miserable year. (Not interested in trotting out details to prove it.) I’m not sitting at home in a nice tech bubble; every day I walk through a completely devastated economic ecosystem, and it makes me as furious on day 365 as it made me on day 1.
I’m doing what I can, which is calling it out and writing about it. You’re welcome to find it insufficient, but I’m not just watching it.
I want give a shoutout to whomever picked the outro tune – brilliant! It references the immigration conversation, as well as puns Ms. Wolf’s name.
Same, and fair enough, but they’re engaging in all out war against freedom, history, religion, and the rule of law. Some conservatives sites, podcasts, writers, churches, groups, are fighting it daily if not weekly. Ours don’t seem to be, certainly not with the vehemence that Ms. Wolf expressed.
Seems to me that the members are doing a fine job every day highlighting the ongoing culture wars, no? As for me, I don’t blame you if you don’t know what I do elsewhere, but I’m not sitting back, whistlin’ and whittling’.
Again, fair enough, but I wasn’t referring to what you do elsewhere. I was referring to the Main page of the Ricochet website generally, (contributor posts, those member posts which get selected for promotion) and the flagship podcast specifically. And this is far beyond a culture war, as exemplified by the first segment.
More often than not in those venues I hear voices lamenting the crumbling republic and bewildered by the erosion of civil and religious liberties, but not drawing lines in the sand or articulating how to combat them like they are in other places, perhaps your personal sites included.
I don’t know Debra Saunders or her work, but I get the feeling she was living inside the bubble herself in at least one respect: she implied that the battle between the Trump Whitehouse and the press was the fault of Trump, rather that the press. That is utter garbage. Trump was a media darling earlier in the primary campaign when they thought he was a sure loser in November 2016. Then they reverted to form as they always do, trotting out the racist/sexist/homophobe+ accusational drivel that is always employed against Republicans. And it only got worse after he won. There was not a single day since that we had a fair press covering the president. To imply otherwise is to betray blindness of four years of mendacity. I think she does need a break…
Side note: it’s well know that Trump is not careful with his words, but when he noted that “the fake news media” (as opposed to “the media”) is the enemy of the people, he was spot on accurate.
What, you mean they misquoted THAT, too? I’m shocked! (/Peter Robinson)
Except isn’t it already fully established that the base is off crying in our beer, as the former President is showing less and less influence, each moment of each day, especially given that Biden’s reign has established national stability, added to our national resources, lowered our energy costs, and has Chinese leaders shaking in their boots?
Any day now Biden will even learn how to climb up the stairs to the plane.
I am reflecting on Naomi Wolf’s and Rob Long’s conversation about how the older people are less concerned and certainly not afraid about the COVID, but younger people are terrified.
It makes sense when you remember that there was so much indoctrination, what was it? In 2017 or ’18, the teachers had kids skip class to march around protesting gun ownership. I remember asking a progressive friend who skipped a day of working at her hospital to march around with HS aged young people to protest guns.
“What is it with this protest?” I asked her a week later.
“Our kids do not feel safe. This cause is about safety. They know the harm that guns do. They are terrified of school shootings.”
I tried to explain that the chances of any American school child being shot in a school shooting were minimal. But she immediately countered with this: “Any harm is too much harm. Any chance of harm is too much of a chance.” (Notice how that sentiment has continually been used in terms of bringing about more concessions to lockdowns and other restrictions.)
Later on I did some research and discovered that in 2017, every single day, 365 days a year, 16 Americans died as a result of a car accident where a teenager on a cell phone or other device caused a serious accident.
Next time I talked to this friend, I mentioned that this indicated that maybe instead of worrying about gun ownership, the young people should realize how much harm they were potentially able to cause – including death – by their own bad habits.
Her reply? “I have no idea of how you could bring teen’s driving habits into a discussion about guns and the harm they cause?”
“I thought you said it was about safety and avoiding causing harm.”
She snorted in contempt.
Here is some new analysis of the electorate. He would probably make a good guest for this podcast.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/03/17/gop-insiders-warn-companies-woke-leftism-paving-way-for-corporate-free-populist-republican-party/
This reminds me of my liberal brother-in-law. It seems to me, they believe in anything that comes from the top or the bottom on the left that involves central planning and government force to make everything better. It’s their reflexive nature and they want everything to be perfect. It’s a collectivist impulse that loves government force and experts and “since we all voted on it or whatever, it’s good or something”. He’s too smart to be that silly, but it’s the way it is.
My other favorite statistic like that is, 1400 people a year get killed just being outside near a car accident that has already happened. They die from simply managing the situation, or trying to be a good Samaritan. I forget what year it is, but the government is going to massively upgrade emergency flashers on cars because of this.
Citation? Because that number sounds wildly exaggerated.
Don’t ask me how to look it up, but there is a new law for it. Somebody’s family member got killed and the family got Congress to pass it. It’s named after the person. After I read that article, I upgraded everything related to that.