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This week on the one and only Ricochet Podcast, Peter is MIA, but Rob and James soldier on in style with guests AEI President Arthur Brooks (read his WSJ op-ed The GOP’s Hispanic Opening) and The Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway on the IRS scandal. Also, we ponder whether taking the fifth always implies guilt, and Lileks v. Buzzfeed. We bet they’re going to regret taking him on.

Music from this week’s show:

Take The 5th by The Brian Setzer Orchestra

The Ricochet Podcast opening theme was composed and produced by James Lileks.

Make ours a double, EJHill.

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There are 20 comments.

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  1. Profile Photo Inactive
    @IsraelP

    And there is Matt Brooks, the long-time Executive Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

    • #1
  2. Profile Photo Inactive
    @Astonishing

    The bothersome thing about the Rosen deal is the over-breadth of the snooping. To get Rosen’s communications with the leaker, it was necessary only to tap communications from the leaker’s side, but the Feds snooped on Rosen’s side, including his parents’ phones. One has to wonder whether Rosen’s extraneous communications were passed to political operatives.

    • #2
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    @tabularasa

    BTW, Tiny Lies is the best $1.25 I’ve ever spent except for all the money I’ve spent on Snickers (sorry, James, but I love Snickers).

    • #3
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    @AustinMurrey
    James Lileks: I really don’t look happy about where this is leading, do I.  · 56 minutes ago

    It could be worse, but honestly I’m surprised we haven’t done some stills from The Distinguished Gentleman yet.

    • #4
  5. Profile Photo Member
    @

    I like a lot of Arthur Brooks’s work but his column claiming (based on absolutely no evidence) that there is some “hispanic opening” for conservatives is, quite simply, one of the stupidest things I have ever read. No point in mincing words…

    • #5
  6. Profile Photo Member
    @

    Laura Ingraham making mincemeat of Arthur Brooks:

    http://www.lauraingraham.com/b/Why-Arthur-Brooks-is-wrong:-The-amnesty-folly/338339389863631922.html

    • #6
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    @TheCloakedGaijin

    Arthur Brooks would be considered a liberal around here.

    Mr. Brooks seems so very happy that the scandals are keeping everyone for looking at the immigration issue, so perhaps the following was not a complete joke.

    “In its most fiendish strategem yet, Team Obama has launched a series of not-quite-devastating but press-obsessing scandals against itself! …  the scandals give Sen. Rubio and other Republicans a chance to bash Obama about something new, giving them the anti-Obama cred that might allow them to quietly sell out on amnesty…” —  Mickey Kaus

    And thanks for insulting Herman Cain and the tea party.

    The tea party gives you a House majority and this is how you want to use it?  No, you’d rather work with Senate Democrats to pass your “Dream” legislation.   Throw in Robert Bartley’s term “wetbacks” from the ever pro-immigration Wall Street Journal, and I guess you have Wet Dream legislation.

    Just keep repeating the word “compassion” over and over to show that your side is the compassionate one.

    Conservativism is compassion.  Compassion for U.S. citizens, taxpayers, workers, the unemployed, and legal immigrants.  Quit dreaming. Wake up!

    How about having some conservatives on next week?

    • #7
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    @MattBartle

    The closing music made me laugh out loud. Wonderful! as Peter would say.

    • #8
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    @CommodoreBTC

    Brooks’ palpable excitement that a bill can get passed while no one is paying attention is disturbing. Also insulting for Brooks to imply moral superiority or superior insight because of who he is married to.

    Biggest tell that this bill is amnesty is Arthur Brooks not mentioning anything about what the Go8 bill actually does (legalization first, promises of security later, just like the last amnesty).

    Unlike Mickey Kaus, who knows the bill front and back and knows what uncomfortable questions to ask.

     Sorry, but I like the idea of a wall/fence. Brooks can smugly laugh about it all he wants, but I’m guessing his property probably has fencing to make sure people don’t trespass without persmission.

     This immigration issue creates all sorts of animosity toward people I am predisposed to like and admire in all other aspects, like Brooks.

    • #9
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    @PeabodyHere

    As I am reading this I am hearing a Ryan/Rubio ad promoting the immigration bill claiming it is “serious conservative reforms”.  I am so sick of hearing the phrase “from out of the shadows”!  They use it twice in the ad.

    • #10
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    @Karen

    I was wondering when someone would use these scandals to bash federal employees, and Mark H. managed to insinuate that all federal employees are hated, corrupt water-carriers for this administration as well! Guess what, if you want to shrink the federal employee workforce, you have to hire conservatives to work in the federal workforce first. It won’t work  otherwise. I know, people don’t like getting their hands dirty, don’t want to use their expertise to actually make a difference in how our government is run. Whining requires less work and personal sacrifice. We’ll just continue to sit around hoping for another savior to send to Washington, since that’s working out so well. You can’t shrink government from the outside, not with the strong, resistant infrastructure at present. Infiltrate. Infiltrate. Infiltrate. And I’m not talking some GS-9 gig, I’m talking GS 14 and up, SES, etc. Elections aren’t the only way to fight these guys. 

    • #11
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    @TheCloakedGaijin
    Butters: Also insulting for Brooks to imply moral superiority or superior insight because of who he is married to.

    John Derbyshire is an immigrant married to an immigrant from China.

    Lou Dobbs is married to a Mexican-American.

    • #12
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    @TupacChopra

    Arthur Brooks’ arguments are extraordinarily unpersuasive, to put it mildly; he sounds like the thinking man’s Jeb Bush.  His hypothesis that there is  “sleeping giant” of conservative Hispanics who are gimme votes for the GOP is risible.  News flash: a political philosophy of individual autonomy and limited government has little appeal to a group of people with a 50 percent illegitimacy rate and who are already heavy users of government-provided social services.  And that’s before all the Democratic demagoguery about “racism”.  A most unimpressive performance.  It seemed to me that Lileks wasn’t buying it either.

    • #13
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    @
    Butters

      This immigration issue creates all sorts of animosity toward people I am predisposed to like and admire in all other aspects, like Brooks. · 4 hours ago

    Edited 3 hours ago

    Same here. I can barely speak Paul Ryan’s name right now. This issue really shows up the weaknesses of Kemp-style pie-in-the-sky/smiley-face conservatism.

    Unfortunately, the huge damage done by the 1986 amnesty (which rested on Reagan’s own brand of sunny optimistic conservatism) has also led me to suspect that Reagan’s place in history will be revised sharply downward in the future.

    • #14
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    @jameslileks

    I really don’t look happy about where this is leading, do I. 

    • #15
  16. Profile Photo Member
    @Chris

    Rob,

    Glad it seemed by the end of the show you were moving past your blasé attitude about the AP scandal – when the government is busy tracking the friendly reporters it is very bad news for everyone.  Remember Richard Pryor’s boxing joke where his opponent comes out punching himself and Richard screams to his coach – “he doesn’t give a “darn” about me; ….he’s kicking his own “butt”?  In the same way, if they don’t care about the rights of their friends, they can probably barely muster contempt for our rights.

    Re-watch  The Lives of Others and imagine it with modern technology.  Not something to ignore….

    • #16
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    @

    The Cloaked Gaijin, interesting about the marriages of two commentators. Mark Hemingway was a delight. Great podcast.

    • #17
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    @BenjaminGlaser
    Peabody Here: As I am reading this I am hearing a Ryan/Rubio ad promoting the immigration bill claiming it is “serious conservative reforms”.  I am so sick of hearing the phrase “from out of the shadows”!  They use it twice in the ad. · 19 hours ago

    Ditto. The illegal immigrants who live around me are hardly “living in the shadows”.

    • #18
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    @BlueAnt

    I’ll second Rob’s recommendation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods; even my friends who aren’t horror/fantasy/comics readers loved that book.  Just about everything Gaiman writes is worth reading.

    …with the possible exception of his short story Snow, Glass, Apples.  Not because it’s bad (it’s brilliant), but because you can never again enjoy the original Snow White story after reading it.

    • #19
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    @

    Getting a broken link to both the streaming and mp3 file :(

    • #20
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