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This week, we settle all family business (so the saying goes) as after 18 months of jabbering about the election, voters in Iowa are actually going to the polls. To get the best insight into this long awaited event, we go to two experts actually at Ground Zero, aka Des Moines. The Washington Examiner’s Byron York weighs in on the race and National Review editor Rich Lowry describes the aftermath of his magazine’s Against Trump edition and how it is reverberating through the corn fields.
Attention Ricochet Members: Going to be in New Hampshire next weekend? Join us for a first meet-up of 2016! Details here.
Music from this week’s episode:
Street Fighting’ Man by The Rolling Stones
The opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
No debate, it’s by EJHill.
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Photo = The moment after Rob told Peter to lay off the bread?
Close, Casey. Actually, it was the moment after Rob told me you’d beat me by a whole week in posting the Rubio videotape. (I’m still going to be smarting about that on my deathbed, I can tell right now.)
Trump/Clinton matchup would be a disaster because of Trump’s thin skin and negatives? Because the Democrats are hard nasty fighters?
Clinton doesn’t have a thin skin, or negatives?
Is there any better school of fists, boots, and all street fighting than the world of New York City real estate?
Other than Cruz, which of the other GOP candidates has the chops to get in the cage with Clinton, or Sanders? The way Trump punched back on Clinton’s labeling him a misogynist by calling out her enabling Bill’s didoes shows he can counterpunch.
Meanwhile pass the marshmallows.
I resubscribed to NR after not subscribing for years because of the Trump thing (because of budgeting, not a lack of love.) I am freaking proud of NR for standing on principle.
Hear, hear.
When Lowry spoke of how NR assembled the roster of anti-Trumpites, he didn’t square the Glenn Beck circle. Including him and Russell “Muslim refugees in your back but not my backyard” Moore struck me as nothing short of bizarre.
Rob, supposedly 40% or so of our illegal are visa overstayers. We know their names, we have their pictures, we have their fingerprints, and we know where they were before the went off the grid. Whenever and wherever they eventually pop up–Boom–out of the country. They had a deal with us, and they have to go. Lock, stock, and barrel. The border jumpers can be prompted to go home by deporting some of them, enforcing laws against employing them, and cutting off benefits to them. If they want to stay, let them offer up for prosecution those who have committed crimes or those who belong to gangs.
The ad that Rob fears, I hope, will be countered with the Willie Hortonesque ads identifying the sheer number of violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants followed closely by the stories of Americans bumped from employment by the students and professionals who have overstayed visas. Two can play that game, and I hope Trump plays it for all it’s worth. In the end, who can illegal immigrants blame when they are uncovered and sent home? Themselves, not Americans. This country has a legal way to enter and stay. On the flip side, who can Americans blame when they or a family member or friend is the victim of crime or they lose their job to an illegal immigrant? The damned government that’s not doing one of its fundamental tasks.
Get out the Kleenex, Rob. I’ll be thinking of you when I see those railway car ads. In this case, however, the reality is that they won’t be riding in cramped box cars with no food or sanitation, they’ll be riding–or flying–in relative comfort, and they won’t be transported to the concentration camps and certain death, they’ll be transported home.
My favorite Trump response belongs to Bill Whittle (with reference the the “Mystic Cords” speech):
Of course, the most interesting Trump fan is (Democrat) Scott Adams with his “Clown Genius” analysis:
http://blog.dilbert.com/
Rob’s repeating some info on median income that doesn’t carry all the relevant data around it. The real metric isn’t what the median is – which is, after all, just the middle – it’s income mobility. Assuming that a median income doesn’t rise, rises slowly, or rises rapidly misses the fact that the people earning that income are not the same year over year.
Also note that households have changed dramatically from historical norms due to the increase in divorce rates, and now 2 people living in one household with combined incomes are now 2 households with two separate and lesser incomes post-divorce, and boom – your median household income just dropped.
I would keep these things in mind before saying Trump’s got a point on this topic. He does, but it’s the same idea being pushed by Democrats, and it’s purposefully deceptive, because no one wants the headache of cracking open the data.
Agreed. I also think Rob underestimates just how bad of a candidate is Hillary Clinton while simultaneously underestimating how good Trump has been. Also, are ads really that effective anymore? Even if they are, though, I think Nick is right that Trump can hit back more reasonably and more effectively without having to get into a liberal peeing match in order to prove somehow that the implied charge of implementing genocide is anywhere in the realm of what he’s suggesting.
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