Conservative Conversation + Podcasts

Retired from the U.S. Army Reserve as a Colonel after 30 years of active and reserve assignments. M.A. Political Science, M.S. Strategic Studies, Army War College, JD. Served in 1st Armored Division in West Germany when the Berlin Wall came down, in 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea during the regime of Kim Il Sung, and commanded a logistics battalion in Iraq 2003-2004. Wide-ranging public policy interests. Occasional home brewer and infuser of alcohol spirits.

| April 21, 2020

30 COMMENTS

Nancy Pelosi, second-time Speaker of the House, third in line to the presidency, gave two truly clueless interviews. Was it the Botox or the brain freeze from her favorite ice cream? Pelosi stood in front of a refrigerator that could easily be looked up. The price tag: $24,000. She opened the freezer section and gushed over pints of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream, $12 a pint at their online store.*

On the same day, Nancy Pelosi boasted to MSNBC about blocking the refill of the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses and their employees. She spoke to MSNBC while standing in front of that luxury refrigerator, stuffed full of very expensive ice cream.

By Misthiocracy got drunk and

Misthiocracy got drunk and

misthios (ancient greek): salaried, hired, hired labourer krátos (ancient greek): power, strength misthiocracy: Rule by the staffers.

| April 17, 2020

51 COMMENTS

What if the Land-O-Lakes kerfuffle isn’t about political correctness at all, but rather simply about modern corporate branding and superior graphic design theory? Here are the two butter boxes side-by-side: More

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The Roth Effect with Carol Roth #46

Insight from an Original “Mad Man”

March 10, 2020

1 COMMENTS

Hosted by Carol Roth

With guest Hank Wasiak

A true Renaissance man and one of the original “Mad Men,” Hank Wasiak is a communications industry leader with five decades of experience that took him to and through the corporate boardrooms of the marketing world’s global businesses elite, including as Vice Chairman of McCann Erickson WorldGroup. He is a founding partner at The Concept Farm, Ad Age’s Small Agency of the Year Winner, bestselling author, keynote speaker and three-time Emmy award winning television host. He has taught at six universities and been in the classroom with successive next generations of marketers for almost fifty years. For the past ten years Hank has been an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.

Hank joins Carol Roth to talk about why companies shouldn’t go “woke,” what he wrote to the CEO of Gillette, navigating social media, rage mobs and cancel culture, Bernie Bros and the current state of students, among other topics. He also talks about leveraging asset-based thinking. Plus, a “Now You Know” piece with a toilet paper test for you!

By Clifford A. Brown

| February 17, 2020

26 COMMENTS

“That champagne velvety taste, So shmoooth!”
— Champagne Velvet Beer radio commercial, 1940s-1950s

If you listen to old-time radio shows, and if the person posting them leaves the ads in, you will eventually run across this ad from a mid-sized regional brewer in Terre Haute, IN. The brand survived Prohibition, then faltered in the great brewery consolidation era, eventually reformulating as a high-alcohol malt liquor before failing and then having their brand revived as a retro-craft beer by Upland Brewing. The ad pitchman’s delivery of the “so shmoooth” line in a slightly nasal tone, with smooth changed to a drawn out shhmoooth, produced a great earworm … which came back to mind when I saw a Korean beer in my local Korean supermarket.

By tigerlily

tigerlily

| January 14, 2020

25 COMMENTS

No man did more to bring photography to ordinary people than did George Eastman (1854-1932). Eastman, who had two sisters, was born into a successful family on a small farm in upstate New York. When his father’s health began to fail the family moved to Rochester, NY. His father would die in 1862 when young George was eight and his mother was forced to take in boarders in order to make ends meet.

Among those boarders would be the Henry Strong family. Strong would become and remain a life-long friend and business partner of Eastman (he served as president of Eastman Kodak from its inception until his death in 1919). As for George, he would begin working full time at age 14 as an office boy (his workweek was 10 hours per day, six days per week at $3 per week). Eastman was a smart and diligent young man who was steadily advancing in the work world.

By Clifford A. Brown

| November 23, 2019

8 COMMENTS

Looking for a bit of relief from the Congressional circus? Everyone loves a good dog story, take it as you will. In a break from Florida man stories, we have a Florida dog story:

Some Port St. Lucie neighbors watched a dog get the ride of a lifetime. It was stuck inside a car spinning in reverse for nearly an hour.

By EJHill

Podcaster

EJHill

Thirty years in television production. Living in a midwestern city in the productive custody of his wife and four children (Baby Girl, Marine, Future Tony Winner & Xerox). Unrelenting, unrepentant conservative. Needs a better temperament that equals his photoshop skills. Will probably die broke but believes more in freedom than the welfare state.

| July 2, 2019

7 COMMENTS

Someone at Facebook decided that paying to promote a post on your favorite internet destination is verboten. Carol Roth, host of The Roth Effect here at the Ricochet Audio Network, wanted to promote her latest episode, an interview with best-seller author Brad Thor, but was told she needed to get “authorized” to run ads about “social issues, elections or politics.” So what triggered the rejection? Was it her name, the name of her guest, Brad Thor, or was it the destination?

Here’s the ad she tried to buy:

By Clifford A. Brown

| July 1, 2019

22 COMMENTS

July 1st was National Wine Cooler Day. This called to mind Bartles & Jaymes. Others hear “wine cooler” and think Bruce Willis for Seagrams Golden Wine Coolers. “Cooler” led to “cool” and then to “Kool,” and therein lies a policy puzzle. Reflecting on where the market has gone since those days, an apparent contradiction emerges […]

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By tigerlily

tigerlily

| January 5, 2019

22 COMMENTS

I’ve a confession to make. I used to be a phillumenist. I have an excuse though – I was young. Plus, until about ten minutes ago, I didn’t know what a phillumenist was. As per the British Matchbox Label and Bookmatch Society (BML&BS), phillumenists collect items related to matches including but not limited to matchbooks […]

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By OmegaPaladin

Moderator

OmegaPaladin

| February 26, 2018

5 COMMENTS

I noticed that Simplisafe decided to jump on the progressive, anti-Second Amendment bandwagon. I am very glad I never gave them business. I believe Ricochet should avoid doing business with companies that want to make a political statement against the NRA and the second amendment. Thankfully, it appears Simplisafe is not a current sponsor. I […]

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My Capitalistic Outrage

By EJHill

Podcaster

EJHill

| February 2, 2018

19 COMMENTS

I’m not one to call for boycotts or protest marches. But sometimes I see things, from sources I don’t expect, that simply make my blood boil. Take the History Channel. They have drifted from the programming I used to love back when we lovingly called it “The Hitler Channel.” They still offer some decent scripted shows and a couple of decent “reality” shows like American Pickers and Forged in Fire.

I don’t DVR much and, like most Americans, I’m not into appointment television. So last night I was catching up on a few series using the History app on my iPad. Programs still have commercials but usually the most annoying thing about them is that they are too damned loud. If you’re listening in on headsets some of them can knock you into the middle of next week. But last night was different. On came an ad for a company called North Korean Express. They offer backpacks and all sorts of merchandise decorated with North Korean propaganda posters. OK, fine. If you want to be a schmuck* and wear the shining face of Kim Jong-Un to class I guess it’s not any worse than parading around in a Che tee shirt.

By Susan Quinn

Susan Quinn

Retired consultant, avid biography reader and meditator

| December 14, 2017

43 COMMENTS

There seems to be no end to the government’s infringement on our freedom of speech and religion. And now the latest excuse is that the Catholic diocese is threatening the safety of our citizens with their advertisements. An article in The Federalist explained the problem.

On October 24, the archdiocese submitted advertisements to be displayed in the DC Metro. In response, the Metro explained that the ads were not in compliance with Metro guidelines and therefore couldn’t be posted. Under those guidelines, “advertisements that promote or oppose any religion, religious practice or belief” were not permitted. They further explained that the religious scene in the ad promoted religion.

By Midget Faded Rattlesnake

Midget Faded Rattlesnake

Bio: Other rattlesnakes make fun of the Midget Faded Rattlesnake because even though it's a rattlesnake, it's both midget and faded (how embarrassing). Mainly it puts up with this, because it's fairly even-tempered (for a rattlesnake), though it's surprisingly venomous for such an unprepossessing creature. The Midget Faded Rattlesnake hibernates from time to time, but is usually back within a few months. The M: The M stands for “Moderator”. For more info on what Moderators o… [more]

| May 21, 2017

27 COMMENTS

As one often is, I found myself inspired by @peterrobinson’s latest post – in this case, a post on beauty products which may or may not have been shed by cows. Specifically, I was inspired to look up beauty products shed by other animals, such as snail slime and nightingale droppings. Well, it is difficult for a gal to look these things up without being bombarded by other supposedly female-friendly stories, on love and fashion and the like. To go in reverse order, let me start with the snail shaming:

Love is tough. Even tougher if you’re a snail born with the wrong chirality. Poor Jeremy was a left-swirling snail. Maybe that doesn’t sound so bad, for a snail. But he was a left-swirling snail born into a right-swirling snail’s world. Snails are hermaphrodites, which sounds pretty flexible, but they can’t mate with themselves and a pair of them do have to both swirl the same way in order to mate. Scientists wanting to breed Jeremy to study his (zir?) kind found Jeremy another left-swirler, Lefty, to mate with. The two had only begun flirting when they were forced to hibernate together in the fridge, which sounds like a big step – imagine being forced to move in with someone just because the two of you had been caught kissing! After this first scientific violation of gastropod sexual autonomy, stuff just kinda snowballed from there, leading to what’s certainly the most adorable use of “cucked” I’ve ever seen:

By Midget Faded Rattlesnake

Midget Faded Rattlesnake

| November 9, 2016

75 COMMENTS

Scented candles. What are they for? Ask a man, and you might get varying answers – for masking the stank of indifferent housekeeping; for turning one’s home into a firetrap (bonus if careless children and pets serve as the arsonists); for frittering away money; for making grown men sneeze. Like cushions, scented candles seem an item of home decor most men could do without. Indeed, 90% of candles are purchased by women. Yet candles grace seven out of ten households and come in more than 10,000 different scents for US customers alone.

As the autumn nights draw in, even earlier now that our clocks are set back, the clever advertisers at Glade invite you into the mind of their typical female consumer, so you can see what all the scented fuss is about. “LET TEMPTATION FILL THE AIR,” Glade’s ad proclaims, as a sultry alto invites you to “Dare to let fragrance take you places you never thought you’d go…”

By Fredösphere

Fredösphere

Follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Fredosphere. Listen to my song "Abraham Lincoln Was an Invader from Space". Read my stor

| May 22, 2016

12 COMMENTS

This PJMedia list of vintage racist and sexist ads got me thinking. The number one goal of advertising today is simply getting people to pay attention. Shock is the usual means. How long will it be before advertisers steal a page from the Trump playbook and start using casual racism and sexism? I mean, it […]

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By Victor Tango Kilo