Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show reaches back into history to recall our obsession with terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and our decision to expand the "surveillance state" and curtail civil liberties to deal with the looming threat. We ask, not surprisingly, whether some of the same mistakes may be repeated now that Hamas has caught Israel napping...
In addition, Brian and I cover many of the hot-button issues in the news today, including the House Speakership controversy (we recorded the interview before Mike Johnson's coup de main), the massive lawsuit targeting Meta for its supposed subversion of kids' "mental health", the social phenomenon of TikTok, the Biden Administration's handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict, and the poor showing of Joe Biden in the polls, even in deep blue NYS.
It's a tour de force as usual, folks! Don't miss it.
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-october-26-2023-dr-nick-waddy/
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And hearty congrats to our new House Speaker, Representative Mike Johnson of the great state of Louisiana!!! I don't know much about Mike, but I do know that his first name isn't Hakeem, and that seems like a good sign.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house/republicans-elect-mike-johnson-as-speaker
RAY TO DR. WADDY AND JACK
ReplyDeleteMost important with Speaker Johnson, is that he is a 2020 election denier, which means that he will be paying careful attention to the 2024 elections.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I wonder where Johnson's district is. If it isn't New Orleans or Baton Rouge, we can be fairly sure he was elected by common sense people. Not even sure about those cities but if the antiamerican left has gotten any toehold in Lou'sana it probably would be there.Just hope this guy has nothing of Vichy about him.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: And its good that he who is now second in line to the Presidency is from America and not NYC.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeleteI thought the new Speaker was THIRD in line to the Presidency. Please correct me if I am wrong. Thank you.
Ray, I'm not sure there's much that Mike Johnson can do to ensure the fairness of the 2024 elections, other than hold hearings about ballot harvesting and the like. No, I think the election will be a procedural mess, but I still say it's theoretically winnable. Beat the Dems at their own game!!!
ReplyDeleteMike Johnson is now second-in-line to succeed Biden as president. He's third-in-line to BE president, insofar as Biden is currently at the head of the line...
RAY TO DR. NICK
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of elections, I see where a Rep. from Minnesota, Dean Phillips is now running against Numb Nuts. I was reading about his positions on various issues on his campaign site, and all I saw was the usual BS which told me nothing at all. Lots of general stuff, with no details in the slightest about how he would handle anything. This applies to ALL politicians in my opinion. Sort of reminds me of that famous graffiti on the partitions of bathroom stalls in gas stations and bars which said: "Here I sit all broken hearted. Came to shit but only farted". Yes, a crude example for sure, but the promises of most politicians are shit house promises.
Trump is still one of the few who tells you what he is going to do, and then does it. A great many of these Congressional types should try stand up comedian as a job. Lots of ego too. Most of them have so much ego, that if they had any more, they would inflate, and fly away into outer space, never to be seen or heard from again, which would be a great pleasure for people of our ilk.
Anyway, I'm trying to be optimistic, but as usual it is not working well.
Ray from Jack: The succession is VP, then Speaker, then Pres. Pro Tem of the Senate ( thankfully not Schumer) or I'm a suck egg mule!
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeleteJust as bad as Schumer, the Pro. Temp of The Senate is Patty Murray from Washington. She is probably, in my opinion, one of the most dingbat of all Leftists I have ever heard or seen. Maybe she was better looking when she was younger, but she has sure spent time in the ugly forest since then.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: My favorite Speaker is Gingrich. He hamstrung the Clintons.So most NYC people think now that illegal immigration is generating grave disorder in their city. They are experiencing what all who foolishly endorse far left dreams inevitably experience. Luckily they do not live, yet, in one of the tragically oppressed lands which realized this way too late. I'd say to Hochul just what Pelosi deserved: you like illegal immigration so much? OK, lets put them in your yard! Naturally expeditious Pelosi ruled; totalitarians always empower dictators over themselves.Ask all of Stalin's revolutionary buddies.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Most Americans approve of Biden's attitude toward Israel. OK on the face of it but what of his Israel hating far left handlers? Hath he banished them his company? Nah, his kumbayaa campfire view of them as "progressive" will not allow that. They will have their way, mainly by bidding Israel alone exercise restraint.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO DR.NICK AND JACK
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the finest form of patriotism is to have sex with a horny woman with an ugly face, but a great body. You just put a U.S. flag over her face and f*k for Old Glory.
Dr. Waddy,Ray et al from Jack: Sen. Murray: I lived in the state of Washington 9 months in 1970. It was a common sense, down to earth American place. But its been engulfed by the Kalifornia amoeba which is now moving on to the Mountain West. Idaho and Montana are right in its smothering gelatinous path!
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
ReplyDeleteWhere in Washington State did you live in 1970?
Ray: Bremerton, on the Kitsap Peninsula right across that glorious bay from Seattle, which was a good town then. The ship I was on went into drydock there. Seattle is the only city I know of where you can see two national parks from inside the city limits. That's something the Kalifornia invaders can't change!
ReplyDeleteOkay. Well, as you know, Seattle and environs is very Lefty these days, and so is Western Oregon where I grew up. Been that way for decades now. California (entire state) started going that way 60 years ago. However, Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon are still very conservative, as always. In fact, Eastern Oregon would like to join with Idaho. Basically, it's The Left COAST that's the problem. Portland, Oregon is one of the nuttiest place. Used to be a great city, and now the big event is the annual naked bicycle parade. "Keep Portland Weird" is the motto of that dump, whose downtown area was gutted by
ReplyDeletethe BLM.
BLM.
Ray from Jack: Yeah, we endure the same counterintuitive situation here in York State: lala land populous coast which rules with utter disdain for the common sense interior.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Drudge reports that Turkish President Erdogan has "suggested" that Turkey may come in militarily against Israel "unexpectedly on any night". This ice is getting very thin. Israel
ReplyDeletemay be beleagured; what may be in store?
Raymundo, I just posted something about Dean Phillips' audacious challenge to Sleepy Joe. I don't know much about Phillips, but the Atlantic article that I shared strongly suggests that it's a mixture of self-regard, naivety, and searing Trump-hatred that's animating his bid. Kinda makes sense: if all these people care about is stopping Trump, then they should be DESPERATE for an alternative to Biden, even if they have to become that alternative themselves.
ReplyDeleteJack, did Gingrich really "hamstring" the Clintons? As I recall, Gingrich resigned, and Clinton rode off into the progressive sunset a popular lefty president... No one ever said life was fair.
Ray, that's a novel take on patriotism! I guess it works for communism too (just use a different flag)...
Ray and Jack, I am somewhat baffled by the transformation of Washington and Oregon into deep blue nuthouses. They were, not so long ago, Republican states, and then they were competitive, and now they're forever lost to common sense. What gives? You can't really blame demographics, and I'm not sure that migration from California explains it either. After all, people who LEAVE California are not as far gone as the ones who stay... I just don't get it.
Jack, rest easy -- Turkey will not be attacking Israel anytime soon. A lot of Mohammedans will bellow about Israeli aggression and the suffering of the poor Gazans, but virtually none will take any action. Sure, a few Iranian proxies are firing off rockets into the night to show their disdain for Western/Zionist imperialism, but that's as far as it will go.
Dr. NICK FROM RAY
DeleteCalifornia has been radical Left for some time now. Remember that the Hippie Movement in the 1960s, which became very Left started out in San Francisco, and spread all over the country. It actually started in S.F. during the 1950s with the Beat generation and spread up the coast. Also, Jerry Brown did a lot to create a Leftist California when he was governor, which of course is what Newsome is doing now.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: You've hit on a very fundamental question: what gives the left its compelling power? Here are some factors inherent in it which may help to answer this. It appeals to perfectionists since it offers the unknowable future, which, since it is impervious to empirical examination, cannot be condemned for those imperfections and unfortunate consequences manifested by experience. It is antiintellectual in that it posits verities and does not tolerate principled debate on them.I know alot of leftists consider themselves intellectuals and they proliferate in settings like universities where the life of the mind is thought to thrive. Why is this?
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: I meant to say above: ". . . . manifested by experience, as its justification."
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: In addition the left offers intoxicating emotion as a substitute for tedious digestion of fact and reason. It provides exhilarating excuse for summary violent expression of outrage and affords its adherents pleasant " feelings" of having done good. It can
ReplyDeletegive persons and groups widely thought to be "oppressors" seemingly redeeming opportunity to stand for the oppressed and "oppressed".
Dr. Waddy from Jack: So do these factors and many more account for the transformation of common sense country like state of Washington, Eastern Oregon, Colorado and incipiently, Idaho and Montana into domination by proven dysfunctional leftist administration? One major factor in this is their proximity to Kalifornia, a powerful engine of far left pollution: misleadership and disdain for American values. Many leave it to escape the left's proven inevitable social, economic legal, criminal and cultural ills. But many, some perhaps unknowingly because they do not think their own leftist compromised views to be at fault, bring their Kalifornia biases with them, to the disgust of residents of common sense America.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: The left offers relief from the challenges of considering subtle , perhaps counterintuitive truths inherent in issues complicated by human nature. It endorses a view of Manichaean combat between pure evil and pure good which affords impatient "intellects" satisfying convenience.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Gingrich, who led with his "Contract with America" , in '94,after two disgraceful years of our White House being sullied by the most obscene president ever,took the House back for the first time since the early '50s. The Clintons had both Houses for their first 2 years and they were just getting up a full head of steam. Yeah, Hillary's "Health Security" power grab had fluffed but they figured they still had lots of time. Slick Willy was not much fazed yet;he still had plenty of interns to get high with. Besides, he just played his preemption game: "wha shore, Ah've allus bin a small gov'mint man; shoot, ah cain't staind tyking from the productive and givin tothe unproductive. Like ta gimme a pain!'"Butt Hillary was devastated; she simply could not believe that her haughty, self righteous mien in "dictating" her incipiently totalitarian ( "congrats on your MD degree; now you've been assigned to. . ." ) takeover of the health care industry gave Gingrich a loophole, through which he blithely drove a tank. On election night he observed "the Clintons are counterculture McGovernites".Oh sure, the left and the msm got him eventually but he did us a signal service by handing Hillary one of her many richly deserved personal rejections.
ReplyDeleteRay, don't even get me started on those lousy Beatniks!
ReplyDeleteJack, you make me wonder how many intellectuals are "anti-intellectual", in the sense of being opposed to truly open dialogue on matters of real consequence. Maybe intellectualism is mostly about assuming an air of superiority versus bothering to prove the verity of any of one's claims? "Walking the walk" is overrated.
You're right that leftism offers many inducements to its victims. The siren song of utopianism is easy enough to comprehend. The desire to help the less fortunate is laudable, as far as it goes. The zeal for "science" and "progress" is quite defensible. And I think it bears repeating how leftism offers its adherents the advantages of being included in the ultimate "in-group", without the disadvantages of having to live up to the ideology's ethereal principles (which, as we all know, are forgotten in a hurry when there's half a reason to do so). All in all, the lefties have a pretty good thing going!
Now, why states like Oregon and Washington would be especially susceptible to leftism's allures is another question. Usually Republicans beat Democrats among white voters by 20 points or more...but the northwest and northeast are home to numerous overwhelmingly white states that we generally lose badly. Why? Perhaps religion is a better indicator of cultural/ideological orientation than race?
That's a good point that Gingrich led the "Republican Revolution" of '94. Those were heady days. Now THAT was a "red wave", and how! Whether Newt himself was all that responsible for it, I dunno. Possibly Hillary contributed a lot more to our victories than Newt did. Anyway, I also give him credit for bringing an intellectual's and a historian's perspective to American government...although it didn't take long for the system to chew him up and spit him out. And maybe the fact that it did so is the clincher that proves his intrinsic worth?
Dr. Waddyfrom Jack: I've heard some ideologies characterized as religions themselves; mostly leftist creeds. Many leftists would bristle at that comparison. Why,they know better don't they!?Well established religion or political ideology probably do serve better than race to describe people's convictions.
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