The Ricochet Podcast - The Fourth of July

Episode Date: July 1, 2017

We were going to take this week off, but the opportunity to do a special holiday weekend edition of the Ricochet Podcast with just The Founders *and James Lileks, of course) proved to be too tempting. The guys talk about Presidential tweets, what to do about health care, what they like to do on the 4th, and life in the ten years since the iPhone debuted. Enjoy the weekend, everyone. Source

We have special news for you. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Are you going to send me or anybody that I know to a camp? We have people that are stupid. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast. I'm James Lilacs with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. Our guests today, Peter Robinson, Rob Long, and James Lilacs. Let's have ourselves a podcast.

Bye-bye. Welcome, everybody. This is the Ricochet Podcast, number 359. I'm James Lilex with Rob and Peter. And if you're wondering how we got here, well, we're brought to you by the fine people at Bombfell. Bombfell is an online personal styling service for men that helps you find the right clothes. You pay only for what you keep, and there's no charge to send returns back. What a great deal.

$25 off your first purchase. Visit bombfell.com slash ricochet. And we're brought to you by Away Travel. Your luggage should not cost more than your plane ticket. And Away Travel's luggage is designed with the highest quality materials, and it's still under $300. For $20 off that price, visit awaytravel.com slash ricochet and use promo code ricochet during checkout. And we're brought to you by harryravel.com slash Ricochet and use promo code Ricochet during checkout. And we're brought to you by Harry's.com. Yes, Harry's offers the blades at half the price of the leading five-blade razor,

and they sell directly to you over the Internet. Wow, it's 21st century stuff. Your free trial can be found by going to Harry's.com slash Ricochet right now. And, of course, we're brought to you by ourselves. Self-referential and tautological as that may sound. Rob Long is here to explain it all to you. Rob? Yes. Hey, James. Thank thank you listen to podcast listeners and you're just bursting at this you're just chomping champing at the bit i was chomping at the bit um was there a little pause there i

mean i think i have a slight delay here but i am talking to podcast listeners this one is going to you we have introduced a special tier ricochet membership just two dollars and fifty cents to support the site support the membership support the thing we're doing, and also support all these podcasts. For $2.50, you can read the entire site, including the member feed, and you can comment on the podcast posts. You don't have to sign up for the rest of it. We understand you kept saying, I don't really want to support it, but I don't really want to pay the $5. But now you pay the $2.50, and this is for all the people who tell us they listen to the podcast, they want to support it, but I don't really want to pay the $5. But now you pay the $2.50. And this is for all the people who tell us they listen to the podcast, they want to support us, but they don't want to ever write a post or any of that stuff.

That's fine. Join. We need you to join at $2.50 a month. That's the podcast listener tier. And here's why we're doing it. One, because we think that we're calling your bluff. And we also know that when you join at that level pretty soon, you're going to get hooked. We're sort of the Pablo Escobars of podcasts, and we know you'll get hooked.

So join. Pablo Escobar had such an impact on the Colombian economy that they actually ran out of rubber bands because they used them all to put their money in nice little wads, which they buried. That's hilarious. And they're still turning out money that Popple buried everywhere. It's like the dream of pirates, right? Everybody dreams that pirates have buried their treasure

somewhere, and then you'll find it in the Caribbean. Of course, I don't think that's possible. Think about caches. It falls apart. It gets beaten by moths. It does, which is why the Oak Island story has fascinated so many people for so many years. A trunk of gold, not subject to the depredations of time, somewhere down there that has defined the engineering know-how of generations of men. But that's a different story. Peter Robinson, you, of course, are not an engineer, but you are a man. And as such, we were discussing before how it is wise, if you wish to take a nap on an afternoon such as this, that it's wise to ask your wife, right?

Right, right. Not this afternoon, though. She's got everybody cleaning the house, including Pedro Robinson, known and beloved of Uncle Rob Long. Pedro's in the next bathroom. He's in the next room, which is a bathroom, trying to snake out the sink. Determined to do this himself. He's been to the hardware store twice.

It turns out snake number one was too short. Snake number one. Number two, there will be a reckoning. At the end of this podcast, I'm sure I'm going to find out that he's punctured the pipe and we're going to have to call a plumber and pay twice as much as we would have anyway. But that's the happy news here in our household.

Spring cleaning taking place in Minneapolis, James? No. As a matter of fact, our French foreign exchange student is off with my wife. They're exploring the city of Minneapolis and I'm not snaking anything, which is good because the last time I snaked, I put the entire thing down there. I got a call from a guy two blocks away saying, hey, it's coming out of my turlet. I'm just sitting here on a beautiful day on this Fourth of July weekend. And, well, you know, the news goes on and we'd best get to it. So apparently the biggest story is the Trump tweet versus Micah and Joe. We must. Who wants to go first? I'm just sick and Joe. We must.

Who wants to go first? I'm just sick of this story. Go ahead, Rob. You take it. It's not a story. It's not even a story. Oh, but Peter, there's extortion involved, don't you know? They say insulting things about him every morning. He finally insulted them back because he's the president of the United States.

He's far more in the wrong you expect cheap humor and ridiculous semi-analysis from joe scarborough and meeker miker however that name is pronounced but we do we still have some residual sense of dignity of the office of president and donald trump yet again violated that sense of dignity by trumping by trumping by tweet. Actually, we may as well replace the verb. It's trumping now by tweeting an insult. I go, OK. And then Michael and Joe are using it to get as much press out of it as they possibly can. And big deal.

I'm sick of them all. You know, I've got bulbs on my dashboard of my car that are brighter than those two. And I want to know why the president is paying any attention to them. Rob? That's a good question. I sort of agree in general. I agree with all of that, but I also have one more thing to add, which is what I always do, which is that if this... The president's defenders always say something like, he's putting the media in their place, right?

He's, you know, he's treating the media the way they should be treated. And yet the effect, as with a lot of things that Trump does, is the opposite. He has not hurt the mainstream media. He has emboldened it and, in many ways, empowered it. Morning Joe is a more popular show. They are more popular people. They're better known. The New York Times is having a banner year.

CNN is having its best year ever. Fox News is not doing great in the ratings. The idea that Trump, even by the terms that he sets himself and some of his supporters set, is simply not true. If you're assessing the strategy for its effectiveness, you would have to say if the strategy is failing, my advice to him is to change the strategy. Well, that's the interesting part. I mean, I'm not interested to tweet himself because this is what he does. There are moments where he just spasmodically turns into a teenage high school girl. And we expect this sort of insecure, immature, bullying BS.

And then something good happens, and we're happy, and then something bad happens. So I might do this again. This is just, we've had, it's happened, it'll happen again. It's the positions of his defenders and enthusiasts that's illustrative. The people who are, like Peter, just sort of great sigh, I wish he wouldn't do that, but let's look at what we got this week. We got these anti-sanctuary bills. These are important things.

We wouldn't have gotten them with Hillary. And I get that, and I respect that. But to Rob's point, it's the people who enjoy him getting down in the mud and punching because apparently nobody's ever done this before. Nobody's ever called these people on their stuff before. And that this somehow is ennobling of the public debate. Well, they don't think it's ennobling of the public debate because they don't want the public debate to be ennobled. That's just sort of pointy-headed, egg-headed elitist talk.

This is how real people talk. Some tweet today was saying, you know, this is how New Yorkers talk. That's a New Yorker for you. You know, I was just in New York and I didn't hear that. I heard an Indian cab driver who was studying to be an air traffic controller. I heard a Russian guy who was trying to sell hoverboards out of his trunk. I didn't hear that exactly. Exactly. But apparently we're supposed to now believe what the left has always told us, which is that civil discourse is just a cover, just a hypocritical way of masking the true nature of our speech and ourselves. And what we really got to do, man, is we got to let it all hang out, man, and we got to just use it in any form or other.

So now apparently I guess the left won, that polite discourse is now boring. Well, not a ricochet, James. But you're sort of right. I just think it's a strange just – I've stopped judging the relative vulgarities of Donald Trump. I'm just judging on his effectiveness. And it doesn't make any sense for the most powerful person in the world and the most powerful political leader in America

to get in the weird playground spat with two cable news morning hosts who don't have any influence. I mean, this is crazy. It's like this is a guy who watches too much TV.

And this is why the people who are on Twitter and love Twitter so much and watch a lot of TV tend to think he's doing well. Or he's more powerful than he is because this is a universe that's tiny and has literally no effect. Look, this way. The most powerful name in news,

the most popular by many, many, many legions and leagues, news channel in America, was Fox News. And for eight years, they were incredibly powerful, they were incredibly influential, and they had a big audience, put it that way. And yet, Barack Obama was still president. He still had to do the stuff that Barack Obama gets to do. I don't know. I think Fox News played a role in the formation of the Tea Party. It didn't get to do as much as he did. The irony there is the Tea Party was founded on CNBC, not Fox News.

Maybe so, but Fox News helped to sustain it, I think. That's fine. That's fine. Okay, but I take helped to sustain it, I think. That's fine. That's fine. Okay, but I take your larger point. Yes. The president is not ennobled and is not empowered by picking fights with little people, the little pucians. It doesn't work.

This is silly. It's stupid. It was stupid when Barack Obama did it with Fox News. He did it in a slightly classier way, but he still did it. And it was stupid. It diminished him. It didn't ennoble anybody else. It's just a dumb, dumb, dumb way to do your business.

I'm more than ever convinced as time goes on that Barack Obama, that Donald Trump is just the grade Z version of Barack Obama. The Barack Obama is the NPR version of Donald Trump, but they're not all that different, the two of them. You mean the peevishness, the vanity? The peevishness, the vanity, the slavish devotion by their supporters, irrespective of their accomplishments, and then their own... What are you reading that I'm not reading

you're both saying that you're both speaking as though Trump has defenders who have been slavishly defending him oh I see ok I see poor David Limbaugh God bless him saying look David presents

in his Twitter feed he presents a catalog of all the things that Mika and Joe Scarborough have been God bless him saying, look, you know, David, David presents in his Twitter feed. He presents a catalog of all the things that Mika and Joe Scarborough have been calling Donald Trump. Actual quotations from their shows, psycho, crazy, that sort of thing. And Trump didn't hit back as he hit back below the belt. He should have hit above the belt, but he was right to hit back, says David Limbaugh. But my point here is even David Limbaugh, God bless him, who makes the best case he was right to hit back says david limbaugh but my point here is even david limbaugh god bless him who makes the best case he possibly can you can tell the reluctance david is even i don't want to put words in david's mouth but david is reluctant and disappointed he's

sticking up for the guy but not with much sense of zest or fun the way david usually does no in other words even trump supporters are just sick, maybe with the exception of Sean Hannity, but I don't get the sense that Trump supporters are thrilled with his horrible behavior. Go ahead. There's also general forgetfulness in them. It is

as if the portrait they picked lately, the pain of the president, is that here he was just minding his own business, helping out the orphans and the poor, and knitting socks for those boys overseas. And then people were saying mean things about him. This is a man who has lowered the discourse of American politics by any means, by any standard, he has lowered it. This guy who said that Ted Cruz's father did not kill Kennedy.

Jeb Bush does not have feelings about immigration because, of course, his wife's a Mexican. There's all sorts of things this guy has said and said and said and said. And that makes it okay for people to present themselves as serious journalists? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. and so forth. Yes, you're allowed to call the president anything you want. And the president has to rise above it. The idea that just because Donald Trump does it... Donald Trump has not been alone

in debasing the public discourse. CNN has had a major hand in it. I'm not going to say that certain... Bill O'Reilly had a hand in it, as far as I'm concerned. But the idea that Miko and Charles Scarborough can present themselves as wounded parties

when their show is just garbage. I definitely agree with that. But here's the thing, guys. Doesn't he have something better to do? I mean, when you they can say all they want

and what they want is, you know, I've got a light fixture out back that when I take it out of the garden, a whole bunch of ants crawl over my hand because there's a big colony. And I brush them off and I move along because the distinction between me, bipedal, self-aware human being, and this colony of little automatonic insects um it there's a great difference in other words i don't sit down there and yell at the ants trump is yelling at the ants here's the question i have a genuine question something better to do than watch shows we've been saying this for six months now we've been saying this for six months now at what point does it just become boring at what point does it just become boring? At what point does it just become background noise? And what I'm referring to by it is

the behavior of Donald Trump, the tweeting and so on and so forth. He has better things to do. Never? We're going to be shocked and horrified every time he produces a vulgar tweet? Yes. No, I can't join you there.

I'm not saying we should be because he is president of the United States and everything he says is news. And it's going to be big news. And if he had an ounce of political smarts still left in him and an ounce of discipline, he would stop doing it, because then he will be more effective politically. But because he cannot do it, because he is, I believe, that in the nicest possible way, you could say he's mentally and emotionally unstable, because he is those things. He will continue to do these things, and he will continue to distract the entire country. And everyone will say, well, you should just ignore that stuff. And his political enemies won't.

Because it's a political vulnerability they will exploit. This is something that people do in politics. This is how grown-ups do it. We will exploit the political vulnerabilities of Nancy Pelosi. And we'll do it happily. News is called news. We'll do the same thing for Hillary Clinton. And then sit there and say to people who run the news, oh, you shouldn't even talk about that.

No, no, no. It's fantasy land. I'm just wondering. He's doing it to himself. I'm bored with all this stuff, and I've now factored in the vulgarity. And it seems to me there ought to be more interesting things for us to talk about apart from anything else. Maybe. In other words, news is news.

It's supposed to be something new and novel. Now, so if you're saying that the political opponents will always use his vulgarity against him, sure, of course they will. And if I were in their position, I'd do it as well. And I suppose we're lesser ourselves.

I mean, even the three of us, if we become so numb to it that we can't continue to call him out and every so often say, there he goes again, that vulgarian, that jackass. I wish he were – it's not even effective, as Rob very astutely pointed out. But at some point, doesn't it – so two questions, I guess.

One, at some point, don't we move on? And at some point also, don't news organizations in general just begin to think of this as white noise, uninteresting? I guess the answer to that is as long as it sells papers and brings good news, it's not. I'll answer the second question first. The answer is no, and nor should they. Donald Trump himself complained that they should be sending him thank you notes during the campaign, especially during the primaries.

He's done wonders for their ratings. Donald Trump loves ratings. He lives by ratings. He keeps talking about ratings. Well, guess what? The ratings of the people who regularly attack him are going up. Yep. And the ratings of the people who slavishly follow him and are his Lickspittle acolytes are going down.

Well, wait a minute. Question. I'm not challenging that. We know Fox's ratings overall have gone down. Part of that could be because they lost that centerpiece O'Reilly. Are Sean Hannity's own ratings dropping fox his radio ratings dropping but i mean but his the book is not out on his on his tv ratings okay but the but oh the radio ratings are dropping that's news okay that's that you could also say that's happening around terrestrial radio

everywhere so i i could be over my skis on the Sean Hannity part. But the overall brand identity of Fox News is getting hurt. Now, that's not to say that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think that has probably very little effect on national politics and national policy and the policy direction, except that it allows people to, he is allowing them to conveniently decide they don't need to cover or want to cover any of his initiatives. Not just CNN or MSNBC, but also Fox News, because this is too juicy a story. So they cover that and cover that and cover that. And so even the people who might be persuaded to support Republican reform in health insurance or any of the other sort of Trump-specific initiatives, they're never going to get that news because even Fox News is covering his stupid tweets. Peter said something that's interesting to me because I'm interested in cultural directions when he said we factored in the vulgarity. And we have. We're no longer shocked by it.

We expect it. But it's just another step toward changing and coarsening the public discourse. That's true. I saw a billboard the other day for a television show that called it Intense AF. Now, this is in New York. And AF stands for As Bleep. Insinuating and making you think of the F-bomb, which is going to be on a big advertising billboard someday. And I think that Donald Trump will probably be the first president

to drop the F-bomb in a press conference. But enough of the F-bomb. Let's talk about the bomb fell. Bomb fell. That was great. Oh, wow. That was great. But can I put a pin in it in a minute?

Because I want to talk about that. Okay. Put a pin into it and then afterwards. I'll tell you something. When I got my shipment from Bombfell, you know what I didn't get in it? 45 pins. You get a shirt sometimes. You've got to take all the pins out because you fear you're going to bleed to death if you miss a couple.

It was just part of the great experience that I had in getting that clothes and finding out how much I loved them even though I didn't select them. It's magic. See, here's how it works. Bombfell is an online personal styling service for men that helps you find the right clothes, and they scour the men with the wear collections for all the brands and the designers around the world, and they send you pieces from these collections that work best for you. Of course, you've answered a bunch of questions about what you like, so they got a basic idea, but man, do they have good taste. There's no hidden fees, no gotchas. It's the most simple, straightforward service around. Bombfell is on your side and they don't make money if you don't find something that you want to keep. So four simple steps. Sign on at bombfell.com

slash ricochet. Answer a few simple questions about your measurements and your style preferences. Two, set up your order. Tell your stylist what you want. You need button down shirts? Tell them you want two shirts. You need a pair of jeans? Tell them you want those as well. You're in control. And I'm actually wearing my jeans right now. They're just fantastic. Three, get a preview email from your stylist with the individual pics. You'll have about 48 hours or so to make changes or even cancel if you change your mind. And then four, you get your clothing. Then you have seven days to try it on. Pay only for what you keep. Your card is not charged until you decide what you are going to keep. And shipping, both ways, it's free.

So right now, the fine folks at Bombfell are offering a special deal for our Ricochet podcast listeners. Bombfell is offering $25 off your first order when you go to bombfell.com slash ricochet and sign up. That's spelled B-O-M-B-F-E-L-L dot com slash ricochet for $25 off your first purchase. And thanks to them for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast. The pin has been put in. The pin is now being removed. Throw that grenade, Rob.

Oh, I was only going to say this about that. First of all, I will say just one thing about Bonfell, which is that the fact that you are advocating Bonfell is sort of meaningful. I would describe you as natty. You're a natty guy. You're a sharp dresser. You know, sharp. You turn out. But the other thing I was going to say about the F-bomb is that I actually don't think I never go back to Trump, but I think Trump in general – I don't think Trump will be the first president to sort of let it go. I mean, he said some stuff that was a little bit racy in primary campaign rallies, but the fact that he hasn't so far is a sense that he probably won't.

Well, I said that for Segway's sake. I know, but he's sort of an old man. I think for old people in general, that one doesn't come tumbling out. All right, Mike Pence then. It's a generational thing. Probably not. tumbling out all right mike pence that generational thing probably not uh speaking of mike pence and governors uh peter i understand that you were at a convocation with three governors and you have some good news yes yes yes just just to counterbalance donald trump who's getting all

the national press and what's left over goes up to the senate and how gridlocked they are in trying to enact health care i was at a conference this past weekend at which three Republican governors spoke, one, two, three. Matt Bevin of Kentucky, who was a businessman until he became governor, and who in his election managed to turn over the Kentucky legislature from Democratic to Republican for the first time in 96 years. Eric Greitens, if I'm pronouncing it correctly, of Missouri, former Navy SEAL. Again, he has a Republican legislature. And then Greg Abbott of Texas, who again has a Republican legislature. And they're getting no press.

As a matter of fact, I wasn't even aware of who Eric Greitens was until I found myself sitting in an audience listening to him. But they're moving legislation. Matt Bevin has made his fifth day in office. He signed legislation making Kentucky a right-to-work state. They're lowering taxes. They're rolling back regulations. Matt Bevin's mentioned that the previous high for annual outside investment in Kentucky was about $5 billion. Now we're six months into this year, and they're already at $7.1 billion as businesses respond

to what he's getting done in Kentucky. Texas, we hardly need to talk about Texas. The growth continues. It's a conservative state that's looking for ways to become more conservative. Governor Abbott said that they're planning a, what was it, a 10-year, I think a 10-year, $70 billion infrastructure spending without an additional penny in taxes or debt, meaning they look at that budget, they find out what's not a priority anymore, they stop spending money on certain things and reallocate money to new items. Last little comment. All I'm trying to do is say there's a lot of interesting stuff taking place in America, although the press doesn't cover it.

Last comment. Here's Matt Bevin. Keep your eye on him. Governor of Kentucky. As we were saying goodbye to each other, this was in a hallway after the conference. We were chatting a little bit. And he said, well, I'm heading back to Kentucky. And the first thing I'm going to do when I get there is record a YouTube video. I've just learned that California has announced that no Californians visit Kentucky on California spending money.

And he said apparently it's something to do with LGBT issues. He said, I don't even know what because we haven't enacted any new laws at all. But I'm going to go back home, and I'm recording a video, and I'm going to say I'm sorry that California state employees are no longer visiting Kentucky. But I can tell you one Kentucky state employee who's going to be visiting California, me, the governor, because there are a lot of businesses in California that are overtaxed and overregulated. And I want to invite them to move to Kentucky. It's just great. He's just wonderful. Okay, so there's good news, even if it isn't making it into the news, so to speak.

And I just wanted to say that. I am thrilled. Happy that you did. I love it with governors. Oh, and by the way, Matt Bevin is going to be on the Ricochet podcast. We just have to work it out. He immediately accepted the invitation to appear there's the point you make about california banning travel here and there is an interesting

one um this attempt by california legislature uh after i'm sure robust bipartisan debate to impose their what they want the world to be on other states is a fascinating idea is it not i mean i guess we should applaud this it being federalism and the rest of it but what exactly are their standards for this and are they not inviting other states to do the same sort of thing i mean sure ban all travel to california because their gun laws or their speech laws are restrictive and anti-constitutional. Go ahead, Rob. You're talking to two Californians, so we'll just sputter in there. We're so infuriated. My question is, what exactly are they banning? What is the use case here for the banning?

You're not allowed to go to Kentucky? State travel. They can't spend state money to go to these things which is interesting because uh you know the idea is somehow that that there's there's something to be done great accomplishments yeah by sending state officials to another state to go to a conference yeah what are they doing i feel like the state employees should be spending money in the state. Oh, by the way, Greg Abbott got off a line. He said he was talking about the continued economic growth in Texas and the influx of people from other states. And he said, as a matter of fact, we in Texas do want a border wall, but we want it on our western border to keep out the Californians. No, he doesn't.

To thunderous applause. Yes, except he wants the opposite. He No, he doesn't. To thunderous applause. Yes, except he wants the opposite. He wants them all to move. Well, California is not going to have single-payer health care. Is that what we understand, Peter? Yes, that's it. Okay. How many people did that kill?

Because the metric now for all health care bills is that if you don't do something or you cease to do what you did before, there's an immediate fall-off. People just drop dead on the spot, slump over in their car, fall over while gardening. How many people did California kill because they didn't do that? It was a brutal – Untold hundreds of thousands. Well, I mean, when you get right down to it, health care is going to kill us all, right? That's how that works.

Yeah. right that's how that works yeah um the the the issue without this of the health care problem i think it's it's sort of interesting because the one of the things you try to not do or try try not to do i should say um whenever you're dealing with a thorny issue like this you try not if you're a politician anyway you what you don't want is clarity right you don't want to get down to the bone because usually that is a bad bad very difficult and immovable object that someone eventually is going to have to swallow hard and just accept um and here's my analogy my analogy is that one of the problems with the middle east peace which every president has dealt with but but Clinton, I think, is the one sort of that ended up holding the hot potato, is that if you're really good at negotiating, you're really good at getting these things sort of discussed, you eventually get down to the one immovable thing that won't change. And once you've identified that, there's really nowhere else to go. So Clinton, as a lot of presidents do in his last month or two months or six months in office,

really wanted to leave office with a Middle East peace agreement. So he brought the parties together, and they agreed on every single thing. The Israelis basically gave up everything except the one thing that they can't give up on, which is the Palestinian, what they call the right to return. The right of retribution, yes. The right. And the idea there is like, well, it's absolutely the worst possible outcome, because now

everybody knows that that's all it's about. That it's not about any of the other ancillary issues. We now have clarity, and in that issue, clarity is the worst possible thing, because now the Israelis know for a fact that the Palestinians were not negotiating good faith, that they really just wanted to destroy the state of Israel,

and now the Palestinians also know the Israelis will give up every single thing they can possibly give up except that one thing. And now everybody knows where everybody stands. And the same thing is going to happen with health care. It is happening. It's happening. Everybody knows there's one problem. And there really is only one issue. I mean, there's a lot of other little ancillary issues, but you could solve it pretty easily if everybody agreed that the Cadillac health plan tax was necessary and needed to be implemented. If you agree with the reform movement, either on the right or the left, is necessary and needs to be implemented tomorrow.

Kim Strassel had a marvelous column in the Wall Street Journal either yesterday or the day before, I can't recall, in which she pointed out that within the Republican caucus, there are two kinds of objectors to the legislation that McConnell has proposed. One is moderates, and they want more money for Medicaid, and Kim Strassel points out that the moderates can be

bought. You could just give them more money, and that will solve their problem. The conservatives cannot be bought because their objections are objections on principle. It's the conservatives who are extremely clear about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. And it's a matter of principle. And in fact, at this conference that I attended, I found myself chatting and had a kind of a side conversation with Ted Cruz. And Ted Cruz said, Peter, for five

months, I have told the leader I need four things, one, two, three, four, and every one of them, I won't go into it because it's quite detailed, but every one of them was a matter of principle. And in the new legislation, said Ted Cruz, I don't get any of those four. And the leader's people, and then he showed me on his iPhone, there was a story, AP or UPI, AP, I guess, UPI doesn't exist anymore, in which someone was quoted as close to Speaker McConnell, saying that when it came right down to it, Ted Cruz wouldn't vote against the health care legislation, because that would immediately, he'd have a primary challenger, he's going to be running for re-election. And Ted Cruz, of course, was beside himself precisely because in his mind, it's not politics. That you can blur over or you can paper over with money. But he actually is standing on principle. Could you name any of the principles?

Well, I can tell you that every single point that he had in mind was something that would increase freedom within the free markets. Competition, yeah. And competition. So that his point was both a matter of principle that you do things that increase freedom. The federal government should not be using coercion to force people to buy plans they don't want. And at the same time, it happens to be the case in his argument that the extent to which you permit the markets to operate more and more freely, you will actually drive down the cost of the price of premiums, which is his. That's what the whole problem with, according to Ted Cruz, I'm summarizing him now, but I'm not putting words in his mouth. This was his argument. The principal problem as a political problem with Obamacare is that it isn't affecting the price of health care.

People's premiums are going up. And the current legislation is a Medicaid reform and it's a tax bill. But it doesn't get to the question of the costs of health care. Okay. And there's a difficulty in selling it to a population who believes that there are two options if you have private you know the the free market the private sector frightening words uh that means that you pay more and you get less and companies deny you um everything because they want you to die on the other hand there is government health care which is good because it doesn't cost anybody anything it just somehow magically emanates from the from

the right yeah the holy money stone that they have in the basement of the treasury and that uh good things happen from that because government is good and wise and patient and and and you know the market is just cruel so i i remember hearing about the lines that were going to be drawn and the insurance markets and the rest of it. And it would be great if we had a little bit more competition in this sense. But, I mean, Obamacare seems to have been specifically designed to drive companies out of markets in order to pave the way for the great smothering oven mitt of single payer, which still seems like everyone's just eventually going to throw up their hands and say that's what we're going to go for. I mean, I think it seems to me if they come up with something now, the idea they're talking about is we're going to repeal it and then we're going to replace it later, which strikes most people as, you know, on our family vacation to the Black Hills, we're going to take the engine out of the car. And then we're going to figure out a way how to actually get to the Black Hills somehow. But that seems odd to people.

Yeah, well, I mean, in fairness, Ben Sasse was also this guy. So Ben Sasse and Ted Cruz are two of the people who are having trouble with Leader McConnell's proposal, which he only announced a week ago Thursday. This conference took place earlier this week, and so they were still working their way through it. And now, since this conference that I attended back in Washington, both Ben Sasse and ted cruz has ted cruz has said look here's a here why don't we just do this here's my amendment ted cruz's amendment uh because we're getting all hung up on this notion of um uh required benefits there's a

term for that but in any but the government says if you're an insurance company you have to offer maternity benefits even to men, for example. And Ted Cruz's view is, look, let's just – I'm going to offer an amendment that provides for the following. As long as an insurance company in any individual market offers at least one policy that is compliant with Obamacare, then that company may also offer policies that are not. Ted, perish the thought perish the thought what sort of madness is this brilliant right so simple and brilliant but of course you can't permit that to happen because the whole thing will start to come on suck invest in pitch forks because they're going to need to buy so many to get the bodies

but that is like that is very much can i just want to be good because ben says it you this repeal now replace later in fairness to the people including senator sass who are making that argument they're saying repeal now with the provision that obamacare will go out of existence in some period sometime in the future so they're not saying it ceases to function the day after tomorrow we repeal it as a matter of law now such that obamacare has one year two years three years to function and that gives the legislators a clock to work against it doesn't mean that people will be thrown off hope that obamacare will cease to function all of those exchanges will shut down next wednesday just in fairness to them in fairness fairness to them, but the way they've articulated it is pretty bad, and I'm not sure that's

really true. I mean, look, no one knows better than Barack Obama that Obamacare is unaffordable. His goal, as James said, is just to sort of enlarge the federal piece of it, is to create a regulatory state so that if you want to make it cheaper you simply cover less or you create more you just ration right the the five six seven eight ten years after the cadillac tax goes gets into effect and people start to ratchet their expectations down that's when the rationing starts which is what they plan to do all along i mean the the idea of single payer you I mean, the idea of simply... And single-payer. You move to single-payer.

Right. Obviously, single-payer is the end of the road here. But single-payer, we have single-payer already. You know, the various federal health insurance plans are single-payer. A lot of states have Blue Cross administering what is essentially a single-payer plan. They're all terrible, of course, because it's single-payer. The problem really is that nobody is trying to allow individuals to apply the same amount of vicious competitive instinct with which they buy airplane tickets on kayak or Travelocity with health insurance.

Right now, health insurance is seen as some kind of magic thing where if you're a consumer of it, you simply could never understand it as if you could understand jet travel. And that's really the problem. The problem is that we have an engaged consumer population in electronics and cell phone and mobile phone plans and flat screens

and airline travel. And somehow, when it comes to getting your throat checked for strep, that's oh my god, that has to go right to Washington. It's crazy. And it's going to bankrupt us. But it's going to bankrupt us no matter what we do, unless we do

something along the lines of what Ted Bruce suggested, which I think is actually a brilliant plan. Of course. The idea is like, okay, let's unleash the competitive instincts of the health. Health insurance is a great business to be in. Let's lightly regulate it so you can't be, you know, they can't rapaciously toss you off just because you got sick. And let a thousand flowers bloom. I mean, if you watch TV today and it's a thousand commercials, the various auto insurance companies beating their brains out for your dollar.

That's the goal, right? The amusing thing, though, is when Rob says health care is inexplicable to a lot of people and it ought to be as simple perhaps as we're used to since the deregulation of jet travel going on kayak or Expedia or Travelocity and getting our stuff there. If you use that model for health care, then you would go online. You would find out who is going to take your appendix out, and then for the next two weeks, you'd get ads about having your appendix taken out. Every time you logged on to Facebook. Which that would work because I made some reservations for a hotel and I'm now constantly getting reminders that I should make a reservation for that hotel. Well, I did already, frankly.

I can't wait to go because I'm going to be trailing, carrying the most stylish piece of luggage that's going to go through that lobby and it's made by Away. Away Travel was started to create the perfect luggage, and they did it. Their approach is simple. You create special objects that are designed to be resilient, resourceful, and essential to the way you travel today. Away uses high-quality materials while offering a much, much lower price compared to the other

brands by cutting out that middleman and selling directly to you. You can choose from nine colors and four sizes, the carry-on, the bigger carry-on, the medium, or the large for your extended stays. Now, all of them are made with premium lightweight German polycarbonate, and each piece has four 360-degree spinner wheels. I love walking to the airport with that thing. You can practically dance with it like Fred and Ginger. Carry-on sizes, they're compliant with all major U.S. airlines. TSA-approved combination lock built right into the top of the bag to prevent anybody from going through it. Removable, washable laundry bag inside keeps your unmentionables separate from the clean stuff.

And both sizes of the carry-on, by the way, are able to charge your cell phones, tablets, e-readers, and anything that's powered by a USB cord. This is what I love. No more hunting for outlets. There was one perverse man, apparently, in London who made decals that looked exactly like power outlets and went around slapping them in the walls of airports just to film people trying to shove the prongs into those things. Devious evil. But fun.

But you won't have that problem if you have it away because you plug into your suitcase. It's so cool. 100-day live trial. Anytime you decide it's not for you, you can return it for a full refund with no questions asked. And if you do keep it, and you will, lifetime warranty. Anything breaks,

they'll fix it for you for life. Free shipping on any away order within the lower 48. And I've given my testimonial. Rob, you've just come back from someplace, and I'm sure that you would like to tell everybody how much you love... I do love my way. I'm using it right now i am

away and i'm using it and there is something just uncivilized as you walk through the airline terminal you see people crouch to the floor on this on the ground as they're trying to charge their their uh their devices there's something incredibly cool about this incredibly strong thing, and you just plug your phone in and you're done. I like how it makes me feel better than other people and how other people look at me and think that I am superior to them. I'm just kidding. All right.

The reptile brain. Indeed. $20 off a suitcase. You can be like Rob. You can be like me for a great price. AwayTravel.com slash Ricochet and use the promo code Ricochet during your checkout for $20 off. Once more, that's AwayTravel.com slash Ricochet and use promo code

Ricochet at checkout for $20 off any suitcase. And our thanks to Away Travel for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Well, we've solved healthcare. We've solved the president's tweets. I think the next thing we have to do is to look at the nation of America and decide whether or not, where it's been and where it's going. This is the fourth.

And, you know, it's, I had to write, I didn't have to, but at the newspaper they wanted an essay on the fourth, and they were, it was fraught with peril. The idea of it, when they presented it to us they said you know we these are very fractious times we're split you know right be careful i said i know what to do written a million of these i can do with my eyes closed besides fractious times they are divisive times yes but we've been here before and i'm not convinced that this is the nadir of American civility,

the president's tweets aside, or the end of the American experiment or the rest of it. It got dinged in the comments a little while, a couple of weeks ago, for being cynical and depressive, and I was surprised about that. I may be cynical and depressive about some of our leaders in the short term, but in the long term, I'm optimistic because I grew up with Star Trek and I believe in America and I love the country and I have great faith in its possibilities and what we can do with it so yay us guys you can

probably put that a little bit better rob is a man of rituals and family how will you be spending the fourth rob well well i'll tell you how i'm spending the fourth peter um i will be uh downtown on nantucket in nantucket that, the little town in Nantucket, and there's a gigantic water battle that goes on every year on the 4th of July. And the old, they fire up the old fire engine, and it drives up and down the main street,

firing its water cannons at all the kids. That sounds wonderful. Yeah, it's pretty great. It's 4th of July. It's a. Yeah, it's pretty great. It's like, it's the 4th of July. It's a strange thing, the 4th of July. I find it hard to get super patriotic about the 4th of July. Because it's like summer, it's fun, and it's a barbecue thing.

And it's just hard to sort of wrap your head around it as a patriotic holiday. Unlike, say, well, Thanksgiving is a great patriotic holiday. Or I think Election Day is a patriotic holiday. The inaugural day is a patriotic holiday, unlike, say, well, Thanksgiving is a great patriotic holiday, or I think Election Day is a patriotic holiday. The inaugural day is a patriotic holiday. I mean, the great thing about America is that we don't kill each other

when we disagree. We maybe tweet nasty things at each other, but we don't actually form armed factions and attack each other. Only Rob cannons. Put Rob down as a... Rob is in the category of bullshy scum who hate the fourth.

Peter... Peter, your traditions... You say you've got a family full. Pedro doing the snaking as we speak. Yes, exactly. Is there going to be some massive feed with corn on the cob and ribs to be ripped apart all of that my my own tradition is to make the children well my wife has them engaged in spring cleaning right now and then the rolling weekend we make the most of it's

being a three of well i guess almost a four-day weekend this year and so there's going to be a lot of tennis and some swimming and the marvelous thing is that my oldest son, Pedro, now who's finished snaking, and I'm sure that what I'm going to be told is, Dad, I just can't do it. We've got to get a plumber. But what Pedro can do is barbecue, which I hate. I guess I'm the only male in America, but I do not like standing over a hot stove oven. Really? No, I can't smoke. But Pedro loves it.

So I'm just going to sit around and chat and drink a little gin and a little tonic. What I'm trying to figure out, somebody told me that his family did this every year and it sounds good. I'm trying to figure out whether we should read aloud the Declaration of Independence or whether my kids would just rebel and pour a bucket of water in my head if I even suggested it. We did get into the habit of reading Lincoln's Proclamation every Thanksgiving day before we sit down to dinner. Lincoln's Proclamation is, I guess, 300 words words you can get through that pretty quickly it's very moving the the youngest member of the family always reads it uh that works i'm not so sure about the declaration but i don't know what do you guys think james what are you doing are you reading anything out loud well because we have a french foreign exchange student i'm obliged to

gin up as many local patriotic rituals as possible one to conform to the idea that americans are like that which we are excuse me pardon hold on sorry i got something i got a frog in my throat no okay let me reset that three two one well since we have our french foreign exchange student i want to show her what americans do which is wave flags and be happy and loving our country and it's easy to do in our neighborhood because there is a parade of trikes and bikes and wagons and the rest where the parents all festoon the taught vehicles with flags, and everybody goes and converges on a park where there's hot dogs and corn and games of chance and all the rest of it. It's wonderful fun.

And then later we're going to have some friends come over, as they've done for many, many years. We've fallen away in the last few, but for a long time, I've got photographs of all of our kids just tots sitting on the steps watching the fireworks that I set off. And it's been a while, but we're going to do it again, except now two of those kids are in college. And my daughter's got one year of high school left, and a couple of the others have grown and it's it's bracing and it's it hits you right in the sternal area to realize how much time has elapsed and how much is behind you but come the fourth i'll stick it out the big rockets and send them into the sky and hope as usual that my neighbors have not strewn their roofs with oil-soaked sawdust. I always feared that. But I have a neighbor who I don't know where or how, but they got the good stuff. And these are the fireworks that you've got to pound a big pipe into the ground to set off.

These are like, you need licenses for this stuff. And it goes up, and it's big, and it's loud, and it's bright, and's big and it's loud and it's bright and right there in the sky and it's magnificent and this dog we have now doesn't mind it a bit so it's going to be all the traditions all of the usuals and then at the end of it there's always the string i share rob a little bit i'm not as much as i love it it's one of the great tent three tent poles of summer i always feel like summer's right. Yes, yes, yes. But there's something sad about the fifth. Because I always remember when I was a kid and I'd get up the next day and there would be just dead fireworks everywhere.

And it was almost like the day after Christmas. But at the same time, it was liberating. The pressure was off. Now summer stretched out in front of you, this big green carpet, the end of which you could barely see. And now you didn't have the pressure to have a great summer, the perfect June, the bright days. Now you could just live it.

And that's what I look forward to. The bright green carpet that you, and you can hardly see the end of which you can hardly see. That is just beautiful. James does it again. I feel exactly the same way. Actually, I feel quite virtuous. I don't know if you... To me, summer doesn't really start until

the 4th of July, and we've already gotten in a couple of family vacations. The house, we're getting spring cleaning done on the July 1st. I really feel as though we're ahead of the game, and we can't relax July 1st. And yet, Robert Frost, the New England poet,

was famous for saying that by the 4th of July, the summer's shot in the ass. I don't agree with him, of course, but you kind of see that sort of saturnine, dark view of the world. By the time you get to the 4th of July, it's all over. But it isn't all over it really you have two glorious months left and and and i do remember that as a kid just the idea of august that there was always a part of august where it where it it started looming up to you

it was all that was over i had a hard time enjoying the weeks leading up to school knowing that school was happening that i couldn't quite divorce myself from the ticking clock. But August is huge. August is immense. It's great, yeah. It looks like a block of thick ice cream, five yards on either side that you've got to get to. I mean, that's the great thing about August.

And also, there's a torpor to it that I love. We always get to the cicadas at a certain time. I haven't heard my first cicada yet, but I will. Everybody remembers the first cicada that they hear in a year because you remember. I always think of them as these insects sort of droning holes into the grandstand of some of its own weight at the end. Everybody remembers the first one they hear, but nobody ever hears the last cicada because you don't know if the one you

just heard is the one that you won't hear but but at some point you realize they've all fallen silent the crickets have fallen silent there aren't any frogs and the evening is coming a little bit sooner and you're slapping mosquitoes two hours earlier than you did back in june well you know wait wait wait that's too elegiac come on the fourth hasn't even hit us yet get get back to the bright stuff james all right right. Well, the bright stuff is this. If I play my cards right, I'll be able to use a punk to light off the fireworks, right?

The one thing I've always wanted to do is to walk out in front of these kids and strike a farmer match on my stubble. Don't like the punk. But I don't have any stubble because I use Harry's and it's the best blade and you don't get some. Oh, man.

He had me. I just totally, I totally, yeah. Well, it's the truth, you know, I wish I could say, but Harry's is just, well, it's a great shave at a fair price. You know that if you've been listening to all these commercials and you may be one of the three million guys who switched to Harry's, but if you haven't, or one of the gals for that matter, I understand they work fine on the gams. Well, here's the tale.

Jeff and Andy, two ordinary guys, fed up with paying overpriced razor prices. They started Harry's to fix shaving. They bought their own German factory with over 100 years of blade-making experience to ensure the highest quality, and all products are backed by a 100% quality guarantee, by the way. Harry's offers their blades at, you ready, half the price. Half of the leading five-blade razor, and they sell directly over to you, over to the internet. So, I like them for the quality

of the blade, the way it tilts when it's going around those difficult parts of your jaw. I have a dimple, which, as I've said before, is like painting a golf ball that's already gone down the hole. And Harry's manages to get that dimple defolicized, or whatever the word is, without drawing blood. No mean feat.

All right. Here's a special offer for listeners of the Ricochet podcast. Harry's, they're so confident you're going to love their blades. They're going to give you a free trial set when you sign up at harrys.com slash ricochet. You pay $3 for shipping, which is a free trial set. To order your free trial offer, a $ dollar value by the way for free uh with three dollar shipping you can go to harrys.com now what does that set include a weighted ergonomic razor handle five precision engineered blades with a lubricating strip a trimmer blade rich

lathering shave gel and a travel blade cover for when you take it with you that's harrys.com slash ricochet right now harrys.com slash ricochet right now. harrys.com slash ricochet. And we thank them for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast. Before we go out here, guys, the iPhone is 10 years old this week. And the question is, has it changed society? Of course it has. The question is how. Go on, Rob. Actually, I think it's sort of, I mean, you could just say these smartphones in general, but it has been sort of astonishing how quickly this piece of technology has sort of entered everyone's brain and become an extension of your brain.

In the way that people say that the horse became an extension of the rider's body or the car became a thing that you just assumed it's our memory it's our communication it's all these things that were really part of our brain and now have been outsourced into technology I have moments where I remember where I was and I didn't have one

a smart, and how I didn't know how difficult life was. Exactly. And now the idea of going back is impossible. Oh, absolutely. Completely. You can date a movie now by whether or not the people walking down the street are staring straight ahead. Right. Oh, exactly.

That's exactly right. In fact, and think of the number of novels. What's the, not, Hardy, Hardy, Hardy, Hardy, How the Mighty Are Fallen. What's the name of that novel? Rob, help me. Thomas Hardy, How the Mighty Are Fallen, Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Of course, the whole novel changes it turns on a written note that was misplaced and of course that would never you would wipe out nine tenths of western literature if the smartphone had been invented a century ago sometimes in the writer's room we'll go around the room and we'll decide or try to think of movies that you could not make now because of cell phones yes what movies are now because of cell phones. Yes. What movies are ruined because of cell phones? Lots of them. I mean, lots of mysteries, essentially.

Oh, absolutely. In Back to the Future, would Marty's pictures of his relatives disappearing, would that be the case if he had copies, that he had digital copies? I mean, you can go all over the place with that. But, I mean, if we were to look back, say, 40 years at New York, and everybody was walking down the street reading a book, we would think this is the most extraordinary literate population you can possibly imagine. But when we see people walking down the street looking at their phones, we assume that they're all idiots. Now, when we do it, it's because we're looking at interesting things that are relevant to our life yeah right yeah but um if everybody's walking down the street reading a book 40 years ago and it was just a cheap dime pulp novel you know some bad detective story we'd still be more impressed than if they were

looking at them if they were actually reading a novel on their phones i like rob can't think of not having it it's such an extension to, but it's also this marvelous artistic device because now everybody has in their pockets extraordinary cameras and really good movie cameras. So we've completely democratized the idea of – well, unfortunately, here's the problem. Here's where it gets – when I was in New York, I went up to the top of the Freedom Tower, which is beautiful. It's an astonishing view. And when you go up there, you see all of these people clustered around this amazing panoramic vista of Manhattan, and everybody's looking at it through their phones.

Everybody is using the phone as an intermediary to justify, to validate, to pass along, to share the experience. Now, they would put down... Wait, do some of them have their back? Pardon? To the views, so they can take a selfie of themselves. Okay, hold on, stop.

Do some of them have to take a selfie of themselves? We just broke up a little bit there, and Rob said, were they turning with their back to the city so they could selfie themselves? Right. Yes, they were, which is the ultimate expression of how this device has changed our mind. And again, it was like, here's proof of me having an experience I am obviously not having. Here's me in a place separate from that place because I'm documenting my existence in that place. So could you – go ahead, James. Sorry.

I was just going to say, that being said, and I too was one of those people who was looking at my phone. What I was doing was taking as many shots as I can of this, drinking in and saving it for later so I could go home, take all the stuff that I shot about New York, set it to a lovely Gershwin tune, and have a nice little gift at the end of the trip for – to put in the scrapbook for my daughter to look at someday. Peter, are you going to – Okay. Well, I think you probably answered – you probably answered the question already just now, James. But if you could un-invent the smartphone, if you could go back a decade and say to Steve Jobs, no, don't do it, would you?

Of course not. Oh, see, I would. I really would. Yeah, my wife would too. Yeah, what it has done to conversation the destruction of conversation the the shortening of the attention span the intrusion into family life where now the parents have hard enough raising children but now the additional burt put your phone away this is family time it i just know i would uninvented rob you get to break the get your name out of the get your nose out of that comic book

or something I heard I would not I would never I would never you're both philistines no, I think that this is the pathway to freedom. Freedom comes at a cost since it was the 4th of July

here's a very good example. The 4th of July we celebrate the Declaration of Independence which was a fantastical document claiming all sorts of freedoms. Fun. It's all the fun. It's dessert. It's a big chocolate sundae. But then it was a long, hard slog until we tried to figure out the non-chocolate sundae part of it, which is the Constitution. That's the part where you're like, well, okay,

we're going to believe the fairy tale. Now we have to sort of put it into action. Now what do we do now what do we do but they're all they're sort of part and parcel of the same thing and i would say you know this is a very very very strange analogy but i would say that the freedom that we get from the the iphone the iphone or the smartphone we should say or the the connected phone um there's all sorts of problems with it and and we we right now we're in the chocolate sundae phase of it where There's all sorts of problems with it. And we right now, we're in the chocolate sundae phase of it,

where it's all just funny little Pokemon Go and distracting Instagram games. But it is connecting people on a level and connecting to the information level. It's unknown. It is the solution to it. We talked about healthcare. The solution to the healthcare and health insurance crisis or cost crisis is in your smartphone, without a doubt.

It will be the diagnostician. It is already a major diagnostic device. It will be a way for you to connect to somebody without having to get in their office. It has been that way for me. It is an extraordinary tool. All of the mandarins and the bureaucrats and the policy writers and the meddling little Medicare know-it-alls in Washington writing all sorts of cost procedure guidelines for this or that medical thing, they are not on the vanguard of health insurance reform or health care innovation.

They're in the rear. They're yesterday. The vanguard of health insurance reform or health care innovation they're on the they're in the rear they're they're yesterday uh the the vanguard is in your pocket the vanguard's the iphone and peter you called us philistines on the way to half jokingly i know but on the way to new york in the in the train but only half i wanted i wanted to listen to some music some about a third one of my favorite jazz groups and then i want to listen to the music, some – Oh, not a third. One of my favorite jazz groups, and then I wanted to listen to Dvorak's Eighth Symphony, and it was in my pocket because every single piece of music I own is in a device in my pocket. And when we were in D.C., there was a poster on the wall that I thought was interesting, and I walked up to it and looked at it, and it was from an old French magazine from the 19th century. It had some political figure. It was described as a baker,

a boulanger. And I looked at that and I said, who is that guy? And I got out my little phone and I took a picture of it and I did an image search and I found out who he was. And I found out, more than that, who the name of the artist was and the fact that he'd founded this publication and had gone to jail by many times because the French government banned caricatures and would put in jail people who did unauthorized caricatures of public figures. And so I have this fascinating little story now that I'm going to tell on my blog next week about Boulanger and this editor and the rise of the caricature industry and how this shaped French politics. I went back to my wife and child and French foreign exchange student who were sitting at this table and told them about this. And while I did, somebody picked your wallet and stole $300.

Folks, you can make money. I lost money on that trip. But you can make money by going to Bomfeld, by going to Harry's, and by going to Away Travel. The coupon code Ricochet. You'll save a lot of money, and you'll get a lot of great stuff. You'll look better. Your suitcase will be better. Your shaving will be better. We're here to make your life better. And these are three ways to do it. Also visit the Ricochet store, if you would. Lots of great Ricochet stuff in there. T-shirts, mugs, hard drives, little tiny

flash drives on which you can store every podcast we've ever made. What a promise. If you enjoy the show, by the way, go to iTunes, if you would, and we'll leave a review. That helps new people discover us. And one of these days, we're going to be on the front page of that iTunes podcast page. I just know it. And please, podcast listeners, please, come on. Come on.

$2.50 a month. Cheap. It's a special tier made just for you, so don't make us look stupid by leaving it unpopulated. Get in there. $2.50 a month. It's a special tier made just for you. So don't make us look stupid by leaving it unpopulated. Get in there, $2.50 a month. You can comment on the podcast and you can read other stuff. And you'll be upgrading any day because as Rob pointed out, basically, we're sweaty, pot-bellied, big mustachioed drug dealers from Colombia here who are going to bring the entire country's political system down. But you get something out of the game, too.

Maybe I should come up with a better sales pitch. Well, we'll do that next week. Peter, Rob, thank you. Happy 4th of July. Happy 4th. We'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet. Happy 4th, Elst. Saturday in the park I think it was the 4th of July

Saturday in the park I think it was the 4th of July People dancing, people laughing A man selling ice cream Singing Italian songs Everybody is laughing Can you dig it? I've been waiting such a long time. Saturday. Another day in the park

I think it was the 4th of July Another day in the park I think it was the 4th of July People talking, really smiling A man plays guitar And singing for a song Will you help him change the world? Can you dig it?

Yes I can And I've been waiting such a long time The world. Can you dig it? Yes, I can. And I've been waiting such a long time. For today. Slow motion riders. Fly the colors of the day. A bronze man still can tell stories. Ricochet. Join the conversation.