105 Comments
May 26, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

#ReleaseTheRodecasterCut

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How many pods are gonna be hosed by bad recording equipment or tech. I listen to so many low tech and terribly produced pods. None of them of them have the problems you guys have every few months. You need to step up your game. Redundancy. Get two separate recording systems. Staff. Pay for an engineer to make sure the shit sticks. Minor leagues dudes.

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Thank you gents for being on Twitter so that you can report on what goes on there. I quit all social media about 5 years ago, and I'm never going back; I'm so much happier without it. Twitter feels like Chernobyl: it's super dangerous to the uninitiated (just ask a certain cadre of very sick/dead Russian solders), but I guess if you're trained and know how to protect yourself and approach it, you can survive a visit just fine.

I want to say something about this week's tragedy (because in 2022 something unspeakable happens every week now), but I can't form anything coherent that adds constructively to the conversation. May the victims in all of these heinous acts somehow find peace amongst the brutal despair they must feel.

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How can people hold both of these ideas in their heads at once:

1. Every person who disagrees with me about certain issues should be insulted vociferously and have their very motives and ideology condemned as evil.

2. Also I need those people to start cooperating with me on a policy level ASAP.

Here’s a novel concept, if you want gun control in places like Texas it might require some persuasion and good will towards conservatives.

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Thinking about my own kids and seeing the pictures of those victims just makes me feel so useless and empty and powerless. I'm not going to blame anyone for getting angry but only pointing all the outrage towards the other side/other tribe is so indicative how far away we are from reaching any kind of real solution.

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founding

I don't know where you live, but I suspect it's not Uvalde (just because the Fif'dom is large, the country is large, and Uvalde is small). If so, don't let news from far away, about people you don't know and had nothing to do with, control your own life. As Voltaire wrote, tend your own garden. Control that which you can control in the best way you can. Get to know the neighbors. Volunteer at a local after-school program. Encourage others to do the same. Odds are you'll never be put in the position of actively having to identifying someone who might be a school shooter. But by creating a warmer, more helpful and neighborly, more civilized community around you, you'll be doing your part to ensure that fewer of those kids don't fall through the cracks in the first place.

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Who here is letting the news "control their own life"? Seems like a weird response

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founding

Anyone who (a) doesn't live in Uvalde, and (b) is motivated by the events in Uvalde to do more than make certain that their own local community is functioning as well as possible.

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Yes, because anyone who has an opinion about laws outside of their community is letting their life be controlled /s. You just made the goal posts wider than the field

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founding

To a certain extent, yes! Information about areas of the world you can't influence are either (a) didactic - examples either to aspire to or avoid in areas of the world you *can* control, or (b) entertainment that might as well be fiction, but is worse, because you run a larger risk of confusing it with actual reality, which it's not - its extremely attenuated and context-stripped accounts.

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If it’s beneath your indignant moral superiority to engage with the opposition in charity and good faith, fine, but don’t be shocked when we’re still doing this stupid tango in ten years.

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May 27, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

Are the missing 28 minutes just Kmele complaining about America Chavez and her pride pin?

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May 26, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

I saw that “where to get an abortion in nyc” column! Immediately thought it was insane.

And Stephen Gutowski from The Reload is making the podcast rounds about gun control. Fifth fans will probably be interested in what he has to say https://remnant.thedispatch.com/p/gutowski-talks-guns

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Where was the column?

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It’s New York mag’s whole issue this month 😳🤣 https://www.thecut.com/article/future-abortion-access-map.html

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That’s a state by state guide, not just where to get an abortion in nyc. Why is that funny?

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The original headline was something like “where to find an abortion in New York while you still can.” It felt overwrought because NYS laws are at the upper levels (22 weeks I think, no medical reason needed. After 22 weeks a doctor needs to approve).

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I see

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God rest their souls. Fuck every politician that uses this to grab the camera.

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May 26, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

So Pete Moskos was on again?

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May 27, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

Too bad the audio didn’t mess up right at beginning of baseball talk…

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Kevin Williamson of National Review has pointed out that to reduce gun crime, big city localities / justice dept need to prosecute cases of 1) straw buyers and 2) felony gun possessions. He notes there is a track record of those crimes NOT BEING CONSISTENTLY ENFORCED AND DISMISSED bc they are difficult/time consuming to prosecute & also tend to exacerbate disparities in criminal justice system. These “common sense” gun laws are already ‘the law’ in most places. These policies are often championed by expert criminologists. I find his idea persuasive. can anyone corroborate? any thoughtful response welcome?

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May 26, 2022·edited May 26, 2022

I think it was Charles Cook on their Maddog & Englishman podcast who said that progressive defense attorneys filed amicus briefs in favor of looser gun laws in New York (upcoming Supreme Court case). I fact-checked and yup. True. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-843/184718/20210723101034102_20-843%20Amici%20Brief%20revised%20cover.pdf

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Certainly that would be an excellent use of resources. However, it would not affect 18 year old shooters who may now legally buy and own semi auto rifles. One interesting thing that came out of the Rittenhouse trial was that the defendant was in legal possession of a semi auto rifle, but it would have been illegal for him to be in possession of nunchucks at his age in the same circumstance. Therefore I would be in favor of a requirement that those under 21 either be prohibited from buying semi auto rifles, or, be required to petition for the privilege, and be required to demonstrate mental fitness and technical competency before being allowed to purchase such weapons. I think a state law like that would pass constitutional review in the Supreme Court.

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This makes a lot of sense to me, personally. What's a persuasive argument against this, outside of, 'muhhh, 2nd amendment'?

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I’ve heard him make that case numerous times, often as a side digression in passing, but also in detail -like the reasons some people oppose enforcing those laws etc...

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founding
May 28, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

This article is from 2020 and covers the events that happened in 1978 at my junior high school. It’s a long piece but very good. The teacher that was killed was my English teacher (who was excellent) but I wasn’t at school when he was shot. Interesting as to how they handled the shooter afterwards.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/the-school-shooting-that-austin-forgot/amp/

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founding

Will Leitch's piece about the Josh Donaldson thing is a masterclass in bad faith, hyperventilating "journalism" that reads like the fever dreams of a callow, Twitter-poisoned suburban liberal.

I also nominate Jeff Kent as a first ballot Red Ass Hall of Famer.

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I found some footage of Kmele boarding his plane in Newark.

https://youtu.be/Xyqj_KF4t60

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"Y'all bought it! And Jesus."

-Kmele, boarding the Blade Helicopter

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Wow... I *really* don't understand megachurches. I always figured that conspicuous consuption amongst these people would be a bit more hidden.

Oh well, here's another Copeland throwback. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JPRvxTjfOk

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Oh my gosh. So good.

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y'all need to hire an engineer with all that substack money

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Simply putting a little more effort would suffice. Blocked and Reported sounds great and they ain't got no engineer.

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Isn’t Trace a co-producer?

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He's not an audio engineer. He's basically a researcher.

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The amount of audio issues since Fish left has been a constant annoyance. Mic levels are a persistent problem.

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I just don't understand how Kmele's levels are consistently so low, then Matt will blow my ears out because I've cranked the volume.

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Exactly

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founding

One repugnant line I’ve heard is that “Texas wants babies to be born so they can be killed in school”

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Beto’s stunt was a stunt, sure. However, political stunts can lead to action. I wish Beto had demanded that Texas lawmakers change its laws so that one has to be 21 in order to purchase any firearm with a semi automatic action. Yes, revolvers and bolt action rifles and pump shotguns can be used to mass murder, but slowing rate of fire in a mass shooter situations saves lives on average. 18 is just too young. That is a good difference for voters to decide: one party thinks the dumbest, meanest, weirdest 18 year old kid whose only accomplishment is not having a criminal adult record (very easy at 18) ought to have the right to a semi auto rifle. One party thinks it should be 21 or older.

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I have no problem with him expressing his opinion, but not in that particular forum. Smash Abbott in a debate, challenge him in TV ads, call your own separate press conference and make persuasive arguments. Instead, I think he did more harm than good in that circumstance, unless his 'good' was raising funds for his campaign, in which case it probably worked, unfortunately.

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"[assault weapons] are not guns that are terribly different from other semiautomatic guns they just look different..." - Michael Moynihan (16:37)

Assault weapons like the AR15 are different, though. Assault weapons are generally high-powered semiautomatic firearms where each round has up to four times the muzzle velocity of a handgun round. A higher velocity means that each round from an assault weapon inflicts greater damage to the human body than a round from a typical handgun. For example, a rifle bullet (5.56mm) traveling a 2800fps creates larger wound channels than a slower-moving 9mm handgun projectile. When the bullet enters soft tissue, it begins to tumble and fragment. High-velocity bullets generate a pressure wave, pushing the tissue away from it on entry. The acceleration of tissue away from the pressure caused by the bullet's velocity will often leave a secondary cavity larger than the entry wound.

Assault weapons are generally designed to fire rounds at a greater rate than other firearms. When combined with high-capacity magazines, they enable a shooter to fire more rounds over a short period.

You are correct that banning assault weapons won't stop these events from happening. I think debating if the public needs access to this type of enhanced lethality is in the scope of the conversation, though. While banning assault rifles wouldn't eliminate these events, it may reduce the lethality if this type of firearm was unavailable.

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May 27, 2022·edited May 27, 2022

It may be semantics, but I don't think he was comparing an AR-15 to handguns. He was comparing it to things like the semi-automatic rifles that varmint hunters use to shoot foxes and coyotes. Literally same bullets as the AR-15 in cases, same rate of fire, same size magazine, just different styling to the look and feel of the gun. Though to be fair, most of the AR platform is meant for modification that a hunting rifle wouldn't normally/necessarily support.

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Yeah I might have misread his tone. There are many people that actually don’t understand the differences though. To many people they are all just guns.

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It's a tough discussion to have without specific and illustration/images of exactly what's meant.

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