75 Comments

I knew I’d ruin your day Kmele when I tagged you in on that “best dressed” Fetterman article. I’m wildly satisfied that I succeeded and that you’ve been stewing about that for two weeks.

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Pumped. I know it will never happen, but man would I love to see Amash as the speaker. Congress is why the Federal Government is fucked these days.

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founding

Don't forget the administrative state (though that too has its roots in a congress too eager to delegate hard work out of their own hands and to the President's underlings).

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Agreed. Congress' delegation of authority is the root of rot. The administrative state and the presidency will never relinquish their hold, that is a ratchet effect. But at least we could get some improvement over what we have which is such a low bar to clear.

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founding

Congress could abolish the administrative state with one bill repealing the Administrative Procedures Act. Or they could rewrite the way it all works by amending it. It's all in Congress's hands.

Heck, Congress could take the rulemaking thing over by stripping all agencies of their regulatory power and reassigning all the analysts, civil servants, etc. to massively-increased committee staffs. Imagine if all the hullabaloo about EPA "rules" was instead about proposals up for consideration in congressional committees!

They could get rid of the kangaroo "administrative adjudication" courts and create new federal courts with special, limited jurisdiction, and staffed by subject-matter specialists.

They could do a lot of things! But tragically one of the things that all the culture warring does is starve congress of imagination and creativity about all these other things.

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Von Strauss?

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What about Jordan Peterson as a guest?

You guys could challenge him on who he is and why he does what he does - hold his feet to the fire a bit. I think he would genuinely like you guys, and it might be a novel situation for him - talking to people who agree with a number of his main talking points, but aren’t on board with his methods or may think he is not alway acting in good faith. Normally it’s purely a fan or a foe. I’m not on board with some of his takes and media decisions, but I think his life experience in science and policy give him a pretty interesting perspective on the issues facing the west.

That’s my pitch, please ignore it, but damn it you talked to Robert Draper for 80 MINUTES - NO Moynihan, he’s not “very very smart”, he’s a journalist for god’s sake.

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author

We'll ask.

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I’d like to JBP discuss the “logos” with Michael

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I normally lean towards Welch's side when it comes to Kmele's charitable readings, and I definitely think Skip Bayless is an asshole purposefully and professionally, but I honestly cannot see how people read that tweet of his the whole way through and think there's anything wrong with it. He's remarking on it being a completely crazy situation for the game, and also that the game feels unimportant in comparison. When I saw Skip was trending, I was not remotely surprised, until I read the tweet and thought I must have the wrong one and he said something else assholish. I think people just needed someone to vent at, nobody famous said anything actually bad, so they just settled on bad-faith reading Skip who nobody likes anyway.

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I had not seen or heard until I listened to the pod, but I am with you. I think Kmele and Matt are both right to some extent in the sense that two things can be true; Skip Bayless makes his living on being an asshole, but the content of the tweet is a platitude people use to say sports is fun but when it comes to the health and lives of players it is comparatively meaningless.

Seems like there was a lot of intentional misreadings.

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The hyperventilating I’ve seen going on is batshit insane. The desire to read that as SO WRONG in the context of the moment and see athletes/former athletes like Shannon Sharpe become such fragile beings reading too far into the meaning of that is thx height of online insanity.

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Like it or not, Skip Bayless brings a quarter century of baggage to every word he says. I would bet hard American currency that if Bob Costas or Al Michaels made that exact same tweet, nobody talks about it.

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Jan 5, 2023Liked by Matt Welch

Fabulous pod dudes! Just finished! Amash Kmele 2024

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Jan 5, 2023·edited Jan 5, 2023

Briahna Joy Grey literally just dropped an episode today with the same exact title. Ya'll need to chat with her again soon! If nothing else, a Kmele + BJG discussion on race and criminal justice reform is beyond overdue

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Did they chat with her at some point that I missed? That would be a great convo. She had a great conversation with Thomas Chatterton Williams about race that was great. Also Glenn Loury and her had a convo that is worth your time.

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so, I actually don't know when these "gents" chatted with her, but I know they said they had and that they enjoyed it. That TCW discussion on Bad Faith was fantastic. Sadly, I have to say that neither Glenn nor Andrew Sullivan seemed even remotely prepared when they went on her show, and while I love both those guys, I was pretty disappointed with their inability to articulate their arguments in the face of her retorts. Hence I think this is a job for Kmele

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I think Loury and Sullivan did great so all three were great.

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I mean, don't take it as me throwing general shade at either of those guys. I respect them both a ton. But having seen both of them on Bad Faith and Andrew on Jon Stewart, I just can't conclude that either of them are good in back-and-forth discussions with people who they disagree with.

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Amash describes McCarthy as a glad-hander, schmoozer, and not that bright: Qualities Biden also possesses. What might come of these two mediocre minds meeting to determine the course of our country?

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Probably a fair amount of drooling and frustrated pant shitting, I'd imagine.

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and that's just from mccarthy

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Alternatively, Biden might just sleep through the whole thing forcing his staff to paint what look like open eyes on his closed lids and move his arms around with string when gesticulating seems appropriate (maybe MM could lend his voice. I hear he's looking for work). Call it the Weekend At Bidie's strategy.

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Can you tell us where the link for the chap w/ MS is? I had stem cell done for a condition ( not MS fortunately) and it was successful. I would like to contribute and offer encouragement. For the record these procedures are hideously expensive and very effective. Have many friends who have had them done for all sorts of conditions. Many thanks and carry on. Love the podcast and the subscription conversations.

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founding

I wish Amash had taken as much interest in running for his Congressional seat and possibly for President as he has in running for Speaker.

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I'm not an expert, so I might abandon this position if I learned more, but I think I like the idea of a non-congressperson having that job. I was unaware about the previous Speakers having executive control over all potential legislative proposals, but I'm generally against any efforts to smother out dissenting opinion.

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Completely agree. Unfortunately seems like the incentives are for the majority to use the speakership adversarially. Not sure exactly what it would take to tip the balance. Justin Amash seems to indicate many members are frustrated with the status quo, but it’s hard to say what percent that really is.

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The level of excitement I get whenever I see Justin Amash is a guest on a podcast I listen to is truly off the fucking charts.

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I’ve been looking forward to this

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Is Amash doing a bit?

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I’m going to be so mad if Meghan Markle cancels the second season of Clarkson’s Farm.

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Is anyone else bored to tears with the Speaker of the House nonsense? So tedious. Can’t we just get it done with so we can move on to other inane political fights.

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founding

I was just thinking that Justin Amash is the only person that’s made this remotely interesting for me... What a big nerd. I love him!

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Jan 5, 2023·edited Jan 6, 2023

Someone with historical knowledge correct me if I am wrong, but crazies in congress is probably a result of the lack of amendments and open debate. If voters actually had to confront what MTJ brought to the floor, maybe they would question the decision more. As of now, nobody has to worry about what their representative actually does, they just know they vote with the party. Dysfunctional House leads to crazy representatives and not the other way round?

Edit: Lol Amash literally says the same thing 1 minute after MM mentions the crazies. Must be a smart guy.

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Jan 6, 2023·edited Jan 6, 2023

Along these same lines, I would love to see just more Congress people. 435 as a number was set in 1929, when the population was roughly a third of what it is now, and it sucks balls, but with the Federal government having so much power, expanding the number of Congress persons would dilute the power of each individual Congress critter, and mean that each of them represented fewer people, theoretically making them more responsive to concerns within their district. New Hampshire has 400 representatives in a state of 1.4M people.

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Agreed. Part of the wisdom of keeping the main thing the main thing is that your goal should also be your measuring stick for success. Once the true gears of legislature stop turning, how do we know the value of our representatives? It seems we’ve replaced the sport of lawmaking with the fanfare of brand marketing through our various information delivery systems and now, instead of finding the best athletes, we’re casting the best actors.

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