Is Trump vs. Acosta the Iran-Iraq War of 2018?: Podcast

Assessing the import of presidential tantrums, media hyperbole, military complaints, and the near-arrival of federal sentencing reform

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Is Trump vs. Acosta the Iran-Iraq War of 2018?: Podcast

Ron Sachs - CNP / MEGA / Newscom

Beloved Reason Editor-in-Everything Katherine Mangu-Ward had a piece in this weekend's New York Times headlined "Trump and Acosta: When Showboats Collide." Given the nonstop borgledy-fraggle of news within the Trump vs. media vs. Trump Möbius strip of blather, we start the latest editors roundtable edition of the Reason Podcast with an extended rumination on the meta-meanings (and lack thereof) of this eternally recurrent combat.

Other topics of note discussed by Nick Gillespie, Peter Suderman, and yours truly include the president's prickly relationship with the military, his sometimes-coherent foreign policy doctrine, the off-again/on-again FIRST STEP Act, plus (for some reason) bidets, Rand Paul prospectively barfing on Mitch McConnell's desk, and whether ladies who dye their hair blue and purple are basically poisonous tree frogs.

Subscribe, rate, and review our podcast at iTunes. Listen at SoundCloud below:

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

'Superator' by Pietnastka is licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0

Relevant links from the show:

"Federal Judge Rules Trump White House Must Return Jim Acosta's Press Pass," by Joe Setyon

"Reporters Become Participants in Tribal Political Warfare," by J.D. Tuccille

"Bob Woodward Is Right: The Press Is 'Emotionally Unhinged' About Trump," by Nick Gillespie

"The Sorry State of FOIA," by C.J. Ciaramella

"Richard Nixon Probably Would Not Have Been Saved by Fox News," by Matt Welch

"The Military Is 'Securing' a 1,900-Mile Border with 22 Miles of Razor Wire," by Eric Boehm

"First Full Year of Trump-Run Foreign Policy Sees Record Number of Bombs Dropped on Afghanistan," by Brian Doherty

"Mitch McConnell Touts Wild Spending Bills as 'Bipartisan' Accomplishments," by Joe Setyon

"Donald Trump Appears Clueless About the Criminal Justice Reform He Says He Supports," by Eric Boehm

"Hey, Libertarians! The Criminal Justice Reform Movement Sees You Out There," by Scott Shackford

"Trump Endorses Criminal Justice Bill, Giving Momentum to Long-Delayed Reforms," by C.J. Ciaramella

"Top National Police Organization Declares Support for Modest Federal Sentencing Reforms," by Scott Shackford

"ABC Makes Patently False Claim About New Title IX Rules," by Robby Soave

"Sole and Despotic Dominion," by Cory Doctorow

Don't miss a single Reason Podcast! (Archive here.)

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What are we consuming this week?

Matt Welch

• "The Truth About George Soros"

Katherine Mangu-Ward

• "Sole and Despotic Dominion"
• Twitter discourse on women with non-natural hair color

Nick Gillespie

• Rake

Peter Suderman

• Widows (2018)

---

Comments

[John]

It amazes me the media still hasn't figured out that most of the country hates them and Trump picks fights with them because he knows it makes him more popular.

[Sevo]

"It amazes me the media still hasn't figured out that most of the country hates them and Trump picks fights with them because he knows it makes him more popular."

According to the Chron this morning, there was a 'blue tsunami' (really; OBL must write for them) because a couple of R seats went D in CA.

[loveconstitution1789]

The fact that most of the nation was surprised california had/has any Republican House seats must not factor in to Lefty conclusions.

[Brett Bellmore]

If the top two primary system were keeping Democrats off the general election ballot, it would be viewed as the nation's most urgent vote suppression problem. But, because it's denying Republicans anybody to vote for, it's no big deal.

[SIV]

Nameless NYTs commenter nails it:

summary: right-wing magazine editor says "both sides to blame"

[John]

http://jacobitemag.com/2018/04....._mtfw2nhAk

But what about uncanny vulvas?

[Last of the Shitlords]

Is this a companion book to the 'Uncanny X-Men' series?

[John]

http://www.foxnews.com/world/t.....ed-in-city

Funny how Reason won't touch this story. It seems Mexicans don't want the migrant caravan anymore than Turmp does.

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

Assuming Faux News can be trusted, if they're having a rough time in Mexico that provides even more incentive to let them come here for humanitarian reasons. Aren't you familiar with the words on the Statue of Liberty?

#OpenBorders

[John]

But Mexicans are not supposed to be racist. They are sacred brown people.

[Marty Feldman's Eyes]

This is one of the most ignorant thing I've read here in a while.

[Last of the Shitlords]

OBL, you're criticizing Mexicans!

RACIST!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mickey Rat]

People in Tijuana realize the migrants may be squatting in their city for a long time. It is a little different then when they are just passing through.

[loveconstitution1789]

Saw that and thanks for posting John.

Is it still racism if Mexicans dont want Central/South Americans in Mexico? I thought only white Americans cna be racist.

[Jerryskids]

Ah, for the good old days when the MSM was three broadcast networks, 2 newspapers and 2 news magazines and they could control the narrative on the lying POS right-wing extremist in the White House. Despite the fact that he won an historic landslide election victory, nobody they knew voted for the guy and even though he wrapped up a war JFK and LBJ and the CIA started, opened relations with Communist China, imposed wage and price controls, signed off on the creation of the regulatory monster known as the EPA - you know, all the sorts of things the Democrats were championing - they still had to intimate that he personally plotted the Watergate break-in and helped drive him out of office. And then we got Jimmah Carter in there to clean up the mess by crapping all over the carpet.

The MSM no longer controls the narrative and it's driven them insane with rage. "Impotent rage" is the phrase, I believe. Once upon a time they could elevate or bring down a king, an object of fear and respect, now they're a laughingstock, an object of scorn and ridicule.

[cja]

I've read Reason for about 20 years.
Calling Trump a toilet is repulsive.
Good luck advancing the Libertarian cause - because you lost me

[Here for the outrage]

You must not listen too often. They should rename it the TDS Podcast.

What about the part where KMW said due process was like letting a rapist spit into a victims mouth?

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""Calling Trump a toilet is repulsive."'

Perhaps they are losing their ability to reason.

Those who can't reason use personal attacks.

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