What Ukraine and Joe Rogan Have in Common

Also, Democrats show they can read the polls on mask mandates.

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:15 :15

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What Ukraine and Joe Rogan Have in Common

With Matt Welch out, Peter Suderman hosts John Osterhoudt, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Nick Gillespie on their thoughts on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the reactions to it across the political spectrum.

Discussed in this show:

0:34: Russia's invasion of Ukraine

35:12: Blue state's rolling back mask mandates

50:16: Weekly listener question: Hi Roundtable! Misery loves company. As such, I would love to find like-minded liberty-loving individuals to commiserate within my very blue Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Of course, I do my share of screaming into the Twitter void (@nwwong) but want to build out my network of local libertarians to discuss more specific issues, how to tackle them, and even possibly launch a campaign for a local
office. I'm hesitant to join the party, as I believe it would make things harder if I ever decided to run for a seat in MA; so what is another way to find friends short of "Tinder for Liberals"? Thanks, and keep up the great work!

This week's links:

• "Why Ukraine Is Different," by David Leonhardt
• "Florida governor signs sweeping laws against vaccine, mask mandates," by Alex Pickett
• "This Texas Town Rejected Stimulus Money to Avoid Vaccine Mandates," by John Osterhoudt (Video)
• "Artist Ai WeiWei Warns of Chinese and American Authoritarianism," by Meredith Bragg (Video)
• "Populist Flamethrowers Rock Media" by Neal Rothschild and Sara Fischer

Send your questions to [e-mail]. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

Today's sponsors:

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Audio production by Ian Keyser
Assistant production by Adam Czarnecki
Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve

What are we consuming this week?

Peter Suderman

• Peacemaker

Nick Gillespie

• Inventing Anna

Katherine Mangu-Ward

• 1984 by George Orwell

John Osterhoudt

• jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy

---

Comments

[Don't look at me!]

Blue state's rolling back mask mandates.

I’ve been told that it’s totally about the science, and it’s premature.

[Bluwater]

I especially love it when they can predict that infection levels will be low enough 2, 4, 6 weeks from now so they set the date of lifting the mask mandates. My guess is that they can most accurately determine the viral load and risk factors on that date by calculating it in terms of months from the midterms against the short-term memory of their constituents. Cuz... following the political science now.

The universal DNC election slogan this year, "We Saved You!"

[Fat Mike's Drug Habit]

The great thing about setting the date 6 weeks out is it gives you 6 weeks to come up with more excuses to force everyone to keep wearing masks.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

You gotta think that the DNC is hoping (planning) for another "variant" about 3 weeks before November.

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[TallDave]

reported to IRS

[Minadin]

It gives them some time to slow down their testing policies.

[mad.casual]

I do my share of screaming into the Twitter void (@nwwong)
...
what is another way to find friends short of "Tinder for Liberals"?

Sorry, all the "I'm not a libertarian but I play one on Twitter and Tinder" slots are full.

[Don't look at me!]

what is another way to find friends..

How embarrassing.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

It’s a person admitting to being mentally ill.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Sell crazy somewhere else, we're all stocked up here.

[ElvisIsReal]

Yet blue staters are still masking the children. Because science.

we all know what will happen when schools lift mask mandates, no matter if they do it now or in two weeks or four weeks: nothing at all. Not only do mask-if-you-want schools in the US prove this, much of Europe NEVER forcibly put masks on children. No deadly covid waves sweeping through the halls.

The only disruption to schools from covid was government-created. First they shut down schools and ‘went remote’, with disastrous results. Teachers’ unions drug their feet as long as possible to avoid getting back into the classroom. They demanded ridiculous covid rules that further disrupted education as students were forced to quarantine every time a ‘close contact’ tested positive. WE’RE MAKING CHILDREN WEAR MASKS TO PLAY BASKETBALL, FOR GOD’S SAKE. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE WE DOING.

And now here we are. The winter wave is over (exactly when the seasonality theorists predicted — again), and even if we tried we couldn’t reverse the downward trend of the next couple months. Yet the ‘leaders’ are still willing to mask your children for a few more weeks to save a little political face. They can’t quite come out and say ‘it’s safe’ today when they were saying ‘it’s not safe’ yesterday. They need some sort of buffer to make it look like they know what they are doing. (For the first time in the last couple years)

These are the people who have been wrong about everything. They shut down your businesses. They literally killed grandma. They ruined your children’s education. They violated your civil rights. And they did it all while ignoring their own rules.

Yet these people have the nerve to stand up and demand students continue to wear masks that even the covid-crazy know don’t work.

https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/blue-state-officials-dont-even-believe

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

My dream is that these people will be held accountable at some kind of COVID Nuremberg Trial in the next ten years, and we'll get to hear them all say, "Ve ver just followink ze science!"

[SQRLSY One]

I am on board with you as long as conservative ideological idiots get THEIR feet held to the fire, as well!!!

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/10/centner-academy-vaccine-rules-leila-centner-david-centner
Florida School Run by Idiots Says Vaccinated Students Must Stay Home for 30 Days After Each Shot
This is the same school where a teacher told students not to hug their vaccinated parents for more than five seconds.

(End subtitles and excerpts).

See? We are ALL data-driven by now! My data says the OTHER (evil) tribe believes in vaccines, so MY tribe must BAN and SHUN the BAD tribe (and their cooties) as much as possible!
The unvaccinated are now CLEAN and the vaccinated are UNCLEAN! Civic-minded BAD! Afraid of micro-chips in vaccines GOOD! Black is white, and good is evil!

[Mother's Lament]

Capslock is cruise control for cool.

[SQRLSY One]

Do you recall the awesome enchanter named “Tim”, in “Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail”? The one who could “summon fire without flint or tinder”? Well, you remind me of Tim… You are an enchanter who can summon persuasion without facts or logic!

So I discussed your awesome talents with some dear personal friends on the Reason staff… Accordingly…

Reason staff has asked me to convey the following message to you:

Hi Fantastically Talented Author:

Obviously, you are a silver-tongued orator, and you also know how to translate your spectacular talents to the written word! We at Reason have need for writers like you, who have near-magical persuasive powers, without having to write at great, tedious length, or resorting to boring facts and citations.

At Reason, we pay above-market-band salaries to permanent staff, or above-market-band per-word-based fees to freelancers, at your choice. To both permanent staff, and to free-lancers, we provide excellent health, dental, and vision benefits. We also provide FREE unlimited access to nubile young groupies, although we do firmly stipulate that persuasion, not coercion, MUST be applied when taking advantage of said nubile young groupies.

Please send your resume, and another sample of your writings, along with your salary or fee demands, to [e-mail] .

Thank You! -Reason Staff

[Mother's Lament]

The Tim copypasta means Sqrlsy's lost.

[perlhaqr]

I knew, even before I checked the name, that it had to be the Squirrel.

[CE]

Not likely.
But what is likely is a lot more parents taking their kids out of the government school system, slowly reducing its economic and educational harm.

[Mother's Lament]

My dream is that these people will be held accountable at some kind of COVID Nuremberg Trial

Mine too. Millions of people lost their businesses to lockdowns, lost their jobs for refusing to be experimented on, died alone and frightened because family were banned from hospitals, etc. Meanwhile they made trillions dumping taxpayer dollars into big pharma for kickbacks and their stock portfolios, suppressing cheap treatments and facilitating the biggest wealth transfer to the rich in human history.

They should be hang.

But instead they'll join well paid intragovernmental panels, get hagiographies in the Atlantic, blue checks on Twitter, cushy sinecures, directorships with Apple, Alphabet and Meta, etc. and die fat and happy unlike the hundreds of millions of lives they destroyed.

[Commenter_XY]

History will have to deliver the verdict, ML. In today's environment, accountability is a quaint concept, if you have the 'correct' political and cultural beliefs.

[Joe Friday]

The verdict is in Commenter:

In both blue and red states, new covid cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are led by the unvaccinated, even though they are a minority almost everywhere.

Anyone fighting against vaccines and the effort to get greater numbers of Americans to get one was wrong and is complicit in the pandemic killing so many, creating new cases of "long covid", and the lengthening of the threat.

[Steve-O]

Ah, "long COVID," the black helicopter of the left.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

What did we think would happen if a political faction formed from compulsive compassionates, Karens, coddled snowflakes, socialists, eco-freaks, and power-hungry elitists?

[CE]

I'm not sure, but if they chant "Science" enough, even a once-respected journal like Scientific American will have their backs:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccine-inequality-has-shut-vulnerable-people-out-of-plans-to-save-the-planet/

This headline is a triple-play. The opening paragraph reads like some educated hermit's manifesto:

For decades a global economic system based on the conversion of nature into profit has been accelerating inequality, environmental destruction and climate change. Hundreds of millions of people are vulnerable to (seemingly) natural disasters, including pandemics caused by the emergence of novel pathogens. By exacerbating xenophobic nationalism and precipitating vaccine apartheid, COVID-19 has intensified these dangerous trends.

[perlhaqr]

How humiliating for them to have published that.

[Don't look at me!]

Does that squrlsy guy write for them?

[perlhaqr]

Oh, come now. It wasn't that coherent.

[perlhaqr]

Although it was that full of shit.

[Mickey Rat]

When someone expresses a thought like "conversion of nature into profit", I wonder how much worse off do they expect people to live? Even under a theoretical economic system where there is no profit people will require nature be converted in to goods, like housing, food, appliance, energy, etc. What do they expect people to do without under their utopia?

[perlhaqr]

Why do you think their utopia includes people?

[mad.casual]

When someone expresses a thought like "conversion of nature into profit"

After 15M years of being converted by nature into food, it's nice to finally get at least a little bit of the reparations owed.

[Joe Friday]

Here's some science for you CE:

In both blue and red states, new covid cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are led by the unvaccinated, even though they are a minority almost everywhere.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

What Ukraine and Joe Rogan Have in Common

Did Joe Rogan also fight a bear?

[SQRLSY One]

Worth a read...

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/22/politics/mitt-romney-russia-ukraine/index.html Mitt Romney was right, Obama was wrong!!!
It's time to admit it: Mitt Romney was right about Russia
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 3:42 PM ET, Tue February 22, 2022

So much for CNN being sinners for being "liberally biased"...

[CE]

Or maybe just trying to pump up a not-Trump candidate for 2024 on the R side.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

“The 1950’s called, they want their foreign policy back.”

[TallDave]

too late, looks like the 2020s got it

[perlhaqr]

What Ukraine and Joe Rogan Have in Common

They both have names that are confused for a hair restoration product?

[Don't look at me!]

+1

[perlhaqr]

Together they combine to form a robot that restores hair?!?

Now we know what Putin is after...

[esteve7]

If you change your stance because of an opinion poll, then you never were principled to begin with.

So exactly what I would have expected when it comes to Democrats

[Libby Terry-Ann]

and Reason Magazine.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

It's safe(r) to stick your head above the parapet now...

[Nardz]

Distinction w/o difference

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

I bet Reason will swing back as soon as they fear Trump might return.

[Dillinger]

>>35:12: Blue state's rolling back mask mandates

I'm assuming you guys don't spend the next fifteen minutes and four seconds firing off verbal expletives that mask mandates ever existed at all

[Fats of Fury]

The Powerhog saw his foreshadow, we won't have six more weeks of masks.
Happy Powerhog Day.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

35:12: Blue state's rolling back mask mandates

Not where I live!

King County's indoor mask order is still in effect. While the statewide indoor mask mandate will lift for most indoor settings on March 21, 2022, the decision of when King County's local indoor mask order may lift has not yet been made.

Maybe March, maybe not even then. Maybe. Depends how we feel.

[CE]

Los Angeles County and Santa Clara County feel your pain.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Meh, I live in branch covidian central. The Local Mascot is a Vegan wearing two masks, alone in a Prius driving in the left lane at 48 mph. I'm not sure why I'm surprised.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Young healthy man in lowest risk category for COVID gets vaccine, develops vaccine-induced myocarditis, now he's in the top risk category for COVID. Is that irony? I can never tell.

[Ken Shultz]

I thought it was hilarious to see that Katherine Mangu-Ward was reading a book for children, last week, about justice by Preet Bahara. Reading a book to your children about justice by the First Amendment effacing, headline chasing ex-U.S. Attorney is like reading them a book about racial equality by George Wallace. How was the book, KMW--was it any good?

[Don't look at me!]

What kind of person would buy a book like that? And then read it to kids.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

George Wallace writing a book about racial equality doesn't mean he's celebrating it.

[Ken Shultz]

He sold his credibility short.

Nobody wants to read a book to their children about sexual harassment by Harvey Weinstein either.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I watched the DVD with my kids!

[Isaac Bartram]

Has everyone forgotten that George Wallace was entirely rehabilitated as a completely right-thinking person by the Democratic Party starting with Ted Kennedy's panegyric in 1973 and continuing through his re-re-re-election as governor in 1982 with 90% of the black vote?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Internalized racism.

[Ken Shultz]

Nobody wants to read their children a book about equality by the "segregation forever" guy anyway.

And no one should want to read their children a book about justice by a headline chasing former U.S. Attorney who went after commenters at Reason for exercising their First Amendment rights and making jokes about a judge.

Incidentally, no one wants to read their kids a book about anger management by O.J Simpson either.

[Ken Shultz]

Has everyone forgotten their sense of humor?

KMW could eviscerate Preet Bahara, and it would be hilarious.

"The nondisclosure order caused controversy, with critics saying that it infringed the constitutional right to free speech and questioning whether the comments were actually serious threats or merely hyperbolic "trolling." Federal prosecutors dropped the matter as moot. Reason magazine editors Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie characterized the subpoena and nondisclosure order as "suppressing the speech of journalistic outlets known to be critical of government overreach."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preet_Bharara#Reason_magazine_subpoena

He subsequently wrote a book for children about . . . ahem . . . JUSTICE?!

Maybe he should write a book for children about using the U.S. Attorney's Office for chasing headlines! That would be appropriate.

No one wants to read a book to their children about accepting the results of an election by QAnon Shaman either.

No one wants to read a book for children about religious freedom by Emperor Xi.

No one wants to read a book for children about playing nice with others by Jeffrey Dahmer.

[Joe Friday]

Sense of humor?

How else do you think I manage to wade through the comments on this site.

[Titus PUllo]

So, this obsession with democracy means no free speech or liberty. According to the Wapo..these concepts for which democracy is created to project are white supremacy..liberty is now racism....and Reason says what?

The Boston Globe Black LBTG feminist editorial writer calles a sitting Gov of Italian ancestry representing white supremacy..and not a fucking outcry by the media? The media is the problem..bolsheviks suck holds for the Federal State...

[Ken Shultz]

If we're in for another Cold War, the contrast with the Russians may help with the culture wars in the United States, as well. It's easier for people to see government misbehavior when it's happening in other countries, and the progressives have been getting away with acting like totalitarians for far too long. I'm not saying this is the way it should be, but the way it is--people find it easier to see what's wrong with progressives when they're acting like Putin's and Xi's thugs. When it becomes clearer that Putin and Xi are our enemies, people will find it easier to love the First Amendment, etc. again. The First Amendment being what makes our country different and great--I have no problem with that. If there's an upside to another Cold War, that's it.

[Nardz]

Putin isn't my enemy.
He's the Globalist World Order's enemy.

[Joe Friday]

Thanks for the warning.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

They're on a hot food truck story.

[Nardz]

https://twitter.com/FrankGrimes_Jr/status/1496298348982288389?t=ZpgdKV9rrUsgzNoql8FVUQ&s=19

In India the government insisted Pfizer be accountable for their product and not just make billions in profit. Pfizer refused and is not in the country.

In Canada Trudeau purchased millions of doses until 2024, everything's a secret, and anyone protesting is met with violence.

[Joe Friday]

Wait, aren't you Putin's buddy?

[Steven S. Epstein]

If Nick from the Commonwealth is checking the comments,
You do not have to join the party to join the group "Massachusetts Libertarians" https://www.facebook.com/groups/14620149922
he may also want to get involved with the opposition to the Millionaire's Tax constitutional amendment ballot question, such as The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, which will be on the ballot in Nov. 22, and these that will be gathering signatures that interest me as a small 'l' libertarian that will be seeking more signatures this spring:
for more information on the below: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/ballot-initiatives-filed-for-the-2022-biennial-statewide-election-proposed-laws-and-2024-biennial-statewide-election-proposed-constitutional-amendments
21-11 A Law Defining and Regulating the Contract-Based Relationship Between Network Companies and App-Based Drivers (Version A)
21-12 A Law Defining and Regulating the Contract-Based Relationship Between Network Companies and App-Based Drivers (Version B).
21-14 An Initiative Petition for a Law Relative to the Regulation and Sale of Consumer Fireworks
21-18 An Act Preserving Consumer Access to Gasoline and Other Motor Fuels

[TallDave]

reason: Ukraine is weak, Ukraine is feeble
Ken Shulz: how about I take your little board and SMASH

[bocsci2018]

where can I buy siRNA in vivo Delivery Kit
BOC Sciences electroporation kit provides a versatile, efficient, and low-toxicity solution for electroporating DNA or siRNA into cell types that are difficult to transfect. https://transfection.bocsci.com/product/genaral-electroporation-kit-338870.html