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On today’s episode, Jonah, now back in his empty nest in D.C., desperately requires a ...

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On today’s episode, Jonah, now back in his empty nest in D.C., desperately requires a distraction from the oppressive August heat. Fortunately, RealClearPolitics associate editor and fan-favorite guest A.B. Stoddard has just the topic: infrastructure. Exceedingly rank punditry ensues, as they explore divisions within the Democratic Party, racial progress in America, and why moderate Democrats find it difficult to be loud about their moderation. Along the way, they also discuss whether COVID or the Afghanistan tragedy can be blamed for President Biden’s declining approval ratings. Brace your bingo cards.

Show Notes:

– A.B.’s author page at RealClearPolitics

– The Wednesday G-File

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Always enjoy hearing AB on the Remnant. She can make even the tedium of infrastructure interesting.

    To Jonah’s point about David saying anti vaxxers shift around their arguments to whatever is convenient: yes, that is exactly what the core of the movement has done since 1998. And they specifically target different messages to different groups, often low-information groups or even immigrants who don’t speak much English. They literally use different arguments and different messages for different demographics, including a recent video that I heard linked COVID-19 vaccines to Tuskegee because they hope that will play with a certain audience. They hit on vaccines as politics circa 2014 and that has helped them come back from the fringe.

    Would love to see Jonah doing mixed martial arts. Ha, Maybe that would get him on Joe Rogan to promote the Dispatch.

    Once again, congratulations to you and your wife, Jonah, and good luck to your daughter.

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    Kit Webster

    This just popped up in re Ivermectin. Scientific paper on studies. Still have no dog in the hunt. Still find these kinds of results interesting. Title: Ivermectin: a multifaceted drug of Nobel prize-honoured distinction with indicated efficacy against a new global scourge, COVID-19
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2052297521000883

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  3. Avatar photo
    Tracie

    Always enjoy hearing from AB, especially her realist-at-the-border-of-cynical take on the Democratic party, which I still nominally identify with. Kinda the way my Dad's family were Episcopalian: major holidays, weddings, and funerals.

    Maybe if I keep listening I won't blow off the mid-terms. It's real hard to attend to politics right now.

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  4. Randall Briggs

    For some reason, the Dispatchers seem to downplay the danger that the fight-to-the-death anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers pose to our public health. And they go out of the way, as Jonah did here, to point out the problems with Democrat constituents who aren't getting vaccinated. They are almost to the point that they can't imagine why anyone would make a big deal about people who belligerently refuse to get shots and refuse to wear masks in places where they are required. I'm 66, my wife has autoimmune issues, and I teach school in a bright-red school district where vaccinations are considered unnecessary and masks an outrage. From my perspective, the people whose children I tech would view some old teachers (or their spouses) dying as the unfortunate but nevertheless acceptable cost of what they consider to be their "rights."

    Many of these people consider themselves to be devout Christians. Apparently, they belong to sects of Christianity with Bibles that leave out the parables of the Good Samaritan and the man with the log in his eye who keeps complaining that his brother has speck of dust in his.

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  5. Craig Owen

    Once again AB states, unchallenged and without any explanation, that the Georgia voter law is a "Constitutional Crisis". A charge that serious should be elaborated on and explained in more detail.

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    Rev Snow

    Where is "Turn and Face the Strange"? It reached me through player.fm, and I've listened to it, but no space for it here.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Jaredmanly77

    I enjoy AB’s inputs…but still not sure what has her and Stirewalt so up in arms about new Texas and Georgia voting laws. NR folks like Charles Cooke seem to think they are run of the mill. Is there any real concern?

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  8. Avatar photo
    Seth B

    Always a pleasure to listen to AB, and I appreciated the Chief update. I can attest to the razor sharpness of puppy teeth, bearing at present many a scar from my 4-month-old basset.

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  9. linda

    Always good to hear from AB and this was no exception. I like it that she sounds like a real person which is one of the reasons I like Jonah.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Faraday

    Jonah, Did I misunderstand one of the issues highlighted in this conversation that a concern about the new voting laws being enacted (r.e. Florida and Georgia, Arizona?) was that someone could cast their vote and not have it counted because they cast it in the wrong county?

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