Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are glad to see not all Democrats have lost their minds after Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet begs 2020 candidates not to campaign on expanding the Supreme Court. They also hammer Beto O’Rourke and other liberals for using the New Zealand mosque massacre to push a ban on the AR-15. And they defend Chelsea Clinton after progressives accuse her of facilitating the New Zealand massacre with her critique of Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Listen to “DeSantis Rising” on Spreaker.
In November, Ron DeSantis was in the midst of a national political drama, as Florida officials conducted a recount to determine whether his slim victory would hold up. Now, just two months into the job, DeSantis is piling up a flurry of accomplishments and winning praise from across the political spectrum.
“He eventually won by 32,000 votes or 0.4 percent of the vote. He kind of went off the radar. but what this man has been doing off the radar is just amazing in terms of what he’s trying to do and what he’s accomplished and he’s getting kudos on both sides for being so energetic and so successful,” said syndicated columnist and National Review Contributing Editor Deroy Murdock.
Since taking office in January, DeSantis has replaced three Florida Supreme Court justices who were term-limited by age and worked to remove burdensome government mandates to get licensed for certain jobs. He also accepted the resignations of two elections officials at the center of last year’s vote-counting mess. DeSantis also removed Broward County Cheriff Scott Israel over his performance before, during, and after the school shooting in Parkland.
The governor has also gone to bat for hurricane survivors to the federal government. He’s also ended Common Core education policies and thrilled partisans of all stripes in replacing the members of an important water commission in hopes of cleaning up the environment.
DeSantis served in the U.S. House of Representatives before winning the governor’s office over Democrat Andrew Gillum. Murdock says that’s not an easy shift to navigate.
“I’ve seen very few people make that transition from Congress to becoming an executive as effectively and as swiftly as he has. It’s really quite stunning,” said Murdock.
Murdock believes DeSantis ultimately won the election because of his support for school choice, a position that won him 18 percent of the vote from black women who want more options for their kids. Not only did that help DeSantis, but Murdock thinks it’s a road map for other GOP candidates.
“If he can keep this us, it’s a model for other Republicans to go out in the black community, push school choice which is very important. Just ask black parents, ‘You tend to vote Democrat. How are those Democrat-run schools doing? how’s your Democrat school board doing? Are your kids learning anything?” said Murdock.
Listen to the full podcast to hear how DeSantis is not only soaring above 60 percent approval in the state, how well he is doing among voters usually repelled by the GOP, and whether the popularity of DeSantis can help President Trump in 2020.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America recoil at the mass murder of 49 Muslims in New Zealand, the radical manifesto that came with it, and the aggravating tendency of politicians and activists to claim instantly that an attack vindicates their existing political positions. They also slam Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for mocking the idea of “thoughts and prayers” in the wake of these horrible events and then claiming she really said it to attack the NRA for carnage in New Zealand. And they have fun with Howard Schultz suggesting he would not sign any legislation as president that did not have bipartisan support or nominate any Supreme Court justice who couldn’t get two-thirds support in the Senate.
Listen to “Beto Mania, Social Media and Depression, Warren Waffles on Capitalism” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America argue that Beto O’Rourke running for president is actually a good thing because it will either show media infatuation can get you elected or burst O’Rourke’s hype bubble. They are also concerned by the alarming rise in mental health disorders in teens that is linked to social media use. And they also give Elizabeth Warren a molecule of credit for defending capitalism, only to watch her then say markets don’t work for health care or education.
Listen to “Coburn: Health Care Solutions Are Very Simple” on Spreaker.
Republican struggled and failed to overhaul Obamacare. Many Democrats want the government to run health care entirely. But former Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn says health care costs would plummet and choices would flourish if we simply bring transparency to the system.
A longtime doctor before entering the political arena, Coburn says patients would benefit enormously from price transparency and knowing the results that other patients have had from various providers. He says all sides agree that health care costs consume 20 percent of the nation’s GDP, but he says there’s a much better way to address this than putting the government in charge of everything.
“We have multiple studies by reputable groups that said anywhere from $500 billion to a trillion dollars a years doesn’t help anybody get well and doesn’t prevent anybody from getting sick. So how do you fix that?
“You fix that with what was proposed by the Trump administration, calling first for price transparency for everybody in health care. Because once net prices are published, you’re going to have 100,000 people making apps to show people how to get the best deal.
“Once you have price transparency, then you’re going to have outcome transparency because what will happen is all the prices will settle down to the most competitive. Then the differentiating factor will be, ‘What are your outcomes? What’s your infection rate? What’s your major complication rate? What’s your average hospital stay for this? What’s your re-operation rate?'”
“All of a sudden we will start buying health care like we buy everything else in the country,” said Coburn.
The fight for transparency won’t be easy. Coburn says there are a lot of powerful entities who have incentive to keep the bloated system in place.
“Who’s opposed to that? All the hospitals, all the big insurers, all the drug companies, all the pharmacy benefit managers, and everybody else that’s a middle man in health care that sucks money out but doesn’t add value,” said Coburn.
But is this just theory or are these ideas actually working somewhere? Listen to the full podcast as Coburn explains how price and outcome transparency is proving wildly successful in his home state. He also explains why our education system is utterly failing the young people clamoring for government-run care.
Listen to “Major Unions Reject Green New Deal” on Spreaker.
The AFL-CIO has declared its opposition to the Green New Deal. Radio America’s Christian Whittle reports.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America welcome a Politico report showing that even if liberals soaked “the rich” they wouldn’t come anywhere close to paying for single-payer health care or the Green New Deal. They also shake their heads as testimony from former FBI attorney Lisa Page suggests the FBI was considering whether to recommend a federal charge against Hillary Clinton over her mishandling of classified emails but the Justice Department made it clear it had no intention of pursuing the case. And Jim offers his hilarious assessment of climate change activists refusing to have children until the world gets serious about climate change.
Listen to “Pelosi Backs Off Impeachment, NYC on the Brink, Celebrity College Cheats” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are a bit surprised by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff signaling they don’t plan to pursue impeachment of President Trump unless there’s a bipartisan consensus for it. They also look on sadly as New York City’s exorbitant taxes and hard left policies leave the city careening towards bankruptcy. And they crack a few pop-culture jokes but also weigh in on the serious issues as celebrities and elites around the country are charged with bribing colleges and universities to admit their kids under false pretenses.
Listen to “One Way the Government Wastes $100 Billion” on Spreaker.
The national debt just eclipsed $22 trillion, so wasting $100 billion per year seems small in comparison, but a government watchdog says federal agencies are wasting huge sums of money to ensure they keep getting even more.
It’s called “use it or lose it” spending. Agencies get a certain amount of money allotted each year in federal spending, and as the fiscal year draws to a close, the spending tends to ramp up dramatically.
“The federal agency heads spend down their budgets this year so they get the same or more money appropriated by Congress for the next year,” said Adam Andrzejewski, founder and CEO at openthebooks.com.
In September 2018 alone, Andrzejewski reports that federal agencies shelled out nearly $100 billion. Twenty percent of of the annual budget went towards this spending.
“In the last week, federal agencies spent $53 billion on contracts. This was roughly one out of every ten dollars spent on the year was spent on this last week,” said Andrzejewski.
Listen to the full podcast as Andrzejewski offers examples of how that taxpayer money was spent at the end of the year and what he thinks of President Trump’s budget blueprint that calls for a five percent spending cut in Fiscal Year 2020.
Listen to “Bravo DeSantis, Dems & Illegal Voters, Millennials & Socialism” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America enthusiastically cheer the first two months of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and point out that good things can happen when a leader hits the ground running on the things they promised to do. They also wince as just six House Democrats agree that illegal immigrants shouldn’t be voting. And they wonder if millennials are really far to the left or whether they embrace labels they don’t quite understand as 73 percent favor the government instituting universal health care but 79 percent want to keep private insurance.