After fending off the voices coming from inside his walls, Jonah begins today’s Ruminant by discussing the latest entry in the House Speakership saga and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s incoherent foreign policy. He then turns to the recent pro-Palestinian protests and how their facing consequences is a sign of nature healing. Stick around for the usual intellectual history nerdery.

Show Notes:

—Boiling Frogs on Mike Johnson

—Dispatch Politics on Mike Johnson

—Wanderland on MTG’s appeasement and Neville Chamberlain

—Boiling Frogs on Joe Biden’s “Sister Souljah moment”

—Friday’s Dispatch Podcast

—Activist threatening Bakersfield city council

—The Remnant with Nancy French

—Ukraine: The Latest

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Eli Lake, The Remnant’s resident bloodthirsty war hawk, returns to the pod to break down the situation with Israel and Iran. The two get into why America has no strategic vision on Iran, the growing alliance of left- and right-wing isolationists, and how Tucker Carlson has become so unhinged.

Show Notes:

—Eli’s profile at The Free Press

—Eli’s piece on Tucker Carlson and Russia

—Eli's piece on the FBI

—The Remnant with Nancy French

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Jonah is joined by author, speechwriter, and ghostwriter Nancy French to discuss her new book, Ghosted: An American Story. Nancy tells the tale of how she came to meet the permanent guest host of Advisory Opinions (who is now dead to Jonah), how the Republican Party’s embrace of Donald Trump left her and her family ostracized, and also gives an update on her battle with cancer.

Show Notes:

—Ghosted: An American Story

—Bristol Palin’s book, Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far

—Nancy’s investigation into abuse at a Christian camp

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Jonah opens up this week’s Ruminant with an indulgent diatribe against Top Chef and Wisconsin cheese. He then pivots toward even more divisive topics, such as Trump’s abortion statement and the messiah-like energy around Barack Obama. Then our culinary-political connoisseur goes on an epicurean journey of topics: hostile work environments, the problems with binary choices, and the definition of a liberal.

Show Notes:

—Jonah's Wednesday G-File

—Friday's Dispatch Podcast roundtable

—Top Chef Wisconsin Cheese Festival recap

—American Masters: "The Incomparable Mr. Buckley"

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Jonah is joined by Dr. Einat Wilf—a former member of Israel's Labor Party and author of The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace. They discuss Israel's failure to reckon with antisemitism in the pro-Palestinian movement, how the two-state solutions got derailed, and what bad leadership means for the future of the conflict.

Show Notes:

—Dr. Wilf’s website

—Dr. Wilf on the history of Zionism and UNRWA

—Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

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Was it your racism or economic despair that made you vote for Donald Trump? That’s the question media outlets are asking white people in the Rust Belt and Appalachia, much to the dismay of guest-host Chris Stirewalt.

In today’s episode of The Remnant, Chris is joined by Tyler Austin Harper—a professor at Bates College—to discuss his piece for The Atlantic critiquing White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy. Join the two as they break down coastal journalists’ mischaracterizations of rural America, the disdain for these Americans, and why it’s good to interact with people culturally different than yourself.

Show Notes:

—Harper for The Atlantic: Polyamory, the Ruling Class’s Latest Fad

—A new AP-NORC poll shows Americans still agree on most core American values

—Tim Carney’s book, Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be

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Frazzled and under-caffeinated, Jonah jogs through some sundry punditry, from the state of The Federalist Society to beltway media’s bipartisan fixation with pounces.

Show Notes:

—This week's Dispatch Podcast roundtable discussion

—Advisory Opinions episode on the Federalist Society

—Advisory Opinions episode on federal judges visiting Israel

—Gregg T. Nunziata's piece for The Dispatch

—Nigel Tufnel via The Simpson's fan Wiki

—Michael Weiss on Dispatch Live

—J. D. Vance's tweet on Havana Syndrome report

—Jonah's G-File on blowhards

—Chef José Andrés reaction to World Central Kitchen deaths

—No Labels reporting from The Dispatch

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On today’s episode of The Remnant, Jonah attempts to live out his closeted dream of becoming an American spy by diving into a report titled "The Kremlin's Occupation Playbook: Coerced Russification and Ethnic Cleansing in Occupied Ukraine." He is joined by Karolina Hird, author of the report, to discuss the Kremlin’s heartbreaking tactic of deporting and forcibly adopting Ukrainian children, a ploy designed to alter the demographic fabric of the occupied territories. Hear about the critical issue of delayed aid to Ukraine, Russia's strategic use of timing on the battlefield, and the strictly censored Russian media landscape that stifles authentic discourse on the conflict.

Show Notes:

—Karolina Hird's profile at the Institute for the Study of War

—Interactive Map: Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

—ISW's Ukraine Conflict Updates page

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In a refreshing break from rank punditry, Jonah is joined by Sadanand Dhume—a Wall Street Journal columnist and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who specializes in South Asian political economy—to answer the question: How is India doing? Dhume also gives a lesson on the religious demographics in India and how the caste system actually works.

Show Notes:

—Dhume at the Wall Street Journal

—Dhume’s book, My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with a Radical Islamist

—Dhume: Indian Muslims Flunk the Israel Test

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Jonah ruminates on the UN Special Rapporteur’s report alleging genocide in Gaza and the minimization of sexual violence on October 7. And if you weren’t day-drinking yet, he then kvetches about lousy concepts of social justice, the Ronna McDaniel-NBC News controversy, and the growing urge to oversimplify complex topics with monocausal explanations.

Show Notes:

—UN Special Rapporteur’s report

—ABC News report on random punching incident

—Protests at Vanderbilt

—Jonah’s LA Times article on October 9

—John Spencer

—The Remnant with Jonathan Haidt

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