Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Let there be snark.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

After roe, women are no longer free.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Come on, man.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Second rate reporter says what?

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Let’s finish the job.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Monday Evening Open Thread: Somebody Burning Copies of Fire & Fury?

Monday Evening Open Thread: Somebody Burning Copies of Fire & Fury?

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For once, the NYC Trump Tower tenants may have reason to be grateful to Trump — or, more correctly, Trump’s Secret Service detail. I went through a “routine” rooftop equipment-related “smoke event” some twenty years ago, when I was working in Boston’s Hancock Tower. Being rushed down sixty flights in the underlit emergency stairwell, while security guards ran up & down yelling at us and each other, is not one of my favorite life memories. Sounds like the SecServ guys alerted firefighters before the building had to be evacuated.

Meanwhile, smart review from Michael Hiltzik, at the LA Times — “I knew everything in Wolff’s ‘Fire and Fury’ even before it was published. Here’s how”:

… [T]he proper way to think about “Fire and Fury” is not as a book, but as an event. The vast majority of people discussing it over the next few weeks — assuming the furor lasts that long — will not have read it. When the Sunday cable talk shows went into full cry over it, they focused largely on the West Wing’s reaction to it…

But having done the reading homework myself, I can tell you that the first 30% of “Fire and Fury” is an engaging read, full of little frissons of revelation. It’s not badly written, though portions show the effects of hasty editing to meet a deadline.

After the first third, however, it becomes boring, repetitious and, ultimately, depressing. There just isn’t much for Wolff to say about the White House after he’s said it once, and the discouraging thought that his cast of characters are in place because of a quirk of the American presidential electoral system that surprised them as much as it shocked outsiders soon outweighs any pleasure one might get from watching them bite each others’ heads off…

Wolff identifies the principal camps during his time as a fly on the wall as those of Bannon; first daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner; and former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, who was replaced by John F. Kelly at the end of July. This started to be widely known even before inauguration day.

But Wolff may actually have made a signal contribution to Trumpology here by making clear how much each gang leaked to undermine the others. Despite the obligatory paragraphs in all those inside-the-West-Wing scoops in the big papers about how many sources they were based on (how many people work in the White House, anyway?), it appears from Wolff’s book that those stories really all emanate from the power jockeying among those three groups; sometimes it’s one camp leaking against the other two, sometimes two camps in temporary alliance against the third.

This just tells you that the correct rule of thumb to apply when reading any of these yarns is the Latin term “Cui bono?” (“Who gains?”)…

That being said, Cui bono from the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

164Comments

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    Despite what some teevee shows seem to think, it’s not actually entertaining to watch people screw up the exact same way over and over again, so I can see why Fire and Fury would become tedious pretty quickly.

  5. 5.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Palace intrigue of the type that one normally sees at Versailles.

    Oh, wait, that ended really well for the Bourbons, didn’t it?

  6. 6.

    Feebog

    I have knee surgery on Wednesday, so I Will be laid up for a spell. I’m posting excerpts of the book to Face Book every day just to piss off my conservative friends.

  8. 8.

    Calouste

    Talking about right-wing buffoons and infighting, Theresa May attempted a cabinet reshuffle today and several ministers refused to take their newly assigned rules, one resigning from the cabinet rather than taking a sidewards demotion.

  9. 9.

    Quinerly

    Can’t help but wondering about how Trump feels about his precious Ivanka making fun of his hair routine.

  15. 15.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    I was thinking of buying the book but figured I’d either get supremely pissed off or bored and not finish it. It might be worth buying to boost the author’s bank account, just on general principles.

  16. 16.

    different-church-lady

    TRUMP TOWER: “I would now like to do an impersonation of my owner when he heard about the Michael Wolff book…”

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’m pretty sure there’s a Constitutional right for right-wingers to be published by any book publisher of their choice. It’s not like there are contracts involved or something. ?

  25. 25.

    Baud

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday unanimously rejected a proposal by Energy Secretary Rick Perry that would have propped up nuclear and coal power plants struggling in competitive electricity markets.

    The independent five-member commission includes four people appointed by President Trump, three of them Republicans. Its decision is binding.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/01/08/trump-appointed-regulators-reject-plan-to-rescue-coal-and-nuclear-plants/

  34. 34.

    gene108

    Someone should alert Stephen Miller, Andersen Cooper is interviewing Trump supporters.

    I do wonder, if the news views Trump voters as some sort of zoo like exhibit, which sophisticated media types and their in-crowd like to look at for their amusement.

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Quinerly: Yes there was. One of the smaller guard structures that the Secret Service uses at the Clinton home in NY had a small fire.

  43. 43.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Baud: White, male conservatives are fortunate that they’re still covered by various laws that protect them from getting their asses kicked routinely.

  44. 44.

    lamh36

    Ugh…I was excited for the X-Files reboot, I’m loving the Will & Grace reboot, but I was only half interested in this Roseanne show reboot.

    Welp…if I wasn’t interested before, I’m DEF not interested now… FUQ you Rosanne!

    @THR
    Rosanne Barr: “I’d be a Better President” Than Oprah, Susan Sarandon, Trump http://bit.ly/2CJaYSL

    It wasn’t much of a toss up of who I couldn’t stand more, Susan Sarandon or Rosanne Barr…now, I’d have real hard trying to decide on who I’d like to DIAF most…ugh

  45. 45.

    VOR

    @Ruckus: I’m about 40% through the Wolff book. It confirms a lot of stuff I suspected but not many surprises so far beyond the published excerpts. The one thing which stands out is that Trump is much worse than imagined. And everyone knew it long before he took office.

  46. 46.

    mai naem mobile

    @Quinerly: she probably fluttered her eyelashes and told Two Scoops Donnie that that mean old Wolfman had her confused with Tiffany. That Tiffany is a disrespectful child and should be taken off the will immediately,dadddeeee!

  49. 49.

    Gin & Tonic

    @VOR: On Saturday I saw my son, who told me he had a PDF of the book, which his girlfriend’s friends were all sharing. I was smart enough not to ask about provenance, and declined, as I currently have enough reading to do. But it certainly seems to be making the rounds.

  50. 50.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman: Great. Packing to be gone for 5 weeks to New Mexico. Rushing to finish up the second stage (kitchen) in the Air BnB that I’m putting in the lower level here. St. Louis cold set my contractor friend back a couple of weeks…still pushing to get the cabinets in this week, so my friend (and Ozark Hillbilly’s friend!) can do her mosaic genius on countertops, backsplashes, and accent wall while I’m gone. Electrical and plumbing done.? Thanks for the kind words about Kitty Ivan last week. It was time. He had to be suffering.

  51. 51.

    lamh36

    @APCentralRegion
    “He was a remarkable advocate for change for all people of color in America, including Indian Country.” The Cherokee Nation to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day as an official holiday for the first time. http://apne.ws/vSHHnRK

  64. 64.

    Ruckus

    @VOR:
    He could not be worse than I imagined. Because I didn’t have to imagine. He has been a disaster of a human for decades and that was well known long before last year. You didn’t have to even be paying a lot of attention.

  65. 65.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Quinerly: Glad to read it. Hope you have a good visit. Have something at El Paragua’s for me.

    As for Ivan. I understand completely. I’m the same way with my dogs.

  67. 67.

    lamh36

    @eclare: I’m not surprised that a real life Roseanne character would be a Trump voter (hello WWC), but the fact thta Rosanne Barr truly is a Trump voter, is enough for me to say FUQ if I watch this BS reboot and it’s seems like an obvious ploy to keep/get White voters..

    @TVGuide
    Following Following @TVGuide
    More
    The #Roseanne cast defends the decision to make Roseanne a Trump voter http://bit.ly/2CGVBtW

  68. 68.

    Quinerly

    @chris: Farr is horrible. I’m embarrassed for my birth state. Trump goes out of his way to pick the absolute most horrible candidates for these lifetime appointments. There will be a special place in Hell for McConnell. He could curb some of this. Of course, he won’t.

  70. 70.

    Vor

    @Ruckus: yes, I agree. And yet the repitiion of EVERYONE knowing it and not saying the Emporer has no clothes is worse than imagined. Btw, I paid for the Kindle edition.

  74. 74.

    eclare

    @lamh36: Fuck, that did it for me. And I loved her show in the 90’s. How Sara Gilbert can sign on to this, how anyone can sign on to this, is beyond me.

  76. 76.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Everyone who has ever tried a ratings or box office play to get racist white people has discovered that there are no longer enough of them to make your show or movie a hit. So at least you’ll have the comfort of knowing that the revival will be a disastrous flop.

  77. 77.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Quinerly: The President isn’t picking them. They are be picked by Don McGahn and the non-lawyer who runs the Federalist Society.

  79. 79.

    chris

    I just looked up the book on amazon.ca. Kindle is available but the physical book “Usually ships within 1 to 2 months.” Pirates are going to be busy.

  82. 82.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman: I’ll make at least one visit to Espanola just for El Paragua’s. Didn’t make it there last year. A little inconvenient for me this year…I’m in a casita in Bernalillo for 4 weeks. But I adore their food…and that great tree growing in the bar area?. Changed it up from staying in Santa Fe and taking a totally different southern route out. Got a wonderful email from a commenter from Las Cruces with detailed suggestions.. I’m in Ruidoso, Las Cruces, and TorC a total of 5 nights before getting to Bernalillo. Also, hope to get over to Little Vegas…want to check out the construction on the old Castaneda Hotel. Harvey Hotels and memorabilia have become a bit of a hobby for me.? I try to get over to the original Las Vegas every other trip. Love the architecture for a bit of a change. Your old stomping grounds, right?

  85. 85.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): This is Mattis and McMaster placating the President. It has already been reported that whenever the DPRK comes up the President’s response is to state he wants to militarily attack them. What is going to happen here is that they will pull the contingency planning and the sequels that are constantly updated by the military planners, distill it down to a few bullet points and some graphics, including the huge number of casualties and KIAs when Kim counterstrikes Seoul, various parts of Japan, Guam, and possibly Hawaii and Alaska, and use that to explain why the results of the counterstrikes would require all out war. Therefore a limited strike not leading to a war can’t work.

  86. 86.

    Chet Murthy

    @Gin & Tonic: Uh, if you (and he) feel like sharing, care to tell us old codgers the general “generation” in which your son and his GF fall? Just so we can get a sense for what the youngs are up to? Full disclosure: I’m 53. So per (I forget whom), I can no longer run for preznit. Gotta leave to the youngs …..

  87. 87.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Quinerly: We used to have our place in the mountains (Pendaries) outside of Las Vegas. Make sure you hit the Spic and Span while you’re there. Amazing food. And the pastries are excellent too!

  89. 89.

    Jeffro

    @Adam L Silverman: they (the North Koreans) are relatively rational actors, but you’re right – any attack on them, and they’ll go all in, and then we’re looking at millions dead.

    It’ll be unthinkable until it happens.

  91. 91.

    Jeffro

    @eclare: do I deliver or what? I’ve been rooting hard for Alabama this whole first half ?

    Send funds quickly, GA fans, or I start rooting for your Dawgs!!

  94. 94.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman: Yep. I kinda mispoke and was generalizing by saying Trump is doing the picking. He’s eating cheeseburgers in bed while McGahn is picking. I guess I should read up on McGahn…who recommended him to Trump? Do we know how Trump got him?

  95. 95.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Adam L Silverman: Exactly. There is no such fucking thing as a “limited strike” against a nuclear armed power. Which is exactly why NK wanted nukes in the first place. It’s why Iran wants nukes.

  97. 97.

    Viva BrisVegas

    This just tells you that the correct rule of thumb to apply when reading any of these yarns is the Latin term “Cui bono?” (“Who gains?”)…

    More like “Cui bonobo” (Who flings shit furthest?).

  98. 98.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman:Love Charlie’s Spic and Span. I have a fondness for LV. Have actually spent 4 nights there in the Plaza Hotel (Poco’s first elevator ride!) A highlight a few years ago was parking behind all the pickups side of the road in Montezuma at the Armand Hammer World College and hopping in those hot springs and relaxing with those pickup driving locals…literally side of the road. It was Poco’s first NM trip…he looked on from the car. I’m pretty sure he thought I was crazy. My favorite LV restaurant is Il Fidel, down by the Castaneda and the Amtrak station. A little upscale. Black linen tablecloths.❤

  99. 99.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Ken: I guess they fall on their swords at that point.

    Or the Secret Service does something unprecedented in all of US history.

  101. 101.

    chris

    @Quinerly: See also: The Federalist Society and Leonard Leo. Very low digit number for the tumbrel ride.

    Nan Aron, who is the longtime president of the Alliance for Justice, which advocates for a progressive judiciary, told me, “The Federalist Society has for years been singularly focussed on building a farm team of judicial nominees who subscribe to a philosophy that is hostile to the advancement of social and economic progress in the country. Behind the scenes, during Republican Administrations, they are very engaged in identifying and recruiting for judges candidates who are ultra-conservatives—who are opposed to our rights and liberties across the board, whether it’s women, the environment, consumer protections, worker protections.”

  102. 102.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I don’t know. I know what they claim. And I know what the proliferation folks say. I think that we’re unlikely to really know until they actually try. I think what you’re more likely to see is conventional responses. But they have the capacity to kill and wound a lot of people – 100s of thousands to millions – just through the conventional responses. And some of those responses will include American targets and ROK and Japanese targets we’re required by treaty to respond if hit.

  103. 103.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ken: I don’t know. I know what I think they’ll do, but I can’t prove it and we won’t know until/unless it happens.

  107. 107.

    Jeffro

    And then sometimes I realize that here we are less than a year into this abomination of a presidency and the only thing the Press can talk about is the presidents mental incapacity and the Russia investigations…

    … so maybe this isn’t the worst possible timeline after all ?

  108. 108.

    zhena gogolia

    @lamh36:

    No, the classic Roseanne Connor would not have been a Trump voter because she was smart and had a heart. This is BS. Just a gimmick.

  109. 109.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Chet Murthy: His 31st birthday was just the other day; his GF’s 31st is coming up in March. They (and all their friends) are urbanites, what you might call rootless cosmopolitans. The kind of people who do not own lawnmowers.

  110. 110.

    eclare

    @zhena gogolia: I remember the episode in the season where John Goodman lost his shop where she berated a politician, advocating for union jobs, not scab jobs.

  113. 113.

    Quinerly

    @chris: The Federalist Society has been around awhile. Baby chapters at most law schools…their goal for years has been to pack the judiciary. The liberal counterpart…Constitutional Society was late to the game. Honestly, I don’t think it was even around when I came through law school in the ’80’s. Trump’s legacy will be the courts. That’s why we have to take back the Senate to stop these confirmations. These are lifetime appointments.

  114. 114.

    randy khan

    @lamh36:

    Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

    While I’m actually hoping that Oprah doesn’t run, I don’t have much question that Barr would be better than the other two.

  117. 117.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Quinerly: As far as I am concerned, if you’re a member of the Federalist Society, if you take the oath of office, you’re conducting a purpose of evasion.

  119. 119.

    chris

    @Quinerly:

    These are lifetime appointments.

    Yes, and AFAIK there’s almost no hope of removing a sitting judge short of impeachment and the bar is set very high.

  123. 123.

    Quinerly

    @chris: Lifetime appointments of 30 something year olds (ok, not all, but many). The good news of today is RBG has hired her clerks through 2020. She’s signaling that she is planning to outlast Trump.?

  125. 125.

    efgoldman

    @zhena gogolia:

    the classic Roseanne Connor would not have been a Trump voter because she was smart and had a heart. This is BS. Just a gimmick.

    Archie Bunker was a racist white resentment Nixon voter; Carroll O’Connor was everything but.
    Actors act; it ‘s what they get paid to do.

  129. 129.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro: I’ve kept expecting the turn to happen where all public criticism of Trump just… disappears. I thought it might come on Inauguration Day. And there have been worrying signs of mainstream TV news or the NYT normalizing him sometimes (“Trump became President today”, Haberman…), but I haven’t seen that turn.

  131. 131.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Quinerly:

    Harvey Hotels and memorabilia have become a bit of a hobby for me.

    My best friend from high school married the heir to the Fred Harvey chain. Right after their wedding in 1966, they moved to Santa Fe where he was general manager of La Fonda.

  132. 132.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne: When my Dad was doing his masters at Highlands University in Las Vegas and my grandparents would come to visit, my grandmother would insist they stay in Santa Fe at the La Fonda.

  134. 134.

    Quinerly

    @SiubhanDuinne: @Adam L Silverman: Must read: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0553383485/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515470588&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=fred+harvey+books&dpPl=1&dpID=51KlZ1zxihL&ref=plSrch
    I’m also learning about Fred Harvey jewelry. Kinda slow go. I have picked up some neat finds from St. Louis and NC pawn shops. Kids and grandkids cleaning out drawers and dumping vacation purchases from the 1940’s-1960’s. Snagged a sandcast silver and turquoise bracelet from Harvey, 1940’s. St. Louis pawn shop didn’t have a clue what they had.

  135. 135.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman: @SiubhanDuinne: Love La Fonda! Change of ownership in the last 2-3 years. Quite a few upgrades. The guy who brought back La Posada in Winslow bought a lot of the furniture out of La Fonda for his La Castaneda he is doing by the tracks in Little Vegas.

  143. 143.

    J R in WV

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Just north of Las Vegas NM on I-25 is where the F-350 got rolled and totaled. The police were very helpful, local EMTs heading to a ski resort were at the truck within 90 seconds. I had some glass cuts on my hands, otherwise just looking at our eyes, which were mostly OK.

    I had a mild concussion (again), but there’s no treatment for that. So I got a state policeman to take me and the dogs to a vet, along with our two little knapsacks of daily stuff and meds, rounded up a rental car, got M out of the hospital where they took her for observation.

    Everyone was really nice, but we didn’t see the old town at all. Too much else on our minds. The next day our friend in Pueblo CO came down with a rental truck and we gathered up everything from the wrecked truck we could.

    @Quinerly: I was planning to be in AZ from later in Jan until end of March, but then we got invited to go to Baja California on a Nat Geographic cruise to see whales and snorkel reefs and with sea lions. So no AZ this winter. Maybe we can do a day at a ruin some time. Or hike a ridge.

    Have fun, take care, keep in touch!! ;-)

  146. 146.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Quinerly: They did a nice job with the plaza. He refitted that one a while back. The restaurant in The Plaza was pretty good last time I was there too.

  148. 148.

    J R in WV

    @Mnemosyne: I’m 67 with a house on 100 acres and haven’t had a lawnmower in years. I do have a diesel tractor and a 60 inch bush-hog, tho… not the same thing at all. Mowing the edges of the roads and the bottoms. Not so much brush any more, we’ve let the hilltop and ridges pastures grow up. Not gonna have livestock any more. Traveling instead.

  149. 149.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman: They had a Cuban chef there for a bit. He had owned a restaurant out on Highway 14 outside of SF, near San Marcos. Just read on line a chef associated with The Range (Bernalillo and Albuquerque) coming over to LV to manage the restaurants in both the Plaza and La Castaneda.

  150. 150.

    Quinerly

    @J R in WV: Thanks! I’ll be making my trek through Charleston, W VA to NC in May. I quit driving it straight through about 10 years ago. My overnight stop 8 times a year for the past 10 years has been Charleston.

  155. 155.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Quinerly: Cool. I haven’t been back to Las Vegas since 2006. Mom sold our place while I was deployed in Iraq. She wouldn’t go out there without someone since she and Dad had built it for retirement use and with him dead. And since I had been the one using it, but with the change in career that wasn’t really going to happen as much anymore it made sense to sell it. I was in Santa Fe in 2009 for a conference.

  159. 159.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Quinerly: My ex was like a hummingbird. She ate as much as I did, but was 10″ shorter and 75 pounds lighter. Annoying as fuck in retrospect.

  160. 160.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman: Good stuff happening in LV. The guy from Winslow is sinking millions in the town. He and his wife almost single handedly brought back Winslow. His last name is Affeldt (sp??). Wife is a wonderful artist named Tina Mion. They met on a peace march across Russia in the late 1980’s. Fascinating couple.

  161. 161.

    Quinerly

    @CarolPW: It got out of hand. Usually stuff like that doesn’t bug me and things do get lost with the back and forth. Sometimes a person just hits a limit on hearing the same shit. In related news, I haven’t had the heart to tell Poco his campaign is over. I’m going to wait until he is involved in some exotic high desert sniffing. He won’t be as hurt.? Distraction. Thanks for your kind words. Have a nice week.

  162. 162.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Quinerly: Good, provided he hires and employs the locals. The town deserves better than to just limp along dying a but every generation.

  163. 163.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman: Hiring locals is his MO. He wasn’t a native of Winslow (and is rather young, West Coast originally, I think). He was so popular in Winslow, I think they made him mayor at some point. I’m pulling from memory. Poco and I stayed in the FDR Room at his Winslow La Posada on my 56th birthday last year. And, yes, we also stood on the corner.? (with a busload of Japanese Route 66 freaks? )

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