Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

I really should read my own blog.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

The willow is too close to the house.

“Alexa, change the president.”

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Williamson Booted from The Atlantic

Williamson Booted from The Atlantic

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Valued commenter LAO passed along the best news I’ve heard all day in the thread downstairs: Kevin Williamson, the former National Review columnist who notoriously advocated hanging women who have abortions (along with their clinicians), has been fired from The Atlantic. Here’s a tweet containing Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg’s statement to his staff:

I’m skeptical of Goldberg’s explanation. He says hearing a recently surfaced podcast in which Williamson elaborates on the Handmaid’s Tale fantasy he expressed on Twitter convinced him (Goldberg) that the “violent” and “callous” views Williamson expressed on Twitter actually are his considered opinions. But whatever — the podcast gave Goldberg an opportunity to walk back his awful decision to hire Williamson, and for that I’m grateful.

For good or ill, The Atlantic is an influential magazine. It should be disqualifying for a person to publicly propose the execution of approximately one in four American women — by hanging, since it’s more violent than lethal injection, as Williamson explained. That it wasn’t disqualifying for such a prestigious job sent a message, and it reinforced the earlier message sent when a violence-exalting, sexist creep was elected president.

Goldberg’s bad decision to hire Williamson should follow him around for the rest of his career. Pundits who don’t seem to be completely awful people, such as MoJo’s Kevin Drum, should be ashamed for defending that awful hire. I expect we’ll get a renewed round of “censorship” screeching from wingnuts, and The Times’ Bret Stephens probably hopes everyone will forget his stupid “open letter” column welcoming Williamson to a lofty media perch. I won’t forget.

I hope the Williamson flame-out serves as a cautionary tale for the other men who make the hiring decisions that frame our social and political narratives. The takeaway from the election of a racist, sexist, dick-swinging demagogue as president of the United States should not be that we need more exposure to reactionaries and crackpots. Quite the opposite.

Reader Interactions

251Comments

  2. 2.

    Raoul

    The Idaho Lt. Governor election is looking pretty lit, though. Bob Nonini is up for pressing murder charges as ‘a deterrent.’

    The GOP is bugfuck nuts about this.

  3. 3.

    VeniceRiley

    I hope the Williamson flame-out serves as a cautionary tale for the other men who make the hiring decisions that frame our social and political narratives. The takeaway from the election of a racist, sexist, dick-swinging demagogue as president of the United States should not be that we need more exposure to reactionaries and crackpots. Quite the opposite.

    Your lips to Dog’s ears!
    I am relieved, not gleeful.

  4. 4.

    Yutsano

    I expect we’ll get a renewed round of “censorship” screeching from wingnuts, and The Times’ Bret Stephens probably hopes everyone will forget his stupid “open letter” column welcoming Williamson to a lofty media perch. I won’t forget.

    xkcd.com/1357

  5. 5.

    GregB

    The political right in this country are increasingly indulging in some serious collective violent projection. President Knives and Rapes was on a roll today.

  7. 7.

    Corner Stone

    People like Bill Kristol are just pissed off because KW said out loud what all conservatives actually believe. And then got denied a tenure at a premium, respectable perch as punishment.

  8. 8.

    laura

    Speaking only for myself, Williamson and every other man not my husband or my healthcare provider can go fuck themselves with a rusty chain saw before and after any/every attempt to control my agency, my body and my right to equal protection of the law.

  9. 9.

    LAO

    The dumbest fucking take of the day belongs to Ben Shapiro (thread)

    Kevin Williamson’s firing is how you got Trump, as well as the alt-right’s near-mainstreaming. Here’s why. (/1)— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) April 5, 2018

  11. 11.

    Mandalay

    If only Mark Halperin were still around. He could explain to us why this ugly mess is completely Obama’s fault.

  12. 12.

    LAO

    Second stupidest take —

    Kevin Williamson's firing is a reminder that there are two Americas and one side will stop at nothing to silence the other. This is not about a bad tweet or a bad view. It is about the left wanting a monopoly on the public square so none can be exposed to competing ideas.— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) April 5, 2018

  13. 13.

    Gravenstone

    “After talking with Kevin, I confirmed that he is indeed a raging asshole misogynist. Therefore, to cover my own ass, we will not be continuing his employment here. That is all.”

  14. 14.

    Kelly

    Atlantic Monthly has been home to dubious voices before. Michael Kelly was a big booster of the Iraq war he died covering and very nasty to the antiwar effort. Also James Glassman’s DOW 36,000 was excerpted there not long before the 2000 crash.

    But I always read James Fallows.

  15. 15.

    Lee Hartmann

    As well-documented, Goldberg is an asshole. He thought he could get away with this one. It is completely unpossible that he was not aware of Williamson’s tweet.

  17. 17.

    MattF

    It looks like the Williamson firing is a good test. Kristol, Erickson, Shapiro. Sheep go there, goats go there.

  18. 18.

    FlipYrWhig

    @LAO: Yeah, Ben, I’m sure that when you ask people in PA and WI why they voted for Trump they’ll say it had a lot to do with ethics in hiring at elite opinion journals.

  19. 19.

    Mike in DC

    @GregB:
    When he said that “they were raping at levels not seen before”, the gamer in me was wondering if they lifted the level cap in the expansion pack.

  20. 20.

    hellslittlestangel

    @LAO: Some day, children will grow up in a world in which casually advocating violence against women will be literally inconceivable. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a woman not being hanged for having an abortion, forever.

  21. 21.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    no mention of Williamson’s grotesque racism from the EIC of a storied magazine founded by abolitionists. Goldberg should be the next to go.

    East St. Louis, Ill. — ‘Hey, hey craaaaaacka! Cracka! White devil! F*** you, white devil!” The guy looks remarkably like Snoop Dogg: skinny enough for a Vogue advertisement, lean-faced with a wry expression, long braids. He glances slyly from side to side, making sure his audience is taking all this in, before raising his palms to his clavicles, elbows akimbo, in the universal gesture of primate territorial challenge. Luckily for me, he’s more like a three-fifths-scale Snoop Dogg, a few inches shy of four feet high, probably about nine years old,

    Williamson swears the fraction was chosen at random.
    ETA: the excuse about his views on abortion have been “one bad tweet”. This filth was thought about, written, presumably revised, edited and published.

  23. 23.

    rikyrah

    @LAO:

    Kevin Williamson’s firing is how you got Trump, as well as the alt-right’s near-mainstreaming. Here’s why. (/1)— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) April 5, 2018

    Nobody cares, muthaphucka.
    We got Dolt45 due to treason, fraud, misogyny (which I underestimated) and voter suppression.

  25. 25.

    FlipYrWhig

    BTW, did anyone on our side ever say, right around 2009 or so, “hey, Republicans, this is how you got Barack Obama”? With the answer being “you were a smug, evil bunch of dildos for 50 years that one thing just led to another”? Such that we expected them to say, “say, old chap, you raise a perfectly valid point, perhaps we should take inventory and change our ways”? This is such a stupid genre of opinionating.

  26. 26.

    Yarrow

    Pundits who don’t seem to be completely awful people, such as MoJo’s Kevin Drum, should be ashamed for defending that awful hire.

    When male pundits defend other male pundits who are spouting obvious misogynist sentiment, I start wondering what abuse and harassment of women those guys are hiding.

  28. 28.

    Corner Stone

    @Gravenstone: “After talking with Kevin, I confirmed that he is indeed a raging asshole misogynist. I literally dropped my coffee mug when he proved too stupid to mealy mouth excuse his prior bullshit and leave me no choice except tens of thousands of cancellations. Therefore, to cover my own ass, we will not be continuing his employment here. That is all.”

  32. 32.

    tesslibrarian

    I cancelled our subscription to the Atlantic last week after Williamson was hired. There was no way on their site to say why you were cancelling. So I did a live chat with their customer support, and said I wanted to be sure they knew that while I still supported many of their writers, Williamson was beyond civilized society, and if they couldn’t see that, they didn’t need my money. It also seemed telling that they didn’t want to know why someone who had subscribed for years was leaving.

    The customer service person responded, “As a regular person talking to you, I definitely understand your sentiments as I personally understand why you have taken this action to cancel your subscription. I have immediately forwarded your sentiments on to our Editorial Department and we hope they will read this feedback and understand this information and do something about this.”

    So, I was hopeful they were also getting internal dissent as well. Goldberg didn’t need to make this mistake; that he did is alarming enough. But I’m glad the podcast surfaced and gave him an easy out.

  39. 39.

    SuzieC

    @LAO: “Competing ideas”, eh? The totally respectable intellectual position that 25 % of American women should be hanged?

  41. 41.

    burnspbesq

    As long as there are people who want to hear what he has to say, Williamson will be heard. But the Atlantic is well rid of him.

  42. 42.

    Schlemazel

    I am sooooo pro-life that I believe anyone who had an abortion should be killed and so should all of their kids.

    It is a shame that amount of cognitive dissonance does not cause his head to explode.

  43. 43.

    Roger Moore

    @Raoul:

    The GOP is bugfuck nuts about this.

    They’ve been nuts about it for a long time. As with so much they do, the only thing that’s changed is how open they are about the crazy. They’ve been saying for decades that abortion is murder and that many crimes, including murder, should be punishable by death. All that’s happening is that they’re willing to come right out and admit that the logical conclusion is that women who get abortions and the doctors who perform them should be executed. They used to be afraid to say that because they thought it would scare away voters, but they seem to have overcome their fears.

  45. 45.

    schrodingers_cat

    Is this Williamson person biracial? He look fairly dark to me in the photos I have seen.
    ETA: Just wanted to know whether he is one of the D’Souza, Salam, Ponnuru brigade

  51. 51.

    eemom

    What fascinates me about this is what a total and utter horse’s ass Goldberg has publicly made of himself. It’s like somebody dared him to pull of the stupidest laughingstock journalistic fuck up since “Dewey Defeats Truman”.

  53. 53.

    efgoldman

    @eemom:

    What fascinates me about this is what a total and utter horse’s ass Goldberg has publicly made of himself.

    This is new?

  56. 56.

    Fair Economist

    @FlipYrWhig:

    BTW, did anyone on our side ever say, right around 2009 or so, “hey, Republicans, this is how you got Barack Obama”? With the answer being “you were a smug, evil bunch of dildos for 50 years that one thing just led to another”?

    No, we said they got Obama because they’d wrecked the country, which was the simple truth. If being rude to liberals got liberals elected there’d have been solid Democratic control from the 80’s to the present.

  57. 57.

    Mandalay

    Not be outdone by Williamson and Goldberg in the idiot competition, Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor of Reason, decides to douse herself in gasoline and smoke a cigarette:

    But if The Atlantic purports to capture a broad spectrum of American political views, Williamson’s firing is a sign that it hasn’t yet figured out how to do so. And the reader outcry against him (and his rightish heterodox kinfolk at The New York Times) is a sign of a market that has grown increasingly squeamish about a genuinely inclusive journalistic vision.

  62. 62.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Who represents “diversity of opinion” and inclusiveness or whatever the fuck at the National Review? IIRC they forced Buckley’s son out for turning on Bush and the Iraq War.

  63. 63.

    ChiTown

    @Yarrow: Yes!! Exactly. I’m always suspicious of these “liberal” or “progressive” dudes who always, somehow, just find a way to support clearly misogynistic and often violent (at least against women) men. They just had **no idea** that these guys were serious. Pfftt. A clear sign of how they treat and view women themselves.

  64. 64.

    Mandalay

    @MattF:

    Inclusive… except for any woman who’s had an abortion.

    Exactly. But to be pedantic, if we weren’t so “squeamish” and embraced Williamson’s thinking, women who have had an abortion would not exist. They literally would not exist.

    As Kurt Vonnegut used to say: think of that.

  65. 65.

    eemom

    I did read the one Atlantic column Williamson scored before the ax. It laments the demise of that one true gospel, Libertarianism, at the hands of the ignorant barbarian poseurs who currently call themselves republicans.

    Amongst the many things that cause me to explode in rage at antiabortion fuckwads, the ones who have the fucking gall to call themselves “libertarians” is at the top of the list. Shit makes me a mushroom cloud-laying motherfucker, Super Fly TNT, Guns of the Navaronne, motherfuckers.

  66. 66.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Fair Economist:

    If being rude to liberals got liberals elected there’d have been solid Democratic control from the 80’s to the present.

    It really is remarkable that people are quite willing to say that being mean to conservatives makes conservatives so uncontrollably mad that they can’t stop themselves from electing the most conservative person possible, out of spite. And, hearing this, other people will say, hmm, yes, this is an important point, “we” should be more careful about that.

    Yet being mean to liberals for half a century explains nothing and has no effect, and if anyone ever _did_ raise the possibility to a conservative that it might, he’d say “fuck you, we do and say what we like, tough shit,” and no one would bat an eye at it.

  67. 67.

    Raoul

    @schrodingers_cat: I tried following him for a while on foreign policy issues, but he is a horrible twatwaffle on everything else. Never Trumpers are just right wingers with huge “you’re doing it wrong” issues.

  69. 69.

    David Lowe

    Goldberg actively and dishonestly pushed the invasion of Iraq. He told lies that went beyond the mindless stenography practiced by most of the press. He should not be editing an important national magazine.

  70. 70.

    Raoul

    @Corner Stone: I will keep following Wilson (for now) because he is enjoyably malicious in his Trump-loathing. He still wants GOP hegemony, so I won’t ever be a fanboi. Nichols was just dreadfully tedious.

  71. 71.

    Mary G

    Erickson is now whining about being “ghettoized.” I’d like to send him to a real ghetto. How these people can claim to be Christian never ceases to amaze me.

  72. 72.

    dmsilev

    Speaking of people who are likely soon to be fired, looks like someone has it in for Scott Pruitt. FTNYT has the latest:

    At least five officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, four of them high-ranking, were reassigned or demoted, or requested new jobs in the past year after they raised concerns about the spending and management of the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt.

    The concerns included unusually large spending on office furniture and first-class travel, as well as certain demands by Mr. Pruitt for security coverage, such as requests for a bulletproof vehicle and an expanded 20-person protective detail, according to people who worked for or with the E.P.A. and have direct knowledge of the situation.

    Mr. Pruitt bristled when the officials — four career E.P.A. employees and one Trump administration political appointee — confronted him, the people said.
    […]
    Mr. Weese, the security official, questioned Mr. Pruitt’s desire to use flashing lights and sirens in his motorcade — a perk more commonly associated with the presidency — according to three of the people who worked with or for the E.P.A.

    Mr. Pruitt, who often ran late, wanted to use the lights and sirens to expedite local trips in Washington to the airport or to dinner, including at least one trip to Le Diplomate, a trendy French restaurant that he frequented. Such use was not consistent with agency policy, but Mr. Weese was unsuccessful in stopping it.

  73. 73.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @FlipYrWhig:
    Perhaps we should emulate that attitude then? I think that people shouldn’t care about offending conservatives because they get offended at so much stupid stuff.

  77. 77.

    Roger Moore

    I realize it’s not as serious a problem as his specific deplorable worldview, but the Williamson hiring is a terrible failure of imagination on Goldberg’s part. Instead of going out of his way to find an exciting new voice with a truly novel viewpoint, the Atlantic was content to find somebody who was part of the traditional policy establishment. It reminds me of sports teams who are content to hire a coach who failed with his last three teams; they’re more interested in getting a known quantity than they are in taking a chance at greatness.

  78. 78.

    Raoul

    @Roger Moore: Yeah, it’s been clear since at least Tiller that the right in this country is around the abortion bend.
    Kinda why I said is and not becoming.
    And that whole ‘sanctity of life, but to hell with WIC or Medicaid’ part is unendingly grotesque.

  79. 79.

    Mandalay

    @David Lowe:

    Goldberg actively and dishonestly pushed the invasion of Iraq. He told lies that went beyond the mindless stenography practiced by most of the press. He should not be editing an important national magazine.

    I actually have more time for lying scum like Goldberg, Cheney and Bolton, who did whatever they thought was necessary to help their their vile cause, than the gutless sheep like Joe Scarborough and Nicole Wallace who vilified and sneered at those opposed to the Iraq war at the time, but never apologized afterwards.

    Not that it really makes any difference. They are all still around, pontificating and spewing bullshit.

  82. 82.

    jl

    @dmsilev:

    ” Mr. Weese, the security official, questioned Mr. Pruitt’s desire to use flashing lights and sirens in his motorcade — a perk more commonly associated with the presidency ”
    uh-oh.

    I read a news report, that I couldn’t really follow, that there is also some payback for an ex-girl friend who ratted out Porter, so Porter allies, or Porter himself(?) ratted out Pruitt in retaliation. I don’t how the ex-girlfriend of Porter is connected to Pruitt. Or maybe I didn’t even understand the story that far.

    Anyway, whatever it is, the Trumpsters dish out a true full-service reality TV show WH.

  85. 85.

    Corner Stone

    @Raoul: Rick Wilson at least has a sense of humor. Tom Nichols is fucking irredeemable. They all, including Jenn Rubin, want the return of what they consider the “rational” Republican Party. Which is really just the sotto voce dogwhistling racism combined with Israeli Firsters and Poors Busting.

  89. 89.

    scav

    If the usual suspects are now bleating fervantly with tears in their eyes about inclusivity and minority rights, then somebody’s noticed their baying mob isn’t shouting down everyne else as effectively as they once did.

  90. 90.

    Raoul

    @Mary G: I just watched JC Superstar (the live redo was good!). All these GOP ‘Christians’ seem like the original followers who loved JC right up to the edge, then yelled Crucify Him the loudest when it wasn’t about their personal needs any more.

  95. 95.

    Roger Moore

    @Corner Stone:

    They all, including Jenn Rubin, want the return of what they consider the “rational” Republican Party. Which is really just the sotto voce dogwhistling racism combined with Israeli Firsters and Poors Busting.

    I think for most of them it’s more about one specific issue that’s driven them away from the Trump version of the party. If only the party would abandon that one bad thing, they’d happily go back. But as long as their ox is being gored, they’re angry.

  98. 98.

    piratedan

    there are times where I wonder what color the sky is in Ben Shapiro’s world, somehow I really don’t think that its blue, or that it even has clouds… and everything is defined with a pencil thin black outline to provide just enough definition to everything.

  99. 99.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Could somebody tweet at Nichols and ask which Federalist columnists advocate for abortion rights and Black Lives Matter?

    Thank you in advance

  100. 100.

    Raoul

    @Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): I love this!!
    And I think with W.VA., now OK, and probably soon to be others, we will see the worm turn quickly. Folks like teachers and other good, solid middle class workers have been backed into corners and get who is screwing them. It’s the Walkers and Fallins and every GOP legislature.
    Times up, I am hoping.

  101. 101.

    jl

    @danielx: So Pruitt’s current post is just a probationary job to see whether he is corrupt enough to be Trump’s dream Attorney General?

  102. 102.

    Corner Stone

    @jl:

    I don’t how the ex-girlfriend of Porter is connected to Pruitt. Or maybe I didn’t even understand the story that far.

    I didn’t get it either.

  104. 104.

    Jay

    @jl:

    That’s part of the problem, the Soap Opera garner’s more click bait than the corruption, self enrichment or the destruction of decades of progress.

  106. 106.

    Mandalay

    @jl:

    Mr. Pruitt’s desire to use flashing lights and sirens in his motorcade…

    That story has legs. It’s easy for everyone to understand and sticks in the craw: “Washington elites” and “swamp draining” come to mind immediately, and Trump won’t like the association at all.

    It will be ironic if such a relatively trivial act proves Pruitt’s undoing after the massive harm he has inflicted on the world with impunity.

  109. 109.

    TS

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    Pruitt is such a corrupt asshole.

    I sometimes think they have sold their souls to the devil for the year of living on top of the heap. At the end of 8 years President Obama is welcome anywhere in the world. After 1 year this lot have to hide behind a motorcade of blazing sirens.

  110. 110.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    …by hanging, since it’s more violent than lethal injection, as Williamson explained.

    I’d appreciate more frequent challenges to the idea that lethal injection is in ANY way humane. I’d rather the hung by the neck until dead than be paralyzed and then burned alive from the inside. That shit’s f-d up and unconstitutionally cruel.

  112. 112.

    rp

    Kevin Williamson’s firing is how you got Trump, as well as the alt-right’s near-mainstreaming. Here’s why. (/1)— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) April 5, 2018

    The exact opposite is true: We got trump in part because we didn’t fight back hard enough as the GOP pushed the discussion and the media further and further to the right over the last 30 years. Pushing back against people like Williamson is a step towards correcting this problem.

  113. 113.

    efgoldman

    @Mandalay:

    It will be ironic if such a relatively trivial act proves Pruitt’s undoing

    So Weasel Face appoints Screwit for AG. What happened to Grassley’s pledge not to confirm any replacement for Evil Leprekkkaun?
    [Hahaha I crack me up]

  116. 116.

    r€nato

    Williamson is guilty of nothing more than intellectual rigor with respect to his anti-abortion opinions.

    If one says, “abortion is murder”, then why wouldn’t one want abortion treated exactly as murder is? Meaning, the potential for capital punishment for those guilty of it.

    The woman commissioned the “crime”; if I hire someone to murder someone else, I’m no different from the actual murderer in the eyes of the law.

    People who are opposed to abortion need to stop fucking saying “abortion is murder” because for 95% of them it’s pure hyperbole. They don’t really mean it, but at the same time they want to employ in their cause the full moral weight of an accusation of murder. They don’t actually think women should be executed or even imprisoned for seeking an abortion, because that’s fucking barbaric to most decent people, and also, too, on a purely pragmatic basis they recognize the bad PR for the anti-choice movement such views carry.

    The other 5% really mean it: abortion is murder and everyone involved should be treated like murderers. What’s more, some not-insignificant subset of that 5% thinks that stopping abortion by any means necessary – up to and including bombing clinics and assassinating abortion doctors – is perfectly fine because it’s what any moral person would do if they witnessed murder in progress and had the capability to do something about it.

  117. 117.

    Mandalay

    President Donald Trump on Thursday asserted he was unaware that his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid $130,000 to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016 for her to keep quiet about an alleged affair she’d had years earlier with Trump.

    IANAL and I don’t know if that statement helps Trump, but doesn’t it put Cohen deeply in the shit?

  119. 119.

    RedDirtGirl

    @scav: I loved my Lance Link, Secret Chimp lunchbox when I was a kid. Luckily, no one told me it was only for boys.

  120. 120.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The head of anyone defending Williamson would look much better on a pike that it does on their shoulders.

  124. 124.

    Calouste

    @jl: Simplest explanation seems to me that Pruitt was fucking Porter’s ex-girlfriend, possibly while she wasn’t “ex” yet.

  125. 125.

    Gex

    In what world does “providing balance” necessitate hiring people to make up racist, misogynistic, and extremist talking points to balance out earnest liberal positions? And how is it somehow worse if someone authentically advocates these positions?

    I don’t understand people who say it’s okay to advocate executing 25% of women if you don’t actually mean it then get all flummoxed to find out that ideas spoken are also ideas adopted. That is the entire fucking point of giving these people column inches – to sell their ideas in the marketplace of ideas. Goldberg both wants to sell those ideas and be appalled at the idea that someone might buy into them. I.e. he wanted all the dedicated enthusiastic readership from the frothing at the mouth right that the hire was designed to generate but doesn’t quite have the stomach to truly advocate what the right wing base demands yet he probably still walks away from this thinking it is liberalism that needs a counterbalance.

  126. 126.

    Aleta

    Fucking Goldberg has to preen and say his morals are still intact, instead of admitting he did not investigate or practice journalism. From the start this was never about the right to express a personal viewpoint, old bird. If you think being pro-or anti-death penalty is relevant to your explanation, you need to admit you hired and defended a guy who advocates killing people who never committed a crime. Grapple with that issue.

    What a self-satisfied immoral coward:

    Kevin is a gifted writer, and he has been nothing but professional in all of our interactions. But I have come to the conclusion that The Atlantic is not the best fit for his talents, and so we are parting ways. We remain committed to grappling with complex moral issues in our journalism. Some of our colleagues are pro-life, and some are pro-choice; we have pro-death-penalty and anti-death-penalty writers; we have liberals and conservatives. We obviously understood that Kevin himself is pro-life when we asked him to write for us. This is not about Kevin’s views on abortion.

  127. 127.

    r€nato

    @Baud: I will concede that Williamson’s opinion that women who have an abortion should be hanged by the neck until dead, is unadulterated misogyny. Gosh, if only women had spread their legs for Williamson more often he wouldn’t want those jezebels to die if he happened to impregnate them and they didn’t want to bear his children.

  130. 130.

    TenguPhule

    It should be disqualifying for a person to publicly propose the execution of approximately one in four American women — by hanging, since it’s more violent than lethal injection, as Williamson explained.

    In 2020 it will be the Republican Litmus test.

  131. 131.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    Ha ha.

    Kevin Williamson, a soft-boiled egg coated in pube clippings

  132. 132.

    TenguPhule

    @r€nato:

    People who are opposed to abortion need to stop fucking saying “abortion is murder” because for 95% of them it’s pure hyperbole. They don’t really mean it

    Actually they do. Very much so. You’re just not they’re target audience, so it seems like hyperbole to you.

    They don’t actually think women should be executed or even imprisoned for seeking an abortion

    Excuted perhaps not, but imprisoned oh most certainly yes they do.

  133. 133.

    danielx

    @jl:

    You have to admit that being corrupt enough to be Trump’s AG does set a pretty high bar.

    If only there was someone named Gotti available.

  135. 135.

    dmsilev

    @jl:

    I read a news report, that I couldn’t really follow, that there is also some payback for an ex-girl friend who ratted out Porter, so Porter allies, or Porter himself(?) ratted out Pruitt in retaliation. I don’t how the ex-girlfriend of Porter is connected to Pruitt. Or maybe I didn’t even understand the story that far.

    My understanding is that the ex-girlfriend is an aide to Pruitt. TPM this morning:

    InsideEPA, an EPA trade sheet, reports that Scott Pruitt’s downfall is the work of disgraced former White House aide Rob Porter, who leaked damaging information about Pruitt to retaliate against a former girlfriend who told White House officials about Porter’s history of domestic violence.

    As was basically reported at the time, Porter’s downfall seems to have started when a former girlfriend, Samantha Dravis, went to White House officials and told them what she knew about Porter’s past, particularly his abuse of two ex-wives. Dravis was a top aide to Scott Pruitt, the EPA Administrator.
    […]
    Dravis’s resignation was announced earlier today.

    I’d say it’s like a soap opera, except that soap opera stars are all more attractive-looking than this bunch.

  136. 136.

    Mandalay

    @Mike in DC:

    It does seem like Pruitt is a goner.

    Yep, it looks like Trump’s heavies were instructed to pay a visit to the EPA Ethics Office and strongly advised them to come up with a pretext/reason to allow them to stab Pruitt in the face with a ballpoint pen a gazillion times:

    Contrary to initial reports, the EPA’s ethics office has not cleared Pruitt of all ethics allegations. Instead, agency staff have so far only carried out a very narrow ethics assessment based on limited information, which concluded it didn’t fit the bill of a gift.

    That’s according to the new memo by Kevin Minoli, the EPA’s principal deputy general counsel, who has personally come under fire for how the agency has handled the controversy. Minoli, in the new memo, said he only reviewed the living arrangement in the context of the lease he was provided, but did not assess outside circumstances raised in news reports. Minoli declined to be interviewed for this story.

  137. 137.

    TenguPhule

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:

    I’d rather the hung by the neck until dead than be paralyzed and then burned alive from the inside. That shit’s f-d up and unconstitutionally cruel.

    If you’re hanged the wrong way, it can take you an awfully long time to die.

    Whereas, Drugs could be more humane if more kinds of drugs were allowed for executions.

    Lethal injections of opium, for instance.

  138. 138.

    r€nato

    @WereBear: I’m not in any way saying that there’s anything of merit in the statement, “abortion is murder”. It’s bullshit, easily disproven bullshit.

    But if a person insists that “abortion is no different than murder,” then Williamson’s conclusion (setting aside the method of carrying it out…) makes perfect and barbaric sense. The anti-choicers who waffle on what to do with the “murderers”, are giving away the game. They need to be called on it a lot more often, because if “abortion is murder” can be proven to be hyperbole and hogwash then the anti-choice movement loses a great deal of their alleged moral high ground.

  142. 142.

    dmsilev

    @Mandalay: I really hope Trump axes Pruitt (or rather, has someone else axe Pruitt on his behalf, because he can’t seem to actually fire people himself). Besides the fact that the only way to replace him with someone worse would be to recruit an actual Captain Planet villain, it would also mess up the supposed plan to make him AG without having to go through Senate confirmation hearings.

  143. 143.

    r€nato

    @TenguPhule: I used to be a pro-choice activist but I’m out of touch with what the anti-choicers are saying these days. You may well be correct.

    I just finished watching “The Handmaid’s Tale”. It was tough to get through and filled me with dread. It’s not about to happen here, but then again I never would have imagined 20 years ago that we’d be where we are today, with the GOP fringe nutjob anti-science anti-Enlightenment base running the show and even having their own president in the WH. It makes me wish I’d had kids and specifically daughters so that I could raise them to be ferocious feminists.

    Oh and not for nothing… the next guy in line for the presidency is a dyed-in-the-wool Christian Taliban asshole. A violent revolution leading to the Republic of Gilead doesn’t sound so far-fetched with a President Pence in office, who would have people whispering in his ear that he might have a very short timeframe in which to carry out their agenda.

  146. 146.

    chris

    …the fcking mole people. Charlie Pierce.

    I'm excited to announce we will be publishing an article by Kevin Williamson in the next issue of @Commentary.— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) 5 April 2018

  147. 147.

    bystander

    Ari Melber covering Trump’s pronouncement that he had no affair with Stormy “Second Lady” Daniels and he did not pay the $130,000 to her. Her lawyer Michael Avenatti is on and he’s thrilled. Mya (sp?) Wiley just noted that twitler violated the NDA.

  148. 148.

    TenguPhule

    @Mary G:

    I’d like to send him to a real ghetto.

    What do you have against the local residents that you’d punish them that way.

  150. 150.

    Mandalay

    @r€nato:

    People who are opposed to abortion need to stop fucking saying “abortion is murder” because for 95% of them it’s pure hyperbole. They don’t really mean it…

    They do. Here’s what Trump told Tweety:

    MATTHEWS: The churches make their moral judgments, but you’re running for President of the United States to become Chief Executive of the United States. Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no, as a principle?

    TRUMP: The answer is there has to be some form of punishment.

    MATTHEWS: For the woman?

    TRUMP: Yes.

  151. 151.

    TenguPhule

    @dmsilev:

    Besides the fact that the only way to replace him with someone worse would be to recruit an actual Captain Planet villain

    I would not put this past Trump to attempt to do so.

  152. 152.

    smintheus

    Interesting that Goldberg references “The Atlantic’s tradition of respect, well-reasoned (sic) debate”. In 2011 when a Norwegian lunatic killed 77 children at a summer camp near Oslo, Goldberg immediately jumped to the conclusion that the attack had been committed by Muslim terrorists and he posted a lurid piece at The Atlantic to that effect (“Mumbai Comes to Norway”). Then when the truth came out he tried to cover his tracks by re-editing his bigoted article, pretended he had never made the assumption that Muslim radicals were to blame, and he subsequently ridiculed those who had borne witness to him covering his tracks. There’s some real respect and well-reasoned debate for you.

  153. 153.

    debbie

    @Schlemazel:

    When a man’s that virulently anti-abortion, it’s usually in response to having been misused by a woman, at least in his mind. I can’t cite studies; I’ve confronted and been confronted by a few rabid pro-Lifers of the male persuasion.

  154. 154.

    bystander

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    The head of anyone defending Williamson would look much better on a pike that it does on their shoulders.

    I think you’ve got the making of a successful home needlepoint kit.

  157. 157.

    Corner Stone

    @r€nato:

    People who are opposed to abortion need to stop fucking saying “abortion is murder” because for 95% of them it’s pure hyperbole. They don’t really mean it, but at the same time they want to employ in their cause the full moral weight of an accusation of murder. They don’t actually think women should be executed or even imprisoned for seeking an abortion, because that’s fucking barbaric to most decent people, and also, too, on a purely pragmatic basis they recognize the bad PR for the anti-choice movement such views carry.

    IMO, you very badly misjudge the target audience in this aspect.

  158. 158.

    CaseyL

    @schrodingers_cat: When Nichols first posted a lament for Williamson being victimized by people quoting things he (Williamson) had said, he (Nichols) made sure to note Williamson was an eloquent voice for conservative positions. I asked him (via tweet) is that meant “women who’d had abortions should be hanged” was a conservative position. He did not deign to reply.

    Now that he’s defending Williamson more full-throatedly, without ever mentioning just what it was that got the creep in trouble, it’s clear Nichols is either a) hunkie dorie with Wiliamson’s advocacy of hanging women who’ve had abortions; of b) believes the idea of hanging women who’ve had abortions is a triviality in the face of really important issues like ….deregulating the financial sector. (Nichols angry scorn at laws protecting students from predatory loans is interesting to read.)

    Nichols couldn’t sustain the “reasonable conservative” pose anymore; I think seeing all those tweets of people barefoot on planes unhinged him.

  159. 159.

    MisterForkbeard

    @efgoldman: Didn’t Pruitt *barely* get confirmed for his current gig? 52-46?

    If Trump tries to make him AG after this latest round of obvious corruption, discriminatory hiring practices, and other issues I don’t think he’ll succeed. McCain won’t be there to vote, we’ve got Doug Jones in place too. All it takes is ONE republican then.

    Granted, expecting even one elected Republican to be decent or moral enough to defy their party is a tall order, but I think it’s close enough that Trump won’t do it unless he’s even more off his meds than usual.

  160. 160.

    Faithful Lurker

    @Calouste: According to TPM and Josh Marshal Rob Porter’s ex girlfriend, Samantha Dravis, is responsible fro Porter being booted out of the Whitehouse. She reported his abusive behavior in a way that couldn’t be ignored. She was one of Pruitt’s top aids. So, Porter is responsible for the leaks about Pruitt’s behavior to get back at Dravis. These people never left junior high school.

  163. 163.

    TenguPhule

    @MisterForkbeard: Presumes our usual across the aisle suspects don’t vote for him again and actually act like Democrats. They knew he was a fucking snake when they voted for him the first time.

  164. 164.

    Mandalay

    @dmsilev: Right. Trump may have thought about making Pruitt AG in the past, but I suspect he has decided the guy is radioactive, and the best thing to do now is disembowel him, and leave his corpse at the foot of the Washington Monument as a friendly warning to other member of his cabinet.

  165. 165.

    different-church-lady

    …no one’s life work should be judged by an intemperate tweet…

    Perhaps not. But perhaps one’s own judgement should.

    Also: why do otherwise sensible people keep falling for “He didn’t really mean the horrible things he said in the past?” Andy Kaufman has been dead a long time, and we don’t need him reincarnated as a supposed journalist.

  166. 166.

    TenguPhule

    @Mandalay:

    Trump may have thought about making Pruitt AG in the past, but I suspect he has decided the guy is radioactive

    Are we talking about the same “worst option possible” Trump?

  168. 168.

    dmsilev

    @Mandalay: I think that’s almost but not quite right. “Radioactive” wouldn’t bother Trump much. What would bother Trump is the reports that Pruitt seems to be putting on airs, so to speak. Trump does not like to be upstaged by his minions.

  173. 173.

    TenguPhule

    “This was going to be my remarks. They would have taken about two minutes,” Trump said as he tossed his script into the air. “This is boring. We have to tell it like it is.”

    As he has done before, Trump conjured images of violence and suffering when he described the perils of illegal immigration, though statistics show that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than citizens. He dubbed MS-13 gang members “thugs” and said his administration’s crackdown on the group was “like a war.”

    “MS-13 is emblematic of evil, and we’re getting them out by the hundreds,” said Trump, who sat on stage at a long table in a gym draped in American flags and decorated with signs that read “USA open for business.” ”This is the kind of stuff and crap we are allowing in our country, and we can’t do it anymore.”

    Invoking the lines of his June 2015 campaign kickoff speech, in which he suggested that some Mexican immigrants were rapists, the president appeared to claim that a caravan of migrants that had been working its way north through Mexico toward the United States was besieged with violence.

    “Remember my opening remarks at Trump Tower when I opened? Everybody said, ‘Oh, he was so tough,’ and I used the word rape,” he said. “And yesterday it came out where this journey coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before. They don’t want to mention that.”

    “In many places, like California, the same person votes many times. You probably heard about that,” Trump said. “They always like to say, ‘Oh, that’s a conspiracy theory.’ Not a conspiracy theory, folks. Millions and millions of people. And it’s very hard because the state guards their records. They don’t want us” to see them.”

    So much wrongness crammed into so few non-repetitive words.

  174. 174.

    J R in WV

    @laura:

    “Speaking only for myself…..” no, no, I think you speak for a ton of people in this case. Certainly for me and my wife!

  175. 175.

    matt

    @TenguPhule: Such a scumbag and liar. It’s sad how many Americans consider scumminess and low character to be positives in leaders.

  176. 176.

    different-church-lady

    Kevin Williamson’s firing is how you got Trump, as well as the alt-right’s near-mainstreaming. Here’s why. (/1)— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) April 5, 2018

    It’s funny — he says that almost as though he thinks Trump and a mainstreamed alt-right are bad things to have.

  178. 178.

    Thaddeu

    @r€nato:

    If one says, “abortion is murder”, then why wouldn’t one want abortion treated exactly as murder is? Meaning, the potential for capital punishment for those guilty of it.

    The woman commissioned the “crime”; if I hire someone to murder someone else, I’m no different from the actual murderer in the eyes of the law.

    Yep. More Americans should understand that this is what being prolife is all about. It is the only consistent position for them.

    This poor guy just said it out loud. The whole prolife crowd is misogynists and pretenders looking for a divinely sanctioned excuse to vote for racism and screwing the poor

  179. 179.

    TenguPhule

    Why does google ads on Balloonjuice now think I would be convinced to buy solar panels from midwestern busty blonde women in tight tank tops and jean cutoff shorts?

  180. 180.

    Mandalay

    @danielx:

    the idea that Trump is really upset about corruption in his Cabinet is pretty rich

    I don’t think he cares about corruption in the slightest. What Trump cares about is Pruitt getting caught, which makes Trump look bad.

    Drain the swamp and all that.

  181. 181.

    MisterForkbeard

    @TenguPhule: From other information I’ve gleaned, there’s a possibility that Trump could install Pruitt as AG without a confirmation hearing, since Pruitt’s already had a confirmation hearing for his current position. That would appear to be his chief qualification: He’s a corrupt asshole who ISN’T caught up in the Russia Investigation and could shut it down, AND he wouldn’t have to go through confirmation. Which nicely bypasses any threats from Grassley and others.

  182. 182.

    TenguPhule

    @Thaddeu:

    The whole prolife crowd is misogynists and pretenders looking for a divinely sanctioned excuse to vote for racism and screwing the poor

    Worse. This is one of those things were white women and non-white women are considered equally property.

  183. 183.

    eemom

    @Betty Cracker:

    Drum has never failed to unimpress me by both the puddle depth of his commentary and his dirt dull writing style. Have no idea what anybody sees in him.

  184. 184.

    dmsilev

    EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was either lying or ignorant when he claimed that his former landlord’s lobbyist husband doesn’t have any clients with business before the EPA.

    That’s according to the Daily Beast. The website looked into lobbying records and determined that yes, powerful energy lobbyist Steven Hart — a friend of Pruitt’s from Oklahoma — has clients with business before Pruitt’s agency. Hart is chairman and CEO if Williams & Jensen, one of the most prominent lobbying firms in the country. His wife, Vicki Hart, is a health care lobbyist and Pruitt’s former landlord.

    Yeah, OK I think the “someone is trying to knife Pruitt” theory can be taken as proven.

  185. 185.

    Cacti

    The Atlantic hiring this human skid mark in the first place was unconscionable.

    When right wing rags start hiring liberal writers for the sake of “balance”, then left leaning publications can concern themselves with hiring troglodytes.

  186. 186.

    Jake the antisoshul soshulist

    Abortion is murder and everyone involved should be executed.
    Police shooting an unarmed person is perfectly fine.
    That is enough dissonance for me.
    Kevin Williamson, Jonah Goldberg,
    and Erick Erickson are the state of conservative”intellectuals”. Only the fact that a large portion of the Republican Party would vote for Jeffrey Dahmer is he had an R by his name allows them to win elections. And another 27% would actively campaign for him.

  193. 193.

    J R in WV

    @El Caganer:

    ” it sounds suspiciously like it was made up out of whole cloth.”

    More fictitious than Tom Moustache’s cab drivers, who share their world-view and wisdom with him on the way to his hotel from the international airport he just flew into.

  195. 195.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Baud: Needs to be more explicit: The Obama Presidency was like the hardworking parents who expected you to eat your vegetables, do your homework, and provided a steady home and income for you to grow up in.

    The Trump Presidency is like living with the junkie down the street who’s encouraging you to eat “candy” and beat up the local black and mexican kids for their lunch money.

  196. 196.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    ironically, they gave williamson enough rope and he hung himself

  198. 198.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @LAO:

    The dumbest fucking take of the day belongs to Ben Shapiro (thread)

    Shapiro turns out to be a fuckpuppet for Gates & Manafort.

    Manafort’s media operation included attacks on Clinton. In October 2012 Gates emailed Manafort and Friedman, flagging a piece written by the journalist Ben Shapiro. …
    The article cited a Jewish “leader” who accused Clinton anonymously of creating a “neo-Nazi Frankenstein”. Gates wrote: “Gentlemen – Here is the first part of a series of articles that will be coming as we continue to build this effort. Alan, you get full credit for the Frankenstein comment.”

    theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/05/ex-trump-aide-paul-manafort-approved-black-ops-to-help-ukraine-p…

  200. 200.

    germy

    GG goes full “butwhatabout”

    The editor @TheAtlantic worked as a prison guard in a notorious Israeli camp that detained Palestinians; did more than any other journalist to deceive Americans into believing Saddam & AQ had an alliance; and is a vehement defender of Israeli aggression. That also seems bad. pic.twitter.com/L37XPXp6y9— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 5, 2018

  201. 201.

    germy

    Who is more pissed right now: Williamson or Bill O’Reilly.

    Which one of them played themselves harder?

  205. 205.

    different-church-lady

    @germy: Is GG so petty that he believes the left will make a hero out of Goldberg simply because he fired a right-wing scumbag he had just hired? Pro tip, Glenn: not everyone lives in world of binary conflict.

  206. 206.

    RSA

    @r€nato:

    People who are opposed to abortion need to stop fucking saying “abortion is murder” because for 95% of them it’s pure hyperbole. They don’t really mean it, but at the same time they want to employ in their cause the full moral weight of an accusation of murder.

    I think you’re right in that they don’t really mean it. One implication is that a large percentage of men would be implicated for a charge of conspiracy to commit murder. Those folks may be okay with the execution or imprisonment of tens of millions of women, but probably less so with imprisoning millions of (white, middle-class) men.

  210. 210.

    Washburn

    @Mike in DC:
    More than a little concerning that there is talk, apparently, of him replacing Sessions.

    It is difficult to come up with a list of people who have less integrity than Sessions, but Pruitt would be on that list.

  212. 212.

    Calouste

    @Baud: So, if I start out with the premise that everyone named Kevin Drum is an enemy of the human race, and apply sufficient logic and some fancy words, Kevin Drum is completely Ok with the conclusion that he should be hanged from the neck until he dies?

  213. 213.

    kindness

    I have to put my 2 cents in about Kevin Drum. I read him every weekday. Followed him from his last place to Mother Jones now. He’s an Orange County Democrat at best. Orange County frequently breeds people to have a different kind of mindset from the rest of metropolitan LA. They want all the good stuff and are hostile to the bad as if you could separate the two. Kevin is a DLC Democrat. Not quite Third Way (who are really just moderate Republicans trying to scrape off a few Democrats from voting Democratic) Most of his thoughts are fine and balanced. Some stuff I shake my head over. Defending Williamson’s hire would be one of those times. He hates the idea of (paying for) high speed rail here in CA which is such a car centric attitude. Yea, it’s more expensive than I like but I want it and it isn’t going to get cheaper any time soon so do it. I don’t know why. Cheapness? LA car centric who has never ridden trains or light rail? I don’t know.

    @Washburn: I don’t think Trump could replace Sessions with Pruitt. That would take Senate confirmation and I don’t think with a 1 vote majority and no Senator McCain they would get it.

  214. 214.

    Jay

    @Sm*t Cl*de:

    “Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort authorised a secret media operation on behalf of Ukraine’s former president featuring “black ops”, “placed” articles in the Wall Street Journal and US websites and anonymous briefings against Hillary Clinton.

    The project was designed to boost the reputation of Ukraine’s then leader, Viktor Yanukovych. It was part of a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort carried out by Manafort on behalf of Yanukovych’s embattled government, emails and documents reveal.

    The strategies included:

    • Proposing to rewrite Wikipedia entries to smear a key opponent of the then Ukrainian president.

    • Setting up a fake thinktank in Vienna to disseminate viewpoints supporting Yanukovych.

    • A social media blitz “aimed at targeted audiences in Europe and the US”.

    • Briefing journalists from the rightwing website Breitbart to attack Clinton when she was US secretary of state.

    Manafort’s Ukraine strategy anticipated later efforts by the Kremlin and its troll factory to use Twitter and Facebook to discredit Clinton and to help Trump win the 2016 US election. The material seen by the Guardian dates from 2011 to 2013.”

    Not just Shapiro, there’s a few new names in the documented ratfucking.

  215. 215.

    Tom Levenson

    @danielx: I do not believe Pruitt would survive, or expose himself to, another round of confirmation hearings — and I’m sure the Senate GOP doesn’t want that shit show making the nightly news as November oozes ever closer.

  218. 218.

    SFAW

    @Tom Levenson:

    I do not believe Pruitt would survive, or expose himself to, another round of confirmation hearings

    I think you’re being a tad judgmental — who WOULDN’T want an ethically “compromised” Attorney General? (“Compromised” in scare quotes because only libtards think there’s a problem)

  219. 219.

    KithKanan

    @kindness: Yeah. The thing that has always explained the most to me about Kevin Drum when he has his… moments… is that he’s a reasonably successful white dude who presumably has the means to live wherever he wants in SoCal, and he chose Irvine.

  220. 220.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @TenguPhule:

    This is one of those things were white women and non-white women are considered equally property.

    You truly underestimate their racism. Yes, this is viciously misogynistic across the board, but one major pillar in the anti-abortion movement is that they believe black women are the ones getting most of the abortions. That black women have irresponsible sex is a major racist trope.

  222. 222.

    Gretchen

    Kindness: No. Pruitt has already been Senate confirmed so he doesn’t need to be re-confirmed if he’s moved to Justice. That’s exactly why Trump is considering him.

  223. 223.

    El Caganer

    Just saw that Trump has doubled down on the Chinese and is talking about an additional $100B to be subject to tariffs. So much winning!

  224. 224.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @Jay:

    Not just Shapiro, there’s a few new names in the documented ratfucking.

    Yes, I was impressed by the number of supposed journamalists who are in fact pukefunnels and fuckpuppets for anyone waving a pre-written article and a large wad of money.

  225. 225.

    Chet Murthy

    @Thaddeu:

    This poor guy just said it out loud.

    Yeap. All these forced-birthers are dreamin’ of Nicaragua & Honduras (where a woman can be jailed for a miscarriage, if it looks “suspicious”). Dreamin’ of it. Williamson just said the quiet parts out loud.

    Heh. He’s the same way about the white working class — remember that National Review column he wrote, basically telling poor white folk to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, get a u-haul and move to someplace with jobs? I shit you lot, google “kevin williamson u-haul”. The only difference between him and Lord Littledick on that, is that Shitlord knows not to say that last bit out loud, and Kevin doesn’t know.

  226. 226.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @Chet Murthy:

    telling poor white folk to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, get a u-haul and move to someplace with jobs

    True compassion and true altruism are all about letting people experience and learn from the consequences of their poor decisions, like “getting pregnant” or “living in the wrong place”.
    Obviously this does not apply to rightwing columnists who totally deserve a mulligan when they want to forget the dumb crap they puked out in the past.

  227. 227.

    Roger Moore

    @TenguPhule:

    Whereas, Drugs could be more humane if more kinds of drugs were allowed for executions.

    I’m actually amazed it’s taken this long for a state to seriously propose execution by asphyxiation with nitrogen. It’s well known that an environment without enough oxygen is extremely dangerous because there are no obvious warning signs; people just pass out without ever realizing they’re in mortal peril. And unlike the drugs used for executions, the supply of nitrogen is not controlled by a handful of companies that might object to their product being used for capital punishment.

  228. 228.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Thaddeu:

    The messaging from Democrats about abortion should be simple:

    “We want to prevent abortions by making birth control and sex ed available to all. Republicans want to prevent abortions by hanging women.”

    Exactly why did Goldberg think that Williamson’s views needed an outlet at the Atlantic? Does he think that the right is stifled by only having Fox News, Sinclair Broadcasting, virtually all of Talk Radio, Breibart and the New York Times as captured outlets?

    Or was he chasing a readership that’s intensely loyal to quasi-fascists and extremely profitable.

  229. 229.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    “Each fertilised egg is a full human being with almost as many rights as a corporation, which is why we’re funding research into the huge toll of early miscarriages and non-implantations,” said no Genuine Sincere forced-birther ever.

  230. 230.

    Jay

    BTW:

    “In Everything You Love Will Burn, journalist Vegas Tenold reveals that [Nazi Matthew] Heimbach was trained at the Leadership Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC, whose alumni include Mitch McConnell, Grover Norquist, and James O’Keefe; that Heimbach is hugely influenced by Pat Buchanan; and that, on Inauguration Day, Heimbach was introduced to a room full of GOP strategists and state legislators at the Capitol Hill Club, directly across from the Capitol building. “A few years ago the GOP wouldn’t be able to even sit in the same room as you, but things have changed, and now we need each other,” Heimbach’s Republican contact told him, as quoted by Tenold. “This is a big day.”

    mikethemadbiologist.com/2018/04/03/when-the-republican-party-flirts-with-nazis/

    It’s not “turtles” all the way down, it’s Nazi’s all the way down.

  232. 232.

    eemom

    @kindness:

    Yea, it’s more expensive than I like but I want it and it isn’t going to get cheaper any time soon so do it. I don’t know why. Cheapness? LA car centric who has never ridden trains or light rail? I don’t know.

    Privileged white boy asshole?

  233. 233.

    Chet Murthy

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    The messaging from Democrats about abortion should be simple:

    “We want to prevent abortions unwanted pregnancies by making birth control and sex ed available to all ensuring that women have full control of how, when, where, and by whom they choose whether or not to have sex and bear children. Republicans want to prevent abortions by hanging women.”

    Minor edits. I’ve read too many people arguing that for Dems to agree with the “preventing abortions” language is already conceding half the battleground. And I have to agree with them.

  234. 234.

    kindness

    @eemom: I grew up riding the Croton Hudson line as a kid. Sometimes I’d take Amtrack to Boston. I like trains and think they are an excellent form of transportation. CA spend huge sums of money on our freeways and airports. I think some should go to passenger rail too. Kevin doesn’t see it that way. Really I think he’d be OK with it if it was free to build. There’s another shake your head moment.

  235. 235.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @eemom: It’s not snark. Go back & read the whole article, not just the first few paragraphs. Scott & I will be around to accept your apology.

  236. 236.

    Another Scott

    @Gretchen: I don’t think that’s right. Or at least, the are lots of details that make it a very difficult path…

    Politico:

    A prominent Washington attorney advising one member of the administration said choosing Pruitt to replace Sessions would make sense because, as a member of the Cabinet who has already been confirmed by the Senate, Pruitt could serve in an acting capacity until he is formally nominated.

    But a Pruitt nomination for attorney general would face fierce resistance from Democrats, who have criticized his tenure at the EPA, arguing that he is too closely tied to the oil industry and has weakened crucial environmental protections.

    Just Security:

    […]

    The more complicated scenario is to rely on the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. Here’s the relevant provision, codified at 5 U.S.C. § 3345(a)(2): “notwithstanding [the default rule that the deputy becomes the acting], the President (and only the President) may direct a person who serves in an office for which appointment is required to be made by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to perform the functions and duties of the vacant office temporarily in an acting capacity subject to the time limitations of section 3346.”

    In other words, the President may direct anyone who holds a “PAS” office—one requiring presidential appointment and Senate confirmation—to serve as Acting Attorney General for 210 days (and potentially longer, depending upon when the President nominates someone to the position). And under the terms of the Act, the individual does not even have to be serving in the Justice Department at the time they’re tapped to be Acting Attorney General; they just have to hold a Senate-confirmed position. (The Act also allows for the interim appointment of any DOJ employee at the pay-scale of GS-15 or higher who has served in their DOJ position for at least 90 of the previous 365 days.)

    The upside of the Vacancies Reform Act-route is obvious: President Trump could name someone much more sympathetic to his views to serve as Acting Attorney General—someone who might take a far different view of Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation, and who might even be inclined to seek to fire Mueller through one of the mechanisms I described in a post on the ACSblog on Friday. But there are downsides: First, the language of the Vacancies Reform Act is not at all clear that it applies when the previous officeholder is fired (the statute is triggered when the current officeholder “dies, resigns, or is otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office”). Indeed, there’s a non-frivolous argument that this omission on Congress’s part was intentional—to prevent a President from firing an officer and then using the more generous provisions of the Vacancies Reform Act to hand-pick a short-term (and, potentially, un-re-confirmable) successor. Second, there is at least an argument that the specific terms of the DOJ succession statute (which clearly pass the mantle to the Deputy Attorney General, i.e., Rosenstein) should trump the more general terms of the Vacancies Reform Act. There’s a counterargument, of course (the Vacancies Reform Act is the later-enacted statute, and so could be argued to override the DOJ statute); but there would at least be the prospect of a legal dispute. (For what it’s worth, the Justice Department’s own Office of Legal Counsel has concluded that the Vacancies Reform Act can override the DOJ succession statute.)

    Third, and more pragmatically, as we learned with Noel Francisco and the Solicitor General position earlier this year, the Vacancies Reform Act also constrains the ability of the person named to the “Acting” position to also be nominated as the permanent successor. So if President Trump has a long-term replacement in mind, even if he or she is already serving in a Senate-confirmed position, naming them as Acting Attorney General under the Vacancies Reform Act won’t work. In other words, the Vacancies Reform Act route, even if it’s available in a case in which the previous Attorney General has been fired, is only a short-term solution (and one that disqualifies the short-term acting successor from being nominated for the position on a permanent basis). Of course, President Trump could name an unending series of short-term successors, but that assumes that there are enough already-serving PAS appointees willing to be used in this manner.

    […]

    I don’t think he’s going to fire Sessions unless he can appoint someone via the normal Senate procedures. And it’s far from clear that he’ll ever get anyone else through the Senate confirmation procedures.

    He’ll whine and cry and scream, but I think he’s stuck with Sessions. I’ve been wrong before though… ;-)

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  237. 237.

    Anne Laurie

    @debbie:

    Someone needs to dig up how many abortions he’s paid refused to pay for over the years.

    “Not gonna help you kill my baby, slut. But don’t come looking for child support, cuz I’ll drag you through as many courts as necessary to deny I ever had sex with you.”

    I wish I were kidding, but I’ve witnessed too many Williamson types say this.

  238. 238.

    SFAW

    @Gretchen:

    No. Pruitt has already been Senate confirmed so he doesn’t need to be re-confirmed if he’s moved to Justice.

    No. For him to become non-Acting AG, he’d still have to be confirmed by the Senate.

    Confirmations are not transitive.

  240. 240.

    Tenar Arha

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    Exactly why did Goldberg think that Williamson’s views needed an outlet at the Atlantic? Does he think that the right is stifled by only having Fox News, Sinclair Broadcasting, virtually all of Talk Radio, Breibart and the New York Times as captured outlets?

    Or was he chasing a readership that’s intensely loyal to quasi-fascists and extremely profitable.

    I’ve been thinking about it, because Goldberg isn’t the first editor of a publication to do this recently. I’m partly leaning towards the answer David Klion & Joshua Holland were discussing on this episode of the Politics and Reality Radio podcast, the arguments for conservatism are so old and so played out that there’s a shortage of quality Never Orange Julius pundits. And most of these older status quo publications have been trained over years that they must have a conservative voice by conservative publications hitting them so hard on their “liberal bias” so often. I don’t think Klion & Holland said it specifically but most of the pundits who aren’t vile seem like provocateurs with writing abilities who count it as a win if they make liberals mad. And the Orange creep’s followers run the range from Nazis to the white supremacist patriarchal curious who couldn’t write their way out of a paper bag.

    Plus, it’s been clear for a while IMHO that no matter his upbringing Goldberg has blind spots you could drive a truck through, and two of them are unconscious sexism and unconscious racism.

  241. 241.

    Tenar Arha

    @Viva BrisVegas:
    Addendum: in case the 2nd paragraph is unclear, what I meant by “unconscious” is that Goldberg has the self-awareness of a certain class of Jewish-American guys (boy do I wish I was kidding about this because then I wouldn’t have so many fights with my family) which is that he’s privileged enough to usually only have to pay attention to anti-semitism, so he doesn’t feel the need to look for those nasty dog whistles against anyone else.

  243. 243.

    eemom

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Scott & I will be around to accept your apology.

    Gonna be a long wait. I get that lead exposure is toxic with horrific long term consequences, but the root of all crime? That POS is facile junk science parroted by a guy who has zero qualification in the subject area he purports to address. Not that qualification would matter to antivaxxer wannabes like yourselves.

    @SFAW:

    GFY

  244. 244.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    @eemom: Well here is a peer reviewd, overview, scientific article on lead exposure and criminality decline. with LOTS of scientific references. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3829390/ . Correlation is not causation, but it’s an amazingly large number of concurring studies, rather than the single study.

    Your counterclaim, the anti-vaxer leader Andrew Wakefield, committed legal and scientific fraud, and has already killed many people through is actions. His papers have been retracted, and he is essentially a trumpist that spent 20-30 years of his life to spread misinformation for personal gain into the scientific body of knowledge. Lyseko would drop to his knees in awe at the damage that he did.

  247. 247.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @eemom: I see why SFAW was laughing. You seem to be the classic “don’t-back-down-double-down” type.

    “Junk science”? ROTFLMAO. You post like someone who wouldn’t know real science if it crept up behind you & bit you in the arse. As it happens, I spent >30 years working as a research statistician & biostatistician & I will state categorically that by all evidence, the science here is not “junk.” You don’t like it? Doesn’t fit your prejudices? Tough shit.

    FTR, I hold no brief for Kevin Drum’s writing in general. What he did in this article was precisely what a responsible journalist ought to do: Assimilate information developed by experts & organize & present it comprehensibly, along with enough background material to set it in context. That doesn’t make him an “authority” about anything. Anything else he has written (or will write) has to stand or fall on its own.

    Also FTR, I take personal offense at the nasty ad hominem “antivaxxer wannabe” crack, coming from your total ignorance of who I am. There is no way I could ever be “antivax”:

    My dear friend & contemporary contracted polio as a child just before the Salk vaccine became available. It ravaged his childhood &, though I watched him get on brilliantly since we met in college >50 years ago, post-polio muscular atrophy has now all but confined him to a motorized chair.

    Society has all but forgotten how terrified parents were in those days by the threat of “infantile paralysis”, with its “iron lungs” & braces. I can’t & won’t forget, ever

    Fuck you for even suggesting otherwise. And fuck you again with a rusty chainsaw for having the gall to try & smear someone you know nothing about.

    But thank you for reminding me (as if Susan Sarandon weren’t evidence enough) that hatemongering imbeciles exist on this side of the aisle as well.

  248. 248.

    eemom

    @Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]:

    From your link:

    Lead exposure in childhood may have played a small role in rising and falling crime rates in the USA but it is unlikely to account for the very high percentage of the decline suggested by the ecological studies. The major anomaly in the evidence is that the associations reported in ecological studies are much stronger (explaining 56-90% of the variation in crime rates) than the weaker relationships found in the cohort studies (that typically explain less than 1% of the variance in offending).

    What I said:

    I get that lead exposure is toxic with horrific long term consequences, but the root of all crime?

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Fuck you right back, self-righteous asshole.

  249. 249.

    eemom

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Oh, and as for “responsible journalism” — let’s consider the sensationalist headlines in Drum’s article — e.g., “Gasoline lead may explain as much as 90 percent of the rise and fall of violent crime over the past half century” — in light of the above conclusion of the “peer reviewed, overview, scientific article on lead exposure and criminality decline with LOTS of scientific references.”

    Susan Sarandon indeed, idiot.

  250. 250.

    Another Scott

    @Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]: Thanks for the link. Dunno if that’s a strong paper to cite – it’s in an open access journal, and it only has 5 cites in Google Scholar. The reviewer reports indicate that most of the push-back was on the strength of the conclusion.

    This (from 2016) might be worth considering as well. It is much newer and already has 7 cites.

    Abstract

    Context

    Childhood lead exposure has been associated with criminal behavior later in life. The current study aimed to analyze the association between elevated blood lead levels (n=59,645) and crime occurrence (n=90,433) across census tracts within St. Louis, Missouri.

    Design

    Longitudinal ecological study.

    Setting

    Saint Louis, Missouri.

    Exposure measure

    Blood lead levels.

    Main outcome measure

    Violent, Non-violent, and total crime at the census tract level.

    Results

    Spatial statistical models were used to account for the spatial autocorrelation of the data. Greater lead exposure at the census-tract level was associated with increased violent, non-violent, and total crime. In addition, we examined whether non-additive effects existed in the data by testing for an interaction between lead exposure and concentrated disadvantage. Some evidence of a negative interaction emerged, however, it failed to reach traditional levels of statistical significance (supplementary models, however, revealed a similar negative interaction that was significant).

    Conclusions

    More precise measurements of lead exposure in the aggregate, produced additional evidence that lead is a potent predictor of criminal outcomes.

    Also, Drum had this later addendum to his article:

    One final note. If I had one thing to do over in my 2013 article, I think I’d dump the chart showing the overall national correlation between lead and crime (the subject of this paper). It’s obvious why it was included: it’s a visually dramatic statement, and historically speaking it was the observation that started research into lead and crime. But there’s a reason I wrote my piece in 2013: that was when the evidence started really piling up in favor of the lead theory. The national correlation by itself would never have been enough to justify writing the piece. In fact, it’s easily the least important part of the whole argument, and placing it front and center did nothing except prompt endless choruses of “correlation is not causation!” from people who don’t read beyond the pictures. I wish I’d never included it.

    So what is important? On a statistical level, there are state-level correlations, city-level correlations, and, most importantly, international correlations. All of those together paint a very convincing picture. On an outcome level, there are prospective studies that track children with elevated lead levels. All of them show that they get arrested at higher rates the higher their childhood lead exposure. On a medical level, there are now brain scan studies that provide a plausible pathway for lead exposure to cause permanent neurological damage to parts of the prefrontal cortex associated with impulse control.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  251. 251.

    eemom

    In the absence of properly designed epidemiological studies, all you have from any of the above is correlation and speculation. And guess what? Correlation is not, in fact, causation, uncool as Drum may find those who remind him of that fact.

    I will also ask, what does any of this sensationalism accomplish? Are the well documented toxic effects of lead exposure not enough to guard against it, whether it is correlated with crime or not?

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