Scoop: Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is joining the Conservative Partnership Institute, a group run by former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint that operates as a "networking hub" for conservativeshttps://t.co/mPLqTBDapx
— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) January 27, 2021
The ‘good’ news, for Mark Meadows, is that he may be reduced to housekeeping for Jim deMinted, but at least he’s not fetching & carrying for Donald Trump… at the moment.
… Between the lines: Meadows, who is still in frequent contact with former President Trump and has been advising him ahead of his impeachment trial, will now operate behind the scenes to help create more members like Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley — conservative firebrands with strong networks and staffs…
The backdrop: DeMint founded CPI because he felt the conservative movement did a lousy job at helping members of Congress be effective legislators once they get to D.C…
Because — who could have predicted? — being a high-ranking henchman for the guy who incited his followers into an insurrection is not good for one’s resume…
playing a violin so tiny it could have been made for Ben Shapiro over this https://t.co/u5c5ZlcbDY
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) January 25, 2021
Anyone who had an option, took the option. It’s down to the True Believers and the Otherwise Unemployable at Marred-A-Largo:
… [A]s Trump gingerly charts out next steps, he is doing so increasingly alone. Two of his most trusted confidantes, Johnny McEntee and Hope Hicks, declined to join him in Florida after spending years by his side on the campaign trail and in the West Wing…
Many other aides have left his side, eager to start anew far away from their former boss. White House aides and administration officials who once relished their West Wing perches have jetted off on remote getaways — cashing in on a mountain of unused vacation time. Others are frantically asking former colleagues for help finding work as they prioritize their own careers over whatever chapter Trump is planning for himself.
“There’s a lot of resumé passing and people just wanting to help people land on their feet,” said a former Trump White House official.
It’s not been easy. Tainted by Trump’s reputation, several Trump aides described an increasingly bleak job market with virtually no chance of landing jobs in corporate America and some even having seen promising leads disappear after the rampage at the U.S. Capitol. A second former White House official said they knew of “people who got jobs rescinded because of Jan. 6.” A Republican strategist was blunter.
“They are really f—ed,” the strategist said, pointing to some top officials who stuck with Trump until the bitter end. “The Hill scramble, one of the few places where they’d be welcomed, already happened a month or so ago… They were told over and over to take their hand off the hot stove, and they didn’t want to listen.”...
It’s a far different reality from where Trump and his aides had envisioned they would be. A month ago, everything seemed crystal clear: He had lost the 2020 election but would soon launch a juggernaut campaign for the presidency in 2024, and his allies and inner circle would be there to help. Now, the former president’s team is scampering away — willing to leave Washington, in some cases for red states like Texas and Florida, to increase their job prospects — while his own second act is clouded by uncertainty….
The bad news — not so much for Meadows as for the rest of us — is that the GOP Death Cult’s refusal to disavow Trump and his Deplorable Base has given Donny Dollhands the space to set up the kind of ‘cosa nostra’ he’s always dreamed of. Since no reasonable commercial vendor will work with his team, the Republicans are being led further down the path to the jungle camp that ends with a Flavor-Aide cocktail party. All for Trump, and Trump only for himself!
Because Trump’s campaign’s email infrastructure has been suspended by the vendor it was using, Campaign Monitor, his allies had to come up with a new way to email 1,000s of reporters.https://t.co/MgITDUCEDI
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) January 26, 2021
… The ex-president’s former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, created a new email distribution system via one of his private companies for Trump’s statements because the 2020 campaign’s email infrastructure has been suspended by the vendor it had been using, Campaign Monitor, according to two people familiar with the matter.
A slew of technology platforms excised Trump accounts or subgroups, including those on Twitter, Facebook, Shopify, Twitch and Instagram, after the Jan. 6 riot by pro-Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol…
One of Parscale’s companies, Nucleus, built an email distribution system meant to circumvent outside vendors. Aides want to prevent media companies from silencing or “canceling” Trump in the future, one of the people said.
The letterhead on the statement indicated that the office will operate out of Palm Beach, where Trump moved after leaving the White House last week. According to the statement, the “office will be responsible for managing President Trump’s correspondence, public statements, appearances, and official activities to advance the interests of the United States and to carry on the agenda of the Trump administration through advocacy, organizing, and public activism.”…
Also on Monday, a Trump adviser said he had no plans to break from the Republican Party to pursue a third party.
The political species Repub Modernicus has evolved to an unbeatable mastery of its peculiar ecological niche: ‘economically anxious’ (racist) aspiring-to-upper-middle-class White ‘Evangelical’ (exclusionary) voters with strong authoritarian preferences. What happens when (as) that niche becomes an increasingly minor group within the voting majority?
the Republican Party's deep commitment to a total lack of accountability for themselves runs much deeper than any disdain they might have for Trump https://t.co/GrduDEr0ap
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) January 25, 2021
On The Road – randy khan – Venice and Environs, Part 4
Old School
How’s that working out for him?
rikyrah
Been in mourning for Cicely Tyson.
RIP?
Lived a wonderful life.
Brachiator
Firebrands. Not quite the first word that popped into my head when I thought about these dopes.
Yutsano
Résumé!!!
Jeebus Politico. Accents aren’t that hard.
sdhays
LOL. Yeah. Just like the 2020 “juggernaut”.
sdhays
It’s interesting how many Republicans who claimed “on condition of anonymity” that they were afraid of being targeted with an angry tweet from Dump are still completely on board with doing whatever it takes to protect him despite the tweets having been taken away from his tiny, tiny hands. Permanently.
It’s almost like they were lying that they secretly hate him.
MattF
No sympathy for any of them. He-who-shall-not-be-named has them by the sensitive parts, and they deserve that fate.
patrick II
Chris Stirewalt, the FOX newsman fired calling Arizona for Joe Biden early on, has this to say in a LATimes oped:
I thought that was nicely said. I guess a paycheck stopped him form saying it any earlier.
dmsilev
So, T****’s last-stand staffers have shown him roughly as much loyalty as he shows them (“none”), meaning that he’s now reliant on people who are, amazingly and I didn’t think this was possible, too incompetent to have worked in his administration.
Me, I’m sticking with Team Boring-And-Highly-Competent.
dmsilev
@sdhays: We also went through the Death Star (blow up by Rebels) and the Kraken (battered, deep fried, and served with a zesty marinara dip).
Hungry Joe
@Brachiator: Yeah, “firebrands” might be just a little off. How about “jackasses”?
MisterForkbeard
@Yutsano: Disagree. There are lots of hard accents :)
NotMax
Hours ahead in front of the mirror, practicing “You want fries with that?”
//
patrick II
@Old School:
DeMint teaches them to be “better Republican legislators” : introduce a tax cut bill, introduce a voter suppression bill, a reduce health care bill, and, if you get a chance, privatize Social Secuirty bill. Anthing else — filibuster.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
An amazing woman.
Her obituary in “Variety” notes this little tidbit.
Going to have to pick this up.
Apart from her film and TV work, I wish that I had seen some of her amazing theater work. I read many of the plays that she appeared in. It must have been something to see her on stage.
Little things. I was always mesmerized by the profile photo of her amazing face on the cover of the Miles Davis album “Sorcerer.”
Roger Moore
We already know the answer to this: they try to change who’s allowed to vote.
HumboldtBlue
Let me try again after I deleted my own comment.
Can our Sabbath observing friends clue us in on the Jewish Space Lasers cuz Jewish moms ain’t having it. Too dangerous.
RobertDSC-Mac Mini
I remember his trick football toss video from his time at UConn. Funny how he became close to the Loser In Chief.
Hungry Joe
I want to know who blabbed about our space laser.
Redshift
Yeah, but if they don’t protect him, he’ll stab them in the back right now. They each would rather bet they’ll be retired or he’ll keel over before he gets around to backstabbing them.
Super Dave
It occurs to me that Trump et al are just not very smart. I think this fact is quite often overlooked by those who seem to think that motley crew of thugs and grifters are playing 11-dimensional chess.
Poe Larity
I’m sorry, but Meadows and DeMint? I’m so old I remember some of that… but look. Whenever I go to Austin I make it a point to piss on Bob Bullocks grave but I don’t enjoy it.
artem1s
every day I hear some new scam in the works that will be the sure fire thing to help Dolt
45resurrect himself. he doesn’t have any influence or power anymore that would interest anyone with any money or prospects. and the impeachment hearings haven’t even started yet for him or his collaborators. this is going to be the saddest longest decline of a public figure I can think of. even Nixon knew when to stop and go hide from the public eye. the best news of all is Dolt can pretty much only hurt himself and those who choose to stay around him. and I’m frankly fine with him inflicting as much damage as possible on the GOP and for as long as they are too stupid to get away from the blast zone.on the other hand I was catching up on Rachel tonight and suddenly realized we are only a week into Joe-mentum and I can hardly believe what has already gotten done. Schumer was outlining some of the sustainable energy ideas they had cooking for the infrastructure bill and he sounded positively giddy. they’re already coordinating a plan to deal with Moscow Mitch’s obstructions. Damn it’s nice to have someone experienced and upbeat about governing in charge again.
rikyrah
NotMax
OT.
Just deceased at 95 (from COVID-related pneumonia) Sonny Fox on being a POW in Germany.
NYC metropolitan jackals of a certain age group will recognize the name as a pioneer in live TV.
HumboldtBlue
The live weather report can be interrupted. By little people.
Alison Rose
@HumboldtBlue: All I know is I haven’t gotten my cut.
danielx
So Meadows is climbing on the wingnut gravy train due to being otherwise unemployable: hoocoodanode?
And gravy there will be. I read an article from Forbes (I think) that said everybody would be amazed at how much money Trump will make, and the author was right. The math is pretty compelling. Start with one ability Trump possesses in abundance – the ability of separating marks from their money. He got 74 million votes. The article speculated that Trump could come up with something – a weekly newsletter, a podcast, live streaming rally, something – for which three million of his followers would part with a hundred dollars a year. Which equates to three hundred million a year.
I believe that to be on the low side, myself. I think there are five million people out there who are Trump fanatics who would pay a hundred bucks a year for anything whatsoever he deigned to provide or for that matter nothing at all. All of which leads me to believe that whatever else may become of Donald Trump, lack of money will not be one of his problems.
Which is pretty goddamned depressing. I’d ask nothing better than for someone to tell me I’m wrong.
ETA: it’s an easy way to display support for him without, you know, appearing in rude videos and whatnot. What could be better?
smike
@Brachiator: Wow, I didn’t realize that she and Miles actually married. Don’t know why I didn’t realize that, so Wow.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Brachiator: I prefer a term used for Newt Gingrich: bomb thrower.
Firebrand evokes fire and passion; bomb thrower evokes destruction.
HumboldtBlue
Eddie Glaude has something to say.
Mallard Filmore
@danielx:
Naturally this income stream will be set up to be isolated from any bankruptcy obligations that his legal and real estate troubles will cause.
Alison Rose
@HumboldtBlue: Is Eddie Glaude the baby? :P
smike
@HumboldtBlue:
@HumboldtBlue:
That woman looks like she should be holding a nasty little whip in one hand and a ball-gag in the other, some people are saying…
HumboldtBlue
Crap.
Not the baby! Eddie Glaude!
And the comments box is acting up again and I fear it may be Firefox.
Mary G
@rikyrah: Me too. Such a talent and spunky personality. She kept her age a secret for a long time to prevent getting slotted into “Mom” roles. I loved her voice.
Chetan Murthy
@HumboldtBlue: Shoot it into my veins, Dr. Glaude! Mainline it!
Mary G
Master actors bringing it:
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
Hold out hope it won’t be treated as dismissively as the B-J/Firefox anomaly of line spacing, which was “Oh, you’re using Firefox? Tough luck. No intention of making the site mesh with it the way every other place on the web does.”
mrmoshpotato
Didn’t see this mentioned on my skim through.
I won’t break the formatting with my laughter. :)
Fuck ’em!
Mary G
Is Babylon 5 any good? It’s coming to HBO max and I need a new scifi series.
ian
Wait… wait.. wait. didn’t Trump fire Pascale and then blame him for hundreds of millions of dollars of lost money? Wasn’t this before his shirtless wifebeating incident?
Stockholm syndrome.
Chetan Murthy
@Mary G: (1) it was groundbreaking in many ways
but (2) it was -slow-, really -slow- moving
(3) and the CGI was pretty weak.
Notwithstanding, I re-watched it thru the end of the first major story-arc (about the Shadows, Vorlons, etc). Then kind of petered-out.
But hey, it’s not bad. I mean, it’s not as bad as some early SyFy stuff.
Mallard Filmore
@Mary G:
I liked it way back when, as a first run TV series. Viewing it again in reruns, it lost a lot when viewed after shows with superior production work, like Person Of Interest.
It does have some very good moments, but for a second viewing it has a lot of filler between the moments (that I know are coming sometime soon, kinda soon, very soon, …)
Chetan Murthy
@ian: That description of what Parscale’s setting up for Shitlord sounds like Parscale’s gonna take him for another shit-ton of $$. Setting up the infrastructure for online marketing etc. That shit isn’t cheap if you gotta set it up and run it yourself, and you can’t turn it into a cloud offering you can sell to a bunch of customers. And if you’ve gotta learn how to do it from-scratch.
NotMax
@Mary G
When it is good it is very, very good. And when it is not it is adequate. Really doesn’t fully gel until season two.
Pro tip: Stick with the series, avoid the movies.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Super Dave: Yes, if Trump was capable of the kind of planning and effort the press imagines him having the pandemic would be more or less under control and Trump would have easily been re-elected.
Mallard Filmore
@Mary G: For a preview of some good bits, search Youtube for “Babylon 5”. There will be short clips for you to get a feel for the show.
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
Lurves me some Zathras (not a spoiler, per se).
mrmoshpotato
One hopes that Parscale makes a legal fuck up and every cent he fleeces from the Kremlin’s orange bitch gets taken by the courts.
Chetan Murthy
@NotMax: I think NotMax’s review is better than mine, and I agree with it more. The storytelling in the first multi-season arc was actually pretty excellent.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Trump debt payments could easily be over 300 million a month. One of the reasons Trump ran for president was all the scams he had been doing before weren’t enough.
Chetan Murthy
@mrmoshpotato: Ol’ Brad doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who can hang on to loot: I foresee it going up his snoot, or spent on high-priced toys and company. Doubt there’ll be anything left for the courts. And that’s OK, as long as he robs ol’ Orange Foolius blind.
HumboldtBlue
Brian Williams.
Yo, Brian Williams, y’all.
Comrade Colette
@HumboldtBlue:
No.
I mean, we could, but then we’d have to
killcircumcise you.NotMax
@
Like to imagine Bill Mumy softly singing in his dressing room.
Bone heads, bone heads
Holy holy bone heads
:)
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@rikyrah: I read in an obituary that she successfully presented herself for many years as being 15 years younger than she actually was! I am very impressed since I can’t imagine very many women could pull that off. She was a lovely elegant woman and fabulous actress who took very meaningful roles.
NotMax
Whoopsie daisy. #56 was supposed to be @Chetan Murthy
Chetan Murthy
@HumboldtBlue: that’s … that’s … that’s … surreal. In a good way.
Chetan Murthy
@NotMax: Whoa. I of course remember the character Lennier (Mimbari side-kick to Delenn) but I didn’t know/notice it was Bill Mumy all grown-up. Nice!
HumboldtBlue
@Comrade Colette:
Misericordia Hospital in Philadelphia clipped me and I didn’t get a fucking laser.
Aleta
(ABC) Man who wore horns at riot willing to speak at Trump’s trial
It would be wrong to let him speak. But let him lead the GOP in a pre-dawn dance to Darkness on the 8th.
Martin
@mrmoshpotato: I’m going to say, anyone with $6M to invest must have some kind of brain parasite to lose money between 2013 and 2020. You have to actively work to fuck that up.
Martin
@Aleta: I’m trying to think of a downside to this, and I legit don’t think there is one.
Martin
@Brachiator: I was shocked when the news said she was 96. I actually had to go look her up because I was sure I must have confused her with someone else – there was no way she could be 96.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Apparently West Palm Beach is being infested by Trump supporters
https://youtu.be/NTNOpjG0CeM
Juju
Someone should tell Trump being an asshole is not an agenda.
JoyceH
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: That’s an interesting anecdote, but I wish there had been video. Trump cult being jackasses in Florida would make a nice news bit.
BTW, what was up with that photo of Trump with McCarthy? Yeah, Trump’s smile is just a teeth-baring grimace, but it’s always been like that. I’m talking about the lighting – it makes them look blue. Trump acts like he’s such a TV guy and he doesn’t know how to light a photo so the subjects don’t look blue?
prostratedragon
@Mary G:
Lovely interview with Ms. Tyson in the tweet from Viola Davis.
Sounder will be on this Sunday (it had already been scheduled) on Turner Classic at 8 Eastern.
sab
OT I was just reading TPM about “some” ( ie Asa Hutchinson) GOP governors wanting more Covid vaccine funding, and resistance by “some” GOP Senators. Difference is $20 v $8.75 billion.
Fucking reporters. Do your job. “Some” as a description does not cut it. Who are these GOP Senators who don’t think states need more help on the distribution? I live in a blood red state and our vaccine distribution is appalling. If Rob Portman is going all fiscal conservative now that he has his shots I want to know, and I sure as hell won’t learn it from him or his office.
Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. Just tell me. TPM is online. Space isn’t that much of a constraint. Name fucking names, please.
The Nameless One
I know it says Open Thread but since I rarely post I’m not sure if this is still OT:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book
‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy
MagdaInBlack
@The Nameless One: I heard the author, Craig Unger, interviewed on Rick Unger ( no relation ) the other evening. Interesting stuff.
Amir Khalid
@The Nameless One:
There might be enough there for the FBI/a special counsel to investigate den orangen Scheißgibbon. And maybe this time recommend criminal charges against him.
sab
@Amir Khalid: Yes. We hopefully ( certainly?) have a functioning justice department again.
sab
@MagdaInBlack: I remember vaguely Craig Unger from a book 10 or 15 years ago, and I cannot remember if good or bad, but I am uneasy about his name amd reluctant to get excited.
ETA Or my concern might have been piqued by the execrable Michael Isikoff blasting at Unger. That seems more likely.
raven
@Amir Khalid: Hey, have you heard of this “Ted Lasso”? A small time American football coach with zero experience in soccer is hired by a Premier League owner to coach the team. He and his buddy are flying to UK and the buddy is reading “Inverting the Pyramid”. You had me get that book years ago to try to help me understand the “Beautiful Game”! I still don’t.
MagdaInBlack
@sab: We have a progressive radio station in Chicago. I listen on my commute. I don’t know the author at all, but the interview was interesting.
Chris T.
I really liked B5 myself. It did the season arc thing long before that became common. The CGI was not great, as many have said, as they were done on low end “video toaster” equipment, and the storyline is uneven, but a lot of this is because the show was cursed. One of the main actors became quite ill, the studio kept threatening to kill off the show, and so on. But the alien designs were pretty good.
At this time, ST:TNG were doing Bumpy Foreheads, and you always knew how good or bad some alien race was by how big the bumps were (insert eyerolls at Rick Berman here, perhaps). None of that on B5, fortunately. Trying to avoid spoilers here, so won’t say more along these lines.
There are lots of great quotes. See the Zathras clip from @NotMax for instance. I lurves me some Zathras quotes. “Time is infinite. Cannot run out of time. You are running out of life.”
JWR
Babylon 5: I have some cassettes of series creator J. Michael Straczynski on KPFK’s SciFi radio program “Mike Hodel’s Hour 25” from the time before B5 went into production, and based on that alone I managed to catch as much as I could, and knowing what I knew of the show made it better, for me anyway. One thing I liked was the pre-planned 5 year whole-story arc, which Straczynski promised not to exceed, even if the show was a hit. Was it any good? Geez, I can barely remember the show. But there were some pretty good twists. I think.
How’s that for a useless review? ;)
{Reply button don’t work no good for me tonight.]
Geminid
@Amir Khalid: I’m hoping for some grand juries that investigate Russian patronage of trump’s businesses. I don’t know what the statute of limitation is for money laundering, but these activities may well have continued up to the present. The CIA, FBI, and NSA probably have some thick files on trump dating from the 1980s on. They are probably closely held, but that information may not be needed for successful prosecution.
MagdaInBlack
@Chris T.: My husband and I enjoyed B5 very much, back in the day. The Wiki-Fandom on it is fun to read, explains the back story on everything. Shadows, Old Ones, Vorlons, Oh My!
Just Chuck
I love me all kinds of SF, especially ones with grand plot arcs, but I could never get myself to love B5. All the same I watched it all, save for the execrable appendage that was the last season, but I was struck by the uneven acting and hokey writing even before I became as jaded as I am now. I think JMS fell in love with his own sense of gravitas, whereas I’ve heard better lines from my GM in gaming sessions.
Mind you it does have some truly standout moments at times, and the “best of enemies” chemistry between Londo and G’Kar is magnificent, carrying the whole show at times. I wouldn’t exactly say avoid the show, but don’t buy into the fan hype either.
Citizen Alan
@Mary G: At its heights, it was brilliant. Won the Hugo award 3 years in a row I think. But it was low budget when it came out, and after 30 years of technological development, it is at best 2 notches above 1980s doctor who In terms of production values. So bear that in mind.
JML
B5 had really excellent storytelling and knew how to execute ideas properly in a compelling way (a redemption arc, for example). The CGI hasn’t aged all that well, but that’s ok. Some of the acting is a a bit stiff (especially early), but it gets better as the show develops. At it’s best, the show is groundbreaking and brilliant. I have all the DVDs and go back and revisit from time to time. And remember:
“Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova’s recommendations. Ivanova is God. And if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out.”
Citizen_X
I will pile on to the B5 recommendation. I love the show, but realize that it was from a time when a TV season was 22 episodes or so, so there are some uneven ones, filler, etc. There are a number of guides as to which are the critical episodes out there.
The versions available (just now) on HBOMax and iTunes are recently upgraded. They’re done in the show’s original 4:3 format, and the effects have been retreated some, so that the CGI looks much better. (It looked bad on the DVDs put out in the 2000s.) But this is why there’s some new buzz about the show now.
But also, I’ll point out something that new viewers will discover: the show is incredibly relevant now. One of the major plotlines of the 2nd and 3rd seasons is, well, a fascist movement among humans that takes power, driven by a coalition of violent xenophobes, smarter schemers lusting for power, and alien agents that have their own agenda. Sound familiar?
If Babylon 5 came out today, it would be too on the nose.
The Pale Scot
@Mary G:
If you’ve never seen it before and have a little patience non 21c pacing, it’s a great show. The first season and a half sets up the other 3&1/2 seasons. At the core it’s a LOTR epic, with a 90’s TV budget. It’s worth watching just to watch Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas chew up the scenery episode after episode
JML
My only problem with B5 these days is how many of the cast that have died so early. I mean, Andreas Katsulas was always gonna get lung cancer (I think it was JMS who said “he loved smoking with a passion that cannot be described”), but there’s a reason people talk about a B5 curse, sadly. And we just lost the wonderful Mira Furlan. (a former co-worker has a grandchild named Delenn)
J R in WV
@Super Dave:
You’ve got one too many ones in that last sentence!
They’re playing 1-dimensional chess, and it’s a 2-dimension game — that’s why they keep loosing so badly. ;~)