so what's the challenge. just say that, you idiots https://t.co/AD3Px0ijCF
— Elon Green (@elongreen) November 21, 2021
listen, @jonkarl, if this is hard for you you can absolutely quit
— Elon Green (@elongreen) November 21, 2021
Jon Karl, of course, is a lifelong GOP operative currently getting paid to ‘report’ for a major news network. He’s not gonna quit, because where else will he find such an easy and profitable gig? He just wants his fellow media Repubs to be a little less obvious about their mission!
Not that it takes much skill to outsmart Our Professional Pundit Class…
Ah, the the biggest thing about getting BBB done is that Dems then can shut up about their biggest achievement….. brainworms pic.twitter.com/UbNpn67SOZ
— veto players stan account (@Convolutedname) November 20, 2021
"This GOP dude is right, the Dems need to shut up about their agenda, we never should mention the Child Tax Credit again, and only talk about what the GOP wants"
— veto players stan account (@Convolutedname) November 20, 2021
so the core of how the democrats have moved to far to the left is that they have said their policies are good. democrats should instead avoid touting democratic victories in order to avoid alienating republicans. https://t.co/frOOOzNWsA
— augean stablecoin (@Theophite) November 22, 2021
DougJ for the capper:
This is the unironic view of 99% of pundits here. https://t.co/JQE6ag45Co
— Let's not, Brandon (@agraybee) November 21, 2021
satby
If they gave Pulitzers for Tweets DougJ would win every year.
Chief Oshkosh
@satby: Yep, and even for different categories!
satby
And, this happened today too!
They’ll be obnoxious and try to refuse, but I’m glad they’ve been called to testify.
Betty
@satby: He has developed into a master of the art. He is so prolific!
eclare
@Betty: He is being recognized more and more…
debbie
@satby:
It cracks me up that Stone always has to have “protection.” I can’t imagine what he thinks could endanger him (other than that subpoena).
eclare
@satby: Excellent! They were invited to attend the rally, and yet they did not. Hmmm.
sab
OT : Should I wait? Bad news about mackeral cat.
burnspbesq
Wonder if Stone has the stones to argue that contempt of Congress is within the scope of his pardon.
Parfigliano
If the dont show arrest and jail.
zhena gogolia
@sab: Share if you want. I’m very sorry.
Spanky
An Open Thread palate cleanser: A wonderful video of Peter O’Toole talking about Lawrence of Arabia.
evap
Year ago, when I read lots of different politcal blogs, I thought Yglesias was great. How the “mighty” have fallen…
Ohio Mom
@sab: Oh no! Sorry to hear all is not well. I thought it was one of your dogs we were worried about — a tumor IIRC. What did the vet say about the cat?
On a completely different topic, as long as I know you are here, here is a link to a great article on what exactly “autism spectrum” means that I think you’ll find interesting. I put it in a comment for you a couple of weeks ago but it was a pretty dead thread: https://neuroclastic.com/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/
debbie
They just get better and better.
eclare
@debbie: That is classic!
dr. bloor
The Beltway is a fairly limited chunk of real estate, and yet Karl has managed to avoid meeting, reading, or being generally aware of Daniel Dale’s existence?
Jonny Boy can go execute a self-performative act of eroticism with an iron oxide-coated farm implement.
JoyceH
@Spanky: OMG! Thanks for that! It’s been a few years, time for another viewing. Just the music alone gives me chills!
Kay
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Econ and business twitter have been saying today that the worst of the supply chain block is behind us (I take their word for it), and I just heard on the NPR business show that the price of oil is down ten percent for the month, back to where it was on October 1
Here’s the CEO of WalMart giving Biden credit for his work to open things up.
Betty
I have started reading Adam Schiff’s Midnight in Washington. Very interesting so far. I like the way he has weaved together his personal story with the political events he is describing.
dm
@evap: Yglesias is still great, except for occasional apparent stupidities on Twitter (which I suspect is more the problem of context-free quotation than the point he’s trying to make).
Since I don’t use Twitter, and Twitter now makes it impossible to browse their web-site without “signing up”, I can’t tell if there’s a context that makes the tweet make sense in this case, however.
Brachiator
I generally don’t like trolling. But this is goddam funny as hell.
lowtechcyclist
@satby:
That Elon Green tweet just kills me. “So what’s the challenge – just say that, you idiots” Straight to the point.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So police say the suspect in that Parade Massacre
* Was fleeing the scene of domestic voilance when he drove threw the parade. Because of course he would be that kind of douche.
* Skin is lighter than a brown paper bag.
I am going to go out on a limb and predict that the Right will be “move long, nothing to see here”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’m surprised at how relatively little discussion I’m seeing around the tubes
SiubhanDuinne
@Spanky:
Wow! That was a real treat! Thank you so much.
Lawrence of Arabia, IMO, is just a stunningly beautiful film — beautiful scenery, beautiful chiaroscuro, beautiful acting — and was there ever a young man quite as beautiful as the youthful Peter O’Toole?
Roger Moore
He’s saying it badly, but I think there’s some point to what Matt Yglesias is saying. The thing that’s hurting the Democrats right now is that all the news is about process rather than policy. As long as they’re still working on passing BBB, the discussion will all be about horse trading and Democrats in disarray. Once it’s passed, they can focus, or at least try to focus, the discussion on all the good stuff it’s going to give us.
I think he’s also right about not going overboard. Yes, the Democrats should be happy to tout all the good stuff their policy does, but they shouldn’t oversell it. On the one hand, overselling gets the right wing even more riled up than they otherwise would be. On the other hand, it sets up Democratic supporters for disappointment when their policy isn’t as far reaching as promised. People will always be happier if you under promise and over deliver than if you do the opposite.
Of course “he has a point but has expressed himself badly” isn’t a good position for a pundit to be in. Expressing himself well is an important part of his job.
Kristine
@Spanky: Thanks for that link–it was great.
Pretty sure Lawrence of Arabia was the first O’Toole film I ever saw. I was in grade school or junior high and boy did that man make an impression.
Kristine
@SiubhanDuinne:
Nope.
Fair ruined me, he did.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty:
I’m thoroughly enjoying it, and very much looking forward to our book club discussions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
O’Toole and Richard Harris used to go on the Letterman Show and tell great stories about their wild days.
dr. bloor
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Forget it Jake, it’s Wisconsintown.
Brachiator
RE: 72 percent say that Biden should focus on inflation and the supply chain.
Biden is actually doing something about the supply chain, particularly through his efforts to get the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to deal with backlogs. And oddly enough, the free market global economy fucking works. Businesses are dealing with the supply chain. It’s not all up to the government.
The president cannot do a whole lot about inflation by himself. Many businesses are frankly jacking up prices to make up for declines and disruptions during the lockdown. They are being greedy fucks.
But the Biden team of the treasury secretary and the fed chairman are on top of this. And yeah, I approve of Biden continuing to back Fed chair Powell, even though some progressives are unhappy with him.
Uber wealthy pundits don’t get the child tax credit and so just don’t understand how helpful it can be to families.
But what’s crazy is that pundits and ignorant ass middle and lower income Republicans believe that the Child Tax Credit is a new program handing out free money to nonwhite sluts who don’t work and are pumping out babies so that they can get gummit checks. But the damn credit has been around since 1998. Hell, even Trump increased the credit as part of the 2017 GOP tax bill.
The Child Tax Credit helps families with children. Republicans hate it because it has been a clear success.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
There’s a wonderful, raunchy book called Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole, and Oliver Reed. Author is Robert Sellers.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I find the international angle on this interesting.
and apparently Jacobs is the pool reporter today? Here’s what your POTUS and FLOTUS are up to tonight
West of the Rockies
@debbie:
He needs protection cuz he knows he’s a colossal A-hole.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks! I may just have to order that
Have you read it? Does it have the story about the time Harris snuck into one of O’Toole’s plays disguised as a monk, cause they were on the outs and Harris didn’t want O’Toole to know he was there? (and no, that’s not the punchline)
Poe Larity
Dimorphos 2024! or maybe 2028.
Jeffro
@Brachiator: isn’t this just a variation on people voting for “strong and wrong” over “right (on the issues) and…Democratic”?
Bill Clinton said something along these lines back in 2004. Off to go look it up…
Jeffro
@Roger Moore: what’s hurting the Dems is the constant reporting on their dithering while
Brachiator
Young firebrand Peter O’Toole talking about Hamlet with a bemused Orson Welles and London theater critics. At this time in 1963 Peter was starring in Hamlet at the National Theater, directed by Laurence Olivier.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I read it several years ago, but I must admit at this point all the anecdotes kind of run together into a boozy, funny (and very sad) slurry, and I don’t remember specific incidents that well. It’s on my Kindle app; once I finish one of the three or four books I’m currently reading* I might pull it up and reread it, if only to refresh the old memory.
*I know a lot of people are horrified at the idea of reading several books at a time, but it’s been my M.O. all my life.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
No. Not if you are talking about the California recall election.
The recall confirmed the impotence of the California Republican Party.
Villago Delenda Est
Patrick Ruffini cannot die in a tragic meteor shower a nanosecond too soon.
Villago Delenda Est
@dm: Context gets in the way of engagement, which is what generates revenue, which is what the sociopath Zuckerborg is all about.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator: Are you saying the California GQp is filled with limp Nixons?
Brachiator
Richard Burton on Welsh coal miners and his family. Also perhaps explains why some American miners want to hold onto the profession.
rivers
@SiubhanDuinne: You mean there are people who only read one book at a time? I mean, why bother?
MagdaInBlack
@SiubhanDuinne: I assumed all readers did that. I usually have at least 3 going. I think its 5 right now.
lowtechcyclist
I usually read one book at a time, but there are times when I have two or three going, especially if one is a bit of heavy nonfiction reading. Three at a time is about my limit, though.
SiubhanDuinne
@rivers:
@MagdaInBlack:
@lowtechcyclist:
Right? My mother and grandmother and aunt always had several books going at once, so for me it was and is just normal.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Police used new technology to rule out terrorist act (photo)
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Does anyone know if John F. Kennedy showed up today, as it’s the anniversary of him framing a hard working white for his fake assassination?
Sure Lurkalot
This thread by the Editorial Board, seems appropriate to this thread and “Dem messaging”.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: it’s been my MO just within the last few years. I don’t know whether it’s a factor of age, COVID, the Internet, or what – maybe a creamy and delicious blend of all three plus who knows what factor – but my attention span is just not what it was. It used to be that I’d plow through texts one after the other, fast ‘n’ furious. Now I meander, distractable, through several at once. What once took me hours to read now takes me days. What took days now takes weeks. WTF. : (
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
The Tricky Dick GOP cannot get elected to statewide office. They tried to recall their way into the governor office, but could not pull it off.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
I could listen to Burton talk 24/7/365. What a glorious voice.
That was so interesting about the great coal fault running from the Basque Country through Wales to Pennsylvania, and the almost sensual love the real miners had for a fecund seam of coal.
Kay
@Sure Lurkalot:
Don’t make it so complicated and profound. I’m asking 6 or 7 people to all talk about student loans on the same day and say BASICALLY the same thing, not ordering them to face a firing squad. Instead every Democrat acts like they’re in a presidential primary debate with other Democrats, every day. It doesn’t have to be this difficult. We’re supposed to be the cooperative people who work well with others and have some sense of solidarity and collective action.
Dan B
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The driver is black. His hair is nappy and he has dreads. It’s likely to be a barrage of RWNJ calls to lynch mobs. And Russia and others are likely to exploit the social media chaos. It will be interesting if Russia waits for the chaos to come to a boil and then invade Ukraine. Create fog- make war.
Dan B
@Kay: One of the first rules of communication is the bigger the intended audience the simpler the message must be to get traction and the more times it must be repeated, at least the underlying critical message must be. You can wrap it up in stories about women who get to go back to work and have money to charge up the economy and in other simple stories about how Biden / Harris are helping the economy but it doesn’t change minds unless the message gets through the fog. Your critique is valid.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Brachiator: Honestly, this strikes me more as satire than trolling, because trolling refers to a method of fishing – dragging bait through possibly-fish filled waters, to see what you hook. In ancient Internet times, it was called “trolling for newbies” on Usenet – to bring up an imagined controversy that has been hashed out in group until everyone’s sick of it, and only newbies would take the bait, because everyone else *is* sick of it.
Doug doesn’t seem to be trying to hook anyone; he’s calling out how a bunch of New York Times articles are written from a perspective that, properly described, is obviously, objectively, bad.
Like, “Are you afraid that the Trump White House is a rudderless ship? Well it isn’t, because I, an anonymous staffer, and many other staffers, all refuse to do what Trump wants, if it’s stupid. So, it’s like, it’s not rudderless at all, it has dozens of rudders! Aren’t you relieved to know we’ve chosen insubordination and a broken chain of command, over pointing out that Trump is unfit for office, and unable to carry out his responsibilities?”
Or, “Lots of people yearn to commit mass murder, and only realize how much they want to be a mass murderer when they see a gun in the hands of a good, god fearing, patriotic American, so let me explain why you must make sure you kill all of those people, before they can remove your gun, and call the cops on you.”
(He’s certainly more effective than I at getting stuff down to tweet level!)
Roger Moore
@LongHairedWeirdo:
What I think is more important is that his satire- which IMO is the correct word for what he’s doing- has been remarkably successful at getting people to notice what the media is doing. I think his humor is more effective at this than a thousand earnest articles about the same topic. You can see this because plenty of other people have taken up the mantle and started to do the same thing. It’s also hilarious when one of the targets of his satire actually produces a column using one of his ideas.
Kay
@Dan B:
Biden promised to open schools. Schools are open. Now I know something about schools so I know Biden can’t open or close schools but Biden also isn’t responsible for gas prices and he takes that hit, so what the hell.
“Schools are open”. There’s the weird preemption thing they all do- “while I know…bad thing…I also know…good thing”. What? Is this necessary? Can’t we come up with the bad thing ourselves? I know I can.
Jeffro
@Brachiator: no, I meant the concept of people voting for the folks who’ll fix things…after those same folks have contributed to breaking them. CA recall was a cynical long shot undertaken by big money. Not really seeing the comparison.
Jeffro
@lowtechcyclist: the WaPo “best books of 2021” list just hit, and I’ve already got a few on my wish list.
(also humblebragging – I have already ready several! ;)
Kay
@Dan B:
If schools were closed it would be 24/7 “why won’t Biden open schools?!”
I feel like that gives him permission to say “schools are open, as promised”
LongHairedWeirdo
@rivers: No offense taken, but one reason a person might “bother” even though they’re limited to a single, lousy solitary book at a time, is because that person might have so little time and energy that reading two is equivalent to reading none – no progress, or too little retention.
I mean, I get the context – you’re on the multi-book team, defending your people’s ways against those from the single book team who might think you strange.
Thing is, for many years, I didn’t know why I was a book at a time reader. And while I knew other people were different, it might still be annoying to hear someone act like my way wasn’t good enough for something so personal.
Eh. Grownups handle annoyances. Crazy thing about fatigue is, sometimes you’re far too tired to bring up the resources to flush an annoyance out of your head.
What are you going to do? Never make a playful joke, for fear of offense? Nah, that won’t work. Maybe be patient if someone snaps at a playful joke? Well – some people are just grouches. That said, sometimes, treating a grouch as a person who might be under immense stress might have a degrouching effect.
Sorry. Long ramble.
trollhattan
Got Pfizer #3 today. So far, not reacting like #2 and hoping it stays that way. That was a looooong night.
Jeez, feel like I’m swapping medical gossip at the early dinner seating. “My doctor said it could be gout, but how would I have gout?”
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
Okay. Got it. Fair point.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Dan B: Wife beating practically makes him a Proud Boi. Women are one of these things these chuckleheads are scared of.
Gin & Tonic
@Dan B:
A remark about 8 years too late.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@trollhattan: Heh. Got my third Moderna shot on Friday. I think my arm was a bit more sore this time, but didn’t have the jet-lag-like crash I got after my second. Nothing after the first.
karen marie
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Not “fleeing the scene of domestic violence,” he was on bail for hitting and running over his girlfriend. He fled an alleged “knife fight” when the cops showed up to avoid getting picked up and having his bail revoked.
karen marie
@Roger Moore: Yglesias is a troll.
karen marie
@Jeffro: “Dithering” = getting infrastructure passed in nine months where the last GOP president couldn’t do it in four years.
Miss Bianca
@karen marie: What I keep wondering, after I read a harrowing account like this – offender with multiple offenses, who just seems to skate through and through each encounter, each one slightly worse than the last, till one of them at last hits the papers – is: WTF? How does someone like this just keep getting off?
I am thinking now of guys I read about who had multiple DUIs who were somehow able to keep driving and skating. Now this guy. Again: WTF?
Nelle
@Miss Bianca: I wonder the same thing about Donald J. Trump.
karen marie
@Miss Bianca: It baffles me too. Apparently the authorities are looking into why he got such low bail for assaulting his girlfriend.
The reality is you cannot imprison your way out of these things. Repeat offenders have serious underlying problems and simply jailing them usually compounds those problems. It’s definitely a catch-22.
CaseyL
@SiubhanDuinne: OMG. I love(d) all those actors; I must read that book!!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@CaseyL: Hellraisers. I think I’m going to order it.
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
I’m suspicious of poll results like this. A lot of people answer with the last thing they heard on the news. And even when it’s not FOX, “the news” is usually “What are Republicans angry about today?”
Another Scott
@James E Powell: It’s a push-poll. Ruffini says right on his Twitter bio that he’s a “Republican pollster”.
There were 2 choices:
1) “Get inflation under control and fix supply chain issues”
2) “Pass new spending for social services, health care, and green energy”
The words are loaded. They weren’t interested in what people really thought.
Cheers,
Scott.
patroclus
@SiubhanDuinne: Timothee Chalamet, in pretty much the same role in Dune, compares very favorably with O’Toole.
Brachiator
@James E Powell:
RE: 72 percent say that Biden should focus on inflation and the supply chain.
I agree. But I didn’t really care about the number. My main point was that the criticism was unfair.
I would also say that anyone who held these sentiments does not understand how government and economies work.
I suppose, though, that conservative pundits like to use polls as a continuing referendum on the Biden administration. Unsurprisingly, in their eyes Biden always comes up short.
Years ago, I think that Bill Clinton and his people tried to react to polls and to spin it that they were doing what the people wanted. This was a waste of time. Whatever the poll numbers, and even in the face of error and scandal, more people backed Clinton than disapproved of him. Didn’t he win reelection.
Similarly, it is a waste of time for Biden to chase after popularity because of polling. There is too much that needs to get done.
sab
@Brachiator: YES!
dopey-o
@Brachiator:
Digging a hole in the ground is a profession? Good Dog!
Tony Jay
@SiubhanDuinne:
When asked who she saw in her mind when describing her creation, the famously Yummy Francis Crawford of Lymond, Dorothy Dunnett always said a young O’Toole.
And Lymond was puuuurty.
germy
Peter O’Toole had a doubly phallic name. That counts for something.
germy
@patroclus:
Chalamet was supposed to play Bob Dylan in the biopic “Going Electric” but the project didn’t go anywhere.
The movie was about Dylan choosing a Fender electric and angering folk fans with his shift to loud rock music.