Here’s one for the “even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then” file: Even incomparably dumb and obscenely overpaid CNN pundit Chris Cillizza understands the danger Trump’s fascist cult poses to America:
In an interview with Donald Trump earlier this week, conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt said something truly breathtaking.
“You know, Mr. President, you and I disagree about the election, but we agree on so much,” Hewitt told Trump, segueing into a conversation about China’s hypersonic missiles.
Talk about an other-than-that-how-was-the-play-Mrs. Lincoln moment!
Cillizza, who will never be asked to bring the noodle salad to the Mensa picnic, sums it up:
Trump is working to make a belief that the 2020 election was stolen a central piece of the Republican Party platform. And, again, this isn’t like making abortion or trade a party platform. This is making a rejection of American democracy a major part of what it means to be a Republican.
Because of all of that, Hewitt can’t simply write what Trump is doing as a place where they disagree. That sort of justification is how we got into this mess, with one of the two major political parties in the country devolving more into a cult of personality than any sort of organization gathered together by a shared set of principles and policies.
I can’t believe I’m writing this, but well said, Chris Cillizza.
Open thread.
PS: The title of this post had a typo that I fixed before publishing. It said “Bling hogs,” which would make a great band name.
PPS: I don’t know Cillizza’s salary, but assuming it’s more than $15 an hour, he’s obscenely overpaid.
Yutsano
Obligatory: GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY!
On topic: I’m not giving Cillizza credit for shit. He has this schtick where he’ll act like he’s waking up then go back to sucking Republican dick in his next breath. The man is still an idiot’s idiot.
EDIT: FIRSTS!!!
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
I guess this is a good thing, but it won’t mean much if there aren’t enough others who follow him. I don’t know how many are going to.
Citizen Alan
Fuck Chris Cilliza with a rusty chainsaw. You still think “Mad Bitch Beer” is funny, you son of a bitch?
Gravenstone
That Cillizza is paid at all is obscene. He gives talentless hacks a bad name.
zhena gogolia
Well, I’m with Betty. I don’t care who it is, we need more and more people saying this very thing, so that IT becomes the conventional wisdom. I welcome it from anyone.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Yutsano:
A guy at work was watching it on TV today in the break room. He told me neither team was measuring up. I replied, “Well, I guess they’re not being all that they can be” ?
Tip your veal, try the waitress!
Jerzy Russian
Cillizza making sense, Bill Kristol making sense (occasionally). At this rate sheep and cows will be coexisting, dogs and cats living under one roof, etc.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Yutsano:
this game is a quagmire
dmsilev
File under ‘a stopped clock is right twice a day’, which of course is a saying that’s aging just about as well as ‘sounds like a stuck record’ or the opening line of Neuromancer: ‘The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel’.
(depending on the age of the reader, the last would be ‘gray and staticky’, ‘bright blue’, or ‘wallpaper image, with a giant ‘HDMI1 No Signal’ banner’…)
Baud
Too much present tense in that excerpt.
The GOP literally had no platform in 2020.
Almost Retired
If you surname is, or includes, “lizza,” you should be barred from journalism.
Wag
@Jerzy Russian: I stared following Bill Kristol and Jen Rubin on twitter, and both of them have become absolute must reads. They are undergoing a transformation much like our beloved blogmaster did all those years ago. Both are smart and firmly on our side. I welcome them.
Geminid
From Election Day on, Hew Hewitt very constently pushed back against the assertion that the election was stolen from trump. And he constantly tells listeners to get vaccinated or boosted.
But Hewitt is a team player, and the Republicans are his team. He’s one of the Wall Street Journal Republicans who think they can steer the populist radicals of their party. Hewitt is wrong, but he is whole heartedly committed.
Hewitt is a salesman. Republican power is his product, and party unity is his sales pitch. He also does a lot of personal selling for his advertisers: “If you can afford to, give GOLD for the holidays! And I buy my gold from….”
Jerzy Russian
@Wag: Agreed on having more people making sense. I still worry about the space-time continuum, however, since Bill Kristol always being wrong was an immutable law of nature.
Wag
@dmsilev: What an awesome opening line. And any of the scenarios you paint present an interesting mood.
Wag
@Jerzy Russian: Lol
Rusty
Long before Trump showed up, conservatives I know where going on about stolen elections. You can easily trace this back to Gingrich, his whole point was that a Democrat winning was never legitimate. This isn’t a cult of personality but Republicanism. Trump didn’t creat the role, he auditioned for it and DeSantis looks to be next in line.
topclimber
David Brooks and Chris Cilizza taking a rest from the Broder Train in the very same week. Can Chuckles be far behind?
bbleh
@Gravenstone: @dmsilev: @topclimber: The good thing about Cillizza saying this is that, for all his blindness, he has an unerring nose for the Conventional Wisdom, for the Received Truth, for … [dramatic pause] … The Narrative.
If Cillizza — yes, and Brooks, and maybe even second-rank players like Rubin or Kristol — starts describing Trumpism — and by undeniable extension, the mainstream of the modern Republican Party — as a cult, I think we can say that Progress, however partial and halting, is Being Made.
Geminid
@Rusty: De Santis does look like a prime candidate to push trumpism-without-trump. He’s ambitious and totally without scruple. A credible Florida jackal describes him as a sociopath.
DeSantis has to be reelected Governor next year, though, before he runs for President. That is not a certainty.
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud:
It’s been announced that they won’t have one in 2022 either, basically, “VOTE FOR MEEEEEE! I promise nothing, you’ll get nothing.”
Brachiator
Hewitt is even more blandly clueless than David Brooks.
And a reliable toady.
Betty Cracker
@bbleh: That’s exactly my view of it.
Geminid
@Sure Lurkalot: I think the Republican pitch next year will be more like, Vote Against THEM!
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: WRONG! Go Army!
Dan B
Reading Schiff’s book I’m at the point where Republicans he’s worked with are blocking his efforts and he’s still trying to make progress while realizing they’ve pivoted very rapidly. It’s as though these formerly fair people have all been blackmailed or been bitten by zombies. I feel that Schiff doesn’t want to believe it but is aware what’s happening whereas there are many influential people who don’t get it five years later.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Rusty: they’ve been yapping about voter fraud since 2004 at least, as a means of selling voter ID, the exclusion of college students, etc. There’s very little that was new about trump’s GOP, he was the nuclear spider that bit them and weaponized everything
The O’Bros were talking about this interview, at some point Hewitt told trump he was the greatest pro-Christmas president we’d ever had.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus – @Yutsano
*yawn* What channel is the Space Force – Air Force game on?
;)
New Deal democrat
Just leaving this here, but right now I am finishing Prof. Eric Foner’s masterful history of the Reconstruction.
It is absolutely uncanny how much our current moment exactly mirrors the Ku Klux Klan’s insurrection against Republican State governments in the South. The only thing missing (so far) as the actual physical violence directed at freedmen and cooperating whites.
The most stomach churning parallel? That the Reconstruction State governments were afraid of confronting the Klan with force, because Norms.
Brachiator
As others have noted, pundits should keep making this point. It needs to be part of the political conversation.
zhena gogolia
@Dan B: I’m beginning to think I can’t read Schiff’s book. It’s sitting in my bedroom staring at me. I read the first few pages and it’s just so depressing.
SiubhanDuinne
OMG, Betty! ?? Never, ever change!!
Dan B
OT a friend in the Bay area gave me a piece of Pre-Columbian sculpture. Friends brought it last night. I was expecting a nice little piece but it’s a seated figure almost two feet tall appraised in the thousands! Gobsmacked!
My partner got a book on Tom of Finland. Much laughter. 700 pages!
If you don’t know who Tom of Finland is you do not want to look it up, guaranteed. It’s not getting donated to the library or Goodwill. Maybe Salvation Army….
SiubhanDuinne
Is that anything to do with “pearls before swine”?
West of the Rockies
I wish The Post would cut Hewitt and Thiessen. If they want conservative writers, pay Frum or Michael Steele. At least those two have some integrity.
Dan B
@zhena gogolia: I feel like Schiff is an Energizer Bunny of the first caliber. I feel great that he is never giving up. He provides the fine details of what we already know about the GOP. I like having the curtain pulled back.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If elected, I will be the greatest Groundhog Day president this country has ever seen.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Dan B: I’m reading it too. Schiff seems to be taken aback by changes in people he’s worked with for years. He’s a smart guy too
Geminid
@Brachiator: Hewitt is certainly a toady. From what I’ve heard listening to him, though, he seems fairly shrewd. He was a much better advocate for the trump administration than anyone in the administration, I thought.
Hewitt is a bigtime China warhawk. He seems to be a believer, but I think that as a practical matter Hewitt also thinks that the China threat is a good line of attack on Joe Biden’s administration. That may be because he can see that there are not many other good ones. It’s durable, and is not likely to be tested by an actual war. Hewitt is also a military hardware geek, and loves to talk about weapons systems.
Dan B
@SiubhanDuinne: Pearl earrings, diamond studs, or big gold hoops? What shade lipstick? ?
SiubhanDuinne
@Dan B:
I finished it about half an hour ago. Not ashamed to say I was in tears.
debbie
@Dan B:
He needs to get past that kind of thing, like he should have heeded that small voice telling him Mueller shouldn’t testify. He and other veteran politicians have got to see the Republicans for what they are NOW, not in some previously collegial beforetime.
NotMax
Oh gawd. Just now heard the news that one local radio station has temporarily changed format to broadcasting Xmas music 24/7.
karen marie
@Wag: Neither has acknowledged, much less apologized for, the outrageous wrongness of their prior beliefs and positions. There are people saying what both are now saying who were not encouraging and promoting bullshit in the time before Individual-1. They can both get stuffed.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
It isn’t, though. It’s ultimately hopeful (without being the least Pollyanna-ish). And there are moments of humour and lightness larded throughout the (serious, for sure) book. Please don’t push it aside. It’s very much worth your time.
Brachiator
@New Deal democrat:
The podcast “You’re Wrong About…” just had an excellent episode about Reconstruction with guest Jamelle Bouie.
Yes, some painful parallels with the January 6 insurrection, where mobs with powerful forces behind them, attempt to overthrow democracy.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dan B:
Pix or … well, you know.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dan B: @debbie: I feel like what Dan B is describing and ascribing to Schiff is the kind of disbelief I still feel that this happened, and is happening: A third-rate racist game show host is shredding the republic. And a good chunk of the country, including some people who voted for Biden in ’20, would vote for trump in ’24 if they thought it would bring down gas prices
I think the fatal collegiality thing is more a symptom of what people call Senate brain.
Mike in NC
@West of the Rockies: I actually lived in Maryland way back when Steele was Lieutenant Governor. He’s a decent guy, hence a Never Trumper.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Again?
lowtechcyclist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Trump was the greatest Duck Soup president we’ve ever had. “If you think this country’s bad off now, just wait ’til I get through with it” could have been his motto.
Woodrow/asim
I’d say it’s not just Norms. It’s directly the disinterest in putting the safety of freed Black folx, over the White Terrorists and their Fellow Travelers in State/Federal Legislatures. So much spins off of that politically-charged set of decisions, culminating with that horrific 1877 “Compromise”.
And therein lies the difference. Back then, the (vaguely) Black-aligned Party had the space to basically throw Black folx under the bus to survive. That decision not only allowed the lies of the Lost Cause to bear bitter fruit, but set the stage for the generations-long hellscape that was Jim Crow (as well as further digging-in of Northern-based racial biases…)
That’s…unlikely to be an option in upcoming elections. People and political parties who previously could just run away from People of Color when White Supremacy (re)gained power are now tied to us, tied as basically Race Traitors (not to mention other marginalized groups).
I’m…not sure many are really aware of what that means, both socially and esp. politically. But it’s troubling that people (including the legislators we need to be fighting this!) see the democracy-destroying aspects of the current Political Right as isolated or of recent vintage, and not, as you rightly point out, a replay of an old, old trend in American politics. Because, to me? It’s in that replay that we have our best chance to breaking this trend.
Hmmm. I need to think on this, some more. Thanks for posting this.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Dah dit dah dit dah dit dah.
;)
topclimber
@NotMax:
I think it will be easy to arrange if you limit it to space cadets and Air Force ones.
Spanky
@West of the Rockies: My take is that the WaPo keeps those two around in part to be bipartisan, but mostly to be pinatas, gauging from the comments they provoke.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Spanky: and I assume they were both brought on board by the late war monger Fred Hiatt.
Rob
@NotMax: I’m sorry.
My dentist’s office doesn’t play the radio at all between mid-November and Christmas because everyone who works there were traumatized by hearing the same songs several times a day.
topclimber
@New Deal democrat: Next you will be complaining about the outright denial of voting to freedmen that gave us the Compromise of 1877 and Jim Crow 1.0.
Ken
It’s brilliant. If we repeat February 2 forever, we never reach the end of Baud’s term of office.
topclimber
@Baud:
Does that mean President for Life? Or is there another meaning to Ground Hog Day then what the Bill Murray movie gave us?
Sure Lurkalot
@Geminid: Same as it ever was!
NotMax
Media note.
Favorite of some jackals* movie Christmas in Connecticut on TCM tomorrow at 4:15 pm. Eastern time. (Also at 8 p.m. 12/22 and 4 p.m. 12/24.)
*Yours truly shall remain diplomatically neutral.
Sure Lurkalot
@Brachiator: That You’re Wrong About sounds great, I’ll give it a listen. Still, I miss Michael Hobbes. His substack has been excellent.
J R in WV
@SiubhanDuinne:
This is why I won’t be participating in the Book Club for his book. I cry too easily, and already have spent too much time in agony over the destruction of our national structure.
I remember stepping forward and taking the oath to protect the Constitution those many years ago, as a young draft age man. And now we have a whole political party not willing to live up to their oaths to protect the Constitution and our nation!
Those people should all be in jail awaiting trial for violating their oaths, all of them, most all of the Republican party.
germy
Dan B
@SiubhanDuinne: I second that. He’s an excellent writer.
Dan B
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ll send pics to Anne Laurie. I’m not sure it’s genuine but it came endorsed by an expert and some other pieces were called forgeries but not this one.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
I have noted before that I watched Hewitt come up from his early days as a conservative commentator on public affairs programs on Los Angeles area public television programs. His main claim to fame was that he could be called on at short notice, could talk about any topic, and was always affable and low key.
He also made a bland pretense at being reasonable, but there was never a Republican policy that he objected to or failed to rationalize.
The right wing China fetish is very interesting. Obviously we are never going to have a war with China, because, nukes. Nor are we going to end economic relationships.
And I remember when conservatives deftly pivoted from “China is a commie bad guy” after Nixon’s visit and began to claim that trade with China would ultimately lead to that country becoming a democracy.
Today it is useful for the GOP to brand China as an enemy again in order to brand the Democrats as being weak on…something. And a good chunk of the Republican base fall for this bullshit because they love having enemies to hate.
I don’t know why Hewitt is a military hardware geek. Maybe he thinks it makes him look manly.
Brachiator
@lowtechcyclist:
Boris Johnson is working a similar bad magic on the UK right now.
Dan B
@Spanky: My Pre Columbian figure is holding a club that would be perfect for these piñatas.
JPL
@germy: When I read The Death of Democracy Hitler’s Rise to Power, I would look and see how the NYTimes covered specific dates. It was sickening so their coverage of trump and President Biden is not surprising.
Another Scott
@Sure Lurkalot:
FIFY. :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
BellyCat
Posting without reading thread, but “bling hogs” is far more apt for this group than “blind hogs” as the later is a handicap unrelated to intellect.
Another Scott
@Dan B: I thought Olmec heads were out of style now??
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Who is probably late to the party with this observation.”)
Brachiator
@Woodrow/asim:
But as you note, in permitting the reassertion of white supremacy in the South, Northern politicians had to endorse white supremacy as national policy. This has haunted the country for generations.
The GOP lie that they are the only legitimate and patriotic political party is the fig leaf that covers voter efforts and the attempt to once again disenfranchise nonwhite people.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
(This is the most commonly accepted cast of characters, but possibly apocryphal.)
smedley the uncertain
@NotMax: dit dit dah dit dit dit dah
WaterGirl
Oh Betty, this was so great that it has to be repeated.
Woodrow/asim
@Brachiator: Hmmm. Maybe I’m not being clear.
There’s a difference. In the past, the White Supremacist-aligned Party and the one that more-or-less supported Black rights could “compromise” by letting the latter toss away Black folx.
That’s not what’s happening this time. Now — just to say Party names outright — The Democrats are being directly aligned by the GOP as “loving Black People (among other marginalized groups) First”. Thus: that’s happening in ways far more aggressive to White folx than in the past. That’s the critical issue I’m not seeing addressed.
To be pointed — during Jim Crow, White folx of any Party, anywhere in the US, had little to worry about, so long as they didn’t as an individual choose to be “Negro Lover”. Now? Anyone aligned with the Democratic Party is dealing with not just the modern equivalent (which isn’t always obviously racial), but the Party is being attacked, being delegitimized as a whole, via that mechanism.
It’s a different and toxic approach to our democracy, and one that I don’t feel is obvious — much less something we know how to disrupt without digging into the “backstory” of how we got here.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
just remembered that MSNBC hired Hewitt during a brief moment when it seemed like they were going to try to go Fox-Lite again. I think he briefly had his own hour? Didn’t blow up as badly or cost as much as Meghan Kelly, but I think the exec behind all that was encouraged to take early retirement
MattF
Remember Cillizza and Dana Milbank mocking Clinton? Milbank created a stir recently with the observation that when democracy is at stake, horserace coverage of politics doesn’t work. Politico writers were annoyed by that. So, there’s some actual evidence that the conventional wisdom has shifted.
Geminid
@Brachiator: I am a little bit of a military hardware geek myself, so I can understand the interest. Hewitt is an enthusiast, though. He wants to see the hardware used. After the Iranians shot down that drone, he was asking guests if they knew if there were F-22 Raptor fighter jets in the region, and whether we should take out one Iranian oil refinery or two. He was disappointed when trump did not even attack the missile battery that shot down the drone. But he pivoted, and said well, trump knows what he’s doing.
Hewitt is bouyant; no matter how big a wave of shitty news washed over the trump administration, Hewitt would pop up like a cork to put the best face he could on the matter. An amoral advocate.
mrmoshpotato
@MattF:
Or these assholes have finally realized what they did by beating the shit out of Hillary and sucking Dump’s ass.
Gary K
@Dan B: How did I manage to spend two weeks in Finland and never hear about this Tom?
mrmoshpotato
@Geminid:
Hugh Hewitt being an ass in 2018.
Matt McIrvin
@Gary K: Not to be confused with Tom’s of Maine.
Mike in NC
@Geminid: I also read that Hewitt is a religious nutcase who demands guests on his radio show explain their faith. It’d be nice to hear one comment “None of your goddamn business”.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: I made the mistake of allowing the Italian Christmas Song by Mike KC enter my eardrums the other day at my trainer’s. It has not yet left the premises.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: @Dan B:
Since you are talking about Adam Schiff’s book, this might be a good time for me to post my reminder:
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: NO DISSING CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT
I bought it on Prime so that we can watch it whenever we want to.
Ivan X
@dmsilev: I’m not a superfan of the book specifically, but that is one of my all time favorite opening sentences, perhaps #1.
And it’s certainly grey and staticky. Oddly enough, and pleasingly, my relatively modern Samsung flat panel TV offers the same effect.
Jackie
@zhena gogolia: Get through the first chapter – the Insurrection – and it’s easier to read. Don’t give up – it’s a great read!
Brachiator
@Woodrow/asim:
We may agree more than disagree. The compromise you speak of was largely in the North. In the South, the Republican Party effectively disappeared and any alliances between white people and blacks were severed.
In the 1960s, white racists essentially wanted to be whenever there were no black people. The racists had fought and lost the battle in the Democratic Party with respect to civil rights. Ultimately, the racists accepted Nixon’s invitation to join the GOP.
Cut to contemporary politics where white nativists openly advocate a white minority government in order to preserve “American values.”
Dan B
@Gary K: You needed to spend time in the Finnish* enclave in SoCal.
*As in Leather Finish…
Dan B
@Matt McIrvin: Tom of Finland does not make a line of Mouth-‘wash’.
The Dangerman
Bling hog? I may have dated her.
/high maintenance and higher anxiety
Geminid
@Mike in NC: Hewitt was raised Catholic, and now he attends both Catholic and Presbyterian churches. He lives in Northern Virginia now, but he maintains his California connection as head of the Nixon Presidential Library.
Hewitt was a Reagan administration staffer after law school, and is well connected. I expect he is has money from years of practicing high end real estate law in Southern California. That probably contributes to his cheerful complacency.
Baud
@Geminid:
Isn’t that like bigamy?
The Pale Scot
@Wag:
What’s the world coming to if I can’t hate and wish for terrible things to happen to Will Krystal?
I need it,,,,,, damn it
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Can’t fathom the why or wherefore, but woke up with this persistently repeating inside the noggin not long ago.
;)
frosty
@zhena gogolia: I felt exactly the same about Nixonland after the first few pages. I couldn’t bear reliving all that shit.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: just skip around. it’s not something that has to be read in any particular order.
Start with the epilogue! It’s realism mixed with hope and determination.
The Pale Scot
@SiubhanDuinne:
noodle salad ?
Is that what the aboriginals down here call macaroni salad? I never noticed
Hey S.D., RTE has loosened up its DR restrictions, we can watch the Late Late Show in the US. Yea!!
I miss Pat Kenny
frosty
@SiubhanDuinne: Golf clap.
You just beat NotMax on this one, kudos!
Tom Levenson
“Cillizza, who will never be asked to bring the noodle salad to the Mensa picnic…”
If I could, I would marry this prose.
James E Powell
@mrmoshpotato:
Maybe I missed it, but I haven’t heard any Hillary hater press/media person express regret for putting Trump in the White House. They are all just fine with Trump, white supremacy, end of democracy, etc. Their biggest regret is that the Trump Insurrection only lasted part of one day.
Dan B
@Tom Levenson: I went to a Gay Mensa meeting in Seattle. Never again, never! Bad food and one upmanship by guys that pre-dated incels. Sexual frustration with quick minds, aiieeee!
Almost Retired
@Dan B: A few years ago I was researching a trip to Finland and the Baltics, since my best friend is married to a local. I was looking for blogs and travelogues and Tom of Finland came up. I wish I could recall what my search terms were, but Tom of Finland offered little useful information about travel to the Eastern Baltic region.
Dan B
@Almost Retired: But the tours he led! Oh, my!!
Not helpful but memorable.
prostratedragon
@SiubhanDuinne: [Left in window before nap]
I see a person patiently explaining, with a firm but kindly gaze, “Nooooo-del.”
KSinMA
@Brachiator: Here’s another book I bet you should read: “Gentlemen of Property and Standing: Anti-Abolitionist Mobs in Jacksonian America” by Leonard L. Richards. About the tactical use of mobs, in the 1830s. Really awesome book.
mrmoshpotato
Oops. Didn’t mean to imply anyone has expressed regret. They certainly haven’t.
But maybe deep down in the dead of night, they know what they did and can at least admit shame to themselves.
Dan B
@Dan B: My partner and I were discussing what Tom’s shtick is / was. Lots of Stormtrooper fantasy is close to the best description.
Starfish
@Dan B:
The food at this restaurant was worse, right?
NotMax
@Almost Retired
More of a guidebook to the … downunder.
;)
Almost Retired
@Dan B: I am sensing a business opportunity: Tom of Finland-inspired escorted tours of Finland,. Can you make leather from reindeer, because that could be an additional source of profit from the tours?
WaterGirl
@Dan B: Is replying to your own comment a bit like talking to yourself? :-)
Full disclosure, I have done that, too!
Amir Khalid
For some reason, Chris Cillizza’s presentation style makes me think of Pee Wee Herman.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Masturbatory?
different-church-lady
Cents. You meant 15 cents, right?
JPL
@Amir Khalid: I can’t unsee that.
The Pale Scot
@Geminid:
Oh for fuck’s sake
WaterGirl
@Baud: Please note that my comment at #117 was not a pre-response to your question at #119!
NotMax
@Almost Retired
Lapp dances at a slight extra charge.
;)
oatler
@NotMax:
I had that record! (as well as Balaklava)
Renie
Just wanted to add in my .02. Started Schiff’s book today and totally enjoying it. His style of writing is easy to read as if a friend is talking to you and his inside knowledge of events is like a front row seat to what had happened.
Geminid
@Baud: Usually people leave the Catholic Church when they take up with a Protestant denomination. But Hewitt has very supple ethics. And it could be his wife is Presbyterian.
Dan B
@Starfish: You are correct.
The food at Seattle Gay Mensa was what you would expect if the people making it found eating to be a grim necessity and they had zero sense of smell. Not a good combo.
Almost Retired
@NotMax: ha! This business idea is coming together nicely.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Talk to yourself, buy yourself dinner, see where things go.
Dan B
@Baud: This somehow has echoes of Tom of Finland. Will my mind go to visions of Pee Wee Herman in a Tom of Finland vignette whenever I read about Chris Cillizza or Hugh Hewitt? Shudder!
WaterGirl
@Baud: I added too much thyme to the chicken and dumplings tonight, and the chicken wasn’t very tender.
There’s no way I’m putting out tonight after being treated to a sub-par dinner like that.
I deserve better!
Dan B
@Almost Retired: We could pitch this to the Tom of Finland Foundation (Yes, it actually exists.). They could market the tours through their contact list. They could donate part of the proceeds to an animal rescue (as long as it wasn’t a rescue for cows…. or reindeer, apparently.)
CaseyL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I consider it a workplace issue, one the GQP has worked at for decades with great success: Be so vile to your coworkers, they go out of their way not to piss you off.
Democrats don’t have the kind of bone-deep sociopathy needed to enjoy making the workplace (House and Senate) into a living Hell. But the GQP are precisely those kinds of sociopaths. Cruelty to others is funny to them.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Better luck next time.
NotMax
:snort:
Ad for the Disney production “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” just played in the background.
The announcer speaks so rapidly it sounds as if he’s saying “Diarrhea of a Wimpy Kid.” Every time.
SamR
Regarding his salary, in response to someone saying they couldn’t believe he was paid 7 figures, he responded that he wasn’t, he was paid 8 figures.
JPL
@Baud: She should just add more parsley, sage, and rosemary. Then it would be perfect.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Used with a light hand there’s no present like the thyme.
Or so I’ve heard.
;)
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: It’s astounding, Thyme is fleeting, Madness takes its toll.
Ruckus
@Baud:
Sure they had a platform.
It was: Elect TFG so that we can act like spoiled brats and fuck up everything.
They did. He did. It made them proud to be fuck ups. It wasn’t that they weren’t fuck ups prior, they just weren’t actually proud of it.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
Durante had a way with an earworm:
youtube.com/watch?v=bY-zmJ1VCQI
Ruckus
@Wag:
Both are smart and firmly on our side. I welcome them.
Will that change when they get back in power with someone other than TFG?
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: I’ll try.
ETA: I bought Vindman’s book and haven’t been able to read it, although it seems well written. For some reason, the only one of these I’ve devoured is Mary Trump’s book.
LongHairedWeirdo
Random comment: I heard the chief justice is afraid that people are ignoring the law and the duties of the judiciary, after ruling against the plain English meaning, and specific intent, of the VRA.
I’m starting to believe the meme I heard: that when the Final Solution was finally revealed, there were lots of people in the room who were shocked, and horrified, and yet… their hands were clearly dirty. People would look at them quizzically, and say “you did X, knowing it was for no good purpose, and yet you expect me to believe you’re shocked and horrified that a clear prelude to possible mass murder was, in fact, leading to mass murder?”
It strikes me as reasonable to suspect that the Federalist Society is a “decisions for appointments” organization – one that corruptly promises “correct” decisions in return for lifetime appointments.
Were that to be the case, I would also consider it reasonable to ask if Roberts is *finally* learning that the deal was, indeed, with the Devil.
CaseyL
@LongHairedWeirdo: He’s getting exactly the results he wants. He’d just like his hands to be clean – and, as you point out, they aren’t.
Do any of the Washington state jackals live in the nothern end? In Ferndale, specifically? A GOP State House rep, Doug Erickson, who represents that district, has apparently vanished.
He’s an anti-vax, anti-mask, pro-Covid clown who caught the bug while in Central America. He begged to be airlifted to Florida for monoclonal treatment and… that’s all anyone knows. His office is refusing to comment on his condition and whereabouts, and his family is refusing to respond to inquiries at all.
I suspect he has won a Herman Cain Award.
BellyCat
@WaterGirl: But did you get stuck with the check for the lousy dinner? If not, try more wine and reconsider your position.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@CaseyL:
that’s weird, why couldn’t he get it locally? fewer restrictions on eligibility?
Brachiator
@KSinMA:
Thanks for the recommendation.
Added to my list.
Yutsano
@CaseyL: It’s weird. It’s like he just went to Florida and just vanished. Even the local paper can’t get any answers from anyone. Everyone seems to be deferring to the family and they ain’t talking. I wonder if he’s so bad off but not quite dead yet so the family doesn’t want to say anything. Or even they don’t know. It’s bizarre.
Dan B
@CaseyL: My best friend has done political communication for several decades and knows lots of people. She was glad to hear that Erickson had gotten Covid and was stuck in El Salvador. He did great damage to progressive efforts in the state
It’s apparently no surprise that there is no info about his whereabouts or condition. He’s allied with people like that.
Cameron
@Dan B: He’s actually better known than you might think – I’m pretty sure I heard of him at least 15 years ago,
CaseyL
@Dan B: Except if the Florida Treatment had worked, they’d be doing a victory mazurka. That they are deflecting or just plain aren’t responding to questions means he’s either dying or dead, methinks.
Matt McIrvin
@Woodrow/asim:
And there’s a small but loud segment of the white left, and a bunch of centrists, who want that back.
Patricia Kayden
WaterGirl
@Baud: So glad you are back.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Who are the “bunch of centrists” who want that back? Are they Democratic members of Congress? Governors?
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: All the “independent” people who insist that they used to think the Democrats were sane but they moved so far to the left.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Independents are distributed across the ideological spectrum. Those in the center who think the Democratic party has moved too far to the left may not want the party to throw Black people under the bus, but rather the Squad and their predominately white “progressive” following. That is, if they are paying any attention to Democratic intra-party dynamics.
NotMax
Worth a cursory scan.
Did Anyone Even Look at the Massive Defense Budget Before Passing It?
dexwood
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s just a jump to the left
Dan B
@CaseyL: One can hope.
q
@dmsilev: Yeah, my parents would frequently tell me that I sounded like a broken record. My Millennial kids have a vague idea of what that means. Younger generations, not so much.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Correctly guessed what it would be before clicking, secretly hoped it might instead be Inka Dinka Doo.
;)
Ken
@CaseyL: After Herman Cain died, didn’t some of his staffers keep running his twitter account and — more importantly — his fundraising apparatus? I could easily see someone thinking they could do much the same, and maybe even keep drawing his congressional salary — and who knows, casting votes?
Dan B
@NotMax: There was a video of a terrific under track (hanging underneath) monorail in Japan with the comment that we can’t have such things when we spend seven hundred billion on the military.
NotMax
@NotMax
Which, by the way, can with some assurance guarantee will never be released as a cover by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
:)
(Sidebar: Sammy tried it.)
Skepticat
@mrmoshpotato:
If only.
lowtechcyclist
@dexwood:
I see you shiver with antici…
.
.
.
.
.
…pation
CaseyL
@Ken: Yes, they did exactly that – but his family was also in on the scam. I think it would be difficult for Erickson’s family and staff to pull off the same grift, since he’s an elected official.
Also, I don’t think the Washington State Democrats would put up with it; they’d want a special election (though I don’t know the odds of electing a Dem to that seat; I’m not very familiar with Ferndale).
Kropacetic
@Brachiator: Didn’t Obama make an effort with Pacific allies to restrain China militarily and negotiate a trade deal with strong protections for American IP that Trump rejected?
I can’t imagine Biden taking a softer line, though the starting point will be different.
What did Trump do besides tax American consumers for Chinese product?
Lyrebird
I don’t know if anyone else needs some respite.
Puppy sledding is a good option.
Brachiator
@Kropacetic:
You may be right about Obama’s efforts, but I don’t think that any president can persuade China from pursuing key foreign policy goals. Also, how often have other nations been able to restrain the US with respect to military issues?
Trump made a lot of noise about China, but did not accomplish much. Republicans used to be against tariffs, but mainly shut up and let Trump pretend that he was capable of getting China to be cooperative.
Julie
@CaseyL: My friend Sharon Shewmake, the current state representative from Doug Ericksen’s district, announced after he disappeared that she is running for his seat in the state senate. In the last election he beat his Democratic opponent by only 46 votes so I think she has a good shot at taking the seat in 2022. Of course we don’t know at this point whether he will run again (or whether he is even alive?) The fact that his district was hit by major flooding recently and he was nowhere to be found does not help him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
found a write-up of Hewitt fluffing trump on his successful war on The War On Christmas, part of this longer piece by Jonathan Chait
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: more from Chait’s piece, demonstrating once again that the trumpified Republican Party is a difference of degree, not kind. Chait is talking about how the growing number of Jewish parents in his suburbran Detroit public school had tried to make December a little less sectarian to the point where it sparked a backlash
That would be Willard’s sister-in-law, mother of the current trump toady RNC chair
Torch. Interesting imagery, Mrs Romney
Another Scott
@Kropacetic:
AlJazeera – US imposes sweeping sanctions on China, Myanmar and North Korea:
Biden’s not messing around in standing up for human rights.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wikipedia tells me Ronna the Elder has in fact been Our Willard’s ex-sister-in-law since 1992, but is still close to the family, especially The Lady Ann.
The Lodger
@SiubhanDuinne: Is Betty implying the guy doesn’t know how to use his noodle?
Big Mango
My son loves to “mangle” idioms….
Even a blind squirrel touches his nuts now and then….
brantl
@Wag: Bill Kristol is cunning, not smart; it was him that recommended Snowflake Snooki to McCain.
MrKite
@Patricia Kayden: hmmm. He’s a better person than me. I think the aid money should have been added to the BBB bill, which should then have been put to an immediate Senate vote.
Ramona Rosario
@zhena gogolia: same here…