Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Motown is Joe-Town!

The lights are all blinking red.

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

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

We won’t go back.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

No Justins, No Peace

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

So many bastards, so little time.

Let’s finish the job.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

You cannot shame the shameless.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

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

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Book Clubs / Adam Schiff Midnight in Washington Book Club / Adam Schiff on the Midnight in Washington Book Club Zoom (Video)

Adam Schiff on the Midnight in Washington Book Club Zoom (Video)

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We were so lucky to have had Adam Schiff join us for a second time!

It was just as wonderful as the first time, a real delight once again, but in a totally different way.

Patrick (Adam Schiff’s chief of staff) and I had talked for about 20 minutes last Tuesday, and although he didn’t say it in so many words, I came away with the feeling that maybe we should shake things up for the second zoom, making it looser and edgier, with Adam getting to interact with more people.  More questions, shorter answers.  I asked Patrick whether he thought Adam would love that or hate that, and his immediate answer was “Let’s do it.”

So Curt and I put our heads together and decided that if what Adam wanted this time around was FUN and more interaction, that’s what we would give him.  So we completely revamped the plan for the zoom with Adam and jumped off the cliff together.

Curt wondered if they might have felt comfortable going for more fun and more interaction this time around precisely because the first meeting had gone so well, with thoughtful questions and all of us on our best behavior.  I feel pretty certain that Curt was right about that.

Once again, Curt (Almost Retired) did a masterful job of facilitating the conversation, even as people were free to jump in without being called on.  We made sure to give MomSense a chance to ask what I’ll call “the dad question”, which turned out to be a most excellent question because Adam lit up when she asked it.

And, yes, there was profanity this time.  Not to worry, Cole, Adam Schiff wasn’t swearing at us!  But he was the one who dropped the F-bomb as part of a story.  So we made him an honorary jackal!

And best of all, he volunteered that he would love to come talk with us again, thanked us for everything we are doing with our targeted fundraising for boots-on-the-ground organizing, and said we shouldn’t wait for another book to get together again!

In the spirit of a “party” rather than a “talk”, I went with the gallery view rather than speaker view for zoom, so that’s what you see in the video.

Oh, I should probably mention that the video doesn’t include the first couple of minutes where I welcomed Adam Schiff and posed the initial question to start us off.  I warned you guys that I am not good at remembering to start recording!  Of course, now that I know how to trim a recording, I guess it doesn’t matter if recording is turned on early before the event officially starts.

Our final Book Club zoom will be tonight at 8pm.  No live-blogging since we don’t have a guest – it would be tough to live blog a 90-minute discussion without a guest speaker.

We will hold two final BJ book club threads – one this weekend and one next weekend.

Maybe we can do Jamie Raskin’s book next?  I think he and Adam Schiff are buds, and maybe Adam would be willing to put in a good word for us.  Jamie Raskin is someone that a lot of us admire; wouldn’t it be wonderful if he were willing to come talk with us?

Reader Interactions

27Comments

  1. 1.

    Almost Retired

    As a public service to this community, I have time-tagged the aforementioned “F-bomb” for you: 24:17. You’re welcome.

  2. 2.

    narya

    Adam ALERT! Schiff was a guest on today’s “Daily Beans” podcast, and he said, hey, I’ve been joining Zoom book club meetings, etc. He wasn’t on long, but it will be of interest to book club members.

  3. 3.

    MomSense

    Maybe we could do our next round of fundraising in honor of Jamie’s son – find out if there is a voting rights group or one of our current groups we could donate to.

  4. 4.

    Miki

    Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay. Yay.

    I’ve been waiting for the video for ages since I couldn’t figure out how to participate live, and I loved the book and love Adam Schiff. And his dad, especially.

    This book club thang tweaked my cynical depression more than I would have thought possible. So thanks for that. Combined with the newish poodle puppeh I feel down right heppeh.

  8. 8.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle: I put up the video in this post.  You can find all the book club posts, including this one, in the link in the sidebar under Featuring.

    The two with video say (Video) in the title and the one with just audio says (Audio) in the title.

  11. 11.

    JoyceH

    Hey, can someone explain to me how to put up an avatar of some sort when you turn off video? I’d like to put up a nice dog picture or maybe a book cover to show when I turn off video to take a smoke break.

  12. 12.

    JoyceH

    And BTW, Abigail Spanberger dropped by my county Democrats meeting for a few minutes on Monday, so I zoomed with TWO congresspeople in one week! She was outside the Capitol building because they were waiting to be called to vote – I felt like I was participating in an MSNBC show.

  13. 13.

    MomSense

    I think I might listen back on our conversations with him to listen for the action items that he said they (Democrats defending our democracy) needed from activists.  There were several action areas.  He said local voting rights and registration and also protection of county clerks and officials who are trying to protect voters.  He talked about people in blue states donating and supporting efforts in places like Texas where they are disenfranchising voters. He also talked about pressure on Republicans who won’t cooperate with the Jan 6 committee and pressure on the media.  I’d be interested in talking as a group about what we think we can do or joining forces with groups already doing those things.

  14. 14.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Great job everyone.

    That “Oh geez!” by Schiff, at the mention of a Representative from TN…  ???

  16. 16.

    UncleEbeneezer

    And just as I was watching this:

    BREAKING: Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Peter Navarro — the former Trump senior advisor and Willard war room associate.

  19. 19.

    Spanky

    “Gazpacho police” is trending. I’ll leave it at that, except to say that hilarity is ensuing.

  21. 21.

    Another Scott

    Thanks for this.  Everyone did well.

    Yes, get Raskin if you can.  Of course!  Give us time to read the book, and get books to those who want it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  25. 25.

    Almost Retired

    @Another Scott:  Scott (and jackmac), this raises an interesting point, re book sales for when we reach out to Congressman Raskin or other authors.

    I wonder how many books were sold as a result of Adam’s appearance on BJ?

    Certainly, at least 100 directly from the participants, as well as dozens of others who wanted to read the book to follow the on-line conversation.

    And then there are the friends and families of jackals, who bought the book on our recommendation (my Mom, for example).  It’s not an insignificant number.

    There are a lot of these in-the-moment political books out there.  I suspect Midnight in Washington would have been on my “I’ll get to that” list.  But the book club moved it up to “buy immediately.”  Adam Schiff is no fool to participate in Zoom book clubs!

  26. 26.

    AJ

    WaterGirl yuge thanks to you and the team for making this happen!!

    What an honor and a pleasure for us to have these conversations and esp the recordings for those of us who didn’t make it live.

    I predict these good efforts may land us in the top NINE thousand blogs if we keep it up.

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