As I clean the kitchen and make banana walnut muffins this morning, I am listening to a smart and interesting discussion between Marcy Wheeler and Benjamin Wittes on In Lieu of Fun. The episode is from April 6 – yes I am behind – but it’s fascinating. It’s about an hour long, and it’s well worth the time.
Open thread.
laura
Marcy Wheeler is worth everybody’s time. Emptywheel is a relentless Nemesis.
WaterGirl
@laura: Have you watched this particular discussion? I find the back-and-forth between the two especially illuminating.
NotMax
A couple of desultory swipes with a damp sponge will do ya.
;)
WaterGirl
@NotMax: Not my kitchen this week!
Eolirin
Apparently Orrin Hatch just died?
laura
@WaterGirl: not til now. I’m 20 minutes in. She’s guested on a number of things lately so trying to keep up. Trivia- she has a woozle named Junebug.
laura
@Eolirin: Orin Hatch can keep on dying as far as I’m concerned.
WaterGirl
@laura: I had to google woozle.
WaterGirl
@Eolirin: I see people are tweeting various things Orrin Hatch said, without comment. That seems pretty smart. Let his own words speak for themselves.
MagdaInBlack
@WaterGirl: Me too.
laura
@WaterGirl: woozle is pup. Pooty is kat.
SFAW
I just received some Rethuglispam, offering me a chance to sign up for … something.
What caught my eye was this:
“Our America First Foundering Wall is reserved for our Party’s most loyal supporters.”
I do not think it means what they seem to think it means.
ETA: On the other hand, I can only hope that enough Rethugs get on the
boatwall before it founders.Alison Rose ???
@laura: so she doesn’t have the Winnie-the-Pooh creature?
SFAW
@Eolirin:
Erik Loomis at LGM has a nice obit. [For values of “nice” where it means “explains what a terrible, evil, corrupt person and senator Hatch was.”]
Sure Lurkalot
Excerpt from NYT’s Hatch obit
The responses are DougJ worthy…here’s one:
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
Yes. It’s in the NYT Style Guide for Republicans.
Another Scott
@Sure Lurkalot: Fallows noted that too.
Short thread.
But, but, the obit writer/editor was being ironic!!11
He was horrible, but was a white man with good hair who did what they wanted, so he got a pass from the PTB.
Grr…,
Scott.
laura
@Alison Rose ???: She might, and she definitely has a pup named Junebug.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Yeah, that’s lame writing.
debbie
@Another Scott:
“Gentlemanly”? He was a bleeding harpy.
Baud
@debbie:
Bleeding Harpies is a good band name.
MomSense
@Another Scott:
One person’s good hair is another person’s playmobil hair. It always looked to me like he could just snap it off at the end of the day and click it back on in the morning.
Another Scott
It was a very good discussion.
I wouldn’t want to be against her in a game of Trivial Pursuit!!
On the lighter side…
I hate it when that happens.
(via gavmacn)
Cheers,
Scott.
Starfish
@Eolirin: A lot of Twitter is talking about how his NY Times obituary is banana pants. Here is James Fallows doing it politely and competently
I see @Another Scott got there first.
scav
How often is the toast to his demise going to be a jovial ‘Down the Hatch!’?
Geminid
@Another Scott: In other Utah news, Democrats there had a state convention yesterday and they made the unusual move of endorsing independent Evan McMullin in the Senate race against Republican Mike Lee. High profile Democrats like Salt Lake County Mayor Jan Wison and former Representative Ben McAdams sponsored the effort to back McMullin over Democrat Kael Weston, and their resolution passed by 782 to 594 votes. Afterwords Mr. Weston said that there had been a good debate and that “I accept what the delegates have decided to do.”
The Deseret News report on the convention noted that a Democrat has not won a Utah Senate seat in 50 years.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: They are fucking sellouts.
oldgold
@Another Scott: With a media seemingly only interested in forests, a tree specialist like Wheeler is appreciated.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ha!
debbie
@Baud:
These are the harpies I was thinking of.
Another Scott
@Geminid: It’s a heavy lift, that’s for sure.
I don’t know enough to have an informed opinion.
Yeah, that’s a risk. We need to be smart.
It’s worth watching. Maybe some January 6 indictments will shake things up. We’ll see.
(via LOLGOP)
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
The world is complicated, Part MMCXIV…
Thread (re whether Germany is doing enough, or doing more on the down-low than people believe).
Maybe… But money is fungible and opens lots of doors that are nominally closed.
Cheers,
Scott.
StringOnAStick
@Another Scott: I know someone who usually votes D but refused to vote for Hillary due to who knows what crap she read online, but she voted for McMullen. It might work and if it takes a senate seat away from the R’s, that’s a good thing. Even better if it’s insurrectionist Lee.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Indeed! I enjoyed that discussion and plan to listen again, maybe today. Wheeler is so deep in the weeds, she can be a bit hard to follow, but her powers of retention and skill at connection are remarkable
Yutsano
@Another Scott: This one will be…weird.The main reason why I say that is because McMullen might just have a shot.With the Democrats basically bowing out, there is a pool of votes he now has. I have to research how popular Lee is, although I did hear something about him not being all that popular in Utah right now. It might be worth looking at anyway.
CaseyL
@StringOnAStick: It might not actually take a seat away from the Rs, if McMullin is elected and opts to caucus with them (he’s running as an “Independent”). But, as has been noted, an actual Democrat can’t be elected statewide in Utah, so the best we can hope for is to get Lee’s traitorous ass out of there.
Geminid
@Another Scott: Just hours after the Utah convention, @Zeddary is positing that McMullin is going to soak up McGrath-level resources. I don’t see it myself. Utah Democrats are only talking about putting their own votes and work behind McMullin. That’s a rational decision.
I think that as an independent McMullin will have slim pickings among national Democrats this cycle. Maybe some rich independent Third Way-types will put their money where there mouth is. Anti-trump Republicans might too. But there will be eight or nine real Democrats trying to hold or flip Senate seats in battleground states and I don’t think there will be a lot of Democratic money left over for McMullin to poach.
Diceros bicornis
Whew macron won with 58-59% against Marine le pen
wetzel
Holy cow, Dr. Wheeler took Josh Marshall and Josh Kovinsky at TalkingPointsMemo to the woodshed the other day. I think she is challenging them to up their game on the Durham story and Jan 6 in general.
The activities of Durham the prosecutor is a case study in maladministration of justice, partison inspired prosecution, and it is completely missing from mainstream coverage, what a fiasco it is. To see the coverage at EmptyWheel compared to the rest, it is a wonder we are not fascist yet.
TPM is a small outfit too, but EmptyWheel is out-researching them and out-writing them on Jan 6 and all things related to the coup investigation and the remaining tendrils of Russiagate.
eachother
Ben Wittes was the instigator of projecting the Ukraine flag onto a russian embassy last week. The projection was a moving overlay on top of a russian flag projection. The poopies tried to wash out the Ukraine flag with a moving white light spotlight.
Ben surprised me with that one!
Yutsano
@Diceros bicornis: How does one say curb stomping in French? Asking for a friend. Yes I’m too lazy to Google it right now.
Geminid
Baud: Harpy Valley PTA might be a good Country song.
debbie
@eachother:
I watched video of that spotlight trying to catch to the flag. Its accuracy matched all other Russian accuracies. //
eachother
Ben gave the impression he was involved in this.
https://www.newsweek.com/watch-spotlight-chases-projection-ukraines-flag-russian-embassy-1698162?amp=1
eachother
https://www.capradio.org/news/npr/story?storyid=1092966576
SFAW
@Yutsano:
Maybe I’m naive, but to me a real “curb stomping” would have been with Macron getting more than 70 percent. Being plus-17 over an out-and-out fascist is far too close for my taste. Yeah, I realize (or so I’ve been told) that Macron is an asshole etc etc, and is disliked by a fair number of voters, but still ..
ETA: Oh, and I think the French for it is something like “urb-kay omping-stay.” Oh, wait, that’s Latin. Sorry.
Diceros bicorni
I asked my Frenchman but he had nothing to offer. Elle a pris une bonne fessée peut-être
WaterGirl
@wetzel:
Do you have a link?
Diceros bicornis
@SFAW: :D we don’t have a damn nazi President that’s good enough for me. Not a huge fan of macron but he’s doing the job.
trollhattan
Le Pen begins her quest for joining the US Republicans with qualifying “this loss isn’t really a loss because it’s a win” speech.
Oklahoma has a senate seat opening up and if she can talk half-English she’ll fit right in.
trollhattan
@debbie:
Somebody (spotlight dude) clearly did not spend enough time playing video games as a kid.
wetzel
@WaterGirl:
Here is a link to Marcy Wheeler twising Josh Marshall’s nose: Josh Marshall’s “Team on the Field:” Putting GOP on Defense Over Russia Requires Reversing Their Offense
Sorry to not to have included that.
WaterGirl
@wetzel: Thank you, reading now.