Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The revolution will be supervised.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

People are complicated. Love is not.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Second rate reporter says what?

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

No one could have predicted…

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

In after Baud. Damn.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

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Book Clubs

Who is Elle Reeve, and Why Would You Want To Read Her Book?

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Who is Elle Reeve, and why would you want to read her book?

Let’s see.  For starters, Cole has known Elle Reeve for a long time, she’s written a terrific book, and we’re lucky that she is up for having a couple of book club zooms with us in February.

We also know she’s smart, because when I asked her to send me a blurb that I could use for this post, she enlisted a friend of hers to write it for her.  Self-promotion is hard; outsource whenever possible!

“Named one of the best books of 2024 by The Washington Post, Elle Reeve’s Black Pill is a wild ride into the dark heart of political discourse on the internet and how it has come to be a decisive factor in our current politics. Over a decade of reporting, Reeve unearths hundreds of as-yet-unseen documents and exposes some of the most notorious leaders of American far right groups in dozens of hours of exclusive interviews. This unique raft of reporting goes deeper than ever to explain just how these nefarious forces conspired to propel Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016 and drove real-world political action in Charlottesville in 2017 and at the January 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C.

With this clarity comes a more nuanced understanding of not just how it all happened, but also how those who oppose creeping fascism can fight back.

Reeve’s unique voice, sharp observations, and penchant for dark humor are propulsive. Black Pill is an essential and entertaining read for anyone interested in how we got to this moment in American political history, what might happen next, and how to affect change.

Excerpt from Vanity Fair.

Link to the Washington Post review.

NYT Book Review.   (If You Want to Understand Why Democracy Is Under Attack, Read This Book.)

Excerpt in Book Riot.

We’re looking two different zooms.  One for the part of the book that talks about Charlottesville in 2017; the other for the part about the insurrection on Jan 6.

If you’re interested, chime in!  If you think you’ll want to participate, what would you think of having the 2 zooms on Saturdays, two weeks apart.   Do you think maybe a month from now to start, since you’ll need time to get your hands on the book and read it?

Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

The book is available on Amazon and elsewhere.

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Midnight in Washington Book Club Thread

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This post is for anyone who has read Midnight in Washington book or who is interested in the book.  Feel free to talk about anything book-related, but here are some questions in case they are useful in getting the discussion started.

If you read Midnight in Washington but did not participate in the earlier discussions or the zooms, what was the primary message you took from your reading?  What did you learn from the book that you had not known before you read it?

For those who were participants in any of the Zoom gatherings, this thread is for you, too.  Are there things you wish we had been able to discuss on the zooms if we had more time?

Adam Schiff was very generous with his time, 40 minutes at the first zoom and 35 at the second.  Even so, I bet there are questions you wish we had been able to ask him.  What else would you have asked him if you had the chance?

SiubhanDuinne facilitated the discussion for one of our themes on zoom.  She did a lovely job, and she has graciously agreed to facilitate this book club discussion today.  Big thanks, SD, for that.

All the book club posts, including the ones with video of the time with Rep. Schiff, are at this link:

Midnight In Washington Book Club

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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?

Adam Schiff on the Midnight in Washington Book Club Zoom (Video)Post + Comments (27)

Midnight in Washington Book Club: Adam Schiff Joins Us Tonight at 8 pm ET

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Midnight in Washington Book Club Meeting #4 is tonight at 8pm Eastern time.

At least 4 of our live bloggers will be live-blogging the Adam Schiff portion of the zoom here in the comments again!  Let’s see how the thread tonight goes, and we can definitely make the BJ thread not at the same time as the zoom going forward.

I’ll ask our live-bloggers to write a comment as soon as they get to the thread and let everyone know they will be live-blogging for us.

Thanks to everyone who volunteered!

Also, if anyone didn’t receive a link to the zoom, please say so here ASAP or send me email ASAP.

Excited about Adam Schiff joining us again!   The first one with Congressman Schiff was outstanding.

In case you missed our “thank you” note after the first visit:

Adam Schiff Midnight in Washington Book Club – Announcements

 

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Midnight in Washington Zoom Tonight, New Questions, New Format

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We had a very successful zoom with Adam Schiff two weeks ago.

Almost Retired (Curt) did a masterful job of facilitating the conversation, Athenaze, Argiope and MomSense asked smart, thoughtful questions, and Adam Schiff was gracious and kind, candid and thoughtful in his answers.  It was a real delight to have him with us and it felt more like a conversation than any of us expected.

So of course the smart thing to do is change things up, right?  (Not usually!)

We were on our best behavior for company, but now we know him (a little bit) and he knows us (a little bit).  I talked with Patrick last night, and now that we know each other a little bit, the plan is to TRY to have even more of a conversation, with more give and take.

The theme for tonight’s zoom is We’re Not Helpless Passengers On a Bad Ride, aka Where Do We Go from Here and How Do We Still Have Hope?

More specifically than that, though we are going to focus on a couple of areas that can briefly be described in shorthand as: 1) the Jan 6 commission, and what happens if their results are met with a shrug from Republicans and a collective yawn from the public 2) attempts to control election outcomes with republican Secretaries of State and partisan election officials.

Having said that, the conversation will go wherever Adam Schiff takes us, but this is our thinking going in.

So. if you plan to participate in the zoom, YOUR ASSIGNMENT this afternoon is this:

Assume that:

  • You are on an elevator with Adam Schiff
  • You have 15 seconds to ask him a question
  • It needs to be something he can respond to in a minute or two.
  • Within the 2 *broad areas described above, what would you ask him?

If you have a questions, please share them below.

* If you have a burning question that isn’t in one of the two broad categories, you are welcome to include it in the comments.

IN THE ZOOM TONIGHT

If you have a question to ask, even if you have supplied it here, please use Raise Hand as soon as you enter the zoom.  It’s best if you summarize the gist of your question in a few words and can use Chat to send the summary to host and co-host (WaterGirl & Curt).  If we have an idea of what the questions are, that will help the flow of the conversation.

FYI: If we have the general free-for-all Chat on in the zoom, we can’t possibly sort through all the general chatting to find the questions. And having a sense of the questions in the Chat is key to our being able to open this up for a bit more conversation, hopefully without descending into chaos. :-)

Not to worry, we are not surprising Congressman Schiff with this new format.  Now that we all know each other a little bit, his Chief of Staff is very much in support of shaking things up a bit for our second event.  Let’s have fun tonight, and let’s make sure Adam Schiff has fun.  With your help, we can make this work.

Update: Any questions about how this is all going to work?

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Midnight in Washington Book Club Discussion #3

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Let’s try this on Saturday afternoon instead of at the same time as the zoom.  If anybody is snowed in, maybe this is the perfect time for book club!

For today, let’s play catch-up with a  general discussion of the book and discuss the Jan 6 insurrection and what surprised you the most about the book.

I’ll share a few questions to get us started.  If the questions are useful, great, if not jump in with your own thoughts.

What did you learn from the book that you didn’t know about before you read it?  For me, the most shocking thing was reading about Robert Mueller, and how far he had fallen.

How do you view the January 6 riot at the Capitol?  Was it an actual coup attempt?  A dry run for next time?  On its own terms, was it a failure or a success?  What was it like to see the insurrection through Adam Schiff’s eyes?  Did you learn anything new about Jan 6 from the book?  What impact did reading about Jan 6 have on how you view that day?

Was reading the book helpful in processing, or understanding, the events of Jan 6?   On Jan 6, 2021 I processed the whole thing as scary, and awful, and feeling that it was incomprehensible that help was not arriving.  I was certain that help would arrive and that we wold prevail, but it was still intensely disturbing. But I did not realize until later just how close we came to a horrible outcome that day.

Were parts of the book hard for you to get through?  Or did reading the book help to make sense of it all from a distance, when woven into a story?   If you couldn’t make it through part a particular part of the book, did you skip to another chapter or choose another subject?

Do you guys have any questions for the rest of us?

 

 

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Adam Schiff Midnight in Washington Book Club – Announcements

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We have a few announcements related to the book club, but first i want to share our thank you note to Adam Schiff, which I shared with his chief of staff via text last night.

Adam Schiff Midnight in Washington Book Club – AnnouncementsHopefully our word play will help convey to both Adam Schiff and Patrick what a wonderful experience this was for us!

Okay, back to business.

Adam Schiff will be joining our book club one more time – next week on Feb 2 at 8pm.

I should note that there will be no inadvertent ambushing of John Cole as we welcome Adam Schiff next week!

Audio and video of the time with Congressman Schiff will be posted on Balloon Juice.

A few of our awesome folks who live-blogged the Adam Schiff portion last week have volunteered to do it again next week.  If you were one of the live bloggers, please chime in below and confirm that you are up for a repeat performance next Wednesday.

Except for the live-blogging of Adam Schiff, which we clearly plan to do again, trying to have the book club thread going at the same time as the book club zoom wasn’t a rousing success. I suggest that we plan on having a couple of Balloon Juice thread-based book club meetings after the zoom book club ends on Feb 9.  Thoughts on that?

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