I See Dumb People

Is the GOP trying to look bad?

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Jonah’s back from New York and ready to participate in his weekly therapy session, otherwise known as the Ruminant. After beginning with a look under the hood of the G-File, he moves on to the week’s various annoyances, kvetching about everything from the expulsions in Tennessee’s House of Representatives to the fallout from Biden’s brainless Afghanistan withdrawal. Stick around until the end to hear Jonah’s thoughts on the recent controversy surrounding Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas.

Show Notes:

– Rebekah Jones claims her son is a political prisoner

– The depressing reality behind his arrest

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  1. Akzurm

    Please stop feeling that you need to bend over backwards to prove you're evenhanded when defending your friends or your principles. We (and I hope, you) know you are not an opportuntist or a racist or some kind of phobe. You didn't have to defend your credibility

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  2. Jefsut

    Sorry, your Harlan Crow story doesn't pass the smell test for me. $500,000 dollar vacations bestowed on a Supreme Cour Justice going unreported and you are cool with that? Any where are you stories about Ginni Thomas? I look forward to your future coverage of these issues. Tables turned, you'd be on the other side I've no doubt.

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  3. Bubba

    These state legislators are the ones who would fill the ranks of your theoretical expanded congress...

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      Richard Maxton

      But they are not the ONLY ones who would fill it.

      There ARE some good legislators out there. Expanding the House (which is more specifically what Jonah has called for) would allow for better representation, which would perhaps push out some extremists.

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    Rev Snow

    It's a striking instance of the Mandela Effect when Jonah recalls Warren Beatty as a black comedian. That role in Bulworth really made an impression!

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    Ferullbr

    Small appeal for advice: My wife and I are visiting DC real soon and I am supposed to come up with a few ideas on things I want to see. Any recommendations?

    Thanks in advance!

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  6. Dominic

    I'm not sure why, but the Harlan Crow discourse on Twitter has turned my stomach upside down more than any other news event in a while. Watching a lot of people I thought were generally good natured basically slander a man as a fascist has been so depressing. I don't know the man, but it doesn't seem like they do either and with the evidence available, it seems to be a disgusting act of partisanship. The underlying issue of how the gifts were handled is another issue worth looking at and beside the point of what is making me sick. Especially gross are academic historians who are participating in this character assassination. They should know more than anyone how serious an accusation it is to call or strongly imply someone is a fascist. Just so depressing how low some have gone with this.

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      Aylene Wright

      Not sure I would count Kevin Kruse as an academic historian at this point. I know Elie Mystal and Jane Mayer leant into the smear too. Mystal doing it didn't surprise me, but Mayer doing it did, but maybe it shouldn't considering her contribution to the Kavanaugh circus (another example of people actually undermining their cause by going too over the top with their arguments -- Ford's claims were certainly within the realm of believability, but not as much the Ramirez story, and certainly not the Swetnick allegations).

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  7. MLE

    Disclosure: my husband has been to HC's infamous museum. He's friends with one of Harlan's brothers. The museum does have Nazi paraphernalia, but it has a really huge range of items including Abraham Lincoln's death mask. It's just a (very expensive) private curio collection. I don't think the contents necessarily indicate a love of fascism or antisemitism, etc. He's just a very rich man who likes to collect insanely rare items.

    Maybe because of my bias, I don't think there's anything untoward from HC's side. He's a rich man who has his own interests, and if he chooses to support a bunch of conservative politicians, that's no different from any other rich, private individual.

    Now, CT, that's different. He's a public figure and a judge of the highest level. He should have disclosed those trips. I don't have a problem with him taking trips with HC, even the extraordinarily expensive/exclusive ones. But he should have disclosed them, regardless of the legality. It's a horrible look for a SC justice.

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    Sir. Orc

    It’s not exactly a good look to cynically exploit a school shooting to play Stanford Dean on the legislative floor. Nor is it a good look for most of the press to immediately pivot to talking about trans rights right after a trans person shoots up a Christian school. Yet I don’t see people arguing either of those points.

    What all could the legislature have done that would have had a different outcome optically, expect expel the third legislator? Hell even that probably would not have changed much except to add her to the hug-fest for the cameras after. Which also would have been the same outcome had the people in question merely been censured.

    As for proposed action - any solution except gun control would have been mocked as heartless and out of touch. It has always been. And it certainly would not have prevented the protests, the mobbing of the capital, and the whole bullhorn stunt on the floor anyway.

    So from an optics perspective there is basically no way to win for the Tennessea legislature. Censure or expel and you would have been smeared as racist (and misogynistic if the woman had been punished too), do nothing and you risk the legislative floor turning into something like our college campuses.

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    1. David Smith

      "Different outcome optically": just censure all of them?

      "Except gun control": there is a huge spectrum of options available that could be described as "gun control". There are some very reasonable options, including requiring some background checks and potentially pumping the brakes on some of the extreme pro-gun stuff they've been doing lately, such as unpermitted concealed carry, reduction of the age from 21 to 18, etc.

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  9. Very Old Grumpy Guy

    Jonah started off with a discussion of the own goal scored by the Tennessee Republicans. This is a cut and dried example of the total lack of any coherent party leadership which can impose any sort of logic on the membership. Like many institutions, the Republican Party has become a haven for individuals concerned ONLY about their own advancement, with no cares for the institution. There is zero attempt to persuade persuadable voters. I forget who makes this point, maybe Nick, that Republicans are not a political party anymore. They are a Nihilist cult, in which losing has become a badge of honor. The actual action taken is unimportant. It is the underlying disease that leads to the action that is notable. This constant struggle to assert "power" in dumb ways is example number 50 of a political party circling the drain. I want to move on to the next political platform for conservatives, before this one rips us apart.

    The next bit is just a comment on the psychological hold the Republican party has on Jonah. I think even mentioning the crazy Florida lady, is an attempt at, VERY WEAK, both siderism. She is nutty. Her kid is, unfortunately, mentally ill. She has no standing in the Democratic party, except she was this weird folk hero who "fought" a "bad guy" Republican. These things are NOT the same.

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  10. Todd.S.Boyce

    I guess the question is….why didn’t Clarence Thomas do what you did?

    In this podcast, you made clear that HC was an investor in the Dispatch. No law says you have to say that. You did it—I suspect—because your morality and integrity required you to. Likely because you believe in transparency and certainly (I hope) trusting the vast majority of those viewers (listeners…..no, you won’t Jonah, this is a podcast) to make informed decisions. The only way we can is to have as much info as possible. You weren’t revealing it because you were guilty of wrongdoing—but value the relationship you have with the public.

    CT said nothing about these trips.

    Why isn’t it a fair take to conclude he doesn’t ascribe to any of these things when he doesn’t reveal any of it until a media post uncovers it?

    I appreciated your views on HC as someone who knows him. This post isn’t a comment on him at all—rather judges and justices who are supposed to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

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    1. Very Old Grumpy Guy

      The podcast started out questioning the logic of the Tennessee expulsions. I don't know Jonah, but if I had to make a binary decision with a gun to my head, I would say he is a man of integrity. In that spirit, I would have liked him to spend a bit more time on the logic of what may certainly be totally innocent behavior, that looks REALLY bad, the Clarence Thomas lack of disclosure.

      Just as an aside, I went to the FEC website to get a sense of the types of politicians to which Harlan has contributed. They include:

      Team Herschel (yup - that Herschel)
      OZ Victory Fund and Doctor OZ for Senate

      Personally, as a former contributor to Republicans, I would have sat those races out. For the record, I think both of these guys opponents were bad, but they were MUCH worse.

      I realize that I am extrapolating from very limited data, but these types of contributions look like those of a partisan hack, who does not care about the lack of integrity of his party. He does not appear to be a force for righting the ship.

      Harlan doesn't really owe us an explanation for feting a sitting Supreme Court Justice who seems super aligned with a partisan agenda. But, information vacuums will get filled with conjectures you don't like.

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        Seth B

        Thanks, Grumpy Guy. I'd never looked at the FEC website before.

        Team Herschel. Oy.

        https://www.fec.gov/data/

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        1. Very Old Grumpy Guy

          I know, right!

          Is there anyone with more than like $10,000 to burn on politics who is conservative who is not a wing nut? Maybe, they HAVE to give money away and there are so few normal people.

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      2. Todd.S.Boyce

        I don't know Jonah apart from what I've heard and seen on TD. He strikes me as a guy who is willing not only to push back from the table but leave the restaurant entirely for his integrity and principles, regardless of whether I agree with them(I do a lot but not all). It actually meant a lot that he spoke for HC, whom I will never know. While he wasn't trying to, it was a very old-fashioned "vouch" and I'm betting he'd be comfortable with the consequences. People don't "vouch" for folks anymore. Instead, it is purely transactional and we are the worse for it.

        My beef isn't with HC. It is with CT. Judges hold a special place in our system. They are not special people--but the integrity of the office is really key to the continued existence of it all. The very LEAST CT could have done was disclosed it--as Jonah did.

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