87 Comments
User's avatar
RWAlex's avatar

Sic transit Ezra Klein...

Manqueman's avatar

I sort of like Klein's pod but JFC his pod-speaking voice fucking kills me.

Likewise the alleged huge black hole in the new book.

SteveB's avatar

Based on my rudimentary knowledge of Latin, I'm translating this as "Ezra Klein should get hit by a bus."

redoubtagain's avatar

White House Co-Conspirators Association. . .

Reminder that all of this is because a Black man got a job that doesn't involve having to kiss Trumpov's ass for a living. That he was humiliated by said Black man at another WHCA gathering--the same day as Bin Laden was turned into a colander--is (chef's kiss).

Manqueman's avatar

You can say all that again.

Bern's avatar

Hearted for the kitchen implement.

Manqueman's avatar

Last week, I went off-brand and withheld any comment because who wants to start the week with any reality I mean negativity from moi?

But that was then.

The bottom line of the Ruffin affair is that it's just the latest example of cowardice from an organization of the venal and the chickenshit that's been failing the nation consistently for decades -- wait, no, failing is their heritage, their SOP but for a very brief anomalous period.

So, this farce (I mean the WHCA, not today's hi-grad laffs from the Maestro here).

We should keep in mind that Trump 2.0 is serving his party by rushing us back to the 1890s (or earlier maybe in the case of MAHAhahahaha!) so might I go a little Johnathan Swift and suggest the WHCA go 1890s and replace Ruffin with a minstrel performer. You our beloved Fuhrer would enjoy that and is their anything more important for an organization of submissive cowards than making the Fuhrer happy?

SteveB's avatar

I think it's fair to say that, not only will the revolution not be televised, it will not be led by Columbia University, Chuck Schumer, white-shoe DC law firms or the White House Correspondents Association.

Manqueman's avatar

That’s for sure.

Bern's avatar

But will I be in the driver's seat?

LittlePig's avatar

And here I was thinking H. Rap Brown said that. (he's still alive, by the way)

Pere Ubu's avatar

I'd go Jonathan Swift and suggest that for anyone unable to afford meat in our Golden Age America, there's some good eatin' on those GOP folks.

Manqueman's avatar

No problem with cannibalism or meat eating in general but I think Republican meat has to be pretty nasty and harsh on on the system.

But what the hey. It’s worth finding out.

LittlePig's avatar

Takes a long marinade, a week in wine, a week in brine, but quite salvageable. BBQ was made with questionable meats in mind.

Manqueman's avatar

I actually spent a minute or two pondering this and this is what I think the problem:

The propriety of eating fellow humans or humanoids or humanesque mammals as the case may be, I think Republicans, by slaughter time, have ingested so much bad stuff that that I think may be magnitudes less healthy than the meat of other mammals — the booze, the drugs, the bleach, whatever. Not to mention cooties.

So as a health issue, I dunno. Your recipe doesn’t help with the unhealthiness of the meat.

Or as I tend to think of Republicans-as-meat, Trump Steaks®️ 2.0.

SteveB's avatar

Stephen Miller had a long day today, he and his wife are just going to order in Venezuelan.

Bern's avatar

Oh stop.

SteveB's avatar

I know, it's a desperate play for an Oof. What can I say? Gotta have my Oofs.

Pere Ubu's avatar

If Schitzenführer is happy, by DEFINITION the People are happy!

Manqueman's avatar

HEIL DRUMPF UND DER ETERNAL DRUMPF REICH!!!

Gerald Fnord's avatar

I think that would be „Das Ewigedrumpfesreich“, but real German-speakers please correct that if necessary.

Manqueman's avatar

I’m sure our masters will clarify the issue soon enough.

Gerald Fnord's avatar

They'll deport us, either for speaking some Foreign or for knowing anything.

Manqueman's avatar

I expect to be removed to a camp due to excessive mockery of and/or insufficient for the cunt.

Not saying it’s likely but not saying it’s not possible either.

Pere Ubu's avatar

Close enough for me and my dimly remembered German.

Gerald Fnord's avatar

If only at this point Mr Trump were a dimly-remembered German.

EDIT: i think it important to think that there's nothing special about Germans that made them Nazis, if only out of non-bigotry and to keep in mind that _I_ could be a Nazi, but I have to wonder if there are some cultural patterns that make it easier for them. I was interested and to learn that even in The Great War* a journal for German Lutheran pastors endorsed the notion that all were equal in Christ but each race had an assigned rôle, and Germans' was to rule all the others.

Nah, it's probably because just he's a third-generation landlord and victim of alternating abuse and luxury.

From "Inherent Vice":

CROCKER FENWAY[an huuge landlord]: People like you lose all claim to respect the first time they pay anybody rent.

SteveB's avatar

"...lose all claim to respect the first time they pay anybody rent."

Last week it hit me that guys like Musk don't just have contempt for all government workers, they have contempt for all workers, period. Especially anyone who shows up to faithfully do the same job year after year. "What is WRONG with these people?" they think. "Why don't they show some ambition, some drive, why don't they start their own company instead of just collecting a paycheck like some kind of loser? They must be lazy, phonin' it in, cheating the boss, nothing else can explain it."

Billionaires are so different in their thinking from the rest of us as to almost constitute another species. And not a better species.

SundayStyle's avatar

Roy! You are introducing pops of color into Peoni's wardrobe! (wipes away tear) They grow up so fast.

I am of the belief this whole Trump disaster started because Obama and Seth Meyers made devastating fun of him at the 2011 WHCD. Trump's narcissistic ego couldn't handle it. So now the other bookend is being put in place by banning comedy entirely. Maybe he'll sign an EO that makes stand-up illegal.

rfc's avatar

Seconded —

Roy Edroso's avatar

I thought it could use some gold but after you all ranked me out for the necklace a few weeks ago I got gunshy

SteveB's avatar

"Legalize comedy! Uh... I mean... ILlegalize comedy! Yeah, that's it!"

Mark Lungo's avatar

And Amber Ruffin has been a regular on Seth Meyers' show. Irony!

SteveB's avatar

She's wonderful, especially in this:

https://youtu.be/T_RTnuJvg6U

Pere Ubu's avatar

"asymmetric panel"

Hey, for a second there, I thought they were talking about the Decision Desk! POW! I'll be here all week, folks.

Ellis Weiner's avatar

That's what you think.

Rugosa's avatar

"I'm not afraid of atom bombs"

Said Kruschev, "and they know it.

I'm not afraid of anything -

Except, perhaps, a poet." E Y Harburg (who had a heart, a brain, and courage)

Claire März's avatar

Peoni's dress is hideous.

SundayStyle's avatar

As is Peoni herself. But Roy is mixing complementary blues and greens, and I couldn't be more proud, lol.

rfc's avatar

And it is not a good color, shape, or proportion for a petite, elderly blonde.

Iamhbomb's avatar

But at least it's expensive.

Bern's avatar

Why, I was walking thru Black Lives Briefly Mattered Plaza just the other day, and rejoiced – REJOICED! – that we don't need to be bombarded by the suggestion that they do anymore.

Meanwhile, the Country Formerly Known As The Land Of The Free* has again (2nd time? 3rd time?) ripped off the District's taxes for sport.

*and the Home...Of The...Brays.

DrBDH's avatar

WHCD, Ezra Klein…the American polity has become such a target rich environment, maybe Roy should do these pieces in a group chat so we can applaud as each institution and pundit bombs the basic democracy test. Hey, remember when the modern day Nazis were all about civics education?

SteveB's avatar

And here's high school kids in Idaho passing the basic democracy test with flying colors while their elders fail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsn3INWTDGw

Worriedman's avatar

This is great! Ezra Klein deserves more abuse, but that's a given.

SteveB's avatar

Soaring housing prices in California is Liberal Policy Failure, if housing prices in Houston or Orlando were soaring it would be clear evidence of economic dynamism, a sign that Americans are flocking to these low-tax low-regulation red states.

Hell, housing prices here in liberal Madison are soaring, and in the 25 years I've been here the hi-rise construction cranes fill our skyline, we build and build, and still they come, it's like some kind of endless growth, a thing which I had heard capitalists are quite fond of, but liberal Madison, so I'm sure we're fucking things up somehow, please Ezra tell us how we're going wrong!

Whipstitch's avatar

I remember hearing years ago, don't know who was in office back then, "Housing prices are going up! This is such a boon for the property-owning middle class!" (But what could you use that extra equity for, you ask, except to buy shelter?) Didn't hear that anymore during the Biden years, maybe Trump will bring it back.

SteveB's avatar

It sucks, and all those construction cranes are building expensive condos, nothing for working-class folks. The city is also building affordable housing, one project not far from my house got a big expansion, a really lovely set of colorful row houses, but it doesn't keep up with demand.

I guess I'd just like a Big Thinker like Ezra to pause and ask WHY there's such a demand in the first place. What have we done right that so many people want to move here? I'm pretty sure it's not the weather.

SnarkiNorski's avatar

I fondly remember the days of yore when MSNBC briefly tried to make Ezra Klein happen as a host (filling in for Rachel Maddow?), only for him to be quietly gone soon after, never to return. Even then that amount of smug naïveté didn’t find an audience.

SteveB's avatar

"You keep trying to make Ezra Klein happen."

Iamhbomb's avatar

There was a time back in the early aughts when he was actually fairly reasonable. Not sure what happened in the ensuing years.

SteveB's avatar

Most of us progressed beyond Clintonism, and he didn't.

billcinsd's avatar

Ezra was only good on health care policy and the ACA passed

SteveB's avatar

Hey, Elmo came to my state yesterday, and gave checks for ONE MILLION DOLLARS to two Wisconsin voters after paying thousands of other voters $100 each to sign a petition and our currently-liberal Supreme Court said unanimously that nothing could be done about it. So... uh... COMEDY!

Bern's avatar

[Mr B furiously sorting out how to snag one a those checks and still pretend to live on a schoolteacher's salary]

Gerald Fnord's avatar

You'd think this could create resentment in everyone who voted just as hard as they and _didn't_ get $10^6 for it, but since that doesn't apply to capitalism-in-general for these coves….

SteveB's avatar

Hearted for the use of scientific notation, given what's been happening to science lately, I take this as a brave sign of defiance.

Blueb4sunrise's avatar

As an Arizonan, let me take this time to advocate for the pissing on our two Senators from a great height.

Gerald Fnord's avatar

> Next there’ll be a show about black veterinarians, I don’t know, maybe they’ve already done it.

https://youtu.be/APYVTUJB4Ic?si=otqNvxnwURFp3R5j

(Add

&t=225

…if you want to skip to the apposite preview, but I strongly recommend seeing the whole thing.

)

Roy Edroso's avatar

I was wondering whether one of you would get that!

Gerald Fnord's avatar

I'll bet that some people remember nothing of that apart from 'Stay away from the sheep!'.

(…and I was reminded that I imprinted on women looking much like the ones in the film, or for that matter the audience.)

I'm disappointed that "The Three of Us" did _not_ pre-date "Three's Company", great as it was at refining and improving it.

Blueb4sunrise's avatar

Also, little typo, I think. at / as

".....Zimbabwe or whatever her name is doesn’t want to be perceived at a DEI hire.."

Peoni killin it this morning, though.

Tehanu's avatar

Peoni's fashion sense seems to have deserted her today.