Middle Age

In the Beginning, God created Adam, and probably should have learned His lesson.

Okay, that doesn’t really make sense, but there really isn’t any proper way to panic at the idea that our Bug Martini idolatry is slipping.

Then again, what is he gonna do, a drive-by shooting with silly flag pistols? Hell hath no fury quite so hilarious as a cartoonist scorned, or, at the very least, forgotten for a day or two because there was all sorts of other crap going on.

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Huber, Adam. “The Good, the Bad, and the Oldie”. Bug Martini. 17 March 2015.

The Conservative Way (Tuckomatic Mix)

All hail FOX News.

Unless your name is Mickey Kaus.

The blogger Mickey Kaus has quit his job at The Daily Caller after the conservative site’s editor-in-chief, Tucker Carlson, pulled a critical column about Fox News from the site, Kaus told the On Media blog on Tuesday.

“It’s pretty simple,” Kaus said in an interview, “I wrote a piece attacking Fox for not being the opposition on immigration and amnesty — for filling up the airwaves with reports on ISIS and terrorism, and not fulfilling their responsibility of being the opposition on amnesty and immigration…. I posted it at 6:30 in the morning. When I got up, Tucker had taken it down. He said, ‘We can’t trash Fox on the site. I work there.'”

Carlson, who co-founded The Daily Caller in 2010, is a conservative contributor to Fox News and the host of its weekend edition of “Fox & Friends.”

Kaus says when he told Carlson he needed to be able to write about Fox, Carlson told him it was a hard-and-fast rule, and non-negotiable.

“He said it was a rule, and he wouldn’t be able to change that rule. So I told him I quit,” Kaus explained. “I just don’t see how you can put out a publication with that kind of giant no-go area. It’s not like we’re owned by Joe’s Muffler Shop, so we just can’t write about Joe’s Muffler shop.”

(Byers)

It would not be fair to wonder specifically why Kaus, a self-described neoliberal, would want to work for a conservative propagandist like Carlson, who once used a platform on msnbc to denounce San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome as a Nazi for showing compassion to undocumented immigrants. Yes, really, Carlson called Newsome a Nazi for not going after minorities. But neither can we demand that our public discourse be wholly segregated; in this case, it just didn’t work out, because whatever Kaus’ priorities are, Carlson is focused on marketing the conservative brand.

Then again, who knows what to think of Kaus’ implication that he would be happy to tank coverage of his employer.

Maybe that was his common ground with a shill like Carlson.

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Byers, Dylan. “Mickey Kaus quits Daily Caller after Tucker Carlson pulls critical Fox News column”. Politico. 17 March 2015.

Your Quote of the Day

“To borrow a Homer Simpson line, it’s funny because it’s true.”

―Steve Benen

It really is something of a mystery:

Remember, Senate Democrats could have tried to rush Lynch through the confirmation process during the lame-duck session late last year – before Dems lost their majority status – but Republicans implored Democrats not to. The power should rest with the incoming majority, GOP senators said.

The outgoing Democratic majority obliged, expecting Republicans to be at least somewhat responsible. After all, there were no substantive objections to Lynch and the GOP was desperate to see Holder go. Republicans had a built-in incentive to act reasonably.

And yet, here we are. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his team have subjected Lynch to the longest delay of any A.G. nominee in history – for reasons they haven’t even tried to explain – and this week, McConnell even broke his word about bringing Lynch’s nomination to the floor for a vote this week.

The irony is under-appreciated: Republicans wanted Holder to step down, and he did. Republicans wanted Obama to nominate an uncontroversial successor, and he did. Republicans wanted Democrats not to vote on Lynch in the lame-duck session, and they obliged.

Months later, the Senate’s GOP majority can’t quite bring itself to do what Republicans say they want to do. In fact, as far as McConnell & Co. are concerned, they hope to defeat Lynch – again, for reasons they’ve struggled to articulate – raising the prospect of Republicans keeping Holder at his current post until January 2017.

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Benen, Steve. “Holder suddenly enjoys the GOP’s ‘love’ and ‘affection'”. msnbc. 18 March 2015.

An Exercise in Futility (Mixed Up Mixmaster Mix)

The sad tale of Aaron Schock is also one of the stranger scandals we’ve seen lately Marin Cogan of New York magazine explains:

The saga unfolded in the most unexpected way. About two months ago, Washington Post reporter Ben Terris dropped by Schock’s office for a coffee with the congressman’s spokesman, Ben Cole. When Terris commented on the unique office décor — most politician’s offices are painted standard-issue yellow or navy and filled with knickknacks from the member’s district, but Schock’s walls were blood red, decorated with pheasant sprays and antique picture frames — an interior decorator popped out of the lawmaker’s office and offered to show him her Downton Abbey–inspired work. Terris might have never written about it had Schock and his staff not treated him like he was about to reveal a state secret. That story caught the eye of other reporters, who started digging into his spending reports. What they found was not good: Schock had spent more than $100,000 in one year from his taxpayer-funded congressional account on chartered planes — more than the senators who represented the state. He’d taken his interns to sold-out Katy Perry concerts. He misreported a private flight as a software purchase. Along the way, his spokesman was forced to resign after Facebook posts he’d written comparing black people to zoo animals were unearthed.