Frankly, this is a huge relief. The prospect of Kmele flying with the unwashed masses is so awful I just can't think about it. That travesty would be on par with Obama bowing to King Abdullah and the Emperor of Japan, retreating from Vietnam with our tail between our head, or watching Sputnik flicker in the sky. It would be like the dearly departed Queen of England walking a mutt in a track outfit.
I bet he used the time-tested Dreyfuss method of pretending he’s blind and a tiny bit retarded. (I unfortunately don’t remember what episode that was from.)
Apr 20, 2023·edited Apr 20, 2023Liked by Matt Welch
I found out today that my 4 year old dachshund Walter has agressive lymphoma. After leaving work early and doing my fair share of crying, I started rage working out in the yard and listening to today's episode. Two hours of hungover laughs really helped me get out of my own head.
I'm going to go get stoned and drink a bottle of tequila now.
PS: Glad to see Reverend Foster got upgraded. I guess this means white supremacy is over?
Really sorry to hear that. My wife and I lost our sweet pup, Lily, suddenly about a year ago and it's making me want to cry just writing about it. If he can be treated, I hope it goes as well as possible and if not, I hope you're able to help make Walter's remaining time meaningful and your grief yields emotional healing.
That really sucks. I'm so sorry. Dogs are 99% pure joy, but that 1% at the end is dark hell. F cancer. For what it's worth, there is an interesting protocol for lymphoma. I do a fair bit of science writing, and it is intriguing.
Thank you. This is pretty much the protocol our vet suggested, but given how aggressive it is, we're on a more palliative track. We were able to bring him home Saturday, and we're trying to enjoy the good days together while we can.
Congress made that designation in the Immigration and Nationality Act, and USCIS just had to administer it (to be fair). But no doubt you ARE of extraordinary ability!
I actually really want to apply for the “national interest waiver” designation but my immigration lawyer said we can’t apply for things just because they sound cool 😞
You should listen to your lawyer 😀. Citizenship is cool is you want it (and meet the requirements), way cooler than any waiver. But then you do have to consider who to vote for and they can make you serve on juries and all that stuff, so understandable if you just want to stay with what you got. Just don’t embark on a life of crime. That’s when you find out the “permanent” in permanent residency is subject to some major limitations.
This report from the FIRE gala convinced me to become a card-carrying member. I work for a university and completely agree with Moynihan’s take on university capture. We need to convince the public to push back against censorship & DEI overreach rather than legislating against it.
The Dominion settlement is remarkable, especially considering a private equity firm bought 76% of Dominion for only $38M in 2018, and Dominion “only” had $100M in revenue last year (not profits, which presumably is a fraction of that, if anything) meaning Fox paid Dominion >15x its 2018 valuation. Fox agreed to pay Dominion many times what it was conceivably worth, and likely many times more than the damages Dominion could ever prove at trial. And this is straight cash, it would likely have taken Dominion years to collect a judgment after a trial (appeals etc). I can only guess Fox’s reason was to avoid the hassle, disruption, and embarrassment of going through a trial. Talk about some real Rupert Murdoch fuck you money there.
FWIW I thought Megyn Kelley’s defense of Fox News was a bit of a reach. And the idea that Carlson and Hannity would charm the panties off a jury - meh.
I just watched the relevant Megyn clip and agree it’s a reach. Somehow dwelling on the “mainstream media’s” coverage of this story is completely missing the point. Fox’s bullshit around the 2020 election IS the story. Textbook audience capture with receipts to prove it. It’s amazing how some people will twist themselves into knots to own the libs no matter what. This story is not about the libs! It’s about the fact that, besides Powell, Lindell, Giuliani et al, NO ONE who was close to the data believed any of this bullshit about the 2020 election. And still- the Fox hosts played their little game in order to hold onto their viewers who otherwise might defect to Newsmax. It’s an absolute scandal.
Checking in from Japan in response to the request and... I have nothing major to report. People here seem surprisingly non-plussed about attempted political assassinations.
The Abe one was a bigger deal but the big public debate was about whether the costs of a state funeral were appropriate considering he was no longer in office at the time.
The "root causes" discussion, and the mention of Reginald Denny, reminded me that one person who was interested in understanding root causes of violent crime was Reginald Denny. This is off the top of my head, but I remember him either speaking to the press or at one or more of his attackers' trials, to the effect of 'we have to understand what would lead a person to do something like this' and 'they've suffered too,' etc. No great overarching point here, just thought I'd share the sound of the bell that went off in my head. What are comment sections for?
I have so many thoughts on the situation in Chicago, but I wanted to address one thing Moynihan brought up around increasing the numbers of police.
About a year ago Coleman Hughes interviewed a former chief of the Baltimore city PD. One of the things he told Coleman was that to get a new police recruit to the point they are operating at an optimal level was seven years (if I recall correctly). So it’s not as simple as swapping out one cop leaving the force for someone just out of the academy.
If they were serious about stemming the tide of crime in the city, they may need to ask the Governor to call in the National Guard to beef up their ranks.
To provide context: numbers from CPD's annual report indicate a total of 13,790 members at the end of 2021 and 14,221 members at the end of 2019, a reduction of 431. The 2022 budget allows for a total of 14,058 positions, with a shift towards civilian positions (these are budgeted, not filled positions.
I'm not totally sure where the 3,300 number is coming from (link is currently a 404). You can get to a 2,376 reduction by subtracting the total number of sworn officers in 2021 from both sworn and civilian in 2019, but that's not apples to apples.
Edit: I suspect the 3,300 number refers to officers who left CPD over that time period, rather than an overall reduction in police numbers. That would suggest that about 25% of CPD officers joined since 2019 (roughly, as I don't have 2019 sworn only numbers). I'm not sure what the historical turnover rate is, but this seems quite high.
"The Department had 14,221 sworn and civilian members at the end of 2019.
"In FY2022, the City budgeted for 13,108 sworn officer positions across all funds and all job classifications (including police officers and supervisor-level positions).[1] The CPD budget includes 950 non-sworn positions. "
From the article: “Since 2019, she is one of about 3,300 officers who retired, resigned, were fired – or lost their lives while wearing the badge – according to the CBS 2 Investigators analysis of data from the Chicago Department of Human Resources.”
They also didn't include the line that immediately followed the 3,300 line... "Since 2019, Chicago has hired about 1,600 officers – about half the amount of the departures."
1) It boggles my mind when people say that there's no such thing as a culture of free speech. Motherfucker, have you read JS Mill? Come the fuck on!
2) I'd be chowing on the popcorn during a putative Fox trial, and rooting for its demise, but I didn't even know anything about Dominion until it was mentioned on either this podcast or maybe one of your appearances on Megyn Kelly (I think).
3) Just the thought of the video of that couple (and the actions of the mob) make me sick to my stomach. It's obscene. I predict "law and order" will be a winner in '24 (or, if not, the '26 midterms and '28 election. I sure hope this level and kind of violence doesn't last that long, but I that fear it will.)
4) I was gonna say the same thing as Matt about the cops. They should've *at least* put on their siren and lights (and immediately called for back up). Cop cars do have bulletproof windows right? What did they really have to be afraid of then? (Okay, flipping and fire, but still, that risk seems like part of the job to me?)
I live in Illinois and I was in Chicago last weekend. My hotel was a few blocks away from the epicenter of the youth mob. I live in another city a couple hours away, but I follow Chicago news and talk to locals enough to know that I shouldn’t wander around in the downtown area at night, which is a stark difference from just a few years ago.
Many people want to put their heads in the sand and act like this is not happening, but when you find yourself in the middle of it, you can’t deny it.
Everyone deserves to be safe, not just tourists and people who can afford to live and recreate downtown. But if you can’t protect your downtown core then just imagine how horrible things are in the peripheral areas that are less visible to the media and have vastly fewer resources.
I went looking for this story, not having heard it, and almost every news outlet in Chicagoland is referring to it as, "Downtown Disturbance". DISTURBANCE?!?
After years of free-loading, I finally was inspired to pay my dues today. I'd like to say it's my generous contribution toward restocking your liquor cabinet after this week's FIRE, and I would be very disappointed if that is not how the money is spent. But my real motivation is much more petty—to correct Moynihan, who really should know better: "Der lange Marsch durch die Institutionen" is the famous slogan of the campus activist Rudi Dutschke.
Speaking of whom, I have a question for the Fifdom: how widely known is Dutschke outside Germany? For example, are there any musicians other than Hamburg's Thees Uhlmann to name-drop Dutschke in their lyrics? (Uhlmann also managed to mention Ivan Lendl and Bret Easton Ellis in the same bizarre collage of a song.)
Kmele just texted, "I got upgraded," in case anyone was preparing to send help. (This will make sense later.)
Generally speaking, Kmele is NOT the one about whom we worry.
Frankly, this is a huge relief. The prospect of Kmele flying with the unwashed masses is so awful I just can't think about it. That travesty would be on par with Obama bowing to King Abdullah and the Emperor of Japan, retreating from Vietnam with our tail between our head, or watching Sputnik flicker in the sky. It would be like the dearly departed Queen of England walking a mutt in a track outfit.
I bet he used the time-tested Dreyfuss method of pretending he’s blind and a tiny bit retarded. (I unfortunately don’t remember what episode that was from.)
I’m so relieved. That was going to feed my nightmares, the injustice of it. Glad that the airline saw the error for what it was.
Such a relief!
Today, I am finally proud to be an American...
Kmele needs this https://wheelsup.com/
Now I'm disappointed, actually.
I found out today that my 4 year old dachshund Walter has agressive lymphoma. After leaving work early and doing my fair share of crying, I started rage working out in the yard and listening to today's episode. Two hours of hungover laughs really helped me get out of my own head.
I'm going to go get stoned and drink a bottle of tequila now.
PS: Glad to see Reverend Foster got upgraded. I guess this means white supremacy is over?
I'm waiting on biopsy results for my Great Dane. I'm so sorry for Walter and for you. It is heartbreaking.
Really sorry to hear that. My wife and I lost our sweet pup, Lily, suddenly about a year ago and it's making me want to cry just writing about it. If he can be treated, I hope it goes as well as possible and if not, I hope you're able to help make Walter's remaining time meaningful and your grief yields emotional healing.
That really sucks. I'm so sorry. Dogs are 99% pure joy, but that 1% at the end is dark hell. F cancer. For what it's worth, there is an interesting protocol for lymphoma. I do a fair bit of science writing, and it is intriguing.
https://www.dogcancerblog.com/articles/cancer-type/lymphoma/what-i-would-do-for-my-dog-with-lymphoma/
Thank you. This is pretty much the protocol our vet suggested, but given how aggressive it is, we're on a more palliative track. We were able to bring him home Saturday, and we're trying to enjoy the good days together while we can.
I hate to point out misinformation in the episode, but I am a permanent resident of the United States, not yet a citizen
Or, if you prefer my designation by USCIS - which I do - an Alien of Extraordinary Ability.
We just all want to claim you.
Mossad is the world’s citizen
Congress made that designation in the Immigration and Nationality Act, and USCIS just had to administer it (to be fair). But no doubt you ARE of extraordinary ability!
I actually really want to apply for the “national interest waiver” designation but my immigration lawyer said we can’t apply for things just because they sound cool 😞
PS I love your show with Chaya Leah! Keep up the great work!
Thank you Evan!
You should listen to your lawyer 😀. Citizenship is cool is you want it (and meet the requirements), way cooler than any waiver. But then you do have to consider who to vote for and they can make you serve on juries and all that stuff, so understandable if you just want to stay with what you got. Just don’t embark on a life of crime. That’s when you find out the “permanent” in permanent residency is subject to some major limitations.
This report from the FIRE gala convinced me to become a card-carrying member. I work for a university and completely agree with Moynihan’s take on university capture. We need to convince the public to push back against censorship & DEI overreach rather than legislating against it.
Kmele's rant near the end needs to be clipped and published on its own. A great moment in American history.
The Pantone card & tax returns to adjudicate crime should be officially enshrined in the books. We’re already doing it so why not make it official?
The Dominion settlement is remarkable, especially considering a private equity firm bought 76% of Dominion for only $38M in 2018, and Dominion “only” had $100M in revenue last year (not profits, which presumably is a fraction of that, if anything) meaning Fox paid Dominion >15x its 2018 valuation. Fox agreed to pay Dominion many times what it was conceivably worth, and likely many times more than the damages Dominion could ever prove at trial. And this is straight cash, it would likely have taken Dominion years to collect a judgment after a trial (appeals etc). I can only guess Fox’s reason was to avoid the hassle, disruption, and embarrassment of going through a trial. Talk about some real Rupert Murdoch fuck you money there.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-19/fox-s-787-5-million-settlement-gives-pe-firm-1-500-return#xj4y7vzkg
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fox-news-dominion-voting-systems-lawsuit-settlement-staple-street-private-equity/
FWIW I thought Megyn Kelley’s defense of Fox News was a bit of a reach. And the idea that Carlson and Hannity would charm the panties off a jury - meh.
I just watched the relevant Megyn clip and agree it’s a reach. Somehow dwelling on the “mainstream media’s” coverage of this story is completely missing the point. Fox’s bullshit around the 2020 election IS the story. Textbook audience capture with receipts to prove it. It’s amazing how some people will twist themselves into knots to own the libs no matter what. This story is not about the libs! It’s about the fact that, besides Powell, Lindell, Giuliani et al, NO ONE who was close to the data believed any of this bullshit about the 2020 election. And still- the Fox hosts played their little game in order to hold onto their viewers who otherwise might defect to Newsmax. It’s an absolute scandal.
Checking in from Japan in response to the request and... I have nothing major to report. People here seem surprisingly non-plussed about attempted political assassinations.
The Abe one was a bigger deal but the big public debate was about whether the costs of a state funeral were appropriate considering he was no longer in office at the time.
The "root causes" discussion, and the mention of Reginald Denny, reminded me that one person who was interested in understanding root causes of violent crime was Reginald Denny. This is off the top of my head, but I remember him either speaking to the press or at one or more of his attackers' trials, to the effect of 'we have to understand what would lead a person to do something like this' and 'they've suffered too,' etc. No great overarching point here, just thought I'd share the sound of the bell that went off in my head. What are comment sections for?
I have so many thoughts on the situation in Chicago, but I wanted to address one thing Moynihan brought up around increasing the numbers of police.
About a year ago Coleman Hughes interviewed a former chief of the Baltimore city PD. One of the things he told Coleman was that to get a new police recruit to the point they are operating at an optimal level was seven years (if I recall correctly). So it’s not as simple as swapping out one cop leaving the force for someone just out of the academy.
And the scope of the problem Chicago faces his mind boggling- they have lost 3,300 cops since 2019 (https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/chicago-police-department-struggles-as-burnt-out-cops-quit-with-some-heading-to-suburbs/)...so simply saying they need to hire more cops won’t solve the problem in the short term.
If they were serious about stemming the tide of crime in the city, they may need to ask the Governor to call in the National Guard to beef up their ranks.
I won’t hold my breath for that to happen.
Coleman interview: https://youtu.be/miZMNE3RHWQ
>they have lost 3,300 cops since 2019.
To provide context: numbers from CPD's annual report indicate a total of 13,790 members at the end of 2021 and 14,221 members at the end of 2019, a reduction of 431. The 2022 budget allows for a total of 14,058 positions, with a shift towards civilian positions (these are budgeted, not filled positions.
I'm not totally sure where the 3,300 number is coming from (link is currently a 404). You can get to a 2,376 reduction by subtracting the total number of sworn officers in 2021 from both sworn and civilian in 2019, but that's not apples to apples.
Edit: I suspect the 3,300 number refers to officers who left CPD over that time period, rather than an overall reduction in police numbers. That would suggest that about 25% of CPD officers joined since 2019 (roughly, as I don't have 2019 sworn only numbers). I'm not sure what the historical turnover rate is, but this seems quite high.
"The Department had 14,221 sworn and civilian members at the end of 2019.
https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/2019-Annual-Report.pdf
"The Chicago Police Department (CPD) had 11,845 sworn and 1,945 civilian members at the end of 2021. - https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/2021-Annual-Report.pdf
"In FY2022, the City budgeted for 13,108 sworn officer positions across all funds and all job classifications (including police officers and supervisor-level positions).[1] The CPD budget includes 950 non-sworn positions. "
https://www.civicfed.org/civic-federation/blog/chicago-police-department-staffing-analysis
From the article: “Since 2019, she is one of about 3,300 officers who retired, resigned, were fired – or lost their lives while wearing the badge – according to the CBS 2 Investigators analysis of data from the Chicago Department of Human Resources.”
Thanks so much! I'm still getting a 404 error for the link, but updated my comment in anticipation that this is what that number reflected.
Gordon pasted the link incorrectly https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/chicago-police-department-struggles-as-burnt-out-cops-quit-with-some-heading-to-suburbs/
They also didn't include the line that immediately followed the 3,300 line... "Since 2019, Chicago has hired about 1,600 officers – about half the amount of the departures."
Please, someone, release audio or video of the Killer Mike speech. If ever there was something worth sharing, this is it!
Found one tiny clip
https://twitter.com/rockisagirlsbff/status/1648774834900570115?s=20
Oh hey! He *did* end up wearing a tux.
1) It boggles my mind when people say that there's no such thing as a culture of free speech. Motherfucker, have you read JS Mill? Come the fuck on!
2) I'd be chowing on the popcorn during a putative Fox trial, and rooting for its demise, but I didn't even know anything about Dominion until it was mentioned on either this podcast or maybe one of your appearances on Megyn Kelly (I think).
3) Just the thought of the video of that couple (and the actions of the mob) make me sick to my stomach. It's obscene. I predict "law and order" will be a winner in '24 (or, if not, the '26 midterms and '28 election. I sure hope this level and kind of violence doesn't last that long, but I that fear it will.)
4) I was gonna say the same thing as Matt about the cops. They should've *at least* put on their siren and lights (and immediately called for back up). Cop cars do have bulletproof windows right? What did they really have to be afraid of then? (Okay, flipping and fire, but still, that risk seems like part of the job to me?)
And this wasn't like a George Floyd protest, it was teens wilding out. Huge failure for those cops to just drive away.
I'm so glad that the correct title for this episode wasn't missed. Passing up such a good pun would be a FIREable offense in my version of utopia.
I live in Illinois and I was in Chicago last weekend. My hotel was a few blocks away from the epicenter of the youth mob. I live in another city a couple hours away, but I follow Chicago news and talk to locals enough to know that I shouldn’t wander around in the downtown area at night, which is a stark difference from just a few years ago.
Many people want to put their heads in the sand and act like this is not happening, but when you find yourself in the middle of it, you can’t deny it.
Everyone deserves to be safe, not just tourists and people who can afford to live and recreate downtown. But if you can’t protect your downtown core then just imagine how horrible things are in the peripheral areas that are less visible to the media and have vastly fewer resources.
I went looking for this story, not having heard it, and almost every news outlet in Chicagoland is referring to it as, "Downtown Disturbance". DISTURBANCE?!?
Favorite out-of-context quote from this episode:
MM: "I'm fucking Tom Cotton"
After years of free-loading, I finally was inspired to pay my dues today. I'd like to say it's my generous contribution toward restocking your liquor cabinet after this week's FIRE, and I would be very disappointed if that is not how the money is spent. But my real motivation is much more petty—to correct Moynihan, who really should know better: "Der lange Marsch durch die Institutionen" is the famous slogan of the campus activist Rudi Dutschke.
Speaking of whom, I have a question for the Fifdom: how widely known is Dutschke outside Germany? For example, are there any musicians other than Hamburg's Thees Uhlmann to name-drop Dutschke in their lyrics? (Uhlmann also managed to mention Ivan Lendl and Bret Easton Ellis in the same bizarre collage of a song.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTLiC0xuhbA