Chip Roy Is A Cowardly Goldfish

Tim Miller on the TX Congressman butching up with MAGA by condemning people who hold the same position he did six weeks ago.

Jim Swift

Feb 25, 2021

Chip Roy Is A Cowardly Goldfish

TIM MILLER: Butching up with MAGA by condemning people who hold the same position he did six weeks ago.

🎧 On the Pods… 🎧

Tim Miller and Charlie Sykes Dunk on Andrew Cuomo

On today’s Bulwark podcast, Tim Miller joins Charlie Sykes to talk about Andrew Cuomo, Trump’s taxes, Liz Cheney, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the right’s white identity problem.

ATMA: Abraham Riesman on the Rise and Fall) of Stan Lee 🔓

Joining Sonny on this week’s episode of The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood is Abraham Riesman, the author of the excellent new biography True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee.

For Bulwark+ Members… 🔐

MORNING SHOTS: The Cuomo Meltdown 🔓

CHARLIE SYKES: Another example of the Avenatti Syndrome

THE TRIAD: Truth and the Republican Party 🔐

JVL: In what universe is policy more important than democracy?

From The Bulwark Aggregator…

In Today’s Bulwark…

🎥 Not My Party: A Dynasty of Trumps

TIM MILLER: Can any Republicans beat them?

QAnon and the Satanic Panics of Yesteryear

DANIEL N. GULLOTTA: What they can teach us about what to expect.

How Joe Biden and Merrick Garland Can Help States with Justice Reform

DAN KING: Ending the corrupt practice of civil asset forfeiture should be a top priority for state governments—but federal reform is needed, too.

It’s Time to Plant a New Flag

JOE WALSH: America needs a "radically centrist, common sense, let's get shit done party."

🚨OVERTIME 🚨

The DeepFakes are coming. We are probably not ready for them, and they’re only getting better. Look at these:

lauren white @laurenmwhite

Deep fakes are getting scary good and taking over TikTok. Every public figure should just be on there with a verified account - even if they don’t want to make content - to make it easier to identify their fakes. Here’s Tom Cruise:

Brian Kosciesza @BrianKosh

I need to know if @TaylorLorenz is aware of the Tom Cruise tiktoks

Now we have some time to prepare, because Tom Cruise has more HD footage of his face out there than a lot of people, even famous ones. And there are people who have similar hair and can really do a good impression of him both in voice and mannerism.

We’ve done some DeepFake deep dives here, which you should read.

But these technology behind these things is only going to get better, and they’re going to infect politics very soon. And when so many of our fellow countrymen believe The Big Election Lie or think Antifa was to blame for the Capitol insurrection, how do you think they’ll react to realistic videos of their least favorite politicians “saying” or “doing” something bad?

It will be much harder to convince people something is fake if we don’t have a system that provides for it. Even then, it will be extremely hard to convince people their eyes and ears are lying to them.

Inside DC’s Secret Covid Morgue…

In Washingtonian, Luke Mullins writes:

“Last April, the District built a secret disaster morgue, assembled an army of volunteers to staff it, and trained people who had never previously seen a dead body to care for the dead. This is the story of the morgue—and the quiet force of civil servants tending to everyone we’ve lost to Covid.”

Tucker barely did any research on QAnon. So do get a laugh from this guy who apparently can use Google. And sing.

On Clubhouse, Saudis are speaking freely. For now. Writing at Rest of World, Mehr Nadeem wonders: Saudi users are talking about everything from feminism to politics on the audio-only platform. How long before authorities notice?

Best audio book of the year? It may very well be. Hopefully we can get Speaker Boehner on the podcast.

John Boehner @SpeakerBoehner

Poured myself a glass of something nice to read my audiobook. You can blame the wine for the expletives. #OnTheHouse #13Apr2021

“My baby daughter died of brain cancer. Here’s what we can do to save other kids.” I’m going to warn you, this will probably make you tear up. I met Andrew Kaczynski again a few years back on Twitter when we realized that we both attended the same grade school, and he was in my sister’s class. He does excellent work at CNN, and last year, he and his wife had their first child, a beautiful little girl named Francesca.

This story is about her, and her painful journey with an atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor. If you’re in an OK place to read it, I would highly recommend that you do. #TeamBeans

Now, let’s transition from sad to mad. Because this item at VICE is probably the most infuriating thing I’ve read all day.

The Republican Party Is Now in Its End Stages… Writes Tom Nichols at The Atlantic:

Ironically, the GOP is indeed replicating another political party in another time, but not as the heroes they imagine themselves to be. The Republican Party has become, in form if not in content, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of the late 1970s.
I can already hear the howls about invidious comparisons. I do not mean that modern American Republicans are communists. Rather, I mean that the Republicans have entered their own kind of end-stage Bolshevism, as members of a party that is now exhausted by its failures, cynical about its own ideology, authoritarian by reflex, controlled as a personality cult by a failing old man, and looking for new adventures to rejuvenate its fortunes.

I thought a lot about that during the HBO miniseries Chernobyl. Here’s one scene (of many) that makes me think of Communist Party / GOP similarities. It’s from Episode 3 - "Open Wide, O Earth.”

LEGASOV (disbelief)
Forgive me. Maybe I've spent too much time in my lab. Or maybe I'm stupid. But is this really how it all works? An uninformed, arbitrary decision that will cost who knows how many lives is made by some apparatchik? Some career Party man?
SHCHERBINA (angered)
I am a career Party man. You should mind your tone, Comrade Legasov.

Also, this scene about dissenters (Cheney, Kinzinger, Romney, etc.)