56 Comments
User's avatar
Kev's avatar

Sticking with the theme of dictator retail stores, how about one called Pol Pottery Barn, where everything comes in one color, Khmer Rouge?

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Paul's avatar

My favorite dictator restaurant is Pino Shake Shack, known for their CIAngus Burger and Coup d’Tots.

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crimewalrus's avatar

If you order for delivery, they don’t send a driver. They drop your food out of a helicopter

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crimewalrus's avatar

All their stores are located in soccer stadiums

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Ben's avatar

Why don’t we make it “venda sexy”

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Eli Lake's avatar

Fantastic. Five stars.

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Paul's avatar

...where everything is 25% off.

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The Ghost In The Machine's avatar

If there is a civil war over this, Trump will need a name for his realm with a good acronym. Not great but I will offer: Southern Territories Under Peoples Independent Democracy (STUPID).

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The Ghost In The Machine's avatar

I will put up $250 to the subscriber coming up with the best name as judged by podcast hosts.

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The Ghost In The Machine's avatar

Mankind’s Awesomely Great America (MAGA)

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Thomas Paine's avatar

Charismatic Orchestrated Very [Legal, Very Cool] Fundamentalist English-speaking Freedom Ensemble

(For reference: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/very-legal-and-very-cool)

Or just keep it simple and call it “Easy D”.

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Nika Scothorne's avatar

Great Republic I Founded (me, Trump): (GRIFT)

Terrific Really 'Uge MAGA Place: (TRUMP)

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Joe's avatar

45 minutes in and Eli Lake sounds like a raving lunatic. TS/SCI documents aren't just lying around to be accidentally stuffed in a box during a hurried move out. He speaks as though he's the impartial authority on these. He's just pretending his right wing tinted glasses are somehow the middle of the road and rational viewpoint. The first thing he brought up when discussing the Trump warrant was Hillary's emails. Aside from comparing apples to watermelons, it's a lazy response.

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Funky Bunch's avatar

It just sounded like a Catastrophisation rant.

No one is even at the stage of slapping wrists.

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Brad Masters's avatar

Just want Welch to know that even if his brilliant Rusty Kuntz reference was lost on his co-hosts, it wasn’t lost on the baseball fans of fifthdom.

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Nika Scothorne's avatar

The Rusty Kuntz reference was also not lost on fans of vintage robot-MILF porn.

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Gabrielle G's avatar

YESSSS! Eli stan! Loved his extended Re-Education episode with Nick Gillespie on punk.

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Eli Lake's avatar

Blushing

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Gabrielle G's avatar

Love the podcast. Really well produced, unlike these heathens.

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Sandy B's avatar

Progress: Today, every bar is a singles bar.

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Nika Scothorne's avatar

Now I can strike out in *every* bar!

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lizzy36's avatar

Perhaps Trump had Jeffery Epstein's client list (with pics), which would fetch a far higher price and be far more dangerous, then actual nuclear weapons.

My default position is this is huge FBI overreach, directed by a horrifically politized DOJ.

To be clear, the only thing worse than Trumps election in 2016, is the ongoing Democratic party response. Failing to ask the most basic questions; Why did HRC & democrats lose so badly in 2016 (it wasn't just the WH, they got destroyed in state and federal races all over the USA) ensures the Democrats are never held responsible for terrible candidates and policies.

While Democrats have the House, Senate and WH they should just make "being Donald Trump" a capital crime. That would be a far more honest approach. The current approach is destroying the legitimacy of the American intelligence community and the credibility of all federal government institutions.

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Collin's avatar

Kevin Williamson and Jonah Goldberg had conversation that dovetails nicely with what Eli was talking about. Kevin made the point that political leaders and people in power should be punished more severally then regular people. Yet, our system seems to do the opposite. Jonah added that we would have less of a populism, if what Kevin advocated for were the case. To Eli’s point, our politics would probably be less toxic, if each side were punished equally (or not at all). I’d add that if each side came down hard on its own worst actors, it would be trusted by more people. Instead, each group focuses all its attention on the other side, while ignoring the sins of its own people.

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Ethan's avatar

The anti-racist take on white terrorist is that they are culturally appropriating from BIPOC terrorist. Get your own form of extremism.

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Sandy B's avatar

Banana Republic - a capitalist ode to colonialism. Loving this episode, recorded before the stabbing of Rushdie?

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Matt Welch's avatar

Before. Thursday night.

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Jessemy's avatar

I think so. I'm sure they'll have things to say about it. MM retweeted Masih Alinejad, the Iranian journalist who recently escaped a similar attack.

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The Ghost In The Machine's avatar

Trump’s only hope is to get Giuliani to defend him.

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Nika Scothorne's avatar

"Help us Rudy-wan, you're our only hope."

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Klaas te Velde's avatar

Hey guys, Substack is great but is it also possible to download the podcasts? If it is possible, I don’t know how. That was better with Patreon

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The Ghost In The Machine's avatar

It's simple: play the entire episode at 5X speed while recording. Then play back at 1/5 speed whenever you want to listen. I sometimes play back at 1/2 speed when I want to pretend MM is a girl.

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Kev's avatar

I listen on Google Podcasts, which allows you to download the episode. You just have to make sure you add the private RSS feed (assuming you're a paid subscriber, if not just add the regular feed or subscribe because it's worth it).

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John's avatar

You can also go to the website on a laptop and download the mp3 file if you really want it for editing or for something weird.

I’m pretty sure this is still possible, but using a RSS feed into an app is the easiest way.

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Nika Scothorne's avatar

Once you add the private RSS feed, you can play the podcast in most podcast apps (but not Spotify). All of them should enable you to download the app.

To get the private RSS feed link, click "Listen On", right next to the embedded player (where you click "play" or "pause" on the episode.

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Doug's avatar

I use the Video Downloader extension on my browser. Available at the Chrome Web Store, though I'm using it with Vivaldi, not Chrome. Downloads most streaming audio.

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Meg Mc's avatar

Prob an odd comment, the mention of Jeremy Scahill made me wonder about the column’s opinion of his work?

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Joshua L's avatar

Don't really disagree with Eli's take on the FBI raid of Trump, but am unpersuaded by his argument that the FBI is anti-GOP. His argument is to list a series of recent examples that he thinks demonstrates a double standard. But here are his examples: the sweetheart deal that Petraeus got (Petraeus is an independent, but previously was a Republican, and it was as a GOP candidate that his name was being floated), Hunter Biden (actually currently under investigation by DOJ, so....), Clinton (FBI announced they are reopening investigation a few weeks before election, likely costing her the election). He contrasts this with Navarro being arrested in public and perp-walked. Okay? There's nothing here.

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Schmendrick's avatar

Hot take from a very brief mention on the show - the move to an all-volunteer military was a BAD thing; yes, fragging was murder. But if your citizen-soldiers are so discontented with state policy that they are willing to dishonor their country's uniform and kill their officers over it, *then policymakers should consider that your policy may not be in the best interests of the democracy they serve*

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Danno's avatar

Was he being facetious or did Eli Lake just argue it was bad that we learned of the many crimes the CIA was committing? And he doesn’t see the unprecedented attempt to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power as being grounds for unprecedented FBI search? Does Mr Lake want Americans to know as little as possible?

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