Firehose #82: It’s the Shoes

Also: Balko vs. Coleman (again!), Amash vs. Meijer (again!), and Moynihan straps on the goggles

Over in the Chat, A to the G posts the photo below from Thursday’s damn-the-restraining-orders episode of The Megyn Kelly Show, and comments: “The boys were live on their favorite show besides their own. But all I want to talk about is their shoes. We need an intervention for all three for very different reasons!” A vigorous discussion, seemingly mirrored all over the damn social web, ensues.

(Coco, looking over my shoulder as I type, says: “Look at Kmele’s drip. Kmele’s got drip. You don’t.”)

In my qualified defense, A) the Welch shoes are obviously the best. B) However, they are arguably as badly matched with the above-the-shin packaging as Kmele’s shoetorial hate-crime. And C), yeah, they’re a tad on the dirty side. Mostly, I was, ah, between dress shoes, a situation your constructive criticism prompted me to rectify Saturday.

The good news is we had such a blast in person that all parties agreed this will be the format going forward. Which can only mean … more day-drinking! (If only you knew….) The recorded program’s conversation included Fani Willis, Keith Olbermann’s whores, Joe Biden’s untested cognition, The View (natch), Chris Cuomo (double-natch), Moynihan’s inside dish on Vice, Doug’s pillow talk, and Megyn’s insane history with Willy Wonka:

‘Twas a special treat backstage to meet devoted listener, supplier of green-room cookies, and the DASTARDLY SO-AND-SO WHO FIRED US FROM SIRIUSXM BECAUSE OF MY DRUNKEN CUSSING, the great Liz Aiello. After which Kmele, um, prepared for Megyn:

As crazy as that day already was by 2 p.m., we were only getting started, though propriety suggests I keep the details and occasional A-List identities discreet, in order to protect the guilty. Suffice it to say, Nancy Rommelmann (vet of Episode #79, Special Dispatch #27, S.D. #30, #198, #203, S.D. #34, S.D. #50, S.D. #64, S.D. #111) hugging Shane Gillis while pal Andrew Schulz (#30 & #32) looked on wasn’t even close to the most AYFKM moment. You know how we talk too much about how New York sucks? Sometimes it also very much does not.

* OK, enough frivolity (for the moment), let’s get to some topical content. Here, for example, is me on CNN’s Smerconish Saturday talking about third-party/independent candidates for president:

* Friendo Eli Lake (#52, #65, #141, #174, S.D. #51, #326, #368, #407, Members Only #184) participated Monday in a SoHo Forum debate with Jeremy Hammond over the proposition that "The root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the Palestinians' rejection of Israel's right to exist." Here’s how he did:

* Speaking of Eli, alert listener Matt C. points us to this Dec. 5 Norm Finkelstein response to aforementioned critiques from he, Moynihan, and Coleman Hughes:

* And speaking of Hughes, the third and final Radley Balko (#68) deconstruction/denunciation of Coleman’s Free Press writing about The Fall of Minneapolis documentary dropped Friday, clocking in at around 10,000 words. (We talked The Fall in #435; I wrote about previous iterations of the Balko-Coleman wars in Workin’ for the Weekend #78 & Firehose #80, then Moynihan & I discussed it further in M.O. #202.)

After completion of the trilogy, Coleman invited Radley to come on his podcast and talk about it, and Radley responded: “I wrote an extensively documented, three-part, 30K-word series about a dangerous and transparently ridiculous documentary that Coleman reverently amplified. I'll wait to see if he and TFP take the critique seriously before I help him promote his podcast.” Then Bari Weiss (#89, #115, #159, #180 & #187) tweeted “We have invited you, @radleybalko, and @coldxman on @thehonestlypod to discuss. I hope you'll take us up on it,” and Radley countered: “I documented how you published a misleading column with multiple factual errors and errors of omission. A month later, your only response is to invite me to discuss these errors with the author, on a podcast hosted and moderated by your publication?... Pretty certain that if the NYT issued a ‘debate me’ response to an error-riddled piece that credulously amplified, say, false claims from BLM, The Free Press would mercilessly ridicule them for it.”

Neither The Free Press nor Hughes have issued any written rejoinders or corrections or clarifications that I can see. My sincere hope is that Coleman responds thoroughly and with humility to the challenges of fact and omission,  and that he do so in as few words as humanly possible. But there’s also reason I’m an editor “at large.”

* Just prior to Part 3, Glenn Loury (#121, #188, #366) and John McWhorter (#84, #121, #188 & #366) once again revisited their initial glowing and subsequent chastened opinions of The Fall of Minneapolis, this time with Twin Cities guest Shane Hachey:

* More post-2020 criminal justice reckonings: Measure 110, the groundbreaking 2020 Oregon decriminalization of drugs, was rolled back by the state Senate there Friday. Nancy R. with the pre- and post-write.

* It’s official! The committee of Justin Amash (#184 & #389) has stopped exploring, and now the former five-term congressman, who in his final stint seceded from the GOP and later joined the Libertarian Party, is running in Michigan’s Republican primary for the United State Senate. “After thoroughly evaluating all aspects of a potential campaign, I’m convinced that no candidate would be better positioned to win both the Republican primary and the general election,” he wrote in Thursday’s announcement. “What we need is not a rubber stamp for either party, but an independent-minded senator prepared to challenge anyone and everyone on the people’s behalf—someone focused not on extending federal power so Republicans or Democrats in Washington can achieve their political ends, but on ensuring that Americans have the personal and economic freedom to pursue their own ends.”

Former seven-term congressman Mike Rogers is the front-runner in the GOP primary, followed (distantly, in basically the only poll so far) by Fifth Column Ginger in Chief  Peter Meijer (S.D. #51, #307, #339, #367,  #424, M.O. #184), then Sandy Pensler, the self-described “only pro-Trump candidate with the resources that can win.” The candidate known as “Don’t know” is absolutely dominating the race, with 62 percent.

Michigan’s Senate seat, thrown open by the impending retirement of Democrat Debbie Stabenow, is considered “Lean D” by the people who make predictions. The presumptive D in question is third-term Rep. Elissa Slotkin from Southern Michigan. Both primaries will take place Aug. 6. Road trip?

* I feel like we need a quick omni-graf full of exclamation points about other Fifdom goings-on. Josh Szeps (#25, #80, #103, #117, #196, #328, #423) had an Uncomfortable Conversation with Douglas Murray (#390) about anti-Israel protesters trying to cancel Murray’s public events! Beloved listener Benjy Shyovitz wrote up and Chaya Leah Sufrin’s latest fab LBC Shabbat dinner, complete with mock circumcisions! Ben Dreyfuss (#83, #97, #148, #214, M.O. #129, M.O. #140, #392, M.O. #180),is hiring! I wrote 3,000-plus words about … the 1963 Topps baseball card set for the Los Angeles Angels! (No really, there’s some good/terrible alcoholism and greenies and Mamie van Dorens and graphic design and such in there, I swear.)

* OK, OK, here’s what it is what like when Moynihan put on the Goggles for the first time. In other words, exactly what you’d expect:

* Which is not quite Monster Truck Rally on Acid level, but whaddya gonna do?

* Comment of the Week comes from the delightfully named Hercules Rockefeller:

I literally re-upped my subscription to hear the parts about Kansas City, and man was it worth it. I am now going to go back and listen to the other episode, had no idea the Fifth Column boys knew anything about the Paris of the Plains.

A note, the Mutual Musicians Foundation, which has been having after hours jams for almost 100 years every weekend since the Golden Age of KC Jazz, DOES now have a liquor license, but it's because after finally being busted as a speakeasy, the Missouri legislature passed a specific law to allow it to stay open all night, it's the only place west of the Mississippi other than Vegas where you can drink all night.

Walkoff music is Downey’s finest performing for Willy Brandt and Richard Nixon at the White House in 1973, because this used to be a serious country.