What's to be done about the 2016 GOP Presidential Field? (How many of them are there? 50? 60? 100s?)

I had it written down somewhere, but what we have above -- click to enlarge -- is either the GOP 2016 presidential field or the composite of the Waco biker-brawl suspects. It may be that the scrap of paper on which I wrote it down will yet surface, but if not, does it really matter? Let's just make our best guess and get on with it.

by Ken

Noah and I have taken to e-chinwagging about the groaning board of likely suspects that is officially the 2016 GOP Presidential Field. My question is what possesses most of these people, how have no chance of being nominated and probably no chance of achieving the "greater name recognition" that used to be an attraction of such runs -- unless the recognition that will do it for them is establishing themselves as kooks and nutjobs. Of course, in their particular world, certification as a kook or nutjob may in fact be the next step up the ladder.

MAY 20, 2015
Biker-Brawl Suspects Only Slightly Outnumber Republican Candidates
BY ANDY BOROWITZ

WACO (The Borowitz Report) – Suspects in the recent biker brawl in Waco, Texas, only slightly outnumber the 2016 Republican Presidential candidates, leading some voters to have difficulty distinguishing between the two groups, a new poll shows.

According to the poll, voters who were presented the names of a biker-brawl suspect and a Republican Presidential candidate correctly identified both only thirty per cent of the time.

For example, fifty-seven per cent of voters erroneously identified the former Texas Governor Rick Perry as a member of the Bandidos motorcycle gang, while forty-one per cent believed he belonged to the Cossacks.

Adding to voters’ confusion, the biker brawlers and G.O.P. candidates have identical views on a host of issues, such as gun rights and whether they would feel comfortable attending a gay wedding.

While the number of biker-brawl suspects stands at a hundred and seventy, if current trends continue, the Republican field could blow past that number by early summer, possibly deepening voters’ confusion.

But, in one positive sign for the Republicans, they notched a higher approval rating than the Waco suspects, five per cent to three.

Noah called my attention to the latest Washington Post "In the Loop" poll, which bears on the subject, and whose results were only just announced. Since I think of myself as a connoisseur of "In the Loop" polls, I'm not sure how I whiffed on this, but maybe it's that I'm not much interested in "winninowing" the field -- I just want the field to go away. These are, after all, people who if they presented themselves as candidates for dog-catcher, we would have to say, "Is that the lot?" Which translates as: There's nobody in this pack who seems remotely qualified for the job.

In the Loop
Find out who won the Loop's 'Winnow Down' the GOP debates contest



By Al Kamen

As our colleague Matea Gold reports, Fox News, which is hosting the first campaign debate of the 2016 primary season, plans to require contenders to place in the top 10 in an average of the five most recent national polls before the Aug.6 event.

But our Loop fans have other (and we think better) ideas. Other debate hosts may want to consider the winning entries to our “Winnow Down” contest, intended to help the GOP figure out how to deal with its 16 (more-or-less) bona fide candidates.

Here’s their suggestions:

1. Use NCAA-style brackets

A. The “Self-Important Sixteen” who will “hurl scandalous, unsubstantiated charges at each other (and Hillary Clinton).
B. The “Ego-Maniacal Eight” who will “employ the Fox News . . .model, out-yelling and degrading their opponent (and Hillary Clinton).
C. The Fractious Four,” who will “feign civility” and call each other “my good friend before insulting them (and Hillary Clinton).”

Finally: The “Tenacious Two — The Debate” who will actually discuss issues (and, of course, Hillary Clinton.) “Findings of the auditorium Applause-o-Meter will be final.” — submitted by Patrick Dozier, a property manager in the District.

2. A Three-Question Fidelity Test

A. Are you now, or have you ever been, a subscriber to The New York Times?” If so, “proceed no further.”
B. “Do you believe in a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants?” If so, “contact the offices of Matt Drudge.”
C. “Who was our country’s greatest Commander in Chief, Ronald Reagan or the 40th President?” (“Just like Hillary’s position on” the trade bill, “there’s no wrong answer!) ” — submitted by Daniel Braden, a political operative and former contest winner, from Medford, Mass.

3. A U.S. Citizenship Test

The candidates “should all agree to take the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Naturalization Test in a room with no staff or mobile devices.” The bottom five scorers would be cut out of the debate. — submitted by D.C.’s Jon Conradi, director of audience engagement for Lifezette, Laura Ingraham’s about-to-launch conservative media site.

4.”Whack-A-Pol”

“Candidates in soundproof tubes below the stage randomly pop up from their holes. They are whacked with a question on a foam mallet. . . submitted by voters. After 90 seconds, the mike goes off, they disappear back into the hole and another pops ups. As soon as they diverge from a question, they drop through the floor and are out of the game.” — submitted by Bill Diamond, a “retired bureaucrat” from Evergreen, Colo.

5. “The Choice,” modeled after NBC’s “The Voice”

Candidates get 90 seconds “to make their case to the backs of a panel of undecided voters. If nobody turns around to claim one, they’re out. Those claimed then “face-off with each other until we’re down to two or three.” — submitted by Jack Moline, a nonprofit executive from Alexandria, Va.

6. Multiple-choice answers only

A la the NCAA, use 24-second clocks for answers to multiple-choice questions. “Candidates can only anwer a, b, c, or d.”

For example: “If we knew then what we know now about Iraq’s weapons, would you have gone to war there?"
A. Of course not, but I don’t know that for sure;
B. That’s a hypothetical and I won’t answer that type of question;
C. No, I would have invaded another oil-rich nation;
D. All of the above.” –submitted by Charlie Andrews, a retired telcom executive and prior contest winner, from Ashburn, Va.

7. Lie Detector Test

“Require all candidates to take a private lie detector test, administered by a neutral team of the best experts in the field.”

Questions might include:

A.”Have you ever considered changing a vote or position because of a past or promised campaign donation?
B. Would you impose a litmus test on any specific pending issue in selecting a nominee for the Supreme Court?
C. Would you cover up for or pardon a White House subordinate who violated the law? — submitted by Joe O’Bryan, a retired federal employee from Phoenixville, Pa.

8. Play hide and seek with cash

“Give the candidates a task relevant to a presidential contest. Hide bundles of money throughout the studio, then set the candidates loose. The top eight or ten money gatherers get a spot in the debate.” — Submitted by Roger Ribert, a technical writer from West Henrietta, N.Y. (Isn’t this proposal more elegant, fairer, than the Fox News formula?)

9. Summon Ronald Reagan

Candidates will be paired off on the Ouija Board to commune with the ghost of Ronald Reagan and solicit his permission to enter the race.” — submitted by Tien Peng, a pulmonologist from Philadelphia, Pa.

10. “Political Survivor,” based on the CBS reality show

Divide the 16 or more candidates into “two tribes (Iowa and  New Hampshire) and put them through a series of immunity and reward challenges that will test their fitness for office while revealing their true character and coalition building skills. Broadcast via C-Span. Instead of contestants voting off the loser, the viewers would do so via the soon-to-be-popular Washington Post Political Survivor Web site. Final Five get to the first debate.” — submitted by Stephen Llewellyn, a retired government lawyer from Alexandria, Va.

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everyone for entering. Special thanks to our expert judges, colleagues Rachel Van Dongen, Aaron Blake and Tom Hamburger.

Now it’s your turn to judge! What’s your favorite “Winnow Down” idea?


USER POLL

[To pick one, and then view the results, click onsite. -- Ed.]


This is a non-scientific user poll. Results are not statistically valid and cannot be assumed to reflect the views of Washington Post users as a group or the general population.

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Breaking news from "In the Loop": "No, Secret Service agents don’t think jokes at their expense are funny"

by Ken

Why, who'd-a thunk it? As the Washington Post's Colby Itkowitz sums up her "In the Loop" report (which ran under the head I've put in the title of this post): "Seems even the toughest guys have a sensitive side."

"The Secret Service has received a lot of bad press lately," Colby begins that report. "And they apparently have a pretty thin skin about it."

At the annual Gridiron Club dinner earlier this month, an elite affair bringing together Washington journalists and the politicians they cover, no one was spared from ridicule — including Secret Service agents, recently exposed by our colleague Carol Leonnig for possibly driving drunk onto the White House complex, the latest in a string of embarrassing incidents.

The agents in attendance were not amused.

In a letter obtained by the Loop to Gridiron President Clarence Page, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, the trade association that represents the Secret Service let known its displeasure.

The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association “understands a good joke,” wrote Jon Adler, the group’s president. “But the jokes concerning the Secret Service’s recent issues came off lowbrow and unappreciated by our Members working at the dinner.”

He took specific umbrage to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe asking if there were any Secret Service officers “sober enough to drive me home.” Adler said McAuliffe should think about that comment the next time he visits the White House and sees agents putting “their lives on the line to protect and serve the President and the American people.”

In addition to politician standup routines, reporters perform skits complete with parody songs. The letter did not reference the Secret Service number “We’re Not Watching You,” to the tune of the Police’s “Every Breath You Take.” There was a mock White House fence with a big ‘Welcome’ sign, male reporters dressed as Colombian prostitutes and a drone flying above.

Adler chided reporters in attendance — who “make a living off of news stories about the Secret Service and other federal agencies” — for lacking good sense.

“But apparently, good sense didn’t exist at the dinner that night making the entire event, as advertised, a complete joke,” he wrote.

Page responded, also in a letter obtained by the Loop, apologizing for “any hard feelings it caused,” but that the jokes about the Secret Service were all in good fun.

“We poke fun at newsmakers and newsgatherers, but always, as our motto says, in a manner that will ‘singe, not burn’,” Page wrote. He closed the letter by thanking  the agents for their service.

Good answer, Gridiron President Clarence P! "Singe, not burn" -- okay! From Colby's account, the Gridiron comedy material did seem designed to singe.

You don't suppose, though, that Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association President Jon Adler hasn't heard about the pile-up of incidents of Secret Service agents doing something other than putting "their lives on the line to protect and serve the President and the American people"? Some of those incidents admittedly have a certain crudely comical side, but on the whole the news being made by the Secret Service in recent years is, really and truly, not all that humorous either.

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"Why are science museums in bed with science deniers?" (actor-activist Mark Ruffalo)

The link in Mark Ruffalo's tweet is to the above-referenced petition, organized by a new outfit called The Natural History Museum, which "is free from ties to the fossil fuel industry, calls out climate science deniers and culprits obstructing action on climate change, and actively champions the just transition to a sustainable and equitable future."

by Ken

Actor-activist Mark Ruffalo isn't the only one wondering, "Why are science museums in bed with science deniers?," but earlier this week Mark was putting the question out with a vengeance. Of course he, like everyone else who poses the question, knows the answer: $$$$. That's right, almight dollars. Right-wing plutocrats have 'em, and nonprofit orgs of every stripe need 'em, more often than not desperately.

And the lucky-ducky institutions that cash those checks are quick to assure us that the money doesn't influence the way they perform their functions, no sir! And with that assurance we can all rest easy, right? Except that pretty much every day we read new, usually well-documented charges that, on the contrary, nonprofit institutions and media are giving their right-wing zillionaire donors quite a bit of "consideration."

Now I understand why, for example, whoever pocketed that pile of Koch cash forged ahead with the renaming of what was for decades Lincoln Center's New York State Theater as the David H. Koch Theater. Because, after all, they got to pocket that pile of cash. So you see, I understand. Nevertheless, as someone who has I logged a ton of evenings in the State Theater since it opened, I can report that I haven't set foot in the joint since the rechristeneing. (In the interest of proper disclosure, I should note that I probably hadn't been inside the building for a while before the renaming, probably since I gave up trying to find anything on the NYC Opera schedule -- back when there was a NYC Opera -- that seemed worth my time and money. At the moment I can't actually think of any event whose pleasures I've denied myself because I won't, you know, set foot again in that goddamned building. Sometimes these things just work out.)

THE GRITTY WORLD OF NONPROFIT "DEVELOPMENT"

Considering how big a business the "development" (i.e., fund-raising, not to be confused with the "development" of anything actually cultural or artistic) arm of the nonprofit world has become -- one often gets the feeling that the "development" teams have become more important at many orgs than the teams that actually do stuff -- it's not hard to understand the appeal of free-floating $$$$. Small orgs, no matter how high-minded, are in a terrible position to turn away any potential donor, and large orgs now have such an overwhelming need for $$$$ that they feel they have no choice but to go where the $$$$ are.

To get back to the immediate case, that of science museums taking money from science deniers, one thing the museums have known for ages is that we Americans love our dinosaurs. And if you've got dinosaurs and any notion of how to monetize your assets, then the formula is simple: Dinos = $$$$. They can bring in paying customers and paying donors. Including, it seems, PR-conscious energy mega-industries.

If you go to the link for the Natural History Museum's petition, you'll find the following appeal (emphases in the original):

The world’s top scientists, including several Nobel Prize winners, just released an unprecedented letter calling on science and natural history museums to cut all ties to the fossil fuel industry.*

The letter comes on the heels of recent news that Smithsonian-affiliated scientist Willie Soon took $1.25 million from the Koch brothers, Exxon Mobil, American Petroleum Institute and other covert funders to publish junk science denying man-made climate change, and failed to disclose any funding-related conflicts of interest.

In particular, the letter points a finger at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (D.C.) and the American Museum of Natural History (NY), where David Koch is a member of the board, a major donor and exhibit sponsor.

Oil mogul David Koch sits on the board of our nation’s largest and most respected natural history museums, while he bankrolls groups that deny climate science.

Sign this petition to the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History: It’s time to get science deniers out of science museums. Kick Koch off the board!

We’ll deliver this message and the list of signatures to the American Museum of Natural History before their annual board meeting the first week of April. Then we’ll do the same at the Smithsonian before their board meeting in June.

THAT "UNPRECEDENTED LETTER" FROM "TOP SCIENTISTS"

Why don't we just take a look at it?

To Museums of Science and Natural History:

As members of the scientific community we devote our lives to understanding the world, and sharing this understanding with the public. We are deeply concerned by the links between museums of science and natural history with those who profit from fossil fuels or fund lobby groups that misrepresent climate science.

Museums are trusted sources of scientific information, some of our most important resources for educating children and shaping public understanding.

The Code of Ethics for Museums, adopted in 1991 by the Board of Directors of the American Alliance of Museums, states:

“It is incumbent on museums to be resources for humankind and in all their activities to foster an informed appreciation of the rich and diverse world we have inherited. It is also incumbent upon them to preserve that inheritance for posterity.”

“Museums are grounded in the tradition of public service. They are organized as public trusts, holding their collections and information as a benefit for those they were established to serve…Museums and those responsible for them must do more than avoid legal liability, they must take affirmative steps to maintain their integrity so as to warrant public confidence. They must act not only legally but also ethically.”

We are concerned that the integrity of these institutions is compromised by association with special interests who obfuscate climate science, fight environmental regulation, oppose clean energy legislation, and seek to ease limits on industrial pollution.

For example, David Koch is a major donor, exhibit sponsor and trustee on the Board of Directors at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and the American Museum of Natural History. David Koch’s oil and manufacturing conglomerate Koch Industries is one of the greatest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Mr. Koch also funds a large network of climate-change-denying organizations, spending over $67 million since 1997 to fund groups denying climate change science.

When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions in museums of science and natural history, they undermine public confidence in the validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific knowledge. This corporate philanthropy comes at too high a cost.

Drawing on both our scientific expertise and personal care for our planet and people, we believe that the only ethical way forward for our museums is to cut all ties with the fossil fuel industry and funders of climate science obfuscation.

With concern,

[The letter is signed, as of the time of writing, by 54 scientists, from climatologist James Hansen, former head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, to Andrew S. Johnson, a research scientist at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience. See the list with the posted version of the letter.

[Potential signers are invited to e-mail thenaturalhistorymuseum.org "with your full name, scientific credentials, and affiliation (past or present) as you’d like it listed."]

ARE WE "IMPLICATING" THE FIRST AMENDMENT?

In a Washington Post "In the Loop" item on the scientists' letter and the petition, Colby Itkowitz highlighted the link between the Kochs and the two giant museums directly in the line of fire:

David Koch, the billionaire conservative donor and executive vice president of Koch Industries, donated $35 million in 2012 for a new dinosaur hall at the Smithsonian’s Natural History museum. He had previously given $15 million to the museum’s hall of human origins that is named for him. In New York’s museum, he donated $20 million to the dinosaur wing that is also named after him.

And Colby got some responses. First, from the Smithsonian:

Randall Kremer, spokesman for the Smithsonian Natural History museum, said both exhibits deal in great detail with the impacts of climate change. And that Koch, and others on the board, are well aware of that.

Kremer told the Loop that they wouldn’t be supporting the museum if they “did not understand the science behind our public programs.” (The Smithsonian has been unequivocal in its belief that climate change is manmade.)

And then from KochWorld:

[David] Koch did not respond directly to the letter, or his opinion on climate change, but Ken Spain, Koch’s managing director for external relations did send the Loop an e-mailed statement:

“David Koch and the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation have pledged or contributed more than $1.2 billion dollars to educational institutions and cultural institutions, cancer research, medical centers, and to assist public policy organizations. Mr. Koch remains committed to supporting these causes.”

As Colby notes, there's a lot of interest in just "how much the Kochs support climate change deniers," although I think she's pretty much missing the point when she describes this as "a popular topic for Democrats hoping to vilify them." Is it really so hard to grasp that this is really and truly not a matter of political tit-for-tatting? (Yes, apparently it is.) She does report, though, that "several Democratic senators wanted to investigate whether fossil fuel companies, including Koch Industries, were funneling money to groups trying to discredit climate change," and that "the Kochs’s lawyer said that information was protected by the First Amendment."

That last link, by the way, is interesting. It includes a letter from Mark V. Holden, Koch Industries senior vice president, general counsel, and secretary, to Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Edward Markey (D-MA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), in response to their inquiry for information "about Koch Industries' payments made in support of scientific research and scientists, as well as support for other efforts related to climate change, if such payments have been made."

Here's what Senior VP Holden had to say:

. . . The activity and efforts about which you inquire, and Koch's involvement, if any, in them, are at the core of the fundamental liberties protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. To the extent that your letter touches on matters that implicate the First Amendment, I am sure you recognize Koch's right to participate in the debate of important public policy issues and its right of free association. These rights have been recognized by the United States Supreme Court.

In reviewing your letter, I did not see any explanation or justification for an official Senate Committe inquiry into activities protected by the First Amendment.

Under the circumstances, we decline to participate in this endeavor and object to your apparent efforts to infringe upon and potentially stifle fundamental First Amendment activities.

As you can see, the counselor, who holds a J.D., class of 1988, from Catholic University Law School, writes a nice lawyer-letter -- except maybe for that phrase about "matters that implicate the First Amendment." I didn't go to law school, but myself, I would be more likely to say something like "matters that involve" or "invoke" the First Amendment. But "matters that implicate the First Amendment"?

Maybe, though, now that the Right has taken up the First as its next-to-favorite amendment, it's not surprising to learn that the shysters of the Right regard it as something to be "implicated." Well, I suppose if the First Amendment gets too deeply implicated, it can always evoke the Fifth Amendment. If corporations have person-like rights, don't constitutional amendments?

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Who says that the House's head Benghazi witch-hunter, Rep. Trey "Benghazi or Bust!" Gowdy, isn't a man of principle?

Head House GOP Benghazi witch-hunter Rep. Trey Gowdy makes good his pledge not to fund-raise off Benghazi. If only somebody'd told the Virginia GOP fund-raisers who booked him for their "Beyond Benghazi" event!

by Ken

People think it's a piece of cake being a pile of right-wing pondscum. You just lie your putrid guts out and then sing and dance, tra-la!

If they only knew! First you have to think up the lies, then you have to carry out the lies and keep them all straight, and then sometimes you have to answer embarrassing questions about the lies. Compared with brain surgery, it's harder. A brain surgeon screws up and it's bad news for the patient. Big whoop! A pile of right-wing pondscum screws up his lies, and he could have an embarrassing news-cycle day.

Take the case of the Hero of Benghazi (post mortem), SC Rep. Trey Gowdy. He signs on to be hosed at an event cooked up by the Republican Party of Virginia called "Beyond Benghazi" (a mere $75 for an individual, $1250 for a table for ten, "co-chair" status for $5000) and then is stunned to find out that he's being accused of breaking his solemn vow, issued when he was tapped to chair the House Select Witch-Hunt on Benghazi, not to fund-raise on, you know, Benghazi. Oops!

Now just you hold on, you liberal commie left-wing cynics you! There's a simple explanation. He didn't know.

As reported by the Washington Post "In the Loop" team ("Rep. Trey Gowdy retreats from Benghazi event"):

After The Washington Post inquired about the event, a committee spokesman said that the subject of the fundraiser hadn’t been cleared with the congressman’s office and that Gowdy was pulling out.

“He has not raised money using Benghazi, and will not speak about Benghazi at fundraising events. Having been made aware of this group’s plan, he no longer will be participating in the event,” the spokesman, Jamal Ware, said by e-mail.

Later Monday, the event was canceled.

You see? It's all perfectly innocent. And all it took for the congressman to pull the plug was the least little inquiry from the Washington Post. Hey, it could happen to anyone, right? No doubt our boy thought he was being honored by the Virginia GOP money-grubbers for his charm and good looks.

The "Loop"-ers note that "Democrats have accused Gowdy and Republicans of politicizing Benghazi to hurt Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state when the attacks occurred, ahead of her expected run for president. However, the congressman balked "last year when the National Republican Congressional Committee sent a fundraising letter using his name to invite donors to become a 'Benghazi Watchdog.' " He went so far as to declare on CNN, "I cannot and will not raise money on Benghazi."

So you see, our Trey can grandstand on Benghazi to his heart's content, but the political monetizing of it is left strictly to others. Apparently nobody told the Virginia GOP people that the guy they were "honoring" is such a man of principle. Nothing can deter him from his sworn mission to drum up more lies about Benghazi.

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There's somebody in Washington I think had a worse week than the Fabulous Aaron Schock

You can watch 1999 Benjamin talk about " 'saving' Jews" here.

by Ken

In my Wednesday "Daily Schockpost," "What do you suppose the "fabulous" Aaron Schock is making of the horrific efforts of Downton Abbey under-butler Barrow to purge himself of Teh Gay?," I reported having taken some time off to rewatch, of all things, this week's episode of Downton Abbey, and couldn't help wondering how America's Fittest Congressman, the Fabulous Aaron Schock, reacted while watching the latest developments in the unfolding plotline for Downton under-butler Thomas Barrow.

Thomas (as he used to be known when he was merely a footman or valet), of course, is the character we viewers all love to hate: perpetually scheming, with no friends and just the occasional conspiratorial ally, usually by compulsion. This season Barrow (as he has been known since, amazingly, he found himself promoted to under-butler) has been engaged in a frenzy of mysterious acivity, which has coincided eerily with a precipitous visible decline in his health.

I think it was only in this episode that we came to understand what has been happening: Thomas appear to be subjecting himself to some sort of horrific quack-medical treatments to rid himself of those dreadful physical urges he feels for attractive men. By episode's end, with growing numbers of the upstairs folk voicing concern about his appearance, he looked to be maybe a step away from death's door.

Regular Downton Abbey viewers understand the terror driving Thomas, since we've seen how close he came to destroying his career in service. Prompted by malicious misinformation, he let his fiercely maintained guard drop and reached out for some desperately needed physical intimacy, and came within a hair's breadth of arrest and public prosecution for his depravity. If he had been spared that fate and been "merely" discharged from Downton, it was clear that his prospects for finding other employment in any field (any future career in service being out of the question) would have been dim indeed.

Getting us to feel compassion for the detestable Thomas is an extraordinary dramatic achievement. I like to think that the glimpse into the character's inhuman isolation afforded us by series creator-producer-writer Julian Fellowes and actor Rob James-Collier, who plays Thomas, is an indelible portrait of the life this wretched fellow lives in his imprisoning closet.

And so watching the episode again yesterday, how could I not think about Congressman Aaron's response as he watched? (That's the Fabulous Aaron at right -- cute as a button, with abs of death.) Even though Congressman Aaron is, as far as I know, as of last report, still not gay. I don't think you have to be gay to feel the horror of Thomas's desperation. But if you do happen to be gay, and you're confronted with this searing dramatization of what being gay could be like for someone like you not all that long ago, well, I just wonder how you would react.

Of course we don't know for sure that he is watching. You'll recall how the Fabulous Aaron's communications director at the time -- the time being earlier this week -- underscored to the Washington Post's Ben Terris that he doesn't know, and in fact rather seemed to doubt, that his then-boss even watches Downton Abbey. Presumably the choice of a Downton theme for his fabulous new Rayburn House Office Building headquarters was merely an inspiration of his decorator, who is so chummy with her fabulous pal that she offered her services for free. (In case you were worried about the trouble that this revelation seemed to be creating for the Fabulous One, for accepting such free services, which congressmembers strictly aren't allowed to do, it appears now that he will be writing her a check, and that will be all okay.)

I tell you, though, our Aaron leads such a fabulous life that, by skipping a day of Schockposting, I've missed a momentous development -- concerning, as it happens none other than Benjamin Coles, the now-former communications director.

I hope you haven't forgotten Benjamin already. He was, after all, one of the stars of the comedy-drama, by turns harrowing and side-splitting, presented by Post reporter Terris the other day, which I wrote about Tuesday in "Don't even ask -- Aaron Schock doesn't want to talk about his manly new Downton Abbey-inspired office," as reporter Ben tried to get the story of the fabulous congressman's fabulous new office, snapping off some photos with his phone camera.

It was Benjamin who delivered such immortal lines as "Are you taking pictures? Who told you you could do that?" and "Stay where you are. You've created a bit of a crisis in the office" and ""You’ve got a member willing to talk to you about other things. Why sour it by rushing to write some gossipy piece?" and the heart-rending "I’m really sorry and want you to know this is not fun for me." Wow! With writing like that, could anyone short of Olivier have done justice to the part?

A not-entirely-academic question, it turns out, since as of yesterday Benjamin is no longer playing the part of a member of the congressman's staff. And not because of any of what we've been talking about, at least not directly. It seems some skeletons have been dragged out of Benjamin's closet.

Facebook Benjamin

The news yesterday, as reported by the Washington Post's "In the Loop" reporter Colby Itkowitz, was "Rep. Schock’s senior adviser resigns over reports of racist Facebook posts."

First the liberal news site Think Progress posted a series of more than year-old racially-charged Facebook posts by Rep. Aaron Schock’s senior adviser, Benjamin Cole. Shortly thereafter, Buzzfeed News posted several more.

In one post from October 2013, Cole compared people in his D.C. neighborhood to animals escaped from the National Zoo with the hashtag #gentrifytoday. A few months later he said he witnessed a shooting, saying “one of the hood rats on my street” got shot by “another hood rat.”

Buzzfeed found a post from August 2010, where Cole wrote that a mosque should be built on White House grounds, and responded to a comment on it saying “it would be nice for the President to have his own house of worship…”

Cole did not return request for comment.

Both publications shared a post from last month where Cole described having a run-in with a “black female,” on the street and filing a complaint with the police. But Buzzfeed included further comments to that original Facebook post, where Cole wrote that he was doing “my absolute best to put as many Black Criminals who live and loiter on my street behind bars.” He also called them “black miscreants.”

[By the way, don't you love how ThinkProgress is carefully characterized as "a liberal news site," while Buzzfeed is, well, just plain "Buzzfeed News"? -- Ed.]

And today word comes that, as Colby's post today puts it, "Rep. Schock's former senior aide featured in film about 'saving' Jews."

Back in 1999, Cole was featured in a documentary about Southern Baptists’ efforts to convert Jewish people. The hour-long film, which never aired but was eventually posted on YouTube, followed a Jewish New Yorker curious what it would take to be “saved.” Steve Manin, now a salesman at a Lexus car dealership, connected with Cole to be his “Christian mentor.”

Cole, at the time, had a high bar — his own mother, interviewed on screen, said she believed her son didn’t think even she would go to heaven.

“A Jew who comes to recognize Jesus as the Messiah is a fulfilled Jew,” Cole told Manin. “It doesn’t bring me any pleasure to say, but anyone who at the moment of death either ignorantly or willingly has rejected Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior will spend eternity in a Christless hell, a place of eternal torment and suffering.”

Oh my! (Back in the day, before he became a Village person, Benjamin was a Baptist pastor. Luckily, we don't have to concern ourselves with whether he would have consigned his future boss to "spend eternity in a Christless hell, a place of eternal torment and suffering," since as we know, his future boss isn't, or wasn't, or won't be, gay.)

Today the Post's Aaron Blake has what appears to have been a fairly easy time picking his candidate for the person who had the worst week in Washington. Yes, it's our Aaron!

And make no mistake, the Fabulous One has had one bummer of a week. Just yesterday he issued this statement:

I am extremely disappointed by the inexcusable and offensive online comments made by a member of my staff. I would expect better from any member of my team. Upon learning about them I met with Mr. Cole and he offered his resignation which I have accepted.”

I think, though, that we all know somebody in Washington who had a worse week.

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Ringing sleighbells and roasting chestnuts tell us it's that time of year: Be afraid for the holidays

by Ken

It's Friday, and I realize many of you were probably in such a hurry to get wherever you were going for the weekend -- and possibly beyond, with those two skeletal work weeks coming up surrounding the holidays -- that you missed this news. So as a public service, DWT wants to be sure you've heard the latest from your State Dept., courtesy of the Washington Post "In the Loop" team:

State Department warns travelers about worldwide terror threat

By Colby Itkowitz | December 19 at 5:30 PM

It’s the Friday before Christmas, but the State Department is not spreading holiday cheer.

The agency sent a downright dreary travel advisory warning Americans that the threat of terrorism is everywhere.

In light of the “lone wolf attack” at a cafe in Sydney, Australia this week, State said Americans need to be “extra cautious.”

“An analysis of past attacks and threat reporting strongly suggests a focus by terrorists not only on the targeting of U.S. government facilities but also on hotels, shopping areas, places of worship and schools, among other targets during or coinciding with this holiday period,” State warns. “U.S. citizens abroad should be mindful that terrorists groups and those inspired by them can pose unpredictable threats in public venues.”

So be alert for “signs of danger,” State says.

Well, happy holidays.

SPEAKING OF THE HORROR IN SYDNEY, WE
HEAR NOW FROM "MR. CRAZY," aka "DR. EVIL"


The caption from the website "Totally Looks Alike" reads: "Charles Krauthammer / Leprechaun (movie monster)." But I think that that's backwards, that the really hideous and terrifying image on the right is the real Chucky "The Hammer." (Anyone know for sure?)

As if the events themselves weren't horrible enough, we have to listen now to media bloviators digest them for us. And I can't think of many things creepier than the Washington Post's own "Mr. Crazy," aka "Dr. Evil," Chucky "The Hammer" Krauthammer, sounding off on "How to fight the lone wolf." I don't know about you, but I've always figured that if Chucky hadn't figured out how to make such a posh career out of spreading The Crazy, he'd be a prime candidate to turn up in a tower or a school library armed to the teeth with automatic weapons.

No, I haven't read the piece. Isn't it enough that I've provided you with a link if you feel you must? I will tell you, though, that the basic premise is: "There are two kinds of lone wolves -- the crazy and the evil -- and the distinction is important." I suppose you could argue that if anybody knows about the crazy and the evil, it's "Mr. Crazy," aka "Dr. Evil." On the whole, though, I'd rather be having the State Dept. scaring the stuffing out of me.

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It's when we Americans are put to the test that we show what we're really made of -- say howdy to ebola lawyers

Yes, the tireless David Sipress is still manning The New Yorker's "Daily Cartoon" beat. (You can click on today's offering to enlarge it.)

by Ken

I know I'm taking a certain liberty in tacking David Sipress's New Yorker "Daily Cartoon" for today onto a post that's actually concerned with getting tough on ebola. But really, terrorism, ebola, it's all the same thing, isn't it? It's all those things that present tough Americans with a need and an opportunity to, you know, be tough, to be the loud-mouthing, fist-packing, gut-toting blowhards God put us on this earth to be.

Actually, I suppose ebola is a little different. Unlike all those other depredations like Islamic extremism which sneak into God's Country principally via our shockingly underdefended Mexican border, ebola is headed for us even as we speak via an airport near you.

But we're Americans, and we fight back. And remember, we've got guns. So I say you can keep the image of David Sipress's debate combatants in mind as you read this Washington Post "In the Loop" report (which sure sounds like it was written by our pal Al Kamen) about the counter-attack against invading hordes of ebola, "Got Ebola? Call a doctor. Or maybe a lawyer."

There’s one known active case of Ebola in the United States, and President Obama was quick to remind the nation Tuesday that “only two people so far have contracted Ebola on America soil.”

But fears abound, and one Washington law firm is making itself available for all your Ebola-related legal needs.

Arent Fox is organizing a live panel discussion at its New York office on Nov. 12 to help businesses and employees with pressing concerns about the spread of Ebola — which “places caregivers in a situation where a minor error can be lethal,” Arent Fox warns ominously in a news release.

Lawyers are prepared to address any number of Ebola-related legal quandaries. Not sure what those would be? The firm has prepped a list of questions you might want to ask. Such as: How do you handle an employee who has been quarantined by the government? Can an employee who has been exposed to Ebola be ordered to stay home? Do your insurance policies have an exemption for biological or contagious diseases?

The lawyers, representing the firm’s labor, health-care and insurance practices, can also provide some historical perspective on Ebola, specifically whether “significant events” such as 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy provide any guidance for Ebola response.

Darrell Gay, a partner at Arent Fox, said that the firm contacted some clients to raise some of the above questions, and that those clients realized they had no idea how they would or should handle these worst-case Ebola scenarios.

“The issue is we don’t know how far it’s going to go,” Gay said. “The objective is to have the company thinking about it rather than shooting from the hip.”

Just in case.

FOR STICKLERS WHO PERSIST IN SEEING EBOLA
AND TERRORISM AS SEPARATE DEPREDATIONS

Hey, I hear you. I can try to work with you. Here's what I suggest: Simply reimagine today's Sipress cartoon as a pair of cartoons. Something like this:

"Now we'll turn to the issue of who will be tougher on terrorism."

"Now we'll turn to the issue of who will be tougher on ebola."

This works just fine, doesn't it? Actually, it's better, I think.

And would be better still if we kept looping the drawing substituting other things right-wing crackpots have their racing hearts set on being tough against, including but by no means limited to: godless vote frauders, godless taxers-and-spenders, godless climate-changists, godless baby-killers, godless takers-not-makers, godless Frenchies (and all things French), godless warriors against Christmas, godless aliens (of both the extra-territorial and extra-terrestrial kind), godless "other" people (including all those of of all colors unapproved by God).

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Keep yer clothes on, Scott Brown -- Cosmo's now "picking brains over brawn"

Isn't it just like us to be trotting out -- yet again -- these ancient beefcake pictures? Sure, but ask yourself whether they aren't still the most noteworthy thing about our Scott.

by Ken

Before we get to the, er, meat of this story, could we pause for a bit of, er, dressing? Namely, Cosmo is now doing political endorsements? Huh?

It might be useful here to have some political strategists to poll on the expected impact of a Cosmo endorsement. I'm not suggesting that Cosmo readers don't vote. I bet a lot of them do. Or at least as high a precentage as that of non-Cosmo readers. Not much of a standard, I admit, but it's the one we seem to be stuck with here in the U.S.A. No, my question is whether those readers are apt to be influenced by the magazine's endorsements. If I sound skeptical, I am.

On the other hand, given Scott Brown's particular history, being snubbed by Cosmo in his challenge to NH Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, makes for irresistibly merry copy. HuffPost's headline is "Cosmo Endorses Jeanne Shaheen Over Its Former Centerfold"; USA Today's, "'Cosmo' nixes former centerfold Scott Brown for Jeanne Shaheen." And so on and on, ad -- I'm guessing -- infinitum. As far as I know, though, our own head is the only one that has tackled the urgent issue of making sure Scott keeps his clothes on.

The head on the "In the Loop" item on washingtonpost.com is "Worth a look, not a vote?":

To all the young aspiring politicians pondering the age-old question “Should I pose nude in an international women’s magazine?”: Yes, you can still have a career afterward. No, the editors cannot guarantee their support when you run for office three decades later.

Scott Brown, the former U.S. senator from Massachusetts who is hoping to return to Capitol Hill via New Hampshire, famously appeared as the centerfold in Cosmopolitan in 1982. Brown, then a 22-year-old law student at Boston College, won the magazine’s “America’s Sexiest Man” contest.

But the people at Cosmo were far more impressed with Brown’s looks back then than they are with his politics now. On Tuesday, the editors announced the magazine’s endorsement of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the incumbent Brown is challenging in a tough race. (In addition to sex tips and fashion no-nos, Cosmo started doing political endorsements for the 2014 midterms.)

“And while we wish we could support the man who once posed nude in our pages, his policy positions just aren’t as solid as his abs were in the ’80s,” the editors write. They go on to explain their support for Shaheen, noting her stances on abortion, equal pay and other issues of women’s rights.

“Scott Brown may have been Cosmopolitan’s ‘sexiest man’ in 1982, but in 2014, we’re picking brains over brawn — and that’s Jeanne Shaheen,” they conclude.

Now, I like to think I yield to no one in my appreciation of hotness, and our Scott was pretty hot for a 50-something -- in fact, arguably hotter than he looked back in 1982 -- when, in January 2011, he got Massachusetts voters to making him the elected successor to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. And if he hadn't been pretty hot, I don't think there's any chance he could have pulled it off. But I never understood why it was an issue then. Did voters imagine he was going to have sex with them?

Gosh, was that really only January 2011? It seems so long ago -- long enough that Massachusetts voters have already had and exercised their chance to express second thoughts. In fairness, he still got 46.3 percent of the vote, but now-Sen. Elizabeth Warren got the remaining 53.7 percent. Jeanne Shaheen isn't Elizabeth Warren, but then, the 2014 Scott Brown isn't the 2011 Scott Brown, even apart from his deft magic-carpet ride to New Hampshire. Then again, if New Hampshire voters want a dullard, go-along Republican senator, that's their choice.

Scott just has to hope Cosmo doesn't have a lot of pull with NH voters.

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Looks like Republicans get the last laugh over Senate (non)confirmation of presidential appointments

Former Clinton administration deputy chief of staff Maria Echaveste was named yesterday by President Obama to be our new ambassador to Mexico. The good news for her is that -- as a nonjudicial appointee, not subject to post-"nuclear option" majority vote -- she shouldn't feel any rush about packing.

by Ken

Goodness knows, most Democratic pols aren't good for much, but set them alongside their Republican counterparts and, well, we're looking into an absolute void. At this point it's hard to think of any exception to the general principle that all Republicans are vile, worhless filth, of no possible human use except as landfill. The fact that any American who isn't part of he Thieving Predator Class (or their fluffer wannabes) would consider for even a second votiing for any Republican for any elective office testifies to the final moronification of the country.

Today's case in point: an update on the Senate confirmation process in the post-sort-of-nuclear-option era. The Washington Post's "In the Loop" team reports today, in an item called "Dribs and drabs":

Back when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) unleashed the nuclear option in November 2013, keen observers, such as our colleague Paul Kane, predicted that Democrats might rue the day — they might get their long-blocked judicial nominees confirmed, but precious few others.

Turns out that was right. The Dems have gotten their judges, but furious Republicans retaliated by blocking or delaying action on other nominees, reducing a steady confirmation flow down to a trickle.

This week, the Senate did manage to approve 26 nominees for various posts, including key ambassadorships, with 11 confirmed just before the Senate recessed for the elections.

More than a hundred other nominees will have to hope they’re part of a tiny group that can get through during the lame-duck session in November — or maybe next year, though then they’ll have less than two years in their jobs. (On the other hand, President Obama’s judges will be wearing those robes for decades.)

The "Loop"-ers go on to enumerate the trickle of confirmees, starting with three ambassadors (Mark Lippert for South Korea, Kevin O'Malley for Ireland, and Adam Scheinman as "special rep to the president for nuclear nonproliferation"), followed by a sprinkling of deputies and assistants in cabinet departments and other federal agencies.

Possibly for laughs, a couple of new ambassadorial appointments are chronicled: for Mexico, Maria Echaveste ("a deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House and before that a senior Labor Department official"); and for India, Richard Rahul Verma ("a former foreign policy adviser to Reid and assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs").

To play a quick round of my favorite game, If The Shoe Was On the Other Foot, if the situation was reversed and Republican nominees had so much as a gentle glove laid on them, the Great Right-Wing Noise Machine would be up in arms. The Fox Noisemakers would be screaming at full volume, and George Will would be strutting his stuff as the Most Dishonest Life Form in the History of Planet Earth by screeching about the Death of Democracy as Caused by the Tyranny of a Crazed, Wildly Overreaching Liberal [sneer!] Congress. We would be hearing about it 24/7, no doubt with limitless heart-rending video vignettes -- most of which would turn out to be faked -- of Ordinary Americans victimized by those demonicallly power-drunk Senate Dems. Polls would soon show that Americans overwhelmingly blamed the evil Dems for destroying America.

My own fantasy in the matter of Senate confirmation of executive appointments is a secret pact to the effect that no nominee who has support from the Senate Republican caucus will ever again be confirmed for any post. Ever.

Of course Dems don't have the moxie to try anything like that, and probably for good reason -- the Great Right-Wing Noise Machine would crucify them. But as anyone who has, for example, been following Howie's coverage of the reelection bid of that next-to-useless pile of protoplasm Maine Sen. Susan Collins knows, even if the candidate had any virtues -- and I'm prepared to concede that our Susie has some very, very modest ones -- they become irrelevant when it comes to election to Congress, where all Republican members of both the Senate and the House now accept the blood oath of loyalty required of them. Vote for Susie and you might as well be electing one of those infernal piles of Senate sludge from Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Idaho, et al.

The one small note of consolation, as sounded in the "Loop" item, is that over time, and with the change in the Senate rules, a whole lot of federal judges have been seated who will be very different from the sociopathic crud packed onto the bench during Republican administrations, and in particular that of the late unlamented Bush regime. Of course Republican presidents have learned the trick of naming judges more or less as they graduate grade school, to ensure that they can perpetrate more than a lifetime's worth of judicial mayhem. Whereas the Obama appointees, by the time they're actually seated on the bench, are closing in on nearing retirement age.

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Awww! An ex-CIA director is captured for history in the company of his faithful companion

Leon Panetta (CIA director, 2009-11) and Bravo in their official CIA portrait, by Steven Polson, unveiled last week in the agency’s Directors’ Gallery.

"I brought him to work with me in the director's office, and he sat in on a lot of the briefings on the bin Laden raid and never leaked a word about what was going on."

-- Leon Panetta, to the Washington Post's "In the Loop"
team (which adds, "Well, that's what Panetta thinks")

by Ken

What's more, "In the Loop" reports, "Folks at the agency, probably thinking Bravo had clearance, would pet him as he wandered about during meetings in the office." The former CIA director told "In the Loop" that Bravo was with him during "a lot of crises," and "he kept me grounded." He added, "One of the greatest dangers of jobs in Washington is you lose your humanity, and people need to remember that."

So it was only natural, when it came time to commission an official portrait for the CIA's Directors' Gallery, ex-Director Panetta wanted to have Bravo the golden retriever included. He got his unconventional wish, and the result was unveiled last week.

The portrait was done by Steven Polson, who the "Loop"-ers note "has done a couple dozen or more of Cabinet-level folks -- including three former secretaries of state." Our relentless investigators did worm out of him, however, that "this is the first one with a dog." You have to figure that going forth, once word spread has spread, a groundswell of public officials entitled to having an official portrait done will clamor to have a treasured pets included.

It's certainly not the first time that the ex-CIA director and ex-defense secretary has been picture in the company of Bravo, as witness the photo below from his Pentagon days, when he thanked the Maine Golden Retriever Club for making him its first honorary member.

Then-Defense Sec'y Panetta and Bravo at their desk in 2012, when the secretary was made the first honorary member of the Maine Golden Retriever Club.

SPEAKING OF THE EX-DIRECTOR AND EX-DEFENSE SEC'Y --

"In the Loop" goes on to report:

Meanwhile, Panetta’s got a memoir coming out next month. Worthy Fights covers his whole D.C. career, from Richard Nixon’s administration (Nixon fired him) to the Obama White House.

Will it be a tell-all? Panetta demurred: “Hopefully people will learn some lessons about how to run the government. I’ve seen Washington at its best and at its worst, and there are some lessons to be learned. First and foremost, we have to elect leaders who want to govern.”

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"In the Loop" fans provide alternate names for Anthony Weiner's planned Rockaways restaurant-and-training project

by Ken

"When news broke that former congressman Anthony Weiner’s latest career endeavor would be a New York City restaurant/culinary school," Washington Post "In the Loop" master Al Kamen wrote Friday, "we felt compelled to help somehow. It's the least we could do for all the fodder he’s provided over the years."

But, as I reported at the time ("Doesn't Carlos Danger need a better name than "Rockaway Restoration Kitchen" for his entry into the restaurant world?"), the Loopsters worried about the name so far slotted for this worthy eatery plus training and jobs-creation project planned by the former congressman for the Hurricane Sandy-devastated Rockaways in Queens (part of his old congressional district): Rockaway Restoration Kitchen, explaining:

The key to any successful business (other than a good product) is a catchy name. So we turned to our brilliant Loop Fans to come up with the perfect one.

It seems that a lot of those "Loop Fans" couldn't, or at least didn't, avoid "the obvious phallic joke." However, as requested, "they kept it clean, mostly." From those Loop Fans' offerings, the "Loop" team aided by a Post-colleague judging panel of Karen Tumulty, Katie Zezima and David A. Fahrenthold came up with a field of five.

The winners (in no particular order) are:

● Outfront Steakhouse. Submitted by Department of Transportation program manager Kevin Dopart of the District.

● SELFIE’s. Submitted by environmental consultant James Cohn of New York.

● Chez Penisse. Submitted by University of Florida physics professor Peter Hirschfeld of Gainesville, Fla. (A second submission came in with this name, but we awarded it to the first entry.)

● Politics and Pose. Submitted by marketing consultant Holly Hemphill of Falls Church.

● The Weiner’s Circle. Submitted by retiree Hal Handerson of Arlington.

(I guess we'll have to use our imaginations for name suggestions that don't "keep it clean.")

An "Honorable Mention" was also awarded:

We often get entries from overseas, and although he did not win, we want to recognize our very first entry this go-round from Ray Comeau, a retiree in Chongqing, China. He proposed Mr. Winkie’s Kishka, and explained: “The first part of the name sounds close to well-known American chains Wendy’s (the hamburger chain) and Wimpy (the hamburger-eating Popeye character). The second part of the name honors Weiner’s ethnicity (Jewish) and love of a good sausage.”

TO BE SERIOUS FOR A MOMENT

There is some serious thinking behind the project, and I don't want to give that short shrift. Here's the mission statement from the Rockaway Restoration Kitchen website:

Rockaway, Queens, is a part of New York City that is home to chronically unemployed and was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The mission of Rockaway Restoration Kitchen is to help meet some of the needs that have arisen from these and other challenges faced by the community. Our goal is to provide a comfortable neighborhood restaurant with healthy, locally sourced food that satisfies the hunger of Rockaway residents, attracts visitors and serves up dignity and self-sufficiency by serving as a hands on training ground to provide skills, real experience and job placement in the culinary industry.

Provided below are the primary challenges and needs that we hope to overcome and fulfill.

Challenge One: The restaurant, catering, hotel and food production industries face a shortage of experienced kitchen help.
The Need: A reliable pipeline of trained and motivated workers with a resume that includes restaurant work.

Challenge Two: Thousands of the chronically unemployed lack the training and necessary on-the-job experience to gain and hold jobs in the culinary field.
The Need: A training program that offers classroom skills training and work in a real working restaurant kitchen.

Challenge Three: Rockaway New York, a community devastated by Hurricane Sandy, has a high unemployment rate and too few quality healthy restaurant options.
The Need: An affordable, comfortable, healthy alternative to the few fast food and pizza joints.

#

Doesn't Carlos Danger need a better name than "Rockaway Restoration Kitchen" for his entry into the restaurant world?

Does it get any more macho? Well, it might if Anthony W didn't look like he just found out he inadvertently sent a penis picture to the pope. Meanwhile, Mikey S looks like he just threatened to throw the pope off his balcony.

"To be frank, Weiner would not be the first scandal-ridden New York pol to have tried his hand at the restaurant business. Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) of 'break you in half like a boy' fame, once ran a failed health food restaurant in Manhattan."

"Maybe they can trade notes?"

-- from Colby Itkowitz's Thursday Washington Post "In
the Loop"report, "New Weiner career? Food service"

by Ken

Yes, Colby, that was the first thing I thought of when I saw your Thursday report about former Rep. Anthony Weiner, aka Carlos Danger (or perhaps better, as inspired tweeter Ana Navarro suggested, Antonio Estupido), finding his way into the restaurant business. How could you not think of him as following in the footsteps of our favorite congressional kneecapper, Staten Island's "Mikey Suits" Grimm?

Judging from the results, it wouldn't be quite accurate to say that Mikey Suits went into the restaurant business, since his joint -- Palooka's Healthy Food Shangri-La, or whatever it was called during the blink of an eye it was open -- seemed to be more of a crime scene for financial chicanery than a money-making hospitality enterprise, and of course the scene of elaborate ongoing criminal investigations. (Okay, I looked it up. Mikey S's eatery was called Healthalicious. The palookas were on the premises -- though not apparently in any great quantity -- not in the name. See my April post "No fair! We the people demand perp-walk pix of 'Mikey Suits' Grimm! (And where's Rudy Giuliani when you need him?") And in fairness to Anthony W, what he apparently has in mind is something quite different from a hangout for palookas with pretensions.

But still, do all these congressfellows have an inner Bobby Flay trying to get out? Or is it just these queasily hyper-macho boys -- Anthony W with his compulsion to share his penis with the world and Mikey S with his craving to toss uppity reporters off of balconies.

That said, Anthony W's project really does sound like a noble effort to make a difference in the Sandy-devastated Rockaways of Queens. But as Al Kamen suggests in his follow-up "In the Loop" report, "Rockaway Restoration Kitchen" sounds almost criminally humdrum for an enterprise spearheaded by the Man Who Would Be Carlos Danger.

Let's let Al take it from here.

In the Loop
A Loop contest! Weiner’s planned
restaurant needs a better name

By Al Kamen
August 11 at 7:00 AM

It was but a year ago that disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner lost his New York mayoral bid, undone by his annoying penchant for sexting self-portraits to a number of women –even after he resigned his congressional seat a year earlier for that same deplorable habit.

But as we reported Thursday afternoon, citing a report in The Rockaway Times, Weiner has a new, and really quite commendable, project: establishing the “Rockaway Restoration Kitchen,” which is described in an Idealist.org ad as a non-profit “healthy, sustainable restaurant in a hard luck community to provide training, on-the-job apprenticeship and placement in the culinary and food service sector for unemployed New Yorkers.”

A wonderful idea. But the name? Rockaway Restoration Kitchen? This will not draw customers. You can’t even tell what kind of food it will serve.

There has to be a better name! (Loop fans know where this is going.)

Yes, it’s the “Name the Weiner Restaurant” Contest! It needs to be catchy, able to attract customers. Perhaps a particular cuisine? (Remember, he allegedly used that spectacular alias, Carlos Danger, so maybe south-of-the-border fare might work.)

Winners get one of our highly coveted Loop T-shirts.

Send entries — only one suggestion per person — to intheloop@washpost.com. Be sure to provide your name, profession, mailing address and T-shirt size (M, L or XL), in case you’re a winner.

You must include a phone number — home, work or cell — to be eligible. Entries must be submitted by noon, Aug. 18.

(Please keep your entries, at the very most, PG-13).

Note that last point -- there's territory into which we just can't venture here. Still, "PG-13" affords a certain latitude, doesn't it? I think we might slip "Carlos Danger's Penis Palace" through, for example. Just remember, the key is to come up with a name that's even more grabalicious than, you know, Healthalicious (RIP).

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Re. the Great CIA Grape Scandal: What would "Big Dick" Cheney have done about those "grapes"?

The Great CIA Grape Scandal: 
A Typographical Reenactment


How long do you suppose it took President Putin to find out about the CiA's grape scandal?

by Ken

Say, you remember the good old days at the CIA, when Vice President "Big Dick" Cheney, the man who put the "vice" in "vice president," used to hang out running roughshod over the boys and girls, knocking heads and breaking arms to make sure that all the "intelligence" and analyses incorporated "Big Dick's Favorite Fables," especially about Iraq? Man, those were the days, when lies were lies, and intelligence came out of Langley properly cooked.

Now CIA cooking has come into question, and Big Dick's bloated carcass must be spinning, or at any rate blubbering. That's right, the lid has been blown off the CIA cafeteria. Washington Post reporter Abby Phillip has the story, by way of the merry muckrakers at MuckRock. (Note that in Abby's original report the points from the FOIA revelations are accompanied by what appear to be reproductions of the actual comment cards. Because of their width there was no way I could reproduce them in our format, so I've worn my fingers to the bone retyping them. This is serious business.)

In the Loop
Russian menus, grapeless Jazz Salad and other top-secret cafeteria complaints from inside the CIA

By Abby Phillip

Ever wonder what secrets lie in the Central Intelligence Agency’s cafeteria? Of course you have.

It turns out that some of the nation’s top intelligence officers are aggressively insisting on quality control in their office cafeteria. Thanks to a 2010 Freedom of Information Act request  recently surfaced by the open-source FOIA experts at MuckRock, we now have a rare glimpse into what exactly life is like in Langley.

The FOIA request was for the “feedback” messages sent by CIA’s employees to cafeteria managers; the messages received in the government’s 2011 response were as good as you would expect. Names are, of course, redacted.

1. Attitude everywhere: In addition to the fact that the CIA’s Burger King doesn’t offer a “dollar menu” (the horror!), the employees at that location apparently need an attitude adjustment. “Why can’t there be nicer food handlers?” wrote one person. “Attitude every day.”

Subject: Burger King
Feedback: Why doesn't the BK facility here offer the "dollar menu" as the outside facilities. Why can't there be nicer food handlers? Attitude every day.

2. Bring back the ketchup: When you’ve got international terrorism to worry about, the last thing you should have to concern yourself with is the condiment situation in the lunchroom. One lengthy complaint laid out all the (many) reasons why individual ketchup packets are better than the “pump box” dispensers that they were replaced with.

“Please put back the individual packets of ketchup, mustard & mayonnaise,” wrote [name redacted]. “The large pump boxes of these items are not convenient to use, causing frustration & are not liked by many people.”

Subject: Main Cafeteria at Headquarters
Feedback: Please put back the individual packets of ketchup, mustard & mayonnaise. The large pump boxes of these items are not convenient to use, causing frustration & are not liked by many people. Two times this week I heard folks make comments about these pump boxes. There were no containers to put ketchup and mustard in. We have to find someplace to put down our food & drink, put the condiments in the container & put the lid on the containers. If people are taking their food back to their office they will need a bag from the cashier to juggle all these items. Comments have been made indicating this process is cumbersome, a pain in the neck & is causing frustration to some people. For those & I'm sure other reasons, it would be appreciated by many to put out the individual condiment packets. Thank you for considering this suggestion.

3. Locally brewed tea only, please: CIA employees have high standards for their iced tea. Really high standards. They will not tolerate this poor tasting “processed tea” flowing out of dispensers with “pipes coming out of the back.”

“Please consider reinstating the previous dispensers or with something that brews the tea close by.” Kthanksbye.

Subject: Iced tea in OHQ Careteria
Feedback: I noticed that the previous Brewed Iced Tea dispensers have been replaced with different dispensers with pipes coming out of the back. This new tea tastes terrible as does most processed tea. Please consider reinstating the previous dispensers or with something that brews the tea close by. Thank you. By and large the cafeteria does an excellent job.

5. Russia on the menu: Someone tried to be “cute” with the Russian themed cuisine in the cafeteria and it backfired spectacularly.

“First of all, to try to be cute with substituting a backward R, a ‘Ya’, for an R, is tacky,” wrote one employee. “Please recognize that many of us have really traveled to these countries and when you provide food like you did today, it causes me not to support this kind of cuisine in the future.”

Subject: Today's Russian Menu
Feedback: I had the Russian meal today and am disappointed. First of all, to try to be cute with substituting a backward R, a "Ya," for an R, is tacky. I feel that someone tried to "Americanize" the food so it is palatable to Americans. Please realize that many of us have really traveled to these countries and when you provide food like you did today, it causes me to not support this kind of cuisine in the future. I feel that for example Beef Stroganoff is more American than Russian.

6. A lesson in chicken portions: For those uninitiated, a quarter chicken portion must include the whole breast and the wing. Anything less is unacceptable:

Subject: Senor A's
Feedback: I recently purchased the 1/4 White Chicken Platter at Senor A's. However, I was surprised to see that the portion was not actually 1/4 chicken. I noticed that a portion of all of the breasts had been cut off and whole breasts were not served. As with the 1/4 Dark Platter being the leg and thigh, the 14 white should have been a whole breast and a wing. This needs to be corrected. Thanks!

YOU'LL NOTICE THAT WE'VE SKIPPED NO. 4

This would be the Great CIA Grape Scandal, which we've in fact seen at the top of this post. To refresh your memory:

Subject: Jazz salads in Cafeteria
Feedback: Hi - I've sent comments about the jazz salads being misadvertised before, but yesterday takes the cake. The Jazz Salad was supposed to be a Sonoma Grape and Proscuitto salad. This was advertised on the on-line menu, and on the sign above the salad (sometimes they are different). This is one of my favorites, so I stand in line and notice there are no grapes. Grapes are in the title of the salad. I asked about them, and the server pointed to the cherry tomatos, said they were red grapes. I said, "no, those are tomatos, sooooo should I just get grapes from the salad bar". She didn't really give an opinion - but I did get grapes from the salad bar, and I did tell the cashier about it (she asked me to write a note - I hope you got the note). I do not condone putting salad bar items into a Jazz salad (I have been known to get a separate container for salad bar items to add to my jazz salad) but felt justified in this case.

However, when an item is in the title of the Jazz Salad, please make an effort to include this item in the actual salad. Thank you.

This seems to me to raise any number of questions, which clearly need to be addressed in the interest of national culinary security. Just off the top of my head:

• "Jazz Salad"???

• With regard to the alleged history of misadvertisement of Jazz Salads, has there been any follow-up?

• The CIA advertises its salads online??? Where any commie muslim terrorist can access the information? (And while we're on the subject, with reference to No. 5, the CIA cafeteria is serving Russian meals? Maybe Mitt Romney really was right about the Russians. Does President Putin know about the CIA's beef stroganoff?)

• About the note that the writer claims to have left re. unilaterally adding grapes from the salad bar to the Jazz Salad: The writer writes, "I hope you got the note." Has any trace of this note in fact been found? (It could matter.)

• Were the grapes unilaterally appropriated from the salad bar in order to remedy the grape deficiency in the Sonoma Grape and Prosciutto Salad in fact Sonoma grapes? If not, is it known what sort of grapes they were? Does the Sonoma Grape and Prosciutto Salad in fact work equally well with other varieties of grape?

• Has "the Server," who you'll recall "didn't really give an opinion" about the unilateral appropriation of the salad-bar grapes subsequently been identified and interviewed? Has he/she now expressed an opinion?

• At the time of the unilateral salad-bar-grape appropriation, did the writer, in addition to writing the note specified by the cashier, turn in the counter-indicated grape-impersonating tomatoes?

Cherry tomatoes at left, grape tomatoes (big ones) at right

• Were the tomatoes in question really cherry tomatoes? Or were they perhaps grape tomoatoes? This might go at last some of the way toward clearing up the confusion.

And I don't know about you, but I'm pretty confused. One thing I know is, if there was any shot at embarrassing the president with the Great Grape Scandal, then Darrell "The Unembarrassable" Issa would already have issued one of his Mad Libs-style fill-in-the-blanks subpoenas.

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