Carl Greenview

Sports fan, devotee of history and politics. (Retweets not necessarily endorsements.)

[Carl Greenview @carlgreenview]

@HistoryBoomer TBH, I could be had for a "steak"dinner.

[NYTPitchbot @DougJBalloon]

Whether it's Bill Clinton using tax-payer money to pay for postage on letters sent to people who wrote to his cat or Donald Trump steering hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts to his son's companies, both presidents engaged in corruption on an unprecedented scale.

[Carl Greenview @carlgreenview]

Focus on the economy and his incompetent job performance... and ignore the rage bait. Dismiss the attempted distractions and don't let him change the subject.

Alas, I think Trump has won this battle.

[Carl Greenview @carlgreenview]

For the past decade, a desperate cohort breathlessly declares "THIS will be the outrageous statement that brings down Trump."

Trump's rage bait still draws suckers. The rage reaction only enhances Trump's "flood the zone with s**t" effectiveness.

FFS, pick better battles.

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

Of all the things to focus on, this isn't even in the top 100 of things he's said. He's blustering - "let them try it! Go ahead!" - and he's picking places he hates that feel far away to him. And he's repeating it because it's making people nuts and he likes that.

[Three Year Letterman @3YearLetterman]

Fall is a confusing time for SEC fans when the Braves are in the playoffs because we hate each other in general but then unite for 3-hour increments throughout the week

[Spittin' Chiclets @spittinchiclets]

Jesus Christ

[Carl @HistoryBoomer]

I'm not a Christian, but gambling seems bad for society. Not your little monthly poker game with the gang, but the kind of gambling where you can lose the rent or mortgage money.

It seems especially bad for young men to have an easily accessible casino in their pocket.

[Catherine Rampell @crampell]

Now he’s gone too far

[Daniel Hannan @DanielJHannan]

I have been trying to work out why the Carlson—Rees-Mogg interview is going viral. I think it’s because because it represents the moment when traditional conservatism, defined by courtesy, self-restraint and truth, visibly overcomes the feverish, conspiracist and bellicose post-liberal Right.
Sir @Jacob_Rees_Mogg was the perfect instrument of destruction. He is a man of unquestioned sincerity, intellect and courtliness. He was one of only two Ali G interviewees to emerge with his reputation enhanced, the other being Tony Benn, and for the same reason: utter sincerity. With Tucker, as with the brilliant Baron-Cohen, he bats away feverish, crackpot claims in a calm, measured and devastatingly gracious way.
What ended McCarthyism was the dignified put down delivered by the Army’s lawyer, Joseph Welch, on live TV in June 1954: “Senator, you have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?” Joe McCarthy died three years later at the age of 48, broken and disgraced.
As Welch to McCarthy, so Mogg to Tucker.

[Liz🌿 @mamaliz1969]

@RadioFreeTom Weirdly enough this is my hill to die on. Morning light is important for health and safety. Yes winter evenings that are dark at 4:30 suck but mornings without sunrise until 9:00am is far worse. We already tried this and everyone hated it. Standard Time is the way.

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

With all due respect to Jack’s sainted father, I don’t care about who gets up in the dark because I sleep in. Start school later. Turn your headlights on.

[The Ways of A Gentleman @Gentleman_Ways]

“A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition.”

-Rudyard Kipling

[Ramesh Ponnuru @RameshPonnuru]

If you agree with Ken Paxton over Talarico on policy, don't care about the former's corruption, and are mad at him only because of his adultery--all of which is consistent with the senator's public record--then the call she's making is easy.

[Jonah Goldberg @JonahDispatch]

I hear Carlson a bit differently here. Yes, he's definitely suggesting he'd be fine with the Nazis winning. the war and defeating Britain. But what comes through for me is the profound intellectual and moral unseriousness. It's a kind of debater's nihilism that thinks any good sounding talking point is a good point.

For instance, he says at least if Germany won, Britain would be speaking a "European language."

That sounds clever to un-clever people. But it's moronic on its own terms (Would Tucker be okay with Americans speaking Spanish? That's a European language, too). It reduces the interests and issues involved in WWII down to a ridiculous single metric. It's childish bullshit, but it sounds sophisticated to the insipid and the ignorant and it thrills those who understand the trolling of it.

And that's why this interview is representative of Tucker more broadly these days. He's at sea. Nothing really matters except "winning" the conversation, the moment, the clicks. He's embraced a kind of Nietzschean amoralism that thinks sowing doubt in any notions of right v wrong, good v evil, traditional patriotism v transgressive iconoclasm is self-rewarding.
"Neocons" and their ilk think Putin is bad? I'll claim he's awesome with the dumbest arguments imaginable packaged like they're smart.
Similarly, Tucker likes to traffic in the idea that Hitler should have won, not because Tucker's a big believer in Nazism.
He's not a big believer in *anything* other than the bit itself.

He likes the idea that the Nazis should have won, because he likes turning over turtles and being a dick for the amusement of people who celebrate dickishness. More specifically, he also likes it because the argument that it was a good thing we defeated the Nazis is inconvenient to him and his pet causes. That America and the UK were the good guys still has heft, substance, and authority, and Tucker's whole transvaluative approach is to burn down good things with weight and substance by elevating evil bullshit into seriousness to prove his own transgressive courage.

Every argument is permitted and equally valid because all truths are equally just matters of opinion. The superior opinion isn't the one with the better facts or the better reasoning, it's just the one more confidently or sneeringly expressed.

That's why this interview went badly for Tucker, because he ran into someone who actually knows true things and is confident in what he knows. This is also why Tucker spends most of his time talking to cranks, bigots, weirdoes, and hacks who are good at sounding like experts so long as their bullshit goes unchallenged. Tucker doesn't give a rat's ass about ideas or history. He cares about vibes and sowing moral doubt about what is good by hawking moral support for what is bad. The Holocaust becomes a triviality in that project, which in a very real way, is worse than denying it happened. He's denying it didn't really matter much if it did.

[Three Year Letterman @3YearLetterman]

Josh Heupel dropping a massive NIL payment to sign a 5 star quarterback

[Three Year Letterman @3YearLetterman]

God I love this sport

[Three Year Letterman @3YearLetterman]

This is tremendous content

[Carl Greenview @carlgreenview]

There's a season's worth of hilarious dialogue from Trump as the Michael Scott of "The Oval Office".

[Three Year Letterman @3YearLetterman]

You could put together hours of his greatest hits and I’d never tire of watching

[David Burge @iowahawkblog]

At 18 I wouldn't have seen a single warning sign here, which explains a few of my scars

[Three Year Letterman @3YearLetterman]

There’s no better content than when he publicly pees on someone’s head and they have to just stand there and take it