"Last week, the Department of Transportation released the first trailer for the Duffys’ odyssey, and boy does it look lavish."

"The family of 11 is shown riding in style in new model SUVs provided by Toyota — official vehicle partner of the show — lounging in bathrobes in hotels, snowmobiling, and even screaming down water slides on a Royal Caribbean cruise (another partner of the project). The trailer was met with widespread public backlash, with critics calling the seven-month production not only out of touch given the high costs currently hitting American travelers, but a potentially unethical misuse of federal resources. Duffy, who thinks people shouldn’t fly in comfy clothing because it’s uncivilized, is encouraging Americans to drive this summer, and get to know their country. 'We’re encouraging everyone to go take a road trip to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary,' he says in the trailer, adding later to Fox News that a road trip 'fits any budget.'"

That's from the Rolling Stone article "How Much Would It Cost to Fuel Sean Duffy’s Reality Show Road Trip?" which is updated "to reflect that the Duffys did not actually set sail on a cruise, and that they only enjoyed its amenities while it was docked."

With that correction, the price doesn't seem so astounding. I couldn't find the number, but then I only skimmed and then searched the page for a dollar sign. We're told the family — of 11 — drove 4,706 miles and maybe 2,458 miles more. Who would do that?! These people are taking care of 9 children. Why would you want to kick them around? Calling it "lavish" is nuts.

Here's that trailer that made Rolling Stone get all peevish:

Did that make you want to do a big road trip or did it make you want to wait until the 250th anniversary celebrants get back home? Or to never go anywhere again. I hear the bears are biting up in Glacier National Park.

"To think, 190 miles an hour down Pennsylvania Avenue — this is going to be wild."

Said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, quoted in "Trump announces August auto race in downtown Washington" (Politico).

The Trump administration plans to usher a massive auto race into downtown Washington in August as part of a broader celebration of the United States’ 250th birthday, President Donald Trump announced Friday.

Flanked by senior officials in the Oval Office, Trump signed an executive order to launch what the White House has dubbed “the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C. — the first ever INDYCAR street race in the Nation’s capital.”

"When did we all decide that sweats and pajama pants were the appropriate attire for air travel?"

"What incentive do we have in such a demoralizing environment?"

"I should not be treated like a terrorist for traveling within my own country by an agency that’s trash at its job anyway."

Tweeted Evita Duffy-Alfonso, the daughter of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, about the "absurdly invasive pat-down" TSA subjected her to after she, on behalf of her unborn child, declined to submit to the body scanner.

The agents were passive-aggressive, rude, and tried to pressure me and another pregnant woman into just walking through the scanner because it’s “safe.”... Perhaps things would have gone more smoothly if I’d handed over my biometric data to a random private company (CLEAR). Then I could enjoy the special privilege of waiting in a shorter line to be treated like a terrorist in my own country. Is this freedom? Travel, brought to you by George Orwell....

"Yes, Kim Kardashian, we’ve been to the moon before … Six times!"

Said Sean Duffy, the Secretary of Transportation and acting secretary and acting head of NASA, quoted in "Nasa tells Kim Kardashian: Yes, we’ve been to the moon before/The reality TV star had claimed that the 1969 moon landing was faked, repeating a popular conspiracy theory" (London Times).

Kardashian responded to Duffy’s critique on X, commenting under his post: “Wait … What’s the tea on 3I Atlas?!?!!!!!!!?????”

I've got a few questions:

1. Why is a government official calling out a private citizen who expresses interest in a conspiracy theory? We're Americans. We have our conspiracy theories. Keep your government nose out of our business. You're only giving more ammunition to the conspiracy theorists. Why stick your neck out to deny what isn't true? You're making it more fun to believe the theory!

2. Why did we go to the moon 6 times — 6 times, in rapid succession, and then no more? What was the sense of all those repeated trips and then to stop for half a century?!

3. What is the tea on 3I/Atlas? I just heard Joe Rogan and Elon Musk talking about it — "The thing about the 3-eye-Atlas"/"That's it's a hell of a name... sounds like third eye or something":

"Mr. Musk, who wore a suit and tie to Thursday’s meeting instead of his usual T-shirt after Mr. Trump publicly ribbed him about his sloppy appearance..."

"... defended himself by saying that he had three companies with a market cap of tens of billions of dollars, and that his results spoke for themselves. But he was soon clashing with members of the cabinet. ... Mr. Musk and the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, went back and forth about the state of the Federal Aviation Administration’s equipment for tracking airplanes and what kind of fix was needed.... Mr. Duffy said the young staff of Mr. Musk’s team was trying to lay off air traffic controllers. What am I supposed to do? Mr. Duffy said. I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers? Mr. Musk told Mr. Duffy that his assertion was a 'lie.' Mr. Duffy insisted it was not; he had heard it from them directly. Mr. Musk, asking who had been fired, said: Give me their names. Tell me their names. Mr. Duffy said there were not any names, because he had stopped them from being fired.... In a post on X on Friday, Mr. Duffy praised Mr. Trump and the work Mr. Musk’s team is doing and said it was an effective cabinet meeting.... Mr. Musk, who later claimed on X that the cabinet meeting was 'very productive,' seemed far less enthused inside the room...."

I'm reading "Inside the Explosive Meeting Where Trump Officials Clashed With Elon Musk/Simmering anger at the billionaire’s unchecked power spilled out in a remarkable Cabinet Room meeting. The president quickly moved to rein in Mr. Musk" (NYT).

Welcome to Madison, Sean.

Moving my son into UW Madison today. This is the only book in his welcome bag. The attempt at indoctrination begins. Who paid for this anti 2nd Amendment book?Tax dollars? Tuition? A social justice organization? pic.twitter.com/rluUII52VQ

— Sean Duffy (@SeanDuffyWI) August 28, 2020

"Today our little Valentina is getting her heart surgery..."

Today our little Valentina is getting her heart surgery in Chicago. Mom and dad are very nervous, but hopeful.... pic.twitter.com/DSuoIug7EH

— Sean Duffy (@SeanDuffyWI) March 23, 2020

"The idea that Vindman would have grown up with any sense of fealty to the Ukrainian volk is patently absurd, not only because he and his twin brother are clearly ardent American patriots..."

"... who have committed their lives to this country’s service but because I have yet to meet a single Jew who came to America from the Soviet Union who feels any kind of personal or historical tie beyond any relatives who might have been left behind."

From "Vindman is a Jew, Not a Ukrainian, Mr. Duffy/A loaded charge" by John Podhoretz (at Commentary).

I'm reading about attacks on Vindman, but let's look at why Vindman matters. I'll read "White House Ukraine Expert Sought to Correct Transcript of Trump Call/Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, who heard President Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s president and was alarmed, testified that he tried and failed to add key details to the rough transcript" (NYT).

Excerpt:

The omissions, Colonel Vindman said, included Mr. Trump’s assertion that there were recordings of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. discussing Ukraine corruption, and an explicit mention by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, of Burisma Holdings, the energy company whose board employed Mr. Biden’s son Hunter.

Colonel Vindman, who appeared on Capitol Hill wearing his dark blue Army dress uniform and military medals, told House impeachment investigators that he tried to change the reconstructed transcript made by the White House staff to reflect the omissions. But while some of his edits appeared to have been successful, he said, those two corrections were not made.

Colonel Vindman did not testify to a motive behind the White House editing process.

So there's the old question of whether the transcript is completely reliable and the new questions about the importance of these 2 things that were (allegedly) said but left out.

The phrases do not fundamentally change lawmakers’ understanding of the call...

Okay, then it's only about how complete and reliable the transcript is. It's reconstructed and not verbatim. But there's no new material from Vindman that matters. Vindman is only useful for the proposition that not everything is in the transcript, and then, I presume, the idea is to add in things that do matter from others who unlike Vindman, did not listen into the conversation but only heard about it second hand (or third or fourth hand). That feels quite tenuous.

If there was something important that was left out, why isn't Vindman the one to tell us about it? You have to say that he was troubled by what happened to trouble him and though that turns out not to be important, there were other things that were important but that just didn't happen to trouble Vindman, and here's a second/third/fourth-hand witnesses who can tell us about that.

I'm skeptical because I assume that things would tend to become more troubling as they are retold, remembered, and retold again.

"CNN’s new hire, former Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI), has used his first two appearances on the network to push a conspiracy theory that has already been widely debunked — including by CNN’s own reporting."

"The debunked Crowdstrike conspiracy theory is at the center of the impeachment inquiry into whether President Donald Trump improperly withheld congressionally approved military aid from Ukraine. The theory posits that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of the Democrats -- conveniently exonerating Russia’s efforts to aid Trump -- and that a Ukrainian-owned company tried to cover the tracks and took the Democratic National Committee’s computer server that was hacked to Ukraine. In reality, the FBI and Congress have investigated the 2016 election and found that Russia meddled extensively to push for Trump’s win. The company at the center of the conspiracy theory -- CrowdStrike -- is headquartered in the United States, not Ukraine. And there was never a physical DNC server that could’ve been taken to Ukraine.... Duffy has used his first two appearances on CNN to argue that Trump was right to pressure Ukraine to look into the conspiracy theory, even though it 'may be' debunked. In both instances, Duffy received strong pushback, begging the question why CNN would hire a bad-faith conspiracy theorist who undermines CNN’s own reporting and needs to be fact-checked on-air."

From "CNN hired Sean Duffy, who immediately pushed conspiracy theories that CNN had already debunked" (Media Matters).

It's so easy to answer the question why CNN would hire a bad-faith conspiracy theorist who undermines CNN’s own reporting and needs to be fact-checked on-air!

I don't know if that's a fair characterization of Duffy (and I haven't followed the Crowdstrike business), but let's do it as a hypothetical and leave Duffy and Crowdstrike out of this.

CNN hires a bad-faith conspiracy theorist who undermines CNN’s own reporting and needs to be fact-checked on-air. Why? A network strongly biased against Trump wants to have some claim of balance — of showing both sides and having someone who ostensibly defends Trump. Because of their actual bias, they choose someone who will make weak, inflammatory arguments, and the other people on the show will make sport of him for the entertainment and edification of the anti-Trump audience.

Is Duffy a mere punching bag, or is he performing a role similar to what Juan Williams does on Fox News (on "The Five")? I don't know. I don't watch CNN.

"The most powerful and ambitious Republican-led Congress in 20 years will convene Tuesday with plans to leave its mark on virtually every facet of American life..."

"... refashioning the country’s social safety net, wiping out scores of labor and environmental regulations and unraveling some of the most significant policy prescriptions put forward by the Obama administration...."

But as Republicans plan to reserve the first 100 days of Congress for their more partisan goals, Democrats are preparing roadblocks. The party’s brutal election-year wounds have been salted by evidence of Russian election interference, Mr. Trump’s hard-line cabinet picks and his taunting Twitter posts. (On Saturday, he offered New Year’s wishes “to all,” including “those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do.”)

So... they do know what to do? The idea is to put up "roadblocks."

The Senate may be narrowly divided, but among the 48 senators in the Democratic caucus* are 10 who will stand for re-election in two years in states that voted for Mr. Trump. Republicans are counting on their support, at least some of the time.

But on many issues, Senate Democrats — including their new leader, Chuck Schumer of New York — are expected to pivot from postelection carping to active thwarting, using complex Senate procedures and political messaging to slow or perhaps block elements of Mr. Trump’s agenda.

You know the stages of grief: 1. Denial, 2. Carping, 3. Thwarting....

ADDED: Here's a chart showing all those Democratic Senators who must run in 2018. I grabbed that at Wikipedia's "United States Senate elections, 2018":

 

You can see that the right-hand column needs to be updated to show the actual results of the 2016 election. There are 12 seats held by Democrats, and the chart anticipates that all 12 will go Democratic in the 2016 election, but in real life, 10 of those 12 went for Trump. One of the 2 seats occupied by Republicans did go for Clinton in 2016 (Nevada). Still, that's a harsh picture for the Democrats in the Senate.

I'm especially interested in the Wisconsin race. Tammy Baldwin was elected in 2012, when Obama was on the ticket. Obama got 52.83% here, and Baldwin got 51.4%. Here's a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article about Republicans gearing up to challenge Baldwin. One of them is Eric Hovde, who came very close to being the GOP nominee in 2012, but got edged out by the former governor, Tommy Thompson, who went on to run a terrible, lackluster campaign. Another is Congressman Sean Duffy, who was an early supporter of Trump's and who shares Trump's background in the reality-TV business. Duffy was on "The Real World" in the 1997 season (Boston) and he's married to Rachel Campos-Duffy, who was on "The Real World" in 1994 (the best-ever season, San Francisco). Those 2 have 8 children together.

__________________________

* There are 46 Democratic Senators, plus 2 Democrats who are in the Democratic caucus. You see the name of one of them on the chart above, Angus King. The other one is the one who challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination when everybody actually in her party obeyed orders and stood down. 

"Labor Day parade organizers confirm that no Republicans will be allowed to participate in this year's Labor Day Parade."

"[Marathon County Labor Council] president Randy Radtke says they choose not to invite elected officials who have 'openly attacked worker's rights' or did nothing when state public workers lost most of their right to collectively bargain."

From Congressman Sean Duffy's chief of staff: "Having walked in this parade in past years, Congressman Duffy was hoping that for a moment, we could set our differences aside and simply have some fun in a family-friendly event."

Fun? Family-friendly? Wisconsin?!

Wisconsin's Sean Duffy — "a lumberjack athlete who has been both a county district attorney and a star of MTV's 'Real World'... trying hard to become the next Scott Brown."

WaPo has a big article.

Duffy is expected to win a primary in September against Dan Mielke, a farmer and self-declared "tea party" candidate who had previously challenged Obey and lost. Mielke is trying to make hay of the wilder Duffy moments caught on tape by MTV, saying they reflect "Hollywood" values....

Duffy would rather not get into the details of the reality show, saying it doesn't reflect who he is now. But he admits that "The Real World" played an important role in his life. Through MTV he met his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, a conservative Latina from Arizona who appeared on the third season of the series, in San Francisco, in 1994. Their courtship and canoodling -- during their time on MTV's "Road Rules: All Stars" -- was captured on camera.

They continued their minor celebrity status after the show, appearing in "The Wedding Video," a movie-length spoof of reality television produced by another "Real World" alum. Joining in the low-budget mockumentary about two men getting married was a spur-of-the-moment decision that Duffy tells Wisconsin voters that he wouldn't make today.

Can Wisconsin folk comprehend the complexities of modern media — including the half-truths of edited "reality" shows and the fiction that is mockumentary?

"What do we know about the retirement of Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.)?"

Asks David Weigel, noting the hot political news of the day:

Why would one of the most powerful men in Congress, elected in 1968, in a district that went for the Obama-Biden ticket, bail out of reelection? Republicans point to the campaign of Sean Duffy, a telegenic (literally) district attorney who raised a lot of money, built a following among national conservatives and, according to everything I'm hearing, was giving Obey a real battle in his internal polls.

I've talked to Duffy several times and been so impressed...

Talk like that attracted the attention of conservatives who helped Duffy raise about $500,000 -- less than half as much as Obey, but for a campaign that explicitly promised to replace a power-broker who could bring money to the district with a small government conservative who would be totally disinterested in pork. You'll hear people credit the endorsements of Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty for Duffy's success, but that gets the story backward.

You may remember that we were talking about the Obey/Duffy face-off a few days ago, in the context of the problem of Republicans having a big advantage looking toward November but needing real candidates. Duffy is real. (And he was on "The Real World.")

ADDED: I was just reading Obey's bio on Wikipedia. It's surprisingly short — considering that he's been in Congress since 1969. (He replaced Melvin Laird, who became Nixon's Secretary of Defense.) Under "Controversies," there's only one item. If you're going to have exactly one controversy, it might as well be this:

On June 25, 2009, Obey got into a fight on the House floor with fellow Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California.

LOL at the dumb Wikipedia writing (which makes Obey a woman). Let's switch to the Roll Call text...

"The Democratic disaster scenario would make absolute sense if it did not also require that the Republicans do something right."

"The whole world is expecting a cataclysm for the Democrats in November," Gail Collins concedes. But she notes what is obvious: You can't beat something with nothing. You can't run Not A Democrat. You have to dig up an actual Republican that real people will vote for. It's not so easy.

***

Also in today's NYT is this Jeff Zeleny/Adam Nagourney piece about how Democrats who've long held seats in the House of Representatives are finding their safe districts not so safe anymore.

Representative David R. Obey has won 21 straight races, easily prevailing through wars and economic crises that have spanned presidencies from Nixon’s to Obama’s. Yet the discontent with Washington surging through politics is now threatening not only his seat but also Democratic control of Congress.

Hey, Zeleny's in Ashland. Welcome to Wisconsin!

In the Seventh District of Wisconsin, which covers 17,787 square miles from the middle of the state to Lake Superior, signs of Mr. Obey’s service in Congress are found in new bridges, highway expansions and countless other projects. Yet there are fewer signs of Mr. Obey himself. At the Democratic Party office in Wausau, his hometown, campaign placards hang in the window for Senator Russ Feingold, but none for Mr. Obey.

When asked to discuss his re-election bid, Mr. Obey declined, saying that it was too early to begin talking politics and that he was focused on his legislative duties. “I have never met anyone who thought political campaigns were too short,” he said.

Can Obey take solace in the Gail Collin's theory about the dearth of Republican opponents?

Mr. Obey, 71, was elected two years before [Sean] Duffy, 38, was born. Mr. Duffy is widely seen as leading in the Republican primary — his opponent is the candidate who lost to Mr. Obey two years ago by 22 percentage points — and his race has drawn support from party leaders in Washington, Tea Party activists and Sarah Palin.

He has been elected four times as the district attorney of Ashland County, but the attention surrounding him began in 1997 when he was on MTV’s “The Real World: Boston.” 

"The Real World"! Were you still watching "The Real World" in 1997? I bailed after Season 5 (Miami). That show peaked in San Francisco (Season 3). Here's a list of all the seasons. Boston was Season 6.

He also is well-known here as a champion lumberjack sports competitor.

He said he decided to challenge Mr. Obey because of his leading role in the economic stimulus bill, health care legislation and the growth of government. “I know that I can have a serious impact on the direction of the country if I could take out Obey,” he said.

Take out?

But Mr. Obey, who has a campaign balance of $1.4 million compared with $400,000 for Mr. Duffy, is also emblematic of a bright spot for Democrats: a financial advantage.

That's something. But $400,000 is not nothing.

ADDED: Duffy is married to Rachel from "Real World" San Francisco. Now, that means something to me. Rachel, whose full name now is Rachel Campos-Duffy, was an out-and-proud Republican on the show. And Rachel and Sean now have 6 children: Evita Pilar, Xavier Jack, Lucia-Belen, John-Paul, Paloma Pilar, and MariaVictoria Margarita.