"[Tim] Scott rarely mentioned a significant other during his decades in politics, and in the ’90s he declared himself a 'proud' adult virgin."

"When Scott launched his presidential campaign last spring, the media noted that he would be the first bachelor president since the 19th century. He tried to shut this down by alluding to a girlfriend in May, then sharing some details about his Christian, pickleball-playing partner with the Washington Post’s Ben Terris in September. This only raised suspicions that Scott had invented a ladyfriend for political purposes...."

From "Tim Scott’s Mystery Girlfriend Is Now His Fiancée" (New York Magazine).

“As a guy who is mostly an introvert and on the quiet side, having to have a conversation about the engagement is a little, you know, uncomfortable in a way, but it’s the most exciting thing I’ll do with my life besides making Jesus my Lord,” Scott said in an interview Sunday....

Why is Scott “having to have a conversation about the engagement” if it makes him uncomfortable?...

Is Scott running for VP? Is he in the running? I don't think Trump will pick him. Isn't he needed in the Senate? 

Meanwhile, yesterday, Doug Burgum: 1. Announced he's not running for a third term as Governor of North Dakota, and 2. Spoke at a Trump rally. But it can't be Burgum, can it? It's got to be one of the women, don't you think? Elise Stefanik, Kristi Noem, Sarah Huckabee Sanders....

Trump defeated Ron DeSantis. We all know that. But how gendered was it?

I'm reading a NYT "Political Memo" by Michael C. Bender and Nicholas Nehamas, called "The Emasculation of Ron DeSantis by the Bully Donald Trump."

Emasculation? Really?

The former president’s brutal, yearlong campaign of humiliation.... Donald J. Trump plumbed new depths of degradation in his savage takedown... a yearlong campaign of emasculation and humiliation.... 

... Mr. Trump painted Mr. DeSantis as a submissive sniveler, insisting that he had cried and begged “on his knees”....

Sunrise — 7:21, 7:34.

"Ethics Ratings of Nearly All Professions Down in U.S."

Gallup reports.

"Minutes after Trump arrived in the lower Manhattan courthouse — where he’d been expected to testify later in the day — US District Judge Lewis Kaplan sent all of the parties in the case home."

From "Donald Trump defamation trial live updates: ‘COVID exposure’ cancels proceedings in E. Jean Carroll’s $10M case, moments after ex-prez arrives."

The juror in “seat No. 3” reported on his way to court that he was feeling hot and nauseous, and was advised to stay away and test himself for COVID, the judge said.

Trump’s personal attorney, Alina Habba, also reported having a fever within the “past 24 hours” and having dinner with her parents — who recently tested positive for COVID — in the past few days....

"Biden seems bright, tough and bold. Also very, very scary. One might even say terrifying. He has Rod Serling's upper lip..."

"... which is no shortcoming, but suggests maybe he should only be president of the Twilight Zone.... The candidate appears to be overadvised and suffering from excessive consultitis. Worse, he comes across on TV as someone whose fuse is always lit. Unless we ditch television for the remainder of the campaign, Biden will never be president...."

Wrote Tom Shales in a July 3, 1987 Washington Post piece called "The Diverting Democrats."

I'm reading that today because I was rereading parts of Richard Ben Cramer's book, "What It Takes" (commission earned). We were talking about plagiarism and trying to remember the details of Biden's problem internalizing the rhetoric of Neil Kinnock, and I knew the answer was in that book.

"'The F.B.I. invented the conspiracy; identified the targets; manufactured the ordnance,' Judge McMahon wrote, adding that officials had 'federalized' the charges..."

"... ensuring long prison terms — by driving several of the men into Connecticut to 'view the "bombs."' ... [The judge wrote that] what undermined respect for the law in the case was sending a 'villain' like Mr. Hussain to 'troll among the poorest and weakest of men for "terrorists" who might prove susceptible to an offer of much-needed cash in exchange for committing a faux crime.'"

From "Judge Rebukes F.B.I. and Orders Release of Man in ‘Newburgh Four’ Case/The judge said James Cromitie, like his co-defendants, should be freed because he had been duped into an 'F.B.I.-orchestrated conspiracy' by an 'unsavory' informant" (NYT).

Things not said by Winston Churchill.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

- Winston Churchill pic.twitter.com/ECoR8YeiMm

— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) January 21, 2024

The Daily Beast is pretty snarky about it:

The Ron DeSantis large language model appeared to hallucinate on Sunday, with the campaign running an apparently fake Winston Churchill quote as the title of the candidate’s drop-out announcement video....

Winston Churchill tends to get statements misattributed to him. His name on a statement is already a red flag that it might be a mistake. Please check first, especially if you are going to use one of these quotes in an important statement, as Ron DeSantis did.

Here's the Wikiquote page for Churchill. It's really long. It includes a section labeled "Misattributed." That section is really long too. Long, but entertaining. For example, Churchill did not say "A joke is a very serious thing." It's actually a line written by Charles Churchill — in 1763 poem called "The Ghost."

"He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord."

Said Tim Scott, quoting Proverbs 18:22, quoted in "South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott proposes to girlfriend who was revealed during his brief presidential run" (NY Post).

Tim Scott is 58 years old and has never been married. The engagement is politically convenient, and what is an engagement? The Bible doesn't say "He who finds a fiancée finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord." 

Things maybe not said by Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King Jr.

I'd like to be more of a good sport about this column by Anne Lamott, "Age makes the miracles easier to see." But it begins with a quote and it ends with a quote ascribed to a monumental man and, in both cases, I don't think the man is the source of the quote.

Maybe if I were older, I'd "see" some essential truth in ascribing this to Albert Einstein...

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

... and this to Martin Luther King Jr....

"Don’t let them get you to hate them."

These lines sound less like something the man would say than like something that would get passed around on the internet by people who like what it says and extra-like it because of the grand name that got attached to it.

The Einstein "quote" is discussed at Skeptical Esoterica:

At the Sunday Night Café...

... you can talk about the retirement of the "DeSanctimonius" nickname and anything else you want.

The James Austin Johnson impersonation of Donald Trump is so good they must be worried it will...

... transcend the defenses of the "SNL" audience and cause them to bond with the man they think they need to hate.

"The New York Times presents this piece as some kind of Pentagon Papers-esque exposé."

"But I guarantee you that a majority of Americans - including probably most Democrats -- believe that DEI/Anti Racism went too far post George Floyd and we need to get back to aiming for a color blind society."

That's the highest rated comment on the article "'America Is Under Attack': Inside the Anti-D.E.I. Crusade" by Nicholas Confessore (NYT).

The next 4 highest rated comments are similar:

"This is not his first rodeo. He is going to be quite careful and thoughtful about how he handles this situation."

"I’m sure he’s thinking about when he draws lines, how he draws lines, what the lines mean and what agenda it plays into."

Said Katherine B. Forrest, a former federal district judge, about Lewis A. Kaplan, federal district judge in the ongoing E. Jean Carroll trial. She's quoted in "As Trump Treats Trials Like Rallies, Judges Study How to Rein Him In/One judge was reluctantly permissive. Another came down hard. Their contrasting approaches may inform the jurists overseeing the former president’s criminal trials" (NYT).

I don't think Trump is treating his trials "like rallies." Have you seen his rallies? He's far more restrained in court. But he is using something of his own style and is finding ways to take what has been thrown at him and turn it into useful political discourse. What should a judge do? If he cracks down too hard, he's giving Trump new material. 

How do you like the expression "This is not his first rodeo"? I try not to let it annoy me. I try to be amused. I picture the 79-year-old judge on a bucking bronco. 

Even Michael Caine — even as he pronounces "rodeo" ro-DAY-oh — says "ain't." 

 

BONUS: Warning: language:

"Once you get to a certain point, you have to make that choice to continue or turn back. And he was never really a turning-back kind of kid."

Said Christopher Roma's mother, quoted in "Experienced Hiker Found Dead on New Hampshire Trail/Christopher Roma called for help late Tuesday, telling rescuers he was 'very cold.' An experienced hiker, he had completed the triple crown of America’s major trails" (NYT).

He had completed the arduous “triple crown of hiking,” which includes the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail, the country’s three major long-distance trails. He had also set up a business, North East Trekking Company, that helped others prepare for their own thousand-mile endeavors, according to the company’s website.

"You can't beat something with nothing," the wingless plane, and the deleterious effects of athletic awards for girls.

I was researching the saying "You can't beat something with nothing" — I wanted to critique the Biden campaign strategy — and I came up with this wonderful page from the New York Times archive.

It's page 17, from November 10, 1934, just after the Democrats' massive victory in the midterm elections:

In the upper right corner, you see Will Rogers, saying that "the Republicans lost because they had nothing to offer but criticism" — "No plan, denounce, but don't suggest." But Will Rogers didn't invent "You can't beat something with nothing." Even back then, it was an "old saying."

X is bad and we're not X ≠ a winning strategy.