People,don’t get a pass on public behaviour because it’s possible they have mental health issues. The story - from his heights of influence to his lawsuit damages - is insanely interesting and full of comedy moments. This is life, being po-faced about it aids no-one.
Hanania’s nervous laugh delivery is bloody grating tho.
What's up with all the pearl clutching in this comment section? This guy is not uniquely insane by BARpod standards; just take a look at the late James Shupe, who was similarly unhinged, dishonest, and flip-flopped constantly on politics. At least Johnson never sent Hanania a video of himself in a diaper jiggling his moobs around.
That's like 40% of their shows, though. Many such cases of nutbars. The subjects normally don't have any kind of connection to a presidential administration, however. (that was the least surprising thing outside of Johnson representing himself in court)
Someone with a weirdly incredible amount of reach considering the lack of intellect I hear in everything I’ve heard from him.
To be fair it was kind of an interesting story, but really poorly told. I felt like Katie and Jessie were working hard to try to constantly breathe life into it while he continues to punch down on someone who is truly mentally ill.
Well, he writes stuff like this, as of Feb, 2022: "As long as men and women are treated differently by society, they cannot engage in public debate with each other in a fair and consistent way.... I have no doubt that public discourse as a male space works better. That doesn’t mean women are barred from voting or discussing politics..." https://www.richardhanania.com/p/womens-tears-win-in-the-marketplace
Within the last couple of years he wrote in a tweet about a Black homeless person (who was killed in self-defense (justifiably) by a subway rider when he was acting threateningly) "These people are animals, whether they’re harassing people in subways or walking around in suits."
He is currently (as we see the Epstein debacle creating a sharp turn in nationwide opinions about Trump) backtracking on his vote for and many opinions about Trump (see here: https://www.richardhanania.com/p/what-i-got-wrong-about-trump), even though he was one of Trump's advisors.
He does not seem to have a great track record for putting forth opinions or ideas that should be taken seriously. (No shade on our show hosts for having him (interesting episode) and looking forward to the primo episode!)
Interesting. I should delve deeper into this individual. It kinda seems like he’s just an edgy heterodox right leaning guy though. Probably got into some weird spaces in his earlier years, but who didn’t? Of these examples the only real red flag to me is the eugenics thing, but even that is a somewhat mainstream discussion. I’m pretty sure a lot of European countries kill all the downies so eugenics is still alive in a sense.
fwiw, i think his book 'the origins of woke' was great & really very useful. most people who listen to b&r or fifth column style shows would find it worth their time, i think.
Same. Wasn't a fan of Hanania & was bored to death halfway through. Don't feel bad being this blunt because from what I gather, Hanania is not that great of a guy? Blech.
It really wasn't. Hanania might be a smart guy, I have no idea, but he's not a journalist and certainly not a storyteller. This sucked. You know how Jesse and Katie are always going "we'll come back to that" in response to questions from whoever is in the blind seat? That's a sign that they have a story they want to tell, in a particular order, without too many tangents. Hanania does not do that. His story, as it were, had no throughline and he could not manage to keep the characters separate in a way that was trackable by the audience.
Katie or Jesse might turn in a clunker sometimes, but they are very good at this format. Hanania is not.
I have nothing against Hanania, but listening to this episode really made me sad, because this guy is very clearly mentally ill. I know that's nothing new for B&R subjects, but something about Hanania's giggling and saying he loves Chuck just struck me as a kind of bullying. I know this guy has wasted taxpayer money and been a PIA to a lot of people by suing them, but I felt pity for him listening to this, since he clearly suffers from the kind of delusions that a lot of mentally ill people do - assuming they are the target of international governments, etc - and if we found a guy on the street who believed these things (which isn't hard to do) there would be something cruel about talking a lot about how ridiculous his beliefs are. I dunno, I just got sad listening to this.
I think what makes a difference for me is that Jesse and Katie had never heard of this guy, and neither had I, so it was kind of like "hey have you heard of this dude who has a Substack and claims to have all these connections to famous people?" and then you slowly realize that he is very likely a pariah in his own community and all his supposed influence is in his own imagination.
Gotta say, at what point does the court order a psych eval to see if someone is competent to stand trial or needs to be institutionalized if a person refusing council and accusing the court of some Mormon-Musk conspiracy against him isn’t enough? This seems like schizophrenia - Beautiful Mind stuff like Katie said. Or would those sort of court orders only apply to criminal not civil cases?
Same. When Richard said the first judge was being "maternal" toward him I wanted to say "yeah, and isn't it normal?". It should be obvious that guy is not playing with the same deck as everyone else. It's the second judge that seems deeply wrong to me. You spend a trial making fun of the guy for being a nutjob and then you impose the harshest penalties in US history for that kind of lawsuit? Isn't ground for appeal, a whole court laughing at the defender for being deluded?
That article about Johnson supposedly helping pick Trump’s first term cabinet and Jesse being wistful for them in comparison reminded me of those days when the left thought it was an eleven alarm fascism fire that Trump put completely normal Republicans on his cabinet. Along with many other things presidents normally do or Obama did (photos of “kids in cages” from Obama’s term being attributed to Trump comes to mind) and regular Republican policies suddenly being spun as the unprecedented totalitarian destruction of democracy unique to Trump.
Happened again with things like Project 2025, as if Republicans hadn’t wanted to cut government, get rid of the Edu Dept, promote family values, etc for 50+ years.
Or maybe I’m just one of few who don’t have the memory of a goldfish and didn’t only start to paying attention to politics when Trump was elected so I had the institutional knowledge plus study of political history to put things in perspective and know the importance of picking out the true threats and abnormalities of Trump instead of saying it’s all 1000% unprecedented fascism (said of every GOP nominee for 50+ years) that makes people tune out and not believe any of what you say and helped lead to Trump in the first place.
And actually they flipped their shit way more during Trump 1 and now that Trump 2 is happening it really feels like they’ve lost steam when he is doing arguably way more controversial shit.
Thinking about it now it feels like quite the boy who cried wolf situation maybe.
It is 1000% boy who cried wolf with Romney being a huge breaking point. After this pleasant milquetoast moderate Mormon man was smeared as a sexist, racist, cancer-causing, animal-abusing bully who wants to push grandma over a cliff, nobody believed or cared what was said about Trump.
Not some myth being cooked up 10+ years later, started right from 2012. There were literally articles written circa 2016 from liberals apologizing for how they treated Romney.
Like I said, the left has been screaming Republican candidates were fascists who would dismantle democracy for 50+ years. The difference in 2012 was how mild Romney was in comparison to the attacks. He was no fire brand or activist, in fact he had to try to convince Republicans he was conservative enough to represent them. The feeling was, fine, we need someone non-controversial and moderate to get a fair shake. You complain about tiny Fox/right wing radio- That’s funny- try going up against everyone else in media, academia, culture, etc. that’s left-wing.
Anyway, my whole point is, the left cried wolf about fascism/racism/every ism for 50+ years to the point it fell on deaf ears and then came Trump. They should have held their powder for the real threat when it came.
But they still haven’t learned. When everything an 11 alarm fire, nothing is 11 alarm and people tune out the alarms.
Oh I remember it. I remember a hack like Victor Davis Hanson making a big deal of it.
I don’t think progressive media is good or true. That is a strawman too. I think it is mostly nonsense.
However decades of talk radio and stuff like the Clinton death list and I recall Glenn Beck literally running footage of Nuremberg rally and then cutting to Obama talking about heath care seem like important context when talking about the 2012 race.
What I am saying is the normal campaign crap that Romney faced was not some huge crime considering context.
Now I do think the tragedy is about Romney is the whole etch a sketch thing. I think he was a moderate type. But to get the nomination he had to play the role of an Ayn Randist.
It would have been great if he could have been the guy who came up with Romneycare. But the GOP primary voters would not allow it.
So when he said the 47 percent thing I don’t know if he believed it. I think he may have been playing a role to his donors. But you expect his political opponents to give that to him? I mean didn’t the GOP make a big deal out of “You didn’t build that” by changing the meaning of what Obama said to mean small business itself.
I mean this is the nature of politics. Is poliitics stupid and dishonest? Yes. But I see this Romney thing now as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
I wasn’t talking about the 47% thing, that was totally fair game. I was talking about everything I mentioned in my first post - “sexist, racist, cancer-causing, animal-abusing bully who wants to push grandma over a cliff,” those were all literal examples. The ads about the woman who got cancer because of him and Ryan pushing grandma off a cliff because of SS and Medicare,
that he abused animals because their dog rode on the roof of their car, that he was a bully supposedly cutting some kids hair, that “binders full of women” was supposed to be evidence of sexism.
Yeah, talk radio and Fox are tiny compared ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, 99% of other news and entertainment outlets, plus all other academia, art, culture, etc.
This neglects the point that Romney without power is a much more affable intelligent guy - and this likeable - than Romney In Office with a republican party led by Newt Gingrich.
I didn't pay attention to every second, but I really struggled to overall, which hasn't happened in a while! TBH I'm still not entirely sure what it was about. I was also really excited by this character thinking he was some rootin tootin red haired big bearded personality and not someone who looks like they keep multiple cans of spray cheese in their fridge at all times.
First BARPod episode where I actually started to doze off.
I don’t know if it’s the subject (never heard of him before) or Hanania’s annoying voice, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care at all about this one.
I'm just past the housekeeping segment and I might bail on this one. I've lost track of what's going on and I don't really care enough to figure it out.
Katie’s “Schrodinger’s scat” joke was SO quick and good, it deserved a standing ovation and was somehow totally glossed over. Incredible joke.
Came here to say I couldn’t believe they just rolled on by that!
I had the same thought! Totally brilliant. But Jesse stepped all over it by mishearing it as "Schrodinger's shat" , which he then repeated.
Jesse stepping on a punchline? never
Looking forward to more razor sharp physics banter in future episodes.
"Schrodinger scat” even has exactly the same letters in the same order.
I said "Schrödinger's Crap" right over it!
Yup, came here to say that. Fantastic joke.
100%
Ok, guys. Explain to me why Occam’s Razor doesn’t apply here and you didn’t just dedicate an hour and a half to some poor guy with schizophrenia?
People,don’t get a pass on public behaviour because it’s possible they have mental health issues. The story - from his heights of influence to his lawsuit damages - is insanely interesting and full of comedy moments. This is life, being po-faced about it aids no-one.
Hanania’s nervous laugh delivery is bloody grating tho.
As Helen Lewis would say of the last sentence, "harsh but fair."
I came to the comments specifically to see if anyone else mentioned the nervous laugh delivery. So annoying!
It was so very irritating!
What's up with all the pearl clutching in this comment section? This guy is not uniquely insane by BARpod standards; just take a look at the late James Shupe, who was similarly unhinged, dishonest, and flip-flopped constantly on politics. At least Johnson never sent Hanania a video of himself in a diaper jiggling his moobs around.
To me the guy seemed too concertedly devoted to self promotion for a schizophrenic, but I did consider manic/bipolar.
IMHO, his actions are much too public and detrimental to others to merit him compassionate privacy.
That's like 40% of their shows, though. Many such cases of nutbars. The subjects normally don't have any kind of connection to a presidential administration, however. (that was the least surprising thing outside of Johnson representing himself in court)
Clearly something going on. Still a fascinating case. The interrogation with himself was one of the best BarPod moments of all time.
Not everyone who behaves idiotically is necessarily mentally ill, but the same thought crossed my mind
Vintage BARPod. Great episode.
I've been waiting for the day when Richard comes on this show.
I’ve been waiting for the day where I can tolerate him so we’ll see.
I have no idea who he is give me the deats the drama why we don’t like him?
Someone with a weirdly incredible amount of reach considering the lack of intellect I hear in everything I’ve heard from him.
To be fair it was kind of an interesting story, but really poorly told. I felt like Katie and Jessie were working hard to try to constantly breathe life into it while he continues to punch down on someone who is truly mentally ill.
Well, he writes stuff like this, as of Feb, 2022: "As long as men and women are treated differently by society, they cannot engage in public debate with each other in a fair and consistent way.... I have no doubt that public discourse as a male space works better. That doesn’t mean women are barred from voting or discussing politics..." https://www.richardhanania.com/p/womens-tears-win-in-the-marketplace
Within the last couple of years he wrote in a tweet about a Black homeless person (who was killed in self-defense (justifiably) by a subway rider when he was acting threateningly) "These people are animals, whether they’re harassing people in subways or walking around in suits."
He has backtracked on his volumes of widely published pseudonymous unequivocally racist and misogynist writings (we're talking actual white male supremacist stuff in white male supremacist publications) that reached into the 2010s (see here: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/richard-hanania-racist-pseudoscience-woke-silicon-valley/675335/) claiming he "sucked" when he wrote those things (after he was found out).
He is currently (as we see the Epstein debacle creating a sharp turn in nationwide opinions about Trump) backtracking on his vote for and many opinions about Trump (see here: https://www.richardhanania.com/p/what-i-got-wrong-about-trump), even though he was one of Trump's advisors.
He does not seem to have a great track record for putting forth opinions or ideas that should be taken seriously. (No shade on our show hosts for having him (interesting episode) and looking forward to the primo episode!)
EDIT: To add tweet.
Interesting. I should delve deeper into this individual. It kinda seems like he’s just an edgy heterodox right leaning guy though. Probably got into some weird spaces in his earlier years, but who didn’t? Of these examples the only real red flag to me is the eugenics thing, but even that is a somewhat mainstream discussion. I’m pretty sure a lot of European countries kill all the downies so eugenics is still alive in a sense.
Anyway, thanks
fwiw, i think his book 'the origins of woke' was great & really very useful. most people who listen to b&r or fifth column style shows would find it worth their time, i think.
Sounds like he's up your alley.
I feel like I heard a light scoff and an eye roll lol
I don’t understand why I’m supposed to find him interesting or why he’s so great.
https://open.substack.com/pub/blockedandreported/p/primo-the-huffington-post-roasts?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1227ij
Oh, interesting! Will listen!
Oof, not going to unsub or anything, but this might be the first BARPod I skip.
Same. Wasn't a fan of Hanania & was bored to death halfway through. Don't feel bad being this blunt because from what I gather, Hanania is not that great of a guy? Blech.
Thank you. Maybe his shitty tweets are part of a schtick that's gone over my head, but I don't think so. I think he's just a shitty person.
It was a solid episode.
It really wasn't. Hanania might be a smart guy, I have no idea, but he's not a journalist and certainly not a storyteller. This sucked. You know how Jesse and Katie are always going "we'll come back to that" in response to questions from whoever is in the blind seat? That's a sign that they have a story they want to tell, in a particular order, without too many tangents. Hanania does not do that. His story, as it were, had no throughline and he could not manage to keep the characters separate in a way that was trackable by the audience.
Katie or Jesse might turn in a clunker sometimes, but they are very good at this format. Hanania is not.
If you become a paid subscriber to Richard Hanania you get Elite Human Capital status thrown in as a free extra
I have nothing against Hanania, but listening to this episode really made me sad, because this guy is very clearly mentally ill. I know that's nothing new for B&R subjects, but something about Hanania's giggling and saying he loves Chuck just struck me as a kind of bullying. I know this guy has wasted taxpayer money and been a PIA to a lot of people by suing them, but I felt pity for him listening to this, since he clearly suffers from the kind of delusions that a lot of mentally ill people do - assuming they are the target of international governments, etc - and if we found a guy on the street who believed these things (which isn't hard to do) there would be something cruel about talking a lot about how ridiculous his beliefs are. I dunno, I just got sad listening to this.
Had the same thought. It was kind of a fascinating story - and a good barpod story, but was just punching down the whole time.
I don’t enjoy hannania and am confused why anyone finds him interesting (or why he has an audience at all) and this further demonstrated that.
Felt like they were pulling a lot of water for him.
I think what makes a difference for me is that Jesse and Katie had never heard of this guy, and neither had I, so it was kind of like "hey have you heard of this dude who has a Substack and claims to have all these connections to famous people?" and then you slowly realize that he is very likely a pariah in his own community and all his supposed influence is in his own imagination.
Gotta say, at what point does the court order a psych eval to see if someone is competent to stand trial or needs to be institutionalized if a person refusing council and accusing the court of some Mormon-Musk conspiracy against him isn’t enough? This seems like schizophrenia - Beautiful Mind stuff like Katie said. Or would those sort of court orders only apply to criminal not civil cases?
Same. When Richard said the first judge was being "maternal" toward him I wanted to say "yeah, and isn't it normal?". It should be obvious that guy is not playing with the same deck as everyone else. It's the second judge that seems deeply wrong to me. You spend a trial making fun of the guy for being a nutjob and then you impose the harshest penalties in US history for that kind of lawsuit? Isn't ground for appeal, a whole court laughing at the defender for being deluded?
I wondered about this, too. I'm not a lawyer, but is an insanity defense even possible in civil cases?
That article about Johnson supposedly helping pick Trump’s first term cabinet and Jesse being wistful for them in comparison reminded me of those days when the left thought it was an eleven alarm fascism fire that Trump put completely normal Republicans on his cabinet. Along with many other things presidents normally do or Obama did (photos of “kids in cages” from Obama’s term being attributed to Trump comes to mind) and regular Republican policies suddenly being spun as the unprecedented totalitarian destruction of democracy unique to Trump.
Happened again with things like Project 2025, as if Republicans hadn’t wanted to cut government, get rid of the Edu Dept, promote family values, etc for 50+ years.
Or maybe I’m just one of few who don’t have the memory of a goldfish and didn’t only start to paying attention to politics when Trump was elected so I had the institutional knowledge plus study of political history to put things in perspective and know the importance of picking out the true threats and abnormalities of Trump instead of saying it’s all 1000% unprecedented fascism (said of every GOP nominee for 50+ years) that makes people tune out and not believe any of what you say and helped lead to Trump in the first place.
That is kind of funny.
And actually they flipped their shit way more during Trump 1 and now that Trump 2 is happening it really feels like they’ve lost steam when he is doing arguably way more controversial shit.
Thinking about it now it feels like quite the boy who cried wolf situation maybe.
It is 1000% boy who cried wolf with Romney being a huge breaking point. After this pleasant milquetoast moderate Mormon man was smeared as a sexist, racist, cancer-causing, animal-abusing bully who wants to push grandma over a cliff, nobody believed or cared what was said about Trump.
Alright. But the GOP reaction to Obama pre this or even Clinton was very measured, right?
I mean birtherism, death panels, etc.
2009-2010 FOX/talk radio was a special kind of unhinged thing.
The fact they were mean to Romney seems almost quaint.
This formulation that 2012 was especially brutal election is just not true historically.
It is a growing “myth of innocence” meme that keeps popping up in conservative circles.
Not some myth being cooked up 10+ years later, started right from 2012. There were literally articles written circa 2016 from liberals apologizing for how they treated Romney.
Like I said, the left has been screaming Republican candidates were fascists who would dismantle democracy for 50+ years. The difference in 2012 was how mild Romney was in comparison to the attacks. He was no fire brand or activist, in fact he had to try to convince Republicans he was conservative enough to represent them. The feeling was, fine, we need someone non-controversial and moderate to get a fair shake. You complain about tiny Fox/right wing radio- That’s funny- try going up against everyone else in media, academia, culture, etc. that’s left-wing.
Anyway, my whole point is, the left cried wolf about fascism/racism/every ism for 50+ years to the point it fell on deaf ears and then came Trump. They should have held their powder for the real threat when it came.
But they still haven’t learned. When everything an 11 alarm fire, nothing is 11 alarm and people tune out the alarms.
Oh I remember it. I remember a hack like Victor Davis Hanson making a big deal of it.
I don’t think progressive media is good or true. That is a strawman too. I think it is mostly nonsense.
However decades of talk radio and stuff like the Clinton death list and I recall Glenn Beck literally running footage of Nuremberg rally and then cutting to Obama talking about heath care seem like important context when talking about the 2012 race.
What I am saying is the normal campaign crap that Romney faced was not some huge crime considering context.
Now I do think the tragedy is about Romney is the whole etch a sketch thing. I think he was a moderate type. But to get the nomination he had to play the role of an Ayn Randist.
It would have been great if he could have been the guy who came up with Romneycare. But the GOP primary voters would not allow it.
So when he said the 47 percent thing I don’t know if he believed it. I think he may have been playing a role to his donors. But you expect his political opponents to give that to him? I mean didn’t the GOP make a big deal out of “You didn’t build that” by changing the meaning of what Obama said to mean small business itself.
I mean this is the nature of politics. Is poliitics stupid and dishonest? Yes. But I see this Romney thing now as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
I wasn’t talking about the 47% thing, that was totally fair game. I was talking about everything I mentioned in my first post - “sexist, racist, cancer-causing, animal-abusing bully who wants to push grandma over a cliff,” those were all literal examples. The ads about the woman who got cancer because of him and Ryan pushing grandma off a cliff because of SS and Medicare,
that he abused animals because their dog rode on the roof of their car, that he was a bully supposedly cutting some kids hair, that “binders full of women” was supposed to be evidence of sexism.
“Tiny” Fox? It was the biggest then and still is the biggest news network. Now it is clear you are just being a hack.
Yeah, talk radio and Fox are tiny compared ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, 99% of other news and entertainment outlets, plus all other academia, art, culture, etc.
I definitely don't think it was especially brutal at all.
But in the story of the boy who cried wolf, the boy's defense that there is another even worse liar doesn't really change the moral at all.
This neglects the point that Romney without power is a much more affable intelligent guy - and this likeable - than Romney In Office with a republican party led by Newt Gingrich.
It neglects that point because Newt was in charge almost 2 decades earlier
Like The IRA: he hadn’t gone away.
Hanania!
Do doo be-do-do
Hanania!
Do do-do do
Hanania!
Do doo de-do-do de-do-do de-do-do de-do-do-doodle do do do-doo do!
I didn't pay attention to every second, but I really struggled to overall, which hasn't happened in a while! TBH I'm still not entirely sure what it was about. I was also really excited by this character thinking he was some rootin tootin red haired big bearded personality and not someone who looks like they keep multiple cans of spray cheese in their fridge at all times.
Why is he giggling so much?
Drugs would be my guess?
Good guess
First BARPod episode where I actually started to doze off.
I don’t know if it’s the subject (never heard of him before) or Hanania’s annoying voice, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care at all about this one.
I'm just past the housekeeping segment and I might bail on this one. I've lost track of what's going on and I don't really care enough to figure it out.
This week on Katie’s Calipers - Mormons: what skull-shapes are allowed?
I can’t believe they still can’t pronounce Ghislaine Maxwell’s name correctly. It’s not “Jill-ayn” it’s hard G “gehl-len.”
I thought it was jizz-lane and endlessly enjoyed that.
Me too.
They are trying to pretend they never hung out with her.
So it’s Gih-layne? It cannot be Gellen. It looks a lot like Gizlayne.
Nvm. I’m going with Jizzy.
Maybe “gehl-ehn?” It’s French, “layne” sounds too strong.
Oooohhhh it’s fucking FRENCH?
That makes sense, of course it’s all fucked up, you can’t be too harsh on the hosts.
I thought it was pronounced more like "Gillane". I knew a girl called Ghislaine and that's how we said her name. Definitely hard G and silent S though
I pronounce it as “Jizz-lane” and I will not stop.
I am so sorry but this man has a voice for silent film.
I could not get through this.
I'd rather listen to "In Cold Blood" as read by Truman Capote.
Love your last sentence!