Dingus of the week: Markwayne Mullin

YOU GET OFF YOUR BUTT

This week, George Santos aka the untalented Mr. Ripley announced he would not be running for re-election. He made that announcement after a House ethics investigation found it very likely he’d done some crimes. But let’s be honest, it has to also be because he never recovered from being named dingus of the week in January, wherein I said he was walking the halls of Congress looking like he ate a boat shoe. I also wrote, “This untalented Mr. Ripley² has all the social grace of a ‘Bama frat boy at Mardi Gras and a Burberry scarf-eating grin. Yet, it’s precisely that baptized-in-Polo-by-Ralph-Lauren confidence that allows Santos to keep up the grift. I mean look at this guy. He’s all dock no yacht. And also no dock. He’s giving Ocean’s -11.”

Dingus of the Week: George Santos

Devastating stuff. Career ruining even.

Even more fun is this scoop from

Marisa Kabas

about George Santo’s Botox guy.

I talked to the Dr. who allegedly did George Santos’ Botox and had his license suspended for a penile enhancement gone wrong

And if anything, it should serve as a lesson to all those other dingii out there. Watch out. No one knows for whom the dingus bell tolls. Maybe it tolls for thee.

But this week, the dingus bell tolls for Senator Markwayne Mullin.

The freshman senator from Oklahoma has been a sleeper cell dingus in American politics for quite some time now. His whole ethos is the guy on Twitter who when you say, “Wow maybe children shouldn’t have access to assault rifles” he replies that the AR in AR-15 does not stand for ASSAULT RIFLE it stands for Armalite!

He’s the kind of guy who gets mad when you say Taylor Swift put Travis Kelce on the map. His porn is probably just the Green M&M before she lost her high heels.

More specifically, Mullins is the senator who attempted to enter Afghanistan in 2021 to help “save” some of the thousands of people he claimed had called him for help in the wake of the withdrawal of American troops. And in that attempt, Markwayne was about as effective as a beetle doing nuclear physics. Despite his best Dirty Harry cosplay, he was denied entry to the country and then proceeded to threaten the US Ambassador John Mark Pommersheim. Probably, Mullin didn’t make it farther than the Delta lounge at the Athens International Airport. But he still, Mullin compared himself to Rambo, by saying he definitely wasn’t Rambo, not that anyone asked.

In that instance, he was really giving Kirkland-brand John Wick vibes. A Good and Gather Jack Reacher. Less Suicide Squad and more Call the Manager and Threaten Them Squad.

Never let it be said that Markwayne Mullin couldn’t make another nation’s tragedy about his fragile masculinity.

This week, in a committee hearing Mullin’s fragile masculinity, continued to thwart the proper functioning of American Democracy, when threatened Teamsters President Sean O'Brien with a fight in a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing. Mullin says he would have fought him too if it wasn’t for political correctness.

And political correctness must be what Republicans are calling Senator Bernie Sanders, who broke up the fight by banging his gavel and telling them to knock it off.

But for six exhausting minutes, no one could get any work done, while those men shouted at one another. Saying real tough guy stuff like when Mullin said, “Well, stand your butt up then.”

“You stand your butt up,” O’Brien replied.

Terrifying stuff, boys.

Imagine having a guy named Markwayne telling you to stand your butt up and doing anything but laughing at his face. Sir, I know 7th-grade girls who could read you for filth.

The whole thing is the equivalent of a mattress on the floor and an overcooked steak eaten alone while posting on r/redpill.

It’s exhausting to know that in a time where people with uteruses have fewer rights now than they did two years ago our great nation is being run by pathetic penile politics.

Also, I loved this hilarious send-up of the Jeff Bezos profile in Clara’s Substack.

not this fake normalcy from mr. and mrs. bezos-to-be

And now for something good:

• An Iowa teen grew 7,000lbs of veggies and gave them all away.

• Levar Burton hosting the National Book Awards and having some choice words for prodigious book banners, the Moms for Liberty.

• Speaking of the National Book Awards, the winners joined together to give a speech promoting peace, an end to violence in Gaza, and a safe return of the hostages held by Hamas. This statement was protested by Zibby Owens, the daughter of Steven Schwartzman, CEO of the Blackstone Group, and the owner of Zibby Media. Owens who claims to be against censorship, was worried the remarks (which she had not heard), would devolve into hate speech. The good thing here was the statement put out by the National Book Awards, which affirmed the writers’ right to speak, noting: “At this time of so much pain and suffering in our world, we believe writers’ words—and the insight and inspiration they bring—are more important than ever.”

• On Thursday, Anne Boyer, the poetry editor of the New York Times Magazine, resigned, issuing this incredible statement, which reads in part:

Because our status quo is self-expression, sometimes all artists have left is to refuse. So I refuse. I won’t write about poetry amidst the ‘reasonable’ tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more sanitized hell-words. No more warmongering lies.

If this resignation leaves a hole in the news the size of poetry, then that is the true shape of the present.

• Thursday was Red Cup Day at Starbucks and employees are striking.

• The absolute joy that is the Reddit community r/whatismycookiecutter

• Also, friend-of-the-newsletter and chemistry professor Ted Weiland tried to make water molecule cookies and they came out like this. And I cannot stop laughing. (PS if you aren’t a paying subscriber you are missing out on this absolute gold in the Discord.) Ted thank you so much for these thirsty ass cookies.

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If you are a paying subscriber, this week you received the weekly discussion thread where we talked about our worst dating stories. In that thread, someone shared a story about a boa constrictor (not a euphemism), and someone else shared a story about a coffee mug dick pic that will live rent-free in my head forever. If you aren’t in there, you are missing out.

Also, my next book This American Ex-Wife is out in February. It would mean a lot to me if you pre-ordered the book. Pre-orders are crucial to the success of a book and with this one, I really want to make my enemies mad. Also, there is a Goodreads giveaway, happening now!

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What I am drinking:

This week, I made the trek across the river to the southwest side of Cedar Rapids to buy some more Climbing Kite¹, my new favorite THC/CBD drink. I’ve been cutting back on alcohol overall. And it’s great honestly. I’m 40 now (soon to be 41). Two glasses of wine on a Wednesday mean feeling tired on a Thursday. I’m officially in my aging Midwestern mom era and I am embracing it. I go to Home Goods, I meal plan, I watch YouTube videos on how to properly decorate my Christmas tree. I spend hours pouring over Smitten Kitchen’s Thanksgiving food menus. My kids spend hours explaining what “rizz” means to me. I’ve been contemplating STATEMENT NECKLACES.

And you know what? It’s great. Our moms were onto something. Throw pillows are great. Snowman bowls are lovely! I’ve got a little gnome figurine in my house, and he’s a goddamn delight!

All of this to say, my sister and her husband are coming this weekend to celebrate a Feast of Favorites with me and my kids and I’m putting cranberries and orange peels in ice molds just to make everything a little extra special for them.

And I shall be putting those adorable little ice cubes into Cranberry mules.

Have a lovely weekend!

1. One of my most toxic traits is that I live in a moderately-sized town of 136,000 people, but I hate going to different parts of town to shop or even go to restaurants. Like I stay on my side of town, which is the southeast side, and if a restaurant moves to another side of town, it immediately becomes dead to me. This is a little bit of a running joke. But it’s a bit I’ve committed to so deeply, that my friends never even suggest going to the nearby town of Marion. BECAUSE I WILL REFUSE. This is a deeply local and niche thing and my apologies to all the readers from California who don’t care. But I will say, in all fairness, we have had to learn through Joan Didion and the movies more about LA than we care to know. All of this to say, when I sighed deeply and said to my friend Ben, “Only booze stores on the southwest side of town carry Climbing Kite?” He yelled, “LYZ, IT’S THREE MILES AWAY GET OFF YOUR ASS!” And so, dear reader, I did.