WaterGaetz

Matt Gaetz, a Florida Congressman who looks like the villainous real-estate developer in a live action Minecraft movie and who bought his political career with his Daddy’s money, was joking around with Elon Musk last week about what their scandals should be called. And on the shelf behind him, the monkey’s paw twitched…

Yesterday, Axios reported that Gaetz was suddenly thinking about quitting Congress early to go on TV. This was strange because first, if you have no intention of doing the work Congress is one of the easiest jobs in the world, and second, he was already on TV almost constantly, as the Washington Post’s Philip Bump pointed out. Then Michael S. Schmidt, Katie Benner and Nicholas Fandos reported in the New York Times that Gaetz “is being investigated by the Justice Department over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him.” This case apparently emerged during the Bill Barr era from an investigation into Gaetz buddy and Orlando area scumbag Joel Greenburg, who is pictured in this Orlando Sentinel article with Gaetz and the Forrest Gump of Republican crimes, Roger Stone.

Like an adult male octopus startled while fondling a high school junior, Gaetz immediately squirted a cloud of ink, claiming that actually he is the real victim here, and spinning a confusing story about an ex-DOJ lawyer trying to blackmail him, and his father wearing a wire for the FBI, which is a thing innocent people do all the time. He named the lawyer in the Washington Examiner, but Times reporter Katie Benner told Rachel Maddow that the man was never involved, and also pointed out that if there was a blackmail plot, Gaetz has just blown the investigation into it. But I doubt we need to worry about that.

Gaetz already has a weird personal life. Last June he suddenly announced that he has an “adopted son” named Nestor, who’s actually the adult brother of an ex-girlfriend and still has an entire living Dad and no legal adoption papers. He recently got engaged to the sister of Palmer Luckey, a VR tycoon where "VR” means both “virtual reality” and “very racist.” Nevertheless as Katie Rayford observed: “Matt Gaetz does not have that special someone in his life to stop him from tweeting through it.” If you’re a Republican Congressman, tweeting through it means going on Tucker Carlson’s Puzzled Hound Dog Squinting Hour and saying things like “people were talking about… pictures of me with child prostitutes” and “I'm not the only person on screen right now who has been falsely accused of a terrible sex act.” Carlson did not seem pleased. In 2017, Gaetz was the only vote against an anti human trafficking bill that passed the House 418 to 1, a vote which suddenly has powerful “Woody Allen releasing Manhattan” energy. In conclusion, RIP Matt Gertz’s mentions.

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Today in Interviews: Ezra Klein has an incredible interview with the only short story writer literally everyone loves, Ted Chiang, and Lyz Lenz talked to Talia Lavin on what it’s like when the mob comes for you, and what to do about it. If you manage a newsroom, read this one.

Perhaps our last Big Stuck Boat related story 😢: “The Last Time the Suez Canal Was Blocked a Utopian Communist Micronation Was Formed at Sea.” Mark Slutsky fuses Umberto Eco with The Museum of Jurassic Technology in “The Institute for the Study of 3:32pm, April 10, 1954.” LinkedIn Clubhouse-clone mockup is extremely LinkedIn and extremely Clubhouse. Also Spotify acquired Clubhouse clone Locker Room. I didn’t anyone could come up with a less appealing name than “Clubhouse” but they did it. Chris Malloy in The Counter: Can combining agriculture with solar panels increase the efficiency of both? Emilie Friedlander in Vice: The bizarre story of “F*cking Good Pizza,” “B*tch Don’t Grill My Cheese” and other ghost delivery brands. SpaceX blew up another rocket. Major Biden defended his personal space again. Roger Stone outlived another crook. And finally, Today in What:

Today’s Song: The Killers, “Somebody Told Me”

~ “Everything floats in a place like this.” —Pennywise ~

Tomorrow is April Fools Day, and that is the first and last time I’ll be mentioning it. We skipped it last year so let’s keep that tradition rolling. It is also the last day to apply for Tabs April Intern! Get those last minute apps in kids, punctuality is a firm requirement. If you’d like to put your brand in front of roughly 24,000 media professionals every day for a month, email me about sponsoring the intern. It’s the best deal in newslettering.