Those Magnificent Men in Their Lying Machines: Milo Edition -- Update

They can fly upside

With their feet in the air,

They don't think of danger

They really don't care...

Hey look who'll be collecting fat stacks from that wingnut subsidiary that Simon & Schuster set up to cash in on the lucrative Bigot-'N-Imbecile market.  From Politico:

Breitbart editor and alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos to publish book

Breitbart editor and controversial alt-right figure Milo Yiannopoulos has signed a book deal with a Simon & Schuster imprint.

The book, titled “Dangerous,” will be published on March 14, 2017. According to The Hollywood Reporter, which first broke the news, Yiannopoulos is getting an advance of $250,000 for his book.

“Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, will publish Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos on March 14, 2017," the publisher said in a statement....

Yiannopoulos, already an infamous provocateur whose “Dangerous Faggot” tour has riled up college campuses around the country, was permanently banned from Twitter over the summer after targeting “Saturday Night Live” actor Leslie Jones, who then endured a wave of racist abuse online.

“They said banning me from Twitter would finish me off. Just as I predicted, the opposite has happened,” Yiannopoulos told The Hollywood Reporter.

“I met with top execs at Simon & Schuster earlier in the year and spent half an hour trying to shock them with lewd jokes and outrageous opinions. I thought they were going to have me escorted from the building — but instead they offered me a wheelbarrow full of money,” he added...

For those of you unfamiliar with  the Threshold Editions of SS, here's a little history:

Legend has it that [James] Carville wanted someone to raise him up a passel of snake-headed swamp babies just like him and [Mary] Matalin wanted a career for herself that would survive both her face collapsing into a subduction zone between black-market Botox experiments and Jack Nicholson "Joker" cheek implants...and her skill set -- paralyzing small rodents with her voice and swallowing them whole -- losings its curb appeal.

And thus they struck a terrible bargain, and were betrothed (as befits their shared profession) on the grave of Lee Atwater at the stroke of midnight on Asa Earl Carter's birthday, each drinking the defiled blood of a mad dog from the skull of Edward R. Murrow and each offering up their souls to mighty Lucifer in exchange for prosperous careers in defiance of all logic and morality.  And since that day their conjoined carcasses have lurched through our political landscape like two drunks veering down the sidewalk, each remaining upright and mobile by leaning against each the other.

Or so legend has it.

On the other hand, a simpler explanation [of the continued existence of Mary Matalin on teevee] may be the same simpler explanation that hides behind so many of life's mysteries.

Money.

Matalin understood early on that the hate racket is like any other racket, and that our media is so constructed as to let Conservatives get away with all kinds of murder.   Armed with these two facts and streamlined by a complete lack of conscience, she has exploited her meager talents and lengthy confidential contact list into a formidable media conglomerate which includes such diverse subsidiaries as flogging HVAC products and medium-priced hooch, sharing a radio microphone with fellow media mogul Arianna Huffington on Air-America-killer Mark Green's horrible, horrible show, and, most importantly getting her own Conservative imprint at Simon & Schuster:

Mary Matalin’s official title at Threshold Editions is editor-in-chief, but the Republican strategist prefers several others: conservative, book-lover, fixer.

It’s that last role where Matalin’s extensive network comes into play for Simon & Schuster’s 4-year-old conservative imprint, now slated to publish memoirs by both former Vice President Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. Matalin’s connections also played a part in a publishing-industry coup earlier this month, as Threshold simultaneously held the top spots on The New York Times best-seller list for hardcover and paperback nonfiction — Mark Levin’s “Liberty and Tyranny” and Glenn Beck’s “Common Sense,” respectively...

Which puts her in the powerful position of being able to distribute wingnut welfare largess instead of just receiving it.

...

The Cheneys, for Matalin, are like family. Lynne Cheney and her daughter Mary are both Threshold authors. So it’s natural that Dick knocked around book ideas with Matalin in his McLean, Va., home before settling on a publisher. There, Matalin said the vice president offered up some “jaw-dropping” anecdotes for the book that she had never heard in the years she worked for him. Bob Barnett, the D.C. uber-lawyer who represents Rove, Matalin and countless media figures, said that while he can’t speak for the vice president in making a final decision, Matalin’s presence at Threshold “is very reassuring.”

And Rove, who’s turning in his manuscript to Simon & Schuster editor Priscilla Painton in the next few weeks, told POLITICO that Matalin has been helpful along the way by reading sections and offering comments. “Mary understands the audience and understands what goes into making a good book,” he said.

Threshold publisher Louise Burke, who runs the imprint from New York while Matalin pitches in from her New Orleans home, said the distinction between their imprint and others is that Threshold best understands the conservative book-buying audience — a key factor needed to keep the hits coming.

“This is an area where it really helps to be a believer,” said Burke, perhaps one of the few outspoken conservatives in Manhattan’s publishing scene. “I don’t feel you can be successful in this particular genre if you are opposed to the message.” ...

And, in the end, a drowning man will grasp even the point of a sword:

Respectable publishing houses, the Upper West Side literati complained a few years back, were now turning their presses over to the Ann Coulters of the world, all in pursuit of profits. But these days, after layoffs and drops in sales, such criticism is less frequent.

The drowning man is now grasping the business end of an American-made SS Ehrendolch, manufacturing in China, painted a festive red, white and blue, and soon to be found in the WalMart remainder bin for 1.99.

The result of which might be the saddest teevee you will see in a long time:

Simon & Schuster is a subsidiary of CBS Corp., leading some to speculate that Yiannopoulos may end up promoting his book on CBS shows like “CBS This Morning” or “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

But, y'know, money.

They enchant all the ladies

And steal all the scenes

Those magnificent men

In their lying machines...

Update:  Team Chicago steps up --

In response to this disgusting validation of hate, we will not cover a single @simonschuster book in 2017. https://t.co/NAJhTgdeyX

— Chicago Rev of Books (@bookschicago) December 29, 2016

We don't take kindly to those vermin in these parts.