FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: SITUATION NOT-NORMAL BUT STILL ALL F***ED UP

For a long time I could only find a weird remix of this, so I stopped looking. 
But it's here!

It’s the last month without Tubby for a while – though in an important sense (namely the inability of the Prestige Press to ignore that piece of shit) we’re not without him now, because he continues to yap orders at his toadies in Congress. In the case of the current funding legislation, he didn’t get what he allegedly wanted – but from his perspective that doesn’t matter at all, because it kept his blustering presence in front of the public and also got people used to seeing his Nazi asshole buddy Musk treated like a fourth branch of the U.S. Government. 

I don’t think I’m particularly perceptive, really, but these days a lot of people seem incredibly invested in misreading what’s going on. Like, for example: why would coverage in the paper owned by Jeff Bezos be tilted heavily against the union striking the company also owned by Jeff Bezos? HMMMMM IT’S A PUZZLER ALRIGHT. It's as if the shock of the election got the Prestige Press peeps clinging to their ancient templates as a coping mechanism and they just can't let them go.  (I mean apart from the ones that are just straight-up bought off, which probably accounts for all of them over a certain stock valuation.)  

Fooey. Nonetheless, this is the last Friday ‘Round-the-Horn before Xmas so as my gift to you all here are two recent editions of Roy Edroso Breaks It Down that I’m making free to non-subscribers…

… but not before this advertisement:

Now’s a great time to give the gift of Roy Edroso Breaks It Down! Click here.

OK, now the freebies: First, what to expect as the follow-up to that drone bullshit. You didn’t think that was going to be the last stupid panic Republicans would use to rile their rubes? The next four years are gonna be like Green Acres except without Oliver to sputter in protest as Mr. Haney delivers him an unwanted fascist dictatorship. Second, if you heard about the New York governor’s announced plans to soothe frightened execs after the UnitedHeathcare hit, and wondered what that might look like… wonder no more! 

SUNDAY ‘ROUND-THE-HORN: CHAMPAGNE OR HEMLOCK EDITION.

I'm old and I was old then too but how did I miss this?

The title comes from not-yet-governor-elect Mario Cuomo on election night 1982. And I doubt he was any more nervous than millions of your fellow Americans are in these closing hours of this campaign. My final thoughts about the closing and the outcome will be in Monday morning’s edition of Roy Edroso Breaks It Down – which will be FREE to everyone on the mailing list, paying subscriber or not, so now is an excellent time to sign up! 

I won’t say too much about that here and now. But I will say that in a campaign full of totally insane moments – can you believe “they’re eating the dogs… they’re eating the cats” was less than two months ago? – Tubby’s reaction to RFK Jr.’s plan to take fluoride out of drinking water is kind of a watershed:

Former President Donald Trump on Sunday expressed tentative support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plan to order the removal of fluoride from water supplies during a potential second Trump term, saying that it “sounds OK to me.”

“Well, I haven’t talked to him about it yet, but it sounds OK to me,” Trump told NBC News. “You know, it’s possible.”

It’s really wild that in 2024 a major presidential candidate is giving the old okey-doke to a straight-up Cold War era, John Birch, General Jack D. Ripper conspiracy theory. I mean, I didn’t think this was a thing with even most of what I guess we have to call mainstream crackpots — the sort of anti-vaxx, Pizzagate nuts who are now a major part of the Republican coalition. I expect most of the people who were railing about fluoridation in the 1960s are dead. Maybe it’s their version of retro — you know, like That 70s Show. 

But what’s even more depressing, in a way, is Trump’s sure-why-not response. We know he’s not at all interested in policy as such (any more than ordinary Republicans are, any more) and will say anything to rile his rubes. We expect him to, for example, spread racist and misogynist fables like Haitian pet-eaters and post-birth abortions; that’s standard operating procedure for conservatives, which he mainly just makes more lurid. But if he and his minions are going back eighty years to fish out crazy ideas we’d all forgotten about, what’s next? The theory of the Four Humours? Spontaneous generation of disease? Phlogiston? If it’s retro anything it’s the Dark Ages.

Part of why this is so important is there is literally no depth to which these people will not sink and take us with them. 

Anyway, last week’s REBID freebies – well, events proceed so rapidly that the premises of these items might seem untimely to some; however, as the saying goes literature is news that stays news and literature is what I’m dishing out here, see! 

So even though no one probably remembers the difference between Biden saying “garbage” and that dipshit at the Trump rally saying “garbage,” the Prestige Press rolling in it is still funny. And on a more serious tip, in my view the WaPo/Bezos bullshit is just about an isolated in-kind campaign contribution from a billionaire to a fascist, but about the way normal people – that is, not just rightwing soreheads -- are coming to view the press and what they may expect from it in the future. Meantime, good night and good luck!  

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: T-MINUS-18 DAYS AND COUNTING EDITION.

The pride of Cabo Verde.

Really barreling into the election now, as you can tell by the kind of crap rightwing papers are trying to put over. The Washington nee Moonie Times keeps shooting me “news alerts” like this:

It’s all Mad Libs at this point: Harris FLIP-FLOPPED on TRANS RIGHTS in BORDER CRISIS.  Oh, and if you aren’t convinced Jill Stein is working to elect Trump, maybe you’ll notice that Trump supporters are sure working to promote Stein: 

All more or less normal ratfuckery, and neither as important nor as sinister as the GOP’s push to suppress Democratic votes by any means necessary. Meanwhile Tubby is visibly off his nut, yammering like some escaped mental patient; his handlers are trying to get him out of the public eye, and it figures that his own people are more aware of his decline than our Prestige Press, which barely acknowledges it.

Anyway, it’s late, so here are the Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies: Two fun scenes – first, Bari Weiss piloting her fake university through seas of donor money; and second, a peek at how things are going with Trump and the gang in the Eagle’s Nest. Look, if we can’t laugh, what’s the point?

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: IF THEY'RE HITLER AND YOU KNOW IT EDITION.

We had lunch at a Turkish restaurant and much of the pleasure
was in the Turkish pop playing in the bakcground.

The mental disintegration of Tubby is getting harder for his enablers in the Prestige Press to normalize, but they keep trying. Yesterday when Zelensky had to meet with Trump to protect Ukraine’s interests, Trump ranted to reporters afterward that the beleaguered wartime leader – who had to maintain an embarrassed silence while standing next to him – had announced there was “absolutely nothing wrong” with Trump’s 2019 attempt to strong-arm him into incriminating Joe Biden (for which Trump was first impeached). This is not only untrue but nuts; Trump's behavior was more appropriate to a lunatic who thinks he’s president than someone who actually had the job and wants it back. 

Hilariously the Murdoch propaganda sheet New York Post actually got closer to truthfully characterizing this event with their headline, “Trump praises Zelensky in Trump Tower after accusing him of ‘nasty little aspersions’” than the Washington Post, which soberly declared “Trump meets with Zelensky, opening new chapter in a fraught relationship.” The New York Post didn’t get religion – it just went for the soap-opera angle to sell papers. Thus in their crassness they at least gave a glimpse of the weird pettiness of Trump’s act, while people who read the classier paper could skim the news and think “Famous foreigner met with both world leaders, everything is normal,” which is of course the Prestige Press’ suicidal strategy for this election campaign.

We who have free souls, it touches us not – and that’s why one of the free Roy Edroso Breaks It Down posts this week is about pushing back on this fluffery and calling the MAGA philosophy and behavior just what it is – fascist, even Nazi. Yeah, I know there are simps out there who’ll cover their ears and wince when you do that, but they’re hopeless. You want people who are only getting the soft-soap to focus on the hard reality, and it makes more sense to tell them what’s Nazi about these guys – and it is puh-lenty – than to try and chase down every stupid obfuscation by the Access Annies. 

The other freebie is about the Olivia Nuzzi nonsense and that, too, has to do with how people who – for reasons I can’t guess – chose a career in journalism cheerfully betray their craft by loudly defending the anti-ethics of one of their superstars. They act like they don’t know what’s unethical about a reporter having a romantic relationship with a candidate while slagging their opponent, though I’m sure they get drilled on this sort of thing at their expensive journalism schools. It’s as if the confusion is not over what behavior is wrong, but rather what right and wrong even are.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: ...AND FUBAR, TOO, EDITION.

Hey greybeards! Sounds pretty good, huh? 2017. 
Modern stuff's hard to keep up with, but nice when you catch it.

I keep starting these F 'R-T-H posts with variations of "Wotta week, huh?" and I'm beginning to feel like I'm actually summoning the mayhem that inevitably escalates thereafter. Maybe it’s time to rechristen this feature “Situation Normal: All Fucked Up” in honor of our veterans. 

I see someone wanted to kill Tubby again, this time while he was golfing, and his fans are mad because no one gives a shit. I have two responses to this: First, the Secret Service and FBI et alia are running down assassination threats to Biden, Harris, et alia all the damn time; second, I was alive when President Gerald Ford, of all people, fielded not one but two actual attempts on his life (one involving Squeaky Fromme!) and we all just rolled with it because FOLKS WAS TOUGHER IN THEM DAYS. The late underground comics author Willy Murphy did a hilarious Arnold Peck strip inspired by that, showing Ford manning a mounted machine gun to help the Secret Service defend him from multiple assailants – here and here. So lighten up, Fanatics. (Willy Murphy was the greatest.)

Oh, and the Prestige Media Pantsing Proceeds Apace, with Maggie “Access Annie” Haberman blubbering that an “industry” (low-paying, believe me!) “on the left” that is “dedicated toward attacking the media,” and she wants everyone to know she and her fellow media swells are working darn hard not be Very Bias in their coverage of the guy who wants to deport millions of people and spreads racist lies to his millions of deranged followers. 

Minutes later we all find out Olivia “Forget Sleepy Joe, RFK Jr. is Where It's At” Nuzzi got suspended by New York magazine because she’d been having a “relationship” (no tongues, she swears) with the man himself. Very “how it stated/how it’s going,” that. 

And we haven’t even discussed that Mark Robinson shit! I’m not one to kink-shame, though as always with kinky conservatives there’s a big honking gap between the Republican gubernatorial candidate’s Death to Sexual Deviants policy and his pee-and-porn shadow life. Come on man, be free! As for the Black Nazi stuff, well, you have to remember it’s a significant part of his base. 

It has been observed that it will be hard for Democrats to use this material against him because so much of it is unacceptable in family-friendly media, but I think if they play it right the long bleeped-out sections with do the job fine. 

Oh, yeah, the Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies – this week we have two: One, a meditation (wait, come back! It’s good!) on why conservatives seem to love AI "art." Two, another scene from the villain’s-lair of Elon Musk. Eat it up, and subscribe so you never miss an issue! 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: DOG SOLDIERS EDITION.

Ha ha, get it. Cool tune tho.

Helluva week, huh? I know, I said that last week, but it’s still true. I guess the highlight was Tubby’s wipeout in the debate on Tuesday – and my near-contemporaneous account thereof is our first Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebie for the week. I’m not a positive-thinking kind of guy but I could see right away Trump had made a mess of it – I’d say he shit the bed, except with him I suppose that’s literally an everyday thing. Suffice to say any normal person viewing his ravings will have figured out he’s lost his mind, and even a few MAGA joy-poppers may have gotten sick of his malignant Billy Madison routine, too.

One proof-point of the catastrophe is the hysterical post-facto attempt by rightwing media outlets to convince viewers not to believe their lying eyes. You’d think that’d be a tough sell after wingnuts like Karl Rove and Andrew C. McCarthy threw in the towel, but here’s PJ Media (yep, still in business, God knows why) claiming “ABC whistleblower to reveal Harris campaign was given SAMPLE QUESTIONS” – which, number one, lol as if, and number two, if you need a mole to tell you the moderators will ask questions like “when it comes to the economy, do you believe Americans are better off now than they were four years ago?” you’re in the wrong business. 

Of course the more intense and disgusting MAGA cope is their doubling-down on Trump’s insane racist tirade about pet-eating Haitians in Springfield. JD Vance laid that groundwork (after the Ohio neo-Nazis shoveled it to him), as chronicled in our other REBID freebie.

While there’ve been a lot of funny jokes about this online, I find it ominous that the Republicans haven’t ditched it for some newer outrage. The story has been thoroughly debunked, but I don’t think these guys are even trying to convince people that it’s real anymore – they just want to keep the image of black foreigners eating dogs in front of white voters, in hopes that it will circumvent their frontal lobes and panic them into defending their race by voting for the Head Bigot in Charge. 

You remember when they were telling voters that Obama ate dogs, right? Their act doesn’t change much decade to decade, apart from getting wormier.

For our last freebie please enjoy my latest Mar-a-Lago Throne Room scene set directly after the ass-whipping, starring Tubby and the new glimmer twins, MTG and Laura Loomer. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: THROUPLE FOR THE NON-SUBSCRIBERS EDITION.

This is a dopey song but you know what, Ruth Brown could sell "Mairzy Doats."

It’s a pretty reliable subscriber boost every four years, I’ll give it that, but still there are all kinds of things about presidential election season that I hate. For one thing, everyone who talks on the subject turns into a little campaign advisor, and 99% of their recommendations are some variant of the “savvy” menace that has afflicted our politics – like, how can we bamboozle Americans into voting for our candidate? Case in point (this guy’s talking about Trump):

It’s the M.K. Brown “Whistle Stop” cartoon all over again (“Do you suppose actually seeing the candidate eat the rat could cost us the election?”). They seem to think you just have to fiddle with the diopters until the candidate looks good to the electorate, notwithstanding the candidate is a demented gorilla. They seem to forget that the purpose of the election is to choose leadership in pursuit of a direction for the country. 

I know, I should talk – but here’s my two cents: I love that the Harris people are running like they’re proud of what Democrats are supposed to stand for instead of trying to safe-legal-and-rare it like a bunch of candy-ass neo-libs. Don’t act apologetic about inflation – cap food prices! Let the GOP holler about communism — even their own voters don’t know anything about it except it has something to do with their Beloved Leader’s Russian boss.

Well, as Marty Di Bergi said, enough of my yakkin’. Or rather, on to my yakkin’ at Roy Edroso Breaks It Down – and get this: after last week’s parsimonious one-freebie serving, this week you get three! That’s like three-fifths of what regular subscribers get in a week! And at $7/month, which is $1.75/week, that’s $0.70 worth of copy. OK, it doesn’t sound like much but what I’m telling you is a subscription is cheap and you should buy one, in fact buy two in case the first one breaks.

First one is a bagatelle in the “how would it be different if Trump were trying (and failing) to get bad coverage from the Prestige Press?” category. Doesn’t it seem that way, though? It’s like Trump’s “economic” address, in which he put a bunch of groceries on a table and then proceeded to yammer about Mexican rapists, and the papers all acted like it made sense. “Trump Lays Out Economic Plan,” the Prestige Press reports from an alternate universe.

Second is “It’s a Wonderful Life” as reimagined by the Wall Street Journal. I know it’s an old rightwing shtick to riff on capitalism-skeptic classics like that movie and A Christmas Carol as if pre-conversion Scrooge and Henry Potter were the heroes, but this one is inspired by a WSJ piece about how Opinions Vary as to whether it’s good that Tim Walz doesn’t own stocks and bonds and is not (by modern political standards anyway) a rich fuck like his opponent. One of the Journal’s interviewees says a Vice-President should be “someone who’s dipped his or her toes into all different elements of the financial world that Americans have to navigate” – which makes it sound as if most of the 61% of Americans who own some form of stocks (including retirement savings accounts) are living off compound interest rather than working people who have an IRA. I suppose some people so strongly identify with their economic masters that when the market dips they go, “what’s the matter, boss, we sick?” But speaking for myself I think it’s great that for once we may get a normal guy in high office.

Last, we have J.D. Vance taking lessons in how to woo the lay-deez. Special guest appearances from the Roy Edroso Breaks It Down stock company! Even this creep’s fellow he-man woman-haters are trying to explain him away — “JD Vance’s demeaning remarks don’t help this valid cause,” moans Ramesh Ponnuru at the Washington Post, who like all old-line “pronatalist” conservative frauds believes in limited government except when it comes to making women pump out more babies. (Ponnuru is also an anti-abortion absolutist, you will not be surprised to hear.) “In an individualistic country such as ours, [pronatalism] risks coming across as bossy, or just plain weird — which is what Democrats have started saying about the Republican ticket since Vance was chosen,” Ponnuru notices, so the obvious solution is to get guys like Vance to “stay far away from demeaning adults who have not had children” – that is, to disguise the contempt they clearly feel and reflexively express for them, perhaps by some variant of the Ludovico Technique. Good luck moving those diopters, guys! 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: MY FATHER'S WALZ.

I'm a sucker for this sort of thing.

The days are discernibly shorter; summer begins its swoon; soon comes the harvest, and maybe some of us will also be stripped from the vines. Catch those rays while you can – after the spectacular late Democratic bloom we’re heading into the dogshit days, with Republicans reaching deep in the bag for old Swift Boat dirt clots to throw at Tim Walz. Will that sway our fellow Americans? If they know any among the tiny percentage who serve in the National Guard, will they just thank Walz for his service, or buy J.D. Vance’s argument that he didn’t serve it right? My guess is these answers are predetermined for most people, who either want fascism or don’t, and we have to hope the minority who can still be persuaded – democracy’s saving remnant, as it were – will see though it. I think normal people are sick of Tubby and the fake outrage of his transparently phony fash sidekick isn’t enough to change that, but maybe that’s just me trying to wring some more cheer from the summer wine. We’ll see! 

Here’s the week’s Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebie. (Yes, just one – come on, subscribe, what are you saving that seven bucks a month for, your grandchildren?) It’s Bolt Upright and the Received Opinion crew trying to make sense of the Walz appointment – though, by the look of things, they’re way behind the curve. (Again, maybe it's just me having a hopium cascade but it could be that, after the Prestige Press' latest self-abasement before Trump and the pushback it has inspired, people are starting to catch on.)

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: CHEST-BEATER BLUES EDITION.

Who says it has to mean anything at all?

Another shitty week! The fash mob in Milwaukee seems to have achieved its purpose of getting the Prestige Press dummies to yap about Trump the unifier/healer while ignoring the MAGA crews' repulsive rhetoric and election denialism. The brethren are stroking hard for post-convention buzz, but I doubt it will mean much to normal people; the Trump vote is already topped out. Consider conservatives’ enthusiasm for Hulk Hogan’s embarrassing Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho routine:

The commenters seem to think Hogan telling the turkeynecks to do the hammerlock will draw new voters to MAGA and away from stoopid libs with their faggy social justice: 

But, really, what fan of geriatric fake macho display isn’t already voting for Trump? It's like they misread the famous salesman's advice as hunting where the dicks are. 

But let’s stop horsing around, I know you’re all here for the Roy Edroso Break It Down freebies so without further ado: Another episode of Received Opinion with Bolt Upright, about the press pleas for Democrats to be civil about the Republican who shot another Republican (about which no one other than credentialed flame-fanners appears to give a shit); and the latest of my celebrated segments on “Hardcore” (our term of art for ragebait emails that lure your senile relatives to rightwing garbage sites), this time focusing on the brethren’s excitement over J.D. Vance and rage at those who would attempt to unfairly smear him with his own words.  Enjoy! 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: FROM THE WHITE HOUSE TO THE BIG HOUSE EDITION.

Fuck'im.

Normally I don’t release “Fun Friday” editions of Roy Edroso Breaks It Down to gen pop, because they’re meant as downtime for REBID regulars after each long week of satire and analysis. (Yes, it’s a five-day-a-week operation, with subscriptions available at the ridiculously low price of $7/month! Sign up now!) 

But this week is something special as Tubby got fingered, so here is the latest. For me the best part of the verdict is this: Usually, when wingnuts rage and threaten after a Trump-related reversal (as they do frequently, since rage and threats are mainly what they’ve got), I confess to feeling at least a little dread; but since a normal process has yielded a normal result that did not magically exonerate the piece of shit, today they seem completely laughable. Clowns can be frightening, but in the final analysis they're just clowns. 

This applies not only to the fringe goons screaming for revenge, but also to the dainty SensibleModerate conservatives who find softer ways to say the same nonsense, like Megan McArdle:

I usually imagine McMegan’s gunning for Peggy Noonan’s job, but now I think she may aspire to be the next Senator Susan Collins. There are no good Republicans, people, and that goes double for libertarians. 

Also for your REBID freebie pleasure: Behind the scenes after Trump’s Libertarian Convention debacle, and why rich dopes keep pushing AI art on us. Deathless prose at rock-bottom prices! 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: HATE RALLY 'ROUND THE FLAG EDITION.

No, actually, I like cheeseball electropop.

Another exhausting week but at least I’ve managed to do a proper Friday ‘Round-the-Horn! Or I will have when I follow this paragraph with several others, put in the links, pick a video header, think of a clever dek… you know what, sounds like too much work, forget it. (No, Roy! Think of the chirren!) Speaking of which:

Why you trollin' like a bitch? Ain't you tired?
Tryna strike a chord and it's probably A-Minor

I hear a lot of weak comparisons of popular music to venerable artistic forms but if you ask me some diss tracks are up there with British poets’ feuds. 

Anyway, for immortality (because if you take care of the present, immortality takes care of itself): 

Before I get to the Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies, I have to touch on a subject I was not able to treat at that venue because it came in too late: The absolutely bugfuck crazy story of Mrs. Sam Alito and the Upside-Down Flag.  Three things make it even crazier: First, that Justice Alito ratted out (or passed the blame onto) his own wife to the Times; second, that per Sidney Powell’s testimony Alito was lined up to assist the Jan. 6 insurrection that his distress flag portended; and third, that Alito ran back to the Times to bitch that his wife had to wave the insurrection flag because one of his neighbors put up a sign with a swear word on it.

I mean this one has everything we’ve come to expect from wingnuts: Evasion of responsibility; butch he-man woman-hater guys hiding behind ladyskirts; snowflakey sob stories about how liberal incivility forced them to go nuts; and treason. 

Anyway, on to the REBID gifts. First is Yet Another NYT Editorial Version of Am I Out of Touch, No, It’s the Students Who Are Wrong. These fuckfaces annoy me for infinite reasons but the real craw-sticker in the crap essay that inspired my parody was the implication that, while it’s bad (they guess) that colleges and their donors/cat’s-paws are punishing the speech of their students, we should all remember caaaancel cullllture woo woo woo. Brother, no one believes that bullshit anymore; Bill Maher couldn’t even get Bill Burr to pretend he believes it and that’s the subtext of half his shtick. It belongs in the basement pantry with “CRT” and “groomer” and all the other gibberish viruses these idiots have tried to transmit to normal people via their rubes, but as long as Bari Weiss draws breath I guess we have to put up with its irrelevant intrusion in every First Amendment discussion.

The other freebie is Unwoken Comedy Caveman Jerry Seinfeld. I don’t get it – why are these old comedians so pissy that the kids don’t like them? When I was in college you didn’t hear Georgie Jessel complaining that the Student Activity Boards weren’t booking him. Why can’t he just relax on his piles of money with a cocaine diffuser like the rest of them?  

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: JUST GOT BACK FROM LOST WAGES EDITION.

I stopped paying attention to this guy early. That was a mistake.

I skipped last week’s “’Round-the-Horn” because I was rushing into a much-needed holiday, which is not yet quite ended but I figured I’d just pop in and let you know I’m still part of the warp and woof of American life. (“Norma Desmond? I thought she was dead!”)  

As Roy Edroso Breaks It Down was also on hiatus last week, I have no free samples to give away. I did read the papers, though, and like (I’m sure) many of you I noticed how heedlessly many institutions of higher learning showed their ass during the recent student demonstrations on behalf of the persecuted Gazans, and how conservatives all ran the “durr hurr ‘mostly peaceful’ protests” routine when it was self-evidently the cops and Proud Boys (but I repeat myself) who did 99% of the violence (as often). I hardly need to supply links but Luke O’Neill says it well: 

Hey check this out: Protesting for good causes is good and protesting for bad causes is bad. Simple as. Occupying a campus building to pressure your school to divest from the military industrial complex and to register your horror over our country's dogged complicity in an ongoing genocide is an unequivocal good. Reasonable people can disagree about this you might be thinking? No they can't! Finding moral clarity on this matter is one of the easiest things a person could ever do.

Being an elderly Democratic simp I understand why Biden is doing his pro-Israel difference-splitting bit: He knows if he loses in November we’re all cooked, and believes this is the politically expedient path out of the crisis as by the election most voters will have forgotten it and Tubby’s troops will be screaming about Messicans and tranny-sexuals and (because they can’t help themselves) describing in lurid detail how they will murder their enemies, which Biden reasonably thinks may invigorate his base. Not how I would do it, of course, but then my own presidency would probably end like The Phantom of the Opera and be no good to anyone. 

It’s sad and infuriating that we even have to deal with an influential-out-of-all-proportion minority of American voters (and a majority of rich fucks) who have the temperament (we can’t really call what they have “politics”) of Judge Holden in Blood Meridian. If you see a way out, please provide in comments.

Well, at least some recent news is hilarious:

But alas, the hilarity is not unmixed – and I don’t refer to the execution of Cricket, which I’m not sure even happened. Going back to Romney’s rooftop dog gambit, Noem’s story was obviously meant to show what passes for toughness in the sick word of conservatism, but as often happens the promulgators of the shtick had no idea how normal people would react to it. I’m afraid it’s Judge Holdens all the way down. 

Oh well. Back on the job Monday. Subscribe, why don’t you? 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE PEOPLE EDITION.

Sure, fuck it, let's go back there.

Happy Easter weekend! Here is my favorite Easter joke, which I will render in all caps because it is meant to be told out loud -- proper capitalization rather spoils it. 

Q: WHAT HAPPENED WHEN JESUS WENT TO MOUNT OLIVE?

A: POPEYE BEAT HIM UP.

Years later I’m still laughing. This past week was sort of a march up Calvary itself, but fortunately for you folks and the health of the nation I have a couple of Roy Edroso Breaks It Down issues to release free to non-subscribers. (I must remind you that I sling this hash FIVE TIMES A WEEK and that a subscription is absurdly cheap, about 35 cents an issue, so you really ought to pony up and not wait around for leavin’s every Friday.)

In the first one, an episode of our political talk show, Received Opinion with Bolt Upright, treats the Ronna McDaniel née Romney catastrophe obliquely – via an interview between Bolt and yet another high-born Republican who changed his name to show conformity with the new order, Trumpy Killthelibs. Much discussion of liberal unfairness commences, as it did when NBC paid off the former RNC chair to go away after even bothsider simps like Chuck Todd publicly blanched at having an insurrectionist at the news analysis desk. 

Like I could give a shit about any of these people. But even when one of them does something resembling the right thing, the prestige press has to make it into a controversy rather than belated due diligence. The palace gossip angles taken by papers like Politico (“The staff revolt at NBC News underscores how the balance of power has shifted away from management”) is bad enough – some of the big rags were pushing the elderly Liberal Bias line.  “NBC fires former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel after internal uproar and blatant anti-GOP bias,” squirts Ingrid Jacques at USA Today, as if there were no difference between a major GOP executive who actively tried to overturn the 2020 Presidential election on behalf of her crooked boss and straight-laced Republican Joes like, say, the Romney relatives McDaniel disowned.  

Neither Jacques nor any other pundit taking this line even acknowledges what was considered so objectionable about McDaniel (“McDaniel's detractors insisted that she was a threat to democracy,” Jacques says, without revealing why), devolving instead into cancelculture crybaby tantrums. I understand why claiming persecution on behalf on rich Republicans who don’t get to be on the network of their choice appeals to the base, who are so addled by their own resentments and grudges they'll sing along with any bitch-and-moaner, but I can’t imagine normal people going for it – which I take as further proof that these people are counting on voter disenfranchisement, ballot tampering, and, when all else fails, January 6 Part II, rather than on the Will of the People, to get back into power.

The second freebie is my essay about the conservative reaction to Baltimore’s Key Bridge disaster – rehearsing some of the batshit conspiracy mongering and racist rants they offered instead of, I noticed, anything like compassion for the victims. Once upon a time they would have at least ginned up some thoughts-and-prayers – but no longer. American conservatives have always been advance men for wealthy interests, and as such they’ve always tried to claw back the gains that less-rich Americans made over the years and redistribute them to their rich donors; but in recent years this meanness has gotten less businesslike and become more like a deep soul sickness – like they’re more excited to see and revel in the suffering of their fellow Americans than they are to grab the cash. I think more than Tubby’s ravings it’s that sickness that makes people worried about them seizing back power.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: HAPPY JANUARY 6 EDITION!

Always liked the tune, had no idea there were lyrics --
let alone sung by Dee Dee Bridgewater!

Hell of a week – but aren’t they all! 

Let’s get to the Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies, shall we? The first one is Monday’s final installment of the 2023 Year is BS series, called “Unpopularism.” (The title is a gag, I’ll bet at least some of you know, based on the “popularism” peddled by Matthew Yglesias and other dorks back in the day, by which I mean a couple of years ago because tempus fugit is in overdrive anymore.) 

My concept is this: A lot of people like to ask why Democrats don’t brag on their positive accomplishments and policies more – which leads me to believe they don’t get the same campaign mailers I do. 

What I think they mean is, a lot of people don’t know about these accomplishments and policies, not because Democrats don’t brag on them, but because the prestige press leaves them largely unmentioned in favor of “Why Is Biden So Old, Look How Old He Is” stories.

Oh speaking of which: Today in bothsiderism, from AP – 

One attack, two interpretations: Biden and Trump both make the Jan. 6 riot a political rallying cry

Remember that 36 hours or so of general agreement that an attempt to stop the Electoral College count by violence so that the loser of the election can stay president was a bad thing? Sometimes I think I imagined it. Anyone who tells you Democrats are making too much of J6 is running a con; in fact I think the repeated release of the footage has been necessary to keep the facts from being drowned in Republican bullshit like Elise Stefanik's claim that it was all Nancy Pelosi's fault. So far normal people seem to understand, thank God, that it's not a case of "your lying eyes" -- those fuckers did what they did for the obvious reason.

As I was saying: While Democrats work against the tide to get their message to voters, Republicans, on the other hand, don’t seem to even care whether voters like the swill they’re dishing out. I try to explain it, but the short version is: If you’re planning to institute a fascist regime, why would you care what voters think?

The other freebie is one of my sketches, this time situated in the Rectory, a place where rightwing cat’licks like Bill Bennett and Brett Kavanaugh can chew the fat and slurp the uisce beatha. Hijinks, based on current events, ensue! (And when I say based on current events, I mean intimidation of the rummy Trump put on SCOTUS, like so:)

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: GOP RETURN TO RELIGIOUS MANIA EDITION.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

THE FIRST SPUTTERS OF INDICTMENT SEASON.

At Roy Edroso Breaks It Down, I have unlocked a taxonomy of Trump defenses inspired by his latest indictments. There is no need to explicate the brute brayings of guys like Tim Pool, so I confined myself to complainers who try a little spin – not that the spin makes them any more intelligent or convincing; in fact in some ways they’re more pathetic than the dummies yelling “Civil War!” or “Fix!” or “Kill Biden!” because they’re like precocious kids who have just made their first acquaintance with irony and, seeing how favorably some people react to it, try to emulate it without understanding how it works. 

Some of the operatives are already spinning out of control. Erick Erickson has a real lulu. I mention in the REBID item the chronic bothsider reactions of prestige media clucks; well, Erickson, who after all has been employed by CNN, tries his own version of it:

I don’t think Democrats realize how radicalizing it was for Republicans that Barack Obama sued nuns to force them to pay for abortions. Nor do I think Democrats realize how radicalizing it is now for culturally conservative people across races and political parties that they’re pushing transgenderism as hard as they are. They simply do not realize how much of an existential threat they seem to many voters.

They literally sued a bunch of nuns to force them to pay to murder children, which is what abortion is to a great many people.

I don’t think Republicans realize how radicalizing it was for Democrats to see the “character counts” GOP come out for a twice-divorced serial adulterer…

There is blame enough to share, quoth Erickson, between the Trump fans and the baby-murdering nun abusers! Anyway, because he can’t help himself, Erickson repeats the threat popular among his ilk (“Hell is coming for Democrats, most particularly for Joe Biden and members of his family and cabinet. Republicans will pay them back in kind”) and then tries on the Solomon robes and proposes a solution:

The old man on the right must stop trying to get back into the office. And the old man on the left must pardon the old man on the right and bring all pressure to bear on the two state prosecutors, both of whom are Democrats, to stop their prosecutions too.

It’s like a glitchy AI version of The West Wing. Eventually even Erickson stops pretending to believe it could happen and starts raving about Civil War. Once again I must ask: Do these guys even know any normal people?

"MY CLIENT CAN'T POSSIBLY GET A FAIR TRIAL -- EVERYONE SAW HIM DO IT ON TV!"

The headline is from a wonderful old Willy Murphy cartoon which, alas, I cannot find online; but I could as well have used Groucho Marx or any one of number of shyster double-talk comedians to represent the latest lawyerly conservative defenses of Tubby against his indictment for trying (as we all fucking saw) to overturn the 2020 election. 

The ridiculous National Review defense is what inspired today's Roy Edroso Breaks It Down item, which imagines without difficulty NR applying the same logic to an earlier celebrity defendant. (Free to non-subscribers! Live it up!) 

But there's plenty more where that came from, by other conservatives who portray Trump as an innocent victim being persecuted for his Free Speech, e.g. "Jack Smith’s dangerous criminalization of dissent" at the rightwing pennysaver Washington Examiner. "Smith has plenty of evidence that Trump was told he was wrong but scant evidence that Trump believed what he was told," the editors plead, as if Trump's many documented and witnessed attempts to foist fake ballots on the Electoral College, and, in the last ditch, try to murder Congress were OK because he was rilly sincere about it. 

The "not a criminal, merely a dangerous lunatic" defense may comfort MAGA choads but it ain't fooling normal people, which is why Trump and his patsies are screaming to get his trial moved from DC, where his crimes were committed, to some dismal holler whose citizens might consider it their solemn duty to nullify on behalf of white supremacy.  It's no crazier nor more desperate than anything else they've tried -- and they're only going to get crazier and more desperate, and quickly, so we all better watch out. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: JULY 7, 2023.

Let's class the joint up a little!

Last week I skipped ‘Round-the-Horn – AGAIN. Apologies. The move that never ends formally finished with the clearance of our last effects from our previous home, but the house remains unsettled as the missus applies the Klotski method to her goods and chattels, plus we still have in-laws aboard. Leisure is at a premium. And they told me old age would be mainly a matter of finding ways to fill my time! 

But though I come late I also come laden with free Roy Edroso Breaks It Down editions. For one, there is the resumption of Sam Alito’s Wall Street Journal column, answering the complaints the thin-skinned old bastard, in my imagining, could not help but notice after the shit decisions he and his fellow wingnuts lately foisted on America. I expect to see him on Joe Rogan one of these days, sputtering over the loss of respect SCOTUS has suffered, and how unfair it is, when all he and his mates have done is rule so that, were the 18th-Century slaveholding plantocrats who founded this nation to come back from the dead, they would feel right at home.  

The next is inspired by the coke cache found in the White House, and how a certain onetime habitué might interpret its meaning. (Fans of the “Formula” series may appreciate the callback.)

On to other outrages. I’ve been telling you people for years that David French is a fraud, a rightwing religious maniac whose winsome NeverTrumper act has fooled many centrists including the ones who hire columnists for the New York Times, and his latest column runs true to form. He inveigles non-MAGA readers by agreeing once again that Trump is no good, but then goes on about how his deluded fans feel not merely “rage” but also “joy” at Trump's events, in his presence, and even gazing upon the insane videos and memes that celebrate him as a buff avenging American Messiah. The dread-and-circuses “give MAGA devotees a sense of belonging,” French says. 

This may seem to some of you like a clever angle – we talk about how crazy they are, but let’s bothsides this, can’t we just admit that they’re also full of joy! (And let’s not refer to it as “mania” or a “mood swing” because that would be Very Bias. Also, these are French’s neighbors and friends back in old Tennessee, so it would also be impolite.) 

But as usual with French this is just a sneaky way to pitch liberals on giving in to the obnoxious ideas that he and the Trumpkins actually share (i.e. most of them, stripped of the unpleasant frankness of MAGA viciousness), and ends with something resembling a plea for understanding and more: 

During the Trump years, I’ve received countless email messages from distraught readers that echo a similar theme: My father (or mother or uncle or cousin) is lost to MAGA. They can seem normal, but they’re not, at least not any longer. It’s hard for me to know what to say in response, but one thing is clear: You can’t replace something with nothing. And until we fully understand what that “something” is — and that it includes not only passionate anger but also very real joy and a deep sense of belonging — then our efforts to persuade are doomed to fail.

What “something” are we supposed to offer these people? The lives of one of our more vulnerable minorities? A do-over in states where he loses next time? Furthermore, why should we offer them anything? They advocate terror, treason, and bigotry. They represent a third of the country and demand violent reprisals against the other two-thirds. Fuck those guys. They want to kill me. There's nothing to discuss. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: MEMORIAL DAY 2023 EDITION.

He had no one to fall on but me.

What was once a somber tribute of our fallen men is now, whee, a three-day holiday weekend! This strange dichotomy plays on my mind and I write about it now and then; here’s the latest iteration. Whatever it means to you, I hope you get to enjoy it.

Also unlocked from Roy Edroso Breaks It Down (my premium site, and subscriptions make a lovely gift!) is another dispatch from Bolt Upright and Received Opinion, celebrating the Republican Vice-Presidential I Mean Presidential Candidates of Color. As I’ve said many times, the as yet unannounced Rep. Byron Donalds is only national-profile GOP POC who’d be an asset to the inevitable Trump ticket – he’s as evil as Scott, Haley, and Ramaswamy, but unlike them competently emulates normal human behavior. Scott in particular is a beaming, slow-witted goofus – exactly the sort of person Trump would hate too much to entertain – so naturally Peggy Noonan thinks he’s swell: 

“He is a breath of fresh air,” former Sen. Rob Portman told me by phone.

And he should know! 

…[Scott is] from South Carolina, a frisky conservative state, and watched his fellow senator, Lindsey Graham, be batted about for independence on various issues and early opposition to Mr. Trump. It left Mr. Scott cautious. 

Or “cowardly.” That works, too. Noonan on DeSantis is even worse:

On transgender issues, it is hard to resist a destructive ideology while maintaining, in public ways, respect and affection for those who are wrong. And who don’t necessarily want your respect and affection. But you have to try anyway. Because it’s right and nice, and we’re human beings, and people can see good faith, sometimes in time and often reluctantly. And because it keeps those you’re opposing from arguing, persuasively, that you’re just playing a culture-war card and they’re only road kill on your highway to victory.

Maybe I’m not giving the old bat enough credit – maybe she knows full well that DeSantis is definitely not going for “right and nice,” nor “human being” nor “good faith.” He has never said a good word about LGBTQ people and never will, because he believes that what the Republican base has been missing is overt permission to hate those people and slur them out loud. That’s what the whole trans thing was about, and why it segued so quickly and smoothly to attacks on drag queens (who are not by and large trans) and why MAGA shitheads are now smashing up Gay Pride displays at Target. Like smart people have long been saying, they were never going to stop with trans people. 

So it’s possible Noonan is trying to be ironic. Haha, who’m I kidding? Her real kung fu is describing the lives of trans people as a “destructive ideology” while insisting Republicans act nice to them. There’s the Riefenstahl of Reaganism in action. 

WHO WOULD JESUS STRANGLE?

I have a rare Monday Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebie out today, featuring Bible Stories for Conservatives, including the Parable of the Good Samurderer. This is inspired by the recent tendency of conservatives such as Ron DeSantis and the Wall Street Journal editorial board to call Subway Strangler Daniel Perry a “good Samaritan.” 

Many other people have noticed what an insane reversal that is. But it’s to be expected nowadays: First, notwithstanding I know some righteous Christians, the kind you see on TV and in the news – and the many Republican pedophiles chronicled by @antifaoperative and others, and of course holy-rolling propagandists like Erick Erickson – are mostly vicious bastards. When put in a position to be actual Good Samaritans by an influx of immigrants escaping poverty and prosecution, these Christians instead gleefully ship the confused refugees up north and then laugh at the chaos it causes. (At the same time, they constantly holler, over the clatter of their collection plates, that they’re the ones being persecuted.) I tell ya, if I see a crucifix or a Jesus fish on a guy, he’s not getting anywhere near my loved ones or my wallet. 

Also, the prestige press colludes with the idea that killing a guy for yelling on the subway is a rational response – for example, by referring to the Strangler’s actions as “restraining” rather than killing, as if the guy were still alive laughing about how he got away with it like on a cop show. As I’ve said before, many times on the subway I’ve seen tense situations defused by normal common-sense conflict resolution, and none of these ended in death. But for your average suburbanite, who goes from McMansion to SUV to office park and back without ever encountering another human being, let alone a homeless one, it's easy to imagine that the only way to deal with an obstreperous street guy is to kill him. You see these choads online going HE WAS THREATENING and bragging about their gun collections, and you wonder what kind of fucked-up padded existence they live.

UPDATE. Speaking of fake Christians, David French is at the Times to tell us all how dangerous the subway is and how you gotta understand why Penny felt like he had to kill Neely and then EIGHT GRAFS DOWN:

There is no evidence that Neely assaulted anyone...

Nonetheless "The best way to resolve these problems isn’t through jury trials of those, like Penny, who take it upon themselves to intervene" blah blah blah horseshit. These fucking people.