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

You know what, I don't listen to enough Betty Wright.

In addition to serving as the conscience of the nation I have a day job, so it’s nice to get an extra day off. (If you don’t have this privilege, condolences and smash the state!) I will briefly fulfill my Friday duty (with Roy Edroso Breaks It Down FREEBIES!) and take my leave. 

First unlocked item from my paid newsletter (and by “paid” I mean cheap at the price, why not subscribe) is my consideration of Kristi Noem’s Magna Carta mouth-fart in a Senate hearing and what it means about MAGA. Now, I know the whole Trump thing can lead to overthinking – the bottom line is he’s a con man who scored big, and he muscles people and institutions for three reasons: 1.) to shake them down for cash; 2.) to distract his rubes from this robbery with a Principled Stand Against Wokeness, i.e.  cruelty against women and minorities; and 3.) to keep the cowards too scared to stop him.

We could just leave it at that! But I think it’s worthwhile to examine how and why he gets his goons in the cabinet to do his advance work. No one in the Senate is intimidated or confused by Noem pretending shit is sugarcandy. Rather, the domination/humiliation ritual is meant to show his power to the rest of us, like Claire Zachanassian parading the castrates Koby and Loby in Dürrenmatt’s The Visit. 

But never mind that and the crimes it’s meant to cover — did you know that Joe Biden is old? And, even more scandalously for the Democrats, that the ex-President is sick? If you wonder why anyone gives a shit except to wish him well, you must be missing the Prestige Press’ counterintuitive coverage – take it away, Bolt Upright and the Decision Desk on Received Opinion! Or you could just put “Biden” “Cancer,” and “Jake Tapper” in Google News and see what you get:

Murrow wept. Meanwhile the Medicare, Medicaid, and Everything-Else-slashing budget bill is headed to the Senate, where it will be no doubt loaded with bells and whistles to disguise its destructiveness and then dropped on the unlucky non-millionaire population as the rich collect their winnings. As mentioned last week, the press has done its part on the oligarchs’ behalf. Here’s a honey from today’s Wall Street Journal: 

How the Senate Can Improve the House Tax and Budget Bill 

Reduce tax carve-outs like SALT and do more to reduce spending and form Medicaid.

“Form” Medicaid? That’s a new one. Maybe they mean "formaldehyde."

The bill’s tax and Medicaid provisions are absorbing media oxygen, but there are brighter spots elsewhere.

Ha ha, if you give a shit about paupers they suppose you can read further down:

Elsewhere, the policy potpourri is disappointing. On Medicaid, Chip Roy and other conservatives were able to move up the work requirement to 2026 from 2029. But House Republicans couldn’t find the courage to fix Medicaid’s core dysfunction, which is that the feds pay a larger share of the cost for covering able-bodied adults than for pregnant women.

These fuckers will never get over their outrage that some waster who’s able-bodied enough to bend over and pick up a cigar butt might get some free medical care. Speaking of which, the bill sticks a knife in the ACA’s Medicaid expansion -- here’s what the plutes think about that:

The House did add a late provision allowing certain higher payment rates for states that have declined the ObamaCare bribe to expand Medicaid. The hope is that the fillip, plus the bill’s attempt to crack down on state Medicaid financing scams, will dissuade the 10 state holdouts from taking the cash bait.

They haven’t been able to kill guaranteed issue and essential health benefits quite yet, but at least they’ll kill some poor people, and that’ll tide them over emotionally until Tubby can finally vaporize Congress and end this whole “last best hope of earth” bullshit for good.  Happy Memorial Day! 

SUNDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: 86 THIS WEEK EDITION.

This one goes through my mind a lot lately.

One of the problems with missing my customary Friday 'R-T-H filing is, so much weird stuff comes over the transom between Friday and the day I do manage to post that it seems out of date. But I will do what I can to make it daisy-fresh.

There was plenty strangeness in the week that was the provender of my Roy Edroso Breaks It Down editions -- for example (yes, joy-poppers, there are links to FREE editions tucked into this post!) we had Tubby's Bribeplane and the Prestige Press' strange tendency to explain it away, as if they were aware that every man, woman, and child over the age of reason could see the Qataris were paying off our famously avaricious president for services expected, and felt it was the duty of the newly re-imagined Fourth Estate to take, in fairness, the other, unbelievable side. 

One obvious reason is cowardice: ABC News' mild hints in their coverage that 2+2=bribery got Trump to threaten to extort them again, like he did in January, leading to the Stephanopoulos settlement. But it looks more and more as if the Prestige Press simply sees this as their job now, leaving it to brave newsletter editors such as myself to expose them in satire which as we all know is where all real change comes from. (Look how Swift settled the Irish question!)

Then there were the massive Medicaid cuts hurtling down the Congressional track toward America's needful and sick -- not only a payoff to Tubby's rich donors but a big stride toward the new Gilded Age into which he hopes to mire us all -- and the same press lords trying to make it look like a little squabble between reasonable men over how many poor people to kill. Now that hope is lost and Republicans are pretending to feel bad about it and letting vulnerable members whose votes are not needed pretend to be against it before pushing the old folks over a cliff, some news outlets are expressing woe over the impending damage. Legislation has many fathers but intentional infliction of mass misery is an orphan, I guess.

But since then the news has been even more full of nonsense, none more nonsensical than the flipout over 86 47. As a former food service worker I can say with confidence this is the stupidest goddamn shit of all time. Sometime I will have to spell it out in a few detailed paragraphs for future generations (if we have any) who may not understand the context, but I think nearly all people who are currently conscious and able to read, write and cipher already know how stupid it is, though some shitheels pretend not to, in hopes that other people, depraved by long fealty to Tubby, with rise up ravening at this latest rage-cue and frighten folks away from criticizing Der Fätso lest they incur their wrath. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: FIND THE POPE IN THE DEEP-DISH PIZZA EDITION.

My hands were made out of silver/ But they were looking for gold

Another wild week, this one with a Pope in it, an American at that! I hardly need rehearse all the insane rightwing ravings that have ensued because the new Pontiff Leo XIV follows, as Popes are wont to do, the example of Christ -- you can find many such ravings here. It's been fun, but be not deceived -- Leo will not hasten the glorious workers' revolution any more than Francis did -- he's just likely to be less horrible than what the worst people in the world would wish, which is pretty much the best Americans have been able to expect for about sixty years now. 

Nonetheless, as one raised in the faith I remain grimly amused at what sad freaks the tradcaths are - Michael Brendan Dougherty at National Review:

"I'm a traditionalist going back to 2002," said Dougherty. "We tend to have almost an anti-clerical strain in us and a jaundiced eye when it comes to the senior prelates of the church." Given recent history, he said, he has "always been filled with fear and trepidation that they'll elect a progressive that will ban the Latin Mass."

While many others viewed the impending announcement with joy and anticipation, Dougherty said he was "sitting there tapping my foot and nervous, pacing around." He added, "In 2005, when Ratzinger was announced and he was the only one I could have imagined being a friend of our movement, then, you know, I literally began crying tears of joy, I was so relieved," said Dougherty. But "when Francis was elected, it was pure dread and sorrow."

You know, if I were an adherent of a sect whose leader is supposed to be Christ's emissary on Earth and infallible, I wouldn't sweat these things so much. 

Here in the non-Papal States our leaders are not only not infallible but also shit. Just today we see Tubby's idiot lawyer promoted to idiot U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba got masked goons -- "ICE" I guess, though the credentials for these pigs are not evident -- to seize Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for daring to appear at their local privatized insta-prison to demand that they follow local laws. Baraka is also the son of the poet Amiri Baraka, and if you're seeing portents in this happening as Trump welcomes South African Boers into the country as "refugees" we're on the same page. (I wonder where he'll put them? Probably out in the White Open Spaces, though maybe someone in the regime has enough sense of humor to drop some in West Baltimore.)

Meanwhile in the Department of Would Be Funny If These Dumbasses Didn't Have Power (and Also Racist):

Normally I'd say I'm pretty sure the press secretary doesn't think the Library of Congress has a children's reading room, but frankly they lie so readily that I have to assume she doesn't know or care to know the difference between truth and lies, or between the believable and the ridiculous.

Ah, and here are this week's Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies: Tubby in the Oval laying out his Hollywood tariff strategy, and a lesson from Fritz Lang and "Bert Brecht" on how to deal with the rapidly-arriving crisis. 

CHOC-O-MUT ICE CREAMS IS STILL CONSERVATIVE!

Jumpscare! 

I seldom post outside of Friday-'Round-the-Horn weekly summaries anymore -- subscribe to Roy Edroso Breaks It Down for daily doses! -- but I figured I owe this one to history. 

Ross Douthat interviews some neo-Nazi crap diffuser for the New York Times and it's absolutely surreal -- not least (though not mostly!) when the diffuser, Jonathan Keeperman, posits Douthat's more fash-friendly side as "Italics Ross" and they have what to them must be a thoroughly enjoyable chin-wag (I just read the transcript, no way I'm listening to these guys giggle and snort) but for any neutral eavesdropper would be a hard cue to change seats: 

[Keeperman:] I do want to point out that in 2020, when we first were having this dialogue and debate over the election, you also had something of a pseudonym. I was arguing as much with Ross Douthat as I was with Italics Ross. As Italics Ross, you had written at least one column, maybe two, in which you made the case for why Trump might be a superior choice to lead the country, despite the amount of chaos that we’d have to endure under his leadership.

I was trying — if I remember the whole episode correctly — to get Italics Ross closer to the surface of the real Ross, the underlying Ross. We all are trafficking in certain kinds of multi-identities, I guess.

Douthat: Those were columns that I wrote where I essentially deliberately cultivated a kind of split personality and drew up out of my Jungian subconscious a version of myself that would be pro-Trump.

Keeperman: Right.

Douthat: I was never for Trump. I was part of “Never Trump” — whatever that may have been way back in the past — and I retained a basic view that it was a mistake for conservatives to lash themselves to the Trump phenomenon.

For me, Italics Ross was not the true Ross lurking below the surface. That wasn’t how I thought about it. I thought about it as a set of ideas that certainly existed in my consciousness and that were really useful for understanding where American culture was and why people supported Trump, and which New York Times readers needed to engage with.

Attributing paranoid schizophrenia to the "Jungian subconscious" and "multi-identities" seems like a dodge to me, but this is in the Times so I guess it's consensus reality now.

Anyway they get into Whither Conservative Art and it's every bit the cystoscopy you might imagine, but I must draw your attention this bit:

Douthat: What is the coding? To a listener for whom it seems absurd to call “No Country for Old Men” right wing, what makes that right wing to you?

Keeperman: Because I like it, it’s good, and therefore I want it to share my political preferences.

OMG "choc-o-mut ice creams is conservative because i likes choc-o-mut ice creams" ISREAL! 

No need to bother with the ensuing discussion of what makes choc-o-mut ice creams and other neat junk conservative -- it has to do with "vitality," the boys say, whereupon they are docked a few more points for not calling it "purity of essence" instead. Also they get into to the old rightwing trope about Lena Dunham's "Girls" being conservative because the eponymous characters were whores who would never know God. We marvel these days at the absolute screaming lunatics like RFK Jr. who infest Tubby's cabinet, but it's instructive to be reminded that the madness really started in the meth labs of conservative journalism. 

SATURDAY ‘ROUND-THE-HORN: CAVALCADE OF SCARS EDITION.

I'm sure you know the early work of David Thomas (RIP) and Pere Ubu.
Here's something from 2017. He got kinda Beefheart as he went.

A day later in the week than usual – that’s not too bad; gives us all some time to recover from the latest blunt force trauma of American fascism. 

Friday was a doozy, with Tubby and his moll, Blondi She-Wolf of the ICE ICE, threatening to subpoena journalists for publishing government secrets (which you can bet is less about protecting national security than it is about protecting Nazi grifts, not to mention fuckups like Whiskey Pete Hegseth), and Kash Patel, heretofore only revealing his malignity via abuses of the privileges of office, finally fulfilling the promise of his shit-heeledness by arresting and charging a circuit judge on bogus Immigrant Panic charges, with Blondi promising more of the same. (If you don’t know the difference between “administrative” and judicial warrants, BTW, study up, because it’s gonna be important in your own life sooner than later.)

Plus the obviously politically motivated investigations of ActBlue and Wikipedia, Kennedy’s threats against medical journals that won’t publish “real science” (i.e. crackpot woo), DOJ claiming the right to search your home without a warrant -- 

Remember when we said these people were fascists and the smart people told us we were overreacting? Boy, those were the days! Now they react a little less derisively, though I'm afraid they still haven't adjusted (willfully or not) in their coverage -- here's what leads Google News at the moment: 

Awww isn't that nice? Tubby, inspired by the decease of the Holy Father, "seeks" "peace" with the guy he's been feeding in bits to Putin since he got in. He's probably asking Zelenskyy why he couldn't dress nice like this when he visited the Oval Office. 

Let’s lighten things up with a Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebie, shall we? (What, I hear you say, only one? Afraid so, comrades – I can’t be giving these away as much as I usually do until I get a few more paid subscriptions. At $7/month, $70/year, it’s ridiculous not to subscribe. Go here! Anyway, for bupkis, my account of how the Plot Against the Pope went down. Twist ending! Enjoy.

MONDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: LIKE YOU NEVER MISS A DEADLINE EDITION.

Local neo-soul cafe filling me in on what I've been missing.

Look, I’m busy, OK??? So Friday ‘Round-the-Horn is atrociously late, and I am lashing out rather than admitting fault as usual. Consider this post my shoddy amends! (See, this is why I can’t do AA – most of the people I hurt when I was drunk had it coming.)

Anyway, another wild-ass week with some silver linings. First, the sad news that JD Vance murdered the Pope. OK maybe not but I’m not ruling it out. It chaps my ass just to imagine Francis trying to teach some Jesus to the Catholic-come-lately Vice-President Fuckface and V-PF smiling insincerely while his brain goes When we get our own Pope in here he’s gonna be more like an Inquisition Pope instead of this love-one-another bullshit. I may have bailed years ago but I was born into the faith and I can smell a poser.

Elsewise it was the usual carnage but we had a couple of breaks: Like Chris Van Hollen (MARYLAND’S OWN!) not only going down to El Salvador to shine a light on Tubby’s insanely vicious and illegal rendition of Kilmar Garcia – and explaining, in terms that even Fox News dopes might understand, that if the goons can send Garcia to torture camp they can send you, too --  but also going on the Sunday shows and calling out trimmer dipshits like Gavin Newsom who think we should keep our Constitutional crisis on the downlow lest we scare voters. 

I also appreciated most of the Supreme Court not only blocking the illegal renditions of Venezuelan residents but also implicitly telling Sam Alito they’re sick of his shit and rushing out their decision so he couldn’t stall until Tubby and his moll Bondi sneaked the Venezuelans out of the country.  I enjoyed Alito’s crybaby act afterwards, too. “The papers before us, while alleging that the applicants were in imminent danger of removal, provided little concrete support for that allegation.” THEY WERE ON A BUS ON THE WAY TO THE AIRPORT. I hope the other justices start putting Visine in Alito’s coffee.  

Also we had some protests on Saturday. I went to the DC one. It was all good but I especially liked when we marched past the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, where unionized employees were demonstrating against the (again, illegal) DOGE cuts (which a court recently stayed), and got a big cheer:

Solidarity, motherfuckers. You could read my account of the march if you were a Roy Edroso Breaks It Down subscriber and why aren’t you? But until you get it together here are two (2) recent freebies: One, an explanation as to why Tubby and his crime syndicate are stumblin’ and fumblin’ now, and another episode of Bolt Upright and the Decision Desk at Received Opinion trying to figure out this due process thing everyone’s talking about and doing the usual shitty job, Enjoy! 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: DISAPPEARING JUSTICE EDITION.

A little light for the dark,

 How are you liking Life in These (Former) United States? I’m keeping tabs on Judge Xinis hearing an assistant U.S. Attorney tell her why the government won’t answer her questions about the whereabouts of a man charged with no crimes who they kidnapped and sent to a Salvadorian slave labor camp. AUSA Ensign is supposed to cooperate, as (sort of) required by a watery SCOTUS decision, but he is not doing so. (Upshot: AUSA claims they’ll try to get the info; judge wants daily updates until it’s resolved.)

The maddening thing – well, one of them – is that many people on the thread I’m following say the AUSA must be embarrassed, he's in trouble, that they wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, etc. But that is simply not so. He is a crook doing the bidding of a powerful criminal regime that feels itself beyond the reach of the law and will simply refuse compliance until they are physically stopped, which they are confident will never happen.  

Whew! Bummer! Well, at least the stock market is back up… and down… and up… it’s like looking at an endless epileptic fit and noticing that there are fleeting moments when the guy looks pretty healthy. Tubby’s tariff tantrum is not just of the moment; like the slo-mo catastrophe of the 2008 recession, it will have gaps within which the shitbirds can pump their fists and yell AMERICA IS BACK between each convulsion, until the jig is up. 

Lol that’s a bummer too. How about we get to the Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies? Here’s one that’s positive: My coverage of my local HandsOff protest last weekend. The event was a nationwide success, and for me the most significant thing about it is that ordinary people appear to have caught on that showing up is easy, fun, and important.  And showing up, as the old Woody Allen saying goes, is 90%. See you at the next one! 

Second freebie: The obvious playout of the “tariffs will make you butch” thing conservatives have been doing. They’re really employing their usual stupid tropes to make the destruction of the economy look like a big win; I half expect Garglin’ Bob Kennedy to present a study showing that for every point your 401K goes down, your sperm count goes up. The sad thing is, one could argue for a manufacturing-friendly plan that involved tariffs, but that would require the planners have a positive vision for America. We, on the other hand, are run by a deranged criminal whose only interests are looking tuff, stock manipulation, and the “splat” noise ordinary people make as he destroys their futures.

FRDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: EMPIRE BUSTERS EDITION.

What say we just vibe on into the weekend?

And the winner is… Crash! 

My mother had a saying for times like this: “Who did it and ran?” I thought of that when Tubby said everything was going great and then split for a big golf weekend. 

Now, you know and I know the wreck of the stonks is intentional. Tubby may think it’s gotta rebound bigly and buoy his dictatorship, maybe after some more ICE kidnappings and the slaughter of protestors. (Speaking of which, find your Saturday street action here!) 

But to the evil Project 2025 creeps who are handing him cheat sheets, the idea is to destroy the economy and leave us immiserated paupers no hope of governmental assistance and prey (more than presently, I mean) to the unrestrained rule of oligarchs with Tubby as figurehead, enforced by privatized police and prison services. 

Our best hope is that they are so high on their own supply, and acting out so ferociously, that even normies can notice. (Who can doubt the spectacle of the K-hole A-hole Musk capering with giant bribery checks helped ensure a Democratic victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election?) So maybe enough of Tubby’s cat’s-paws in Congress – whom I’m sure have gotten plenty of “trust the plan or we kill your family” pep talks -- will get cold feet and wrench the levers back a little. Also the courts are performing better than I expected (though it’s too early to say whether the U.S. Marshals will do as well when putsch comes to shove).

Even if we and democracy get out of here alive, I hope we can collect and repair enough of our shattered republic to rebuild. Already much of what the insane berserker Kennedy has wrought in public health seems difficult if not impossible to repair. I mean Hitler still holds the crown but what that fucker is doing pretty much constitutes American self-genocide. 

All very exciting, to be sure. But what about Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies? Glad you asked! First, another session of Received Opinion with Bolt Upright – this one covers, in meta fashion, the latest display of abject Prestige Press cowardice by the White House Correspondents Association. And finally, my examination of the role of JD Vance in the administration – what does this watery fuckface offer MAGAland? (Hint: It’s very like what “Little Marco” does.)

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: CULTURE WAR IS A WAR ON CULTURE EDITION.

A blast from the pissed. (RIP Sandman.)

Woke up this morning and, dammit, it was still Nutsy Nazi Time in the former United States of America. Tubby squeezed out a couple more EOs, one of which mandates de-wokenization of the Smithsonian museums (and also hints that his goons will re-erect the Confederate statues they all once leapt to defend – special guest appearance by David French! – and wept to see toppled in 2020). 

I know Trump’s people have been seething for years as they sullenly stalked museums that once flattered their self-image but now mention slavery, Jim Crow, the Pinkertons, COINTELPRO, and other events that show American history wasn’t all about the benevolent rule of white wingnuts. Now’s their chance to take a sledgehammer to all that. (Can’t wait to see what wreckage they wreak at the National Museum of African American History.)

I wrote in 2022 about their grudges and why, even if they got the power to sweep the shelves clean, they still can’t change history – just as Tubby can’t redefine art as what he likes. Guess we’re about to find out! 

And, oh yeah, the goon-squad kidnappings of innocent people in broad daylight -- that’s bad too. We all saw it revving up weeks ago, but now the goons are getting self-righteous about it, with Secretary of State Wilmer the Punk asserting that immigrants can be whisked off to hellholes if they’re “creating a ruckus” (e.g., publish an op-ed Tubby doesn’t like). Emma Goldman knew where this was at, though I think even she might do a double take at Concentration Camp Barbie showing her ass to her captives. Even in fascism America is all about innovation! 

Well, you may find this week’s first Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebie heartening – it’s about why this administration chose as its first targets organizations from which they expected cowardice, and why the growing number of non-cowards who are standing up to Tubby is a positive sign. The other freebie mainly heaps hilarity on the already-risible Usha Vance Greenland gambit, which ain’t going so hot in real life, and also rolls up a little of the Hegseth Signal debacle. Seems these days you can't satirize one foible at any length without running into another! Enjoy. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: CONCENTRATION CAMP FOLLOWERS EDITION.

Lot of cool shit at the neo-soul cafe today but Alicia Keys always jumps.

Hey, how're you liking our descent into dictatorship? Me neither! There’s more mayhem going on than I have time to get into here – which is of course a key part of Tubby’s strategy, to make it difficult for friend and foe alike to maintain focus – but this week’s nadir has to be the immigrants he sent to a Salvadoran slave labor camp, despite lacking any proof that they had committed crimes, and his threats to send U.S. citizens next. Yeah, sounds bad when you put it that way, right? Well, maybe the price of eggs will come down – in reality, not in propaganda – and everyone will forget about it, because they sure looked like bad guys, didn’t they, especially when they were getting their heads forcibly shaved.

Now would be a good time for Democrats to act like they had some guts – and, thank God, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are out on the hustings showing the rest of them fools how. Alas, the actual party leadership is fucked – which brings us to this week’s first Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebie, in which Chuckles Schumer works on his self-justification skills. (Also relevant: a previous REBID episode in which Schumer meets with one of the heroes of the South Korean constitutional crisis and asks him what concessions they made to Yoon Suk-yeol.) This has led to disastrous opinion polling for the Democrats, which the MAGA folk portray as a sign of the Führer’s popularity, while sane people recognize it as frustration that the fuckers who should be racing to the rescue, if only out of self-interest and and a desire to ever get elected again, ain’t doing shit. Maybe it’s time for an insurrection at the DNC.

The second REBID freebie is on a currently popular propaganda trick – Tubby’s goons saying that the parts of their program everyone hates are merely “mistakes” that they’ll get around to fixing. As I say in the (highly readable and entertaining!) essay:

Now, I think we have established that what Musk and the DOGE crew were on was not a mission, but a rampage. When one is on a rampage, one does not make mistakes, because one has no definite aim beyond mayhem — you can’t say “that sledgehammer blow to a support beam was a mistake, in a way that me driving this Jeep through a plate glass window was not.” As I said, they were sent in there to fuck shit up.

The con relies on the desire of many Americans to pretend – much in the manner of Schumer and his schlubs – that everything is normal and if they just keep quiet and wait for Captain America to sort things out, all will be well. This is the kind of thinking that gets cars repossessed, not to mention countries.