FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

I can't believe the first version of this I ever heard was Derek and the Dominoes'.

And it took me all this time to look this one up!

•  It was a good week at Roy Edroso Breaks It Down, my highly successful and attractive newsletter. Open to the general public are my portrayal of a Presidential focus group on the statues to be included in the Garden of Heroes, and a lively discussion on whether the current conservative movement is mainly stupid or evil. Enjoy!

•  This is a pretty good example of rightwing bullshit in action, from Jordan Lancaster at the Daily Caller:

Black Lives Matter Totally Shuts Down Nation’s Capital On Independence Day

Now, I live in the District, and I went walking and biking around most of the day on July 4th, and saw only a little protest action -- a teach-in next to the Supreme Court, and the usual activities at Black Lives Matter Plaza. I know there were other actions throughout the day, but the point is, DC is ten miles square -- if it were "Shut Down" the citizens would notice.

The lede:

Black Lives Matter protests broke out in the nation’s capital on Independence Day resulting in the highway between Washington, D.C. and Virginia being shut down...

Commuters driving from work or from the fireworks event at the National Monument found themselves stuck in the city. Roads were closed off all around the nation’s capital as the protesters took over the highway.

Trapped! Like rats! Except if you used Route 29 or 420 or 650 or Connecticut Avenue or Wisconsin Avenue or etc. etc.  Lancaster cites a tweet ("Does anyone know how to get out of here") showing a map of lockdowns around the west end of the Mall -- without noting that these are not demonstrator-induced; Park Police fenced and blocked off practically everything from the Washington Monument to the Tidal Basin for Trump's fireworks' show.

It's not a shock these guys tried to convey to outlanders -- who are their real audience -- that DC was chaos; they continue to refer to every protest as "riots" and "looting" weeks after any riots or looting took place. The idea is to terrify suburbanites into voting for their increasingly unpopular party. It worked in 1968! Unfortunately most of the people it worked on have died, and Republican policies will probably finish off the rest of them soon.