FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: WHAT'D I MISS EDITION.

Saw Velvet Goldmine recently; it was a whole vibe,
and this tune certainly didn't hurt.

Been a few weeks! Yes, even workhorses such as myself have to stop occasionally and nibble on some hay. But you know what? Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I’m dishing out premium content at the old popsicle stand -- why not grab a so-cheap-it’s-ridiculous subscription? 

Anyway, the big news of the past week seems to be that a guy known almost exclusively for his literal hate speech got shot by another white guy with a flag t-shirt in the communist hotbed of Utah. His acolytes expressed their grief by sending bomb threats to black colleges and demanding people be fired for accurately reporting the deceased’s beliefs.

Some liberal chucklefucks got in on the act, treating the dead provocateur (who had said the Second Amendment was worth some extra deaths, apparently thinking that would never apply to him) like some fallen hero. David Axelrod even got close to comparing him to Martin Luther King -- whom the deceased had shit on. But the man was no Martin Luther King; if anything he was George Lincoln Rockwell. And despite rightwingers desperately trying to confuse you about that, in columns that lavish him with praise but always neglect to tell you what he actually said and believed, his legacy will be pretty much the same.

I had a little to say at Roy Edroso Breaks It Down (the aforementioned popsicle stand), not so much about the guy as about the hall of mirrors in which the discourse over his death has taken place. You can read it for free!  

And here’s another REBID freebie, as I am in the giving vein today, a scene from the Halls of Power in which RFK Jr. reveals a change in policy. That this literally dangerous lunatic has been allowed to continue his rampage against public health tells you everything you need to know about modern conservatism: its adherents are a berserker cult that would kill others and even themselves rather than confess a mutual interest with fellow citizens whom they’ve been trained to despise, and the Republicans exploit that mania for grift. I’m beginning to think Tubby is working Kennedy’s Tylenol-autism lunacy in order to get another shakedown out of it. (“’We engaged in a scientific exchange with the secretary and members of his staff as it relates to the safety of our products,’ Kenvue said in an emailed statement” -- ho ho, I bet they did. Maybe they’ll offer to “fund” “research.”) 

And since I’ve been away and I’m so awfully generous, here’s a rare third free REBID post, a little participatory journalism about my time at last weekend’s We Are All DC rally and march -- because it’s good to be reminded that, despite so much propaganda slop being poured over us, people are waking up, and walking up, to face down the menace. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: A QUICK ONE WHILE I'M AWAY EDITION.

Keepin' the energy up.

Still on vacation (take heart, Roy Edroso Breaks It Down readers, I rejoin you on Monday!), but thought I’d look in. 

I see that DeSantis’ creeps removed the rainbow-colored crosswalk by the Pulse nightclub in Orlando (scene of a homophobic attack in 2016) -- and that activists accompanied by anti-fascist politicians have painted it back. Good for them! 

This reminds me that a lot of what’s going on now is a kind of cat-and-mouse game with the Trumpkins. Every week brings more lawsuits and street protests to fight back against Tubby’s illegal acts. This also applies to his absurd D.C. takeover, which also has given rise to legal challenges and street defiance with or without the aid of hoagies. We even have at least one Supreme Court Justice basically filing protests in the form of dissents.

Of course the goons have all the advantage, being in charge of the three branches, so this back-and-forth can be wearying. But while extra-political actions is mainly what’s left to us now, new political opportunities are arising. Democrats, feeble as they are, keep on winning special elections. I note that the Texas legislators’ walkout over the GOP gerrymander appears to have bought time for California to get its own counter-gerrymander going, which makes me suspect that was at least part of the plan.

The bad stuff I talk about most of the time -- the Republicans’ increasingly obvious fascism, racism, and outright criminality, with the support of the complaisant and incurious Prestige Press -- is still bad, and getting worse, but it’s good to remember that it’s not only resisted but also unpopular, and maybe unpopular because it’s resisted, because visible resistance defeats the tendency among some of us to just shrug it all off and increases the will to say, you know what, no. Hang tough and see you later. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD EDITION.

Ah, that's a bit of the old pepper.

I’m on my way out the door for vacation but I can still get mad at stupid shit. Tubby’s seizure of the DC Police Department, on the Reichstaggering grounds of Big Balls’ alleged beating, is about the stupidest and shittiest, and I initially said my say in this, the first of the week’s Roy Edroso Breaks It Down free-to-non-subscribers posts (get ‘em while they’re hot, there’ll be none next week). 

In brief, the whole stunt is the apotheosis of conservative hatred of cities. They spend their Fox-filled days snarling that cities are shit-smeared scumpits that no one would ever want to live in -- and also the apartments are too expensive. They sneer that city-dwellers are all a bunch of weak, woke sissies -- who also fight off roving gangs of thugs to and from the subway every day. It’s incoherent, but with Tubby and his goons poking their amygdalas 24/7 they ignore the contradictions and embrace their hatred of anything different from what their pappy beat into them back in the hollers and subdivisions. 

To them I say, in the words of the old bumper sticker: We come from different worlds. Mine has soap and toothpaste.

One good sign: The locals ain’t having it. They had to let the Eat-Fresh Sandwich Assailant out on bond because the charges were so ridic, and a Grand Jury said get the fuck out of here to a couple of other preposterous prosecutions. These assholes thought it would be fun to fuck with residents of a 90% Democratic town, but they’re finding out that trying to subdue a populace that hates your guts ain’t no picnic. 

Honorable mention to all the rightwingers who say they’re ascared to walk or even drive around DC for fear of crime. I spent a decade there and I know little children with more sense and self-assurance than they have. These guys are either totally abject pussies or just pretending to be so they can nuzzle Tubby’s ballsack, which is even worse. 

Also free to the public: This one on “Trumpsurdism” -- the hyper-unreality and giddy nonsense this administration uses in its propaganda, not to justify its unjustifiable actions but to show the rubes that justice, common sense, and even reality itself don’t matter anymore, only their will does. Hannah Arendt got there first, I guess, but mine has topical references.

In closing: This shit…

A staff mutiny forced the management of a plush British countryside pub to turn away JD Vance, just weeks after the same venue hosted Kamala Harris, according to reports.

The vice president had reportedly attempted to dine at The Bull in Charlbury, Oxfordshire, an early 16th-century countryside pub with a Michelin Bib Gourmand...

However, the staff reportedly staged a mutiny, telling management that they wouldn’t show up to work if the venue accepted Vance’s dinner booking...

…puts me in mind of Lionel Barrymore in Key Largo: “Come over here -- I’d like to spit on you.” Like Old Joe said, anger can be power, and these fuckers should be let to know at every turn that they are interlopers and not welcome -- the necessary prelude to heaving them out.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMIN' EDITION.

lol

Sorry I missed last week’s edition -- guess I'm really due for a vacation. Or a nervous breakdown. In either case, as St. Augie said, not yet.

In a way I didn’t miss much: The deterioration of our once-great nation proceeds apace. One development that came during my bye-week was the Prestige Press’ spasm of ass-covering over the Gaza genocide -- or, if you’re one of those folks who need to well-akshually the situation, the indiscriminate mass slaughter of thousands of innocents, there, does that make you feel better. This extended twinge of conscience-pretense seems already to be fading as Netanyahu announces the occupation of the wreckage, preparatory no doubt to the grotesque development the fascists have planned for it -- and by the way, if you believe the planted stories about Trump yelling at Netanyahu for killing too many people are legit, stop and think why you’re being let to hear about it; it’s all kayfabe and crocodile tears.

Grim, right? Well, we got a few laughs out of it with Bolt Upright and the Received Opinion crew at Roy Edroso Breaks It Down (REBID), my subscription Substack: Here’s a free link -- two more freebies further down! I’m tardy but generous.

In recent days there have been some absolutely surreal stories — such as (speaking of press manipulation) the alleged attempted “unarmed carjacking” of “Big Balls” Coristine in DC (FREE REBID LINK!), publicized with a picture of BB with Butler, PA-style bloodstreaks and followed by Tubby sending federal officers into the streets of Washington to strut and posture on his behalf. While I enjoy the idea of the little shit getting smacked around by tweens, I’m pretty sure it’s a put-up job. Being mainly known for his vandalism of federal infrastructure and scummy cybercrime connections, Coristine could use an image upgrade if he wants to remain an up-and-coming fash weasel, and is clearly sufficiently morally bankrupt to cooperate with such a scam. The only question is whether even brain-damaged MAGA dummies will give a shit.

As for that weird AI “interview” with a guy who got murdered at Stoneman Douglas High eight years ago (ALSO FREE REBID LINK!): In the words of Curly from The Three Stooges, ngnnnyaahhh. It’s fascinating to see billionaire creeps pushing this shit on us when nearly every real person who ever comes in contact with it is repulsed. We never should have let them have that much money. Of course, there are remedies to that, and I’m willing to entertain the less violent ones first, but only if they actually get done

And since I last pushed out a REBID issue, things have just gotten worse, with some nut shooting up CDC HQ, apparently because he was convinced by nutjobs like the current Secretary of Health and Human Services that the COVID vaccine fucked him up. I know I’m not the only one who sees the absolute necessity of getting ourselves out from under these psychopaths and, further, I’m sure there are way more who think so than the zombies who think it’s great.  The question is what we’re going to do about it and who among our electeds is willing to lead the charge.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: FUNNY-SAD VS. FUNNY-MAD EDITION.

 I keep the telephone beside me all the time

 It’s been one of those weeks where the bright side and the dark side are one and the same – namely, that the shitheels are not even pretending they’re not shit and the polls show the voters have smelt it. How’s this, from Tubby’s FCC factotum on CBS’ firing Stephen Colbert on his orders, for some fascist display:

Quintanilla’s question, BTW, is as close as any Prestige Press reporter has gotten to directly asking the administration whether they’re doing what they’re obviously doing. But, as with the Epstein thing, the cowardice of the kept media isn’t bamboozling people as effectively as once it did. It’s mind-blowing to see Tubby ranting and raving that maybe his letter to Epstein is a forgery – I mean, not even the MAGA-est good ol’ boy down t’ klavern is gonna buy that, even with the reporters all nodding politely. And they’re not gonna buy it when Ghislaine Maxwell cuts a deal to get out of prison in exchange for her “cooperation.” 

Of course, Tubs will get away with it, and the big downside to him getting away with it without even the simulacrum of popular support he once had is that some people will get discouraged and cease to push back. Which I guess leaves it to those of us who still have free souls (which leaves out the Columbia finks) to push back twice as hard.

Speaking of discouragement and encouragement, one thing I want to say about the South Park thing: It’s pretty funny and good for them, but when I see people acting like Trey Parker and Matt Stone joined the Resistance I must raise a demurrer. Don’t mistake what they did for principle. The best thing about these guys, and generally the only thing I still like about them, is that they don’t give a fuck about anything – they knew tweaking Tubby would draw some needed attention to their aged franchise, and they’re still milking it.

Stone and Parker accomplished with South Park what only a very few satirists have managed: They convinced the audience that it isn’t really satire, at least not of anything they actually believed in. Back in 1907 Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson were surprised to find that a boorish character in their innocents-abroad play The Man From Home – who announced from the stage that he wouldn't “trade our State Insane Asylum for the worst ruined ruin in Europe” – was taken as a hero by American audiences; “they didn't laugh at him forgivingly,” Tarkington wrote; “they applauded thunderously. In all such matters they felt as he did." Stone and Parker figured this angle out quicker, and have been slapping their audience in the face with it for decades. What is MAGA, after all, but a nation of Cartmans?

And like I said: good for them! Writing’s a hard dollar and satire a handicap; Swift had his deanery to fall back on. And we can always use a laugh. But what will turn the wheel is outrage, and there’s no outrage without morality. Seek it elsewhere.

Speaking of which, the Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies: first, another episode of Received Opinion with Bolt Upright, Peoni Doyenne, and Chafe Dramaturgy going "Whither Epstein"; and a little essay on what some of the regime's word games reveal about their view of the world.  

SATURDAY ‘ROUND THE HORN: BRIDE OF EPSTEIN EDITION.

I'm still playin' the victim and you still playin' the pick-me.

I don’t usually front-load these weekly updates with a Roy Edroso Breaks It Down free issue link, but as the world’s all-in on Epsteinmania I'll start with my essay on the blow-up and why it’s as potent as it is. 

Short version: The people who are accustomed to joke and sneer away Tubby’s other deficiencies can’t do it in this case. You can’t rile your rubes with stories about how you’re not the pedophile, they’re the pedophile, and you have a magic document that proves it, and then tell them the magic document doesn’t exist, and then that it was created by the Democrats, and then tell everybody to shut up, without consequences. Particularly when you’re fucking up everything else.

We’ll have to wait for history to tell us what ratfuckery made them fumble the bag so badly. But I’m guessing this is a clue: That the only fresh evidence (as opposed to the evidence that’s been well-known for years) of Tubby’s pedo-propensities has been supplied by Satan’s emissary Rupert Murdoch. 

It kind of figures. The fake-liberal Prestige Press has been effectively cowed by the administration’s goon squad tactics. (You saw how completely CBS folded to Tubby on Steven Colbert, right? “Financial decision” means they can’t afford another extortionate lawsuit.) But rightwing outlets like the Wall Street Journal never needed cowing – they see Trump wreaking havoc on civil liberties, climate repair, racial justice etc. and can hardly believe their luck – all they had to do was make this moron a lame duck, and he’ll happily help them turn America into a corporate slave state. 

But with his tariff tantrums Tubby’s also fucking with their money, and Bessent and Lutnick have proven themselves totally incapable of pulling the leash. So it’s time for a little muckraking – on behalf of the oligarchs!

Well, why not – the fascists have long adopted the language of civil rights to steal civil rights; see Gruppenführer Stephen Miller’s lawsuit against Johns Hopkins, describing the school’s scholarships for poor black kids as racism, for a particularly ripe example. So why not jiu-jitsu journalism for those purposes as well? It’s not like any voter under the age of 80 has ever had a decent education in civics.

Please don’t take this to mean I’m against it. Let the fash titans fight! Meanwhile the fake liberal Prestige Press has its hands full trying to hold back the trend of Democrats who will actually fight – with the help of Democrats who will only pretend to fight. If we get some breaks, maybe we’ll get more nominees who’ll offer people something they want more than racism and sabotage (or slightly-less-racism-and-sabotage).

Speaking of which, it’s something to contemplate that another massive failure of conservative governance – Texas' and FEMA’s fuckups in the flash floods that killed a bunch of kids – has disappeared from the news. Joe Biden stumbles over his words and it’s months of front-page stories; a tragic example shows just how antithetical to human health and safety MAGA really is, and it’s like it never happened. Well, we’ll always have the spectacle of the completely unqualified MAGA FEMA head stumbling onto the scene several days late dressed for a luau, as immortalized in my comic playlet. Enjoy! 

SUNDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: SAW THE NAZIS GETTIN' SLOPPY EDITION.

I follow Robert Christgau because how can I not,
but also because he catches me up on acts like this.

On the one hand, the outrages never cease; on the other hand, it’s a great age for grim amusements! For example,  for 10 days after the catastrophic Texas floods that FEMA (and the local authorities) fucked up, FEMA figurehead David Richardson was entirely AWOL, but this weekend they finally dug him up (literally, from the looks of him) and put him in front of a map, a Texas flag, and some other doughy white dudes to glower and posture, as discovered by the mighty Marisa Kabas: 

Like Woody Allen almost said, 80% of success is showing up – ten days late!  Look at the fucker:

I assume they found him passed out in a nearby motel room strewn with crack pipes and empty tequila bottles and THANX FOR THE WALLET BITCH! scrawled in lipstick on the mirror. (The shower was broken so the federal “rescue team” took him to the pool and dunked him before transporting him to his photo op.) 

This is the whole MAGA approach: Destroy institutions/kill people with your incompetence and maliciousness, then (like Kristi Noem) swagger onto the scene in some outlandish costume to announce the success of the operation. 

We knew from the start their goal was to wreck enough government services that people might forget a competent government ever existed and that their tax dollars once did anything but pay off Tubby and his goons. But, boy, they’ve been sloppy about it – and maybe that’s a built-in problem for them, because the vicious arrogance that makes them want to do it in the first place is also what makes them so lazy about pretending they’re doing anything else. Showing up and doing your job? That’s for losers. Real leaders strut for the cameras and then peace out. 

I like to think the slight backtracking these bastards have done – like Tom “Evil Stubby Kaye” Homan pretending he gives a shit about due process and ICE’s prey, and Noem claiming Tubby no longer wants to get rid of FEMA – is a sign, not of progress, but of panic. They’ll find their footing again soon and try some new outrages, but at least there’s a bit of a window now to slip some mines in their path.

Like the Epstein files! That’s another example of Trump’s gang believing they can be totally careless about their racket – in this case, ginning up a scandal for years and then saying whoops, never happened --  and not get blowback. I see their current plan is to stonewall and make the MAGA faithful eat it, which is great, because every minute they stick at it more voters finally get wise to them. Of course that won’t matter if we don’t have elections anymore, but as Vaclav Havel said: Act as if. 

Freebies from Roy Edroso Breaks It Down: First, Elon Musk runs his newly Free Speechified Grok past some prominent Jewish conservatives – hilarity ensues! And: An essay about a curious trend among the “liberal media” (what I call the Prestige Press) to side with the old, reactionary, time-serving and unpopular Democrats against the young, popular, progressive Democrats, and why that may be a bigger problem than Trump. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: SO FAT DON CAN READ IT WITHOUT HIS GLASSES EDITION.

If you hate us, you just don't know what you're sayin'.

A lot of people are gloomy this Independence Day, so right out of the gate here's today's Roy Edroso Breaks It Down essay on why you could be (not should be, no pressure!) less gloomy. Briefly, America and its birthday are yours and mine, not the assholes'. 

Not that the recent catastrophes aren't daunting. The budget bill is insane, as are the lies they're telling to razzle-dazzle the rubes -- like that "nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits" (that's bullshit) and that there are no Medicaid cuts (also bullshit). And the expansion of ICE is clearly meant to elevate it from a Sturmabteilung to a Gestapo. I'm a little surprised that, when Tubby and his mob push their creepy "Alligator Alcatraz" propaganda with pictures of alligators wearing ICE hats, no one seems to notice that an alligator would as happily eat a MAGA chucklefuck as it would an immigrant. 

And the Prestige Press won't do shit for us. You see how the New York Times used oppo from a racist chud to try and make something of Zohran Mamdani putting African-American on a form when he's literally from Africa? These fuckers get more obvious about who and what they support all the time, and "liberal media" they ain't. 

Yeah, we got a hill to climb, no question. But then so did the Continental Army. Act as if ye had faith, etc. 

Also from REBID, here's something else that might brighten your outlook (or not! No judgment!): A look back at the "reality-based" community thing and why that might point to a way out. And, just for fun, Bolt Upright and Received Opinion ask, "concentration camps — in or out?"

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: ANYTHING THAT CAN'T GO ON, WON'T EDITION.

If I’m not mistaken I’m surely right.

Still recovering from surgery, I woke up late this morning to the smell of burning Constitution. I thought any decision on Trump v CASA less extreme than “14th Amendment is invalid if Dear Leader says so” would be a relief, but this one basically makes it incredibly hard to defend the rights guaranteed under that (I must emphasize) Constitutional Amendment if you live in one of America’s many MAGA fiefdoms. And, as has been pointed out, it also remains to be seen whether a citizen of a blue state will still be treated as a citizen when crossing a red state line – or whether they can be snatched by Tubby’s goon squads and sent to a foreign torture camp if they do.

In other words, Fugitive Slave Act bullshit. Deliberately.

This has to be fixed and I don’t mean stern letters from Chuck Schumer. Democrats absolutely have to yeet all their centrists into the sea (start with Chuck and fucking Gillibrand) and go whole hog for programs that were once thought radical, including and especially expanding the Court – because otherwise what’s the point in running for office: Who will vote for a candidate who admits up front that the policies they’re running on, and that their constituents want, can just be invalidated by six appointed fascists?

Well, let us hope you and I are not the only ones who get it. I know a lot of New York Democrats are getting it – how ‘bout that Zohran? Your Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebie this week, building on a related alicublog post, is my consideration of Mamdani's primary victory and the meaning of it. The scumbags currently trying to derail him on his way to Gracie Mansion  -- not just the out racist creeps, but also the New York Times and other Prestige Press outlets  -- are not just opposing a candidate; they’re opposing the whole idea that anything can possibly get better. But on the contrary: Most of us know, and more are leaning every day, that things can’t possibly stay the same. How’s that for hope? Well, for now it’ll have to do.

YOU SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS ARE BEYOND YOUR COMMAND.

Regular readers know I lived most of my life in New York and love it in the bittersweet way of exile. So the mayoral primary victory of Zohran Mamdani delights me. One reason is that he has been opposed by the worst people alive – not just rich fucks in the city, but also reactionaries across the country and even around the world, as seen in Rod Dreher’s dispatch from whatever European foodie tour he’s presently on. 

Dreher claims that “the parts of the city that voted Mamdani are the whitest, [and] those that voted Cuomo are, for the most part, the most non-white,” not because it portrays reality (Mamdani took Harlem, Lefferts Gardens, Fort Greene, Crown Heights, Cypress Hills for fuck’s sake – Cuomo took the Upper East Side by double digits!) but because “Liberals Are The Real Racists” is part of his shtick. Speaking of racism, as one always must when considering Dreher, the thing is titled “Mamdani's Big Apple Intifada,” and contains this:

New York City is home to about one million Jews, one of the largest concentrations of Jews on the planet. And the city has now, in effect, elected a mayor who embraces the slogan “globalize the intifada.” 

Bullllllshit.

Jonathan Chait explains why this is a problem:

Ah ha ha ha ha. Not only Dreher but the whole Prestige Press tried to make Mamdani’s support for the tormented Palestinians into a synonym for antisemitism, notwithstanding his considerable Jewish support, not least meaningfully from his fellow candidate Brad Lander (which of course Dreher does not acknowledge). So one of the beauties of this victory is that the ancient trick of conflating less-than-total support of Israeli foreign policy with the Holocaust looks less surefire than before. (Tubby’s and Netanyahu’s recent bombing spree may have helped there.)  The boys at Commentary must be chewing the carpet. 

So must be the Prestige Press, who were running headlines like “Cuomo leads Mamdani by 14 points in survey ahead of NYC primary voting” on election day.  They wanted to take him down bad. 

They won’t learn. Will the Democrats? Mamdani’s program, as he eloquently lays it out, is hardly collectivist, and mostly common-sense reform for a city that’s been mugging the shit out of its poor and middle-class people and turning their money over to billionaires for decades. Like the man says, “there are far too many New Yorkers who do not know if they will be able to call themselves that next year, who do not know if they will be able to afford their rent, or their child care, their groceries, or even their MetroCard.” If you’re panicking over a rent freeze and free buses, you’re not on his side – nor on the side of the people who gave him victory, which used to be considered the core Democratic constituency, back before neoliberal trimmers turned politics into a game to see who can deliver the least for their constituents.

Much has been made of the sex pest angle — that voters (as opposed to pundits) were disinclined to forgive and forget the scandals that drove Cuomo from the statehouse. It makes some sense — Bill Clinton’s endorsement seems not to have helped Cuomo, and Anthony Weiner lost his comeback race too. It makes still more sense in context: these guys’ antique attitudes toward women are part and parcel of their whole moldy worldview. People are catching on and I’m beginning to think that all the stupid Democratic rearguard sabotage, with elderly timeservers driving out or squelching their best young talent, is not in fact the insurmountable obstacle it sometime appears, but one that’s now starting to crumble. 

I particularly liked Tish James, who brought Tubby to justice, reading Mamdani's opposition for filth in the video above. Lap it up, comrades! 

FRDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: LIFE-RAFTS IN THE FLOOD EDITION.

The Spanish guys working on the building down the street played this.
They know what's good.

I'll be less attentive to the collapse of the Republic over the next week because I'm having surgery. Prospects are good but if it all goes south, best of luck and see you on the other side.

Meantime, oy. There's too much bullshit flooding in to keep track. (You following me on Bluesky? I keep better tabs there.) Two recent stories in particular capture the bleak moment for me: "Baby of brain-dead pregnant woman kept alive under abortion law has been delivered, family says." (Surprised the state hasn't kept her alive and pumped with sperm so she can keep producing babies until her corpse gives out.) And: "Caroline [Va.] man pleads guilty to shooting Latino men because he thought they were immigrants." Time for another NYT/WaPo story about how political violence is a bothsides thing! 

Not everything is terrible. As a New York exile I have taken heart from Zohran Mamdani's refreshing and encouraging DSA campaign for Mayor, but Cuomo and his asshole enablers in the musty old Democratic Party and the New York Goddamn Fucking Times (taking a break from their trans-hate onslaught) have cued up the Wicked Witch of the West music and are trying to fuck it all up. Wake up, guys! A better ward is possible! 

Another good New York thing: Hamilton Nolan's essay, "The Subway Is Not Scary/Fear of the subway is a mark of low moral character":

When I say this, you may read my meaning to be, “The subways are fine if you are brave,” or “Riding the subway is a character-building because it teaches you to be tough.” No. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that the subway is fine. It is not scary. It is the standard mode of transportation for millions of New Yorkers. Six million rides a day. Let me try to put it in terms that a non-New Yorker can understand. “I am scared of riding the Google shuttle bus to my job at Google.” “I am scared of riding the Epcot monorail.” See how crazy that sounds? Same basic thing.

As you know I've been beating this drum for years: Conservatives use fake horror stories about city life to promote fear and hatred of cities as a political tool. I love pushing back on it, not only because it's a lie but also because I'm convinced it's fast becoming a losing proposition -- most Americans live in metro areas, for Chrissakes!  And even the Los Angeles invasion -- a classic "strafe a few city blocks with tear gas and rubber bullets and then blame liberalism" con job -- seems not to be as popular as Tubby and his goons assumed. I'm with this guy in general:

We're not (just) fighting a deformed political philosophy. We're fighting bullshit. Standing for truth isn't a chore! 

OK, you want Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies? Here you go -- first, speaking of positivity, my firsthand report from the local No Kings event and why protests are a good idea too. And here's the Received Opinion Decision Desk gang handling the political assassination in Minnesota with all the bothsiding at the disposal. Well, as another dim but righteous anchorman used to say: Courage! 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: IF THE JACKBOOT FITS, WEAR IT EDITION.

I mean.

Used to worry on Friday the 13th but we’re not feeling too lucky anyhow; every week it seems Tubby’s mob pushes a little harder against the foundations of democracy. There are a few things about the goons tackling U.S. Senator Alex Padilla that seem significant (besides the obvious, I mean). Least of these is Secretary Noem lying that she didn’t know who he was – like her whole mob, she lies all the time, reflexively, and her lies of late have reached a level of stark-mad ravings (“millions of people are in Los Angeles illegally’) that would embarrass a street preacher:

Also, I think about the recent arrest in Newark of Mayor Ras Baraka and the indictment of Rep. Monica McIver for the crime of conducting Congressional oversight of ICE facilities. Now we have a Hispanic Senator roughed up by fed thugs for questioning the DHS Secretary. Maybe these creeps have decided it’s easy to put over if the public officials they attack aren’t white.  (I'm reminded of Rudy Giuliani's police riot in 1992, and the cop saying about about Una Clarke, "This n****r says she’s a member of the city council.”)

But as usual it’s mainly the fascism. Back in September I said of Tubby’s mob: I say they're Nazis and I say to hell with it. I was motivated then by the tiresome hair-splitting over whether they were fascists or not – a discussion that seems to have ceased, as no one besides MAGA apparatchiks and Matthew Yglesias is denying it now. 

At this point, however, I’m inclined to call them Nazis because that’s clearly what they’re going for. These aren’t guys who pore over Carl Schmitt and Giovanni Gentile and argue theory – no, their actions are inspired by gut-level appreciation of, and patterned after, the kind of high-profile Nazi actions you don’t need scholarly help to comprehend -- the Beer Hall Putsch, the Reichstag Fire, promotion of Dolchstoßlegende, and the dehumanization of low-status social groups via the proto-Fox News, Der Stürmer. 

Like, do you have any pals who get a little too excited about the exploits of the Wehrmacht? Same thing, only suffused with ambition and power. Their approach is pure monkey see, monkey do. They like what the Nazis did, and what it achieved, and are convinced that they can get further with the same shtick because there’s no United States to stop them since they’ve taken it over. When someone shows you who they are, etc. 

Yeah, I know, it sounds bleak, but on the bright side I think there enough people alive who know Nazis are bad that this could be a liability for them. Also Momdani is out in front! And we have a national rally Saturday, who knows, might help. 

Plus here’s this week’s Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies – based on earlier outrages, in fact pre-cognizant of them because I did the things before they got even worse! For example, based on ABC News suspending Terry Moran for saying something too, too hurtful about Stephen Miller (speaking of Nazis): BOLT UPRIGHT AND THE RECEIVED OPINION DECISION DESK ARE ON IT! (Later ABC fired Moran.) Also too, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. firing all the CDC vaccine advisors because they were too mobbed up with Big Science (i.e., science)  -- I imagined the replacements and was not too far off! 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: CRIME FAMILY FEUD EDITION.

Yeah, I like this shit. What about it?

I know everyone’s enjoying the TrumpMusk drama, and I hate to find myself on the side of the squares, but I have to say experience has taught me that, except when these Trump episodes are actually lethal – either to human life, the Constitution, or both – they seldom work out the way we would hope in terms of swaying the voter. Remember Tubby Term I, when he fired people left and right and “Scaramucci” became a unit of time? And how no one gave a shit? Now look – where back in the first term the “Muslim Ban” generated some negative publicity, he just put in an even bigger one and the Prestige Press can hardly be made to notice.

But the PP loves drama, as you can see by the huge play this tweet-battle got on the front page of the New York Times. This is basically WWE Feud Tracker for nerds, and for voters who will look at the journalistic real estate and figure, huh, so this is what I’m supposed to pay attention to, I’ll make space accordingly – guess that guy in El Salvador died or something? 

I will add: Beating up on Musk is a proven winner for the Democrats – it has tanked his brand and his stock and made him genuinely toxic with everyone but the freakish incels who make up his base. The idea that talking up Trump as Musk’s foe will be useful to anyone but these two professional con artists who are experts at – yes, I’ll say it – kayfabe is absurd. 

OK, the Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies (and once again, subscribe why don’t’cha, it lasts longer): First, a scene-we’d-like-to-see from the WelcomeFest. That huge collection of dweebs, dorks, and trimmer dipshits got a lot of publicity by telling America that what he world wants from the opposition is the Democratic Leadership Conference ca. 1992, but not as liberal, and beating up trans people instead of Sistah Souljah. In the early 90s, after two terms of Reagan, this mistake was almost forgivable – though how much better our politics would have been had the Dems chosen to stand on its traditional values rather than triangulation! To try it now in Tubby Term II, which promises to be even more of a disaster than the first, is just ridiculous. 

The second is my annual Pride thing. Happy Pride, try and have some! 

PS Oh yeah, Washington Post: Since "to DOGE" basically means to slash public services without any attention to whether they're needed or not,  all DOGE firings will be of "too many people."

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.