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.

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. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: BEEN SO DOWN SO LONG IT STILL LOOKS DOWN TO ME EDITION.

You know how I love Nina Simone. Have I posted this one before?
Well, who cares if I have.

MORE LIKE CUCK SCHUMER AMIRITE.

Well. It’s been another week of horrors, some of them at the local level in red-rube states, the meth labs of idiocracy, such as Oklahoma:

A quiet addition by the Oklahoma State Department of Education to add “discrepancies” in the 2020 elections to proposed academic standards for social studies has raised questions at the state Capitol as lawmakers weigh whether to approve them…

The new proposal, which Oklahoma Voice obtained, would require that high school students “identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results” including “sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends.”

These states are always pulling nightmare shit like this – subscribe to Jessica Valenti's Abortion Every Day and you’ll read about misogynist viciousness at the state level that will curl your hair – but this is a pure Heil Trump move, a way of affirming that whatever Psycho Dad blurts, no matter how crazy, should be treated as fact and taught in schools like the ABCs. 

So, too, is Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, a title once held by Thomas Jefferson and Daniel Webster, parroting his boss’ brainfarts about annexing Canada:

The old saying about how leaders who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities is quite true, but there is a variation more relevant to this administration, whereby nobody – neither those who speak them nor those who hear them -- actually believes the absurdities, but the promulgators are nonetheless prepared to commit atrocities themselves to support them. 

For example, the Trumpkins are not only defunding universities for, essentially, hiring and honoring members of minority groups, they’re also planning to prosecute students and faculty for protesting their schools’ positions on Gaza – something that, within living memory, was considered a prerogative of free people in a free society – on terrorism charges. 

All this is lunatic and totalitarian and, given that the Executive accepts no limits on its abilities to do it, and that Congress has surrendered any inclination to stop it (CUCK SCHUMER AMIRITE), we have only the courts as a bulwark. While they’ve done pretty well so far, there is the little matter of enforcing their rulings, which leaves us in a bit of a Constitutional crisis. I hope suits like Democracy Forward’s against the U.S. Marshals Service, which was used as muscle for the DOGE malfeasance, may lead to better results, but I’m afraid a long-term solution will only arise on the crest of a convulsion. 

Oh, right, the Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies – dadgumit, bit anticlimactic after all that, eh? – here are two (2): First, about how I was reminded of an old, totally-nuts rightwing thing by the new, totally-nuts rightwing empathy-is-against-Gawd-and-Jesus thing; and second, how recent events confirm for me what should be obvious to all True Sons of Liberty – that “obeying in advance” is not bad because it’s immoral but because it doesn’t work (a lesson lost on CUCK SCHUMER AMIRITE),

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: THE WRATH OF TUBBY EDITION.

Hey, this has lyrics -- perfect for karaoke night!

Not gonna say what a week because they’re all what-a-weeks. There’s plenty enough to get pissed about. Maybe you’ll find it helpful to look at Marcy Wheeler’s recap of how the multiple outrages are being answered by elected Democrats and, especially, by pro-bono litigants who are not only winning significant victories against Trump and the DOGE clowns in court, but arguably giving DOJ lawyers, who are forced as Tubby’s mouthpieces to offer ever more strained defenses of his shenanigans, enough rope to hang themselves in front of increasingly annoyed federal judges. Worth a look! 

Nonetheless I remain choleric. I’m particularly mad at Trump’s collective punishments and what they say about his whole miserable maladministration. And no, I don’t mean the torments he heaps on the suckers who went to work for him; they deserve everything they get.

Here's an example: You may have heard the Trump team cancelled Social Security contracts for Maine that permitted automatic enrollment of live births; later they said it was an accident, and said they were actually going through with the contracts. (I say "said" because I won’t accept that they’re doing what they said until I see it done. They lie about everything.)  

The cancellation was clearly a retaliation for Maine Governor Janet Mills talking back to Tubby at the Governors’ Conference. The exchange exposed him (more than usual I mean) as a petty piece of shit. I’m sure he made some turbulent-priest yak at his votaries afterwards and they pulled the plug, then someone else panicked and put it back in. 

This is how MAGA fascism works in the present stage, while the few institutional bulwarks against his intended dictatorship still stand. (What are the odds they’ll be there in a year’s time?) When Trump dumped billions of gallons of California’s water supply into the ground and pretended he was helping with the drought, that too was a nasty piece of collective punishment against a government that had expressed some defiance of him. I bet it was especially pleasing to the old bastard because, unlike Social Security money, the water couldn’t be put back by order of the courts. (I wonder whether that spooked Newsom, leading to his self-reinvention as an anti-trans dipshit this week.) 

This reminds me of Trump’s extortionate behavior with ventilators and PPE in the early days of the COVID pandemic, keeping them from New York and other blue states to punish them for defying his will (which behavior didn’t change until he realized he was fucking up his own chances of reelection). And it’s absolutely on key with his whole slash-and-burn style of governance now – there’s no goal except to wreck things and punish people he’s got a bug up his ass about. Of course graft and grift figure into it – with him there’s always that angle. But in his dotage he lacks even the craft to make that work, and with sugar daddy Musk throwing money at him he also has less motivation to summon up any discipline even when it would benefit him financially – he just lets the crooks and psychos that came into his fold do their crimes, and expects his reputation for viciousness will make them fork over his cut. There are all kinds of theories about how this nightmare will implode, but I begin to expect it will come when Tubby realizes (or fantasizes) he’s not getting what he’s owed. God grant it soon! 

Anyway, if you’ve come this far you might be interested in Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies. From behind the paywall comes this little scene featuring dangerous lunatic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., using his authority as HHS Secretary to try some homebrew healing on an actual patient.