FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: POST-THANKSGIVING INGRATITUDE EDITION.

Drive that pile.

Hope your Thanksgiving was good! Mine was fine and now that I’ve had my gratitude I’m ready to move back into my usual ingratitude mode. (But not into ungraciousness -- no, I think we can fail to appreciate the bullshit we’re being handed by our leaders and bosses and assholigarchs without losing the grace to appreciate our fellow man. In fact that’s what my Thanksgiving edition of Roy Edroso Breaks It Down is about -- have a FREE look thanks to my Friday ‘Round-the-Horn policy!)

Mostly I'm ungrateful that Tubby remains in what’s left of the White House. He keeps snarling and raving in press conferences barely challenged by Prestige Press reporters -- not even to chide him when he lashes out at their colleagues. And he keeps giving deranged commands, like cancelling Biden’s orders because they were signed with an autopen (which Trump has used himself). The Prestige Pressies report these as if they're legitimate differences of opinion instead of the ravings of a tertiary syphilis case. 

(It's like the world's stupidest hostage situation -- this guy is ruining institutions and lives, yet reporters and administrators and other people with public platforms keep their mouths shut about it because they're a-scared of losing their phony-baloney jobs. C'mon, fellas, everybody dies!)

His most despicable recent action (most recent despicable action may be a better way to put it) is the order to send 500 Guardsmen to DC because two of the Guard stationed there were shot. Yeah, that'll help. "People hate living under military occupation -- let's make it worse! They're bound to calm down."

This is of a piece with Tubby's original order to send the Guard to DC because DOGE asshole Edward “Big Balls” Coristine allegedly got beat up there: If anything happens anywhere that makes him mad -- shootings, protests, a fake ass-kicking -- he sends troops and talks tough. He’s not trying to protect anybody or anything except his own hyperinflated self-regard. 

I’m glad more people are catching on -- though a 36% approval rate still seems high to me -- but I wish someone would tell the Democratic leadership and kick them in the ass while they’re at it. We can’t count on clogged arteries to do it all for us, and JD Vance ought to be given advance word by the opposition that we’re not gonna take any shit from him either.

As for the allegedly fun media story about Robert Fucking Kennedy Junior and the scumbag journalists who covered for him until it was too late, I see the humor but my enjoyment is limited by the wreckage Garglin’ Bob is making of our public health. Thanks to the alt-med garbage he peddles and the idiot parents who believe it, children are dying of once-dormant children diseases and I have a hunch his regimen of raw milk and pull-ups isn’t going to stop it. I begin to think Kennedy is a more dangerous lunatic than Trump, and may do even more damage to the country in the long run. We can roll back most of Trump’s idiotic orders but when the U.S. is ravaged by once-rare diseases spread by right wing hippie dipshits who’ll blame it all on bad chi or feng shui or some shit, the counter-counter-enlightenment could take generations.

Whew, harsh, huh? Let’s go out on a light note with a REBID freebie about one of Tubby’s less damaging idiocies: Notes for his desired Rush Hour sequel! Contrary to Garglin' Bob, laughter really is the best medicine. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: TRUMP EMBRACES SOCIALISM EDITION.

Where they spend their se-molians / Just to watch those cre-olians /
Skippin', hippin′, doin' the uptown lowdown. (Chick Webb!)

The week was strange; full as it was of horrible Trump shit -- with Tubby selling out Ukraine, defending his Saudi murderer buddy, calling a female journo “piggy,” threatening to execute members of Congress for reminding the troops not to do war crimes and getting his fans to send them death threats (and boy, how that list would have looked to a time traveler from, oh, last year, huh?) -- it ended with Trump playing pattycake with the man he once portrayed as a “communist” menace, Zohran Mamdani, like he was his long-lost son, one he was relieved to have around instead of Don Jr. and Eric. 

The most obvious reason for the Mamdani coochy-coo was… the rest of the week, which had made Trump look like an unhinged monster to everyone -- not just us wise guys but independents and squish Republicans too, appealing only to his small, rabid base. Oh, and there was Epstein -- nobody buys his bullshit about welcoming the release of the files, and nobody expects them to be delivered intact, either. It was not only lose-lose, it was lose-lose-lose-loseloselose whooo whooo like a runaway train of loserdom. 

So what’s the play? Hitch his fat caboose to a genuinely popular politician! Trump knows the GOP is as popular as cancer and that Mamdani’s an undersold stock -- that is, while he won his election convincingly and proved dynamite in interviews and public appearances, the loathed Republicans are blind to his appeal and the centrist dipshit Democrats act embarrassed by it. Ezra Klein says instead of Mamdani, the Dem future is -- I shit you not -- Josh Shapiro! It’s like they want to lose! Whereas Trump would throw Vance, Noem, Rubio, and everyone else under a hundred busses to win. 

If we were to psychoanalyze -- something I’m loath to do, as I barely consider Trump human -- I’d say Trump sees himself in Mamdani -- that is, he sees a political outsider (right) who is hated by the establishment (right) and is a natural on camera (right) and just happens to run a cheerful-inclusive con on the rubes rather than Trump’s own mean-psychopathic one. (I expect he’s wrong there, but monsters like Trump always think everyone’s as crooked as they are.) 

His smarm offensive seems to be working for him already -- apostate Marge Taylor Greene is quitting Congress, no doubt to podcast and maybe do an exercise show.  I think it was Atrios who said that most of our top politicians aren't really interested in politics and actually want to do talk shows. It's an absurd enough motivation for the collapse of democracy -- which, I remind you, has yet to be arrested. Maybe Tubby and his tribe thinks if they do an occasional sunny good-news stunt we'll forget they're still invading cites and arresting and trying to kill (and sometimes successfully killing) innocent people. Wonder how many people that works on? Not enough, I hope. 

Do I have a ROY EDROSO BREAKS IT DOWN freebie for you? YES -- a visit with the rightwing Catholic boys in the “rectory,” Bill Bennett, Bill Barr, Boof Kavanaugh, and Ross Douthat, as they ponder what to do about the damn doorty socialist Pope! Enjoy! (If you want more, subscribe -- it’s cheap!) 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: EPSTEIN IS THE MONSTER AND THE CREATOR EDITION.

Robert Christgau told us about these guys.
And they're doing a residency at MASS MoCA!

A lot of news this week, but I gotta tell you, I just saw something that actually no-kidding shocked me:

AI company unveils avatar app that recreates deceased loved ones in interactive form

…The Los Angeles–based startup, 2Wai, went viral when co-founder Calum Worthy released a promotional video showing how the technology works.

The clip features a pregnant woman speaking to an AI recreation of her late mother through her phone.

It then jumps forward 10 months, showing the AI “grandma” reading a bedtime story to the baby.

Later, the child, now a young boy, talks casually with the avatar while walking home from school.

The video ends with the grown son telling the digital grandmother that she is about to become a great-grandmother.

“With 2Wai, three minutes can last forever,” the video states.

Worthy added that the company is “building a living archive of humanity” through its avatar-based social network. He also wrote, “What if the loved ones we’ve lost could be part of our future?”

I saw the video and I felt like Kurtz in Apocalypse Now when he saw the pile of arms (“I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn’t know what I wanted to do”). I felt like the Monster at the end of The Bride of Frankenstein. My God. What have we become?

Well, not us, gentle reader! If you come across anyone who really wants to make AI Dead Loved Ones, please tell them forcefully that humanity has its back against the wall and however the battle goes we will remember the names of our deserters. We must recognize what’s sane and insane if we are to have any hope of pulling out of this tailspin. 

Which brings me to this week’s news! Looks like Epstein’s Ghost isn’t gonna leave Tubby alone. For most of us (and I think this includes normal people beyond the usual liberal circles), the natural reaction is horror and disgust and maybe some nervous laughter, while the MAGA die-hards are cooking up ever stranger defenses. 

You probably heard about Megyn Kelly’s “well it’s not like he fucked babies” defense (“she implied, in conversation with NewsNation host Batya Ungar-Sargon, that it wasn’t quite fair to call Jeffrey Epstein a pedophile because he was ‘into the barely legal type’ of minors—which Kelly appallingly defines as ‘like, 15-year-olds’—who look like they could be legal adults…”). Josh Marshall finds Ungar-Sargon working yet another angle as to whoever got trafficked to Trump via the nightmarish 

Schrödinger's jailbait! What do you think? Me, I don’t believe Tubby would be satisfied with almost-underage sex slaves when his buddy had the real thing on tap. No sloppy seconds for Donny Two-Scoops! On the other hand, his White House interior decorating shows he’s even less aware of what’s genuine or isn't than the buyers of Trump Steaks and Trump Wines, so who knows. (Ha ha, kidding, he guilty.) (Also ha ha: Now Tubby’s trying a “No pedo, no pedo, you're the pedo!” strategy against the Democrats, with Bondi taking the lead! How long before he tells us that Epstein actually trafficked those girls to Venezuela and that’s the real reason we’re murdering fishermen in the Caribbean?)

Almost buried in Epsteinmania is Tubby and his goons pushing yet again for the ACA-alternative “Trumpcare” -- basically, health savings accounts where, if you get sick and run out of money, you die. But what if they were actually working on it instead of just running old Mises Institute papers through ChatGPT? That’s the premise for the first of this week’s two (2) ROY EDROSO BREAKS IT DOWN freebies. Features some of Trump’s most loathsome associates! AND for the second freebie, speaking of loathsome associates, JD Vance and Steve Bannon discuss what to do about You Know What. Enjoy! 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: RAY OF LIGHT EDITION.

Heard this in a restaurant -- you remember this?
I don’t and I don’t know how I missed it.

I missed ‘Round-The-Horn last week, and I’ll let you know in advance that this one isn’t going to be an all-timer. But like Groucho says in one of my favorite bits from Animal Crackers, they can’t all be good, folks,  you've got to expect that once in a while.

But the news is good (sorta) even if I’m not! On Tuesday the Republicans got slapped around, hard enough to strongly suggest a trend beyond the electoral. The Democratic Virginia Governor and legislature margins beat the spread; ditto in New Jersey and points west. Voters just piled on the repudiation. One of my favorite accounts is Popular Information’s “Six election results that didn’t make the headlines,” which tells stories like… 

In Bucks County — Pennsylvania’s largest swing county, which Trump narrowly won in 2024 — Democrat Danny Ceisler was elected county sheriff after the Republican incumbent signed a deal to collaborate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this year…

For the first time in 13 years, Democrats in Mississippi have broken up a GOP supermajority in the state Senate…

Etc. Apart from the political power shifts, the wipeout had the effect of forcing the Prestige Press to relent for a few minutes from their usual Dems in Disarray routine. The press lords have been talking about Trump and his Republicans ass-lickers as if they were invulnerable, even as polls show general violent disapproval of their misgovernance. A lot of what people call “doomerism” is really the effect of the media’s failure to acknowledge the reality we all observe, like Trump’s lunatic economic policy driving up prices and throwing small businesses into chaos while his rich asshole friends prosper.  Hell, they don’t even seem to notice his swift, steep mental decline, even as they point cameras and microphones at it. No wonder a lot of people came to think resistance was futile! But the election broke the spell. 

Of course the big news is Mamdani getting elected Mayor of New York despite the unified opposition of the Prestige Press -- or maybe in part due to it, because his victory was a massive refutation of several kinds of stand-pat bullshit. Cuomo’s ham-handed campaign, and the refusal of many major New York Democrats to endorse him -- and Cuomo’s attempt to threaten the city with Trump’s wrath unless they voted for him -- really hit every New Yorker’s fuck-you button. And I’m guessing the unusually literate New York electorate also noticed the press’ hard-on for Mamdani and didn’t like that either. No wonder he got a majority! 

And in honor of that great victory, this week’s two (2) ROY EDROSO BREAKS IT DOWN freebies are on that theme: First, the election-night summary, and second, an add-on about the continuing self-embarrassment of his enemies in Pundit- and Poobah-land. Enjoy!

FRIDAY ‘ROUND-THE-HORN: LITTLE BIG LIARS EDITION.

The Taj Mahal verson is fine, too. Just a good tune all around.

So what’s next after the demolition of the White House’s East Wing? You know Tubby wants to clear out the African American History Museum; maybe he’ll make it into a party venue. Since he’s arrogated the powers of Congress, maybe they can make the Capitol into a hotel. 

I’m amazed that some people are saying Democrats shouldn’t talk about this because it’s not The Price of Eggs. Not that The Price of Eggs isn’t crazy.  I just bought some and, like, wtf. But damn, it’s like the attack ads write themselves, and yet here’s Gretchen Whitmer -- who I thought was one of the good ones, not to mention a dish -- waving it off:

“Well, as I have talked to people, I’m telling you right now, no one is worried about building a ballroom in Washington, D.C.,” Whitmer replied. “What they want is to make sure that they can feed their kids next week. And the longer the shutdown goes, the more precarious it gets for people.”

The governor said most Americans are “never going to step foot in a ballroom over the course of their lifetime.”

AAARGH don’t you get it? Trump has been lying his ass off about everything including the economy. And to the extent that he still has support among voters, it’s because many of them are invested in his lies.

 Like, for instance, his repeated lie that the cities he's invading with his ICE goons are burning to the ground. Sure, to you and me this is obvious bullshit, but to people who never leave their cul-de-sacs or hollers it could be true and, rather than believe the President of the United States is sending no-necks to Portland just to wreak vengeance because its citizens didn’t vote for him, they may be inclined to take his word for it to comfort themselves. 

And if they’re in the habit of eating that kind of shit, they might also tell themselves, well, maybe my big grocery and gas and electric bills are just a fluctuation, or still Joe Biden’s fault; in any case the President must know it’s gonna get better because if he doesn’t that would mean he’s lying and these prices may never go down, and that thought is unbearable. 

I remember how Republicans have tried to cover up their administrations’ economic wreckage in the past, and how slow citizens can be to tumble to it -- as I said in 2006 as consumer confidence began to drop (to be followed shortly thereafter by the economy itself), “I have lived amongst Americans for a long time, and I have never known one to minimize his financial status -- in fact, I have heard more than one claim to be ‘doing great!’ when he was in fact two paychecks from a barrel overcoat.”

So it’s important to show voters that the guy is not only obviously but also dangerously full of shit. He said he was going to “renovate” the East Wing and then he just tore it down. To build a golden ballroom! For him and his rich friends! (That the voters will never “step foot” in it is part of the point, Big Gretch!) 

People reacted to the ruins of the World Trade Center. Let them gaze upon the ruins of the East Wing until it sinks it.

OK, who wants free editions of ROY EDROSO BREAKS IT DOWN? Here ya go: First, another episode of everyone’s favorite news show, Received Opinion with Bolt Upright, confronting the endless and increasingly outrageous shakedowns of deep-pocketed victims (including the U.S. Treasury -- that’s you and me, fellow Americans!) that are the hallmark of Tubby’s reign. And also a consideration of Zohran Mamdani in the home stretch and how the usual suspects are coping with his impending victory, basically by shifting their hatred from the candidate to New York City -- which they hated already, so it’s an easy segue. (Maybe Price-of-Eggs Democrats like Whitmer can learn something from his popularity.) 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: TAKIN' IT TO THE STREETS EDITION.

You still need a drugstore to cure my cough.

Getting this Friday ‘Round-the-Horn (which often turns into Saturday ‘Round-the-Horn or even Sunday ‘Round-the-Horn) in just under the wire, but I hustled to do so because I want to wish you all a timely Happy No Kings Day. Baltimore’s daytime festivities have been cramped by the city’s annual marathon, so I’m going over to DC to survey the turnout, but will drop by an advertised Dance Party in the hometown that evening. 

For a minute I thought the angry ravings by Tubby and his minions about the rallies (“hate America,” “pro-terrorist,” yadda yadda) must be some sort of weird double-reverse strategy to inflate turnout -- they certainly got people talking about it! Maybe, I mused, the plan was to get everyone who hates Trump outdoors at the same time, then murder us! But no, I finally decided, most likely they were just reacting the way they do to any negative stimulus -- hissing like frightened kittens, except way less cute. 

I can see why they’re nervous. People are beginning to catch on to how bad Tubby’s fucking up -- grocery prices and health insurance premiums are skyrocketing, and ICE is so out of control that in addition to kidnapping U.S. citizens they’re now also kidnapping police officers. The Trumpkins are trying to bull their way past it with new rabid-dog-and-lame-pony shows, but those are increasingly bizarre and not in a way that people like. Did you hear Garglin' Bob Kennedy yammering at the IVF policy thing about teenage sperm counts? 

Today, the average teenager in this country has 50 per cent of the sperm count, 50 per cent of the testosterone as a 65-year-old man... Our girls are hitting puberty six years earlier, and that’s bad, but also our parents aren’t having children.

When I heard that shit it reminded me of when he said he could tell kids were fucked up with "mitochondrial challenges" from antidepressants by looking at them "in airports." Now he's doing sperm counts. I expect to see him on camera in the Oval Office conducting taste tests on semen samples. "Ptui! This is obviously from a troubled young person who should be hauled in for conversion therapy."

Maybe the tide is turning. Democrats like JB Pritzker and even Hakeem Jeffries are beginning to talk about Tubby’s crimes as crimes, and even warn that the statute of limitations on those may outlast Republican control of Congress. I know we’re all worried about Trump being our Mussolini, but maybe we’ll get to the gas station part of the story faster than anticipated.

Hey, have two (2) ROY EDROSO BREAKS IT DOWN free issues! First, another scene from Bari Weiss’ tenure at CBS News. Got this one out too early to catch Weiss putting her sister on TV -- dare we hope she’ll do the same with her Intellectual Dork Web friends? Will we get commentary from Jordan Peterson’s latest deathbed? And finally, a rejoinder to all the trimmers and feebs who say Democrats shouldn’t talk about Tubby’s fascism and should instead talk about the price of eggs. For one thing, I should hope these guys can walk and chew gum at the same time; for another, I’d say if Democrats pretended not to notice the secret police and extrajudicial killings, that wouldn’t make people think they were moderate, it’d make them think they were blind. But read the whole thing. See ya on the streets! 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: ANTIFA VS. PRO-FA EDITION.

Just nice.

According to Tubby and his mob, if you’re anti-fascist you’re a terrorist. Having declared antifa (obligatory mouse type: not a real organization) a “domestic terrorist” organization, he’s now also calling it a “foreign terrorist” organization -- which, even if it were a real organization, and domestic-terroristic, wouldn’t make any sense. Tubby apparently thinks “foreign” makes it sound worse -- maybe next week he’ll sign an Executive Order declaring it a Satanic terrorist organization. 

I draw your attention, folks, to how few news outlets, in reporting this lunacy, actually tell their readers and viewers that there is no formal organization called antifa, that the word just means anti-fascist, and Tubby (along with the Prestige Press) is indulging a particularly bizarre fantasy (and a dangerous one for decent people because, if they can make up a terrorist group that must be wiped out and say it’s composed of people who oppose their policies, well, sky’s the limit as far as the next dictatorial phase goes). 

One good thing about totalitarian nightmares, though -- it’s fuel for my muse. So here’s the first of this week’s free-to-nonsubscribers ROY EDROSO BREAKS IT DOWN episode, in which decompensating Tubby freestyles on the theme.

The other freebie is about Bari Weiss of conservative gripesite The Free Press taking over CBS News. This is very obviously a rightwing fever dream come true, as may be seen by the celebrations among Trumpkins like Caitlin Flanagan. Though everyone actually in the business knows Weiss was dropped like a depth charge by Larry Ellison to destroy what's left of the prestigious news organization, Flanagan tells us in “Don’t Bet Against Bari Weiss”:

That she will somehow denigrate the storied CBS News… is a complete misreading of her and her vision, which is to bring the traditional methods of American journalism back to the news, and also to build a culture of ideas.

And what does Flanagan mean by that?

This is exactly what she’s done at The Free Press, which covers a variety of stories, the most popular of which -- Uri Berliner’s explanation of NPR’s decline, for example --are those that hold powerful institutions to account.

It seems by "the traditional methods of American journalism" and "a culture of ideas" Flanagan means the same bitching about Liberal Media Bias that conservatives like Weiss have been doling out in lieu of journalism for decades -- except, thanks to the billionaires’ takeover of American journalism, there's almost nothing even resembling a liberal media left for her to oppose, especially now that CBS News has been mummified and locked away in Bari’s mansion like Homer in "A Rose For Emily."

Anyway, ROY EDROSO BREAKS IT DOWN has one for you on Weiss getting to know her staff. Oh, and I shouldn’t leave Trump’s failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize unmentioned. Some folks think he should be pleased that the awardee -- who seems like kind of a nightmare herself -- thanked Trump in her moment of victory. But you know what the old narcissist is like. I’m sure he’s taking it like a disappointed, jealous Oscar nominee hearing his name mentioned in the winner’s speech -- not as a gracious gesture, but as a way to rub it in that he lost. Take some comfort from the fact that, powerful as they may be, they can never be truly happy. 

SATURDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: GLIMMERS IN THE GLOOM EDITION.

Still hits.

A day late on ‘Round-the-Horn, sorry, had to hang some cup hooks. (Many years ago I did a newsletter for the Ogivy ad agency and got to look through the alumni newsletters that one of the copywriters put together. The cup hook thing was one of the reasons that members of the firm reportedly gave for not coming in to work. Always liked it.)

Well, since we were here last it looks as though things haven’t gotten much better for America. Along with its other, ever-escalating outrages, ICE has started shooting people in Chicago. (You don’t believe their bullshit about the victim and 10 cars attacking them, do you? You’ve read several complex sentences to get this far, so I assume you know better.) 

Also Kristi Noem is talking about sending ICE to the Super Bowl because Bad Bunny will be the half-time entertainment -- either she anticipates something like the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 because BB’s Latino, or else the botox has reached her amygdala. 

The administration clearly isn’t looking to win hearts and minds -- except maybe among the mouth-breathers who constitute their small hardcore base -- and rather wants to terrify us all into compliance with what I guess no serious person will at this point mind my calling his fascist regime. I hope our nation still has a bit of the moxie for which it was once known. “There are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade.” We’ll find out soon enough. 

But not everything’s going the wrong way -- for example, the Tubby-and-Hegseth show for which the hapless SecDef (‘scuse me, Secretary of WAR, oooooh) commanded the senior officers to gather was a travesty, and this time the audience wasn't made up of complaisant reporters or brain-injured redhats accustomed to call their MAGA bollocks brilliant. It is impossible to imagine any self-respecting military careerist (and those guys are nothing if not self-respecting) listening to Posturing Pete and Wheezy Tubby and approving.

So I don’t think the boss was pleased, and that’s what the first of this week’s free Roy Edroso Breaks It Down episodes is about: How Trump may try to recover his dignity with the troops. Spoiler: It is not very dignified. 

(If Trump thinks declaring war on Venezuela for allegedly attacking America with drugs -- which, if such an assault has occurred, I’d say the U.S. lost the engagement years ago -- and getting the troops to murder even more fisherman to make it look good, I doubt the brass will take it well. They don’t make ‘em like General Westmoreland anymore!) 

For our second free Roy Edroso Breaks It Down episode, I’m going to do something new and exciting and let non-subscribers take part in a Fun Friday -- a long-standing REBID tradition whereby I throw out a prompt and readers give responses in comments. Try it, it’s fun! Can’t all be gloom and doom with a side of satire, you know.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: FASH-AND-CARRY EDITION.

Absolutely not my kind of thing, but I like it.
Know what I mean?

Let’s see, what were the new nightmares of the past week? Well, last Sunday they had that Charlie Kirk Grieve-a-thon, and -- as I said at Roy Edroso Breaks It Down, and here, please enjoy that essay as this edition’s first freebie -- it doesn’t seem to have precipitated a Great Fash Awakening, for a few reasons but especially because normal people don’t give a shit. Shoot, even Tubby seemed to lose interest quickly! Besides, they’re already raising a new crop of Hitler Youth to take his place. 

Also they let Jimmy Kimmel back on the air, though the freaks and feebs at Nexstar and Sinclair didn’t cooperate -- which hardly matters because everything’s on the internet now, ha ha and eat shit “mainstream media.”

But mostly the news was bad. Whiskey Pete Hegseth summoned all U.S. generals and admirals, no doubt to take a blood oath to the Führer, and honored the guys who did the Wounded Knee massacre -- guess Lynndie England’s finally gonna get that Medal of Honor! Plus we’re spending billions to shore up the collapsing economy -- of Argentina! Which is important because Milei is Tubby’s brother dictator and if he fucks up it makes all the fascisti look bad. 

As for Tubby’s ravings at the United Nations and about Tylenol and autism -- well, on the one hand, these have serious, negative real-world implications: the former further ruins our relationships with all nations except the fash fiefdoms of Israel, Argentina, India, and of course Russia, at whose behest the wreckage is probably done; the latter similarly harms public health and the ability of Americans (those who aren’t already deep in the woo-hole of quack medicine, that is) to trust their government on matters of self-preservation. Garglin’ Bob’s minions are already fucking with the Tylenol safety label and pushing leucovorin, one of CMS administrator Dr. Oz’s side-hustles, as an autism cure. Take it with ivermectin -- it's what we call a Ladapo Speedball! 

On the other hand -- and this is one of the few affinities I share with the dopes and nihilists who probably gave Tubby his margin of victory -- I do get a kick out of his ravings, which land somewhere between The Last Words of Dutch Shultz and Bruno Ganz in Downfall, only dumber. Still, it would be better if it didn’t have any real-world consequences -- which is what the second of this week’s Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies is about.

And the final freebie (yeah, a rare three-fer! What can I say, I'm feelin' civic-minded)  is inspired by the administration’s threats -- after the recent shooting of ICE captives by another guy who allegedly wrote “off the pigs” or some shit on his bullets -- to come after those of us who call them Nazis. Like I say in the freebie: Fuck that noise -- come and get me, copper!  

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: THE REAL VIRTUE SIGNALERS EDITION.

First woke up to her in La Belle Noiseuse. Lovely.

The fash frolics proceed apace. Tubby’s apparently so mad that his prosecutor won’t file false charges of mortgage fraud against a prosecutor who dared convict him that he’s trying to get the poor schmo fired. As people knew in the ages before representative democracy (to which era we seem to be returning), nothing but total capitulation pleases a tyrant.  

Tubby also forced his own idiot lawyers to file a suit against the New York Times for “disparaging Mr. Trump’s reputation as a successful businessman” that was so absurd a judge immediately pitched it back at them and told them to do better. (Bet there’ll be more tantrums over that!) 

And we got testimony in Congress from the fired CDC head further showing that Garglin’ Bob Kennedy’s out of his goddamn mind (“He called CDC the most corrupt federal agency in the world, emphasized that CDC employees were horrible people. He said that CDC employees were killing children and they don't care”) which may explain why he’s trying to kill us all. (Just kidding, it’s eugenics, but he is nuts.) 

The big story is Jimmy Kimmel, and how Trump’ FCC cats-paw Brendan Carr muscled ABC to fire him for displeasing Tubby. (“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” said this servant of the people.) Carr not only admitted this but bragged about it.

Unlike some of their depredations, this one’s getting around, and some of the minions are trying to cover for it; Erick Erickson, for example, claims there is “no proof” that what happened actually happened, and that Kimmel was actually fired for poor ratings. Nonetheless he later admits that “Republicans are cheering on the targeting of ABC and Kimmel” and even talks, hilariously, about how to “de-escalate American politics.” (I wouldn’t know but I guess writing’s easier when you don’t have to think about what you’re saying.) Ted Cruz also tries to have it both ways -- it’s great the enemy of the Leader has been silenced but oooo Big Gummint Overreach woo woo woo. That’s the kind of evasive action that gets you CNN headlines.

In short they know normal people -- as opposed to the fash freaks with whom they surround themselves -- don’t like government censorship, so they’re throwing extra layers of bullshit on top of it. Given Tubby’s ratings I doubt it’s gonna work. Since his current mode is to screech and flail when challenged, and that he has taken to actually saying out that loud people are not allowed to make fun of him, there’s a good chance he’ll try something even more totalitarian in the near future. So, uh, heads-up! (I warned Roy Edroso Breaks It Down readers a year ago that this is how things would go in MAGA II: The Wrath of Tubby, so I suggest you heed my counsel.)

The Kimmel thing is more rotten fruit of the Charlie Kirk assassination. Like I said last week, Kirk was a human hate-speech dispenser, as is evident from the fact that his votaries scrupulously avoid quoting his actual Greatest Hits as they ululate over his martyrdom and try to crybully everyone into either calling him a saint or keeping their mouths shut, and get people who are insufficiently mournful fired (a fitting tribute, as trying to get people kicked out of their jobs was one of Kirk’s enthusiasms). 

While I’m sure there are people in his inner circle who mourn him, most of these assholes obviously take his demise as an opportunity to play victim vicariously and thus disguise their viciousness and totalitarianism while still engaging in that viciousness and totalitarianism. It’s what you’d expect from people who are always yapping about “virtue signaling” -- they really think virtue is nothing but a signal, never having experienced it first-hand, and expect they can just perform it like a Jedi mind trick. Not sure that’s working, either, though. 

Anyway, on to the Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies! #1 is Bolt Upright and the Received Opinion Decision Desk trying to report on CK without being allowed to tell viewers what he believed; and #2 is about a new Democratic consultancy absolutely committed to committing to nothing at all, as is the style these days, alas.