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. 

MY ANNUAL OSCAR PREDICTIONS, FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY.

OK! SHOWTIME! As I do every year, here are my Oscar pics. Warning: I have never been so unsure of my picks as I am now, so don’t bet the farm. OK, I’m late so let’s not waste time:

Best Picture: Conclave. The one year I really beat the experts soundly was 2019 when I called Green Book, which I knew was sentimental in just the right Oscar-winning way. And when I missed big in 2022 it was because I couldn’t believe the Academy would go that sappy and choose CODA. It is usually (but not always) a bad idea to underestimate Oscar's taste for cheese. Conclave, with its old-fashioned high drama, high stakes, and exotic setting, seems the most defensible old-school choice notwithstanding its lack of a directing nomination. Also, as I mentioned in my review, it was a hit with the senior citizens. Anora’s lovely but, with its nudity, swearing, and sex, more a young person’s movie. I think the geezers will push this one through. 

Best Actor: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist. Like I said in my review, he suffered pretty fulsomely. But there was also enough mystery in the performance to keep you from turning away from it. 

Best Actress: Mikey Madison, Anora. If you liked nothing else about the movie you still had to love her. She’s got spunk! 

Best Supporting Actor: Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown. Everyone says Kieran Culkin, and I see it (notwithstanding the category fraud – that’s a starring performance if anything is). But Norton’s Pete Seeger is just such a well-built impersonation as well as a great emotional force I don’t see how it can miss. (Spoiler, that’s what I always say when I’m making a sucker bet.)

Best Supporting Actress: Ariana Grande, Wicked. Speaking of sucker bets! Smart money is on Zoe Saldaña but, fierce as she was, her character had no arc. Grande got the laughs and got the tears. And she can sing. 

Best Director: Coralie Fargeat, The Substance. Whatever else you think of it, it was fo-sho directed. 

Best Original Screenplay: Sean Baker, Anora.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Peter Straughan, Conclave. 

Best Cinematography: Lol Crawley, The Brutalist.

Best Film Editing: Sean Baker, Anora.

Best Score: Daniel Blumberg, The Brutalist.

Best Song: “El Mal,” Emilia Pérez.

Best Production Design: The Brutalist.

Best Costume Design: Wicked.

Best Makeup: The Substance.

Best Visual Effects: Dune: Part Two.

Best Sound: Dune: Part Two.

Best Documentary Feature: No Other Land.

Best Animated Feature: The Wild Robot.

Best International Feature: I’m Still Here. 

Best Animated Short: Yuck! 

Best Live-Action Short: A Lien.

Best Documentary Short: Incident.

ROY'S FINAL TWO BEST PICTURE NOMINEE REVIEWS -- PREDICTIONS IMMINENT!

Oscar Night approacheth. As I mentioned Friday, as has become my annual tradition/ritual/OCD symptom, I intended to have all 10 Best Picture nominees reviewed by showtime, and had eight done at Roy Edroso Breaks It Down by that point -- A Complete Unknown, Anora, The Brutalist, Conclave, Nickel Boys, Emilia Pérez, The Substance, and Wicked. Here are my final two -- with predictions to come before sundown! 

Dune: Part Two. I got unexpected if mixed pleasure from Dune 1 when my Oscar duty demanded I see it in 2022 despite my general indifference-verging-on-hostility to sci-fi type pictures. With Dune 2 I got more expected if still mixed pleasure. The effects that wowed me in 2022 -- “giant flying fortresses, undulating deserts, massive sandworms with mouths like floral lampreys, dragonfly copters” – are here again, as well as huge and grotesque displays of the evil whitefaced Harkonnens’ power and cruelty.  And! Plus! We get our hero Paul Atreides actually riding a “great-grandmother” sandworm (like surfing with mountaineering axes) to win still more approbation from the Fremen, the crypto-Islamic desert rebels – and shore up the growing consensus among them that he’s the Messiah who’ll defeat the Harkonnens and make their desert a green paradise. Plus Paul (now dubbed Muad’dib to stress his gone-nativeness) and hot rebel Chani finally get together, in a very chaste and sweet way, as befits what is essentially a children’s story to which grown-up craftsmanship has been applied. And under Maestro Denis Villeneuve the craft is dazzling. If the business of getting us acquainted with the Duneiverse in Dune 1, being mostly done, is no longer there to hold those of us who are not already pre-sold, good old-fashioned epic filmmaking gets us through this one. Come Dune 3 I am definitely seeing this shit in IMAX.

I’m Still Here. Spanish and Latin American filmmakers take their years of dictatorship and the attendant horrors seriously. Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries, Central Station) cleverly gives us plenty time at the outset to get comfortable with the enlightened-liberal middle-class family life of former congressman Rubens Paiva, his wife Eunice, and their five kids in Rio de Janeiro in 1970s Brazil. They frolic on the beach, have friends to meals served by a maid, engage in loving banter, and don’t talk much about the fact that Rubens stopped being a congressman because the dictators threw him out, and that military convoys have started running the streets of Rio. Then one day some greasy characters show up to remove Rubens for “questioning”; they occupy the Paivas’ house a few days, then take Eunice and the eldest daughter as well. The daughter is released after a day, Eunice after twelve days. Rubens never comes back, All this unfolds with deliberate realism, so that one might imagine it happening to oneself (a good rehearsal for what we might expect here, btw, in years to come). Eunice’s job is now to keep it together for her family, then for herself, and finally to see justice done. Selton Mello as Rubens is a cuddly bear who betrays only fleeting shadows of his own stress and fear; as Eunice, Fernanda Torres is self-possessed from the start, so her handling of the ordeal is best-case scenario -- which makes it more frightening, because it shows that terrorism terrorizes even the seemingly least-shatterproof – but, to me at least, also inspiring, because it shows what can be endured may also be rectified. I also must mention Torres’ mother and the star of Central Station, Fernanda Montenegro, as Eunice in old age and with Alzheimer’s, in a really beautifully engineered and deeply moving coda. 

OK! See you in a couple of hours with predix! 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: PRE-OSCAR, POST-DISASTER EDITION.

They were playing this at the Moynihan Train Hall last weekend. Random, right?

Hey, Sunday’s the Academy Awards! Regular readers may know I’m a big Oscar nerd, so I’ve been reviewing this year's ten Best Picture nominees in preparation. At Roy Edroso Breaks It Down I have eight done so far -- A Complete Unknown, Anora, The Brutalist, Conclave, Nickel Boys, Emilia Pérez, The Substance, and Wicked – all of which reviews are now unlocked for non-subscribers, and this weekend I’ll have Dune 2 and I’m Still Here wrapped and reviewed here at alicublog along with my predictions by showtime. Oooh, so exciting! 

Maybe that sort of thing doesn’t thrill you, but it’s a nice change of pace from the disintegration of our republic, and symptoms of it like the “U.S. foreign policy as The McLaughlin Group for Imbeciles” presented at the White House today with Zelenskyy. Oh, Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, what a falling off was there! My opinion of Vance in particular was already subterranean, but his badgering Zelenskyy to thank Tubby for his help drove it to the center of the earth.

The silver lining in that now more Americans will understand on a visceral level what a couple of ignorant, posturing assholes Trump and Vance are. The downside is that our country is now even more clearly aligned with aggressor Russia against its victim Ukraine, with SecDef “Glug Glug” Hegseth drawing down our cyber preparedness against Pal Putin. I knew this country was headed for the toilet, but goddamn, I didn’t realize how quick the plunge would come.

Anyway, you want some laughs? Here are two more REBID freebies: One in which Trump suffers from existential ennui, and resolves it by humiliating a subordinate; and a new installment of Received Opinion with Bolt Upright, in which the Decision Desk experts agree that freedom of the press is one thing, but freedom from employment is quite another. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: TOP COPS ON THE TAKE EDITION.

This is my favorite version of this song. (This is #2.)

What’s new with the many-headed Hydra of American collapse? Along with the multiple plane crashes, we got new traitors and crackpots in the cabinet, the continuing rampage of DOGEbags through federal payment systems (and apparent compromise – or is it looting? -- of the U.S. Coast Guard payroll), and, most spectacularly, the Trump DOJ so very obviously extorting favors from the scumbag Mayor of New York that several top prosecutors have resigned rather than serve as accomplices to Deputy AG Emil Bove’s criminality. 

As has been noticed elsewhere, the New York case is very much worse than Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre – but it’s not hitting anywhere near as hard because now the Prestige Press is complicit, the Democratic Party is gutless, and, as a result of years of this shit, a hefty percentage of Americans can’t even agree that Crime Is Bad Even When Rich People Do It (nor can many of them, I would submit, tell time nor count past ten without taking their shoes off).

And that’s just the tippy-top of the headline list. Of particular interest to me is Tubby freezing the Associated Press out of the White House press pool because they won’t acknowledge his stupid “Gulf of America” tantrum in their style guide. And AP's alleged colleagues. who defended Fox News dipshits from Joe Biden's criticism, are not doing jack shit in solidarity. What are they afraid of? That they won't get tickets to the WHCA dinner? Or that they'll get barred from the White House press conferences -- which at this point are just pep rallies for Fat Hitler? No one there will tell any reporter anything useful in the public interest. Well, I guess the charade and humiliations are worth it just to keep their faces on TV so the public can see them as peers to Steve Doocy and Nick Fuentes.   

The first of our Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies for the week (wow, slick transition) takes off from that appalling event, and gets into why these allegedly semantic disputes are no less important to resist than all their other brutality. 

The other unlocked REBID episode has to do with Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center, and what the big boss’ first production might look like. (Features one of my acclaimed show-tune parodies!) While I am of course pissed off at the Soviet-style purge of the board and installation of himself and his flunkies (which, of course, the Prestige Press soft-pedals as “New board elects President Trump chair of Kennedy Center”), I foresee many opportunities for humor – like Tubby trying to get Cedric the Entertainer to join the Center’s long-running Sheer Madness. (“I just want you to do that Rosa Parks gag you did in that barber picture. Only we’re gonna give it a big build-up, see, also Candace Owens is your love interest.” “I keep telling you, my name is Tituss Burgess!” “No, you gotta use your stage name. That’s what draws the crowds.”) 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: KID'S GOT KILLER INSTINCTS EDITION.

Never knew this was written by Marc Campbell -- 
who also booked the old Rodeo Bar in New York! 
He recently passed: Nice appreciation here by the great Tim Stegall.

“Neighbor, how stands the Republic?” Fucked up and bullshit, Ben! The Muskbrats’ Rampage through federal data (including yours, and mine) seems to continue unabated, notwithstanding judges’ orders. The Muskbrats’  “investigations” into these systems are supposed to be in “read only” mode now, but since all Trump factota lie and crime all the time without ever facing meaningful consequences, why should we think they’ll stick to their word now? This is like waving the Beagle Boys into a bank vault and telling them, “remember – just look at the money, don’t take any!” 

(And now they’re plugging AI shit into the system – that always makes everything worse! )

Plus more grievous offenses that I have time or anti-nausea meds to contemplate, e.g.:

Just like calling them out as fascists, saying “the cruelty is the point” is something people used to think was going too far, once upon a time. Hard to believe now, isn’t it? Well, at least some Congressional Democrats are semi-erect, so maybe we’ll catch a break. 

Anyway, here are the Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies: First, the Diary of Daniel Penny – celebrity murderer turned venture capitalist! Once upon a time murdering unarmed black people just got you a following among a select group of scumbags – now it gets you a Presidential audience and a high-paying Wall Street gig for which you have no evident qualifications! Rightwing chucklefucks are already writing columns like “Critics mistake Daniel Penny for a DEI hire” which, lol:

Like the good investment firm that it is, Andreessen Horowitz is investing in the young man’s character. Perhaps it was his humility — Penny was relatively quiet during the trial, and has kept an impressively low profile since — his principles, his courage, or his risk-assessment that caught the firm’s eye.

Penny predicted that if he strangled a black busker for minutes on end until he died, he’d get off scot-free – which shows keen analytic skills! Plus when his lawyer told him to shut up, he listened! 

I will add that when you contemplate for even a minute that Penny, of West Islip, Long Island, got this gig and that it's much less easy to imagine George Zimmerman or Kyle Rittenhouse getting one like it, you will see something interesting about class in this country. 

The other freebie’s not as artful, but related, about whether their racism goes over less well than their fascism – that is, do normal people who may not get the whole “unaccountable government” thing nonetheless get that these guys are trying to kill trans people and bring back segregation? And that it’s a bad thing? I think so, but then I was assured the price of eggs was a big deal and the Prestige Press seems to think not, now that Tubby’s in power.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: DRUNK DRIVER NATION EDITION.

Seven years ago, can you believe it?

 Like Henry James said:

I find it such a mistake to have lived on -- when like other saner and safer persons, I might perfectly have not into this unspeakable give-away of the whole fool's paradise of our past. It throws back so livid a light – this was what we were so fondly working for! My aged nerves can scarcely stand it, and I bear up but as I can.

Amen, Hank! Looks like I should have hitched a ride into oblivion with David Bowie. The country’s headed for the crapper so fast we can barely make out the milestones as we go. 

First there’s the criminality – bald, disgusting, ignored or soft-pedaled by the Prestige Press and complaisant Congressmembers alike. Was it really a week ago that Tubby illegally fired all those Inspectors General (and more recently had one dragged out of her office despite – I repeat – her firing being illegal)? Since then he and his goons have been criming to beat the band, most spectacularly by withholding trillions in duly appropriated federal funds, which he seems to be releasing slowly, piece by piece, after a slew of lawsuits. And now he’s apparently letting Elon Musk lay hands on government payment systems – obviously for no reason other than plain theft. 

This is not to speak of Trump’s usual stupid yammering outrages, as when he blamed the recent National Airport crash on black people and “dwarfism.” We’re often told that Tubby is working some kind of elaborate mind-game when he does shit like this, but I think it’s more simple: He’s a bigoted piece of shit from way back who long ago became adept at veiling his prejudices just enough to not get thrown off talk shows, but in his dotage he’s aware that new work-arounds have emerged and he wants to get in on them. So when the rightwing clowns who are really running his show report to him, all he really pays attention to, besides (of course) opportunities for grift, are the modish new disguises for slurs they’ve cooked up. He uses the DEI bullshit guys like Chris Rufo dish out the way Archie Bunker used to use Affirmative Action and Welfare Mothers – as humorous cover for his own stupidity. 

Hey, want some Roy Edroso Breaks It Down free issues? Who doesn’t? First, another NYT pratfall; second, another day at the fash factory with Tubby’s fave Hitler-lovin’ South African schnook. See ya next week (we should live so long)!

SATURDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: THE WEAK IN REVIEW EDITION.

Lou Rawls had some jams, I tell you what.

A gruesome week all around! You follow the news and know about Tubby’s inaugural rampage; if you need a reminder, this tally by Olivia Troye hits the high points and I’m sure there are other such lists out there you may consult. 

One thing Troye misses is Trump’s ongoing assault on the National Institutes of Health – freezing spending, communications, and really all their main work, leaving researchers and treating physicians “in limbo,” as Mother Jones puts it. The NIH is the most important medical research institution in the world.  Also, as some of you may know, the NIH has been very good to me as a patient – and, I have observed over thirty-plus years of visits to the Clinical Center, it has been good to patients and families from every part of the nation and every walk of life. So I take this very personally and if it were possible for me to despise these people any more than I already do I would. 

Since Troye wrote her roundup, there have been even more catastrophes – for example, there was this (in the Nixonian sense) Friday Night Massacre, as the New York Times reports:

President Trump fired 17 inspectors general, the internal watchdogs who monitor federal agencies, on Friday night, capping a week of dramatic shake-ups of the federal bureaucracy focused on loyalty to the president, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

As Chris Geidner points out, the Times does not mention that under the law Trump is required to give Congress 30 days notice to remove an IG. So, this is illegal – albeit, in the judgement of our Prestige Press, not as noteworthy as the Leader's “muscular” style of governance. 

A shiny new dime for the first Congressional Democrat to say so!  Alas, there seems to be a general agreement among most of them not to rock the boat because people might get mad at them for it. 

As for the Prestige Press, ha ha ha, don’t get me started. We’ve already dispensed with Megan McArdle’s Musk-Hitlergruß apologism. (There's more in the first of two Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies -- yes, I'm embedding these now; follow along for more!) Now let’s look in on David Brooks. The dainty Times conservative lures liberals with a “How Trump Will Fail” headline, but the column is really about how Democrats should surrender:

Democrats are mistaken if they think they can rebuff Trump by howling the words “fascism” or “authoritarianism,” or by clutching their pearls every time he does something vulgar or immoral. If they decide to continue the culture war between the snooty elitists and the masses, I think we know how that’s going to turn out.

Tubby didn’t even get a majority of the popular vote, but Brooks acts (as does most of the Prestige Press) as if he’s an unstoppable juggernaut strongly supported by Joe Microbrew as he destroys public health and proposes to do away with FEMA – real bread-and-butter issues wimpy Democrats eschew in favor of the so-called “rule of law”! 

…If I were running the Democratic Party (God help them), I would tell the American people that Donald Trump is right about a lot of things. He’s accurately identified problems on issues like inflation, the border and the fallout from cultural condescension that members of the educated class have been too insular to anticipate. But when it comes to building structures to address those problems — well, the man is just hapless and incompetent.

In other words, get back to the previous forty years of neoliberal bullshit – we agree with your ends, comrade, it’s your means we question! It’s obviously worked out so well for America. 

Feral conservatives who do not have the same social anxieties as Brooks, and therefore no reason to pretend, are in hog heaven, for their inner wreckers have been validated and unleashed. The only complaint I’ve seen them make, via Abe Greenwald and Erick Erickson (UPDATE: And the Wall Street Journal editorial board), is about Tubby’s suspension of federal security details formerly afforded his erstwhile neocon advisors John Bolton and Mike Pompeo. (About his suspension of security for Anthony Fauci, who is at least as likely to be murdered by lunatics, they are silent and probably approving.) Imagine applauding a public official’s “muscular” actions against his enemies, then finding out that he’s also deliberately making your friends into sitting ducks for assassins, and not having the brains to figure out that the man is not your ally but a dangerous lunatic who could as easily turn his savagery on you. That’s American conservatism in the MAGA era. 

Oh, yeah, one more REBID freebie -- this one's not so serious: Since the Oscar nominations are out, I did a Fun Friday soliciting readers' nominations for Worst Best Picture of All Time. I picked mine, though there are many other worthy contenders. Enjoy!