163 Comments
Comment deleted
Jan 23Edited
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

I'm assuming her next step is dating Gavin Newsom.

Expand full comment

Aw, man...

Expand full comment

I mean, who hasn't, amirite?

Expand full comment

Harsh, but fair.

My California rootedness wants to give Gavin a pat on the back for doin' some good stuff (not least of course losing the loon) but also grasp him firmly by the shoulders and give him a good shake while intoning "What were you THINKING??!!"

Expand full comment

I always wonder why the Legislature doesn't, y'know, *override some of those vetos*.

Expand full comment

Expedienciary go-along-get-along, you-lick-mine-I'll-lick-yoursitudinalism...?

Expand full comment

"Numpty" is a great word! More later. I'm in a meeting right now. Usually I don't give a shit but I called the meeting so I need to do a particularly good job of feining interest.

Expand full comment

Good luck!

Expand full comment

I’ll start with the obvious joke: DeSantis should have been forced to carry his candidacy to full term.

The DeSantis Boomlet of 2022, when loads of pundits on the right (and center) believed DeSantis could topple Trump, is a textbook example of rightwing and centrist pundits simply not being normal, and apparently not knowing anyone who *IS* normal. Anyone could have told them once the DeSantis-bot was forced to interact with us carbon-based life forms his candidacy would grind to a halt. The guy is just weird in an unsettling, uncanny valley type of way, sort of like if some screenwriter was making a “how about a fascist governor, but he’s really a robot?” pitch to the studios.

We’ll have to wait to find out, after he’s returned to his charging station, if he will upload “human social skills” software before 2028. But I doubt it. Unlike you Roy, I’m not sure what he wants to do next. Run for President again? Join a think tank? Dream of electric sheep? Who knows. But I think talking head is out of the question. That would be a sure-fire recipe for getting normies to change the channel.

Expand full comment

"Who knows. But I think talking head is out of the question. That would be a sure-fire recipe for getting normies to change the channel."

IIRC, no one wanted to watch that old Max Headroom series back in the day either...

Expand full comment

The first episode was brilliant. The rest of the series could be characterized as the weekly attempt to stretch about 20 minutes of material into a full hour...

Expand full comment

And Max had the advantage of occasionally being relatable.

Expand full comment

This comment made me put The Art of Noise (featuring Max Headroom)’s “Paranoimia” in my playlist.

Expand full comment

Oh, I KNEW you folks had good taste in music! *sigh* remembering the days MTV showed real videos like "Close to the Edit"

Expand full comment

Check out the video for Art of Noise featuring Duane Eddy’s “Peter Gunn”: a young Rik Mayall appears in it.

Expand full comment

Probably my favorite version of Peter Gunn.

First time I ever drove, Art of Noise was in the cassette player.

Expand full comment

Objection! I did. In fact, I shall have to search it out.

Am I wrong, or is it the only cyberpunk TV series?

Expand full comment

He did win Florida, which while it is a truly fascist state is not really that different than a lot of others and perhaps enough to push the Electoral College to grant him the presidency. Don't forget that Clinton got several million votes more than Trump.

Expand full comment

True, but IIRC he only squeaked by the first time, and the second time he ran against Charlie Crist, who could probably be defeated by a monkey in a necktie.

Expand full comment

(Ex-Republican Charlie Crist, by the way.)

Expand full comment

BRILLIANT strategy by the Florida Dems, BTW. "We'll get all the Democratic voteses because he's runnin' as a Democrat, AND we'll get all the Republican voteses cuz he's a Republican too! It can't miss!"

Expand full comment

"who could probably be defeated by a monkey in a necktie"

100% would watch

Expand full comment

Florida's gonna Florida. If Las Vegas was a state...

Expand full comment

Maybe, but wife might take a swing at coaching Meatball in the dark arts of TV performance. I smell another REBID coming on...

Expand full comment

Do android dictators dream of electric sheeple?

Expand full comment

I have one acronym for DeSatan and I’ll leave it at that: RIH (Rest in Hell).

Expand full comment

"I come not to praise DeSatan but to bury him."

The Malevolent Duck's presidential hopes waddle back into the Slough of Despair.

Expand full comment

Ya know, given the wonders that climate change and Republicans are bringing to Florida, I'm thinking "Slough Of Despair" could soon replace "Sunshine State" on the license plates.

Expand full comment

Now that I think about it, maybe Three Fingers would have been a better candidate in the general election than fPOTUS -- that is, even more repellant to the voters. Bummer...

Anyway, I’m so old that I lost it for him when I saw him copying fPOTUS’ childish hand gestures. I thought: what kind of putz copies that bizarre shit unless it’s an on-the-spectrum thing?

But then came, in no particular order, Don’t say gay, Disney,the white boots and high heels and a broad range of fuckery. And, of course, his support for Covid.

Meanwhile, also weird is how trouble Republican pols have channeling Trump’s insanity while the base only wants it from the old man. Of course, the base enjoys the sadism from anyone, the insanity not so much.

Of course, with the primaries about to become irrelevant but for grifting, fake-Tubby has time for a couple of trials.

Expand full comment

I do like the phrase: "His support for Covid." Upvoted for that.

Expand full comment

First, DeSantis will get a lavishly endowed professorship at New College in Sarasota, maybe the the Christopher Rufo Chair of Conversion Therapy, with no teaching duties, of course, and with a special appointment overseeing women’s sports, to keep the trans and dykes off the volleyball team. Then he’ll sign up with the law firm of Takeum, Shakeum and Runn, filing mass lawsuits on behalf of parents who find books scary and think modern music is all Satan and gay. Finally, he’ll raise money for a Real America Theme Park in Cedar Key, FL, to rival Disney, which will consist of multiple doublewide trailers and will be destroyed by Hurricane Elwood in 2028.

Expand full comment

Cedar Key. Back in 1981, I flew in there on a solo cross-country flight. There were only a handful of houses there at the time, and as I cruised along the downwind leg of the traffic pattern, I saw a yellow Mercedes pull out of a driveway and head to the runway. After I landed, the little old lady at the wheel of that Mercedes asked me if I wanted some coffee or a doughnut! She was the welcome wagon!

Expand full comment

Now she'd be hustlin' a buncha Spanish-speaking folks onto a plane outta state...

Expand full comment

Yeah, even in the 90’s Cedar Key was Old Florida: a motel on the beach, a boardwalk, a fish shack and some houses in stilts. It was the first state capital but was destroyed in a hurricane and never fully recovered.

Expand full comment

In Traveller, we'd call this a Class D starport.

Expand full comment

I think he has a monumental task ahead:

Assert the dehumanization of the GAYZ and all they represent and project EXCEPT THE DARLING WHITE BOOTS! THOSE ARE MANLY! MANLY I TELL YOU!!!

Expand full comment

Pee Wee Herman wore them better. And danced on the bar to “Tequila” in them, too!

Expand full comment

Those boots were made for losin'

Expand full comment

Cue DeSantis: “ I meant to do that!”

Expand full comment

Hey, that's Elon's move!

Expand full comment

Hurricane Elwood: "I HATE Florida Nazis."

Expand full comment

You got it!

Expand full comment

"[...] think modern music is all Satan and gay." Wait, wait, wait - you mean to tell me it... isn't?

Expand full comment

" What does it take to crap out as quickly as DeSantis did?"

I have Michelle Bachmann on line 1. Even though God told her to run for president, she crapped out as fast of Ron-boy did.

On line 2, I have Rick Perry. God also told him to run, only to let him implode in spectacular fashion.

I do not think Desantis is going to end up on TV or in a think tank or with any of the other usual wingnut welfare gigs. He's one thoroughly detestable and obnoxious human, and the more people were exposed to him, the more they came to despise him. No amount of comportment training is going to remedy that because being able to instantly alienate everyone in the room is now his superpower.

And I think he's going to be pretty busy for the next few years. He still has his term as governor to finish out, and there's that tremendous Disney lawsuit that he's going to lose. There's also all the OTHER lawsuits he got the state sucked into that he's going to lose. And there's all of his conservative cronies who are being revealed as completely amoral cretins in delightfully public ways. And I'd bet folding money that Casey decides he has no future in her life because her ambitions are waaaaay bigger than just being the wife of an ex-governor/historical footnote/contemporary punchline.

Expand full comment

Beat me to it. I'm now taking bets on how long that marriage will last.

Expand full comment

Put me down for $5 on "two weeks after he exits the governor's office."

Expand full comment

I'm pretty sure the Missus is already paid extra who actually lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Expand full comment

Oo-Oo-Oo-F!

Expand full comment

Great minds etc. Less interested in what becomes of Ron than what Casey’s next move will be. She didn’t assemble that Jackie O wardrobe to hang around Tallahassee.

Expand full comment

Dunno, a woman who's willing to overlook "Thigh food" to get married is hard to predict.

Expand full comment

Hah- just wrote more or less the same thing- wish I'd read you first! Respect...

Expand full comment

That she must be some kind of political genius is belied by the fact she married Lumpy.

Expand full comment

The only mystery is why such a seething ball of vitriol and ambition ever initially relegated herself to the role of Politician's Wife. She cannot be contained.

Expand full comment

She contains multitudes . . . of small children she swallowed whole and head-first.

Expand full comment

It's just a shame that Guantanamo can't take him back.

Expand full comment

Gitmo: "We don't want the fucker, either!"

Expand full comment

I mean, we take the worst of the worst, but COME ON

Expand full comment

"They hate people like Walker and DeSantis. It’s frankly their most relatable quality."

I'd forgotten this quote. But it's re-runnable because it is truly true.

Expand full comment

Sort of like the only relatable thing about Trump was how he couldn't wipe the smirk off his face when he was surrounded by evangelical Christians who were praying for him. It was like he was looking at the camera with the thought bubble "can you believe I've put it over on these asshole marks" over his head.

Expand full comment

Except in truthy-truth they are the EASIEST MARKS. Their entire world view demands it of them.

Expand full comment

Accurate. They are the living embodiment of P. T. Barnum's cynicism.

Expand full comment

Truth! A while back, I read that Utah led the country in confidence scams. That "must respect all authority" stuff is a pretty harsh drug.

Expand full comment

Wherever there's someone talkin' shit 'bout Scott Walker, I'll be there.

Expand full comment

Shiny bald spot on line 3

Expand full comment

LOL, he actually claimed it was scar tissue, said he'd bumped his head while installing cabinets. Nothing says "tryhard" like having an elaborate lie to explain why you're balding.

Expand full comment

Working on and around aircraft, I have slammed my head into wings and propellers hard enough to knock me down. Hard enough to actually tear my scalp. And yet, somehow, I still have a full head of hair. Walker must have hit those cabinets while running full-tilt so that the cabinet edge peeled his scalp back from forehead to occipital.

Expand full comment

It's a weird example of the Streisand effect: With his elaborate and ridiculous explanation, he ensured that all anyone would see is the bald spot.

Expand full comment

An aviation psychologist who freelanced for me once wrote:

"Have you ever seen a 6-foot tall tooth? Of course you have! Think about someone standing on stage speaking to an audience. That person has a piece of spinach stuck to one of their front teeth. The instant you notice that piece of spinach, it becomes all you can see. The speaker transforms from a person to a six-foot tall tooth."

The article was on how certain distractions can fixate our minds and make us ignore more important things.

Expand full comment

This is clinical. I appreciate clinical.

Expand full comment

I have had an uncanny knack for bashing my head into things like cabinets, car hoods, and various parts of the machines at work but I never blamed them for the fact my hairline started retreating the way it did, hahahaha!

Expand full comment

You know how you'll be reading on the internet and some pundit style wag starts talking about how bad Trump is going to beat our ass and how completely fucked we are ? There's a real good chance that whoever is writing that crap once wrote a piece about how DeSantis is some kind of fascist God and just you wait until he runs for president and we will be really fucked because he'll be unstoppable.

The shit was all over the place year before last

Expand full comment

"I went to a Trump rally and everybody there LOVES Trump so much, oh, you Dems are gonna lose so BAD."

Expand full comment

“How can Trump have lost? His rallies were so big!” MAGA moron.

Expand full comment

Don't forget the BOAT PARADES

Expand full comment

"And all the same people, every time! That's POPULARITY!"

Expand full comment

And COMMITTMENT!

Expand full comment

Or conservatorship, at least.

Expand full comment

Talk about confirmation bias!

Expand full comment

People who wait in the cold to get into Lambeau Field really like the Packers, film at 11.

Expand full comment

Nah. They just keepin' watch on their investment.

Expand full comment

While we’re on the topic of desperation, 58-year-old confirmed bachelor Tim Scott got engaged over the weekend, with his campaign releasing photos of him kneeling before his soulmate on a lovely stretch of SC beach. Will send a link to their registry when I find it.

Expand full comment

aw...bless their hearts...

Expand full comment

I expect that engagement will go the way of the wind when Nancy Mace takes over his Senate seat next year, and no further political need of a bride will be needed.

Expand full comment

How does this work, exactly? Lifetime bachelorhood is OK for Lindsey but not for Tim?

Expand full comment

South Carolina loves those traditional family values, you know.

Expand full comment

Hey hey hey! As a 59y/o confirmed bachelor I kinda resent the implication.

Expand full comment

To thine own self be true. And don’t make any huge life changes to impress an orange tub of goo.

Expand full comment

Lindsey is a made man.

Expand full comment

Well, poor Tim also has his, um, unfortunate skin tone to overcome, so there's that.

Expand full comment

I blame the parents.

Expand full comment

Take the rest of the day off, my friend.

Expand full comment

I hope he at least asks his boyfriend to be his best man. It would be rude to leave him out of the ceremony entirely.

Expand full comment

The Wedgewood “Plantation” dinner set, but skip the fish forks.

Expand full comment

now envisioning a fish with a fork

Expand full comment

Snakes be goin' "Dude. Where ya been?"

Expand full comment

He might have lasted longer if he had dropped 15 pounds and gotten some clothes that fit instead of the lift boots.

Expand full comment

Catty, but probly, yeah...

Expand full comment

1996 was supposed to be the year Dan Quayle took his rightful place as The Gipper's true heir. Turns out God was saving the smug little shit for the one worthwhile thing he was ever to do: Help save the Republic, or at least give it a brief lease on life.

(This is the era of Things I Never Thought I'd Say.)

Expand full comment

When you need Dan Quayle to tell you what the Constitution says.

Expand full comment

We're safe, I read the whole thing and there's not a potato in it.

Expand full comment

From your mouth to God's ears. Oh wait, I'm an atheist 🤣

Expand full comment

Or, in the words of the Mighty Captain Picard (at the small-appliance repair shop where he's taken his Singer): "Make It Sew!"

Expand full comment

* Reaches for the rolled-up newspaper *

Expand full comment

Where's Pops when I need him? He only made me go to my room!

Expand full comment

*looks at GM, nods*

Expand full comment

It's a fair cop.

Expand full comment

It's comments like this that can twist a thread, or even tear the fabric of the community here. I'm not one to pin my hopes on such a thing, but perhaps you can mend your ways and help us all stitch this coalition together.

Expand full comment

Zip it.

Expand full comment

I say “from your mouth to dog’s ears” because it’ll have about the same effect.

Well, the dog might thump his tail.

I’m heartened, because he was mostly the culture war candidate: nasty, with the Pushaw woman pushing “all gays/LBGTQS or mentions thereof are grooming your kids to be molested”, and “Disney wants to put boys in yer daughters’ gym showers and cut your sons’ penises off”...most folk got this was stone nuts.

Florida had been both redneck as fuck, and a very gay state. Ron’s next turn will probably avoid that..and his Wife’s Jackie O longings will remain unfulfilled.

Watching the crackup of the Moms for Threeways, and insane FL Pols is fun: but can a Dem win in Florida?

Expand full comment

"can a Dem win in Florida?"

I say we run Charlie Crist one more time and see if that works.

Expand full comment

People of Florida lookin' at this post goin' "Damn. Who hearted THAT?!"

Expand full comment

Now we know Charlie's a subscriber.

Expand full comment

Evan Urquhart over at Assigned Media has an analysis of Meatball and his anti-trans legacy. Haven't read it yet but Evan's a reliable source.

https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/desantis-anti-trans-politics-what-was-that

Expand full comment

Yes, Parker Molloy also posted this, it's really excellent. Some good insights there on how moral panics are manufactured, and why.

Expand full comment

It also made me wonder if the average Republican voter has a limited appetite for new forms of bigotry, being perfectly satisfied with the old forms (racism and misogyny) inherited from their parents. Sure, they were willing to take on Muslim-hatin' after 9/11, as a form of service to their country, but don't expect 'em to study up on new forms of hate every couple of years, that's more mental effort than they're willing to put in. Turns out the anti-trans stuff was just too novel and weird and complex for them. Trump knows how to stick to the tried-and-true.

Expand full comment

Jackie Faux might be mulling her own candidacy for Governor come 2026; as it is now it's a reverse of "Elect Lurleen And Let George Do It". She's the one with the true political instincts (and strikes me as an updated version of the only woman Richard Nixon was afraid of, Barbara Bush).

Expand full comment

It was right here at REBID that I proclaimed the only pleasure I would take from the Republican primaries and the endless election coverage would be Trump's evisceration of Meatball Ron. The fucking worm didn't even make it to New Hampshire before bending the knee to Trump. The next 9 months are going to be completely joyless.

Expand full comment

Yeah – straight to rerons...sad.

Expand full comment

Where's that rolled-up newspaper?

Expand full comment

[skittering under bed]

Expand full comment

Gil Scott Heron was way ahead of you.

https://youtu.be/Xc1flR0LgwY

Expand full comment

"The Republicans haven’t renominated a losing presidential candidate like Trump since Tom Dewey,"

Uh, Nixon...

And, sadly, he won.

Expand full comment

Was sad that Bigelow cut him off, but you know the song: “you gets no bread for one meatball.”

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Jan 23
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Thanks! I wish I had my ol’ writin’ job back. This struck me as funny...I’m also surprised that no one seems to have made a connection between TV’s The Curse and Jared and Ivan’s.

Expand full comment