140 Comments
User's avatar
Mommadillo's avatar

As someone who’s been watching this happen since the fifties, all I can say is “Here we go again.”

Manqueman's avatar

Man, that's old.

Meanwhile, I'm seeing Venezuela 2025 as a lot like Iran 1953. The Venn diagram overlap is like 97%.

Pere Ubu's avatar

Gonna be a bad next twenty years to be a Venezuelan, then.

But it went just fine in Iran, nothing significant ever came of it.

henry sholar's avatar

this time, outside of the hired killers we pay to stay in uniform and wait until someone appropriate gives them the command to 'kill' and 'fetch,' nobody else appears to know what the hell they are doing. This makes Paul Bremer look like a giant of a man. (He's only 82, mebbe... naw, nothin')

SteveB's avatar

I’m honestly impressed at the level of don’t-give-a-shit he’s bringin’ to this “What happens to Venezuela” thing.

Pere Ubu's avatar

I mean, he can't run one country worth a damn, and he's supposedly gonna run TWO? Or more?

I have the feeling there's going to be new jobs for all those folks who quit Heritage, in International Affairs.

Bern's avatar

You spelt 'infernal' incorrectly.

henry sholar's avatar

"the geezer with the faraway eyes" (at least i prep for such a state of being, by locking all the doors, and staying by myself for a few hours.)

Circumspectral's avatar

I won’t truly believe this is Iraqi Freedom Redux until I hear reports about pallets of cash being parachuted into the jungle down to waiting right wing paramilitaries.

Claire März's avatar

This time the pallets will be going straight to Mar-a-lago.

Circumspectral's avatar

No that’s the cocaine the paramilitaries are sending in return.

Bern's avatar

The Formula Prevails!

Claire März's avatar

Don Jr.’s pupils are like dinner plates.

Bern's avatar

Forked again...

LittlePig's avatar

Yes indeed. I came in mid-60s. They never learn. Let's put American soldiers in the jungle on their playing field. Sure, that'll work, just like Vietnam, right? Right???

LittlePig's avatar

I remember as a kid I loved watching the Five O'Clock Follies. Sweaty military types lying badly. Tons o' fun. This one won't even have that kind of comedy relief.

SundayStyle's avatar

Tan, rested, ready -- welcome back, Roy. I don't mean just to REBID, I mean to 2003 redux, of course.

Random thoughts: thank goodness Bolt is back, I was afraid he'd been spirited away to a reeducation camp. Also, I like Peoni's ensemble. It's always tricky pairing reds with each other.

And how very dare people "fixate" on the remarks of the President of the United States during a time of war. Obviously, we are snowflakes, the lot of us.

Bern's avatar

Peoni's...unfortunate...choice of hem length is due no doubt to the possibility that anything longer would trip her up (Shoes & hem's fault, not hers of course), causing a knock-on effect of tearing down the entire studio (and selling for scrap so's not a total loss).

SundayStyle's avatar

Gotta hide those varicose veins. Peoni is 80 years old and the 4 inch heels she favors are not ideal for circulation in the legs.

SnarkiNorski's avatar

I, for one, would welcome Peoni flailing with the curtain like something from A Night at the Opera.

Claire März's avatar

Peoni's get-up feels a little formal for news analysis tv, but I'll allow it, as it's a special occasion.

SundayStyle's avatar

Of course it's special! After all, how often does a Republican President start a war...er, never mind.

redoubtagain's avatar

That was her New Year's outfit, and she hasn't been home or drawn a sober breath since. She's slept on Chafe's couch since she was poured into a cab at four in the morning on New Year's Day.

rfc's avatar

Speaking of sober breaths, I was thinking she was a more of a Courvosier VSOP gal, since we're both old-fashioned.

redoubtagain's avatar

"Old-Fashioned" is also something she's very familiar with. And she eats the cherry first (it's a ritual)

Bern's avatar

Oof.

Bern's avatar

Oof again.

Roy Edroso's avatar

The Blacks* ruined it for her. (* an old Tim Meadows routine)

Claire März's avatar

Cab ride of shame! Of course, even drunk, she could wring a column out of it: "My cabbie, a classic blue-collar freedom-loving American from Queens, assured me that his entire family cheered the President's achivements in Venezuela..." (Leaves off the part where he screams at her for barfing in his cab.)

Bern's avatar

Thence the ICE takedown back at the cab station.

hot silhouette's avatar

If Roy spirits Bolt away to a camp, Bolt will remain his irrepressible self.

His clothes will be different. No links will be made to them.

Bern's avatar

the links are in the fence

ssdd's avatar

The Jolly Green Giant cartoon is perfect! Though I’m not sure I’m going to like having that image stuck in my head for the rest of my life…

Worriedman's avatar

You take a few days off and everything turns to shit. I'm not saying there's a connection....

Good column! Funny! I guess it's important to remember but just because things are bad it doesn't mean they're not funny! The other night I was flipping channels and ended up watching the last 12 or 13 minutes of Doctor Strangelove. It was hilarious! "Mein Fuhrer- I can walk ! " Comedy gold.

Manqueman's avatar

Yeah, let's blame Roy instead of the deranged Scumbag-in-Chief by whom we decided to led again after his proved to be unfit for office.

Seriously, it's less stressful to blame Roy.

Thanks for the inspiration, bro!

Roy Edroso's avatar

"You take a few days off and everything turns to shit." Has there been a week these past ten years when that wouldn't also have been true?

Worriedman's avatar

Look, common sense is all well and good but I'm an American dammit - I need someone to blame.

Bern's avatar

I was gonna do a deep dive on every single week of the last 10 years for a potential counterargument, then decided "Nah, life's too short, and besides, Roy's RIGHT THERE. Easy peasy lemon squeezy."

SteveB's avatar

Yes, this is your RIGHT as an American, demand to talk to his manager, that ALWAYS works!

Bern's avatar

The missus be goin' "Don't look at ME!"

SteveB's avatar

Trust me, he's unmanageable!

Ellis Weiner's avatar

Yes. "Animals can be bred...and *slaughtered...*"

Bern's avatar

My steaks were made.

Manqueman's avatar

The Maestro's return reminds me of my old days as a wage slave when one would have a lovely enough vacation and then within minutes of returning to work all the vacay bliss gets destroyed.

OTOH, spent Saturday in a tsunami of the Venezuela news and listening to 1%ers describing the fun they have thanks to their wealth. Broke something, maybe it'll get better, maybe it won't, don't especially care either way.

Oops, I forget, all things Weiss and CBS News requires the caveats that even now, CBS News is only insignificantly worse than its peers and said peers--Big Media--has been literal shit for decades.

And respect to Team Weiss/Dekoupil for being transparent that the new Evening News will be promoting bullshit and worse. I say that because it seems there's still many people requiring it spelled out for them.

Worriedman's avatar

We need to Roy on that wall !

Though, I'll be honest, I can't handle the truth.

Bern's avatar

2 marks for clarity.

redoubtagain's avatar

Weiss Doukoupil (sounds like a law firm, and spellcheck wants to correct it to "Doublespeak") have a way to go yet. Cronkite was his own managing editor, ended a Presidency and very nearly ended the Vietnam War all in the space of one editorial segment. These people couldn't organize a "piss-up in a brewery" as the saying goes.

Manqueman's avatar

Cronkite was as good as mainstream could be.

Which said mainstream has had no interest in since ca 1980.

SundayStyle's avatar

One of my favorite sayings. I sure hope all those 18 to 29 year old white guys who voted for Trump because the Scary Black Lady might send them to war are having a great day.

Claire März's avatar

They're having a "America fuck yeah, let's watch football" day. I'm afraid much of the electorate figure it's got nothing to do with them but maybe cheaper gas.

SundayStyle's avatar

That feel when you REEEALLY don't want to vote for a woman (and a Black one at that): "maybe I say she's a warmonger? Yeah, that's the ticket."

Bern's avatar

...and the cheap gas coulda been achieved without this dick swingin' exercise...I mean, it ain't like the oil companies are pumpin' every last drop in the ground now. Why? 'Cause that would plummet their profits...

Pere Ubu's avatar

But Project 2025 is full of foofaraw about fossil fuels and "cheap energy", and that's what they're programming him with.

Bern's avatar

IF the oil companies come along it's only because there'll be tax breaks 'round the mountain when they come...

Pere Ubu's avatar

Spellcheck is the true AI

Bern's avatar

Huh.

[or, in the original: "Hoounhh"]

hot silhouette's avatar

"The Maestro's return reminds me of my old days as a wage slave when one would have a lovely enough vacation and then within minutes of returning to work all the vacay bliss gets destroyed."

Worse yet, one vacations under a cloud. If you've been indispensable at work then you know the feeling.

When I was young, I took pride in becoming indispensable. It got me praise, and even a few raises and promotions. Now I would like to be merely perceived as indispensable.

I don't comment as much as I used to, but I'm glad Roy is back in action.

Roy Edroso's avatar

Thank you!

Bern's avatar

My career progressed from: "Hell yes you need me" to "I'm gonna just sidle on outta here for a few days or weeks and you won't miss me 'cause I told all my trade secrets to evahbody else in this here establishment, so if it goes to hell whilst I'm gone it ain't my fault but you'll pay me a lot to pretend I'm fixing it".

redoubtagain's avatar

Regarding "Gert Christian"--periodic reminder that William Walker, the "grey-eyed man of destiny", was trying to establish a slave state in Central America, and was defeated and ultimately destroyed by Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Bern's avatar

And right now in this-here present day we STILL honor the filibuster...Roy cannot out-satire the Menschen-Who-Pretend-To-Be-Uber.

ohsopolite's avatar

We should be so lucky that the state of said menschen should be so reduced that they'd have to be Uber drivers to (hopefully) make rent.

Bern's avatar

S̴o̴l̴i̴d̴a̴r̴i̴t̴y̴ Insubstantiality Forever!

henry sholar's avatar

what is it with this species? It's so-called "modern" variety, which though appearing mostly cleaner and more sanitary than in previous epochs, has a bad habit, every hundred years or so, of trying to destroy the world?

(sorry, i'm just bummed the corp media still assume he's not spouting gibberish. and he doesn't drool even half enough on camera. he's overdue.)

Bern's avatar

Lemmings...with howitzers!

Whipstitch's avatar

As soon as the centennial pandemic is over, it's time for Fascism.

Pere Ubu's avatar

Meanwhile, a little sparkling autocracy, as a treat

Bern's avatar

I seldom partake of autocracy, but when I do, I like it sparkling.

Stay fascist, my "friends".

Bern's avatar
Jan 5Edited

The modern fasces being rendered as, not the bundle of sticks wrapped up tight around an ax; rather a fat bundle of M-16s wrapped round a petroleum spigot.

Richard Von Busack's avatar

(here's what I wrote elsewhere): Submitted for your approval: Marco "Marquito" Rubio, an immigrant with ambition as big as the USA, and with a ruthless streak that's endeared him to his masters. One of those who exemplifies the phrase "Florida Man", a man with tangled roots in Cuba's past, an exile who, as the French say, learned nothing and forgot nothing. A sweaty, self-deluding man with kingly hopes and a knave's personality. He thinks he's hitched his wagon to a star, but he's actually tied himself to an anchor, which will drag him to the depths. With one final stop...at the Twilight Zone.

SteveB's avatar

Gotta admit, he’s in The Room Where It Happens. True, he’s bringin’ the Diet Coke, but he’s in the room.

Bern's avatar

For me it's the speech pattern. Talk fast and leave a flummoxed press corps.

Alexander Jokay's avatar

And Dokoupil takes over the news desk just in time for YOU. No more experts and academics talking over your head, just real 'Murricans with real opinions: "Can you buhlieve those libtards? They march around saying they want No Kings and then they go supporting the Dictator of Venezuela. Go figure. [expletive] communists!"

Pat Fitzgerald's avatar

The links were rockin’ today. Good ol’ Manitoba. Couldn't get passed Peggy Noonan’s garbled memories of Beverly Sills but who could, ‘cept Roy.

Roy Edroso's avatar

WSJ could use that column in a competency hearing.

Claire März's avatar

"that was a great moment, getting to tell Beverly Sills what I think music is."

Hoo boy. I picture Pegs -- drunk, slurring, saliva flying -- free-styling a bombastic nonsense treatise on art. Guessing it wasn't a "great moment" for Bev.

Bern's avatar

"Who's the diva NOW, Bevy?!?!"

SteveB's avatar

Bev is lookin' around, thinking, "This stage has gotta have a volcano I can throw myself into."

Bern's avatar
Jan 6Edited

And on that note (A above high C) we bid farewell to our diva, burnt to cinders stage right.

Databoy's avatar

Was Bari fanning herself, a la Blanche DuBois, when she saw "TRUMP standing splay-legged on it with his hands on his hips like the Jolly Green Giant, a derrick rising between his legs and shooting oil, and the legend, 'AMERICA IS BACK!'”

I can now picture Bari Weiss playing all four Golden Girls simultaneously via CGI in a reboot of the series (I'm going to Hell for that image, aren't I?), directed by Brett Ratner.

Bern's avatar

If it weren't for hell, we'd have no place to go at all.

Databoy's avatar

You're right. Yet I grew up with "Fly me to the moon…" We just don't think big anymore—except for Zohran Mamdani!

Bern's avatar

Fly THEM to the moon...or Mars.

Pere Ubu's avatar

or just straight into the Sun, that works too

SteveB's avatar

The bottom of the Marianas Trench never gets the attention it deserves in these situations.

Pere Ubu's avatar

Not on the same planet, is my strategy.

Claire März's avatar

Welcome back! Hardly anything to write about...

SteveB's avatar

It’s been a quiet week in Lake Brain-Be-Gone

Claire März's avatar

"hey don’t mean what they seem to mean if you just hear them without me telling you what they’re supposed to mean" -- hilarious also because Rubio served up nothing but the choppiest of chopped word salad on Sunday. And of course there's no controlling Tubby's mouth, no matter what message the comms team has landed on. But sure, let's move on to the next country, and the next. This one's not going so well, after all, why not roll the dice on a different one. Surely there's a nation out there ready to love Tubs the way he wants to be loved.

Bern's avatar

We have been instructed by the combined SecState/NatS'curity dude to always believe the Queensman. Thus, Greenlanders – prepare the snowballs!

Claire März's avatar

"IT’S A POGROM!"

You get her.

Roy Edroso's avatar

It's her catchphrase! Search site:edroso.substack.com "it's a pogrom"

SteveB's avatar

She’s pogromatic

Pere Ubu's avatar

Get with the pogrom!

SnarkiNorski's avatar

Like Garrett on Community shrieking, "IT'S A BEAR DANCE!"

Bern's avatar

Roy's back with a Banger!

Bari-with-an-'I' Whites Runs Rampant! Killer Miller Runs Around Dampant!

Things are heating up in the outta control room...

Cheez Whiz's avatar

Reality, with Rubio riding, is ahead by a nose but Edroso on Satire is pulling hard in the back stretch. About the only certanty is that politics abhorrs a vacuum, so somebody is gonna "run" Venezuela. Its beginning to look a lot like early 1960's Vietnam, and that turned out ok, eventually. Its a popular tourist destination today.

Claire März's avatar

Waiting for the announcement that Jared Kushner and unnamed "business partners" are developing an upscale resort on Venezuela's finest beaches.

Cheez Whiz's avatar

That will be how we learn Trump has made a Deal with whoever ends up running Venezuela.

SteveB's avatar

That was Madoro’s mistake, not hiring Jared so all this recent unpleasantness could have been avoided.

Bern's avatar

Yeah. Pretty obvious from the get. Even better, entice Musk-y down there with a free launch site.

Bern's avatar

"Tar Sands Resort"

SteveB's avatar

Luxuriate in the asphalt baths!

Circumspectral's avatar

Sung to the tune of “The Race Is On” by George Jones.

SteveB's avatar

Just think how much easier WWII could have been: Kill Hitler, leave Goering in charge, declare victory and come home for a big parade.