78 Comments
User's avatar
Manqueman's avatar

Maestro, did wading through the underlying reality to write today's post more stressful than normal?

As for my tolerance level or whatever, I found this slab of reality a bit more than I can handle:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/trump-lays-the-groundwork-to-rig-the-2026-midterms

I mean, I try to avoid a chunk of the 24/7 fecal tsunami* and let's say discount some of what I do see. But stuff like what's at the linked piece, it's getting a little harder.

Then again, letting a problem fester instead of dealing with it only works some of the time but not as a rule.

(*Another good name for the punk band we need.)

Bern's avatar

** and delightfully tracks right along with 'bitchin' Camaro'. Somebody oughta write that song.

Manqueman's avatar

Bitching Camaro is that new country that sounds like rock except for the vocals. But that would be a good name.

Worriedman's avatar

Sanctemeloria - Did that name just come to you in a burst of inspiration?

Culvert water was funny AF.

ssdd's avatar

The Enya bit got me!

Pat Fitzgerald's avatar

I caught a dose of “unwholesome gnar” during last night’s Phillies-Mets game.

Bern's avatar

Was you in the bleachers? I hear that's where stuff happens...

Roy Edroso's avatar

Under, rather. Or so it was in the old days.

SteveB's avatar

Or under the boardwalk, if you didn't have bleachers.

redoubtagain's avatar

My brain saw "Santeria" and started to go in a strange (yet similar) direction.

Bern's avatar

My feed served up a buncha other tracks after your link. That quartet plays the same tune over and over and...but it's a cute bit.

SundayStyle's avatar

RFK was many things, and one of them was the most hard-headed of pragmatists. So if there was anything authentically magical in Junior's spiritualistic woo, by now his dead dad would have reanimated and risen from the grave to strangle him with his cold dead hands for besmirching the family name.

Bern's avatar

Thanks for 'besmirch'. Makes me think that beekeepers with their bespoke beehives could up their game by flogging their bees merch.

SundayStyle's avatar

You're welcome. I would never bee-grudge helping out a fellow REBIDer.

Bern's avatar

I LOVE bees! Alla them l'il darlins with their stripey outfits and their cute little bee hooves.

Howlin Wolfe's avatar

It behives us all to protect the beehooves!

Ellis Weiner's avatar

You're a honey.

Bern's avatar

MMMMWAAAH! (Wow that gave me a buzz)

Pink Collar (retd.)'s avatar

Even if the promised miracles unfold, what still will be the most uncanny is that Bobby Brainworm's portrait could have been painted in 1944. https://www.artic.edu/artworks/93798/picture-of-dorian-gray

SteveB's avatar

I did that, shortly after I perfected my time machine. Then I went back 22 years to insert a fake birthday card from Trump into Epstein's book. Some of these things take a little time to pay off, but it's easier to be patient when you have a time machine.

Pink Collar (retd.)'s avatar

This can only mean we also know who got Obama's parents to fake his birth certificate well ahead of time.

Bern's avatar

Most people who claim to have time machines eventually are forced to become patients, yeah...

DrBDH's avatar

Stevie Nicks slander! Anyway, funny story about quack healers. Back when I was doing emergency air transport medicine, the hospital built a metal helipad over the MRI scanner. In a short time the pad was magnetized and worthless because it threw off the helo compass. One day we’re sitting in the Comm Center waiting for a request when this guy comes in and says he’s heard about our problem and can help ‘cause he’s an expert at demagnetizing things. Then he gets out this wand and asks to be taken to the pad. Phil the pilot says ok and they leave. Phil’s back in a few minutes. “He chanted and waved his wand around and said it was fixed.” We all had a good laugh. “Call psych?” someone asked. “Only if he comes back.” He didn’t but we heard he was up in med-surg waving his wand over a sick friend. He probably works for HHS now.

Bern's avatar

HAHAHA OOF!!!

SundayStyle's avatar

If he doesn't work for HHS yet, it's only because nobody's told RFK Jr about him. This is the kind of guy he'd actively headhunt if he had his details. Maybe make him a Deputy.

SnarkiNorski's avatar

Alas, he was arrested for practicing medicine without a wand license.

SteveB's avatar

You wanna insert WHAT WHERE?

SnarkiNorski's avatar

I can’t purge your humours; I left my bezoar stone back at the alembic.

SteveB's avatar

Also I'm out-of-network

Pere Ubu's avatar

Wrong kind of Magic Wand.

Claire März's avatar

I have a retired friend who was a big-wig environmental lawyer, worked on a lot of high profile remediation jobs. Twenty or more years ago, he was in a meeting on a large, nasty clean-up. There was a guy there who claimed to have discovered a new method of eradicating toxic chemicals that have leached into, well, everything. It was some kind of wild procedure involving the creation of heretofore nonexistent micro-organisms that would devour the pollutants in no time. (I know stuff like that exists; this was much more extreme and sci-fi and woo-woo, I just can't remember all the details.) Everyone in the room listened respectfully, then the guy left. My friend, who's on the law side, not a science guy, was blown away. He turned to all his scientist colleagues and asked "Is that even possible?" And the scientists all burst out laughing. The guy was Bobby Brainworm.

SundayStyle's avatar

This is a fantastic piece of his backstory. If it were anyone else you'd think it had to be made up or exaggerated. But with this guy, 100% believable. The historical woo goes deep with this dangerous loon.

SteveB's avatar

And now you know 1% of the rest of the story.

Cheez Whiz's avatar

The kernel of possible truth is the foundation for all big lies.

Pere Ubu's avatar

Actually, you can demagnetize metal by banging it with a hammer (or, in this case, a sledge) - the physical impact jars the alignment that creates the magnetism. I mean, you can do that with an iron nail. Not sure how many bangs it would take for a helipad. But a sledge is just a very big wand...

Bern's avatar

Maybe, but let us all agree Percy chose the correct term.

SnarkiNorski's avatar

Those were the days, my friend.

DrBDH's avatar

God, that would’ve made the story even better, some weirdo whanging away with a sledgehammer on the University’s helipad. The MRI scanner was noisy enough as it was.

Pere Ubu's avatar

Of course, if they just leave it there, it'll just get remagnetized. Best thing would be to MOVE THE DAMN MRI, preferably to the basement.

SteveB's avatar

This is metallurgically correct, but for effect while you're bangin' you gotta shout "Out! Out ye demons of the polar regions!"

Bern's avatar

Because...eldritch...?

Richard Von Busack's avatar

Ooo eee ooo ahah ting tang walla walla bing bang! Great column

Bern's avatar

SANCTEMELORIA. That is all*

*it takes to get 2 marks.

Nance's avatar

I heard Croaky's shouting in my head, and LOL'd.

SteveB's avatar

When he finally passes, if will be a crime if at least one headline writer doesn't go with Kennedy Croaks.

SnarkiNorski's avatar

Aces, boss. You absolutely nailed Sanctemeloria in every aspect.

Side note, since Stevie Nicks was mentioned: I learned recently that Prince played the keyboards on “Stand Back.” He was in LA when she was recording, so she called him up, he came over, knocked out the synth part in 20 minutes, and left. On tour it took two keyboardists to play the parts he did alone.

SteveB's avatar

Cassidy was so upset by this that afterward, in private, he expressed grave concerns about Kennedy to a select group of fellow Republicans.

Ellis Weiner's avatar

The lack of a question mark after "Why do you not submit" is my favorite thing ever.

Whipstitch's avatar

Kennedy's latest: School shootings are caused by anti-depressants. Why, before we had them, kids were downright *encouraged* to bring guns to school! (paraphrased but not made up.)

redoubtagain's avatar

("This message brought to you by the letters N, R, and A, and the numbers .38 and .45. 'An armed school is a polite school.'")

SteveB's avatar

Huh. I thought all school shooters were trans. At least Pam Bondi thinks so.

https://apnews.com/article/justice-department-ban-trans-gun-owners-trump-e05b489ad64b80af31e376d6d3ef7dfd

Bern's avatar

That there, that right there, that there is a YOICKS!

Claire März's avatar

So there IS a limit to the 2nd Amendment. I'll be.

Bern's avatar

2 genders, 2 amendments. It's just common sense.

SteveB's avatar

They keep a copy of the Bill of Rights in the Capitol, under the dome. Two amendments, one cupola.

SteveB's avatar

It's right there in the originalist text: "The rights of THE PEOPLE to keep and bear arms..."

Obviously only applies to those who Republicans consider people. A rapidly shrinking group.

Pere Ubu's avatar

Yeah, here we fucking go, he's gonna ban SSRIs. And then I'm fucked, because that's the only thing keeping me from going berserker. (Although! Since I turn more conservative when I'm depressed, I might be able to get a job with the government!)

Bern's avatar

You'll be better off conserving on your own time. The gummint is more on the profligate end of the spectrum right now...

Cheez Whiz's avatar

An absolute banger, boss. Top shelf start to fini.

"I'm allergic to patchouli". "So that's what it's called".

SteveB's avatar

That ending was so good it deserved a Minsky Pickup.

SteveB's avatar

Also, regarding the picture, it's nice to see Jacob Chansley has found work.

Pere Ubu's avatar

"Wainscoting, wainscoting, wainscoting. Sounds like the name of a little Dorset village. Wainscoting."

"ACH, we been mentioned on t' Substack!"

SnarkiNorski's avatar

Wains Cotting - 3 furlongs >>>

redoubtagain's avatar

"Not many people know that 'wainscoting' was invented in Dorsetshire by Hubert de Boulanger, Second Earl of Wainscot, in 1144."

Bern's avatar

We woulda erected it here at our place but we can't get the wood, you know...

billcinsd's avatar

Isn't MarkWain Scott a Senator from Oklahoma?

LittlePig's avatar

And Charlie Kirk is graveyard dead. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap"

LittlePig's avatar

Tee hee. Anne's Bible study group were horrified that I should rejoice at Charlie Kirk's demise. "Honey, would you like me to address your Bible study group? (smiles sweetly)." I know better than that. Oh, we're going to play Leviticus, are we? (cracks knuckles). So, after every period you sacrifice and burn two doves. Right? Right?

redoubtagain's avatar

Somebody over to Bluesky said "He died as he lived, 'talkin' out the side of his neck'".

No sympathy. Whatsoever. That man would have killed me and mine with his bare hands if possible. He was a Nazi, and met the end that Nazis should meet.

Bern's avatar

Laughing and oofing at the same time.

LittlePig's avatar

Now that is brutal. Give that man a gold star!