Caen Spree: Kennedy Curse, De-Icing, Sweeney Todt

I got a fever and the only cure is more ellipses!

I got dots on my thots and I gots ta plotz! Or something. The category explained. Now, onward...

I’ve written several posts about the Kennedy Center over the years but I guess this one is most relevant now that Tubby has gone full mob boss and, thwarted in his desire to shit-smear his name on Camelot, had his goons shut it down in preparation for busting the joint out. Trump’s media flunkies simply repeat his absurd claims that the Center is on the verge of collapse (“A large piece of concrete and steel just dropped down, in a thud, from the ceiling of a heavily trafficked main hallway” lol), but everyone knows what’s up: If he can’t have it, no one can...

In a way Trump’s hard-on for Kennedy magic is a throwback to Nixon who, as portrayed in the Oliver Stone biopic and Robert Coover’s The Public Burning and elsewhere, brooded over JFK’s relative popularity and glamor. But even at his Watergate nadir Tricky Dick couldn’t be imagined wrecking his rival’s temple out of spite. It makes you wonder who the GOP is going to find that’s even more id-driven and petty than Tubby for the next go-round. Maybe RFK Jr.; he’s insane, and he can argue they’d only be changing part of the name...

Trump’s lies about the condition of the Kennedy Center and its finances are very like his and other conservatives’ constant lying that American cities are filthy, crime-ridden hellholes out of Death Wish. Anyone who has spent more than a few days in most of our metropoli knows this to be false. I think even his adherents must know it at this point. Still, the city slurs serve the purpose of making the many exurbanites and backwoodsmen in his movement feel better about living in Possum Crick rather than in the blue places with their heavy minority populations, museums, and libraries. But the Kennedy Center lie doesn’t serve the same soothing function; even the MAGA dead-enders can’t possibly believe that Joe Biden let the Kennedy Center fall to ruin, and that bestowing Trump’s name upon it would magically fix it. In fact I doubt most of them give a shit about the Kennedy Center. Maybe an underappreciated reason for Tubby’s declining popularity is that he now lies only to please himself, and offers nothing, not even cold comfort, to his gas-poor rubes...

There’s something weird about the recent Washington Post story about an ICE agent who, distraught at the prospect of being fired, blew his brains out. I buy that Joseph Moore had a checkered prior record as an LEO, and that the rush to ramp up the American Gestapo meant that record was missed or ignored by ICE. But the Post says “three former DHS officials” told them “the agency has begun quietly firing some of the recruits” because “concerns about vetting exploded into public view this summer.” Huh? We’ve all known for at least a year that ICE was hiring whatever scum it could get — and their behavior, as shown in hundreds if not thousands of videos, and the agency’s defenses of that behavior (like its failure to discipline the murderers in their ranks), gives extra proof. Now they’re getting cold feet? Doesn’t make sense...

I mean, get a load of this, from the story:

But [another officer] worried that Moore didn’t have the right temperament for law enforcement.

During one of their assignments together, he said, Moore shattered a car window to reach allegedly undocumented immigrants inside.

“It was like, whoa, why did this guy break this window out?” the former officer said, and Moore later said he was embarrassed for using force. “Clearly, a very intelligent guy, and very capable and competent, but his behavior during arrest operations to me was a little bit erratic or spastic.”

ICE! This is ICE we’re talking about! The guys with the covered faces beating up abuelas and dragging them to concentration camps! Half their videos show them shattering windows! Next I suppose Tom Homan is gonna come out with Al Sharpton and give these guys racial sensitivity training...

I’m pretty close to a Bernie Bro, and have voted for Sanders (my preferred term for him — c’mon, this ain’t a pop concert) every time he’s been on a presidential primary ballot. But this plan for Sanders to barnstorm with Steve Bannon against AI adoption is insane. I’m fine with opposition to unregulated AI and to outreach beyond traditional constituencies but, dude, Bannon is the living embodiment of false consciousness; he’s all about steering disaffected working class males away from socialism and toward old-fashioned Italian strongman fascism. And the idea that Sanders might sway the lads in a “debate” with this creep is — I can’t believe I have to say this — some Ezra Klein bullshit...

I see we’re having more Sydney Sweeney Discourse. I’ve written about one of its previous iterations and I have to say that it’s almost cute to me because it’s such a throwback, pitched toward dotards such as myself who remember when the prospect of a little celebrity skin was really titillating. But now who under 60 gives a shit? Culture warriors, I guess, who previously acted like if you didn’t bark like a Tex Avery wolf at Sweeney’s Hello Boys routine you were some kind of sexless killjoy. I’m seeing less of that so far, and I wonder if that’s because 1.) Sweeney’s ad actually says the Novig sports-only betting platform eschews the kind of insane wager-on-anything that is a hallmark of the MAGA era, which might be read as progressive if you’re a dumbbell, and 2.) the incels have found some other pin-up — maybe this one...

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