Our fictional bad guys are dangerous mostly because they're willing to make the effort and put in the work. Can you imagine Trump or anyone in a MAGA hat ever setting up the Nakatomi Tower hit in DIE HARD? Not only does it all require discipline, hard work, and a huge investment up front, it's DANGEROUS. Trump's appeal is to lazy cowards who want everything handed to them simply because they rolled 'low melanin' and 'penis' when generating their characters for this incarnation.
The apex of their entire movement, the fucking cream of the alpha crop, was a bunch of dimbulbs floating around the Capitol Building like fish heads dumped out of a chum bucket. The very bravest, most resolute, and most competent of those guys dared to put their feet up on someone else's desk, steal a podium, and furtively piss in the corners. The guy who made the pipe bombs was too stupid to remember where he left them. Ashli Babbit was too goddam dumb to understand 'stop or I'll shoot you'. Like the Boggies in BORED OF THE RINGS, they're only dangerous when they vastly outnumber their target, or they have automatic weapons and their targets are unarmed -- and even then, when accountability looms, they cry like little bitches about how scared they were of the evil hippies with placards on the stand.
I agree with you, if Trump was more like Hans Gruber and the MAGAites were more like Gruber's tough, deadly band of mercs, we'd all be in a great deal of trouble. Fortunately, they are for the most part idiots. But this is no coincidence -- it is, in fact, self selecting. People willing to follow Trump can't possibly be that smart.
Exactly. Not to say they can't fuck things up. An idiot driving the bus off the cliff is a perfectly plausible way for things to end. Their endgame though, isn't to make this a more conservative nation. The endgame is to steal everything that's not nailed down.
There's different endgames in the big tent that is the Republican Party.
* Trump, like his life coach Johnny Rocco in Key Largo, wants MORE. Yeah, that's it. More
* The Opus Dei wing want straight-up Gilead.
* The Money wing want America 1910
* The racist wing want America 1810
* and the base want Escape From New York on PPV
There's a lot of overlap in that Venn diagram, but the core problem is that all of them think they will be on top, giving the orders and pulling the levers. That winds up looking a lot like Berlin 1946, except everywhere.
Nodding in agreement vigorously while not understanding how a large portion of our liberal commentariat can think the ones with suits and law degrees are any smarter than the ones who pooped in the hallways.
I mean, sure, Project 2025 tells us what they WANT to do, but treating it as some sure-to-succeed Vision of Our Dystopian Future if Trump is elected seems a bit much, given these mooks' track record when it comes to actually getting things done. No, they don't have a secret trove of smart people they're hiding somewhere, waiting for just the right occasion. The lawyers who crafted their Plan For World Domination are on a par with the lawyers who got Donald J. Trump 60 consecutive losses in the federal courts.
Math isn't the law, I know, but if I say "I've got a million dollars for the first person to prove 2+2=7" I'm not going to get the best mathematicians in the world workin' on that.
Fascism involves a coalition. Some of the parties are canny, and their hirelings are the most capable money can buy. Unfortunately, a formidable person can be evil and mercenary.
The guys with the suits and law degrees just fall for a different variation of the con. Last time I said this in meat-space, I was reminded they're self-seeking. Of course they are, and they may well be rewarded for it. But everyone who associates with him gets conned one way or another. Every single one "gets it," each the smart one who'll be on the good end of the bargain.
I wonder, did Alina Habba get paid to lose Trump $87 million? Like "paid" meaning "the check actually cleared"? Some of them may know it's a sinking ship, but still see an opportunity to make some money before they have to take a swan dive over the side. It's bad faith all the way down.
I'd have to check, but I believe so. When we say he's using campaign funds to pay legal fees, that means some people are getting paid. As has always been the case, despite Trump's infamous failures to pay, or pay in full.
Reminder: Trump (1) don't pay his bills--ever. His response to an invoice is "sue me." (2) Trump don't do *nothing* for free. That's how he both always has money and is always broke.
On second thought, someone who's already a scumbag might sacrifice little or nothing, unless they go to prison. Integrity and honor being lacking at the start of the relationship.
Speaking of "repellent", we've got Bernie Moreno, Luxury Car Dealer and Bitcoin Millionaire, as their choice to go up against Sherrod Brown, master of working-class populist politics. Brilliant choice, guys.
Was just thinking, but I should have thought it decades ago, isn't the term m*th*rf*ck*er is misused and really just another word for a father -- a sinonym [sic] of sorts.
Anyway, a game for thos with the time to waste: the sequence of other outlets to consider but then reject hiring Romney McDaniel and the one where she ends up. Me, not only don't I have the time, I also don't care. But maybe someone...?
MFer is also a sobriquet for Oedipus. He committed the taboo unknowingly, of course, after killing his mother’s previous mate. But like the MAGAts, ol’ Oed was deluded.
"Motherfucker" is just a brilliant example of euphony. A beautiful, musical arrangement of sounds, whoever thought of it and what they had in mind. It's a poem in a single word.
Good question, I think there are times when I really want to linger on the word, fully enjoy the feel of it, then I tend to go with the hard R, and maybe even draw that out a bit: motherrrfuckerrr, and then other times when "mutha" seems more appropriate. As I said, it's a complex word.
I find it very funny that Josh Marshall has been referring to her as “Ronna X” because she dropped “Romney” to please Trump, lol.
Of course, election deniers should be beyond the pale and not appear on news programs as reliable authorities. But what I find funniest about all this is the fact that Trump has been telling people who want to work for him, or even associate with him, who he is since 2015: the allegory of the snake story. And really, they knew he was a snake when they hitched their wagons to his star. Not only did his entire career prove it, he literally told them so himself.
Should be a cautionary tale for the many who seek a safe warm sanctuary up Tubby's prodigious bum. But it won't deter them. Lookin' at you, Elise Stefanik. I wonder if Ronna posed any real resistance to the Trump family looting the entire RNC, or it was just more expeditious to remove the middle woman. In any case, hope they don't leave a single penny for any other GOP candidates. What they asked for and what they deserve.
I mean, it's not my party, I don't care if he burns the fucking thing to the ground. But if you learned Republicanism at Grandpa's knee, seems like you might care. Guess not.
But I wonder about that, isn't a cult based on admiration of the leader? I was just arguing with some right-wing jackass online (WHY I DON'T KNOW) and he was pretty open about his dislike of Trump, but he just hates people like me more.
Robin Vos, Republican leader of the State Assembly, has said repeatedly since 2020 that Trump is an awful candidate who will lose Wisconsin to Biden and Vos has been the target of a recall effort supported by Trump and has called the leaders of that recall effort "morons." Just last week he endorsed Trump. He pretty clearly hates Trump, but then he looks at Madison liberals like me and imagines us celebrating Biden's win in Wisconsin the day after the election, and he sighs and gets aboard the Trump Train. Just hates us more, I guess.
I wonder how many of them say they hate him because it's the right thing to do in their own social ecosystem, but really they admire his chutzpah and ability to get away with anything and everything.
The reason he tells it over and over again is that he has grievances against the many snakes he encounters. He's saying he's too wise to fall for them (although he does, in the form of associates). You have to be tough on snakes, like him.
I watched a few clips. Before reciting "The Snake" he'll talk about a real-world example: migrants, Hamas, errant associates ("you have to carefully vet people"), and so on. If Trump was there instead of the stupid old lady, the snake would lose, and the story would be called something like "Trump Versus the Snake."
So he does tell them, but he doesn't think it applies to himself. This is the guy who unironically nicknamed himself "Honest Don." When HE lies and cheats, that's just smart (as he famously stated about tax evasion). He's justified, as when he threatens to weaponize the justice system because Dems "let the genie out of the box." Et cetera.
I don't intend to lecture, I just think it's interesting. This stuff gets overlooked because everyone's flabbergasted that an obvious snake would recite "The Snake." The irony may well be lost on him, but to me it's about victimhood, triumph, and rationalization.
Trump is a narcissist, so he regards everything he does as de facto correct since his worldview doesn’t allow for the possibility he could be wrong. But his snake story is still utterly transparent. What interests and amuses me is the psychology of people who will see someone like Trump, who screws everyone who crosses his path and admits it even if he doesn't realize he is admitting it, but those people still think “well, I’m sure he’ll never screw ME over.”
Aren't a lot of cons like this? Counting on the mark to think he's in on it, that he's your partner in screwing over some third person? The con man needs to show obvious signs of being a con man, so the mark can believe he will pull it off successfully.
I hadn't thought of this before, but him being such an obvious conman and even a criminal is an important part of the appeal. The system is rigged against them because liberals keep winning, an honest man couldn't possibly overcome that, you need a crook and a conman to get the job done, but one that's on your side. Us pointing out over and over again that he's a conman just gets read as "tricky" and "clever" and "knows how to win."
I think this is absolutely true of the people who vote for Trump. But I think a slightly different dynamic is happening with the professional people who work for him or become allies.
It's like they see a highly prized goal in the distance, have to traverse a minefield to get to it, but just discount the danger with a "this is fine" attitude. Of course, they all get blown up by a mine (Trump) before they reach their goal or before they can properly savor it. Which literally any objective observer could have told them would happen. I find their mindset fascinating.
And yet there are still people willing to be associated with him, even when they should well know that he sees "THROW UNDER BUS" stamped on their foreheads.
Somebody needs to remind these mofos that the primary factor that *defines* cancellation is that as a result of it, you must slink away into obscurity. When you use the fact of your "cancellation" to simply switch your career trajectory, it's a lateral move, not cancellation.
Stumpy's been taken. That's our nation's official cherry tree and during Blossom Madness Stumpy is a star. And yes, timely – this is Stumpy's Last Stand!
Love this stuff; your writing always sings but the structured story social and political commentary is like reading Doonesbury but with actual depth and nuance. I had a longer comment but I deleted it. Staring at no sales on your Amazon KDP dashboard, day after day after day, when you've just put up a new novel and, as always, you had high hopes that THIS would be the one -- kind of like a new Powerball tickets, I guess, except you work harder to get the fucker -- it's just discouraging. Makes you feel like no one gives a fuck what you have to say, so why bother?
"Staring at no sales on your Amazon KDP dashboard, day after day after day" well, many of the Greats had the same experience. Hopefully you also have their persistence!
Honestly not sure what I can do to change the game, as the game involves a steadily dwindling pool of recreational readers, the ongoing death rattle of the brick and mortar bookstores, an overwhelming influx of 'indie authors' who don't write very well (sadly, I may be one of them) and an agenting and publishing industry loaded to the gunwales with middle management assholes clinging like leeches to their rapidly fading gatekeeper powers.
I have a friend who switched a few years ago to writing for video games but he says that's pretty much dead now too thanks to AI.
One of my favorite writers, Lester Dent, died the year before I was born and I like to daydream sometimes that I am his next incarnation. In which case, I had a damn good run in the 40s and 50s and I should be happy with that. (Or deeply depressed at how badly I have stained his legacy, I suppose.)
Ok, I had to look up "Romper Stomper"...how did I miss That?!?
The you tube trailer is a hoot: did Aussies take it seriously?
I see Hugh Hewett, WaPos just the tip tRumper ("I want to vote for Donald, and no matter how hard he makes it, I'll find a justification..)is saying Ronna going to sue everybody: which of course she will.
I will note that I'm seeing usual GOP types actually saying the $59.95 tRump Bible (Lee Greenwood approved! Fine Corinthians 2 leather [we used to call it Naugahide]) is in poor taste, and he shouldn't have...
The Guardian story about this said it's $600k, because it's a two-year contract. They did the math and it's $500 a second for her ONE appearance on Meet the Press.
I had to look the name up, but "illuminated letters" were when they made the first letter of a paragraph much larger and added all sorts of illustrative elements to it. I'd have some passing interest in a Trump Bible where each illuminated letter takes its theme from a Trump NFT trading card. Trump as the letter R, dressed as an astronaut, that sort of thing.
I saw Romper Stomper many years ago, and it was a tough watch for me. Being part of the SF Bay Area punk scene, I saw far more than my share of skinhead assholes like the movie portrays, one of whom stabbed a friend of mine to death. Not exactly my favorite people, right? Anyway, Russell Crowe does such a good job playing that part that I couldn't stand him for quite some time. I know, I know, it's a movie. I'm still not entirely sure about that guy...
I’m thankful for Roy’s fictional wingnuts, they divert my attention momentarily from the real world of Robert Fucking Kennedy Jr and Sam “Isn’t there somebody with standing who can sue to challenge the FDA?” Alito. Now I’m back to Diddy-wah-diddy, drugs, guns and human trafficking.
Wasn't there an in informal fax-machine network of people faxing each other cartoons and jokes? How else did all those "no bullshit" cartoons show up simultaneously over so many desks?
I read years ago that a reporter tried to learn why a joke showed up all over New York one day. He traced it back to a trading desk with an overnight connection to Japan where some guy heard the joke and then passed it to friends so by the time the workday started it was already all over town.
Never did learn why the Japanese made up the joke in the first place.
Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper. Now there’s a cool, obscure reference. I dare you to work in The Sum of Us or Spotswood (The Efficiency Expert).
(I went through a brief Australian film thing back in the 90s. Whatever I could find on video in the grungy local video rental place in downtown Sioux Falls anyway.)
We're really lucky they're so repellent and dysfunctional. If their shit was even barely together we'd be fucked for sure.
You so sure there, bro?
Our fictional bad guys are dangerous mostly because they're willing to make the effort and put in the work. Can you imagine Trump or anyone in a MAGA hat ever setting up the Nakatomi Tower hit in DIE HARD? Not only does it all require discipline, hard work, and a huge investment up front, it's DANGEROUS. Trump's appeal is to lazy cowards who want everything handed to them simply because they rolled 'low melanin' and 'penis' when generating their characters for this incarnation.
The apex of their entire movement, the fucking cream of the alpha crop, was a bunch of dimbulbs floating around the Capitol Building like fish heads dumped out of a chum bucket. The very bravest, most resolute, and most competent of those guys dared to put their feet up on someone else's desk, steal a podium, and furtively piss in the corners. The guy who made the pipe bombs was too stupid to remember where he left them. Ashli Babbit was too goddam dumb to understand 'stop or I'll shoot you'. Like the Boggies in BORED OF THE RINGS, they're only dangerous when they vastly outnumber their target, or they have automatic weapons and their targets are unarmed -- and even then, when accountability looms, they cry like little bitches about how scared they were of the evil hippies with placards on the stand.
I agree with you, if Trump was more like Hans Gruber and the MAGAites were more like Gruber's tough, deadly band of mercs, we'd all be in a great deal of trouble. Fortunately, they are for the most part idiots. But this is no coincidence -- it is, in fact, self selecting. People willing to follow Trump can't possibly be that smart.
Exactly. Not to say they can't fuck things up. An idiot driving the bus off the cliff is a perfectly plausible way for things to end. Their endgame though, isn't to make this a more conservative nation. The endgame is to steal everything that's not nailed down.
There's different endgames in the big tent that is the Republican Party.
* Trump, like his life coach Johnny Rocco in Key Largo, wants MORE. Yeah, that's it. More
* The Opus Dei wing want straight-up Gilead.
* The Money wing want America 1910
* The racist wing want America 1810
* and the base want Escape From New York on PPV
There's a lot of overlap in that Venn diagram, but the core problem is that all of them think they will be on top, giving the orders and pulling the levers. That winds up looking a lot like Berlin 1946, except everywhere.
"That winds up looking a lot like Berlin 1946..."
So Jared will let you sleep with Ivanka for a Hershey bar?
Hearted for Jared's initiative.
Nodding in agreement vigorously while not understanding how a large portion of our liberal commentariat can think the ones with suits and law degrees are any smarter than the ones who pooped in the hallways.
I mean, sure, Project 2025 tells us what they WANT to do, but treating it as some sure-to-succeed Vision of Our Dystopian Future if Trump is elected seems a bit much, given these mooks' track record when it comes to actually getting things done. No, they don't have a secret trove of smart people they're hiding somewhere, waiting for just the right occasion. The lawyers who crafted their Plan For World Domination are on a par with the lawyers who got Donald J. Trump 60 consecutive losses in the federal courts.
Math isn't the law, I know, but if I say "I've got a million dollars for the first person to prove 2+2=7" I'm not going to get the best mathematicians in the world workin' on that.
You're right re: points of fact and to some degree courts of law, but the smart ones working toward Project 2025 aren't fighting those fights.
Say more.
Fascism involves a coalition. Some of the parties are canny, and their hirelings are the most capable money can buy. Unfortunately, a formidable person can be evil and mercenary.
"If 2=3.5, then (stick with me here) 2+2=7"
Pay up!
A million marks go to you, my friend.
Yeay! I'm back in the black!
2 marks! (I gotta million of 'em!)
The guys with the suits and law degrees just fall for a different variation of the con. Last time I said this in meat-space, I was reminded they're self-seeking. Of course they are, and they may well be rewarded for it. But everyone who associates with him gets conned one way or another. Every single one "gets it," each the smart one who'll be on the good end of the bargain.
Trump lives to get the better end. They should know that.
I wonder, did Alina Habba get paid to lose Trump $87 million? Like "paid" meaning "the check actually cleared"? Some of them may know it's a sinking ship, but still see an opportunity to make some money before they have to take a swan dive over the side. It's bad faith all the way down.
And Alina's back to being a lawyer for New York parking garages, with a helluva story to tell her horrified grandchildren.
I'd have to check, but I believe so. When we say he's using campaign funds to pay legal fees, that means some people are getting paid. As has always been the case, despite Trump's infamous failures to pay, or pay in full.
Reminder: Trump (1) don't pay his bills--ever. His response to an invoice is "sue me." (2) Trump don't do *nothing* for free. That's how he both always has money and is always broke.
On second thought, someone who's already a scumbag might sacrifice little or nothing, unless they go to prison. Integrity and honor being lacking at the start of the relationship.
And then there's the billionaire propping up Trump's media meme-stock. Is there real money involved there? Why would anyone do it?
RPG *AND* Bored Of The Rings references! Yes!
Speaking of "repellent", we've got Bernie Moreno, Luxury Car Dealer and Bitcoin Millionaire, as their choice to go up against Sherrod Brown, master of working-class populist politics. Brilliant choice, guys.
Was just thinking, but I should have thought it decades ago, isn't the term m*th*rf*ck*er is misused and really just another word for a father -- a sinonym [sic] of sorts.
Anyway, a game for thos with the time to waste: the sequence of other outlets to consider but then reject hiring Romney McDaniel and the one where she ends up. Me, not only don't I have the time, I also don't care. But maybe someone...?
sic burn...
Come again?
Nah. Once was enough. Thanks anyway...
😂
MFer is also a sobriquet for Oedipus. He committed the taboo unknowingly, of course, after killing his mother’s previous mate. But like the MAGAts, ol’ Oed was deluded.
Oed -- I'll have to remember that. Oeddy Laiuson.
Oeddy Haskell: "Gosh, that's a lovely dress you have on, MOM."
"Motherfucker" is just a brilliant example of euphony. A beautiful, musical arrangement of sounds, whoever thought of it and what they had in mind. It's a poem in a single word.
And which syllables do you stress? I stress the first one if I've just hit my thumb with a hammer, but others on other occasions. Such a complex word.
Do you prefer the sound of "mutha" or "mother?" I like the former.
Good question, I think there are times when I really want to linger on the word, fully enjoy the feel of it, then I tend to go with the hard R, and maybe even draw that out a bit: motherrrfuckerrr, and then other times when "mutha" seems more appropriate. As I said, it's a complex word.
I find it very funny that Josh Marshall has been referring to her as “Ronna X” because she dropped “Romney” to please Trump, lol.
Of course, election deniers should be beyond the pale and not appear on news programs as reliable authorities. But what I find funniest about all this is the fact that Trump has been telling people who want to work for him, or even associate with him, who he is since 2015: the allegory of the snake story. And really, they knew he was a snake when they hitched their wagons to his star. Not only did his entire career prove it, he literally told them so himself.
Should be a cautionary tale for the many who seek a safe warm sanctuary up Tubby's prodigious bum. But it won't deter them. Lookin' at you, Elise Stefanik. I wonder if Ronna posed any real resistance to the Trump family looting the entire RNC, or it was just more expeditious to remove the middle woman. In any case, hope they don't leave a single penny for any other GOP candidates. What they asked for and what they deserve.
"hope they don't leave a single penny for any other GOP candidates"
You'd think that all the people who loudly claim to be Republicans might be more concerned about this.
I mean, it's not my party, I don't care if he burns the fucking thing to the ground. But if you learned Republicanism at Grandpa's knee, seems like you might care. Guess not.
Your regular reminder: it's a cult (now).
Long before Trump, the GOP realized if they told us what they really want to do, we wouldn't vote for them. So they invented the concept of Character.
And anti-communism. Once that became moot, all they had was "culture."
But I wonder about that, isn't a cult based on admiration of the leader? I was just arguing with some right-wing jackass online (WHY I DON'T KNOW) and he was pretty open about his dislike of Trump, but he just hates people like me more.
Robin Vos, Republican leader of the State Assembly, has said repeatedly since 2020 that Trump is an awful candidate who will lose Wisconsin to Biden and Vos has been the target of a recall effort supported by Trump and has called the leaders of that recall effort "morons." Just last week he endorsed Trump. He pretty clearly hates Trump, but then he looks at Madison liberals like me and imagines us celebrating Biden's win in Wisconsin the day after the election, and he sighs and gets aboard the Trump Train. Just hates us more, I guess.
I wonder how many of them say they hate him because it's the right thing to do in their own social ecosystem, but really they admire his chutzpah and ability to get away with anything and everything.
Not my cult, not my acolytes.
Do you, as I do, read 'acolytes' but see 'electrolytes'?
Now I'm wondering what sort of cult a bunch of gullible misinformed electrolytes might hatch...
They're all afraid he'll use all those funds to destroy their political careers. Which is the new GOP - all vengeance, all the time.
"VENGEANCE IS MINE!!" sayeth the associate development director for the Lafayette County Junior Republican Club.
My understanding is the RNC donations dropped off a cliff, and Donald being Donald, blamed her and kicked her to the curb.
The reason he tells it over and over again is that he has grievances against the many snakes he encounters. He's saying he's too wise to fall for them (although he does, in the form of associates). You have to be tough on snakes, like him.
I watched a few clips. Before reciting "The Snake" he'll talk about a real-world example: migrants, Hamas, errant associates ("you have to carefully vet people"), and so on. If Trump was there instead of the stupid old lady, the snake would lose, and the story would be called something like "Trump Versus the Snake."
So he does tell them, but he doesn't think it applies to himself. This is the guy who unironically nicknamed himself "Honest Don." When HE lies and cheats, that's just smart (as he famously stated about tax evasion). He's justified, as when he threatens to weaponize the justice system because Dems "let the genie out of the box." Et cetera.
I don't intend to lecture, I just think it's interesting. This stuff gets overlooked because everyone's flabbergasted that an obvious snake would recite "The Snake." The irony may well be lost on him, but to me it's about victimhood, triumph, and rationalization.
Trump is a narcissist, so he regards everything he does as de facto correct since his worldview doesn’t allow for the possibility he could be wrong. But his snake story is still utterly transparent. What interests and amuses me is the psychology of people who will see someone like Trump, who screws everyone who crosses his path and admits it even if he doesn't realize he is admitting it, but those people still think “well, I’m sure he’ll never screw ME over.”
Aren't a lot of cons like this? Counting on the mark to think he's in on it, that he's your partner in screwing over some third person? The con man needs to show obvious signs of being a con man, so the mark can believe he will pull it off successfully.
Well, yes. But that's the psychology that interests me, knowing who you are dealing with but still thinking you will somehow be immune.
I hadn't thought of this before, but him being such an obvious conman and even a criminal is an important part of the appeal. The system is rigged against them because liberals keep winning, an honest man couldn't possibly overcome that, you need a crook and a conman to get the job done, but one that's on your side. Us pointing out over and over again that he's a conman just gets read as "tricky" and "clever" and "knows how to win."
This one dawned on me a while back. It's not "Can't they just see what a louse and a cheat he is?", it's "They love what a louse and a cheat he is."
I think this is absolutely true of the people who vote for Trump. But I think a slightly different dynamic is happening with the professional people who work for him or become allies.
It's like they see a highly prized goal in the distance, have to traverse a minefield to get to it, but just discount the danger with a "this is fine" attitude. Of course, they all get blown up by a mine (Trump) before they reach their goal or before they can properly savor it. Which literally any objective observer could have told them would happen. I find their mindset fascinating.
"Honest" just means, "willing to offend anyone."
Yes, took me too long to figure that one out.
And the family of Oscar Brown Jr. had something to say about malign unauthorized use.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7GrQ6PM2Vk
I hadn't heard that. Nor was I familiar with the Al Smith song. I associate it with the folktale(s).
As I observed elsewhere today, I can’t get past the fact that Ronna X looks like an Al Hirschfeldt caricature of herself.
Nina?
Oh so many Ninas!
And yet there are still people willing to be associated with him, even when they should well know that he sees "THROW UNDER BUS" stamped on their foreheads.
I'm just hung up on hitching anything to a snake...
I am reminded of Richard Scarry's character "Lowly Worm," who wears a hat, a bowtie, a shirt (no sleeves), a pant (not pants), and a shoe.
https://tinyurl.com/Lowly-Worm
Next step of course is to run for Congress, preferably from a safe R+20 seat from somewhere like Indiana.
Where she can loudly proclaim from the stump, “I HAVE BEEN SILENCED!!!”
Somebody needs to remind these mofos that the primary factor that *defines* cancellation is that as a result of it, you must slink away into obscurity. When you use the fact of your "cancellation" to simply switch your career trajectory, it's a lateral move, not cancellation.
Don't waste your breath. None of these people ever do or say anything in good faith.
I've always seen this as an IQ test. If you believe them, you're stupid. Don't believe your lying ears!
Alternately, silently proclaim "I HAVE BEEN STUMPED!!!"
Call me Stumpy!
Stumpy's been taken. That's our nation's official cherry tree and during Blossom Madness Stumpy is a star. And yes, timely – this is Stumpy's Last Stand!
Love this stuff; your writing always sings but the structured story social and political commentary is like reading Doonesbury but with actual depth and nuance. I had a longer comment but I deleted it. Staring at no sales on your Amazon KDP dashboard, day after day after day, when you've just put up a new novel and, as always, you had high hopes that THIS would be the one -- kind of like a new Powerball tickets, I guess, except you work harder to get the fucker -- it's just discouraging. Makes you feel like no one gives a fuck what you have to say, so why bother?
But, still, this was good. Thanks.
"Staring at no sales on your Amazon KDP dashboard, day after day after day" well, many of the Greats had the same experience. Hopefully you also have their persistence!
Thanks. I'm on novel #25 now, though, so it's getting a little old.
I had a very successful boss tell me "if you're not winning the game, change the game." Good luck.
I prefer "flip the script."
Honestly not sure what I can do to change the game, as the game involves a steadily dwindling pool of recreational readers, the ongoing death rattle of the brick and mortar bookstores, an overwhelming influx of 'indie authors' who don't write very well (sadly, I may be one of them) and an agenting and publishing industry loaded to the gunwales with middle management assholes clinging like leeches to their rapidly fading gatekeeper powers.
I have a friend who switched a few years ago to writing for video games but he says that's pretty much dead now too thanks to AI.
One of my favorite writers, Lester Dent, died the year before I was born and I like to daydream sometimes that I am his next incarnation. In which case, I had a damn good run in the 40s and 50s and I should be happy with that. (Or deeply depressed at how badly I have stained his legacy, I suppose.)
Ok, I had to look up "Romper Stomper"...how did I miss That?!?
The you tube trailer is a hoot: did Aussies take it seriously?
I see Hugh Hewett, WaPos just the tip tRumper ("I want to vote for Donald, and no matter how hard he makes it, I'll find a justification..)is saying Ronna going to sue everybody: which of course she will.
I will note that I'm seeing usual GOP types actually saying the $59.95 tRump Bible (Lee Greenwood approved! Fine Corinthians 2 leather [we used to call it Naugahide]) is in poor taste, and he shouldn't have...
Maybe the wheels are coming off the tRump Train?
tRumper sTumper
Ronna will sue for the full $300k value of her contract, and she'll almost certainly get every penny because it's the easiest way to be done with her.
But if the choice is "pay the fascist to do nothing" or "pay the fascist to do something", nothing sounds like a bargain.
That "nothing sounds like a bargain" cuts deep.
Freedom's just another name for nothing sounds like a bargain.
What about pain and suffering? The damage to her good name and reputation? The Megyn precedent? Should be good for a mill at least.
The Guardian story about this said it's $600k, because it's a two-year contract. They did the math and it's $500 a second for her ONE appearance on Meet the Press.
$300k/year and she needs a SECOND? Her stunts can't be THAT difficult.
Gold star for 2 Corinthians leather.
Trump hawking bibles, Kristi Noem shilling for a Texas dentist: to these swine, politics is commerce by other means.
"Fine Corinthians 2 leather" definitely gets an upvote.
I had to look the name up, but "illuminated letters" were when they made the first letter of a paragraph much larger and added all sorts of illustrative elements to it. I'd have some passing interest in a Trump Bible where each illuminated letter takes its theme from a Trump NFT trading card. Trump as the letter R, dressed as an astronaut, that sort of thing.
Every once in a while that spot is still blank, because it's a harder bit of work, and nobody got around to it.
Sounds like this crew: Uh...I know we promised all the letters but we just did the one where he's a cowboy, and the lariat he's twirling makes an "O".
well, he's got "Y", "M', "C" & "A" covered.
I know it's juvenile to make fun of people's names, but "Huge Half-Wit" is layin' right there, ripe for the pickin'.
I saw Romper Stomper many years ago, and it was a tough watch for me. Being part of the SF Bay Area punk scene, I saw far more than my share of skinhead assholes like the movie portrays, one of whom stabbed a friend of mine to death. Not exactly my favorite people, right? Anyway, Russell Crowe does such a good job playing that part that I couldn't stand him for quite some time. I know, I know, it's a movie. I'm still not entirely sure about that guy...
That "Joe Lieberman" is the cueing up for a passel of chefs, kisses on lips, queueing up...
Whatever happened to Joe? He still around? No, on second thought please don't answer that.
No Labels, bro.
This is about as surprising as learning that the dump I took yesterday morning is now being processed in Madison's sewage treatment facility.
And involving much the same shit.
My shit resents the comparison.
Mo - om! Pops an' Steve be talking shit again!
Oh too late, he’s ded.
Hearted only because you closed out this bit before I had to mea my culpas.
2 marks for covering my sass.
I’m thankful for Roy’s fictional wingnuts, they divert my attention momentarily from the real world of Robert Fucking Kennedy Jr and Sam “Isn’t there somebody with standing who can sue to challenge the FDA?” Alito. Now I’m back to Diddy-wah-diddy, drugs, guns and human trafficking.
Today is the day when all the network news anchors are saying "I wish that someone would tell me what diddy-wah-diddy means!".
Roy ... For you 🤣
https://youtu.be/cthNNNrDaBk?si=IeNj5tOMt__5SKCe
That was very old-fashioned -- the digital video version of a multiply-copied joke passed around the office.
Hey, in the 1980s as a young secretary, I had a desk drawer full of those 🤣
Wasn't there an in informal fax-machine network of people faxing each other cartoons and jokes? How else did all those "no bullshit" cartoons show up simultaneously over so many desks?
I read years ago that a reporter tried to learn why a joke showed up all over New York one day. He traced it back to a trading desk with an overnight connection to Japan where some guy heard the joke and then passed it to friends so by the time the workday started it was already all over town.
Never did learn why the Japanese made up the joke in the first place.
Goddamn Japanese jokes putting our American joke-writers outta work!
“Trumpwife Spacewhore” I dunno why but I’m absolutely dying over that, cannot stop laughing. Good thing the office is empty today!
"in tribute" made it most lol of the day for me.
Whoever made up "The Space Nazi" has my kudos as well. I immediately knew the referent.
See, for instance, Starship Troopers.
Echoes of Spacehog and Jamiroquai’s “Space Cowboy,” but much funnier and more disturbing.
Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper. Now there’s a cool, obscure reference. I dare you to work in The Sum of Us or Spotswood (The Efficiency Expert).
(I went through a brief Australian film thing back in the 90s. Whatever I could find on video in the grungy local video rental place in downtown Sioux Falls anyway.)
The best of the lot? 'Starstruck'.
Of the quirky Australian movies from the 90s, I prefer Strictly Ballroom.
Could do worse, I s'pose.
Starstruck was early 80's. I assumed your foray IN the 90's was not exclusive TO the 90's. Mi malo.
Trumpwife Spacewhore sounds more like Kari Lake to me.
Some people call her Trumpwife Spacewhore, yeah
But she's really the pompatus of lies
OfDonald
When is Chafe getting back from reeducation camp?
That guy rubs me the wrong way.
And now Trump is mocking her for getting fired. Sucks to be you, Ronna.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/27/trump-ronna-mcdaniel-nbc