222 Comments
Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Sane, sober, judicious reasoning!

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

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Aug 3, 2023·edited Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Yes, very impressive, I would even go so far as to say it's Jesuitical! No, more than that, it's the purest Sophistry! And there's no higher compliment than that!

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You do a lotta acid Steve, back in the hippie days?

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No but I did go to a Catholic Boy's school, and man, was that a trip.

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Which catholic boy would that be?

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He did a lot of LDS back in the 70s.

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author

Sorry it was late, hit the wrong button.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

I do not want to hear your excuses, mister!

[And I especially do not want to hear about which button you DID push...]

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Maybe Benjamin Button or Button Gwinnett and had to spend time apologizing

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Damn, you have to bring that up now WEEKS after we did "Name a movie you hated that other people loved."

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Maybe this is the time to say that whatever my students call me, I think of myself as Professor Point-n-Click, because a surprising amount of my job is now ensuring that various checkboxes on various EduSoft websites are well and truly clicked.

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("EduSoft" sounds like something you wash cloth diapers in)

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It'll smooth out those wrinkles in your cerebral cortex!

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Make mine fractal!

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Well that's life in the fast lane.

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Surely makes you lose your mind.

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This would explain a lot

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Excellent missive, kind sir.

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This is genius.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

And my Beeg Bro noze jeenyus 😉

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Whatever they’re saying/writing in public, Republicans/pseudoconservatives/fascists are privately weighing what chance Trump has of winning the election. Right now he could produce a Democratic trifecta which might overturn much of their agenda (barring the presence of Manchin/Sinema-type Dems). Or he could return to power and get rid of that pesky democracy once and for all. It’s a tough bet with unknown odds but they may not have any choice but to take it.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Exactly. A high stakes gamble, but with a high potential reward as well. And they really don't believe they have any other choice.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

But even they can't trust him. Complete loose cannon. Only agenda is self-aggrandizement. He'll fuck the GOP too, if it suits him.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Agreed. They know he'll fuck everybody, including his own kids if his back is against the wall. They know they don't even have a true GOP base anymore, there is only Trump's base. That's why their gamble is so high stakes, but I think they realize they don't have any other bet they can place.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

They put themselves here and I hope they pay.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

But desperately afraid they won't.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Also ditto.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Ditto.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Ethel, looks like you better crank up that old ditto machine again!

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Ah, the days of purple text and semi-legible quiz pages

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They can't imagine any other bet. Even the Never-Trumpers don't dare voice what the Republican Party might do to oppose Trump (assuming they can imagine that). Only that Somebody (Else) Has To Do Something! They could change the primary rules that favored Trump last time, they cold make an effort to clean house of some of the nutbirds, they could try to disentangle their finances with Trump's. None of this involves "speaking out" just boring process changes largely invisible outside the party. They are absolutely terrified of the base turning against them, because without that base they have a handful of billionaires and nothing else.

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No one is standing in line to be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

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Sit in the penalty box for 4 more years or establish a reich for a thousand -- that's the GOP 2024 gamble!

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Some day, when the GOP is a smoking ruin, I expect the conspiracy-theory-du-jour will be that Trump was actually an agent of the EEEVIL Democrats. A New York Liberal (and probably one of ((those people)) besides) planted by Pelosi & Co. to destroy the Republican party. C'mon, connect the dots, sheeple!

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He's WOOOOOOOOOOKE!!!!

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Suddenly, those 2017 photos of Caitlyn Jenner visiting the White House will be VERRRY INTERRESTING to them.

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Supposed to be three parentheses

#pedant

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I believe you mean “New York Lie-beral” and “Demon-crats” (demo-rats is also acceptable, or “members of the democrat party”). Words matter people…

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Laughing. My. Ass. Off.

So I don’t become too enraged by these cynical charlatans, who obviously know better but would trash our democracy for the sake of their revenue, I console myself by remembering they personally loathe Trump. So every word they type in his defense likely makes their tangerine-sized stomach ulcers more inflamed.

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Ah, but their hatred of us is greater.

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Maybe not greater, but with the power to crush us utterly, while the best we can do (other than vote, of course, and organoze) is to rage impotently on the internet. And if you rage impotently for more than two consecutive election cycles, see your doctor, and ask how ketamine can help.

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Don't mirun, organize!

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Was going to edit, but I like "organoze." Very descriptive of how my brain feels after reading too many National Review thinkpieces.

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I’ve got my Ketamine and I feel better about a Trump gerontocracy already!

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It is. Their support of Trump is very much a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." But if there was another strong candidate who could win the GOP primary, not only would they turn on Trump in a heartbeat, they'd be offering to wash Jack Smith's car.

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I'd like to think so, but then I remember they could have impeached him that second time -- you know, when he tried to have them killed -- and they stuck with him.

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But... but... impeaching him WOULD HAVE BEEN GIVING NANCY WHAT SHE WANTED.

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Yes it is because they require that hate to fuel their fires.

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Aug 3, 2023·edited Aug 3, 2023

C'mon, what do you expect us to build our politics on, practical ideas for responding to national problems and ways of improving people's lives? That kinda guff is for LIBERALS!

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Pitch perfect.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

You gotta put a disclaimer on this shit, Roy. For a sec there I thought the hijinks going on in this country had finally sent you around the bend to that land of A Few Fries Short Of A Happy Meal. 😊

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Speaking of fries, today I go visit the Interior Dept building where, in the basement cafeteria, they serve Freedom Fries (no, really – it was right there on the menu last time I looked) but not Freedom Chocolate Cake, because irrespective of the fact France & Germany equally objected to the War in Iraq®, you wouldn't wanna get between Germans, their cake, and the nazi wannabes round these parts.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Should mention I'm not heading to the other end of the mall for obvious reasons (the mob will be vicious – you cannot expect to survive a press scrum that large).

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Still serving "Freedom Fries" 20 years later. Sweet screaming Jesus.

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Well, we can't change it back. That would be too political.

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[imagine screen chyron here]

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

FREEDOM FRIES CANCELED! FREEDOM FRIES CANCELED! FREEDOM FRIES CANCELED!

Actually, turns out the Interior Dept cafeteria closed for covid and has never reopened, and there's no vendor on tap. Sadder still, the ice cream parlor on the roof is long gone too. but on the plus side, the Thomas Moran landscapes of Yellowstone and Grand Canyon are in the Interior museum after years in the Portrait Gallery. And the brilliant, subversive Maynard Dixon interpretive paintings are well displayed.

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Note: all this artsy fartsy stuff is courtesy the federal development design requirements that 1% of the budget for any development must be spent on art of one sort or another. (Somebody from the Steep Date, help me out here). GSA owns a metric ton of art, spread around the country, much of it hidden away in various otherwise nondescript buildings. And not just paintings on walls – the Ansel Adams National Park negatives owned by the Interior Dept were digitized, and are public domain via the National Archives: https://www.archives.gov/research/ansel-adams

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(GSA owns a metric kiloton of real estate, manages the leases in non-government-owned buildings, and owns a crapload of vehicles too.)

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Our long national nightmare is at an end!

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The revolution advances, one closed cafeteria at a time.

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From the Department of Irony: Our Fair Town has a stream called Marne Creek, which was renamed from Rhine Creek after the Battle of the Marne in WWI.

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Don't change streams in the middle of a horse.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Man, Roy, if you had no conscience you could really make bank on the right-wing circuit!

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

If Roy's searching for edification in that direction, he could do worse than our neighbor Alleged Conspirator Number Six (AC#6), who I may have mentioned is often seen standing in the shrubberies outside the building, yammering into a phone. We presume that somewhere in Florida, a phone is sitting unattended while its owner is out doing something constructive like cheating at golf.

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Man, I need to keep up more. Last I checked, Number Six was being held at a British seaside town.

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He's not a number! He's a free man!

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Free to meet Queens Man at the National Airport this afternoon and accompany him to the cozy confines of the courthouse downtown...

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Or a free radical

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

A regular Joe Fucking Rogan, who is pushing the Jan. 6 False Flag theory for fun'n'profit.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Sigh. Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever seated in an Aeron chair in front of a microphone.

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Debate him, Lib!

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Pure unadulterated essence.

2marks!

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Their loss is our gain. Makes me grateful for his Jesuitical ethics.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Free Manson! One day only – do NOT miss this opportunity of a lifetime!

[Offer void where inhibited]

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Senator Susan Collins: “Charles Manson has learned his lesson.”

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

"And he has assured me he will respect precedent in all future attempts to overthrow the government."

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Tanned, Rested, Ready: Manson For Senate 2024

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Nowhere in the Constitution does it say the candidate has to be alive.

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Did not see this coming but it tracks for sure.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Brilliant!

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Notably, the NR editorial was very short of details from the actual document indicting Donald J. Trump, whom, it must be said, NR does not support. It’s the rankest conservasplaining, relying on its own authority, in which it is vested by the irrefutable a priori righteousness of its ideology.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

My favorite conservasplain so far was new Queens Man flunky John Lauro, when asked on PBS if QM would try to delay the court case, responding that the Biden administration has already spent 3 and a half years investigating Trump...so let's see: August 2023 minus 3.5 years equals...uhmm...

SteveB, help me out here!

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Just as Donald Trump is still our President despite having the election STOLEN from him, Joe Biden was President on Feb. 3 2020 despite not having STOLEN the election yet. Jeez, do I have to explain EVERYTHING?

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Aug 3, 2023·edited Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Also, Trump lawyers are never more enjoyable than when they make appeals to FAIRNESS. "C'mon, guys, you're not being FAIR!" they cry, and it has the same effect on me as if I was hearing it from a defendant at Nuremburg.

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Life's not fair, as I was told repeatedly as a sprout

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Sounds like maybe you hear that occasionally on the job as well...

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Apparently, yes.

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But they were deep stating him even while he was President, see??? He was the strongest leader we ever had, but also the greatest victim!!!

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Oh, those pathetically weak/unimaginably powerful Democrats!

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I had to go into the cesspool, and sure enough, they're heavy into the freeze peach defense: "In effect, Jack Smith is endeavoring to criminalize protected political speech and flimsy legal theories — when the Supreme Court has repeatedly admonished prosecutors to refrain from creative theories to stretch penal laws to reach misconduct that Congress has not made illegal." Also, too, the Senate should have convicted him, and the fact that the byzantine rules that give Wyoming the same number of Senators as California is none of our concern. No do-overs!

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Yeah, it willfully misconstrues the charges to fit the narrative laid out in the memo from the Wingnut Coordinating Committee. These fucknuggets are well-educated and undoubtedly have a robust reading comprehension level, but they’ve opted instead to ditch all that in favor of the prime reactionary directive, which is, of course, notwithstanding facts and logic, the hierarchy must be maintained and defended.

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They're screaming "Post-Civil-War statute" like laws come with "Best Used By" dates or something. One recent case where prosecutors successfully used that ANCIENT post-Civil-War statute was WAAAY back in the olden days of 2016, a guy who created a bunch of online ads aimed particularly at POC saying "Avoid the line, text 'Hillary' to vote!" You know, using fraud in an attempt to steal an election, which it turns out is illegal.

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"turns out" is a phrase of art that I endorse.

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Yes, it gives a nice casual twist to putting people in jail.

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Jail gotz turnouts!

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I thought we pulled down all the post-Civil War statues

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"flimsy legal theories" 🤣

Meanwhile the GOP is desperately casting about for anything they can even vaguely present as an excuse to impeach President Biden; apparently they're shopping "he answered calls from Hunter" as their seekrit wepun at the moment.

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Bravo! Great concept well executed .

Fuckjesus I'm tired of Trump. The world is slipping back into All Trump- All the Time. It's just gonna get worse and I'm tired already.

I was working my horse yesterday afternoon. There was a group of the usual there. White People with Horses. They all love them some Trump. I'm used to it. I can usually tune out. They were talking about how this was just a Biden distraction from the shitty economy.

( the parking lot was full of $80,000 trucks. And my Honda Fit)

I couldn't take it.I cut the workout short and went home.

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When I saw that ad that was "Drive your truck to your airplane" it finally hit me that trucks aren't being marketed to the same people they used to be marketed to.

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The big thing with the horsy set right now, at least among the western pleasure riders, is owning horses that appeared on the TV show " Yellowstone" one of the producers owns a horse ranch so he provided the horses for the show. He discovered people would pay a premium for those horses. Stupid money. 100k and up stupid. For a horse. These are very nice horses. Still.

Jesus Christ.

So yeah, I know people who have an $80,000 truck to pull a

$ 150,000 horse tralier that holds

a $100,000 horse. There is a good chance the horse has a $ 20,000 saddle.

Jesus Christ.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Ah, but what if their marginal tax rate was raised from 35% to 39%? THE END OF THE WORLD.

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They are already downtrodden. Can't get a break. It would be devastating.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

I think The Western Pleasure Riders opened for The Eagles back in '73

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I thought that was a Trojan model.

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Don't see why not. If not, then Make It Sew!

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We should market a line of Tactical Condoms. I'm sure we can find some with a Camo color scheme- We can buy a bunch of mediums- mark them XXL.

Repeat business would be huge.

Put an ad at the bottom of Roy's Substack..

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"Preserve your Purity Of Essence with TactiCon!"

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We'll be dozen-aires!

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What percentage of them are bald dentists and chiropractors from Naperville and Fort Myers, driving F-250s cross country towing their Harleys to Sturgis where they do biker cosplay for a week?

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Insurance agents. They got more money than anybody. And farmers. Car Dealers. I've met two different ,unrelated women at horse shows who own chains of nail salons that use Asian illegal aliens for labor. They had a shitload of money.

Both of them offered Botox injections in their salons.

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Funny stuff.

When I worked parks the motorcycle clubs would sometimes come in and take all the campsites, milling around in their black leather look-alike jumpsuits (Soooo Fetching!). Dentists. Every Last One.

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Fuck I hate bikers- real and phony.

I really hate the ones that refuse a helmet.

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Petty bourgeoisie, if you will.

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$80,000 Truck for the win, $150,000 Trailer to place, and $20,000 Saddle for show.

Jesus Christ is out of the money.

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The parking lots in my Bay Area bedroom community are full of giant trucks, all driven by well-off suburban matrons, who wouldn't go off-roading if their lives depended on it.

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Aug 3, 2023·edited Aug 3, 2023

It's funny how the ads changed, I remember when they were full of Bob Seger and construction workers (but wink, wink, nudge, nudge we knew the folks buyin' 'em were more likely the HR guy at the construction firm.) But now they're just shootin' straight for the rich, and rich people don't want to see people who aren't rich. "Why, sir, what does this serf who practices the quaint craft of 'welding' have to do with ME? I DEMAND REPRESENTATION!"

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Giant Hot Wheels trucks

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Which Peacock informs me, every time I turn it on to watch the Tour de France replays (no could I watch IRT!) is an Actual Thing coming soon to My Television. Just when you think we've reached Maximum Idiocracy....

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Won't anyone consider the recreational horse owner?

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Ubi sunt the Equites of yesteryear?

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Oddly, the 'free speech' spouted by Queens Man is paid for by the recipients thereof.

But again we eventually devolve to the classic "Yelling 'FIRE' in a crowded theater", tho these days the phrase should be updated to include 'READY! AIM!' to keep abreast of the times...

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“Stand back and stand by”—a totally normal and in no way threatening thing to say.

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The TV is always saying "stand by"! How could it be offensive?

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Are you sayin' Tammy Wynette is a goddamn fascist, HUH?

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Brilliantly argued. Mr. Rich Lowry, and (dare I say't?) Mr. William F. Buckley himself would approve. I would also stress that Mr. Manson's "followers", in their very act of following, are by definition the only participants with agency in this relationship, and in the alleged crimes themselves. Therefore Mr. Manson has no responsibility whatsoever for their actions.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

When he proclaimed "Helter Skelter!" we should just have let it slide...

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Coming down fast, are we?

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Indeed, we need to reach out to our good friends across the aisle, the homicidal maniacs, and find common ground.

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They want me to die right now, while I would prefer to die much later, of natural causes. Perhaps some middle ground can be found.

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Indeed. Possibly a return to Lothlorien, or Rivendell, those lands of legend...oh. Middle GROUND, not Middle EARTH.

Never mind.

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Aug 3, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Except that Manson's followers weren't responsible for their actions either, being provoked to action by Miss Sharon Tate's spectacular breasts.

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And if anyone knows from spectacular breasts, it's Rudy Giuliani, Esquire!

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Rudy's going through some things lately, innee? Couldn't happen to a nicer America's Mayor.

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"I kept my underwear on!" strikes me as a test-run for "I sincerely believed the election was stolen!"

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They were really Antifa under a false flag.

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