The Frankish Reich

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/08/ron-desantis-memes-lgbtq-ad-00105238 I finally took a look at it (the campaign has taken it down, but it exists elsewhere.) It is every bit as offensive as characterized, implicitly calling out Trump not for supporting things like drag queen story hour, but simply for supporting gay rights in general. But that's not the whole story. The Politico article explains that. It is full of homoerotic images like "GigaChad" (something I was blissfully unaware of), which is apparently the symbol of the alpha male so loved and hated by the incels. We also get this, which was accurately characterized by the very much gay Pete Buttigieg as, well, exactly what it is: "I’m going to leave aside the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of you in between oiled-up, shirtless bodybuilders." And a whole host of other supposedly manly men who, had I passed them on the street when I lived in San Francisco, I would have immediately thought "there must be a gay club nearby." WTF is going on in the Republican Party now? Is this an Incel Recruitment drive? And why are these so-called cultural conservatives so obsessed with homoerotic images and personalities? This is beyond weird. Vote for Ron because he's more of a self-hating closeted gay man than his opponent? Is that what they're trying to say?

OK, it's official - I'm in the market for one. Don't tell my wife. Does that account for the EV rebate?

So if an Antifa mob descends on your house and tries to smash a window to break in, you will kindly step aside until you have visual confirmation that they are armed.

Silly comment on many levels, but let's start with this: you really believe Putin attacked Ukraine because he feared NATO expansion would compromise Russia's security?

Not really. Remember Trump in 2016? There were a lot of questions about his lack of government experience and his temperament. He reassured us: "I have the best people." Part of the sale was "I will bring in the best advisors and managers to make the government work like a successful business." And then he fired all of them.

Is he just a pure troll now? I really don't know much about this creep, but he is (even if ultimately acquitted) a pornographer. I mean, that's his occupation. And the same guy who just talked about defining deviancy down has given a platform to a deviant. So it's devolved into "my enemy's enemy is my friend" - since Tate is 100% anti-woke he must be good. That's all that's left now.

Exactly.

Interesting. And the price is certainly not deterring new buyers: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-05/toyota-us-new-car-sales-jump-in-sign-of-auto-industry-strength Usually if I think I can't easily afford buying a new car, I just hold onto my old ones another year. But that's just me in this 2023 world.

This must explain why hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans are trudging across Central America and Mexico for the opportunity to live under our equally oppressive government. Again: best numbers in the developed world.

I forgot about that - our formerly resident screenwriter. Hollywood producers should expect an increase in the number of unsolicited convoluted UFO and espionage/conspiracy scripts just as soon as the strike ends.

In a simple way: Turkey threatened to obstruct Sweden joining NATO, which would disrupt the unity NATO wants to show. And Biden and the US stopped that from happening. A win.

Sometimes a legit discussion breaks out here...

The boring-ass politician (now judicial) book is always a way of bringing in extra income through institutional sales. I have never bought a single one of these books, and can’t imagine who does other than libraries and other institutions.

Depends how it’s outfitted. I know it’s cheaper than a Tesla Model S. I’m gonna say … 75k? I didn’t cheat and google it.

I think they’re bending over backwards to be fair. Or to not be seen as criticizing a “sex worker.” Or both. Whatever. Combine that with Maureen Dowd’s opinion piece piling on, it’s mission accomplished.

Basically full employment, a now-manageable inflation rate, and a country in which the main concern of the out party appears to be Drag Queen Story Hour? That's a sign that things are going o.k.

Here's the NYT article (NYT!) that started it all - Joe Biden ignores his illegitimate grandchild: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/us/politics/hunter-biden-daughter-arkansas.html And for all you "mainstream media spin" types - here's a weird paragraph or two: The pride of her family, the 5-foot-8 Ms. Roberts graduated with honors from Southside High School in Batesville and played basketball for Arkansas State University, where a team biography said she enjoyed hunting and skeet shooting. After graduating, she moved to Washington to study forensic investigation at George Washington University. She never completed the program. Photos from that time show her attending baseball games at Nationals Park and attending Drake and Kanye West concerts. Along the way, she met the son of a future president who was sliding into addiction and visiting Washington strip clubs. In mid-2018, Ms. Roberts was working as a personal assistant to Mr. Biden, according to a person close to her and messages from a cache of Mr. Biden’s files. Their daughter was born later that year, but by then, Mr. Biden had stopped responding to Ms. Roberts’s messages, including one informing him of the child’s birth date. What's missing here? Well, the kinda important fact that Hunter MET HER WHILE HE WAS VISITING ONE OF THOSE STRIP CLUBS, WHERE SHE WAS WORKING AS A STRIPPER. Instead, we have the weird jump from "he was sliding into addiction and visiting Washington strip clubs" to "Ms. Roberts was working as a personal assistant [hah!] to Hunter... ." She had met him "Along the way." What way? The way of giving lap dances to Hunter (and obviously other things too). Talk about burying the lede ...

Welcome to the new talking point. Joe is an ass! He really ought to be inviting that hooker that Hunter impregnated to the White House. Hell, let her come to Rehoboth Beach too! He should put a jumpy castle on the White House lawn for Hunter's illegitimate child too. I mean, wouldn't you do that in your own backyard? Invite her former co-workers too and then we can have the kind of "sexualizing children" when they break out into a pole dance on the jumpy castle supports at the kid's birthday party. Sometimes he yells at staffers! He's ... mean!!

But some people aren't interested in a rational discussion. I say "the United States economy is the strongest in the world now" and they either deny that fact, or say it would be so much better if we didn't have Biden. There's not even a "yes, but ..." like "yes, but the over stimulation of the economy today will come back to haunt us tomorrow." That would be rational. They say we "hate America." But they are the ones constantly, incessantly talking about how America has turned into a trash nation. Some even say it isn't worth saving anymore, that it should be split into two. But they "love America."

Correct. The number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide has plummeted. https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/end-extreme-poverty-getting-back-pre-covid-19-reduction-rates-not-enough#:~:text=From 1990 to 2014%2C the,in 2014 (Figure 1). From 1990 to 2014, the world made astonishing progress in reducing extreme deprivation: more than one billion people moved out of extreme poverty. The global poverty rate declined by 1.1 percentage points a year on average, from 37.8 percent in 1990 to 11.2 percent in 2014 (Figure 1) Global terrorism seemed to be an intractable problem after 9/11. It may erupt again, but the last significant international terrorist event in the United States was 6 years ago. We've seen significant backsliding in the last decade in freedom worldwide (Hong Kong, Russia), but overall there is far more freedom in the world than there was a generation ago.

I will make a half-hearted attempt to rescue our OP ... ... young, good-looking, single football star soon to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Small town boy, came to rust belt city with charming small town feel, love affair begins. Small town boy, small town sweetheart, the new king and soon-to-be queen of Buffalo. Before too long, becomes seduced by the good life beyond Firebaugh and Buffalo. Starts innocently enough - celeb golf tourneys, invites to the Kentucky Derby and parties with the ultra wealthy and famous. High school romance over. New starlet girlfriend. Buffalo no longer big enough. New So Cal home, but it's o.k, it's not Malibu, it's way down there in Dana Point. Dana Point starts seeming kind of far away from the West LA social scene. So maybe move in a bit closer. Maybe find another starlet girlfriend. We still love Buffalo, but it is ... Buffalo, not LA or Las Vegas. Contracts don't last forever ...

Let's hear it for the Survivor of a Crucifixion! I'll call her Barabbas.

We are so lucky that most criminals really are that stupid. "His cell phone pinged to various robbery locations." You do know you can power down that phone or leave it at home? I guess not.

Philip Rivers' old commute-in-style van is available! https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/philip-rivers-to-make-hellish-l-a-commute-in-200000-luxury-office-on-wheels/

I take pride in having an open mind, so I did watch this video. Lindsay is indeed far better than most of these public intellectuals of the new right. I can't really argue with anything in the first half of the video. It is a defensible take on Marx and Marx's purpose. (I will disagree, however, with the silly characterization of Marx as a "theologian" rather than an economist. True, he wasn't an economist - there really wasn't any such thing in his time, as we understand "economist" today - but calling him a theologian is just saying that anyone who envisions a better future for humanity is necessarily a religious-type leader. Which he wasn't.) It goes awry in the second half. Yes, a lot of the modern "critical" studies are grounded in what academics would call "Marxian" (as opposed to "Marxist") thinking. That is, analysis of the type that couldn't be done if Marx hadn't existed, but that isn't expressly following Marx's lead. But it's way, way overwrought. Example: Proposition: Disney supports a woke (hence Marxist) agenda, both explicitly (by criticizing Florida law) and implicitly (by putting out "entertainment" projects that undermine bourgeois values). But: in reality, Disney is doing exactly what a Marxist believes a capitalist would do. It is "appropriating" its critics, throwing them a bone by acting all "woke" in things that don't really matter to "capital," like support of drag shows. Meanwhile, it continues to do what it does best: the "commodification of leisure." The best Marxist explanation I've ever heard was in this little rhyme from the old English (Marxist) band, Gang of Four: "The problem of leisure, What to do for pleasure." Disney exists - thrives, makes tons of money - by convincing you that it's not good enough to have leisure time at home to spend eating, drinking, playing games with your family, friends, and neighbors. No! That doesn't make (much) money for anyone. You must haul the family to a designated Pleasure Location where you will spend money to have "fun," and spend even more money to cut in line ahead of the funseekers who have a little less money than you have. Jim Gaffigan nails it - everyone asks him what he's doing this summer, as if "staying home, relaxing, and enjoying the fine weather" isn't enough: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jim-gaffigan-does-not-have-summer-plans/ You must consume their movies and TV, and then be convinced to buy their tie-in merchandise. And while there may be some concessions (appropriation?) to "woke" values, on the whole their entire operation reinforces traditional bourgeois values: family fun (which must be structured and monetized), traditional gender roles (some boys may want to be princesses, but from my experience ALL little American girls want to be princesses), etc., etc. Leisure is not a wonderful outgrowth of our capitalist system that allows you to have a surplus of time to spend away from productive activity. It is a problem to be solved by a capitalist colossus like Disney (or Universal, or Apple, or Taylor Swift). Marxists call it the commodification of leisure. We can recognize that this has happened but still not agree with Marx's prescription. So what I'm saying is that Lindsay is a good cultural critic himself, but that he's missing the forest for the trees.