My First Rerun
I messed this up yesterday, my bad
[NOTE: I’m resending this post from yesterday, because it looks like somehow I managed to send it to paying subscribers only. Eventually I’ll start doing subscriber-only posts, but I wanted everybody to get this one. So if you’ve already read it, sorry for the rerun. You can just delete this or whatever. If you haven’t read it, I hope you like it and you’ll subscribe!]
Are you ready for Independence Day? For the first time in what feels like a decade, Americans can celebrate July 4th without worrying about going to a party and getting killed by a Chinese virus that we’re not supposed to call “a Chinese virus.” So that’ll be cool.
The fine folks at the White House are ready to celebrate the Fourth this year, and they’re bringing their favorite dish: half-baked lies.
Putting aside the awful puns, which I am certainly in no position to criticize… $0.16? They’re boasting about 16 cents???
Hey, America, you can put that savings right into your gas tank this weekend. These days, 16 cents will buy about six ounces of the good stuff.
And even that meager savings is bull$#!+. Food costs more this year than it did last year. So does everything else. It’s called inflation, it’s happening right now, and we’re all experiencing it. Lying about grocery prices to people who have to shop for themselves every week isn’t going to work. It just shows how out of touch you are.
So of course, the next step for the White House will be to blame middle-class Americans for not being more appreciative. Who do we think we are? Grandpa Joe would be getting so much more done if we’d all just quit criticizing him! Etc.
You mayo want to think twice next time, Joe. This is the sort of thing that only looks good on pepper. Please do butter.
So, What Else Is Going On?
Ladies and gentlemen: Massachusetts Senator Edward John Markey.
I really want libs to protest the sun. I want to see them on the street in broad daylight, speaking out against broad daylight.
Hey hey!
Ho ho!
This racist sun has got to go!
[REPEAT UNTIL NEWS VANS ARRIVE]
Bridget Phetasy has a thoughtful piece in Newsweek about Bill Cosby’s release from prison due to prosecutorial misconduct. She’s ambivalent about it — enraged that a rapist has walked free, but relieved that due process still exists even in a highly charged case like this — and that’s basically where I land on it. Should Cosby still be in jail right now? Yes. Should the prosecutors have broken the rules to put him there? No. This is one of those situations where the only thing worse than the result is the alternative.
The law is the law. This sucks, but the only other choice is mob justice. I don’t want Cosby walking around free, and I also don’t want prosecutors breaking the law. As bad as Cosby is, no one man is as dangerous as a culture of vigilante justice.
Bill Cosby knows what he did, and so does everybody else. We all know the wholesome image he cultivated for his whole career was an evil lie, and he’ll go to his grave knowing that all the people who loved him now hate him.1 If that’s the only punishment he gets in this life, I guess it’s better than nothing.
As for the next life, Bill already told us where he’s headed 40 years ago:
Over at Commentary, Jamie Kirchick reviews Ben Rhodes’ new book, Whatever It’s Called. SPOILER: He did not care for it.
“Like his former boss, Rhodes fancies himself a writer, an aspiration in the pursuit of which he obtained an MFA in creative writing. After the Fall is peppered with the unimaginative flourishes and pseudo-sophisticated musings of a failed novelist.”
That’s good stuff. I’m pretty sure reading Kirchick’s review is more fun than reading Rhodes’ stupid book would be. But then, unanesthetized eye surgery is more fun than Ben Rhodes.
I’m starting to think somebody really has it in for Kamala Harris. Margaret Talev and Jonathan Swan, Axios:
“Some Democrats close to the White Houseare increasingly concerned about Harris’s handling of high-profile issues and political tone deafness, and question her ability to maintain the coalition that Biden rode to the White House…”
Kamala’s office is also described as a “$#!+show.” Tee-hee!
It’s a good thing these anonymous gripers are Democrats, or this sort of talk would be positively racist. And sexist. And all the other words ending in -ist.
Obama got away with being incompetent and dishonest and vindictive because of his charm.2 Kamala is perhaps not quite as gifted in that capacity…
She seems pretty dumb, she’s not a good liar, and she cackles like the Joker whenever she’s cornered by a legitimate question. All politicians are assholes, but the trick is to make people like you anyway. If Kamala were any good at that, she wouldn’t have dropped out of the 2020 race before Iowa.
The Dems can’t learn from their mistakes, but fortunately for them, the Republicans probably won’t either. Me, I’m rooting for DeSantis.
I’m not sure what this is about, but I’m all for chasing the British royalty out of North America entirely:
Well, better late than never.
This is a good first step. Now we just need to get those freeloaders Meghan and Harry out of here. Keep the continent royal-free!
Noah Hawley is an interesting guy, and he’s written some really good TV. The first two seasons of Fargo were a surprisingly effective approximation of the movie’s themes and tone, and Legion… well, Legion was Legion.3 Hawley’s next project is a TV series based on the Alien movies, and it sounds like he’s continuing the series tradition of rich guys scolding the rest of us about the evils of capitalism.
First James Cameron gave us Burke, the backstabbing corporate drone who bit off more than he could chew and then found out what that feels like. Now it sounds like Hawley wants the aliens to wipe out the managerial class entirely. He tells Vanity Fair:
“On some level it’s also a story about inequality… In [the series], you’re also going to see the people who are sending [the blue-collar grunts who always have to deal with the aliens]. So you will see what happens when the inequality we’re struggling with now isn’t resolved. If we as a society can’t figure out how to prop each other up and spread the wealth, then what’s going to happen to us? There’s that great Sigourney Weaver line to Paul Reiser where she says, ‘I don’t know which species is worse. At least they don’t fuck each other over for a percentage.’”
Speaking as someone who has never earned a lot of money,4 I’m getting pretty sick of Hollywood millionaires telling me how evil I am for trying to make a living. Hawley’s one of the better writers working in TV right now, and I’m sure this Aliens show will be watchable at worst. But crapping all over the system that made him rich seems ungrateful.
If you want to spread the wealth, Mr. Hawley, you can start by writing me a personal check.
And no, Ripley isn’t going to be on the show. It’s time to let Ripley go, nerds. She was good in the first movie and absolutely fantastic in the second. After that… well, not so much. It’s been 35 years, just leave Ripley alone.
I haven’t watched any of Dave Grohl’s reality shows, but after seeing this clip that’s going viral this week, I’m kinda intrigued. Watch him stun Pharrell Williams by revealing the inspiration for his Nevermind-era drumming style:
I don’t like all of Grohl’s music, but he seems like a genuinely good guy and he’s one of the few real rock stars we’ve got left. Gen X represent!
Thanks for reading my newsletter, and I hope you have a great Fourth of July weekend. Celebrate your independence, even if that means sitting around doing nothing. As long as it’s what you want to do, not what somebody else wants you to do.
Oh, and please subscribe, tell your friends, etc. Unless you don’t want to. But deep down, you really do want to. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have scrolled all the way down here. Gotcha!
Well, except for Phylicia Rashad. Remember #MeToo? She doesn’t.
I mean, Obama’s BS never worked on me, but it worked. He still has those dummies eating out of the palm of his hand. Meanwhile, I’m over here wearing the sunglasses like Roddy Piper. (That goes for Obama’s successor too. Sorry, fans!)
Hawley has also written several novels, two of which I’ve read. Before the Fall and The Good Father are both gripping, unpredictable page-turners about the catastrophic consequences of undiagnosed mental illness. He’s got a new novel, Anthem, coming out next year. Man, I need to read more books. I used to read books all the time. At one point, I think I actually might’ve been kinda smart! Now I just read the internet, which is like one long book that never ends or has a point or teaches anybody anything. We’ve all got the sum total of human knowledge at our fingertips, and it’s only made us dumber.
Sorry, MAGA-heads, but I didn’t “sell out.” I’m not smart enough to go for the easy money, like Jen Rubin and the Lincoln Project scumbags and all those other grifters. I can’t seem to bring myself to say things I don’t believe just to make people like me, which has alienated me from both major political parties in America. As much as I enrage you, please take heart in the knowledge that it has done absolutely nothing for my bank account. I actually wish you were right about me, because then at least I’d be rich.