MAGA's Big Sad Week

So MAGA's Dear Leader got his birthday boy parade, which shambled past nearly empty bleachers and through which he kept falling asleep, jolted awake only intermittently as the antique WWII tanks they rolled onto the streets shrieked like banshees, having not been oiled since the Eisenhower administration. 

And while he slept...?

Oh my. 

Millions and millions of us were in the streets, telling MAGA to go fuck themselves sideways.

In Minnesota, MAGA found some horrific violence they could lamprey themselves onto for a minute. And by "they", I include Senator Mike Lee, who any self-respecting deity would have smote years ago -- 

A US Senator just said that a registered Republican, who voted for Trump, and preached as a Christian Nationalist is a Marxist.

Mike Lee is a POS. pic.twitter.com/eW54PCsQZV

— Craig Bowden (@BowdenOnBass) June 15, 2025

-- and America's own Killer Ketamine Kowboy (as of late May 2025, Boston University’s “Impact Counter” model attributes approximately 300,000 excess deaths worldwide—many of them children—directly to the Trump‑Musk DOGE-led freeze and dismantling of USAID. Next year, if cuts persist, Models estimate between 483,000 to 1.14 million excess deaths across HIV, TB, malaria, nutrition, and water/sanitation programs. Which would make Trump/Musk by far the greatest mass murders in American history.)

But that desperate, leechlike attempt to feed on tragedy smothered in lies sustained them for but a moment.  The facts about the shooter came to light fairly quickly, and all that yummy yummy bile turned to ash in their mouths.

Of course millions of these mopes will simply reboot under a backup operating system and start barking madness about bullshit conspiracies and Fake News and the Deep State.  They do it every time a load-bearing lie fails, and they'll keep doing it until the day they die.  

Because, as we all know, they're just reprogrammable meatbags.  From WIRED:

Psyop’: How Far-Right Conspiracy Theories About the Minnesota Shooting Evolved to Protect MAGA Influencers like Alex Jones and Elon Musk have spent the weekend blaming the murder of Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman on leftists and the deep state.

...On Sunday, David Carlson, who has known the alleged shooter since fourth grade and described the 57-year-old as his best friend, dismissed the claims that the alleged shooter was a Democrat, telling reporters Sunday he “would be offended if people called him a Democrat.”

“He’s a Trump supporter, he voted for Trump, he liked Trump,” Carlson said, adding: “He listened to InfoWars.” InfoWars is the far-right conspiracy theory channel operated by Alex Jones, the school shooting conspiracist and Pizzagate conspiracy promoter who filed for bankruptcy in 2022. 

This did not stop Jones from weighing in: “Evidence mounts that the reported Minnesota assassin Vance Luther Boelter is a patsy who is being framed to cover up a larger false flag deep state operation,” Jones wrote on X.

Despite the clear evidence that the alleged shooter was a Trump supporter, those trying to lay the blame on leftists and Democrats fell back on one of the oldest tricks in the conspiracy theorist handbook: Blame the deep state. “The conspiracism about the Minnesota shooting, particularly the allegations that it's a psy-op or false flag, have become the norm with violent incidents of a political nature,” Mike Rothschild, an author who writes about conspiracy theories and extremists, tells WIRED.

However, other mopes like Scott Walker, are trying to pull what we here call a "Dowd-and-Dash" -- delete the incriminating Tweets and change the subject.

Hey there Scott Walker. I noticed you deleted this after learning that in fact the shooter was from the right. I don’t think it matters either way, violence is violence, so I’m waiting for you to tweet the same thing with corrected facts? Cuz you’re uh, to use your words, “being silent.”

[image or embed]

— Adam Kinzinger (@adamkinzinger.substack.com) June 16, 2025 at 9:30 AM

Well at least they still have the sadism of mass deportations to keep them warm at night, right?  Because Trump and Stephen "PeeWee German" Miller could not have been clearer:  

Read. 

My. 

Lips.  

Mass. 

Deportations.

But, see, here's the thing.  At some point word got out that Big Ag, fancy hotels and 500,000 Chinese students would be exempted from the Stephen Miller's gestapo deportation regime.  And if there is one thing absolutely guaranteed to trigger MAGA mopes into a flailing frenzy, it is making them look like the chumps they are, in public, in front of the Liberals.

 

And so... (a small sample from among thousands):

This alleged plan to exempt some illegal aliens from deportation is going over poorly with @realDonaldTrump’s supporters.

That’s an understatement.

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) June 15, 2025

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins needs to go.

Calling supporters "grifters" for pushing back against exceptions for employers who hire illegals in the farm, hospitality and leisure industries is a major slap in the face.

Insulting your base because you got called out is not…

— Shawn Farash (@Shawn_Farash) June 16, 2025

And of course, (to borrow from Jefferson Airplane), when the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies, where do Republican goofs run shelter?

R and D are the same. No point in voting or donating to these corrupt people. I am so very disappointed with President Trump, my trust in him began to diminish when he publicly used and humiliated Elon, the only true friend he had. Everyone else around him want something, power,…

— Maria Gray (@mariagray239) June 15, 2025

That old, reliable Both Sides Do It panic room.

I Am The Liberal Media.

Whatcha Reading?

In answer to a stray question, this is one of my piles o' books that are on-hand at the moment for reference and pleasure.  Currently I'm about 4/5th the way through Raymond Chandler's short story "Red Wind".  

A few quotes from the story:

"Bright, brittle, shallow eyes like the eyes of a lizard."

"The girl floated in the air, somewhere behind him. Nothing was ever more soundless than the way she moved. It wouldn't do any good though. He wouldn't fool around with her at all. I had known him all my life but I had been looking into his eyes for only five minutes."

"His chin came down and I hit it. I hit it as if I was driving the last spike on the first transcontinental railroad. I can still feel it when I flex my knuckles."

The man could write.  

Trouble Is My Business

I Am Posting this Here Because...

 

...in the future, when this becomes another Phrase of the Year or somesuch, and Merriam-Webster won't return my emails when they claim no one knows where it came from, I want this here as Exhibit A.

I've learned my lesson.  

After all, if I'm going to be blamed for the End of Civilization,  I might as well enjoy some of the perks of extreme micro-celebrity before they gibbet me.  

#NotMyDoomsday

Mama Said To Knock You Out

Although I was married to an attorney for a number of years, I myself am not a lawyer,  I am completely unlettered in the field. And yet even I, a complete naif, know that the First Rule of Writ Club is to never, ever put a witness on the stand -- or on teevee -- and ask them a question to which you do not already know the answer.

Itinerant hack-for-rent Howie Kurtz apparently never hearda such.

Here is the result (h/t Crooks and Liars):

The primary viewership for Fox News are old, cranky, poorly-informed white people who want those nice young men and ladies on the teevee machine to be perky and well-groomed and tell them just what they want to hear. To slightly misquote General Sternwood from "The Big Sleep", Fox News viewers exist largely on faux-controversy heat like a new born spider, and as such must be induced to keep right on believing that what they are getting from Fox News is the rill dill (to slightly misquote Sarah Palin) -- the Pure Quill, unfiltered by all of those Libruls who secretly control the media.

They must continue to believe in the immersive fiction of the superiority of their information, rather than the ugly reality that they are cage-fed morons mindlessly sucking down raw Conservative propaganda laced with news-flavored gobbets of bullshit. And as such, nothing that reminds them that Fox News is a ruthlessly for-profit enterprise can be allowed to get in front of the camera. It all falls apart otherwise, which is why any business which is built on illusion knows that the illusion must be maintained at all times. 

It's the reason why the actions and movements of Disney theme-park actors are so carefully choreographed.

And its the reason you do not put someone in front of a Fox News camera who knows damn well how the business of making of the teevee sausage works and is delighted at the chance to slap the smug off of Mitah Kurtz's face and tell his audience the real rill dill.

The Professional Left interviewed on WORT-FM, Madison WI (free player)

Many thanks much to host Mike Moon for the opportunity to appear on his fine show, and to the mighty WORT-FM for their permission to rebroadcast this interview.

So Let It Be Written

The Ten Lessons of Rahmses: for future reference, a handy index to the complete award-consideration-ready series on the 10 Vital Lessons of Chicago politics as they exist today.

Lesson One: Elections

Lesson Two: Being Da Boss

Lesson Three: Voters

Lesson Four: Budgets (and how to balance them)

Lesson Five: Fighting Legends

Lesson Six: Enemies

Lesson Seven: Job Stress

Lesson Eight: Employee Morale

Lesson Nine: The Banality of Municipal Gummint

Lesson Ten: Public Service in Chicago

Breaking: Duncan reveals what Matt thinks

of Tyler's observations about what he saw driving around after eating at Ray's.