Doom Report (Week 71: A Dream You Dream Together)

Salesmen are the biggest suckers in the world.

You wouldn’t think that.  You would think that salesmen are the people who do the suckering, and therefore they would know all the tricks and see them coming a mile away.  You would think that.  You would be wrong.  Speaking as someone who’s spent a bunch of time in corporate America, and even ran my own business for a while, I have spent a lot of time with a lot of salesmen, and one of the most curious things about them is that they will buy just about anything.  From practically anyone.  If there were some sort of study that ranked different types of people by percentage of deals in which they got scammed, salesmen would certainly be at the top of the graph.

And of course I’ve noted that Trump is just a particularly sleazy salesman in these Doom Reports before ... over and over again, even (and even, once, pre-Doom-Reports altogether).  There are a lot of tells for this, if the hawking of steaks and bibles and gold sneakers wasn’t already a dead giveaway.  See, salesmen have these tricks that they rely on, and, if you’re unlikely to to run into the same customer twice, that’s fine.  But when what you successfully conned people into buying was your election to the presidency, then everyone gets to see you do the same tired tricks, over and over.  And one of Trump’s all-time favorites is promising that something will be ready in “two weeks.”  Have you ever noticed that whatever Trump is talking about—health care plan, infrastructure week, Epstein files, end to the Iran war—no matter what it is, it’ll totally be done in two weeks.  Two weeks is kind of the perfect time: it’s short enough that people will say, “oh, sure, we can wait two weeks,” but long enough that people will likely forget about it before the deadline actually arrives.  So Trump uses it ... a lot.

This week, Trump used it again.  In this interview (covered by Brian Tyler Cohen), he says:

... if we didn’t hit that with the B2 bombers, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks from that date because they were ready to go.

Now, BTC is primarily focussed on the fact that this is Trump’s answer to “why don’t you see any urgency in trying to bring down gas prices?”  But I wondered something else.  Where did Trump get this “two weeks” from?  I mean, maybe he made it up entirely: that certainly wouldn’t be out of character for him.  But, if he did actually get it from somewhere, where did it come from?  Not from his own government intelligence sources.  But, in February, Trump got a visit from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.  And we know for a fact that Netanyahu has been saying that Iran will have a nuclear weapon in “a few years,” “a few months,” or “a few weeks” for the past 30 years.  This is a very well known phenomeon: in fact, one article refers to him as “the man who cried bomb”.

So my theory is, Netanyahu used Trump’s favorite trick—it’ll happen in “two weeks”—on him ... and Trump bought it: hook, line, and sinker.  No way to know for sure, of course, but my experience with salesmen tells me it’s all too plausible.

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Other things you need to know this week:

• Legal Eagle has another video on Trump’s slush fund for insurrectionists, this time featuring Lawfare reporter Anna Bower.  This is the first time I’ve seen reported that the fund literally says it can only be used for people targeted by “the sustained use of the levers of government power by Democrat elected officials, political and career federal employees, contractors, and agents.”  So people can keep making jokes that all the people illegally targeted by Trump’s DoJ should apply for some of this money, but they can’t do that: the money can’t be used for victims of Republican administrations.

• Adam Kinzinger theorizes on whether Texas could end up electing a Democratic Senator for the first time since 1988.  In fact, should James Talarico beat Ken Paxton—one of the most corrupt politicians of our time not named “Trump”—he’ll be the first Democrat to win any statewide election in Texas since 1994.  For what it’s worth, both Pod Save America and Jamelle Bouie agree with Kinzinger that Talarico has a real shot.  All because Trump decided to meddle in the primary over his dislike of John Cornyn.  Let’s hope it comes back to bite him in the ass.

• Leah Litman from Strict Scrutiny shows up on a breaking-news episode of Runaway Country to talk to Alex Wagner about the DoJ’s pointless case against E. Jean Carroll.  Obviously they have no shot at winning, but, just like their cases against Comey, Jerome Powell, and Letitia James, the harassment is the point.

• Want to know how Elon Musk is rigging the stock market to force you to fund his SpaceX IPO?  Then you should watch the More Perfect Union video that explains it all in moderately easy-to-understand terms.  Chilling.

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Here’s a little bit of lighter news.  As part of Trump’s 250th birthday celebration for America, the “Great American State Fair” was announced this week, with the first round of headliners being country star Martina McBride, “Everybody Dance Now” singers C+C Music Factory, infamous plagiarist Vanilla Ice, infamous lip-syncers Milli Vanilli, “Bust a Move” singer Young MC, true legends from the 70s through the 90s the Commodores, Purple Rain co-stars Morris Day and the Time, rapper Flo Rida, and Poison frontman Bret Michaels.  And, if you’re thinking “whoa ... that’s a whole lotta 90s going on there,” you’re certainly not alone.  On the other hand, if you’re thinking “whoa, I’m kinda surprised some of those people agreed to perform at a Trump venue” ... turns out you’re not alone there either.  Because, it turns out, many of those folks had no idea they were supposed to perform at a Trump venue: some knew they’d hired to perform, but not the details; others say they were never contacted at all.  And so Young MC is out, Day is out, McBride is out, the Commodores are out, Michaels is out, C+C Music Factory appears split on the decision, and, as for Milli Vanilli, the non-lip-syncing singers say they were never in in the first place.  Flo Rida is getting shit from his fans, but so far has not responded with anything other than emojis; Vanilla Ice, meanwhile, has surprised no one by saying he’d play for pretty much anyone—“I’ll go play for Putin and I’ll play in Iran if you want”—which apparently he thinks is a defense.

Meanwhile, Bruce Springsteen and the Foo Fighters have announced the Power to the People festival, where they will be joined by Rage Against the Machine frontman Tom Morello, Dave Matthews, Joan Baez, Public Enemy, Jack Black, Cypress Hill, Killer Mike, the Dropkick Murphys, and many others.  It’s a few months later than Trump’s bullshit, so one can’t call it proper counter-programming, but the contrast in lineup is striking (and purposeful).  Once again, the MAGA motto of “we don’t need anyone” is proven impotent.  As Yoko Ono once said:

A dream you dream alone is only a dream.  A dream you dream together is reality.

Doom Report (Week 70: Hello, Goodbye)

Nearly 16 years ago, I wrote a blog post to mark the occasion of The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.  People at the time—and since—didn’t understand the point of the rally, of course: they didn’t “get” it.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the event described as a confused mess; or that people were protesting, but they didn’t know what they were protesting; or that there was no clear message.  Bullshit: there was a crystal clear message.  They even made a T-shirt.  The message was: I disagree with you, but I’m pretty sure you’re not Hitler.  Now, some have accused this event of not aging well.  I suppose the message may not have aged well, in the sense that I’m pretty sure at least some of the people I disagree with now are, in fact, Hitler.  Or at least Hitler-curious.  And, hey: if we can forget the horrors of World War II, which happened over 80 years ago, we can damn sure forget a one-day rally that happened a mere 16 days ago.

But I still remember it.  At the time, I mostly focussed on Stewart; I only mention Colbert once in that entire post.  And that’s because Colbert was doing something quite different than Stewart ... at the time.  His satire of a rightwing nutjob pundit was biting, and excoriating, but, at least for me, it didn’t hit the same as what Stewart was doing.

Still ... still, I watched every episode of The Colbert Report, just as I watched every episode of The Daily Show.  And, when Colbert shut down the show to go and, of all things, replace David Letterman—who of course had been vying with Jay Leno to succeed Johnny Carson, and some would argue ended up being Carson’s spiritual successor—I was surprised.  The idea of Stephen Colbert doing a talk show, after the funny, often absurdist, bits on The Daily Show, and 9 years as a bloviating caricature on The Colbert Report ... it boggled the mind.  And I don’t actually like talk shows, so I wasn’t too keen on this change.  But I figured I should give it a fair shot.  After all, Letterman had been funny, before he went mainstream (inasmuch as he did, which was at least a little), and there were still funny bits even in the later years.  And Colbert had proven himself: at that point I’d been watching him for 17 years, which was longer than my eldest child had been alive.  I figured I’d watch the first couple of shows and then probably get bored.

Except ... I watched the first several shows, and then a few more, and then some more, and I just ... never stopped.  For 11 years, he did a talk show that was actually entertaining, and relevant, and his monologues were topical, and trenchant, and he was funny.  The bits were funny, the guests were usually funny, and the political satire was excellent.  As it turned out, Colbert was every bit as talented as Stewart had been before him: in the lean years, when Stewart was gone entirely, Colbert was a lifeline; after Stewart came back, first at Apple TV, and then back to The Daily Show once a week, and then reviving the vibes of his Apple show with The Weekly Show—even then, I was still glad to have Colbert: always smart, always funny, never afraid to skewer the corrupt and speak truth to power.

This week, Stephen Colbert aired his final run of shows.  Was he tired of it all, just ready to call it quits?  Not at all.  He just got caught up in some corporate bullshit and Trump flexing his new (at the time) dictatorial muscles.  I won’t repeat all the details here—if you need a refresher, hop back in time to week 26 and reread the conclusion—but the idea that CBS cancelled the late night show with the highest ratings among all late night shows for purely “financial reasons” is so ludicrous that we needn’t give it any more credence than that.

The entire week of shows was really very good, and you should watch them all.  For particular highlights, I’ll call out the extended version of Stephen himself being administered the Colbert Questionert (I have a fondness for the Questionert; I even administered it to myself once), and his final musical number, which not only brings back original bandleader Jon Batiste, but also throws in Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney, which ain’t too shoddy, if you ask me.  But you should watch them all: he’s lambasting the current regime right up to the bitter end.

A bunch of touching tributes to the loss, from Robert Reich, from Jimmy Kimmel, from Adam Conover, and from Adam Kinzinger (see below for that one).

But I brought up the Rally to Restore Sanity because it’s emblematic of how little most of the media has been able to understand what Colbert (and Stewart, and Kimmel, and Meyers, and Oliver, and a host of others) do.  It’s usually referred to as “fake news”—The Daily Show even refers to itself that way—but this is completely inaccurate.  I watched TDS before Stewart came along, and what Craig Kilborn was doing was in fact fake news: they were absurdist stories, done in the style of news, about things that had never happened.  The “news” was completely fake.  But, when Stewart came in, he established a new tradition: the stories they reported on were entirely real, and the fact they could make us laugh while doing so didn’t make it any less true.  There is no artificiality; only humor.  “Funny” and “fake” are not the same thing at all.  And, while I give Stewart credit for starting it, there can be no doubt that Colbert became a master at the craft, and his loss will be felt for a while.

Until he finds something new to latch on to.  Will it be Monroe, Michigan public access?  Probably not.  But I’m eagerly anticipating whatever comes next.

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Other things you need to know this week:

• The big news this week, of course, is Trump’s multi-billion dollar slush fund for ... well, whoever the fuck he wants.  Devin Stone covers it, in only the second Legal Eagle video I’ve ever seen with no ads (the first was the Alex Pretti video, which I covered back in week 53).  It covers, in a concise but impassioned manner, the unlimited nature of the fund (turns out the $1.776 billion number is just a smokescreen), and also touches on the IRS “immunity” deal written into it for Trump.  And his businesses.  And his children.  Forever.  Just stunning.  More coverage on this from Adam Kinzinger and Strict Scrutiny.

• Jon Stewart once again (see also last week) demonstrates electability despite protestations to the contrary by asking overly competent questions on chips, rare earths, etc in this week’s Weekly Show.  Another talent he shares with Colbert.

• Adam Kinzinger had quite possibly his best day in review ever on Friday: he talks about Tulsi Gabbard’s “resignation,” the Trump regime’s attempt to declare that half our voting machines are “invalid,” Marjorie Taylor Greene’s warning that Trump may try to use the Iran war as a pretext to cancel elections (duh), and the aforementioned fairly touching tribute to Colbert.  A total banger this time.

• More Perfect Union is still at it, exposing the scams of corporations and billionaires.  It’s the latter this time around, as they talk about the “illegal immigrant voting” scam and how it helps billionaires stay in power.

• The main Some More News show this week was about all the war stuff Trump is doing, including the incredible information that both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio claim they hate communists because their families were persecuted the Cuban government ... and yet both were actually persecuted by Castro’s predecessor: a puppet dictator installed by the US.  Every time you assume you can’t be surprised by more hypocrisy, you find that you’ve been mistaken.

• Hey, remember back in week 67 when I said that I was starting to think Trump might be gay?  Secretly gay, granted—deeply, deeply closeted gay—but, still: gay.  Well, Ronnie Chieng agrees with me!  And also other good stuff from one of this week’s Daily Show episodes.

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I usually try to end with a note of hope.  Although I note that I didn’t bother doing so the week Colbert got cancelled—I ended with the story of the cancellation, which I called a note of defeat.  This week also feels like that, a little.  Actually, fuck that: more than a little.  But I choose to believe that, in the end, good will triumph over evil, democracy will triumph over autocracy, and American values will triumph over racism and corruption, even if our founding fathers were pretty fucking racist, and maybe even a little bit corrupt.  But the principles they espoused are still solid, and inspiring, and worth fighting for.

Earlier tonight I had to explain to my 14-year-old (my youngest child) why I wouldn’t be watching Colbert any more, and how Kimmel or John Oliver (or both) could be next, and even The Daily Show’s continuance is not a sure thing.  I had to explain how Trump, like all aspiring autocrats, had been co-opting the media, and the universities, and the big law firms.  And some had gone along, and some were fighting.  And my child said to me, “Well, at least the guys you watch are quitting.  ‘Cause that’s better than staying and going along with whatever Trump wants them to do.”  And, you know what? they’re right.  Quitting is better.  Quitting with your integrity beats rolling over any day, every day, all day long.  I’m going to miss Stephen Colbert, for sure, but the fact that he’s walking out with his head held high and his principles intact, that means something.

And that’s what I’m holding on to right now.

A Fred Story

Here’s something I wrote earlier.  For full context, Fred is our eldest cat; he’s an old man now, and is probably not long for this world.  If you want to hear my voice when you read, it might help to know that I follow the Stephen Fry Jeeves and Wooster precedent and pronounce “valet” as rhyming with “mallet” rather than “ballet.”  A small detail, but then small details matter.

When I came out just now to perform my kitty valet duties, I wasn’t sure if Fred actually wanted to come in, so I just stared at him for a while, waiting to see if he’d paw at the door.  And, being Fred, he just stared back at me for a bit, then looked away and stared off into the distance for a bit, and, while I was waiting for him to make up his mind, I noticed a large bug flying around above and behind him a bit, and I wondered if he would turn around and try to grab it, and then I looked closer and realized it wasn’t a bug at all: it was a hummingbird.  A hummingbird, hovering maybe two or three feet off the ground, surely no more than three feet away from our oblivious cat, flitting side to side in that way that hummingbirds and dragonflies do: zipping a few inches then stopping dead still again, but of course they’re not still at all, because their wings are beating at lightning speed to keep them up in the air, but they’re also beating so fast that you can’t really see them.  And I wished I had my phone so I could take a picture, but I didn’t, and I didn’t bother to try to get it because I knew the moment couldn’t last, so I just watched, just for a few seconds, and then Fred pawed at the door and the hummingbird flew away and I went to let the cat in.

Doom Report (Week 69: Nice)

On Even More News this week, Katy, Cody, and Jonathan are joined by guest comedian Mary Houlihan.  It’s a great show, focussing on the reflecting pool debacle, the LA mayoral race, and especially affordability, and you should totally watch the whole thing, but there’s one part I wanted to call out.

You know how Trump was asked this week how much he cared about Americans not being able to afford things, and he said “not even a little”?  Well, okay, that’s a slight exaggeration; here’s what he actually said:

Reporter: To what extent are Americans’ financial situations motivating you to make a deal?
Trump: Not even a little bit.  The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon.  I don’t think about Americans financial situation, I don’t think about anybody.  I think about one thing.  We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.  That’s all.

Oh, I guess he actually used the exact words “not even a little” ... so not exaggerating at all, really.  And, a few minutes later, Cody says this:

Inflation all over.  Prices are up a lot over the past year.  And most of the high prices we’re seeing right now still aren’t because of what’s going on.  Like, that is yet to come; this is just other stuff.  Some of it’s like climate related and like weather related, where like certain things can’t be grown as easily—shipping and stuff.  Some of it is just like general inflation.  Some of it’s tariffs: specifically tomatoes are specifically because of his tariffs against Mexico.  And so all this stuff that was like “oh, prices are really high now because of this war”—it’s actually not yet because of the war.  It’s going to get so much worse.

To which Jonathan responds:

Everything with Biden was because, you know, everyone thinks the president has a “lower prices” button or a “lower inflation” button, which they don’t, really.  You know, you pass some legislation, you try to do some things, they got it under control.  The president doesn’t really have a lever to pull to do that.  But the president does have a few “make prices go up” levers to pull.  And Trump has pulled them all in the last year and a half.  He’s pulled the tariffs one, he’s pulled the start the war—zero inflation levers he has not pulled.

Gee, thanks Cody: being all truthful and incisive and shit and bringing us down.  Because, as Jonathan so rightfully notes, the president of the United States can only do so much that will cause prices to come down—and, to be clear, Trump has done none of that—but he has a shit-ton of things he can do to make prices go up, and he’s doing all those as fast as he can manage.  And it’s super-important for us all to remember how much price increases tend to lag behind their causes: Cody is, again, 100% correct in pointing out that our current shitty prices (except for the price of gas, which is tied much more directly to its inciting incident) are not because of the current idiotic thing Trump is doing in Iran—they’re because of the previous idiotic things Trump’s been doing, like imposing random tariffs and deporting half our immigrant workforce and making the other half too scared to show up for work.  By the time our prices start reflecting the fact that there’s a fertilizer shortage and the trucks that bring whatever produce is left to the market can’t afford fuel, Trump will be well onto the next idiotic thing.

It’s tough to find a silver lining in all that, but I’ll posit one anyway: even if Trump stops the war in Iran tomorrow—which seems ridiculously unlikely, as he’s making too much money off it—prices will still be terrible when it comes time to vote in the midterms.  Now, if only the Democrats can get their act together and connect the dots the way Magyar did in Hungary ...

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Other things you need to know this week:

• The Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act continues to be a big story; this week Brian Tyler Cohen gives a more forceful discussion of the Court’s hypocrisy.  A lot of BTC videos tend to fall into the category of “impotent rage,” and I don’t recommend him nearly as often as I watch him for that very reason, but in this case the rage is justified, and, impotent or not, we all need to be on the same page about it.

• Continuing on that trend, in a highlight from this week’s Runaway Country, Alex Wagner talks to Stacey Abrams about how the Republicans are rigging our electoral system.  Chilling, but important to understand.

• And, in even more Supreme Court coverage, Last Week Tonight featured even more on the Shadow Docket.  I didn’t think John Oliver was quite as informative as all the previous sources I pointed you at (mostly two weeks ago, but also at least one last week), but, as always, he’s damned entertaining.

• Charlamagne tha God is back on The Daily Show’s “In My Opinion” segment, this time talking about Trump’s third term.  People keep saying it’s just a joke, but I have doubts, and apparently Charlamagne does too.

• Adam Kinzinger is now doing breakout videos of his day in review videos; sort of the “shorts” version, or a highlights reel.  But it’s basically just one story out of all the stories he mentioned in the longer video, which is nice, if that one story is the main thing I wanted you to watch the longer video for anyhow.  For Monday’s day in review, the breakout story is that Stephen Miller is, potentially, getting sidelined.  I’m not sure I’m too optimistic yet personally, but I had to chuckle when Adam introduced the story with this quote: “I’m not smiling; you’re smiling!”  Too real.

• I picked up on Gabe Sanchez, I believe, at the same time I discovered Brian Tyler Cohen: it was the writer’s strike, and I needed new entertaining takes on the news.  Sanchez was funnier than BTC, but not as informative, so I didn’t continue watching faithfully after the strike was over, and anyway Sanchez disappeared for while: posting hiatus, I suppose.  But I think he went and got himself a journalism degree while he was gone or something, because his video this week on Trump’s reflecting pool scam was really well-researched (and also pretty funny).  My one quibble: Sanchez seems to think Trump is using the racism as a distraction from the corruption, whereas I think he’s just getting less and less capable of keeping the racism in the closet as he gets older.

• On The Weekly Show this week, Jon Stewart interviews Ben Rhodes from Pod Save the World, mostly talking about Iran.  In this show in particular, Jon says some really smart shit, and, despite his protestations, he really tends to jump out at one as a potential candidate for office.  Look, Jon, if you want people to stop asking you if you’re running for President, you’ve got to stop sounding smarter than all the other potential candidates.  Besides, the fact that he keeps saying he doesn’t want it makes him even more perfect for the job: as Douglas Adams famously wrote in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”  Which only leaves us with those people who absolutely don’t want it.

• Hasan Minhaj interviewed Jennifer Welch this week.  If you don’t know her, Welch is an Oklahoma wine mom who was, in her words, radicalized by Kamala’s loss, and is now a pretty far left progressive.  Her background gives her some really great perspectives on what the Dems are doing wrong and how to fix it.  Long interview, but totally worth it.

• If you follow UK politics as closely as I have been lately, you’ll appreciate SNL UK’s cold open this week.  (And, if you don’t, you almost certainly won’t.)

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Is there hope this week?  I mean, in the sense that there’s always hope, I suppose.  Like Kat Abughazaleh, Graham Platner is demonstrating that, even if he loses, his candidacy will have accomplished something.  Over on Legal Eagle, Spencer the Scowl Owl posits that Kash Patel’s charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center will likely go down in flames like almost all the cases from this DoJ seem to.  Kinzinger seems to think that Trump’s gerrymandering plans will not be as successful as he hopes, and, while I’m not sure I’m on board with all that—the South Carolina victory, for instance, didn’t last long—it’s a pretty dream to live in for a bit.

My state’s primary is here, and there may be some candidates in there that give me some hope.  Haven’t had the chance to really dig into it yet, but I continue to choose to believe that there will be, until the moment I discover that there aren’t.  And that moment may never come: indeed, one might say that, hopefully, it won’t.  If you have a chance to look around at candidates in your state, see what hope you can find there.  There’s still some good people out there.  Find them, and vote for them.

Doom Report (Week 68: A Court with Sour Cream and Tomatoes Would Actually Be Way Better)

The rank hypocrisy of our Supreme Court has reached peak levels.  I thought that Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham refusing to confirm Merrick Garland eight months before an election on the grounds that it was “too close,” and then 4 years later confirming Amy Coney Barrett after early voting had already started—I thought that was pretty bad.  But now the Supreme Court, which had previously said that April before a November election was “too close” to allow changes—which had even claimed December before an election the following November was too close—has now told Louisiana that it can throw out votes that have already been cast in order to change their districts.  Brian Tyler Cohen and Mark Elias break down the details; it’s pretty rank.

If the shit your party is doing is so bad that the only way you can win an election is to cheat this much, that might be a sign that you’re on the wrong side of history.  While it does seem clear that, on a level playing field, the Democrats would completely destroy the Republicans in the upcoming midterms, it also seems pretty clear that we’re not going to get that level playing field.  The story of Hungary (see week 64) still provides a modicum of hope, but let’s remain sober as to the amount that the Republicans are trying to rig the game.

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Other things you need to know this week:

• Strict Scrutiny had two breaking-story short videos this week (because that’s the hell we live in now): Leah breaks down Alito’s hissy fit over Ketanji Brown Jackson calling him out, and Leah and Melissa break down the catastrophe that is the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision.

• Speaking of legal stuff, Legal Eagle’s Cristian Farias has even more on the gutting of the Voting Rights Acts, including my favorite quote about this, from Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”  Plus, despite the numerous videos I pointed you at last week, Cristian has the best overall explanation of what actually happened.

• And, for some direct results of that Supreme Court decision, check out Zeteo’s Prem Thakker interviewing Tennessee state rep Justin Pearson.

• Adam Kinzinger has switched from doing the week in review to doing a day in review every day (I think this is another sign of our current hellscape).  They can’t all be winners, of course, but there were a couple of good ones this week: his Cinco de Mayo update talks about Trump’s billion-dollar ballroom being voted on while rural hospitals close, and another update covers paying for pardons and more info on rising oil prices.

• Another banger SNL cold open: to Colin Jost’s excellent Pete Hegseth and Aziz Ansari’s spot-on Kash Patel, host Matt Damon brings a damn fine Brett Kavanaugh.

• A good Some More News this week, all about Trump’s attempts to rewrite history.

• Ben McKenzie continues to be everywhere by showing up on We’re Not Kidding with Mehdi Hasan.  And he’s still good every single time.

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If you’re looking for some hope, there was a very successful set of local elections in the UK this week: very successful for the progressive left, that is.  Now, to be fair, it was also a fair bit successful for the Reform party, which is the UK equivalent of our MAGA Republicans, but in the end Reform did not win nearly as much as was predicted: the Greens dominated in England, and Plaid Cymru (pronounced “Plad Cumree”), the Welsh Nationalist Party, did the same in Wales.  If you want full details, Owen Jones has a predictably gleeful breakdown of the results.  And, again, to be completely fair, these are local elections: sort of the equivalent of our statewide elections.  But I think we’re learning in our own country that these local elections end up having an outsized effect on our national elections, so I’m choosing to view this news as a sign that things are changing from the bottom up, at least in the UK.  And I continue to believe that gains in the UK can portend gains in the US.  Am I right?  No clue, yet.  Perhaps in November we’ll find out.

Doom Report (Week 67: Big, Strong Men with Big, Hard Muscles)

So, I’m watching Zeteo this week, and Mehdi Hasan is interviewing Naomi Klein, and, while talking with her about unlikely alliances between progressives and rightwing nutjobs, he brings up the infamous Mamdani-Trump meeting in the White House.  And this is not really an “alliance” ... but on the other hand Mamdani did get something out of it, so the characterization is not wholly unreasonable.

But what actually struck me was this offhand comment from Mehdi:

I mean what’s so interesting about that—apart from the fact that Donald Trump looks at Mamdani the way he looks at no one else.  Mela—he doesn’t look at Melania the way he looks at Mamdani.

And a little bomb went off in my brain, and I instantly thought about how I’d heard people poking fun at this comment of Trump’s, from his 60 Minutes interview after the attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner:

I also saw a lot of very strong, uh, physically strong, really attractive law enforcement people come through those doors.  And frankly, it made me feel very safe.  Very, very safe.  There’s nobody going to get by them.

“Really attractive”?  I mean, at the time I didn’t think that much of it—this is, after all, a recurring theme with Trump.  Remember when he said that ICE agents “just happen to have much larger, and harder, muscles than most”? or when he spoke about deploying the National Guard into DC by saying “we have very big, strong, good-looking soldiers standing around, and I think they make the place look better”?  Many people have commented on how much Trump focusses on appearance, and the consensus seems to be that this is typical narcissist behavior: focus on the skin deep, ignore the deeper stuff.  So this was just more of that ... right?

Except that now all sorts of explosions were going off in my head: this guy hates women—I mean, really hates women—and even his own female supporters will admit that.  And it seems like he’s always going on about how attractive men are.  Sure, he supposedly had sex with a porn star, but the main thing we know about that encounter was that he wanted her to spank him.  Sure, he has children, but then so did many men in the European monarchies who are, in retrospect, considered to have been gay.  What if ...

Like, what if Trump is secretly gay?

And, yes: I know I’m slandering gay men by even suggesting such a thing.  But, hear me out.  What if he is so deeply closeted that his sexuality is a secret even to himself?  His urges so deeply repressed that even he dare not look too closely at them.  That might explain his interest in women primarily as exploitative, primarily for the shock value: that perhaps he thinks of women as arm candy, that he expresses interest in them only because that’s the thing men are supposed to do.  And I’m not trying to imply that all gay men hate women, but I do believe that, in order to want to oppress a group, you first have to have a disinterest: an ability to see them as less than human.  Somehow I feel like we were one trauma away from knowing the name “Donald Trump” as one of our most prolific serial killers.  At the very least it would explain all the drooling over other men’s rock-hard abs.

So that’s my revelation for the week.  Probably nothing to it, but it’s a weird possibility to ponder—a real brain-bender.  And, just to add synchronicity to epiphany, Michael Che made this joke on last night’s SNL “Weekend Update”:

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she thinks it’s possible that America has already had a gay president.  And, here’s a guess: maybe it’s the one obsessed with ballrooms and the Village People.

So if the worst thing you can say about my insane idea is that I’m on the same wavelength as Michael Che, I’ll take that.

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Other things you need to know this week:

• The Supreme Court basically gutted the Voting Rights Act as being too discriminatory against white people.  There’s a plethora of coverage on this, because it is vitally important that everyone understand how bad it is.  So you can hear Mark Elias (normally found on Brain Tyler Cohen’s channel, but here appearing as one of the lawyers who actually argued the case) talk about it on Scrict Scrutiny with Kate Shaw and Leah Litman, or you can hear Leah talk about it on What a Day with Jane Coaston, or you can hear Jane return the favor by appearing on Strict Scrutiny with Leah, or you can hear Jamelle Bouie talk about it, not once, but twice.  And you should definitely listen to at least one of those, and probably all of them.  If the Republicans manage to hold on to the House in the upcoming election and you can’t figure out why ... this is it.

• The other big legal news, of course, is indicting James Comey over seashells.  Leah Litman covers it on Strict Scrutiny, Lize Dye covers it for Legal Eagle, and Kate Shaw visits The Bulwark to talk about it as well.

• In leftover legal news, remember how last week I was all about the NYT’s exposé on the shadow docket?  Well, Legal Eagle also wanted to get in on that one, so this week Cristian Farias covers the shadow docket leaks.

• Some people feel that the shooter at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner was a staged event.  That seems doubtful, but it’s completely understandable to think it.  For one thing, the flurry of coordinated messages that went out about the ballroom immediately afterwards is insane.  Cody Johnston covers this in Monday’s Even More News, where he notes: ”... we know that there’s this built-in apparatus where you have like 50 to 100 MAGA accounts on like these group texts, with people in the White House coordinating messaging.  So, when this happens, the message goes out: ballroom, we’re doing ballroom today.  And so, they all do it.  And so it seems very coordinated, because that part is ...”  Seth Meyers also covers it in a “Closer Look” segment this week, if you want a shorter version.

• SNL has an amazing cold open this week, with Colin Jost reprising his excellent Pete Hegseth and a surprise spot-on impression of Kash Patel from Aziz Ansari.

• On The Weekly Show this week, Jon interviews Graham Platner.  And, later in the week, his main opponent in the Democratic primary, former Governor Janet Mills, dropped out of the race.  So it looks like we’re definitely getting a Platner vs Susan Collins race in November, which hopefully he will prevail in.

• In another banger “In My Opinon” segment on The Daily Show, Mo Amer explores the inherent weirdness of Islamophobia.

• Look, I understand that Ben McKenzie (who I mentioned both last week and the week before) is hawking his new movie, and that’s why he keeps showing up everywhere, but, damn: he’s good, every single time.  This week, he shows up on the Coffee Klatch, with Robert Reich and Heather Lofthouse.

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This week, King Charles paid a visit to the US, and spoke to Congress and in various other venues.  Josh Johnson covers this on The Daily Show, and Seth Meyers did yet another “Closer Look” on the topic, but the truly incisive coverage this week was, I think, from Brian Tyler Cohen.  What Charles said was this:

The US Supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances.

And BTC follows that up with this:

First of all, the irony is not lost on me that even a literal king is more democratic than the president of the world’s oldest continuous democracy.

And, at the end of the day, that sort of says it all.  Oh, sure: there’s plenty to make fun of when it comes to the British royal family—certainly SNL UK had some fun spoofing Charles and Camilla in this week’s cold open—but even the King of England knows that our madman is a bridge too far.  Here’s hoping we work it out soon as well.