The FAFO Chronicles

This post makes me a little nervous, for reasons that will become obvious. But I'm tired of fretting about jinxes when the truth, the righteous path, the black and white are staring us in the face.

Back in the olden times, before the fuckery descended upon the land like a wet blanket that smelled of tanning oil and dogshit, I wrote a post entitled "Explaining Trump" that used a Drew Magary GQ piece as source material. Magary had attended a Trump 2016 rally, and come away if not at all sympathetic, at least clear-eyed about the candidate's appeal. As did I.

We return today to Magary's work as what I hope might wind up a bookend on a benighted era for our society. In his regular SF Gate column, Magary excoriated the New York Times for its reflexive bothsidesism, its sanewashing of Trump's patently unhinged public expectorations. The thesis of the piece is captured in this quote: "The Times cares more about its place in the power structure than in actually affecting that power structure." 

It's an interesting piece, but that's not the element that caught my attention. Rather, it was this passage from the opening graf: 

We’re just over a month away from the presidential election and, if you ask the New York Times, the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president/Keystone kriminal Donald Trump remains “deadlocked.” Despite the fact that Trump is losing in Pennsylvania, a state he needs to win, by four points. Despite the fact that polls in North Carolina just turned in Harris’ favor. Despite the fact that a grassroots campaign for Harris, one that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, sprung up the instant her boss ceded his spot in the race to her. Despite the fact that Trump got his ass beat in a nationally televised debate with Harris after repeating, with supreme gusto, the lie that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating people’s pets. The lie that his own running mate openly said was a lie.

You don’t have to work terribly hard to sum up this race as it stands: Harris is destroying Trump, because Trump is a deranged old s—tbag. See how easy that was?

See what I meant about nervous? That kind of talk is anathema to lefties and Boston Red Sox fans, and I'm both. But there are reasons to believe that the worm is turning. That we're finally, slowly, slowly (said the sloth), but hopefully inexorably towards karmic retribution. 

As Jack Nicholson's Joker once said, "This town needs an enema", and we're starting to see some of the shit that's been packed into our national intestinal tract [did TR return from the wilderness to write this?] slide down the drain. It seems The Finding Out may have commenced.

Steve Bannon is in prison. The Department of Justice issued an indictment alleging that some of the right-wing looniverse's most execrable dopes have been unwitting Russian assets for years (and if you don't think Ben Shapiro isn't getting his affairs in order, you don't give the KGB enough credit). Cretinous Trump body man and Project 2025 advisor Johnny McEntee allegedly sent sexually aggressive texts to 18 year-olds from a business Instagram account. At least McEntee was savvy enough to confirm his targets were 18, which Matt Gaetz seemingly didn't when he attended a "sex party" with a 17 year-old, according to sworn testimony.

We could go on. And we will, because holy fucking shit have you read about Mark Robinson?

I hope I'm not stomping on OBX Dave's Carolina beat here, but if you haven't been following the recent news about current North Carolina Lieutenant Governor and GOP gubernatorial candidate, let me sum it up in a few words:

He's a wannabe Nazi slaveowner with a who fucked his sister-in-law and wrote about it on a porn website he frequented. And I swear that all of those things are true. Allegedly*.

*Nah, that shit is dead real. Sue us, Lt. Governor. We could use the money we'll get from counter-suing. We have top notch legal counsel. Top notch.

There are miles to go before we sleep, and if the last eight years have taught us anything, we write off That Fucking Guy and his enablers at all of our peril. God damn, but we need that cleanse, to wake up in the shower like Patrick Duffy and realize if was all a dream. Or that we need to invest in real estate in Portugal.

We've long said here that karma is a bitch. Sometimes she takes her sweet time. But if she gives us Stephen Miller's head on a stick, we'll call it almost even.

Gheorghe Endorses

I intended to post a detailed assessment of Kamala Harris' accelerated search for a running mate today. Lots of words talking about the surprising (to me) depth of the field, with a nod to the idea that there's no terrible choice among the leading contenders, especially in comparison with JD Vance. I would've addressed some of the reporting in this New York Times piece about the influence of various donors (TL:DR version: Dems gonna Dem, and if Harris listens to the noise, we're gonna wind up with the most centrist and least-exciting choice possible.) And in the end, I would (and do) endorse Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, former high school teacher and football coach, and extremely impactful and consequential leader in his state.

But things got in the way of that post. Most of those things are 12 ounces, pale yellow in color, with a knack for chasing me and making me drink them at the beach.

So instead, enjoy this heartwarming video from Dan Povenmire, the co-creator of Phineas and Ferb.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dan Povenmire (@dan.povenmire)

Harris/Walz/Phineas/Ferb 2024! Make America Brilliantly Silly Again!

Gheorghe Explains: Project 2025

The world has changed quite a bit since I started writing this post. In the span of a week - A FUCKING WEEK - we witnessed an assassination attempt on a Presidential candidate, a Vice-Presidential choice, a nominating convention, the other party's candidate existing the race, and the sitting Vice-President picking up the baton and getting off to a sprinting start. 

It's safe to say that the dynamics of the 2024 U.S. Presidential race have been upended in ways absolutely unprecedented. But it says here that the stakes have not, which is what I meant to write about in the first place. 

This is Kevin Roberts, President of the 
Heritage Foundation. He recently told Steve Bannon
"We are in the process of the second
American Revolution, which will remain bloodless
if the left allows it to be.” Charming. 

In recent weeks, more and more "neutral" political observers have begun to discuss Project 2025, widely regarded as the Trump campaign's actual (if preferably secret) platform for governance. Written by a number of former Trump officials and acolytes and coordinated by The Heritage Foundation, the 900-page document that details the intentions of the Trump movement is wide-ranging and radical, and serves as a blueprint that guides the things a second Trump administration would seek to implement.

We read* it so you don't have to (and by read, we mean, found some people online who actually did read it, summarized their conclusions, did actually read some text, and then wrote this really quickly). In any government the size of ours, there are offices and programs that deserve scrutiny, and I think any administration that follows the current one is well-served to examine what works and what doesn't. There are things in Project 2025 that are worth considering. For example, the priorities related to the Department of Defense in Chapter 4 (namely, 1) Reestablish a culture of command accountability, non-politicization, and warfighting focus, 2) Transform our armed forces for maximum effectiveness in an era of great-power competition, 3) Provide necessary support to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) border protection operations. Border protection is a national security issue that requires sustained attention and effort by all elements of the executive branch, and 4) Demand financial transparency and accountability) contain some valid critiques of DoD, though #3 makes me a bit nervous. But on balance, there's a lot to be concerned about in the text.

*In a bit of a Gheorghe Notes sorta way

Allow me a bit of an explanatory interlude here. I am prone to the occasional hyperbolic pronouncement. Sometimes that's done for effect, and sometimes I can get a tad carried away. Marls tends to play the sober-minded counterpart to my alarmism, the little c constitutional conservative to my hysterical lefty. And so I tried to do this post with Marls' generally more balanced viewpoint in mind. WWMD, if you will. 

Friends, I failed, because this shit is fucked up like a football bat. The policy objectives and prescriptions in Project 2025 amount to nothing short of a wholesale dismantling of a broad range of government programs we take for granted. For one example of many, say goodbye to NOAA, and hello to weather forecasting with Sharpies. From Chapter 21 of the Project 2025 report, "The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories." The author goes on to say,  in regard to NOAA component offices, "Together, these form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity."

It is worth noting that the commercial concerns that would ostensibly benefit from privatization of certain NOAA functions want no part of it. AccuWeather CEO Steven Smith issued a statement that read in part, " “The American public and economy are best served when all entities provide their expertise, capabilities, and contributions to the common goal of best informing the public and protecting lives and property through accurate and timely forecasts and warnings." 

That's a pretty innocuous example, even as it represents the breadth of the project, so maybe let's talk about some of the more grotesque policy recommendations from the worst sort of ghouls (there I go with the hyperbole) like Stephen Miller to Russ Vought. 

Let's start with female bodily autonomy, which comes under attack in the Project 2025 report. Sure, abortion is a non-starter with the GOP, but they seem to be coming for contraception, as well. According to analysis by the left-leaning Center for American Progress, more than 48 million American women would be at risk of losing cost-free access to birth control medication. The personal consequences for women would be staggering, to say nothing of the economic implications.

Lock all these degenerates up.

The authors of the manifesto call for the criminalization of pornography and the imprisonment of anyone who produces or consumes it. Setting aside the wild impracticality of such a policy, the definition of pornography gives the game away. According to the authors, the "omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology" is a form of pornography, as are texts that influence the "sexualization of children" - the latter term being a preferred dogwhistle of the right referring to LGBT+ predation. All of this is of a piece with the weird sort of Christian nationalism vibe to much of the social policy elements of the document.

In addition to these, the plan seeks to eliminate the Head Start program, defund the FBI, radically shift the tax burden even further from the rich to the middle class, end climate change research (Chapter 2 calls for a "whole of government unwinding" of the Biden Administration's efforts to combat climate change), among a great many other changes large and small.

The icing on this particular cake comes in the broad-reaching changes to Federal employment policy that would ensure a President Trump would be able to replace wide swaths of the bureaucracy with true believers, pushing out anyone deemed sufficiently disloyal to the cause, and increasing the likelihood the policy goals outlined in the document are implemented. 

If you're interested in looking more deeply into the sources I leaned on, you can check them out here.

Verify

The Cut.com

People Magazine (when People is doing the work, well, that might tell you something about how their editorial staff views what's happening - or not - in other media outlets.)

There's a reason the Trump campaign is bending over backwards to discredit reporting that connects it with Project 2025: the policies therein are deeply unpopular. If the Harris campaign asks for my advice (and I'm told they're avid readers), I'd tell them to hang this shit around Trump's neck like Christmas lights. I'd also tell them to continue to attack Trump as a felon, a loser, and a shitty businessman. He hates being mocked, and he'll hate it all the more coming from a smart black woman. I think the Dems have traditionally been too unwilling to fight hard, even when they've been punched in the mouth. The stakes now are just too high for them to not go out guns blazing.

Gheorghe Explains, Briefly

Gheorghe will explain the radically changed Presidential election landscape in a future post, but in an effort to bide some time and avoid having to think, we'll kick the week off with a brief look back at Xander Schauffele's win at Royal Troon. And Gheorghe will explain the hidden advantage the 30 year-old American had on Sunday.

If you watched the final round, you might've caught a few candid moments between Schauffele and his caddie, Austin Kaiser. The two have been friends since they played together on the San Diego State University golf team. Schauffele has been vocal about the importance of their teamwork to his success. Check out this moment from the walk down 18 after Schauffele hit his iron onto the green and the duo knew they'd won - Kaiser goes about doing his job, giving his pro his putter and replacing a divot, while the pro waits for him so they can walk together and receive the adulation of the crowd.

Classy! pic.twitter.com/pENYKlhBVw

— Oma Golf (@oma_golf) July 21, 2024

Which brings me to the advantage I think Kaiser offers Schauffele. At several key moments on the back nine, as Schauffele hit one clutch shot after another, the two could be seen laughing with one another. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that the comfort the pro feels with his friend and caddie is a real and significant boost to his confidence and mental strength. Now that Schauffele has won a couple of majors after falling short several times, it says here there will be several more over the next few years.

Gheorghe Explains: We Need to Talk About North Carolina

As we semi-officially enter the serious phase of what promises to be a deeply unserious, moronic, and fury inducing election season, it's time to welcome back G:TB's semi-recurring exposition of the political landscape and the forces afoot in the land. Today we'll turn our gaze to the Tar Heel state, which just served up a gubernatorial candidate for the ages. And by ages, we mean the Dark Ages.

Last Tuesday, in a widely expected vote, the North Carolina GOP nominated current Lt. Governor Mark Robinson as its candidate for the state's top spot in November. Robinson is an orotund firebrand, an unabashed culture warrior and evangelical Christian. He's also at or near the top of the list of opportunistic MAGA loons loosed by the decay of the once-coherent conservative movement.

Consider this small sampling of headlines from news outlets across the globe in the wake of Robinson's nomination:

Huffington Post said, Mark Robinson's Bizarre Ramble: 'I Absolutely Want To Go Back To The America Where Women Couldn’t Vote'.

Mark Robinson, the North Carolina GOP nominee for governor, is off the rails even by MAGA standards, according to Vox.com.

The New York Times stole our angle: We Need to Talk About This Republican Candidate’s Antisemitism.

And The Guardian didn't pull any punches: Hitler-quoting candidate wins North Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary.

I suspect you get the point, gentle reader, and so we won't belabor it. What we will note is that Robinson represents the furtherance of an ideology based not so much on policy or a philosophy of governance but on grievance. Robinson and the GOP don't care about getting things done (note as evidence the abject inability of the U.S. House of Representatives to legislate and chew gum at the same time). Rather, the modern GOP cares about making the right people ripshit frothing angry, propriety be damned.

Like the Ur-MAGA himself, Robinson has filed for multiple bankruptcies, has a history of avoiding, evading, and just not paying taxes, and has admitted to paying for a woman he impregnated to have an abortion. He's an objectively shitty person and a charlatan, and the North Carolina GOP voters Do. Not. Care.

Robinson will face Democrat Josh Stein in the general election. Stein is an earnest, ultra-competent, highly qualified public servant. He's been North Carolina's Attorney General since 2017. Prior to that, he served three terms in the state senate. Given the dichotomy between his accomplishments and mien and Robinson's, this shouldn't be a contest. And every report since the primary concluded suggests that it'll be neck and neck. For fuck's sake, North Carolina. 

Fevers tend to break eventually. That, or they kill their hosts. I hope, fervently, that the MAGA fever currently infecting our body politic will break this November. I fear, genuinely, that it won't and that the consequences could prove fatal to the way we perceive ourselves as a people. 

Prepare to man the battlements, good people of Gheorghe. Winter is here.

Gheorghe Explains White People's Thanksgiving Food

For quite some time, I've harbored the belief that the best part of Thanksgiving is fellowship and daydrinking, and the worst part is the food. I come to this understanding with a set of priors based upon my upbringing and subsequent maturing among very white people. I've heard tell of bountiful harvests of mustard greens and mac and cheese and hamhocks, but I've never partaken in such glorious repast. I'm not qualified to offer an opinion on the full range of Thanksgiving gustatory blessings.

I am, however, fully qualified to rank white people's Thanksgiving food. As our families descend upon us, or we travel to be with them, this seems the perfect time to share. And so, into the kitchen breach, my friends, with Gheorghe's Definitive Ranking of Thanksgiving Food:

Dead Fucking Last: Yams, Sweet Potato Pie, and any other derivatives. 

Fucking disgusting. Too sweet, too squishy, too orange, and why would you ruin perfectly good marshmallows like that? Dislike.

12. Pumpkin Pie

Awful consistency, tastes like feet.

11. Turkey

Boring, bland, way too much effort to cook, carve, and serve. Unfortunately, this is always our main dish. White people hate change.

10. Pecan Pie

Too sweet. Makes my teeth hurt. 

9. Cranberry sauce (from the can)

Shouldn't be as good as it is. My move is always to eat my first plate without it, then slice a little bit for my second round. Kinda like a dessert appetizer.

8. Creamed corn

Okay. Don't love the consistency, but corn tastes good. And the original Pilgrims had it with their meal, so it's historically accurate.

7. Roasted carrots

Gotta cook 'em so there's some carmelization but still some crunch. Little butter and parsley. That's an orange foodstuff I can get behind.

6. Green Beans/Green Bean Casserole

As long as they're cooked with ham, and have enough butter (and cream in the case of the casserole), these are top notch. Now we're getting somewhere.

5. Stuffing

The Stove Toppier the better. Mix it with some mashed potatoes and green beans? Oh hell yes.

4. Apple Pie

The GOAT holiday dessert. Serve it warm with a dollop of cinnamon ice cream, finish it and drift off to fat sleep.

3. Mashed potatoes

My wife got her recipe from her father, and it's fantastic. Lots and lots of butter and cream. Silky texture, and you can feel it coating your arteries. One of the few things for which I'm willing to go back for seconds.

2. Creamed onions

Little pearls of perfection. You don't like 'em? Fine, I'll eat yours. 

1. Booze

Red wine, beers, whiskey, whatever your tipple of choice. Alcohol is the only Thanksgiving menu item that's non-negotiable. This year, I'm making something called a Cranberry Mule, which is basically a whiskey-based Dark & Stormy with cranberry sauce. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I'm aware that there are other popular Thanksgiving foods, like scalloped potatoes (meh), roasted Brussels sprouts (dig 'em, but we usually don't have them with our meal), dinner rolls (excellent vehicles for more butter), and such, but I can only rank what I know.

New Fettermans Just Dropped

We fancy ourselves on the cutting edge of certain social and political trends, which is why so many of our readers come to this space. For example, we were up early on Cocaine Bear and Mumford and Sons, among too many things to count. And let's not forget who introduced the broader populace to John Fetterman - how do you think Stephen Colbert found out about the Mayor of Braddock, PA?

The Colbert Report

We got the rise of that last fucking guy pretty right, too, burnishing our bipartisan bona fides in the realm of politics.

All of which is preface to this early (but perhaps not too early) look at a newcomer on the political scene who's may have some of the right stuff.

Rep. Jeff Jackson (D-NC) is a first-term Congressman representing North Carolina's 14th Congressional District, a sprawling area that spreads from Charlotte to the Tennessee border. The 40 year-old Jackson is straight out of central casting: handsome, married father of three, holder of a J.D. from the University of North Carolina, and a veteran who served in the Army in Afghanistan and remains an officer in the Army National Guard. Importantly, for the purposes of our interest, he's a very effective communicator who's savvy in the ways of modern social media.

Jackson's straightforward missives on Twitter and other platforms are at once homey, easily understood, and insightful. He does an excellent job demystifying Washington's arcana and calling out hypocrisy (it must be said that he hasn't been on Capitol Hill long enough to get jaded, so we'll keep our eyes open).

Here's a recent example that neatly encapsulate Rep. Jackson's style:

Team Outrage in Congress has been very busy pretending to be mad about all sorts of stuff.

My bet:

Up next, Barbie. pic.twitter.com/Cph8KeczF3

— Rep. Jeff Jackson (@JeffJacksonNC) July 25, 2023

There's a long way to go from freshman Congressman to higher office and greater impact, and we once had high hopes for a fresh-faced North Carolina lawyer-turned-legislator with a great story until that dude turned out to be a creep with a problem keeping his dick in his pants. But Jeff Jackson's got something, says us, and us has a track record.

For what it's worth, we're also keeping an eye on Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), who served in the CIA for nearly a decade and was the first Democrat in 38 years to win Virginia's 7th District in 2019 - that's the same District that Eric Cantor wasn't conservative enough to retain, if it offers any sense of the political talent required for a Democrat to win twice. 

Spanberger recently announced her candidacy for Governor in 2025, meaning she won't seek reelection for her House seat. That makes me nervous, frankly, as the Dems need as many seats as possible, but Spanberger will be a formidable gubernatorial force, and if she's successful in her campaign, she'd be immediately on the short list of 2028 Democratic Presidential candidates. Keep your eyes on the Commonwealth, friends.

Gheorghe Realigns: A Modest and Pointless Proposal

It's been a seismic several years in major intercollegiate sports (almost literally - the tectonic plates have shifted to conspire to bring UCLA and USC adjacent to Rutgers and Maryland in sport scheduling terms). And the noise continues unabated, the Big Ten and SEC extending their inexorable manifest destiny and creating chaos in their wake, the other major (for now) conferences scrambling to pretend to compete. 

Will Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona state join the Big 12 to make the best hoops league even better and create false hope for football glory (probably)? Will the addition of SMU and San Diego State make the PAC-12 a viable commercial entity and stop the conference's bleeding (nope)? What can the ACC do to stay relevant (if you have the answer, they'd love to hear from you, stuck as they are in a rights deal with ESPN that handcuffs the league until 2036)?

As usual, we have the answer, but not the solution. Let's start by acknowledging that moneyed interests will never allow the people to prevail. But still we beat on, a dinghy against the current, borne forward ceaselessly by our own flawless logic and well-turned phrasing. We'll offer ideas for consideration, fully aware that mismatched incentives and entrenched interests will render them dead on arrival. Still, one's intellectual fires must be slaked.

These aren't necessarily original ideas. Common sense is often just that - common, shared by many. Some of these notions aren't even new - we've already trod the road less traveled in this very pixelspace as it relates to some form of conference realignment (do enjoy the commentary of the Gheorghies in that thread - we invent the Guido League and the Papist Conference). It seems obvious, though, that something must give. 

What should give, says this humble blogger, is everything. The NCAA as we know it should go away, replaced by the following three-headed organizational construct (let's state for the record that we're only talking about what we currently know as Division I athletics - the NCAA remains a useful model for DII and DIII competition):

The Collegiate Football Federation (CFF) would run major college gridiron activities, in collaboration with the networks. Effectively, this would be everything that fits within the current Power Five conference structure, with a few puts and takes to include schools that want to participate (and are willing to pony up the necessary funding) like Notre Dame, Cincinnati, BYU, etc. Let's say we wind up with 80 teams in a mega-conference with eight regional divisions to make it easy to get to a 16-team championship tournament by taking the top two teams in each division.

Non-Power Five schools and those that currently fit that description that might choose to deemphasize a money-loser like also-ran big-time football would participate in a new FCS-like entity (Hello, Vanderbilt! Nice to see you, Kansas football! 'Sup Boston College!) that would feature robust competition but less financial commitment than would be required in the CFF. This division would have 174 teams, which we'd spread out regionally into 16 leagues - once again allowing for ease of championship management. We might see some current FCS teams drop into DII or DIII, which is fine - the point of this entire exercise is to get colleges of the arms race treadmill to nowhere that's inevitably going to reward the rich and bankrupt the poor and return to a more balanced and rational experience for students that happen to be athletes. 

In this world, we would eventually see a William & Mary in the same league as Old Dominion, James Madison, Towson, Richmond, and Navy, among others - a sane return to a compact league. You could play the same game with Rice, who'd play SMU, North Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas State, Tulane and so on rather than traveling to Annapolis, Philadelphia, Boca Raton, and Harrisonburg to play roadies.

Hoops is a little bit of a simpler animal. We're just going to lift and shift the current Division One teams  into a new organizing body, empowered to continue to run the NCAA tournament while also creating a more rational divisional structure that maximizes competition and optimizes travel. Same 351 teams, both men and women. Same tournament setups. To a large extent, the same conferences (though UCLA and USC have to go back to the PAC-12 for hoops).

Every other sport (at a school like Texas, for example, that's 16 programs once you remove football and men's and women's basketball) is organized in the Olympic Sports Governance Council (OSGC - just go with it, man, I don't make up the names, just report them). We've already mooted a version of this, as seen in the link above. It makes absolutely zero sense for UCLA to send its tennis team to New Brunswick, NJ to play a conference match against Rutgers, and vice versa. Maryland's field hockey team, as good as it is, shouldn't need to incur the costs of traveling to Lincoln, NE for a league match when they can get great league competition in D.C., Chapel Hill, Charlottesville, Happy Valley, Philly, and Princeton. (Stanford competes in the America East in women's lacrosse. Stanford! The America East! They played away matches against Albany, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and UMASS - Lowell this season! Fucking bonkers, y'all)

No, the sports generally considered "non-revenue" in the accounting-driven parlance of the current NCAA will find a much more rational structure that emphasizes regional play, student welfare, and cost reduction, re-emphasizes local/regional rivalries, and still allows for national competition for the teams and schools that thrive in their leagues.

This is a hurriedly dashed-off musing about what a new system of intercollegiate athletics might look like. There are certainly flaws with the plan (the most glaring of which is the idea that any current athletics administrator or university president would willingly choose to move their football program "down" to an "inferior" division), and I harbor no illusion that it'll come to fruition. That said, I would not be surprised if the networks and major conferences break from the NCAA, at least as it comes to football, and in that scenario, those on the outside looking in would be well served to find a new model.

Winter's coming. At least if you're a middling ACC football program. Better put on your coat.

Gheorghe Explains and Predicts

Trevor Noah surprised his audience (and, as it turns out, his colleagues) when he announced on September 29, 2022 that he was stepping down as the host of The Daily Show.

After Noah's last show in early December, the program took a brief hiatus, and resumed in January with a serious of guest hosts, beginning with Leslie Jones and featuring a range of talented comedians and actors, including Sarah Silverman, John Leguizamo, Kal Penn, Al Franken, D.L. Hughley, Chelsea Handler, and Hassan Minhaj. More recently, Daily Show regulars like Roy Wood, Desi Lydic, and Jordan Klepper have taken their turn behind the desk.

A cottage industry has sprung up to predict the show's next host. Pretty small cottage, really. More of a tiny house. There's a lot of speculation that the showrunners intend to tap a woman to replace Noah, which makes a lot of sense. Ever since Jon Stewart's era, The Daily Show has featured a diverse roster of ensemble players. Noah's hiring broke the color barrier for the host, but as yet there's never been a woman at the helm.

Initial betting odds had Samantha Bee at better than 1:1 to get the job, with Wood (+350), Minhaj (-400) and Klepper (+500) trailing. TDS alum Stephen Colbert weighed in on behalf of Wood and Jessica Williams. In terms of ratings, Franken's driven more eyeballs than any other guest host (though that's before we've got numbers for Klepper, Wood, and Lydic), which surprised me a bit. The producers have just announced the next round of guest hosts, which includes Desus Nice, Michelle Wolf, Ronny Chieng, and Lewis Black. That'll take us through the week of June 26. 

Interestingly, Samantha Bee's name hasn't shown up anywhere on the guest hosting list. Yet.

I've seen at least a little bit of most of the guest hosts. Qualitatively (and we recognize the peril in trying to rank humor), the Daily Show vets have been better in my mind, possibly because they have a better sense of the vibe and are comfortable in the chair. Silverman wasn't as good as I wanted her to be. Hughley was smooth and deft and cool (is it possible to be too cool?), but he wasn't a great interviewer. Minhaj was slick, maybe too much so. Penn really wasn't very good. Leguizamo had a different and compelling energy.

But for me, based on what I've seen so far, it's down to Wood, Klepper, and (perhaps surprisingly) Lydic. Klepper is a massive talent - if he doesn't get this job, he's gonna get something big soon. Wood's charisma doesn't jump off the screen, but he delivers the funny with regularity. Lydic was a revelation to me during her recent week. She's an excellent interviewer, a very funny comic, and slips the knife in cleanly when skewering the bad actor of the day.

You can get Desi for +2000. Might be worth a flier. There's also an increasingly loud whisper that the producers might pair Wood and Lydic up for at least an interim period and see if one stands out (or if a pair of hosts works in the format). I'd sign up for that. 

But it's gonna be Samantha Bee. And that's just fine with me.

Gheorghasbord: Election Season

Easing into this content machine thing with a handful of early, research-free observations about last night's midterm elections.

First, and most joyously, Fettermaaaaaaan! We've been publicly in the tank for Pennsylvania's unconventional Lieutenant Governor since precisely two years ago today. We were one of the first major outlets to endorse him in his race for the Senate seat opened up by the retirement of Republican Pat Toomey. And despite suffering a stroke during the race and a corresponding halting performance in the lone debate against New Jersey's own Mehmet Oz, Fetterman won election fairly comfortably. His campaign made it a point to visit every county in Pennsylvania, and ran a social-savvy operation that hammered his opponent's opportunism and lack of understanding of the needs of most of the commonwealth's citizens. This was the result that most mattered to me, and I'm excited to see what Fetterman brings to Washington. I'm afraid the stroke likely means I won't get my Fetterman for President tattoo.

Which brings us to another one to watch. Wes Moore easily won Maryland's gubernatorial race, with nearly 60% of the vote. One the one hand, beating a Nazi who gleefully supported That Fucking Guy's election denial isn't that significant an achievement. On the other, a 44 year-old black dude with a funny name (Wesley Watende Omari Moore) now has a national platform and a background that includes combat leadership (in Afghanistan), community service (Moore ran a foundation dedicated to alleviating challenges caused by poverty in New York City), government service (as a White House Fellow working for Condoleeza Rice), and corporate success (as an investment banker). Moore's C.V. doesn't exactly parallel that of the 44th President, but he's a telegenic and charismatic young black guy with an immigrant parent (his mother is Jamaican). You can be damn sure the media will start making some comparisons.

If we're to move beyond the nation's seemingly hopeless and intractable division, the kids are gonna have to take the reins. The average age of the members of the House of Representatives at the beginning of this term was 58.4. Which ain't all that representative. Enter Generation Z, for the first time ever an a national level, with 25 year-old Maxwell Frost winning election in Florida's 10th Congressional District (in and around Orlando). Frost is Puerto Rican/Cuban, and has a long (for his age) history of fighting gun violence, calling his cohort the "mass shooting generation". He was the national organizing director for March for Our Lives. While observers will know that I support Frost's politics, I think it's vital that young folks from all political persuasions gain more access to the levers of power.

If you think the House skews old, lemme tell you about the Senate. At the start of the 117th Congress, the upper chamber's members averaged 63 years of age. And yesterday, the second-oldest of those Senators was reelected. Chuck Grassley, who won his closest reelection campaign ever, will be 95 years old when his term expires. As will Dianne Feinstein, subject to more than a few whispers about losing several miles off her fastball. The President will turn 80 next November. God bless all of these septa/octogenarians for their service, and how 'bout you let somebodies else take a turn? 

In other disappointing news, the oleaginous J.D. Vance won a Senate seat in Ohio over the righteous Tim Ryan. Despite the GOP's significant structural advantages in the state and the national Democratic Party's refusal to give Ryan anything other than token support, Vance's margin will wind up around 6%. If the Dems had done anything to support Ryan, who'd be a terrific Senator, instead of burning piles of cash supporting longshot candidates in Florida, Texas, Georgia, and elsewhere, they might've had a chance in this one. Dems gonna Dem.

Come ON, Adam Frisch!

From oleaginous to odious, a bit of good news that might get even better as vote tallies are finalized: it's possible and even likely that Kari Lake (AZ governor), Lauren Boebert (CO 3rd), and Sarah Palin (AK at-large) will go down to defeat. All three are vocal Trumpists and election deniers, and Lake in particular is a dangerous combination of attractive, charismatic, and willing to say absolutely anything to gain power. It also appears that election deniers pursuing Secretary of State roles in key swing states like Arizona and Nevada will go down to defeat. 

At the moment, it appears possible that Democratic candidates will win Senate races in Arizona (Mark Kelly) and Nevada (Catherine Cortez Masto), though the latter is very much a toss-up. If the D's win those races, it'll guarantee they'll retain control of the Senate. If not, Georgia will become the center of the political universe. Incumbent Raphael Warnock has a slight lead over human bobblehead Herschel Walker, but it doesn't seem likely that Warnock will break the 50% threshold necessary to avoid a runoff (Libertarian Chase Oliver is hovering around 2%). If Warnock fails to clear that bar, the election heads to a mano a loco mano showdown in December. Warnock won his seat in the first place in a special runoff election in 2020 against Kelly Loeffler. 

Alabama and Vermont sent their first women to the Senate and House, respectively. Massachusetts elected an openly lesbian women to the Governor's office, a first in American politics. Moore became just the third African-American governor in American history (and ain't that a fucking shame on all of us). Abortion rights won massive victories in places expected (Vermont) and less so (Kentucky). More states legalized recreational marijuana. It was a decent night for progressives, despite some setbacks. 

The GOP will retake control of the House, but by a much smaller margin than many anticipated before the election. Most pundits won't acknowledge this, but Biden's Democratic Party had one of the best midterm election performances in history. A combination of voters highly motivated by the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade and independents turned off by the GOP's continuing embrace of our freak-ass former President* turned a potential red wave into a gentle tide. The fever didn't break, but the firewalls seem to have held. For now.

The Hard Pessimism of the Race to the Bottom...

or why i stopped worrying and started looking at Portuguese real estate.

My knack for understanding this country's political zeitgeist is well established. I saw the danger in Trump before most did. It's a gift, really. Or perhaps a curse. 

I'm so good at it, in fact, that I'm loath to make any predictions about the upcoming midterm elections for fear they'll come true. (There's a non-prediction prediction in there if you can read the runes.)

So this post isn't really a midterm preview. More along the lines of a lament, a continuation of a theme. To be blunt, we're even more fucked today than we were after the 2016 Presidential election, and for the life of me, I don't see a way out. At least not for the country. (Foreshadowing? Foreshadowing!)

Robby Mook was Hillary
Clinton's campaign manager
in 2016. Ironic, no?

We no longer have two functioning political parties. That was made manifestly obvious (if it wasn't already so) in the wake of the January 6 fuckflagration when nearly two-thirds of GOP House members voted not to accept the results of the Electoral College in defiance of common sense, scores of court cases showing no voting irregularities, and centuries of American history. It is impossible to negotiate with terrorists, even if the Democrats weren't feckless mooks.

The Republican Party used to stand for things, even if I didn't generally agree with those things. Small government, robust defense, fiscal conservatism, etc. Today's national GOP has no platform other than power so they can punish their enemies. This sounds insane, and yet it's accurate. Inchoate anti-Democrat/Let's Go Brandon rage is the modus operandi of the party of Lincoln, from backing Putin's war in the Ukraine for...reasons, to Don't Say Gay educational policies, to election denial and now ballot box intimidation, to Supreme Court Justices lying to gain their seats and tossing decades of settled law that will harm women, to...name the issue, and whatever the Democrats are for is satanic and must be burned at the stake.

There is no more visible and concrete evidence of the party's descent into unserious madness than its willingness to elevate the most ill-prepared and uninformed voices to serve as flagbearers for the movement. The only qualifications people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and their ilk seem to have is their gleeful willingness to own the libs. Sending out Senate candidates like Herschel Walker and Mehmet Oz betrays a different kind of cynicism, a belief that celebrity matters far more than substance, and the fact that both of those clowns are within the margin of error in their contests with proven public servants is sad and embarrassing in equal measure.

For their part, the Democrats in all their earnest do-goodery have proven absolutely not up to the task ofcombatting the aggressive lunacy of their opponents. They're playing by Marquess of Queensbury rules while the GOP is using dragons. And regardless of the nobility of one's cause, dragons are motherfuckers on the battlefield. The GOP is fighting with fire while the Dems reply with whimpering, simpering wishcasting. To wit, here's a sampling of the emails I've received from Dem pols this week:

• "This is concerning, Rob." 
• "I have nowhere else to turn."
• "our ONLY chance"
• "The absolute last thing I want to write to you about is Donald J. Trump, but..."
• President Biden has emailed you. Speaker Pelosi has emailed you. Hillary Clinton has emailed you. Jamie Raskin has emailed you. Mary Trump has emailed you. Adam Schiff has emailed you. Martin Sheen has emailed you. And now we’re emailing again -- because with just 14 days left in this monumental election, things have taken a rough turn." [I do kinda like hearing from all these famous folks.]

In so many cases, Dems let the GOP dictate the terms of engagement. To be fair, a political media conditioned to focus on the optics of the horserace rather than substance is a willing, if inept, accomplice. Dems scream that the media should talk about the issues. The GOP sees the world as it is, adapts, and overperforms the electoral fundamentals. Over and over again. 

I don't have high hopes for next month's elections, for all of the above reasons. We're gonna wind up with 2020 election deniers in charge of elections in more than one state. We'll likely have at least a couple of January 6 insurrectionists in the goddamn U.S. House of Representatives. They say it gets darkest before dawn. 

Dawn in Lisbon sure does look appealing, no?

High... Plains... Drifter

Play this while reading:

Now read:

The setting is Lago, a crappy little town filled with the worst kinds of people you could conjure. As the Boys would say, it's a nice place to visit but a better place to rob.

So you see, the greedy, me-first townspeople found out that the local marshal had made a tragic discovery. The nearby mine -- the town's solitary livelihood generator -- was actually on government property. Ruh-roh.

Cash flow gettin' low so they had to pull a job

Not just any job. Murder.

So basically, in order to tell the government and the outside world in general to perform the physical act of love on itself, and in order to keep this source of money that they had no inherent claim to . . . they will stoop to incredible depths to preserve their selfish goals.

Here's the thing. These gutless wonders didn't have the sand or sack to do it themselves. They hired the lowest slime on the planet to take care of the dirty business and preserve their crappy little lives. Sometimes people do that.  You do what you think you have to do and you hold your nose when it comes to the moral implications.

Good luck with that.

So into this dusty, depraved town rides a Stranger. Not the kind of stranger you'd find in the works of Camus or Smith, Joel or Kipling, Seger, Salinger, Starship, or Supertramp, not in cautionary tales or onanistic deviance. This Stranger is Clint Eastwood.  Clint 'twixt Dirty Harry and William Munny.  Clint closer to Josey Wales. Clint, very bad man.

I feel that I'm getting pushed 

Whitney and Rob, 1883

Don't step to me 'cause you could be gettin' mushed 

The Stranger is not the hero Lago deserves, but the one it needs right now. He's not even a hero. He's not even an antihero. He's evil.  He's the devil. He's a vengeful spectre. He's a murderous rapist. And he's more than kind of a dick. Although he did appoint a tiny dictator.

When Jack said, "This town needs an enema," Lago needs one more than Gotham ever did, and The Stranger is that rectal bulb syringe.

So this fella pulls a Number 6 on Lago. You know, Number 6. He comes a-ridin' into town, a whoppin' and whumpin' every livin' thing that moves within an inch of its life. Except the women folks, of course.  Wait, he does them, too.

You don't mind him when he's like this.

Here's the wrinkle. After the townsfolk hired the slime to kill the marshal, they turned 'em in.  But... whoops-a-daisy... someone up high pardoned 'em or commuted their sentences or what have you.  And guess what?  The dirtballs in question are now free, and chances are good that they won't exact their revenge on the people of Lago by tweeting hysterical hyperbole.

Pulled over to the river, to take a rest 
Pulled out a pair of pliers pulled a bullet out of my chest

You'd better run when he looks like this. 

So the Stranger and the evil dimwit hired guns are set at odds.  The thing is, there's more collateral damage than at a Steven King pie-eating contest.  The real losers are, of course, the people of Lago.  Not that they weren't losers to begin with, but yikes.  This sucks even more than living in a remote western American town in eighteen-sump'n-sump'n already sucks.

You wind up finding exactly where these folks find themselves living.

So, herein lies the question for the ages.  Did the arrival of the Stranger commence the final ruination of the already morally shaky place?  Was he the lesson that fighting fire with fire will result in everyone and everything being charred remains?

Or... did he give the town its necessary enema, eradicating evil up and down and leaving Lago ready to rebuild anew on a better promise for tomorrow?  They couldn't have gotten rid of the resident evil without him.  They simply could not.  And he did.

You tell me, gentle viewers.

The linkage is thinly veiled. I'm all for nominating the most moral and effective leader to run against Trump. In theory.  Nominating another Walter Mondale or George McGovern-style historical footnote will allow everyone to hold their heads high for a brief, brief moment... before DJT disembowels the people and the planet for another 4 long ones.

There is a floor we should not sink beneath in the valiant pursuit of eviction, but the question is whether Bloomberg is below it.  Right now I'm leaning toward The Stranger to clean some fucking house. He didn't do well the other night, but he may be our version of The Stranger.

Sarah Belding: Be careful. You're a man who makes people afraid, and that's dangerous.
The Stranger: Well, it's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid.

'Cause I'm the high... plains... drifter, and I'm the drifter 
The high... plains... drifter, and I'm the drifter 

May God have mercy on our souls.

Gheorghe Explains: News in Decline

Recently in this space, veteran ink-stained wretch Dave Fairbank offered an insider's view of the sad fate of the American newspaper. He closed that post about Alden Global Capital's increasingly (and negatively) impactful place in our nation's news industry by saying, "I have no idea how Alden’s tenure will affect my friends and former co-workers in Newport News and Norfolk. I would like to think that they’re far enough down the food chain to grant them some reprieve from the butcher’s knife. Both shops have been through several rounds of cuts and layoffs through the years, so little fat remains. But given the bloodless chase for profits and satisfied investors, nothing would surprise me."

As we learn today, he was right not to be surprised.

Local newspapers are shrinking and disappearing at a troubling rate, which I wrote about here recently, after hedge fund and newspaper strip-miner Alden Global Capital bought into Tribune Corporation and by extension my old shop, the Newport News (Va.) Daily Press, and companion rag, the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot.

I bring it up again because, in advance of Alden coming on board this summer, Tribune offered buyouts to journalists with eight or more years’ experience. Within the next couple of weeks, my old newsroom and that of the Pilot are going to be gutted beyond even what I imagined. Friends and colleagues are going to be out of work. Local journalism will suffer. People will be less informed.
There have been several rounds of buyouts and staff purges over the past 20 years, and many of us chose to weather them and take our chances. This time, however, editors and administrators who weren’t simply spouting the corporate line advised reporters to take the buyout. Reporters and photogs were told that if they chose to stick it out, instead of receiving months of severance pay and benefits depending on length of tenure, that it is quite possible they could get pink-slipped and receive only two weeks’ pay and a box to haul out their stuff.

Any excuse to post this pic of Fairbank and Teel will do

From what I’ve been told, the sports departments will lose at least four veteran reporters – three from the Daily Press, one from the Pilot – who have a combined 120 years’ experience, beaucoup awards and irreplaceable institutional knowledge. One of them, my compadre and former roomie David Teel, was recently honored as state sportswriter of the year for the 13th consecutive year. He’s covered the ACC for 35 years. He’s a member of the state Sports Hall of Fame. Administrators, coaches and athletes return his calls because they trust him and know he’s good at his job. You might think that he’s the sort of figure that management would want to keep around, to convey at least the appearance of professionalism amid massive change. In fact, he asked if he could remain until the end of basketball season. Clean break, and all that. He was told, hard no, and here’s the buyout paperwork and here’s how and where to file it.

I have no sources about the reasons and timing of this round of buyouts and staff reduction, so I’ll be the kind of journalist I generally abhor and hazard a guess: the buyouts were conditional for Alden’s buy-in. Cutting staff now means that Alden cannot be blamed, technically, for doing so later. Alden also didn’t want buyout salaries, bennies, and “dead” money on its books when it comes on board.

(Side note: I’m happy to be told I’m wrong and welcome other possible explanations from those who visit this speakeasy and are more astute than me on corporate financial matters – which encompasses pretty much all of you.)

It was a bit of a whirlwind. Announce buyout plan Jan. 13. Paperwork sent out to eligible employees Jan. 21. File by Feb. 3. Gone Feb. 7.

The verbiage from the company is as confounding as it is discouraging. The Prez and CEO of Tribune Publishing sent out a memo saying that business is improving, but expenses remain high. That company-wide layoffs are a last resort, but here’s a buyout package for tenured staff. That they’re committed to digital products and subscriptions, but there’s still a lot of money tied up in the print product and they must reduce expenses in anticipation of continued decline.

The new editor-in-chief of the Pilot and Daily Press sent out a memo announcing the departure of several staff members. It contained the following:

“In the coming weeks, we will assess workflow and realign the newsroom as needed to continue      creating exceptional journalism. Change can be challenging but it’s necessary for our future success.”

Yes, because nothing conveys creating exceptional journalism like encouraging exceptional journalists to walk.

There are days when I miss the job. Conversations, storytelling, big games, explaining things to people, the adrenal rush of deadlines, the satisfaction of doing a job well. I no longer miss the business of newspapers and what it has become, the lives disrupted and ultimately readers and populace cheated. Saddens me greatly.

Gheorghe Explains: The Desertification of American News

Our man in the Outer Banks is dropping science this morning, and he ain't all that happy about it. Dave Fairbank laments the decline of the small-town news, a phenomenon that means "...residents in communities, hundreds of communities, even thousands, in this country have limited, very limited access to the sort of news and information that's been the lifeblood of our democracy, everything from when and where to vote, to topics such as education, health, emergency and safety information that we need," according to  University of North Carolina professor Penny Abernathy. Your assignment, cub reporters and G:TB readers, is to read this paean to what was and should be and come up with solutions in the comments. Crowdsourced community soul restoration, what we do best around here.

It’s no secret that the news business isn’t awash in good fortune these days. Journalists are routinely harassed, jailed and even killed by authoritarian regimes. Newspapers all over the country are hemorrhaging readers, advertising and staff. Meanwhile, our oaf-in-chief continually uses the media as a punching bag and prop at his rallies, making it increasingly perilous to simply gather and present information.

On a personal level, my old shop appears to have invited the vultures through the front door, which worries me greatly about friends and former colleagues. No telling how it will play out, but recent history is not encouraging.

The hedge fund Alden Global Capital recently bought into Tribune Publishing, becoming the
company’s largest shareholder at 25.2 percent. Tribune Publishing oversees some sizable, respected papers, among them the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel, and Hartford Courant. The company also owns small-to-mid size papers such as the Newport News (Va.) Daily Press, where I spent 30 years, and recent acquisition the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot.

Alden already controls dozens of newspapers and is the largest shareholder (50.1 percent) in a company called Digital First Media, whose stable of papers includes the Denver Post, the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer-Press and San Jose Mercury News. Alden’s stewardship has been disastrous for most of its newspaper properties. For example, when it bought into DFM in 2012 through 2017, staff at the St. Paul paper shrank from 259 to 109, in San Jose from 158 to 92, and in Denver’s newsroom from 184 to 85. In several small-to-medium DFM papers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Michigan, staff was cut by more than 70 percent during that five-year span. Cuts in Denver sparked an open revolt, with the paper printing a handful of critical op-ed pieces and demanding that Alden sell to local interests. The outcry generated national attention, but in the end Alden made more cuts, citing the need to meet specific profit margins.

Alden is by no means the only outfit engaging in such practices, but is among the most egregious. Media consolidation has been going on for quite a while, as companies such as Tribune, GateHouse, Gannett, McClatchy and Media General attempt to make money, or at least stem losses, in a business world gone digital. According to the Boston Globe, 65 percent of newspaper jobs were lost between 1990 and 2016, a greater decline than coal mining and iron and steel mill work. Newspapers shuttered in the past decade include Denver’s Rocky Mountain News, Tucson Citizen, Tampa Tribune, Cincinnati Post and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. More than 1,400 towns and cities across the country have lost newspapers in the past 15 years, according to data compiled by the University of North Carolina, expanding what observers call news “desertification” – areas not served by daily journalists.

Hedge funds don’t buy into newspapers because of some streak of civic responsibility, but because they see an opportunity to make a bunch of money relatively quickly. Newspapers represent a “distressed” business and therefore provide a relatively cheap buy-in, whether it be from market forces or current ownership looking for an escape hatch and sizable payout on their way out the door. If a newspaper or chain can gain financial traction, fine, and the hedge fund can profit from that. If it continues to flounder, the hedge fund often cuts expenses – usually in the form of workers – and extracts as much profit as possible before dumping and moving on.

Newspapers used to be family owned, and corporate and classified ad revenue made those families tidy sums. It wasn’t unusual for newspapers to have profit margins of 15-20 percent, or higher. Those profits turned newspapers into investments, and gradually they were run by business people, not newspaper people. When the Internet started siphoning off advertising, profit margins dropped. In response, bosses did what’s done at other businesses – cut expenses. But you can only depreciate office furniture, computers and cameras so much. The big expense is people, often reporters and editors.

I’ve argued for years that newspapers aren’t like other businesses. They’re more like public trusts than for-profit endeavors. Cut staff at many businesses and there may be alternative paths to success – technology, automation, retrenching. Cut staff at a newspaper, however, and stuff goes uncovered. Local government, cops and courts, business deals, construction and infrastructure contracts, never mind sports and entertainment and personalities. Nobody’s watching. Nobody has time. I endured a fair share of layoffs, early buyouts and staff cuts, along with the accompanying meetings and memos in which the message was “do more with less” and “work smarter, not harder.” I’m here to tell you that where news gathering is concerned, it’s damn near impossible to build greater efficiency into the process. No one does more with less, you only do less with less.

Major metropolitan areas are better equipped to deal with the shrinking newspaper field. There are generally more outlets for news, and a greater probability of a segment of engaged citizenry. But it’s the small and medium-sized towns and cities that suffer most when newspapers shrink or die. The local paper is often the only outlet for news, the sole watchdog on abuse and injustice and a community’s shared experience.

I have no idea how Alden’s tenure will affect my friends and former co-workers in Newport News and Norfolk. I would like to think that they’re far enough down the food chain to grant them some reprieve from the butcher’s knife. Both shops have been through several rounds of cuts and layoffs through the years, so little fat remains. But given the bloodless chase for profits and satisfied investors, nothing would surprise me.