Hey, that's not an enclave...

"Next up on the agenda: replacing baseball
and apple pie with tennis and avocado toast."

-the secret left-wing cabal

Hey, you know who's full of shit? Josh Hawley. The Republican Senator from Missouri who, at the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando Florida--because of course Orlando, Florida--went on a screed against the left's efforts to dismantle what it is to truly be a man. Also a woman. And did you know that liberals also won't say the word "mother" anymore? Apparently we say "birthing people," which, I don't know about you but I must have missed that directive from the secret cabal that secretly coordinates the destruction of American values. It's a good thing Josh Hawley's got his finger on the pulse.

You can read the Senator's entire speech here, just be sure to shower afterwords. In it, he says that the left "...believe that America is a systemically racist, structurally oppressive hopelessly patriarchal kind of place."

-noted white guy, Josh Hawley

"I'm a white man who's also a Senator, so if anyone knows about racism and
sexism, it's me. And trust me, I'd let you know if you were being oppressed."

-Senator Hawley, oppression expert

Although in a sense, keeping a loaded
weapon that close to one's genitals is
a form of bravery. But it's also dumb.

Hawley, who was evidently elected President of Men at some point, contrasts the right's virtues of "courage, independence, and assertiveness" with the left's corrosive values of "tolerance, compliance, and consumption--which, I mean, couple of things. First, I think he's confusing courage with gun ownership which I've personally always equated with being a gigantic wuss. I just don't think one needs to bring an assault rifle into Starbucks, or walk around with a handgun in their pants to feel brave. 

They literally idolize him.

As for independence, I'm not sure a political party that spent four years pretending that a visibly deranged reality TV host was not only not insane, but also good at his job, has much to say on the topic of independence. The one thing, and really the only thing, the GOP has going for it is its ability to stick together. Something the DNC could probably learn from. That said, it was their lockstep, blind worship of Donald Trump that led them to attempt a coup which they now pretend didn't happen.  

Which brings us to assertiveness. Assertiveness is an ability to speak up for oneself and is respectful of oneself and others. The January 6th coup attempt wasn't assertiveness, it was a coup attempt, so it's weird that not everyone involved is in jail right now.

They don't call out the national guard for assertiveness.
They do however call it out for treason.

Pictured: Bernie Sanders, seen here
telling supporters to go buy stuff.

Anyway, back to the liberals and our hatred of all things good and pure. Hawley slapped the left with "tolerance, compliance, and consumption." And I mean, I guess tolerance is a bad thing when you're trying to win the hearts and minds of the kind of people who buy tiki torches and protest how white people have been treated, and I'm guessing the compliance thing is about how everyone is being brutally forced to get a life-saving vaccine. But consumption? Aren't we all supposed to be communists or something?

"Not completely full, maybe just,
I don't know, up to here?"

-Hawley, on shit

Doesn't matter, like I said he's full of shit. But the things that's been picked up everywhere is his assertion that the left, through its war on masculinity, is destroying the economy and weakening the Republic. Bold words from the coup guy.

"Still...can we be surprised that after years of being told that they are the problem, that their manhood is the problem, more and more men are withdrawing in to the enclave of idleness and pornogrpahy, and video games?"

-Josh Hawley on--wait, enclave?

Above: Donald Trump and enclave
star Stormy Daniels. Whom he paid off.

Does...does he know what an enclave is? Because he could say "withdrawing into the embrace of idleness and pornography and video games." That'd be much better. Anyway, it's the perfect, most Republican argument he can make because it allows him to call people lazy while at the same time blaming progressives and the twin evils of porn and video games. Twin evils that both sides, both sides, have been hypocritically denouncing for ages while at the same time totally embracing.

What happened in the 80's that
would account for-oh...right...

Bravo. You see, according to Hawley, the reason the labor force is shrinking isn't because Americans since the 1980's have been asked to do more and more demanding work for stagnate wages while the wealth gap has grown exponentially. It's because the left are making men feel bad for acting like shitty people. And how dare they call people out for their behavior? If there's one thing Republicans and the people who vote for them can't stand and, feel entitled to immunity from, it's consequences.

Oh, and you know, for the record, I know plenty of people, of all genders, who would love to withdraw into an enclave--again, wrong word--of porn and video games. I mean, what an enclave! It's not a men thing. Josh Hawley should really stop painting us all with his dumb, binary brush and he should really, really stop telling us what's ruining the Republic. You know, because of the coup he was such a big supporter of.

Above: Hawley, seen here expressing his solidarity with protestors
on January 6th shortly before they tried to overthrow America.

Much Ado about much a didn't...

Hey, guess who died? Go on, guess. Right. The answer is obviously lots of people, but specifically I'm talking about Ado Campeol, the guy who didn't invent tiramisu. 

Above: Ado Campeol (right) seen here not inventing tiramisu.

Pictured: Bananas Foster, which
Ado also didn't invent.

Yeah, you heard me. When I saw the headline, I suppose my first thought was slow news day, which, I mean, even slower blog day for me, since this is what I'm writing about. So my next thought was tiramisu had been around for ages and how could the inventor possibly still be alive? It turns out Ado Campeol was ninety-three years old, and invented the dessert only about fifty years ago, back in 1972. Or didn't invent. That's the even weirder thing. While he's credited with inventing the dessert, every source that credits him, goes on to explain that he deserves no credit. 

With real, authentic tiramisu, you
can practically taste the salmonella.

Have you ever had it? Tiramisu? It's ladies fingers soaked in coffee, with egg, mascarpone, and cocoa. It is delicious, but also super bad for you. And it's not just because it's basically a plate of fat and cholesterol, but also because it's supposed to be made with raw eggs. Of course, Campeol made it to ninety-three so...Anyway, since we don't live in Italy, we've probably never had real tiramisu, but have definitely had a pretentious friend who's well actually'ed us about it. Probably while pronouncing mascarpone with a middling Italian accent while everyone else just rolls their eyes.

Happenstance is for comic book
origin stories, not dessert. 

Ok, but who did invent it? Some articles say it was Alba Campeol, Ado's wife, while others give the credit to Roberto Linguanotto, a chef at Le Beccherie, Campeol's restaurant. Linguanotto even has a preposterous story about the time he dropped mascarpone into sugar and accidentally invented it. Which, sure. Don't believe a word of if, but sure. Ok, so while it was served at Campeol's restaurant that may have popularized it, tiramisu was not his idea, so why are we talking about Ado and not Linguanotto and his dumb story?

Sorry, like, condolences and everything. He was ninety-three, which is a good run, but not necessarily worthy of international headlines. But here we are, talking about the passing of the father of tiramisu despite that fact that the guy who died had, at beast, a tangential role in its creation. He's, at best, its uncle. Although hang on, I suppose the role of a father is, biologically speaking, minimal. So sure. Fine. Farewell to the father of tiramisu. 

"What? I tell people we're pregnant because
we're in this together. What's wrong with that?"

Don't worry, there's plenty of ire to go around.

So yes, obviously everyone's sick of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema single handedly--ok, two handedly? Four-handedly? Or are they each using one? Metaphorically? Doesn't matter, we're all super over them. They're both of them moderate Democrats which is code for basically Republicans and they're holding up everything. 

Above: Sinema (center) and Manchin (second from the right),
seen here holding the rest of the country hostage.
Not pictured: a functional democracy.

"No, it's alright, I really did steal
those seats. And I'd do it again."

-McConnell (actual quote)

Like, everything. And that's fine. Cool. I think we can all agree that democracy sucks but it's better than the alternatives. But what I don't get is why Republicans are getting a pass here. "If we could only get these two, self-important, conservative Democrats to come over to our side, we could pass President Biden's spending plan, eliminate the filibuster, and even add some seats to the Supreme Court to balance out the ones Mitch McConnell straight up stole." Cool but--Huh? Yes he did, he absolutely did, but my point is what about the Republicans in the Senate? 

Please, this doofus didn't navigate the
halls of the Capitol without help.

Everyone's all: "Sinema and Manchin are the actual worst!" And they are, but the actual actual worst are people who let a former reality TV hijack their party and then when he tried to do a coup, like d'état, they just stood by and waited to see how it turned out. I mean, like, shouldn't they be in prison for that? Even worse are the ones in the House who saw the armed mob coming and pointed the way to Nancy Pelosi's office. Seriously, is our problem a couple of right-of-center Democrats drunk on their momentary relevance or is it the Republican Party as a whole?

Yeah, it's probably both, but yes, Senators Sinema and Manchin absolutely, one hundred percent deserve all the scorn and outrage you want to level at them for leveraging their feet dragging to appease whoever's buying their yachts and funding thier selections campaigns. But let's all bear in mind that the only reason they have that leverage is that the other half of the Senate is made of people who are cool with fascism. 

What? Joe Manchin's got a yacht and he represents one of our poorest states.
I guess he doesn't understand optics, like, as a thing to be concerned about.

Today in things that haven't happened yet:

Am I being unfair when I predict that this video game character's t-shirt is going to be a thing right-wingers will suddenly care about? Huh? What video game character's t-shirt? 

This one. Can you guess why?

Although it's not along walk from
Confederate imagery to Nazi.

Ok, not precisely that t-shirt, the one seen in the game is slightly different, but the point is that Cassidy, a character in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, wears a t-shirt with the Confederate flag on it. Or rather wore. According to Kotaku, the remaster re-release that's coming out next month apparently changes out the image and replaces it with a skull. Which, cool, except in the blurry, blink and you'll miss it shot from the trailer, the new shirt looks like some SS nonsense, so I'm not sure it's a huge improvement.

Rockstar, the developer, presumably removed the image because it's a symbol of slavery and hatred. It's the same reason all these statues are coming down in the South. And yeah, I know a lot of people argue it's about heritage or whatever, but it's a heritage of owning people and making them work for no money, so...

Also, who puts up statues to the losers in the first place?

Pictured: the most interesting Superman's
done since, I don't know, the 1980's?

But what does this have to do with delicate conservative sensibilities? Well, nothing yet. The trailer's been out out for over a week and Kotaku's article about the t-shirt was published today. But this is the kind of thing they lose their shit over right? These are the people who fell all over each other writing homophobic tweets about bi-Superman earlier this month and nobody's cared about Superman as a character in years. It's only a matter or time before Fox News or Josh Mandel weighs in.

Not because any of them care about Grand Theft Auto, or creative freedom. In fact, video games usually only show up on the right's radar when they're blaming them for school shootings. But they'll care because they're always looking to open a new front in their bullshit culture war, and they'll call this cultural erasure or something.

Above: the blocky, barely recognizable as human face of an oppressed people.
Specifically white people who feel oppressed by not getting their way all the time.

iMean, c'mon...

Look, I don't want to tell Apple how to exploit their overly loyal fanbase, but I mean, c'mon:

Pictured: basically heroin.

In case your five year old iMac is too
far obsolete for you to wipe the finger prints
off the screen such a high-tech towel.

Yeah, that's a microfiber polishing cloth for your screens and yes, it does indeed cost twenty dollars of money. And if you order now, you'll only have to wait ten to twelve weeks because it's already sold out. So I guess try not to sneeze around your lap top in the meantime? Twenty dollars...anyway, of course this is ridiculous but, whatever, this is just Apple being Apple. If you look at the bottom right of the screen grab above you'll see that they bothered with multiple angle shots of a featureless (well, there's an Apple logo), grey square. There's even a compatibility list. 

Our new displays are made from a high
tech meringue, so try not to get them wet, touch
them, or look at them, as they will dissolve.

Even more...what's the word? I'd say galling if this wasn't exactly the kind of nonsense Apple's been pulling for decades, but let's just go with annoying. Even more annoying is that they claim that you have to use this specific cloth if you bought one of the new devices with a nano texture glass screen. It's a glare reducing option only available on the more expensive models and even then is like a five hundred dollar upgrade. Which, I mean, I'd live with a little glare if it meant not having a screen so delicate I needed a twenty dollar wipe just to clean it. 

And on that subject, could Apple really not just include one of these with their six thousand dollar computers? There's obviously a market for this (tech-obsessed chumps with tons of disposable income), or else it wouldn't exist. And I'd be a damned liar if I said I wasn't writing this on an Apple laptop right now, but is there a point at which enough is enough? Huh? Yeah, I didn't think so...

"Our latest innovation features the fewest ports ever on an Apple product !"

-Apple 

Today in folksy protestations of innocence:

So I don't live in Nebraska and therefore have no stake in this particular scandal, but I do want you to enjoy this video with me. It's Republican Jeff Fortenberry leveraging his wife, Celeste Fortenberry, their pickup, their dog, and even a cornfield to show us just how gosh darn guilty he's not.

Now there's an elected official who knows how to Nebraska.

But we have so many domestic billionaires,
why didn't he take bribes from one of them?

Guilty of what? I'm glad I pretended you asked. Guilty of lying to the federal government about campaign contributions that came from a foreign billionaire. And what better way to get out ahead of the story than to record a grainy video of yourself in your 1963 Ford F-100 pickup truck explaining how-huh? Yeah, he actually bothered to tell us specifically what kind of truck they were driving, just in case that had some bearing on whether or not you believe him when he said he had no idea who's money was being illegally funneled into his campaign. 

"Hi, this is Jeff Fortenberry, and I'm out for a drive in my 1963 Ford F-100 pick-up truck with our dog Pippin and my wife Celeste. We do this every now and then."

-Fortenberry, on-wait, they record damage 

control videos every now and then?

For those keeping score, yes, he introduced his pick-up first, then his dog,
and then the woman he's married to. Because these are his priorities. 

"Accepted illegal campaign contributions
sounds so...crime-y. Let's say the foreign guy
illegally moved money into your campaign."

-Fortenberry's lawyer

Anyway, Fortenberry wanted us to know first. How thoughtful! He goes on to explain that five years ago, a billionaire called Gilbert Chagoury "illegally moved money" into his campaign and gosh darn-it, he didn't know anything about it. Chagoury did this through American proxies who've since been caught and prosecuted--thank heavens! But then later, federal investigators questioned Fortenberry. Can you believe it? Why would they possibly suspect him just because he suddenly found thirty thousand dollars of money stuffing his coffers?

"About two and a half years ago, I had a knock on my door on a weekend. I had been out dealing with the effects of the bomb cyclone that had hit us which was so devastatingly harsh to our community. They were FBI agents from California."

-Fortenberry, about that time 

he had to work on a weekend

"California? This must be part of that gay agenda we heard
about on Fox News. I'll bet Nancy Pelosi is behind it!"

-What Fortenberry thinks Nebraskans will say

Above: Representative Fortenberry
looking shocked, stunned, and betrayed.

Anyway, the congressman answered their questions and was then chagrined to learn that they were accusing him, him of lying to them.

"We're shocked. We're stunned. I feel so personally betrayed. We thought we were trying to help."

-Jeff Fortenberry on how

betrayed and stunned he felt

I say that because in the same video he 
thought exploiting the bomb cyclone of 2019
would make him sound more innocent.

Um...is he asking us to believe that when the FBI knocked on his door to investigate illegal campaign contributions, he assumed that they were looking into a crime against him? Like, there's an epidemic of foreign billionaires secretly funding American officials' political careers and he's just another victim? I have a problem with this. Either he's admitting to some serious naiveté and probably shouldn't have a job where anyone is counting on him or he's calling his constituents dumb, which I mean, something tells me it's the latter. 

"Because I care about Nebraska, that's why."

-Gilbert Chagoury

And look, I'm not a legal expert, but he's saying that he told the FBI the truth, and they're saying he didn't. Fine. But since Fortenberry is only now just being indicted, and it's for lying rather than for accepting the contributions, the investigation probably went something like this: "Hey congressman, did you know where this money was coming from?" And Fortenberry was all "Nope." "But then why would this Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire make such a large and clandestine donation to your campaign if he wanted nothing in return?" "Um..."

Like, that's not how a tit for tat works. Ever. I don't know if he lied to the FBI, but I mean, of course he lied to the FBI and now he's lied to the people of Nebraska, his dog, and Celeste, his weirdly silent wife, too. And again, I'm not from Nebraska, but between the pickup, the cornfield, and the absurd suggestion that he was somehow the victim of a foreign billionaire forcing money into his hands, I'm kind of insulted for them. 

Pictured: what to do if someone tries to make
an illegal contribution to your political campaign.

What'sa motto with you?

Well, this is going to make them lose their minds. What? You wonder aloud? And who? Well, the who is Conservatives and the what is Superman. Yes again, but this time it isn't about how bi he is but rather his new motto. 

"Everything that falls outside my personal experience confuses and outrages me!"

-Conservatives

Pictured: Some kid reading the
issue in which Superman makes the
case for supply side economics.

Traditionally Superman stands for truth, justice, and the American way, but according to Jim Lee, DC's Chief Creative Officer at today's DC FanDom, it's now--huh? Oh, it's like their version of that day once a year when Apple holds a press conference and the media pretends its news. Anyway, the new motto is truth, justice and a better tomorrow. And that sound you hear? That's a million Conservative fingers Tweeting their outrage. Suddenly a bunch of asshats who've never picked up a comic book in their life will wax--or more accurately tweet--nostalgic about their youths spent biking down to the five and dime to buy the latest issue of Action Comics and bask in the righteousness of American values.

"It has absolutely nothing to do with
all the countries we've bombed..."

Gross. Anyway, Lee didn't address why the "American way" bit was dropped, other than to say that the change is to

"...better reflect the storylines that we are telling across DC and to honor Superman's incredible legacy of over 80 years of building a better world, Superman's motto is evolving..."

-Jim Lee, speaking fluent corporate

Which...sure. I mean, narratively, Superman isn't the jingoistic boy scout he might have been in the olden days, so the change makes perfect sense. But I suspect this is Lee's way of saying they'd like to get away from the "America can do no wrong" nonsense implied in the old motto without pissing people off. Except it will, it totally will, so break out the popcorn.

Pictured: The new Superman, seen here kissing his boyfriend,
probably while thinking about universal health care.