Friday links! Courtesy of the red, white and blue edition

Toby Keith, who did not serve in the military, and his dog tags

Did you hear? President Trump dropped the MOAB on Afghanistan, killing 36 ISIS fighters and presumably ending our 15-year war. “MOAB” stands for “mother of all bombs.” The 11-ton weapon loves all other bombs and just wants them to be happy, and even though it has different expectations for each bomb, it is behind every single one of them 100 percent. You know who else loves bombs? Fox and Friends. Here’s the video they put together for yesterday’s strike:

“The video is black and white,” Ainsley Earhardt says, “but that is what freedom looks like. That’s the red, white and blue.” It’s true that a tyrant could never bomb anyone. Freedom isn’t life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. It’s a giant explosion seen from 30,000 feet. It’s Geraldo Rivera and his Wario mustache saying that “one of my favorite things, in the sixteen years I’ve been here at Fox News, is watching bombs drop on bad guys.” Today is Friday, and the most comfortable people in the world love to watch other people get bombed. Won’t you experience hot, searing freedom with me?

First, the good news: The Missoula Independent, my hometown alternative newsweekly and publisher of my column, has found a way to keep itself running well into the foreseeable future. The bad news is that way was to sell to Lee Enterprises. The Indy is no longer independently owned. Staff learned yesterday morning that the paper had been sold, about half an hour before the Missoulian ran the story. Lee owns the Missoulian, too, along with the Ravalli Republic, the Billings Gazette, the Montana Standard, the Helena Independent Record and 350 or so other properties across the country. According to Mike Gulledge, publisher of the Missoulian and VP of publishing at Lee Enterprises, both the business and editorial sides of the Indy will remain separate from the Missoulian. The Missoulian also reports that “all employees at the Indy, as it is known, will have the opportunity to keep the jobs they have now.” That kind of makes it sound like they will have the opportunity to not keep their jobs, too.

But Lee is a mutli-state business, so I’m sure it will take care of us. Businesspeople are smart. They know how to create jobs and work efficiently, not just how to maximize profit within a narrow milieu that rewards gamesmanship over real leadership. In completely unrelated news, President Trump has threatened to withhold federal subsidies to insurers in order to force Democrats to the bargaining table on Obamacare. Right now, the government pays about $7 billion a year to insurance companies to offset the costs of covering high-risk patients. If Trump stops those subsidies, state insurance marketplaces will collapse. That will force Democrats to negotiate with him to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Of course, it would also deliberately wreck the nation’s health insurance system— but hey, if that’s what it takes to convince people Obamacare isn’t working!

The only flaw in this plan would be if people were to regard the president as somehow responsible for events that occur during his term. Then they might see Trump intentionally causing their insurance premiums to skyrocket and feel weird. In still more news that bears no relation to topics discussed thus far, here are some poll results from the Kaiser Family Foundation:

It’s almost as though Americans expected some continuity from their government, regardless of who runs it. There should be a name for the theoretical window beyond which a president can no longer blame his predecessor for various disasters. Once this date passes with respect to Barack Obama, I assume the Republican Party will be disbanded. On that day, the Democratic Party will rename itself “the GOP” and bomb Syria.

Meanwhile, in things that should not be, the New York Post has published this personality profile/marriage notice/potential work of dry satire headlined Why I won’t date hot women anymore. Spoiler alert: It’s not because private equity executive Dan Rochkind has turned 40 and begun the transition from gym bro to fat. It’s because, and I quote:

“Beautiful women who get a fair amount of attention get full of themselves. Eventually, I was dreading getting dinner with them because they couldn’t carry a conversation.”

Isn’t that always the way? Beautiful women are so full of themselves, unlike the financiers who exclusively date them. But don’t worry: Rochkind’s new-ish wife is beautiful, too. It’s “a softer beauty,” though. He notes that because of her height, “she can’t be a runway model, but I think she’s really beautiful and is prettier than anyone I’ve dated.” The soft, short woman in question is the vice president of her mother’s matchmaking company, which put her in touch with Rochkind. Mazel tov, you guys. It sounds like anyone’s idea of true love.

Combat! blog is free. Why not share it?
Tweet about this on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on Reddit

Leave a Comment.