Stephen Miller Leads Trump’s Legion of Monsters

Ending this carnival of fools is the largest political imperative of my lifetime. If you have trouble reading this message, view it in a browser.       Stephen Miller Is Leading the Legion of Monsters   On Tuesday evening, it was announced that White House aide Stephen Miller had become yet another administration* employee to test positive in the COVID-19 hot spot. Apparently karma was all out of bubonic plague. Esquire's Charles P. Pierce declines, in this case, to be kind. His reasons can be found in the latest revelations in The New York Times regarding the legion of monsters, led philosophically and every other way, by Miller, that set American immigration policy rolling down the road toward sadism and outright depravity. Cruelty comes in many forms. Where this presidency* has family separation, the Avignon Presidency of George W. Bush had torture. Where this administration* trashed this country's image as a refuge for those fleeing poverty and political oppression, that administration undermined this country's image as a defender of due process and the rule of law. Where this administration* has Stephen Miller, that administration had John Yoo. Read More           We Can Still Fix It. Just Ask Wilco's Jeff Tweedy.   Around seven on most evenings, Jeff Tweedy, the founder and lead singer of the rock band Wilco, takes a bath. It's a relatively new habit. This is the longest stretch of time he's been homebound in his entire adult life. From the late eighties, when he began playing bass in the alt-country band Uncle Tupelo, through Wilco's formation, in 1994, up until a pandemic shuttered much of the world, Tweedy spent the majority of his life on the road. "Being on tour is very regimented. That's comforting for somebody with anxiety disorder like myself," Tweedy told Esquire Editor-in-Chief Michael Sebastian over Zoom, in early October. "Being at home, it's a little harder to structure your life in a way that feels like a healthy routine. Exercising and having a bath are some of the ways I do that. I'm into self-care rituals." On the eve of the release of his solo album, Love Is The King (available October 23 to stream and on vinyl and CD on January 15), and second book, How To Write One Song (October 13), Tweedy spoke with Esquire about politics, his new projects, and the future of Wilco. But first, we kicked off the conversation, which has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity, by posing a question that, in his debut book, 2018's Let's Go (So We Can Get Back), Tweedy says he'd much rather ask people than make small talk with them. Read More           Dickies' $35 Double-Knee Work Pants Represent the Brand at Its Best   Dickies' double-knee work pants are some of the toughest out there. (You might say, in fact, that they're the quintessential hard pants.) And if you, too, are feeling sick and tired of swaddling your weary gams in the same pair of heavily-stained terry cloth trousers, these are the durable bad boys to finally help you kick your sweatpants habit for good. Sure, you could easily spend a few days surfing the web for a near-identical pair of pants done up in the fanciest of fabrics by the designer-iest of designers. But when Dickies is still setting the standard, even after all these years, you'd be doing yourself a grave disservice. Esquire's Avidan Grossman explains why the pants earned a spot as our latest Esquire Endorsement. Read More           'Might As Well Carry a Purse With That Mask, Joe' Is the Best Style Advice of the Season   This week, the Biden team released a three-second clip effectively castigating the President for his refusal to embrace the idea of wearing a mask in public. And if your day was somehow off to a solid start, my apologies, man. Because right-wing professional troll Toni Lauren—no, wait, is it Torrence Larpen? Turgid Largeham? Tomi Lahren?—has taken to Twitter yet again to weigh in, and I can already hear you groaning involuntarily from all the way over here. At this point, Trump's specific brand of macho posturing is par for the course, but it's Lerfen's response—what she clearly imagined was a witty rejoinder to Team Biden's tweet—that's worth examining. It's the type of retrograde, low-stakes insult we should all agree to permanently table, the implication being that Biden is somehow less manly than Trump because he's willing to admit a virus that's killed over 200,000 Americans is worth taking seriously. Sick burn, man! You really showed him. Leruhn, though, might actually be...onto something here. Here are 5 great bags to pair with your mask. Read More           Get Unlimited Access to All of Esquire with an Esquire Select Membership   If you enjoy the work Esquire does every day online, and in every print issue, we're now asking you to chip in to support it. Starting now, when you land on Esquire.com you'll get a message that you're reading one of your four complimentary articles for the month. Once you've read four, you'll have to sign up for our new membership club, Esquire Select to keep going. Esquire Select comes in many forms, but our All Access option gets you an annual print subscription, unlimited access to Esquire.com, unlimited access to Charles P. Pierce, and exclusive, members-only access to deals and discounts from Esquire's favorite brands. Here's everything you need to know about Esquire Select. Read More           On This Day in 1983, Roger Moore and Sean Connery Squared Off in 'The Battle of the Bonds'   "Growing up," writes Chris Nashawaty, "Roger Moore was my James Bond." Nashawaty's older brother Keith, on the other hand, was ride-or-die for Sean Connery. It's amazing what an age difference of three years could make back in the early '80s. To both of them, the stakes in their ongoing blood feud felt almost existential, as if a critical piece of their identities hung in the balance over which 007 they preferred (it should be noted that neither cared about the one-and-done George Lazenby). That sort of white-hot passion still exists today in the schism between DC and Marvel partisans. Still, whenever a new Bond extravaganza made its way to a sad local movie theater in suburban Massachusetts or an old one popped up on one of the three networks, the Nashawaty brothers' heated double-O debate would pick right back up where it had left off. Punches flew, wet willies were administered, titties were twisted. Back then, these things mattered. At least, to them. And then came 1983. After all, it was the year when, during one brief four-month window, we got two James Bond movies—one with Moore and one with Connery. Here, Nashawaty remembers the "Battle of the Bonds," and determines the one clear winner once and for all. Read More         Read More on Esquire.com       Follow Us     Unsubscribe  Privacy Notice   esquire.com ©2020 Hearst Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Email Privacy, 300 W 57th St., Fl. 19 (sta 1-1), New York, NY 10019