30 September—This is the feast day of St. Jerome, born Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus, marking the anniversary of his death in 420 (AD, of course). His magnum opus is the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Old and New Testaments, from Hebrew and Aramaic of the Old and Greek of the New. Well, he did most of it, anyway. The Vulgate and as of 1979 the New Vulgate are among the biblical versions approved by the Roman Catholic Church. (The Douay-Rheims Version is the first English translation of the Vulgate, by the way, the New Testament published in 1582 and the Old Testament in 1609 and 1610.)

So El Conservatissimo, reacting to the current “What a Republican!” panel in the sidebar, questions the appropriateness of depicting Donald Trump’s head as an elephant turd in motion: “everyone knows you don’t like him mordy but he is the elected president and so thats why deserves your respect.” More to the point, perhaps, knowing what vindictive creeps Trump and his flunkies are, El worries they’ll get me “like they get everyone else” so, “for you own sake and safety why not apologize.”

Good point. It appears that El Conservatissimo is really a nice guy and his solicitude is most appreciated. So I do humbly apologize. To elephant shit—for associating it with Donald Trump.

Moving on to the matter at hand, then, the figures we’ve all been waiting for are in. The United States Postal Service requires periodicals—including but not limited to newspapers and magazines—to file Form 3526 every year by 1 October. And a copy—or all the information therein—must be printed in the specific periodical. The annual Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation, as it’s called, is supposed to provide proof that a publication is eligible for mailing under a so-called periodical permit. Presumably the figures can be trusted.

So the Hearst Republican-American and Hearst Sunday Republican filed and printed as required. And the figures are better than expected. The two related but discrete rags are both called Republican American in the forms but have different publication numbers and figures. For some reason, however—negligent form-filling, perhaps—the other information is the same, including the annual subscription of $1,300 in both filings. (That’s what the $25-a-week “subscription offer” presented in the “How to reach us” panel works out to. And of course it bears no relation to reality. Cover prices rarely do.)

So the paid circulation of the Hearst Sunday Republican, as of 10 August 2025, was 15,698 (with another 2,000 copies not distributed). That’s down from the Pape Sunday Republican’s 20,210 in 2024 (with another 330 copies not distributed), a decline of only 4,512, about 22.5 percent.

And the paid circulation of the Hearst Republican-American, as of 14 August 2025, was 16,253 (with another 2,513 copies not distributed). And that’s down from the Pape Republican-American’s 20,156 in 2024 (with another 330 copies not distributed), a decline of only 3,903, about 19.3 percent.

It’s surprising that more Republican-American hard-copy subscribers haven’t jumped ship with the inauspicious advent of Hearst. But we don’t know about internet-only subscribers, who just may be bolstering rates for display advertising that nobody reads and sales of longer obituaries . . .