Points of light

This is Comet 45P.  It has a longer name.  If you look up now, you might see it. 

Comets were once considered harbingers of dread, but that would be redundant.  And trite.  I prefer to close the year with words from a woman I never heard of until she resigned from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir because she could not bring herself to participate in an event scheduled for January 20, 2017.  This is what Jan Chamberlin wrote:

"Tyranny is now on our doorstep; it has been sneaking its way into our lives through stealth.  We must continue our love and support for the refugees and the oppressed by fighting against these great evils."

Remember.

With charity for all

Someone asked Carl Paladino, onetime candidate for governor of New York and now Trump state chairman, what he wanted to see in 2017:

   "Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford [sic].  He dies
    before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to Valerie Jarret [sic] who died weeks prior after
    being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady [sic] cellmate mistook her for being a nice
    person and decapitated her...Michelle Obama, I'd like her to return to being a male and let loose
    in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably with Maxie the gorilla."

It's all there -- the appalling grammar, the fixation on bestiality, the bizarre but unshakeable alt-right trope that the most glamorous First Lady since Jacqueline Kennedy is really a man --I pity the public school children of Buffalo with this sitting on their school board.  Our next ambassador to South Africa?

Here's something I learned only recently from reading Bill Bryson's One Summer:  America 1927:  When Italian immigrants came here at the turn of the twentieth century and settled in the South, their children were often required to attend black schools.  They were not considered white by local government and were harassed by the Klan for being immigrants and Catholics.  This doesn't excuse anything, but maybe it helps to explain why awful individuals like Paladino and Giuliani feel they have to work harder (often grotesquely harder) at their racism than regular bigots like Trump and Sessions.  No dog whistles for them, always looking over their shoulders, never quite sure that they are "white" enough even now.  What a terrible way to live.    

...and the comedy stylings of Dick Cheney!

In the darkest time of the year you can mourn for the kakiocracy taking shape in Washington.  I prefer to laugh at the low comedy of trying to find someone, anyone, who wants to entertain our new rulers at the "inauguration" now less than a month away.  Susan Bender has accepted the job of booking the talent, and therefore deserves no sympathy.  Maybe a little.  So far, the roster includes a teenage runner-up from "America's Got Talent" and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  She has been turned down by Celine Dion, Garth Brooks, John Legend, and KISS, the only band whose members wear more makeup than Trump.  Andrea Bocelli supposedly declined for fear of "bad press," but it's more likely he has heard of Trump's fondness for mocking people with disabilities.  (Don't even bother to call Stevie Wonder.)  It looks like Ted Nugent won't be singing his hit.  Patricia Heaton has to wash her hair that night.

Elton John was another "no" but I still think he's gettable.  After all, he performed at the most recent wedding of Jabba the Rush to a human female, for a reported million dollars.  If Trump were to double that, fly him over on Trump Force One, arrange a date with Rick Perry -- who knows?  The alternative is to ask Putin for some trained bears from the Moscow Circus, riding bicycles while the Mormons sing "Tomorrow Belongs To Me."        

Tweet, tweet! Over here!

In the latest in a series of carefully constructed media distractions, the Idiot-Elect got into a war with Vanity Fair magazine after it published a nauseated review of the Trump Grill (or Trumpe Grille), the overpriced greasy spoon inside Trumpe Towere where Mitt Romney was dined and dissed two weeks ago (and probably got stuck with the check).  The review reignited the Orange One's thirty-year war with the magazine's proprietor Graydon Carter, co-creator of the immortal descriptive "short-fingered vulgarian."  In response to the usual semi-literate snarls, readers gave VF its best day ever, doubling the subscriber base.

I want in.  Buttermilk Sky has never had a kind word to say about Donzo the Clown, and I can assure you it never will.  This is the place for non-stop mockery of everything about Putin's puppet, from his scotch-tape tie clip to his unspeakable cabinet.  All we ask is one little tweet ("Don't read Buttermilk Sky!  Very bad blog, no porspective, very few readers.  Kicked off Blogger soon!").  Did I mention he can't spell?

Buttermilk Sky.  Denounce it by name.  I triple-dog dare you, Shitgibbon.

Ship of fools

"It looks as though Trump is assembling the crew for a pirate ship."  -- John Cleese

With respect -- and I have nothing but respect for the Rt. Hon. Minister of Silly Walks -- no.   That is, no self-respecting pirate would round up a mob like this one.  Ruthless, ignorant, greedy and unscrupulous, sure, but most of them have never been at sea and some have never glimpsed it.  I am reminded of another celebrated Python sketch, the one about village idiots. 

Tom Price, Health and Human Services:  Putative surgeon who doesn't believe in vaccination and thinks Barack Obama ruled through hypnosis.

Betsy DeVos, Education:  Favors private schools, particularly religious ones.

Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development:  Sole qualification is that he once lived in public housing. 

James Mattis, Defense:  Also happens to be a longtime General Dynamics executive.  No possible conflict of interest there.

Jefferson Davis Beauregard Sessions, "Justice":  Named for the worst traitor in American history and has always lived up to the name.  Racist's racist.  In a more civilized era, the Senate refused to confirm his appointment as a federal judge.

Scott Brown, Veterans Affairs:  Two-year senator who coined the racist nickname "Pocahontas" for his opponent, Elizabeth Warren.  Didn't work for him, but struck Trump as the quintessence of wit.    Like the First Lady-elect, enjoys posing naked.

Michael Flynn, National Security adviser.  Clinically insane.  Claims the U.S.-Mexico border is dotted with signs in Arabic advising ISIS fighters where to cross.  His equally bughouse son Michael Jr. has spread a bizarre conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton and a pedophile ring which continues to endanger innocent people in pizza restaurants in at least three cities.  Junior works for the "transition team."

Stephen Bannon, special adviser and professional racist.  Could be an actual pirate.  Will probably continue running Breitbart.com from the White House.  Why not?  His boss will still be producing his television show, and probably running many other enterprises he hasn't admitted to.

I get dizzy from trying to sort through this, so I may have imagined that Captain Crook wants to put a wrestling promoter in his cabinet.  Sixteen years ago Bush hired a horse show promoter to run FEMA, just in time for Hurricane Katrina.  What a time.  Remember how Fidel Castro offered to send the Cuban navy to New Orleans to aid Americans who were dying in the flooded streets?  "Heck of a job, Brownie!" 

Watch the rats.  When they start to leave the ship, follow them quietly.  They always seem to know. 

 

 

Person of the century of the year

Many thousands of subscriptions cancelled!  Failing Time Magazine soon going out of business!  Very very badly writing, unreadable.  Editorial staff should be killed.  Boycott all advertisers!  Nasty tone and mean spirited.  Supports ISIS and hates Real Americans.  Sad.

Donald and his very good brain #1

First of a sad series.

Two days ago he delivered the following wisdom at the USS Yorktown in South Carolina:

"We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening.  We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that Internet up in some way.  Somebody will say, 'Oh, freedom of speech, freedom of speech.'  These are foolish people.  We have a lot of foolish people."

Have to agree there, Donzo.  We do have a lot of foolish people and you are their king.  "Closing that Internet up" is his secret plan, at long last revealed, for defeating ISIS, because they use it for propaganda and recruitment -- in the same way Stormfront and Breitbart use it to promote white supremacy, and The Trump Store uses it to sell hats and shirts and Christmas tree ornaments, and billions of other Earthoids use it for their own purposes, frequently even to criticize their leaders.  So, it must be shut down.  

I don't even know where to start, but I suppose as good a place as any is the First Amendment to the Constitution this ignorant buffoon will soon swear to preserve, protect and defend.  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." 

Lot of big words, huh?  What those foolish people in Philadelphia meant was, you can't throw the Muslims out or put them on a register, you can't have the FBI keep people from demonstrating their hatred of you no matter what Jared says, and you can't shut us up.  Not even the Internet, without which you would be lost because that's where Twitter is.  Amazing, but true.  Every lie, fantasy, and piece of USDA Grade A bullshit you have put out for the last five years is carried by the Internet all over the world in a few seconds, and is protected free speech because those fools decided no one should have the right to silence anyone else.  Not even ISIS.  Not even an ignorant buffoon who calls his opponent "the devil" and adores Vladimir Putin.

And just for comic relief, Bill Gates?  What has Bill Gates to do with the Internet?  Gates founded a software company called Microsoft and isn't even actively involved with it any more.  I wish  you would have a conversation with Mr. Gates.  He could tell you how his foundation is making progress against malaria and Ebola, trying to stop climate change, providing people with polio vaccines, and other wondrous things.  This is what real charities do, including the Clinton Global Initiative.  They don't spend other people's money on oil paintings of The Leader, or bribes for state officials.  What a wonderful educational opportunity awaits you.  Yes, I am being sarcastic.     

Curtain up

First, I know the Stormtrumpers are not the sharpest knives, but surely even they can see that there is little point in boycotting a show you can't get tickets to.  Whether it's "Hamilton" or the Super Bowl, who will notice if you refuse to show up?

Second, why would a viciously homophobic politician go to "Hamilton," or indeed any musical, unless he wanted to get booed and stir up the rage monkeys at Fox, atop Trump Tower, and elsewhere, thus provoking a crackdown on protest and "incivility"?  It's not exactly setting fire to the Reichstag, but we may one day look back on it as an opening chapter.

I, for one, welcome our new orange overlord

Was it only a week ago?  I was idly wondering what sort of Secretary of State Joe Biden would make, a contrast to the urbane, French-speaking Kerry.  Now I'm thinking, OK, put Sarah Palin in the Cabinet, just don't give Numbnipples a job with access to the Situation Room.  See how little it takes to make me happy?  Maybe "calm" is a better word.

And that can be her Secret Service code name.  I have others.  For the Trumps, obviously, Deadbeat and Pornstar.  For the Pences, Godbotherer and Handmaid.  (I assume there is a Mrs. Pence; I don't think I've ever seen her.  But if she exists, she certainly subscribes to the Nazi definition of a woman's proper sphere:  Kuche, Kirche, Kinder.  The other KKK.)  The Three Blind Trustees can be Greasy, Sleazy and Morticia, while Gingrich and Giuliani are unquestionably Fat Man and Little Boy, apt to set off a chain reaction which could ignite the atmosphere.  Rinse Priapus Reince Priebus has to be Putzi.  He just looks like a Putzi.

Some folks here in Blogenheim  want to believe the Electoral College will save us, and have started an online petition asking that it respect the popular vote, but that has never happened and never will.  Expecting a reprieve from the Electoral College is like expecting an education from Trump University (see what I did there?).  It will thwart democracy as it did in 1876 and 2000, as it was designed to do by the Fathers (all hail!).  Sorry about all the parentheses, but I'm severely medicated. 

And before I head back to the couch, an observation:  We don't have a parliamentary system and we can't afford twee little parties and vanity candidates like Jill Stein.  They appeal to a type of voter I call the mandarin:  "I'm special, and my vote is special, and I want to send a message with my vote, so if I can't vote for someone who exactly fits my specifications" -- this is for you, too, Bernie bros -- "I just won't bother."  Maybe you weren't listening when Max Brooks said, "This election is not about apples or oranges.  It's about apples or your house burns down."  How do you like the charred rubble, you spoiled children?  Yes, Hillary Clinton was a "flawed candidate."  They all are.  You want flawless, vote for Francis of Assisi.  He was born in Italy and he's been dead for six hundred years, but he never took a favor from the King of Morocco. 

A wormy apple or an orange fascist.  That was the only choice, and we blew it.

Strangers together

  

I never knew so many people hated America.

And now I get to be one of them.

Laughter in the dark

As the most miserable presidential campaign in US history shudders to a close, someone decided that we could use a good laugh.  And so Trump spokesmodel Scottie Nell Hughes was sent forth to complain about Jay-Z, who performed at a Clinton event in Ohio over the weekend.  Specifically, she objected to a video in which someone can be seen throwing a "Mazel tov cocktail" at police.  I haven't laughed so hard since Michele Bachmann attempted to pronounce "chutzpah."  Of course, Ms. Hughes looks like Sarah Palin if she put on a blonde wig, lost the glasses and went all-in on  mascara, so who knows?  Folks of a certain age undoubtedly thought of Gilda Radner's Emily Litella.  This made us happier than considering the grim implications of a campaign which has made anti-Semitism bloom like red algae.  Grimmer still, two police officers were murdered in Des Moines last week, allegedly by a man who had been ejected from a football game for waving a Confederate flag.  (Like most white Christian terrorists he was found to have mental problems and hospitalized -- complete with room service, as Trump would say.)

Let's see, what else?  There was the big Trump "assassination attempt," when a man armed with a "Republicans against Trump" sign invaded a rally in Reno and was attacked, physically, by the mob.  Trump was put at greater risk by the Secret Service, who hustled him away after someone yelled, "Gun!"  It's dangerous to make a fat old man move that fast.  The day before, President Obama had given a superb lesson in how to deal with a protester at his rally, quieting the booing crowd and urging respect for the right of free speech.  What a wimp.  Nobody respects him, not Putin, not Kim, not Duterte.  Yet I just saw a poll where 49 percent of Americans said they would vote for Obama if he were allowed a third term.  All polls are rigged. 

An actual case of voter fraud has been identified!  A woman in Iowa tried to vote twice, after the voices in her head told her that her vote (for Trump, of course) would automatically be changed to one for Clinton. 

Every responsible poll shows Clinton ahead -- I don't believe it will be close -- and the stock market is rebounding with relief.  The capitalists don't have much use for Donnie Deadbeat and his tax cuts for the rich.  Curious.

Janet Reno has died at 78.  I'm sorry she won't see the first woman president.  I hope she voted.

This madness can't end soon enough for fans of Keith Olbermann, whose commentary at the GQ website (available on YouTube) has grown angrier and more strident, causing us to worry about his blood pressure.  Today's episode features an unprecedented number of f-bombs.  Keith, lie on a beach, join a yoga class, breathe, man.   It's over and you helped us get through it.

MSNBC has decided we need a crawl listing all presidents and their dates.  CNN is calling its show "Election Night In America," unavoidably invoking the longer-running "Hockey Night In Canada."  Meanwhile, no American media outlet has done anything as good as the Toronto Star's interactive Database of Trump Falsehoods (polite Canadian term for lies).  Check it out, it's awesome. 

   

It begins

"Last Tuesday night the Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church in Greenville, Mississippi, caught fire.  When fire crews arrived to put out the blaze, they found that the words 'Vote Trump' had been spray-painted on the side of the historic black church."  (Posted by Zack Ford at thinkprogress.org)

But please, tell us more about Bill Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich in 2001.

Hey, getcha e-mails!

Calm down.  The FBI has always been political.  For years it regularly denied the very existence of organized crime while pursuing Americans for having incorrect politics, compiling dossiers on dangerous radicals like Leonard Bernstein and Groucho Marx.  Agents wrote anonymous letters to Martin Luther King, Jr., urging him to commit suicide.  Other agents spent countless hours deciphering the lyrics to "Louie, Louie" after the Director became convinced they were either obscene or seditious.  (Read the book by Dave Marsh.)  The sexual blackmail of politicians was routine.  James Comey is just subtler than J. Edgar Hoover. 

Comey subscribes to the Val Lewton theory of evidence:  You don't have to show the Cat People; in fact, you don't want to.  Drop hints, dim the lights, and make the audience use its imagination.  Really, are communications between Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin likely to involve anything classified?  More likely "Out of the office this AM for dentist appt" and "Any thoughts on Bill's birthday party?"  But we won't see them for months, will we?  Meanwhile we can wonder what else is on a laptop Abedin shared with digital flasher Anthony Weiner.  (Do men in raincoats still jump out from behind trees, or is it all Smartphones now?)  Slaver, slaver, where's Ken Starr?  Oh, yes, at Baylor trying to protect rape-inclined football players. 

It won't make Trump any less repellant.  So calm down.   

Liebestod

Today's weirdness has nothing to do with politics, I'm pretty sure.

From Opera News:

"The Metropolitan Opera cancelled what remained of Saturday afternoon's matinee performance of Guillaume Tell after an audience member sprinkled a white powdery substance into the orchestra pit during an intermission...Following the incident, the company also decided to cancel the scheduled evening performance of Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri."

The terrorism people are testing the stuff, but they seem to think it's the remains of a cremated opera lover, perhaps one who really hated Rossini.  It occurs to me that yesterday would have been the ninetieth birthday of the great Jon Vickers, who died last year and who really knew how to stop a show (most memorably by shouting "Shut up with your damn coughing!" during the prelude to Act 3 of Tristan in Dallas -- yes, he was Tristan).

No, that's just crazy. 

Friday, Friday

When they go low (lower), I try to go high, but damn, I can't help wanting to see Scranton Joe take Lord Shitgibbon  "out behind the gym."  Apparently no one ever has, and a timely beating might have jarred him into some kind of emotional maturity; some people only learn by getting bloodied.  It's far too late now, of course, and it won't happen.  The Mean Widdle Kid only fights with his Twitter machine while hiding behind his monstrous regiment of lawyers.  If you raised a fist he'd piss his panties and cry.  Big talk, little hands.

Yesterday he dragged the ever-compliant media to Washington to provide free coverage of the opening of his new eyesore hotel, already known as the Trump Trivago because every room is available at a deep discount.  (Why cover real news in far-off North Dakota?  Leave that to Amy Goodman.)  As they fixed on their grimaces and cut the ribbon, it was clear that Morticia and the boys are desperate to get Daddy out of the family business before he runs through the rest of their grandfather's money.  I am now convinced they talked him into politics.  What, you think only Putin knows how to appeal to Trump's vanity and stupidity?  Who knows him better?

But, but, emails!  WikiLeaks!  Somebody at  the Clinton foundation asked somebody for money!  Let's have an investigation!  Let's bring it up at every opportunity!  Let's not ask why, if Julian Assange is not a rapist, he doesn't hurry back to Sweden and demand a trial so he can put it all behind him.  Not saying he is, not suggesting he and Trump share an attitude toward women or anything.  Maybe he likes living in one room in the Ecuadorean embassy.  London is a very expensive city, so maybe he's just cheap.  One more trait he shares with Trump.

Two more weeks.  That's what, nineteen polls?  Steve Kornacki, sleeves rolled up, in front of a map, eagerly relaying that nineteen percent of suburban, college-educated, left-handed women who live west of the Mississippi and east of the Rockies are still undecided.  He's just so excited, he reminds me of the Monty Python election night sketch:  "Can I just say this is the first time I've ever appeared on television?"  Which in turn reminds me of the terrible news that Terry Jones has dementia and is losing the ability to speak.  Some people have real problems, and we should never forget.

Speaking of hacker chicanery, whatever became of Edward Snowden?  Did he buy a house in Moscow?  How is he paying for it?  Somebody in Russia is mighty good at cyberinvading the United States.  Planting the seeds of suspicion and doubt -- it's what we do.

Giuliani:  "When I think of Hillary Clinton I picture her in an orange jumpsuit."  I won't dispute America's Mayor when it comes to prison wear.  After all, my father didn't spend time in Sing Sing.  Oh, too soon, Rudolph?  If only we had had a wall back then to keep the Italians out.

The first Hillary-is-a-lesbian claim has drifted in from the sewage farm, later than I expected.  Powerful women have been scaring the shit out of men for centuries, and men have retaliated by creating myths, often shockingly grotesque ones.  So far, Clinton has not been accused of having sex with horses like Catherine the Great, but keep an eye on Drudge -- it's the kind of thing his maggoty little brain would bring forth.

When FDR proposed increasing the number of Supreme Court justices so they would stop blocking his New Deal programs it was called "court packing" and the right basically went bananas.  Now the Republicans have threatened to keep the Court one justice short if they continue to control the Senate and if That Woman is elected, because wah wah.  As it is, Mitch "One Set of Great-grandparents Is Enough For Anybody" McConnell has held up the appointment of Merrick Garland for nearly a year.  The Republicans adore the Constitution so much, they only take it out and use it on special occasions.  And as has often been said, Trump is no aberration.  He is the apotheosis of Republican obstructionism, the Armageddon battle of their war on democracy, the triumph of fascism.  We have to make sure these mariners wear the Albatrump around their necks for all time.

On day one, President Clinton should appoint Gonzalo Curiel to the Supreme Court.  Impeach that, motherfuckers.

Double your standards, double your fun

You never refer to your opponent except by her first name, as if she were a servant, and then always preceded by "crooked."

You call her "the devil."

You propose disarming her Secret Service detail so that the "Second Amendment people" can solve your problem.

You mock her for attending a memorial service despite suffering from pneumonia, and imply that she has other health problems.

You claim she was "kicked off" a "Watergate commission," whatever that is, for being "corrupt."  At a charity banquet.

You demand she take a test for performance-enhancing drugs before the third of three debates in which she kicks your ass, and then abuse her because she prepared for them.

You accuse her of founding ISIS.

You accuse her of starting Birtherism.

You urge Russian hackers to steal her emails.

You promise at least once a day to put her in prison for some unspecified crime.

You invite her husband's alleged paramours to the debates.

When she suggests that you will try to weasel out of contributing to Social Security, just as you proudly avoid paying income tax, you whine, "Such a nasty woman."

You lying, foul-mouthed, self-pitying, racist, ignorant, cheap, grotesque, poisonous, cowardly, sleazy, stupid, treasonous degenerate.

Is that nasty enough for you?

Let us prey

You may have been distracted by the debate (promoted as if it were Ali-Frazier) and the sneak-launch of Trump TV, but it's time to get ready for   the founding of the First Church of Trump.  I was surprised it took this long.  Religion has historically been the most effective way of extracting money from the frightened and the foolish, while giving them nothing but vague promises about eternity.  (No one has successfully sued a religion because grandma didn't go to heaven.)  It's tax-free, which must appeal to Donnie Deadbeat.  And if Trump likes the Second Amendment he's going to love the First, which basically says that the government can't touch any racket that calls itself a religion.  Quick, someone, tell him about it!

Believers who join at the Executive level will receive a free Gideon Bible from one of Trump's hotels.  The Deluxe Executive level brings them a Bible plus the Stations of Donald, fourteen heart-rending depictions of Trump being viciously attacked by Hillary, the media, the Khan family, Judge Curiel, Paul Ryan, Elizabeth Warren, Mark Cuban, Lester Holt, Gloria Allred, Megyn Kelly, that bitch Chelsea who didn't invite him to her wedding, George H.W. Bush, John McCain -- look, there may be more than fourteen because Trump has suffered so much worse than Christ.  And sacrifices, wow, believe me, so many sacrifices.  And at the Platinum Deluxe level you get an actual relic -- a hair, a fingernail clipping, whatever -- which you can wear with your "Hillary For Prison" shirt and be of good faith for the next four years.

Trump has proved he can bamboozle the evangelical CEOs (admittedly, not a major achievement), so it's time to lure away their customers.  Selah.

 

Gross indecency

Defending himself against another woman who accused him of "sexual misconduct," the Republican nominee said, "Take a look.  You take a look.  Look at her, look at her words, you tell me what you think.  I don't think so."  And the crowd howled its agreement:  not hot enough to molest.

Now being of a historical turn of mind, I was reminded of the second trial of Oscar Wilde, the criminal trial in which he was a defendant.  Asked by the Crown Prosecutor if he had kissed  a certain boy in a brothel, Wilde replied, "Oh, no, he was much too ugly."  Which implied that other boys had come up to his standards.  Which was a straight shot to Reading Gaol.  Which is known in legal circles as Not Knowing When To Shut Up, because you think you're the smartest person in the room, which in Wilde's case was probably true but still got him two years at hard labor. 

You are not the smartest anything.  In the words of Walter Sobchak, "Shut the fuck up, Donnie."

Or don't.

Everybody must get stoned!

While I was unavoidably detained by Hurricane Matthew*, the Chicago Cubs moved closer to their first World Series victory since 1908 and Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature.  I have no questions.  I can no longer be startled by anything.  Just nod.

In other news that isn't news, Donald Trump is still an ignorant misogynist, racist, and danger to shipping.  You probably can't tell but I've been without television for a week and he is visibly fatter (Calvin Trillin thinks he wears a corset, accounting for the swollen neck and florid complexion).  A few more buckets of Extra Crispy and this could be academic by November.   Meanwhile he grunts along, his tiny paws still leading a band that sane people can't hear,  demanding that Clinton be tested for performance-enhancing drugs before Wednesday's debate.  The steady stream of women now accusing him of swinish behavior -- the Cosbys and Trumps never stop at one or two -- could clinch the election if they all voted in Ohio.  The party establishment continues to act shocked, shocked!, but even Claude Rains couldn't pull that off.  The only trace of humor at this point is the promise of game-changing revelations that turn out to be damp squibs, more hissy-fits from Julian Assange -- himself a fugitive from sexual assault charges, so you connect the dots.  And the crazy has no bottom.  Trump is the target of a Vast Conspiracy that encompasses the banks, the media, Carlos Slim (why?), Rosie O'Donnell, the Elders of Zion, Megyn Kelly, Paul Ryan, the Central Park Five, the Modern Jazz Quartet and his hairdresser.  Also Benghazi.

I only want it to be over, but I had a sick feeling even before armed Stormtrumpers stationed themselves in front of a Clinton campaign office in Virginia yesterday.  Trump has any number of these thugs primed to refuse to accept the results of the "rigged" election.  If you belong to a synagogue, a mosque or a black church, organize yourselves.  Buy weapons, get to a range and learn to use them, for November 8 could well be the American Kristallnacht, and you will be the first targets.  I know, I sound crazy, too.  I hope I am. 



*Not really a hurricane but created by the Army on orders from Obama to scare people into believing the myths about climate change invented by Al Gore and the UN.  Got it? 

Drive-by politics

Why is it that men with the most opinions about women's bodies rarely look like George Clooney?  Usually they're gargoyles like Donald Trump, Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh.  Can they see well enough to cross the road?  Or are they perpetually in high school, angry at the girls who laughed at them and enraged at the guys who didn't get laughed at, like Bill Clinton?

I can't decide if Gary Johnson is the Dan Quayle or the Sarah Palin of 2016, but I'm sure the Libertarian Party wish they could reverse the ticket and put Bill Weld at the top.  And that their platform didn't include the decriminalization of marijuana.

Why, exactly, do vice-presidential candidates debate?  Who cares what they think, or how they explain it?  The job consists of going to funerals, casting a tie-breaking vote every seven years or so, and waiting around.  And it's not as if we can pick the one we like better, they just come with the other one.

It must have been with some relief that Chris Christie rushed from one trainwreck to another this morning.  Apparently he has been tasked with preparing Donzo the Clown for his next "debate."  Bring a cattle-prod, Chris.  Your boy has the attention span of a concussed bee and the IQ of a drawerful of socks.  On the other hand, he has probably earned the right to wear that Purple Heart -- HRC cleaned his clock, oiled it, set it to Naval Observatory time and stuck it right up on his mantelpiece.  So his new strategy is to insult all non-Christians and yell about Monica Lewinsky.  That should work.

"Detached" was the word used to describe Ronald Reagan, especially in his second term, when Mommy and her astrologer were more or less running the Executive Branch.  How does that differ from "having trouble staying focused"? 

Trump claims/doesn't claim that global climate change is a "hoax" perpetrated by (who else?) the Chinese.  But nobody in Taiwan or southeast China thinks it's a hoax, as they stagger out from under the third typhoon in a month.  How many Katrinas and Sandys will it take to convince the pinheads?  I guess we'll find out.

When you pass a law, however idiotic, you have to provide for enforcement.  So I expect North Carolina to create a new force of State Toilet Police.  Stationed before every public restroom in their spiffy uniforms (I like lime green), they will check every person's birth certificate against her/his anatomy to make sure they pee where God intended.  It's a creepy job, but clearly someone has to do it.

It's just a microphone, Donzo.  What you want is Political Auto-Tune, where you spew idiocy and bullshit and reasoned speech comes out.  Hasn't been invented yet. 

 
   

Also the lectern was very very wobbly

El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago (thanks, Charlie!) would have done better if he had failed to show up.  I really expected Lester Holt to read a letter from the "doctor":  "Although Mr. Donald J. Trump is the healthiest, most high-energy person ever to run for anything, he is too tired from making America great again to come to your debate." 

The groundwork had certainly been laid.  First he claimed to have a letter from the NFL raising objections to the schedule.  (Lie.)  Then he wanted a debate without  a moderator, so he could yell abuse for ninety minutes while his minions chanted, "Lock 'er up!"  Then he insisted that the moderator be as clueless about reality-checking as Matt Lauer.  (Not quite.)  Then he stated, pre-emptively, that Lester Holt was a Democrat.  (Another lie.)  Then he spent the weekend cramming with his advisors Ronald McDonald, Col. Sanders and the Burger King.  (Burp.)  Meanwhile, he proposed seating Gennifer Flowers in the front row, which would really throw that bitch off her game, believe me.  (Yes.  She'd look down and think, "You're the skank who screwed my husband, and I'm running for president.  Beat that with a stick.") 

After a half hour of rope-a-dope, of course, it was all Hillary, who has been pronounced "stupid" by Sycophant in Chief Giuliani.  No, Rudolph, it might be smart to avoid paying income tax, dodge the draft, ditch jury duty, and all those other annoyances that go with living in a civilized country.  It's stupid to brag about it.  People might be reminded that they pay more so you can pay nothing, that their children die in wars while you "sacrifice" by putting up hideous buildings with other people's money.  You don't want that.

Chris Christie thinks Donald won, but Chris Christie's future plans are likely to depend on a Presidential pardon.  And Chris Christie is in a unique position to know how bad the food is in New Jersey prisons. 

It was a very bad microphone.  Made him sound like he was snuffling.  Made Howard Dean think of a certain drug that rich people use to keep up their energy.  But he was being sarcastic. 

The lights were in his eyes.

The auditorium was too cold.

Alicia Machado is fat. 

Emails.  Temperament.   Sean Hannity!

Democracy.

Just stop

As the demonstrations in Charlotte turned violent last night, Donald Trump had one of his inspired solutions:  Expand the dehumanization of black Americans policy of stop-and-frisk to the entire country.  Or possibly just Chicago.  Exactly how this would apply to a man who was reading a book in his car is not clear -- reading while black has not been a capital crime in North Carolina since 1865 -- but as Maj. Denis Bloodnok used to say,  "I admire your vacuity, sir." 

New York City, where Fourth Amendment violation began under the regime of Il Ducetto Giuliani, should begin by extending stop-and-frisk to Wall Street.  Throw a few hedge fund managers against the walls of the House of Morgan and go through their elegant belongings.  I'm willing to bet the police will find more felony-weight cocaine in an $800 briefcase than in the backpack of a kid on 109th Street.  And that's a good bust, right?  A promotion maker.  But wait, don't forget about Mrs. Fund-Manager on Park Avenue.  She probably has some pills in that Gucci bag that weren't prescribed by her doctor.  See?  You've taken two desperadoes off the street.  Much more important, you've demonstrated that the law applies to everyone, equally.

Yeah, I give it a week. 

Housekeeping

First a correction:  In a post on September 25, 2015, we predicted that John Boehner would soon be lobbying for the tobacco industry.  This week the tobacco company Reynolds American announced that Boehner had joined it, not as a lobbyist but as a director.  The Buttermilk Sky Organization regrets the error.

On December 9, 2015, we speculated that portions of Trump Tower had been purchased by "wealthy Middle Easterners."  Several publications, including the New York Daily News, have since confirmed that this is indeed the case, and that the owners include the family of the late Osama bin Laden.  The Buttermilk Sky Organization is happy to add, "Yadda yadda told ya so!  And what took  you so long?  We don't have a string of investigative reporters here, just our antennae waving at the Zeitgeist.  Get to work, New York Times!  Double down, Washington Post!  Even Cosmopolitan is asking the hard questions.  Apparently."

The BSO is considering a feature called Useless Judge of the Week.  Several days ago there was a hair-raising story out of Ohio about a woman who was abducted, taken to an abandoned house and raped.  She managed to call police and direct them to the house while the kidnaper was asleep.  They found the bodies of two other women in the house, and the alleged perpetrator led them to a third body.  The judge granted bail.  I know it is now customary to give no-TV-for-a-week sentences to (white) rapists, especially if prison might derail their athletic and/or college prospects, but this is frigging multiple murder.  It's a million dollars, but I suspect his online fans could raise that much in a few hours.  (Name something worthless that doesn't have fans.  I dare you.)  Will he get to keep the taser he used on the woman?  Never mind, he can easily buy another one. And won't she sleep well knowing he's back on the street.  Useless Judge of the Week, thank you.


   

One step sideways

Last week at GQ, Keith Olbermann posted 176 of the reasons Trump is unfit to be president, ranging from lies to quasi-treasonous acts to whiplash-inducing stupidity.  Well, one down, 175 to go.  Today Trump acknowledged being a dupe of the racist Birther movement, apologized abjectly, and withdrew from -- no, wait, I got that wrong.  Actually he accepted credit for forcing Barack Obama to release proof of his American birth, never mentioned dispatching investigators to Kenya to find the "real evidence," and blamed  the whole sad episode on -- deep breath -- Hillary Clinton.  (Yes, she invented Birtherism when she was done founding ISIS, poisoning the tap water in Flint, and causing all those earthquakes in Oklahoma.  Jerome Corsi is going to be pissed.)   The Leader then led the ever-compliant media on a tour of his newest assault on taste hotel, resulting in a free infomercial.  He may be back to 176.

It's all good news for the poor clerk in Honolulu who has spent the last seven years filling requests for the "long form" birth certificate, whatever that may be, but it doesn't make much difference to the rest of us.  Sane people have always called bullshit, while the Deplorables, after some initial confusion not that far from their customary mental fog, will accept The Leader's version as usual.  And just as events in North Dakota have reminded us that Native Americans have bigger problems than what some asshole in Washington calls his football team, so the killing of yet another child by the police in Columbus, Ohio, points to more serious concerns for African Americans.  Indeed, police violence has reached such a pitch, it has radicalized the millionaire athletes of the NFL, a truly remarkable development.  A statement as unarguable as "black lives matter" can raise the hackles of every racist, although no one has said "only black lives matter," much less "death to the police."  Racism appears to have the half-life of uranium, and it may be the most important issue in this election, if it can be said to be about any issues at all.  With four months and three days left in the Obama presidency, this changes nothing.*  Instead of a lengthy press conference, the Congressional Black Caucus should have acknowledged Trump's grudging and half-assed concession to reality in one sentence and gone back to work. 

If Donzo wants to knock another item off the Olbermann Indictment, I recommend the one about keeping a volume of Hitler's speeches beside his bed.  Nothing suggests he has the attention span or the reading skills to get through even one.



*Except to distract everyone from the mysteriously hacked emails of Colin Powell.  "National disgrace"?  Not like the Tsar of Twitter to let that go by in silence. 

Irredeemable

Hillary Clinton has a bad habit of apologizing when it isn't called for.  I think she picked it up from Bill.  The single most principled part of his life was his opposition to the war in Vietnam, and he spent his career explaining it away.  When Hillary described Trump voters as "a sorry assembly of ignorant racist fucknozzles and drooling imbeciles" (I'm paraphrasing), I knew it was a matter of time until she took it back.  Three hours, in fact.  Considering the demented vituperation the orange slob and his degenerate flunkies hurl at her every single day, this seems overly conciliatory.  Ladylike, to use an old-time word.  (But she doesn't look presidential!  But why doesn't she smile more?  How dare she insult the good American patriots who scream for her to be locked up and/or shot?  Didn't she co-found ISIS?)

We need you to own it, Hillary, or should I say "Hitlery Rotten Clitoris" as your decent, god-fearing opponents do.  Repeat it every day.  Galvanize your voters by telling the inbred, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing mud-pounders (paraphrasing again there) to go picnic in a minefield.  And the bloated grifter and his stomach-turning spawn and his zombie spokesmodels and pathetic clowns like Paulie Numbnuts Ryan who just can't say no when asked if they still support this psychopath.  Feel free to use the phrase "lying sack of shit" because you'll be trashed no matter what you say or how demurely you say it.  But whatever you do, stop bringing a rubber hammer to a gunfight.



 

Trouble with a capital "T"

A wise blogger once wrote, "Why is Republican doctrine indistinguishable from mental illness?"  All right, it was I.  The one can be an effective camouflage for the other, is what I meant, and events have caught up with me.  To be blunt:  I don't give a gnat's nuts about Trump's tax returns -- I'm sure they're as fictitious as  his business "empire."  We should forget the taxes and demand a thorough medical report, including a recent CT scan.  Like, no more than twenty-four hours old.  A letter clearly dictated by Trump and signed by a "gastroenterologist" will not do.

Trump's unvarying response to criticism is the classic nine-year-old's "I'm rubber and you're glue..."  Point out his racism and he calls you a bigot.  Question his sleazy business dealings (of which "Trump University" is only the tip of the iceberg) and he names you "Crooked Hillary."  So last week, when Sean Hannity and other flunkeys pronounced Clinton brain-damaged because she wears glasses or something, I knew there was serious medical information to be obfuscated.  Consider:

At the very moment  you declare your intent to reach out to African American voters (with the spectacularly condescending "What the hell have you got to lose?"), you hire a neo-Nazi blogger named Bannon who calls black people "savages" and toasted George Zimmerman for getting away with murder.

Your trademark position -- "I will build a beautiful wall!" -- and its accompanying promise to deport eleven million people are now up for debate.  Or not.  No, they are again.  What time is it?  Confused stormtrumpers are reduced to calling the Glenn Beck show to vent their frustration, i.e., threaten violence. 

When the President, at the request of the governor, does not end his vacation and rush off to view flood damage in Louisiana, you seize the opportunity to look energetic and presidential, not like that lazy...well, you jump on the "Spirit of St. Vitus" and head for Baton Rouge, there to present people who have lost everything with a carton of Play-Doh.  I did not make that up, and everyone at The Onion wishes they had.

Suggesting your "Second Amendment people" shoot your opponent? 

Trump saw "thousands of Muslims" celebrating on 9/11 in the streets of Jersey City, or possibly Hoboken.  No one else saw them.

Trump heard a request for a "moment of silence" for the sniper who killed five Dallas police officers.  No one else heard this.

Trump saw video of a plane being loaded with cash for shipment to Iran.  This video does not exist.

Trump got a letter from the National Football League objecting to the debate schedule.  They sent no such letter.

Lies or hallucinations?  There is no third possibility.  It is important because even a pathological liar can choose to tell the truth, but if you are hallucinating, you should not be in charge of a laundromat, much less a nuclear arsenal.

And by the way, why does a political campaign have a retired neurosurgeon on staff?  Surely not for his political skills.  These derps almost failed to get their candidate on the ballot in Minnesota, but they have Dr. Carson around  for what?  In case he has another seizure? 

Hallucinations...paranoia...a total lack of impulse control....a severely truncated attention span...delusions of power (have you seen the make-pretend "Cabinet Room"?) -- we really need that CT scan.


 

The turning point

When the history of this bizarre political season is written, I believe it will be seen to hinge not on the economy or foreign affairs or even race, but rather on a man who died twelve years ago and was unknown to most Americans until last Thursday night.  The words of Khizr Khan, moving as they were, constituted only one statement by a speaker at the Democratic convention, but they penetrated the notoriously thin skin of the Republican nominee and he can not shut up about them.  Can NOT.  All criticism maddens him, but this was like a perfect jab from a master picador, enraging the bull and making him fatally reckless. 

In classic fashion he chose not to respond to what Khizr Khan said, but to what Ghazala Khan did not say in Philadelphia, implying that she was either silenced by Sharia law or just a dumb woman with nothing to say.  Her eloquent response, first in an interview with Lawrence O'Donnell and then on the op-ed page of the Washington Post, threw that back in his face.  So he whined that Khizr Khan "viciously attacked" him by suggesting that he is unfamiliar with the Constitution.  At this point the nominee might have noticed that he was coming under attack by others -- putative allies like John McCain, Erick Erickson, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Gold Star families -- but if he did, it made no difference.  Apparently there is no one in his employ who can persuade him to shut up and let it go.  There is nothing to be gained here.  Move on.   The twit keeps tweeting.  Khan is just a dupe.  Hillary's speechwriters told him what to say.  It's all about TERRORISM!  Their son would be alive if Hillary hadn't voted to invade Iraq!!

The grave of Captain Humayun Khan in Arlington has become a place of pilgrimage.  The Constitution his father held up at the convention is one of the top ten sellers at Amazon.   The latest CBS poll has Clinton ahead by seven points. 

He doesn't get it.  He never will.
 

 
 

Run-DNC

(random thoughts on a summer night)

When did political conventions start presenting an In Memoriam segment?  It's not the Oscars.  And I had no idea Muhammad Ali was a Democrat.

Is it wrong that I've mentally named Tim Kaine "Rev. Timtom"?

Apparently Trump was being "sarcastic" when he invited the Russian government to hack Hillary Clinton's email.  This does not bode well.  "I have a beautiful beautiful sense of humor, believe me, but the Joint Chiefs don't get me.  They didn't know I was being sarcastic when I said we should bomb Germany because the Germans are very nice people, they love me.  Anyway Angela Merkel was a fat pig and nobody will miss her."

It's good that Mary Steenburgen has a distinctive voice, because she has joined the ranks of Actresses You Can No Longer Pick Out of a Crowd.  Also, Sharon Gless is now bigger than Tyne Daly.  I feel very old.

I didn't hear all of Michelle Obama's speech, but I look forward to hearing it from Melania Trump (or her successor wife) in four years.  "I was born in a house built by Slavs."

Michael Bloomberg will be devastated when he finds out he's "little."  That's all you've got, Donzo?  I thought he nailed you to the floor. 

Bill O'Reilly needs to learn when to shut up.  Like every day that ends in a "y".

All the channels should re-think  the phrase "breaking news."  It should not cover anything two days old, or in the future, or just bloody obvious.  Cronkite interrupting a soap opera with a bulletin from Dallas was breaking news.  "Chelsea Clinton to introduce mother" is not.

My heart is pretty hard when it comes to political spectacle, so believe me when I say these people were masters of the lump in the throat:  Larry Sanders announcing the vote for his brother Bernie and both of them crying...the Mothers of the Movement talking of their murdered children...the anger and grief of Mr. and Mrs. Khan...Mark Kelly and Gaby Giffords...yes, even Paul Simon croaking "Bridge Over Troubled Water"...so is it wrong to want to feel something beside revulsion?  We've not Vulcans, our politics have never been about logic.  I'm a Hillary skeptic, I don't admire everything about her, but I didn't come to politics two months ago like the Sanders die-hards.  Except when the wheel of history turns up a Lincoln or an FDR it has always been about choosing the lesser evil.  So choose, damn it, or pay the price.  As Sarah Silverman said, "You're being ridiculous."

Fear itself

Well, that was fun.

It started on a note of high comedy, when we were assured that a Slovenian underwear model would deliver a speech of her own composition.  Nobody believed  that until it turned out to be a crib from the speech Michelle Obama delivered just eight years ago.  Surely there were less obvious Democratic sources she could have stolen from -- an Eleanor Roosevelt column, say, or Grover Cleveland's second inaugural address.  No one would have spotted those for weeks.  It's not nice to humiliate your own green-card bride that way.  But her husband pronounced himself pleased because it was the most famous speech of all time, or something, the implication being that the plagiarism was not only deliberate but a stroke of brilliance.  The tone was set. 

Next came the charges.  Did you know that Hillary Clinton is guilty of Bengazi, Boko Haram, the Zika virus, the murder of police in Dallas and Baton Rouge, treason, piracy, Windows 10 and the disappearance of that Malysian Air flight?  I was surprised when no one accused her of witchcraft, because someone has clearly put a spell on Rudolph Giuliani. (Perhaps she tried to turn him into a Newt but remembered they already had one.)   I have watched conventions for years, sometimes with the help of Gordon's excellent gin, and I can't remember one quite so suffused with what Hunter Thompson -- how we need him! -- called "fear and loathing."  We were promised something different and we got it, not feel-good celebrations of the past and rosy promises of the future but a four-day character assassination.  Dr. Goebbels would have implored them to dial it down.

There was one moment of deja vu, when Ted Cruz submitted, Christ-like, to the jeers of the mob.  He repeated all the depressing reactionary formulas that have characterized his career, but in the end, he refused to kiss the stubby orange fingers of the man who insulted his wife and slandered his father, and the mob, which cares nothing for ideology, turned on him.  Understandably "Vote your conscience" is heard as an insult by those devoid of one.  I flashed back to the Goldwater convention of 1964, when Nelson Rockefeller was booed by terrifying Republican women in San Francisco.  In those days, children, Rockefeller represented something called the "liberal wing" of the party, people who wanted low taxes and smaller government but were generally not racist or isolationist.  But that wasn't the sticking point for the ladies.  You see, Rockefeller was embroiled in a messy divorce, and back then divorce was unforgivable.  "Lover!" they shrieked.  Not until Ronald Reagan and his second wife came along would that change.  Gotta love the bottomless hypocrisy of the right.

Maybe it was the Gordon's but by closing night I was sure I was watching a movie.  All day we heard about the downfall, cushioned by millions of Murdoch dollars, of Roger Ailes.  The allegations of employees hinted that Ailes fancied himself the Alfred Hitchcock of Rightzi media, except that Hitch was more than a fat guy who hired a lot of blonde women (and, it has been suggested, sexually harassed them).  His women had talent and he had genius, two words nobody would associate with Poxy News.  Anyway, I was in the mood for a celluloid dream long before Hank Quinlan -- I mean Joe Arpaio -- took the stage.  Like Quinlan, the corrupt, Mexican-hating sheriff played by Orson Welles in Touch of Evil, Joe really needs to knock off the candy bars.  I may have closed my eyes for just a brief interval, but I opened them convinced I was watching that prescient classic Citizen Kane.   

Not content with the power that comes from his newspaper empire (and really just craving the love of The People), Kane runs for governor.  He makes all the right noises about his plans to lift up "the working man and the slum child," but the cornerstone of his campaign is a promise to prosecute and imprison Boss Jim Gettys.  It's an obsession, a mania, what we now would call Gettys Derangement Syndrome.  "I'm gonna put you in Sing Sing, Gettys!" he bellows dementedly.  Of course, it doesn't work out.  On election night his paper readies two possible headlines:  KANE ELECTED GOVERNOR and FRAUD AT POLLS!  (When Trump lost a primary or straw poll it was always because the process was "Corrupt!  Unfair!  Fraud!"  Imagine if Kane had had Twitter...)  At last we see Kane wandering around his hideous Florida estate under the eye of his sinister butler, abandoned by his wives and the few friends he has managed to make, smashing up furniture like a furious child and mumbling about Rosebud. 

Trump is no Charles Foster Kane.  There's a tragic grandeur about Kane that keeps us studying the film after seventy-five years.  "You know, Mr. Thatcher," he tells his old nemesis in a moment of insight, "if I hadn't been born rich I might have been a really great man."  If Trump hadn't been born rich he'd be the retired manager of a Wendy's, or possibly trying to put together a half-assed Madoff-type pyramid scheme.  There is no grandeur and certainly no capacity for insight, just greed, ego, malice, vanity and the black hole described by Tony Schwartz, the actual author of The Art of the Deal, perpetually unfilled.  Which would be bad enough if all he wanted was to be a governor.   

Oh, come on

Bill Clinton decides to have a clandestine, improper conversation with the Attorney General of the United States, presumably about the never-ending FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails from four years ago.  Where does he hold this conversation?  In a parking garage beneath the Watergate?  On a beach near Asbury Park?  In his kitchen in Chappaqua?  No, in the middle of the Phoenix airport, surrounded by reporters with nothing to do but drink coffee and cobble a story out of absolutely anything.  Remember, this is Bill Clinton, not some barely sentient life-form like George Wanker Bush.  Plausible?

Meanwhile, the Trump, uh, "campaign" and a freshly-created Trump superPAC are bombarding legislators in half a dozen European countries and Australia with emails begging for cash contributions, which violates any number of well-established laws (and annoys the legislators).  Has anyone asked whether the Attorney General is investigating this?  Is she?  Or would that be "partisan"?

When you lean over backwards long enough, it's hard to straighten up.

False flag!

Everything you know about the "Orlando terrorist attack" is wrong.  I'm sorry, but it is.  There is no "Omar Mateen" (as opposed to Omar Mateen, a New York-born rent-a-cop whose identity was stolen by the Obama regime and who left Orlando for San Francisco (of course) last week.  Very early on June 12  "Mateen" called 911 (so the call would be recorded) and claimed to be shooting people in a gay dance club.  Reading from a script, he declared his loyalty to Hezbollah, the Shiite militia which supports Bashir al-Assad; to the  Sunni fighters of ISIS; and to al-Nusra, which is fighting against ISIS.  His handlers assumed most Americans would not notice the absurdity of this, and by and large, they were correct. 

In an immense conspiracy involving the entire city of Orlando state of Florida, all gay advocacy groups, and of course the Liberal Media, the Kenyan Usurper made his boldest bid yet to take away our guns before flying off to vacation (yeah, right!) in a National Park.  Also to present Mr. Donald J. Trump with an irresistible opportunity to make an ass of himself while simultaneously driving a wedge between him and his core constituency of freedom-loving Second Amendment militants.  They refused to believe the lies about Sandy Hook Elementary School, but once you put an assault rifle  in the hands of a "terrorist" -- well, what's an American supposed to think?  Or "think"?

Exactly.

Next:  What Jo Cox, MP, knew about the assassination of Vincent Foster and why she had to die.


 

Short-fingered vulgarian

The sad vagabonds of the press, drifting in the wake of the Presumptive Republican Nominee, pulled themselves upright for a few moments yesterday to ask what became of all the millions of dollars the P.R.N. supposedly raised for "veterans' groups" some five months ago.  After the expected torrent of abuse for asking an unwelcome question which could in no way be answered with the phrase "crooked Hillary" or "Ya mean Pocahontas?" it was revealed that the money was remitted -- last week.  I was not surprised.  Shall I tell you why?

Where I come from, the term "short-fingered" has always meant "cheap."  As in "When the check came, his fingers were too short to reach his wallet."  As in "Why shouldn't this money sit in my account for a few months, earning interest for me?"  As in "Watch me drain the savings of less-than-bright old people with my fake university."  As they say, grifters gotta grift.  Anyone who took "short-fingered" to imply a lack of penile amplitude would have to suffer from a serious personality disorder, where I come from.

Need I go into "vulgarian"?  

Every day a little death

The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced on Friday that it had imposed sweeping controls on the distribution of its products to ensure that none are used in lethal injections, a step that closes off the last remaining open-market source of drugs used in executions.
Pfizer said it would restrict the sale to selected wholesalers of seven products that could be used in executions. The distributors must certify that they will not resell the drugs to corrections departments and will be closely monitored.
 

Not to worry, killer states.  Pfizer makes another product which is freely available and can be used to give the condemned an erection lasting over four hours.  Repeat as needed.

]

Hooray for New Math!

From Raw Story:

"An award-winning professor from Penn was removed from an American Airlines flight on Thursday after his seatmate reported him as a  terrorist based on watching him do some math calculations while waiting to take off...Guido Menzio was forced to explain to FBI officials that he was doing research..."

How do we know he wasn't radicalized by al-Gebra?  Children all over the country are exposed to this alien arithmetic.  I blame Common Core even though I have no idea what it is.  Barack HUSSEIN Obama!  It's not too late for impeachment, sheeple.

Spiders in Chernobyl weave deformed webs

That was the headline on my log-on page, and I know exactly how they feel.  (Are they catching mutant flies, who scream "HELP ME" in tiny voices?)  "When you awake, you will remember everything," The Band sang long ago.  That's the problem.  Am I awake?  I kept waiting for the Trump campaign to burn itself out or suppurate or something, but no.  It's as if, at the climax of A Face In the Crowd, Lonesome Rhodes went off on his audience and instead of outrage, they just smiled and said, "He's right, we are dumb shitheads.  He's so honest. Arthur Godfrey would never say that.  What a guy.  Let's give him the launch codes."

Surreality is the new reality.  Last night America was apparently informed that Rafael Cruz (the senator's father) was an associate of Lee Harvey Oswald.  (I have to say "apparently" because all I have is a Trump transcript, and it's easier to parse the Dead Sea Scrolls than his authentic Queens gibberish.)  That his source is the National Inquirer makes me long for the good old days, when Ronald Reagan got his information from the Reader's Digest, and Sarah Palin was unable to name any periodicals at all.  There were giants in the earth, we just didn't know it.  Trump is amoral, narcissistic, detached from reality and a pathological liar.  If it's true, does it matter that this acute character analysis comes from the equally disgusting Ted Cruz?  And that even John Boehner called Cruz (in an uncharacteristic burst of eloquence) "Lucifer incarnate"?  At what point does this enemy-of-my-enemy-of-my-enemy fugue turn into a wilderness of mirrors?  (Fugue?  Mirrors?  You see what I've been brought to?)  When do we awake?

I have an apocalyptic vision of my own, and it's called an Open Convention.  On the streets of Cleveland where Harvey Pekar once walked, I want a Second Amendment face-off between the Tedophiles and the Stormtrumpers.  I want the National Guard to come in at the end and kill the wounded.  I want American splendor and deformed spider webs. 

Jesus, I can't face another six months of this.