And now for something depressingly the same

This is Don Blankenship.  He was the CEO of Massey Energy in 2010, when its disdain for safety  regulations led to a coal mine explosion that killed 29 miners.  He served one year in minimum security, whining about being a political prisoner.  Now he's running for the Senate from West Virginia, the very state where the miners lived and died.  No points for guessing which party, but it's very bigly on "clean coal" and believes there's too much regulation, stifling free enterprise.  Isn't that a swell costume?  Because despite the awful way his country has treated him, Don Blankenship is a patriot.

If you want to take something away from this that won't make you want to rip off your ears and bleed into your beer, take this:  felons can vote in West Virginia.  Or at least run for office.

The Buttermilk Sky Organization apologizes for making you look at that picture, but points out that it also considered one of Kellyanne Conway.  That's because the White House spokesmodel, currently under investigation for violating the Hatch Act, is America's new drug czarina.  Jared Kushner was supposed to solve the opioid problem  (white people dying from opioids), but he's busy trying to keep his ass out of prison; presumably he has also handed Reorganizing the Federal Government and Fixing the Middle East to others.  Now Conway will tell the white addicts to not get messed up on the pills their doctors prescribe and, if they do, to not transition to the ferocious heroin presently available on a corner near you.  Of course, the heroin will vanish as soon as Mexico's check clears and work starts on the big, beautiful wall.

First drug czarina.  What glass ceiling?

Does Jeff Sessions need a new nickname?  Do I need an unlimited credit card?  We've been calling him "Poison Dwarf" but we got a testy cease-and-desist letter from lawyers for the family of Joseph Goebbels.  For a while we considered "Three-Fifths of a Man," mostly for its Constitutional/historical  resonance.  How do you like "Big Giant Wussy"?  That was proposed by an anonymous wordsmith at Blackwater, four of whose "contractors" are still being prosecuted by Sessions's Justice Department for "murdering" a dozen or so civilians in Baghdad in 2007.  The wordsmith complains that Sessions is not using the DOJ to cover up crimes like this, as a proper Attorney General would:  "never has there been a more spineless, worthless guy holding that chair than him."  "Big Giant Wussy" it is, then.  It's funny because when he lies to a Congressional committee, his feet don't touch the floor.  Get it?

It's kind of generic.  We may yet go with "Three-Fifths of a Man."

The 2017 White House Christmas (and definitely not Holiday) party will be the biggest, best-attended party of all time.  Absolutely yuge, although April Ryan (bureau chief for American Urban Radio and pebble in the shoe of White House press secs) has not been invited, and CNN says its people will not attend, and others may decide they need to spend that evening catching up on Suits because they're not quite sure who Meghan Markle is.  Immense party.

Nothing to do with the soul-eating decorations.

The Trump Plaza Casino Hotel and Human-Trafficking Center on Atlantic City's historic Boardwalk is being demolished as soon as they can figure out how to deal with all the asbestos in it.  It was built in 1995, decades after responsible builders stopped using asbestos.  Looks like those commercials for mesothelioma lawyers will continue for the foreseeable future.

Many jobs being created in the asbestos-abatement industry.  MAGA!

Last Sunday the New York Times ran a polite and respectful profile of a hard-working blue-collar American who likes to write songs and thinks Mr. Hitler had some good ideas.  The Times drew a lot of criticism for not using such phrases as "the crazy shit that got twenty million people killed between  1933 and 1945" and "what the omnivorous fuck?" and trying to make us think he's just the welder next door with a viewpoint we should at least pretend to take seriously.  Well, now Mr. Nazi Welder and his Nazi wife have lost their jobs, which is too bad but not (as some will assert) a First Amendment issue.  So they don't also lose their house, a Nazi crowd-sourcing site is throwing them a rent party, and I can't believe I wrote that either.

Goyfundme.  I swear.  I swear.

(Suggestion for next Sunday:  "Charles Manson, a Reappraisal."  "People just didn't get Charlie, you know?  His quirky sense of humor.  Like, how could you start a race war by killing a bunch of richies?  He was all, like, I can't believe you guys actually took me seriously!  Then he put on The White Album and we all, like, grooved, you know?")

This is why I don't do social media, part 64:  People who post things critical of Twitler are getting robocalls from a person identifying himself as "Russell from Citizens for Trump Foundation."  He goes on:  "We've been monitoring you...Listen, we're going to have to ask you to lay off the negative and derogatory posts about Trump, OK?  We'll keep an eye on you.  Have a nice day."  Hey, Russell, what about us bloggers, toiling in obscurity because sometimes even 480 characters are not enough?  Unpaid, unread, we drag ourselves to the laptop every day for the sheer catharsis of it.  Unlike you, 'Russell,' we don't cower behind fake phone numbers.  We don't hide our thuggery behind Office Space locutions.  We don't try to scare people on behalf of a bullying, whining sack of shit.  Have a nice day?  You have a nice day, you sleazy pile of pus.  You have a nice day and be sure to not lie down in front of a freight train because you might get hurt or dead and somebody, like our Nazi welder, might mourn you.  Monitor this, pathetic bed-wetting turd.  See this?  Monitor this.

Sorry.

Hey, how do you get a Democratic senator to vote for your "Breaks for Billionaires" tax scam?  You go to her state and lie about her.  I said "her," because, oh, you know, women.  And it amused the Trumpanzees in St. Charles, Missouri, but it could have gone better.  If only you had a racist nickname for her.  McCaskill....sounds Scottish.  How about "Lady Macbeth"?  No, that won't work because Trump never heard of her, and by the time someone explains it, he will have lost interest and wandered off.  Meanwhile, how do you get an unfathomable dictator to shut down his (let's admit it) remarkably successful ICBM program, a day after he demonstrates the ability to land a missile in Grovers Mills, New Jersey?  Call him names!  Threaten to "totally destroy" his country!  Then go back to feuding with the mayor of London, the British prime minister, the special counsel, "Chuck and Nancy," LaVar Ball, NBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, the Secretary of State, Rosie O'Donnell and reality.

Being president is like defecating.  Any asshole can do it, if someone else cleans up the mess.