Twilight zones

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man...pit of man's fears...yadda yadda yadda…

Let's dip into the this-can't-be-happening file, shall we?

According to the CDC, the number of American babies born with syphilis is at a 20-year high.  Overall, the United States is ranked twentieth out of the twenty-one wealthiest countries for infant mortality; only New Zealand is worse.  (Really, New Zealand?  Say, didn't your prime minister just have a baby?)  So of course Melania Trump is off to Africa to spread her message of "Be Best" and show off her new double-D kidneys to Egypt and the shithole countries of Malawi, Kenya and Ghana.  She will enlighten them on the wonders of American health care and explain to the president of Egypt what the hell her husband meant by "I love the Bangles!"  (The only thing he knew about Egypt was the 1987 dance hit "Walk Like an Egyptian."  There is speculation that he believes it to be their national anthem.)

Melania's husband has decided he likes press conferencing even better than tweeting, because he is absolutely great at it and also wittier than that Kennedy guy, who by the way got plenty of pussy, believe me.  Today he was out in the rose garden charming the pants off reporters.  Like Cecilia Vega of ABC, who tried to ask about the Kavanaugh debacle and got the clever riposte, "I know you're not thinking.  You never do."  See, because she's a girl and the Republicans don't have enough problems with women, all of their own making.  Also the lying media, and she's probably from Mexico like Judge Curiel.  Then he made a fib about an unnamed senator "on the other side" who has done very very very bad things.  The details are filed with his "hundred" pictures of Comey and Mueller making out.

The most surreal moment of the week may have been Jeff Flake's appearance at the Global Citizen concert in Central Park.  Flake is being hailed as a conquering hero for arranging a slight speed-bump in the path of Brett "I Like Beer" Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, after voting to send his nomination to the full Senate like the supine Republican toady he has always been.  Now that he's leaving the Senate, Flake will even stand next to a Democrat under a banner that includes the word "global."  You're a fucking profile in courage, Jeff.

Kellyanne Conway is claiming to have been a victim of sexual assault.  If it's true it's terrible, and if it's a lie it's worse.  Sarah Sanders, anything to share?

Track Palin -- that's his legal name -- has been arrested for domestic violence assault and resisting arrest.  Apologists claim he suffers from post-traumatic stress, although he spent his Army career as a driver for visiting VIPs and never saw combat.   I think somebody didn't raise him right.

Timing is everything, and so there is an outcry because Roman Polanski has finally begun work on J'Accuse, another movie about the Alfred Dreyfus case.  Polanski has been a fugitive from American justice since 1978, when he pleaded guilty to one charge involving the rape of a young girl and then fled to Europe.  Since then he has directed Death and the Maiden, Tess, The Pianist and The Ghost Writer, among other films, without incident.  Maybe the problem is that Dreyfus was a man falsely accused of a crime.  Maybe Polanski suffers from post-traumatic stress, having barely survived the Holocaust as a child.  He and Bill Cosby have been thrown out of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, along with an actor named Carmine Caridi, whose crime was sharing "screeners" (the DVDs provided free to voting members) with a friend.  So that's where the Academy's red line is.  Where is the Senate's?

Speaking of actors, John Putnam, professional Herman Melville impersonator, has died at 82.  He will be missed.  I assume.

Rachel Mitchell, the Arizona prosecutor imported by the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to be their beard representative in questioning Christine Blasey Ford, was spotted tossing back some brews with Chuck Grassley's staff in a Washington establishment.  Apparently she, too, likes beer.  She presented a five-page report stating that a "reasonable prosecutor" would not indict Kavanaugh, although the FBI has barely begun its investigation.  Then she collected her check and buggered off back to Joe Arpaio country.

Speaking of buggery...see, you thought I was going to move on Lindsey Graham.  Actually I would be glad if people pointed out what a piece of shit he is without going there.  Homophobia isn't attractive anywhere on the political spectrum, and we're supposed to be better than that.

I wish I could end this on a hopeful note -- it's only four in the afternoon, no way to know what crazy shit is still to come -- but will you settle for a goofy one?  Trump told one of his paste-eater rallies last week that we were this close to war with North Korea (not the Little Rocket Man taunts, not "my button works," but somehow Obama's fault), but he met Kim Jong-un and "we fell in love."  That's a direct quote.  Not The Onion.  I actually heard it in that feckless Queens whine, my own self.  "He wrote me beautiful letters," he went on, while the MAGAs muttered, "Did I just hear that?"  So no need to hold joint exercises or keep all those expensive troops in South Korea.  They fell in love.

I need a beer.