What exactly is happening here?

Yesterday Chief Justice Roberts joined the liberals on the Court and ordered the Alabama courts to re-open the case of Vernon Madison.  Madison was sentenced to death for killing a police officer and has spent the last thirty-three years in solitary confinement.  A series of strokes has left him unable to remember the crime or much about his life; theoretically Alabama could still have its revenge but it won't be Roberts's doing.  This is a minor case but potentially a disturbing development.  When Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren, who had cheerfully consigned California's ethnic Japanese population to concentration camps, he didn't anticipate Brown v. Board of Education or other judicial acts of atonement.  If Roberts has developed what is quaintly known as a conscience, who knows what he might be capable of?  And some day, he may be called upon to preside over an impeachment trial -- not, let us hope, in the gold-trimmed toga custom-made for Rehnquist.

That event became a little less theoretical yesterday when the House Oversight Committee decided it was time for some actual oversight and presented Trump fixer Michael Cohen in a televised hearing.  On his way to the jailhouse for three years, disbarred and with nothing left to lose, Cohen called the former client for whom he once vowed to "take a bullet" a liar, a racist and a crook, and presented documentary evidence which the Special Counsel has already examined.  The antics of the Republicans and the majestic closing sermon of the chairman, Elijah Cummings, are described elsewhere, but I was more interested in Cohen's political prediction:  "I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power."  This has been suggested by others, but it's probably safe to say that Cohen knows Trump a lot better than, say, Bill Maher, and we should maybe take him seriously.  The imminence of impeachment convinced Nixon it was time to go, and resignation might be the best outcome with this crook, too.  As Rick Blaine observed, "A bribe has worked before."  He really covets that Nobel.

Oh, says Fox and its outliers (out liars?), but America and the world are doing so well because of Trump.  Andy Varipapa couldn't put enough spin on the truncated Hanoi Hootenanny to make it look like a victory for anyone but Kim Jong-un.  The main event, denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in return for removing all sanctions, was always a non-starter, but Kim sweet-talked Trump into increasing his prestige by flying halfway around the world to eat dinner and pose for smiley pictures.  He also induced him to crap all over the family of Otto Warmbier, the college student who was murdered in North Korea after his conviction for swiping a poster out of a hotel.  Something bad happened to him that got him sent home in 2017 comatose from a head injury, but damned if anyone knows what.  Kim assured Trump that he has no idea what occurred in one of his "very very rough" prisons, and that's good enough for Trump, who believes all dictators.  To make him feel at home, Putin's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov dropped in (the first official visitor to the Oval Office after the Singularity).  Hanoi is a marvelous place for coincidences.  And since this one ended inconclusively, Donnie and Jong-un get to have another "summit," in a spot convenient for Kim and his armored train, of course.

And if you can handle another coincidence,  Jared Kushner chose this very week to drop in on his good buddy Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, and bring him a set of gold-plated bone saws.  I kid!  It was a Blu-Ray of Hostel, the prince's favorite comedy.  The director's cut version.

Bad news for another Trump buddy, Benjamin Netanyahu.  The attorney general of Israel is about to indict him on three counts of fraud and bribe-taking, but not until after the April 9 elections.  I wouldn't be surprised to hear that this is the work of George Soros and/or Hillary Clinton.  Expect a tweet of total support for Bibi before the week is out.  He's a "fantastic" leader who know how to build walls and name streets for "your favorite President, me!"  Unless he's convicted, and then he's "Little Bibi the Loser."

One nuclear power shot down the military aircraft of another nuclear power this week over some disputed territory (Kashmir), but there were just too many shiny distractions for any of the "news" packagers to mention it between pill commercials.  Ask your cable provider to include the BBC News channel -- you won't regret it even though they give the weather in Celsius.  Well, you may regret it during the World Cup.







     

Angels

"The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don't mind executing babies AFTER birth."   (Individual 1)

"A pregnant Honduran woman who had been detained by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency went into premature labor and delivered a stillborn baby at a Texas detention center Friday."  (Chantal da Silva, Newsweek)

Diagnosed with a high-risk pregnancy, kept in detention and denied medication -- let's call it Republican abortion.

Nothing to see here

Early spring in Russia!  Well, no.  This is green snow near the town of Pervouralsk, sixty miles from Moscow.  Apparently an underground pipe (c. 1960) belonging to the Russian Chrome Chemicals Company has ruptured, leaking chemicals into the water.  No danger whatsoever to the people who are foolishly wearing masks when they venture outside.  The arrests of environmental activists will continue until morale improves.  And it's much more attractive than the black snow currently falling on parts of Siberia, a result of beautiful, clean, Russian coal.  Good health, people!

Festivities

Young children love glitz.  They even like clowns, sometimes.  Halloween is their Super Bowl.  They adore KISS not for the music but for the makeup (I'm told).  And their latest favorite thing is being read to by drag queens.  Public libraries have sponsored such events all over the country, and not one five-year-old has been molested or "turned gay."  Of course, this has not deterred the Usual Gangs of Idiots from showing up in full Westboro Baptist Church drag and attempting to crush this source of innocent pleasure.  Parents, I'm glad to say, are ignoring them.

Adults need a little joy, too, but it can be hard to find.  As you know, the War on Christmas ended in unconditional surrender, and we can say "Merry Christmas" again, even if it's April.  Today came the opening shot of the War on Independence Day:

"HOLD THE DATE!  We will be having one of the biggest gatherings in the history of Washington, DC on July 4th.  It will be called 'A Salute To America' and will be held at the Lincoln Memorial, with a major fireworks display, entertainment, and an address by your favorite President, me!"

All I can say is, it's about time.  Americans have been ashamed to say "Happy Fourth of July" for too long.  Fireworks are not just for New Year's Eve, you know.  As for entertainment, may I suggest some sort of symphony orchestra?  Very classy.  They should play the "1812 Overture," which is the finest piece ever scored for cannons.  I think it's about the War of 1812.  "A Salute To America" -- how does he come up with these in addition to scorching nicknames like Little Marco, Little Adam Schitt and That Dumb Southerner Sessions?  VGB*, huh?  And since July 4 is a weekday, why not make it a national holiday?  If this is as fantastically popular as it sounds like being, we could maybe hold it every year!  Like the French.  I'll bet that's where he got the idea.

Unless it rains, then forget it.


*Very Good Brain.

Schaden-friday

Schadenfreude:  pleasure derived from the misfortune of another

Admit it.  It's universal.  But how often does that clown who just flipped you off drive into a telephone pole and explode in flames while you watch?  Most freude is necessarily second-hand, which doesn't diminish its crunchy goodness.

Let's start with the least consequential.  Patriots owner and Trump* buddy Robert Kraft was arrested in a sting operation at a "day spa" in Jupiter, Florida, a short drive from the Mer-a-Lago Happy-Time White House/Country Club/Grift Lounge and World's Least Appealing Omelet Bar.  This place charges a top price of $79 for the one-hour "massage," so, you know, not high-end for Palm Beach County.  I guess that's how he can afford Tom Brady's contract.  Please insert underinflated-balls joke here.

The joy of watching Rightzis attack one another like rutting deer went international this week.  In addition to Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, Trump is getting bollocked by Doug Ford, the right-wing premier of Ontario, who pointed out that his easy-to-win tariff war is hurting American companies much worse than Canada.  In other trade-wars-are-fun news, nearly eight billion dollars has been paid to American farmers to compensate them for the loss of foreign markets like China.  To put that in perspective, Trump shut down the government and caused economic chaos and irreparable damage to millions of people and multiple public sites for over a month for five billion dollars in WALL funding, which he didn't get anyway.  He's right about one thing:  So much winning, we won't be able to stand much more.

Jeffrey Epstein thought his underage-sex-ring problem was behind him, but looks like not.  Why is this amusing?  A list of his pricey attorneys was published and a couple of famous names jumped out:  Alan Dershowitz, anchor of the Simpson "dream team" and increasingly unhinged Trumpite; and Kenneth Starr, scourge of those immoral Clintons.  The latter has a book out, dragging Bill and (especially) Hillary over the jagged rocks again but curiously silent on the rapey-athletes scandal which he ignored as president of Baylor University, a job from which he was shit-canned.  But hey, this White House is always hiring.

It looks like the North Carolina 9th will be holding a do-over election after the Republican candidate, former Baptist pastor Mark Harris, admitted to election fraud so egregious, even Stacey Abrams murmured, "That shit is fucked up."  (No, she didn't, she is a gracious woman who would not use such language, so I used it for her.)  Harris had his guy going around to the homes of people who requested mail-in ballots and posing as the Official Ballot Collector.  Vladimir Putin said, "You can do this?"  So the reverend gets to run again, because...I don't know.

I didn't know who Keith Ablow was without doing some research.  It seems that in addition to peddling nutritional supplements on the no-name cable channels and spewing nonsense on Fox News (rape is the result of women wearing revealing clothes, men should have veto power over abortions, gay men are obsessed with sex), he also has a private psychiatric practice.  Three female patients are suing him over what they consider less than professional behavior -- drugging them with Ketamine, beating them, forcing one to get a tattoo of his name.  It does seem less DSM IV than Fifty Shades of Grey.  Well, why would anyone expect Fox doctors to be better than Fox lawyers (or judges)?  Clearly these women were just asking for it.

Next week is Paul Manafort Sentencing Day!  Share it with someone you love.



*"I think maybe I met him once.  He asked me for help recruiting players.  I don't really know him.  The NFL is a disgrace because they don't fire all those ungrateful players who hate the troops."  (Trump)

It's raining lawyers

Hallelujah.

Roger Stone was in court today all contrite, because he used his Instagram account to post a picture of Amy Berman Jackson, the federal judge hearing his case, next to a  rifle sight (a cute little dog-whistle to the Second Amendment people popularized by Sarah Palin after the shooting of Rep. Gaby Giffords).  Judge Jackson was not amused and imposed a gag order on Stone but chose not to "lock him up" as a gift to the media, who love to recount his antics.  Stone protested that he didn't post the offending image but maybe it was one of his underlings but he has no idea which one and no way to find out and it won't happen again.

Jussi Smollett was in court accused of filing a fake police report and wasting people's time.  He has to post $100,000 bond.  Similar charges are being prepared for all the complainants who call police in "while black" cases (moving into an apartment, barbecuing in the park, selling lemonade, sitting in a coffee shop, canvassing in the district you represent, cashing your paycheck, etc., etc.).  I'm joking, no, of course they aren't.

Alexander Acosta, the Secretary of Labor -- really, he is -- will soon be in court because a federal judge in Miami ruled that the plea deal he gave underage-sex-promoter Jeffrey Epstein was incredibly inadequate and illegal.  Acosta was the US Attorney in Miami at the time, and he and Epstein had a mutual friend whose name rhymes with Ronald J. Gump.  Like most shady Floridians.

Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Hasson will be spending a lot of  time in court since the FBI seized his arsenal, ammunition and interesting collection of digital musings on killing everybody in the world, possibly with biological weapons.  He later narrowed this down to the usual suspects in the "illegal impeachment" conspiracy, including Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ari Melber, Maxine Waters, Chris Hayes, Tim Kaine and "Sen blumen jew," among others.  (I know -- how can you hate Tim Kaine?)  The FBI calls him a "right-wing terrorist," but they are a tool of Hillary's Deep-State Pizzeria Murder Club. There is no such thing as right-wing terror, only troubled individuals and lone wolves.

Frivolous Lawsuit of the Month honors go to the family of Nicholas Sandmann, the entitled little shit whose mockery of Omaha Nation elder Nathan Phillips on the National Mall made him a star last month.  The Sandmanns are suing the Washington Post for $250 million because it reported the story and damaged Nicky's reputation as a sensitive, thoughtful person.  The suit claims NBC and CNN did, too, but they are not owned by the richest man on earth so they get a pass this time, but they'd better be careful about such "McCarthy" tactics in future.  I'm quoting.  It really says that.  When did Joe McCarthy become a villain to the right?

Speaking of the right and its QAnon quintessence, they have talked themselves into believing that Ruth Bader Ginsberg is dead.  The Deep State has had her preserved like Lenin and propped up on the bench until Trump can put the finishing touches on Stormy Front and swoop down on all the disloyals.  Der Tag kommt.  Sleep with one eye open.  I can say no more.

Dump Day

I jot things on pieces of paper and stick them under the laptop and when it gets all wobbly...

Back when Howard Schultz was running that string of coffee dispensaries, he was too busy for more than one daily news program.  Unfortunately, he made it The Colbert Report without realizing it was satire.  When Stephen Colbert said, "I don't see color," Howie nodded and filed it away for future use.  It now forms the centerpiece for the racial philosophy section of his (possible) presidential campaign, and has already brought him enough derision to deter anyone who isn't an Olympic-level egomaniac.  Since the Schultz candidacy has aroused less interest than the design for a Hannibal Hamlin commemorative stamp, CNN probably wishes it had not given him a prime-time hour to share this and other pointless observations.

And CNN still has the Shutdown Countdown clock on the screen, which means Donnie is waiting for  surrogate parents Rush and Ann to say he can sign the latest temporary fix without threatening to withhold their love the way his stupid mother did.  Meanwhile, Ted Cruz, whose father probably killed Kennedy but everything is fine between him and Donnie, has come up with a cunning plan:  Make one Mexican pay for WALL.  Specifically, Joaquin Guzman, better known as El Chapo, who has gobs of money and is headed for prison in the USA.  The legalese may be hard to work out, but the politics will thrill all MAGAts except the ones on the border of Ted's state who definitely don't want their land seized or their access to the Rio Grande blocked.

This is a bad time for the red hat club.  The folks filling out their tax returns are perturbed at how much they owe, or how small their refunds will be, and no wonder.  For years the MSM have been following them down their burrows and reporting back that they support Trump out of "concern about the economy" and certainly not because they're racist or xenophobic or simply dumb.  ("I love the poorly educated!" -- Donald J. Trump, 2016)  I guess they can stop being concerned, because Betsy DeVos can finally afford that seventh yacht.  Hard to believe, none of the others could  accommodate a full-size replica of the Sistine Chapel.  But yachts don't grow on trees, so dig deep, Bob and Betty Scratchcards, because the TrumpMcConnellRyan tax "reform" has its laser pointed at you.

I was going to write about how Theresa May is a bad prime minister and Brexit is a slow-moving catastrophe, but I don't want to be called a terrorist and accused of hating the British.  It is the UK we're never supposed to criticize, isn't it?  Wait, let me check with Rep. Omar...never mind.  Rep. Omar says she has learned her lesson:  Never refer to money as "Benjamins," although it has been in common use for decades.  Also, do not use the alternative expression "dead presidents" unless you want to be accused of plotting Trump's assassination.  In fact, never engage with Rightzis at all, since their principal rhetorical device is the hysterical denunciation, sometimes augmented with the self-pitying lie.  Ignore them.

Former Trump bagman Michael Cohen has postponed his House hearing a third time because he has to have his teeth cleaned or something.  If I didn't know better I'd say someone is putting the screws to him.  We'll know if his scared-looking brother turns up at the hearing flanked by Stephen Miller and Kellyanne Conway.

As measles spreads among the unvaccinated, adolescents are defying their parents and having themselves immunized.  There is reason to be hopeful about millennials.

At least Trump has had a good week since Speaker Pelosi ("as I call her, Nancy") let him read Words to the Congress room and secured her place in history by giving him The Clap.   He also had his annual physical from The Candy Man, who pronounced him the healthiest person this side of Mo Farah, the great British long-distance runner, and much more smarterer.  Then he went to El Paso, which he thought might be San Antonio, but anyway, where the yugest of all possible crowds lapped up a comic monologue in the vein of Prof. Irwin Corey.  One man was inspired to assault a BBC camera operator, the Trump-rally equivalent of speaking in tongues.  And now he's playing with his new Executive Time toy, a $50,000 "room-size golf simulator," which means he doesn't even have to put on pants and waddle from a golf cart to a tee and back again.  It's good to be the king.  (None of your business who paid for it.  The Prince gives them away like business cards at a convention, so why not?)  By the weekend, Donzo was so happy and loosey-goosey that he tweeted, "The Democrats are so self-righteous and ANGRY!  Loosen up and have some fun.  The Country is doing well!"  Apart from the big border emergency which comes and goes like Brigadoon.  I'd love to try some of that Adderall one day.

Rudolph Giuliani has been sighted in Poland, ranting about Iran. No part of that sentence makes any sense, but the cable news channels have had a lot of time to fill.

Trump thinks Ralph Northam and Ilhan Omar should resign because they're racist.  This is like Mr. Creosote suggesting that you go on a diet.

Jerome Corsi is suing Roger Stone or maybe Robert Mueller for trying to make him have a stroke and die.  Trump is suing a former White House staffer for violating a non-disclosure agreement.  Wasn't there something about torte reform, frivolous lawsuits...?

It has been a year since the mass murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.  I have nothing funny to say about that.

Also known as slavery

This is the most memorable Black History Month ever, not for any good reasons.  To prove his press conference was no fluke, still-Governor Ralph Northam went on CBS this morning to teach a history lesson to Gayle King:  It was exactly four hundred years ago that the Virginia colony welcomed its first shipload of "indentured servants from Africa."  "Also known as slavery," King interjected (the pupil surpasses the teacher!).  The First Families of Virginia had a policy of "First, do no work."  They had unsuccessfully tried to enslave the indigenous people, who simply sloped off home when the grandees' backs were turned.  Then they imported white people (indentured or enslaved) from the impoverished parts of the British isles,  but they either served out their time and had to be freed, or ran away, frequently finding a home with the natives.  So, Africans, kidnapped, shipped across the ocean, easily identified by their skin color and unfree forever, generation after generation.  Come on, Ralph, you're the fucking governor.  Read a book.  If you have time for one disastrous media interaction after another, you have time for more than a couple chapters of Roots, which you say you've finally gotten around to.

Read more than one.  Black Virginians gave you your office and continue to support you by a significant margin, recognizing your efforts to secure voting rights for all, including former felons.  In no other "democracy" is there such a determined effort to keep people from voting, so this is a crucial battle.  Clearly you're a flawed and possibly crippled chief executive, but if the grim choice is between a racist and a rapist, well, at least the racist is belatedly trying to deal with his past.

As for the disloyal opposition, they don't even know how racist they are.  A former New York Representative named Nan Hayworth (R-Ofcourse) thinks this will hurt the Democrats because "They all have the Virginia tar baby to deal with."  Doo-dah.  If all Republicans did was pose in unfortunate face-paint, this would be a more peaceful country, but they just can't help resurrecting the most infamous racist of the last century.  Weeks after Steve King asserted that there's not a thing wrong with "white supremacy," Hitler has been invoked to attack Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Green New Deal proposed by her and Sen. Ed Markey, and socialism in general.  Candace Owen, who fronts something called Turning Point USA, told an audience in Britain (!) that Hitler was fine as long as "he just wanted to make Germany great again."  He only became a problem when he went globalist (which I thought was code for you-know-who) and tried to make the rest of the world equally great.  Tom Cotton, the Arkansas senator who formed his own State Department during the Obama administration, quoted Churchill about how "socialism...always ends with the Gestapo," failing to add that this was part of a 1945 campaign speech.  British voters chose Clem Atlee and socialism anyway; instead of concentration camps, they got the NHS.

We can have nice things, too, now that the spectre of Communism no longer exists to intimidate anyone to the left of Adlai Stevenson.   More Americans worry about China's economic power than its imperial ambitions or contempt for human rights.  Trump's big wet crush on Kim Jong-un has rendered the Korean dictator cuddly and harmless in the eyes of the Trumpanzees, and that leaves what, Cuba?  If Venezuela really were socialist, people would at least have enough to eat and a share in the oil revenues.  Under Maduro it's merely ineptocracy, a word I just coined.  I've been to the mountaintop, and I've seen universal Medicare, affordable college, appropriate taxation of the rich, paid maternity and paternity leave, renewable energy, and the long-promised infrastructure restoration.  I may not get there with you...

Can't anybody here run this state?

My internet was down for a few hours today, so maybe I'm not up to speed.  Apparently Ralph Northam is still the governor of Virginia, despite a press conference of cosmic awfulness.  Northam now says he is not the man in blackface in that 34-year-old yearbook photo (I don't know if he has also denied being in the Klan getup).  He knows this because another time he did black his face to portray Michael Jackson in a dance contest, which he won with his superior moonwalking moves (his wife had to intervene to prevent a demonstration).  He'd surely remember if he had also played Mr. Bones.  This might be the worst defense of all time, or at least since the defense in the Emmett Till case questioned the identity of the victim by saying something like "That river's full of bodies -- it could be anyone."  Yeah, we kill so many people, ain't no way to be sure.  Bill Frist, Tom Coburn, Ben Carson, Ralph Northam -- I'm starting to think doctors should stay out of politics and medical schools should tighten up their entrance requirements.  Just because you aced organic chemistry, it doesn't mean you have enough sense to get out of the rain.

I read yesterday that Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax has been accused of sexual assault in -- 2004?  So that's him finished.  The next guy, the Virginia attorney general, has apparently volunteered the information that he once wore blackface in public (for cod's sake why?), which leaves, well, I don't know.  The internet wits are calling it "Blackface History Month."  The over-reactors are yelling at Disney and Mary Poppins because Dick Van Dyke partially blacked his face to portray a chimney sweep.  That one moved me to a full-on Edgar Kennedy face-palm (look him up, or watch the lemonade vendor scene in Duck Soup*).  And since we're on movies, why has Liam Neeson chosen this moment to commit career suicide?  Worst publicity tour of all time.

We got a needed respite, and frankly a thrill, from "The Stacey Abrams Show" last night; she's a star.  Next time, lose the guy in orangeface who warmed up the crowd.  I thought he would never shut up.





*Unless you think you can't handle a stereotypical Italian being portrayed by a Jewish actor.  I don't want to make this thing any worse than it is.

Arguing it out

This is the pagan festival of Imbolg, which I don't celebrate because I'm an atheist and that includes the Great Goddess or it would be meaningless, right?

That was easy.  I've spent the day trying to arrive at a position on Minstrelgate, which is the name I have given to the scandal over the governor of Virginia posing in blackface for his college yearbook photo in 1984.  Unless he's the other guy in the Klan hood, but really, six of one, half a dozen of the other.  On the one hand, Ralph Northam seems like a good guy, and he's a Democrat, and this only came up because he's being targeted by the anti-choice mob.  He was on the radio talking about a proposed change in state law regarding the treatment of non-viable newborns who are going to die anyway.  (I'm guilty of redundancy because a lot of people don't seem to know what "non-viable" means.)  Of course they get put on NICU life-support while their parents face the crushing decision of when or if to remove them.  The law now stipulates that two doctors must concur with their wishes; Northam, who is a pediatric neurologist in private life, opposes reducing that to one.  The Rightzis have decided this means he (and all Democrats) want to MURDER defective babies and sell the parts, possibly to restaurants -- you know, their customary measured response.  So all that is on one side, and is a pretty good reason not to hand the crazies a victory.

The crazies want Northam to resign because he doesn't want these poor kids kept on machines for months or years like Terri Schiavo.  Other people want him to resign because he was a racially insensitive jerk, at best, back in 1984, when even the President couldn't recognize the token black member of his Cabinet.  Not a heroic age of civil rights, is what I'm saying.  It feels as if the incriminating photo was discovered long ago and kept for an occasion like this.  A great many of those calling for Northam to quit are black, and I am happy to let them take the lead.  I'm only offended as a friend of the family, so to speak.  Northam says he won't quit, but only last week a Republican in Florida quit when a picture surfaced of him attending a Halloween party dressed as a black female victim of Hurricane Katrina.  This was two months after the inundation of New Orleans and is bad on multiple levels.  Besides, the lieutenant governor of Virginia, Justin Fairfax, is African American.  He has issued a statement that doesn't call for Northam to resign but also says his behavior cannot be condoned and is redolent of Virginia's ugly past.  It sounds like he's as conflicted as I am.  Maybe he thinks it's unbecoming to salivate at the prospect of becoming governor.  After all, the voters chose Northam over the appalling Ed Gillespie.  Then again, the voters didn't have all the facts.

The confluence of race, politics and fetus-worship is a maelstrom I'm happy to avoid.  Maybe it's better if us wypipos just shut up now.      

Cold enough for ya?

A group of homeless Chicagoans were trying to keep warm around a propane tank when it exploded.  Hearing of this, a woman named Candice Payne pulled out her credit card and rented them a bunch of hotel rooms.  Others were inspired to do the same, and more than eighty people slept indoors while cold-temperature records were set.  Oprah could have accommodated that many in her house, but she didn't.  (We would have heard, and heard.)  No megachurch opened its doors.  The city shelters are full.  The federal government -- wait, do we have any?

Down in East Moline, a 69-year-old man named William Murphy was not so fortunate.  His frozen body was discovered at the FedEx facility where he worked.  The cause of death has not been announced, nor the reason a man of sixty-nine was still working.

The governor of Kentucky, one of those states that closes when it gets two inches of snow, says we're all a bunch of sissies for taking emergency measures to keep children from dying on the way to school.  It probably will surprise no one that Kentucky is the home of Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, Kim Davis and Covington Catholic School.  Also that dopey bible museum where the dinosaurs have saddles.

Some of Governor Bevis Bevin's constituents are going to be disappointed, because Customs and Border Protection stopped an assload of drugs from crossing the border -- 254 pounds of Fentanyl and 395 pounds of methamphetamine hidden in a truck full of cucumbers.  It was being driven through the Nogales, Arizona, checkpoint when trained dogs alerted the CBP.  In other words, a wall in the desert would not have been much use.  Or as Charlie Pierce wrote, "Screw the wall.  Hire more dogs."

Yes, the wall.   Trump and his babysitters have been busy, dumping sanctions here, backing out of the 1987 Intermediate Range missile treaty there, all but raising the Russian flag over the White House.  Every intelligence officer told Congress this is a bad idea, as bad as trusting the North Koreans and abusing the Iranians, but what do they know?  Russia definitely did not interfere in the 2016 election and they've promised that they're not doing it again, so that's that.  Besides, WALL.  Must have WALL or nothing else matters.   Trump called in a couple of  "reporters" from the Failing New York Times to impress them with his resolve.  He has "set the table very nicely," whatever that means, and he may possibly announce NATIONAL EMERGENCY, which will cause $5.7 billion to appear on his empty desk because after two years -- after seventy-two years -- he still has no fucking idea how government works.  Also how dare the FBI treat Roger Stone as if he did something wrong, and do you have any idea how much money he's losing by presidenting  all the time instead of running casinos, airlines and Trump University?  WALL!

As S.J. Perelman would say, baby, it's cold inside.