Beautiful Saturday

After a week of unparalleled ugliness I have decided to turn my attention to some happy things. 

Today is the hundredth birthday (Birdday?) of Charlie Parker.  I don't approve of statues, as you know, but Kansas City needs to open a museum. 

I'm listening to Gershwin's Cuban Overture because it came up on YouTube.  I know, cultural appropriation, but what American music isn't?  It drags a little in the middle and will never be as popular as the Rhapsody, but I don't care.

Today only, Kenosha, Wisconsin, is the birthplace of Orson Welles.  Period.

How many acts have there been where one person was the obvious star and the rest fell in behind?  The Ritz Brothers (Harry), the Boswell Sisters (Connie), the Gumm Sisters (Frances a/k/a Judy Garland), the Rhythm Boys (Bing Crosby), it must have made for some tension on the bus.  I love the Bozzies -- one of those I-can't-believe-they're-white groups. 

No museum, but KC has one of these in a park:



I think it looks more like David Dinkins.

To conclude, some birds.

Trash talk

Trump is being mocked for suggesting he and Biden take a drug test before their first debate, but I think it's a splendid idea.  They should also be weighed -- not by some drunken Navy doctor afraid for his career, but publicly as before a fight.   Trump may think he can beat a urine test (maybe he got some tips from Lance Armstrong or the Russian Olympic Committee), but nobody beats the scale.

Here's another suggestion for Fight Night:  Biden says Trump has "Property of V. Putin" tattooed on his ass.  Trump, who understands neither metaphor nor propriety, triumphantly drops his pants to prove it's not true.  That should separate the MAGAts from the right-leaning.

More drugs...Junior insists he wasn't coked out of his mind, it was the lights or the heat or maybe an allergy.  Yeah, ragweed, it's bad this year.  "Either he's high," said Stephen Colbert, "or that's what happens when you live in the splash zone of Screamin' Guilfoyle."  People who got high before watching report that they thought the speech made a lot of sense.

Remember the time Trump lost his shit at Number 10?  You don't?  It was a formal lunch with Prime Minister Theresa May and he yelled at Michael Flynn for making him miss a call from the boss, Vladimir Putin.  Chief of Staff Nick Timothy was there.  I believe him.

In further Fuck the Hatch Act news, a Trump appointee was sent to New York City to interview residents about conditions in their buildings.  Three of them are angry to find the videos used in the Republican convention.  Two of the new citizens also say they were not asked in advance whether they wanted their swearing-in to be televised.

Alice Johnson got a full pardon from Trump today, and all she had to do was show up at his convention and praise him.  No money changed hands.  Isn't that special?

David Farenthold of the Washington Post has been compiling information on the grifting at Mar a Lago and other Trump hellholes, and now the White House says it's compiling "a very large 'dossier'" on him.  Congratulations, Mr. Farenthold, it's more prestigious than a Pulitzer.

It's a truism of politics that Ted Kennedy's political hopes ended when Roger Mudd asked why he wanted to be president and he couldn't put together a coherent answer.  Like this:

"But so I think, I think it would be,  I think it would be very, very, I think we'd have a very, very solid, we would continue what we're doing, we'd solidify what we've done, and we have other things on our plate we want to get done."

Bring on the drug test.

Is it safe yet?

"Donzo and the Dead-eyed Droogs" has finally ended, worst mini-series ever.  Produced at public expense and fueled by every controlled substance the PSAs warned you against, it horrified people all over the world and left many Americans hoping the pandemic would end their misery soon. 

First the important news as far as Trump is concerned:  the ratings were lousy.  The Democratic convention won every night but Tuesday, when the coveted 18-49 male demographic tuned in hoping the First Escort would experience a wardrobe malfunction.  But no, the bra built by the Army Corps of Engineers held and she marched through her extended medley of Hallmark Cards like the Red Army liberating Slovenia.  Sorry, guys.

Jim Gaffigan, our pre-eminent Catholic comedian, was disgusted with the faith-shaming on display Wednesday, tweeting, "Fuck Lou Holtz.  Biden is Catholic in name only?  Compared to who?  How many abortions did trump pay for?  How many women has he raped?...Wake up.  He's a crook and a con man."  Etc.  Although it's doubtful the short-fingered vulgarian ever paid for anything.  Contractors who worked on the pile of rubble formerly known as the Trump Taj Mahal are still waiting, and a lot of them have judgments.  Like the man said, a crook.

Even more pissed than Gaffigan are fans of Leonard Cohen, whose "Hallelujah" was played last night for some mystifying reason (maybe someone remembered it was used in an episode of The West Wing).  Everything about last night was baffling but why start down that road?  Hatch Act violation aside, I couldn't care less about the Pences at Fort McHenry -- it's a miserable anthem and should be replaced.  Pence's scheduled speech at Wisconsin Lutheran College has been cancelled because of continued turmoil in Kenosha.  Scared, Mikey?  We'll have to call you Pussy Pence.

The reason for the "unrest" is of course the utterly unjustified shooting of Jacob Blake by Officer Rusten Sheskey, who has yet to be charged with anything.  Blake spent most of the day handcuffed to his bed, despite possibly permanent paralysis, because Sheskey's friends claim he had a knife in his car in addition to three terrified children.  This case is so egregious that the United Nations has taken notice.  Congratulations, America.  Now we're basically Myanmar.

Kyle Rittenhouse loves the police (and Trump) so much, he got his mother to drive him to Kenosha from Illinois so he could defend them by killing two people and wounding a third after someone threw a plastic bag in his direction ("self-defense").  I was flabbergasted to read that one of his lawyers is a Q Qrazy.  No, what's the word?  Bored.  That's it.

Still no indictments in the shooting of Breonna Taylor, but you'll doubtless be hearing from Tin-Tray Tucker in a few hours that her former boyfriend Jamarcus Glover was arrested on drug charges.  If his presence in the house didn't justify killing her while she slept, you must be a radical left Antifa who hates America.  I'll bet you were one of the mob who surrounded Rand Paul last night as he walked home from the White House and shouted at him, causing him to soil his panties.  Bad mob!  Now I have less respect for the neighbor who allegedly assaulted him -- maybe he just made a scary face from the other side of the hedge.

Senator Paul must be hiding under his bed as the Get Your Knee Off Our Necks march arrived at the Lincoln Memorial today.  Letetra Widman, Jacob Blake's sister, summed up this week and this miserable four years:  "America, your reality is not real.  We will not pretend.  We will not be your docile slave.  We will not be a footstool to oppression.  We will not dress up this genocide in blue and call it 'police brutality.'  We will only pledge allegiance to the truth...Black men, stand up.  Stand up, Black men, and educate yourselves." 

That's a speech.  Not Trump's potted history of white America punctuated with complaints about all the words "they" won't let you say anymore and "wild-eyed Marxists like Bernie Sanders."  Absent John Lewis and Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, she brought it and threw it in his oozing orange face. 

A thousand Americans die of covid every day.  That's 67,000 between now and November 3.  At least another 60,000 before January 20.  And it never had to happen.

Pathetic fallacy

You may recall from some English class that attributing human emotions to natural phenomena like weather is called pathetic fallacy.  For example, when the Lake Charles, Louisiana,* city council votes not to remove a Jim Crow monument called The South's Defenders from its pedestal, and then a hurricane does this:



Laura is a hellacious storm, but I like her sense of justice.  Someone should direct her toward Richmond, where Robert E. Lee still looms over the city.

Our scamp of the day is Ali-Asghar Abedi, who explains how he got Trump idolater Tomi Lahren to call him a jackass.  In colloquial Hindi.  Abedi says he did it because the Republican convention is "beyond satire," and I won't argue, although fooling Lahren is like teasing a dog.

The Senate's newest, griftiest Republican Kelly Loeffler is struggling in the polls and her WNBA team isn't bringing her much happiness either:  the Atlanta Dream joined most other basketball teams and a few baseball and soccer teams in a one-day strike to protest police brutality.  The most striking gesture was made by the Washington Mystic, who came on court in white shirts with one letter each spelling out JACOB BLAKE.  On the back were seven bullet holes.  Senator Kelly wishes they would just shut up and play, and she found an ally in Jared Kushner, who's glad the players are rich enough to "take a night off from work" without financial consequences.  Not like when he had to sell papers fourteen hours a day.  In the snow.  The right are always gobsmacked when rich, privileged Black people refuse to act like rich, privileged white people and vote Republican.  Maybe it's because they still get stopped, frisked, pulled over, handcuffed and even shot just like poor, unprivileged Black people.  Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers offered some insight, but Kushner still won't get it.

I'm warming to the idea that we need a Constitutional amendment prohibiting people from defining other people.  This was a bad idea when menarchic teenagers in Salem decided some harmless women were witches and it was a bad idea when the "one drop" rule declared people Black when that was even more of an obstacle course than it is now.   Now J.K. Rowling (and others) want to set rules for who is and isn't a woman.  Let's try you-be-you-and-I'll-be-me and see how that works for a couple centuries.

Having floated the idea that Kamala Harris isn't "really" Black (just as Elizabeth Warren wasn't "really" Native American), the R-Klan has decided Joe Biden isn't "really" Catholic and they have experts to prove it.  Lou Holtz knows about such things because he used to coach football at Notre Dame (home of Touchdown Jesus), while Sister Deirdre Byrne -- well, she showed up in full nun  burka.  (No, it's completely different from Ilhan Omar wearing a hijab, what's wrong with you?)



Their message was the same:  Only Trump can save the millions of crying babies from being late-term aborted because he's a true Christian who has never even used a condom, that's entirely the woman's problem, and Marla Maples was lying when she said he told her to get an abortion, FAKE NEWS.  Biden would make abortion mandatory and also take away all your meat.  (That was a different speech by a different pathological liar pious Christian.)  Has Biden ever held up a Bible on a street foggy with tear-gas?  QED.  (That stands for "Q Exterminates Democrats.")  What is Biden?  Biden is a fake Catholic.  (If you phrase it like the Baltimore Catechism, it has more of a punch.)

Bad news, Lou:  The Fighting Irish are not Irish.  Most of them are African American.  So why should anyone listen to you?

Only one more night of Schizophrenia americanensis.  Junior, don't mix coke with Daddy's Adderall.  Kimberly, speed kills.  I'll be watching The Palm Beach Story.  



*Correction:  It was actually the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury.  The South, huh?

Unsurvivable

That's what the National Weather Service is saying about Hurricane Laura, about to make landfall in Louisiana.  At the same time, Typhoon Bavi is headed for flood-weakened North Korea.  It will he interesting to see if Trump's first call is to John Bel Edwards (Democrat) or Kim Jong-un (beautiful letters).

Unsurvivable may be the way many feel about two more nights of fascistic rantings and sunshine patriotism.  It's a measure of the damage Donzilla has already done to this republic that no one questioned the cult's use of public buildings and even a citizenship ritual to burnish the monster's image.  The flag order alone must have led to double shifts at the Chinese factory they come from.  I wasn't bothered by Pompeo phoning it in from Jerusalem, violating the prohibition on cabinet members participating at all -- nobody in Trump's cabinet has ever been hampered by law, much less tradition. 

I hate conspiracy theories, but there was so little justification for shooting Jacob Blake over and over at point-blank range that you might think the whole point was to unleash violence in Kenosha.  Kyle Rittenhouse drove in from Illinois last night and killed two people with a rifle while police watched; he was arrested after he went home.  This of course will escalate the violence as Trump sends the national guard to "assist."  Big finish for the convention, as the rest of the royal family leads the cheering.  American carnage, he alone can fix it, etc., ad nauseam.  Sorry, can't have an election during martial law. 

Meanwhile Joe Biden called the Blake family because he recognizes people in pain as something other than campaign props.  Undecided voters who still can't see any difference between candidates can take a flying fuck at the International Space Station.  Which apparently is leaking air.

"Angel mom" is a term employed by Rightzis for anyone whose child was killed by undocumented   immigrants and the R's had a wow lined up for last night.  Sadly Mary Ann Mendoza got a touch too Final Solution with some of her QAnon/Rothschild/Soros/Protocols tweets and became the latest victim of cancel culture.  (Too bad, I was really looking forward to her new information about the Titanic and the Hindenburg.)  Not to worry, Congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene is still booked to bring the Q to the South Lawn of the White House tomorrow.  Now with twenty-five percent less anti-Semitism!  Where We All Go On We Go With One On One...how does it go?

It's not just the Protocols with this gang -- it's the Office of the Chief of Protocol, too.  Are you surprised?  Horsewhips and alcohol are a bad combination, especially at work.

Joe Biden = Loch Ness monster.  Discuss with anyone but me.

Bloody relations

Meet Jerushah Duford, granddaughter of Billy Graham, niece of Franklin Graham and newest member of The Lincoln Women.  Accusing Trump of "damage to the Gospel," she says she'll be actively working to elect Joe Biden.  Another family comes apart.

Earlier this week we learned that Kellyanne Conway will leave her White House job and George Conway will leave the Lincoln Project as they attempt to salvage their family.  The impetus came from their fifteen-year-old daughter Claudia, who is seeking to become an emancipated minor after "years of childhood trauma and abuse."  Apparently she had to get their attention through Trump's least-favorite platform Tik-Tok, where she wrote in support of LGBTQ rights and Black Lives Matter.  It beats cutting yourself, but I'm not sure putting "the Sybil and Basil Fawlty of the post-truth era" in a room with their daughter is going to fix the problem.

The family most likely to become an HBO series is unquestionably the Falwells of Lynchburg, Virginia.  By now all the world knows the lubricious details -- the cabana boy, the affair with Jerry's wife Becki, the voyeurism, the blackmail resulting in a Florida hostel -- nothing very different from the Aimee Semple McPherson/Jimmy Swaggart playbook.  And now Falwell has resigned or been canned as president of Liberty University, a distinguished academy of the illiberal arts.

Falwell has a close relationship with Trump, and no wonder.  Both inherited profitable businesses from their fathers; on their own, it's doubtful they would have had the brains or ambition to open a fireworks stand.  Not coincidentally, real estate and religion are frequently loci of money laundering, too.  Both are Olympic-level hypocrites and liars, with libidos to match.  If anybody bothers to ask, Falwell will be someone Trump can't quite remember, they met once, it was a long time ago, he just doesn't know him.  Denied thrice, just like You-Know-Who, eh, Jerry?

Besides, Trump has family problems of his own that go far beyond Melania refusing to hold his hand.  As Junior hailed his "perfect family" last night, an ex-friend of the First Escort revealed she has her on tape slanging Junior and Ivanka.  (She must have forgotten Eric and Tiffany existed, which is understandable.)  The ex-friend, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, was fired after organizing the inauguration that nobody showed up for, like that was her fault; her book will be out next week. 

For all Junior's coke-fueled (allegedly) bluster, he's been privately telling friends, "We're losing, dude, and we're going to get really hurt when we lose."  By which he means not his father's screaming fits but the possibility of criminal prosecutions under the Biden administration.  Let's hope.  Of course Junior has no friends, so the whole article is dubious.  But if Junior does think he can run for office one day, he'll have to find a girlfriend less noisy than Kimberly Guilfoyle, whose screams frightened many horses last night.  Did she think the engineers would add crowd noise, as they do with baseball games? 

And is Eric the Very First Trump to take the Fifth?  I think so!  Another milestone for America's First Family of Crime.

 

Turn the record over

I know this one by heart.  White cop shoots unarmed Black man (in the back, repeatedly) while his children watch.  Protesters take to the streets, some missiles are hurled, fires are started.  Police, now accompanied by National Guard, fire tear gas and rubber bullets.  Shooter is placed on paid vacation administrative leave.  Governor promises investigation.

Details may vary.  The victim, Jacob Blake, is not dead but may be paralyzed below the waist.  The city is Kenosha, Wisconsin.  The three sons are traumatized.  Oh, yes, there's video.  Expect the violence to come up at the Republican Convention -- not Mr. Blake's predicament, the fireworks and bottles lobbed at law enforcement officers.  This is why we all need more and bigger guns, because they hate us and want to destroy our wonderful country and kill all the police and abolish god.

A few bad apples.

I don't believe that sensitivity training or community relations or even weeding out racists is the answer.  The problem is the nature of policing itself.  If you want a job that gives you a gun and a club and pretty much carte blanche to do whatever you like with them, you probably should not be a police officer.  Consider a career as a mercenary.  Learn Turkish and apply to be a prison guard.  Have you thought about professional wrestling?

We need police.  No one has proposed that police be abolished, no matter what you have heard from certain unhinged politicians.  What we need and deserve is better police.   No self-pitying sadists need apply.

God, guns and grifters galore!

Are you pumped?

Anna Paulina Luna (above) is running for Congress from the Florida 13th, and she's clearly got what it takes to rout those social justice warriors who want to buy houses in your suburb.  Look for her at the Republican National Convention in...well, I'm not sure.  Charlotte or Jacksonville or possibly Moscow.  Can't have a convention without a babe and an assault weapon, and Sarah Palin is busy.

Backing her up will be Bonnie and Clyde McCloskey of St. Louis, who were already on Fox News today warning that riots will soon come "to a neighborhood near you."  Forgive the NRA for not sending an official spokesman -- they're hunkered down defending themselves against Letitia James and her army of subpoena-totin' lawyers.

Many invocations of gawd, especially from Franklin Graham (Jerry Falwell, Jr., unfortunately sending long-distance thoughts), the pious Pences and prayer warriors Matt "Censured" Gaetz and Gym "Drop and Give Me Twenty" Jordan.  Nick Sandmann, the pride of Covington Catholic, will whine that he was oppressed for wearing a MAGA hat while mocking an elder of the Omaha tribe and oppressed again when the court dismissed his suit against the Washington Post for writing about him.  Steve Scalise will speak, unless he has a flashback from seeing all those guns.  Nimrata Randhawa Haley is scheduled -- you know her better as Nikki but it's time to break out her real name because... guess.  Former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi will not mention the bribe she took four years ago to stop investigating Trump "University."  Andrew Pollack will explain why he's fine with the present gun laws even though his daughter died at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, while Senator Tim Scott explains why he's fine with Trump's racism.  And Rudolph Giuliani will mock Biden'th thtutter because irony is dead.

Pretty much all the other featured attractions are Trump or Trump-adjacent.  If you liked Michelle Obama's speech, wait till you hear it in a Slovenian accent.  Lara and Junior's mistress have been given words to read, as has the long-silent Tiffany.  There is no platform because what do you need besides "My honor is called loyalty" (it sounds no better in the original German)?   And so much Trump you won't be able to stand it, believe me.

I don't know, it seems a little thin.  The Democrats took the lemons of covid and whipped up a lemon souffle last week, and even if you hate all the diversity and hope, there are technical lessons to learn.  Remote participation, for example -- many people can't or don't want to be in the hall.  Reach out to political prisoners like Derek Chauvin and Ghislaine Maxwell -- I'm sure she'll want to wish Trump well.  Remember Dianna Ploss, who sacrificed her radio show to stop people from speaking Spanish on the streets of New Hampshire.   And wouldn't America choke up at a parade of criminals pardoned by Trump, including Roger Stone, Scooter Libby, Dinesh D'Souza, Angela Stanton-King, Joe Arpaio, Rod Blagojevich, Michael Milken and Bernard Kerik?  I know I would.

Although the party would like to pretend otherwise, the Trumpandemic continues.  It didn't go away "like a miracle," but to ignore it like murderous police or Russian election interference would be a little too obvious.  Own it.  Let Judy Mikovits run through some of her fascinating theories.  Mike "MyPillow" Lindell will be there anyway -- he's practically the next HHS secretary -- so he could distribute his miracle cure oleandrin to the lucky conventioneers.   And come on, it won't be a Republican convention without Dr. Stella Immanuel and her demon semen theory of disease.  Trump said he was "very impressed" with her and also that he knows nothing about her.  Let's get them together.

Ronna McDaniel, you have a tough act to follow.  You haven't got John Legend, Billie Eilish, Jennifer Hudson, Prince Royce, Bruce Springsteen or anything close.  You haven't got Gaby Giffords or Brayden Harrington.  You haven't even got Uncle Mitt.  You have some women who are 40% silicone and some men who are 100% loathsome.   It's time to get creative.  If Herman Cain can tweet from beyond the grave, it's time to unleash Re-animated Ronnie Reagan.  This could be your last chance.  Otherwise...




 

They fought the law

It took a while but Trump has finally found his Roy Cohn.  According to Brian Stelter's forthcoming Hoax:  Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, William Barr was dispatched last October to tell Rupert Murdoch he needed to "muzzle" Judge Andrew Napolitano, who had begun talking about Trump's "criminal behavior" and calling the evidence reported by Robert Mueller "impeachable." Until then, Napolitano was under the impression Trump was going to put him on the Supreme Court, so maybe we came out ahead in the long run.  It's one thing to have your personal fixer intimidating and threatening people; it's totally different when he's the attorney general of the United States and opens the conversation by talking about media consolidation, a topic dearer to Rupert than any of his wives or children.

It's not just Judge Andy who's getting up Trump's nose.  Over in Pennsylvania, where his campaign is suing to stop the use of drop-off ballot boxes, Federal Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan quite reasonably asked for evidence of voter fraud.  He's still reading the 524-page document they submitted but, according to Suzanne Almeida of Common Cause Pennsylvania, there isn't any.  Not even those thousands of ballots mailed to dogs and cats.  (Dogs lean left, cats are all over the place.)

Meanwhile in California, Judge Robert Broadbelt III ruled that Trump has to pay Stormy Daniels $44,100 in legal costs stemming from her non-disclosure agreement lawsuit.  This is shaping up to be the costliest wang-dang-doodle since Henry VIII first spotted Anne Boleyn.

At least twenty-one states and the District of Columbia are suing Louis DeJoy and the Postal Service for an incredibly brazen attempt to impede, if not prevent, mail-in voting.  Testifying in front of a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee so friendly it could have been a fraternity reunion, DeJoy promised that ballots will be "prioritized," and nobody asked why that would be necessary if he hadn't kneecapped so many facilities in swing states.  The House will doubtless have some real questions next week.  For instance, how did Steve Mnuchin, putative Secretary of the Treasury, come to fill the postal board with Trump accomplices?  (What else can we call them?)

Doing its part to prevent the wrong sort of voting, Tennessee passed a law making it a felony to camp out on public property, as racial justice protesters have been doing since May, with automatic loss of voting "privileges."  The hope is that by the time the Supreme Court gets around to striking it down (that whole "right of the people peaceably to assemble" thing), the 2020 election will be history.   Well done, Governor Lee.  Any relation to  the general?

Trump is again petitioning the Supreme Court to let him block people on Twitter because he is a little girl who doesn't like it when they say mean things about him.  Two years ago they ruled that his 240-character lies and tantrums are "governmental in nature," but let's hope that's no longer the case by January 21.

Steve Bannon, who Trump has barely even heard of, also has a Twitter problem.  Someone found a tweet where he and co-defendant Brian Kolfage joke about stealing from We Build the Wall.  Questioned about the "culture of lawlessness" that surrounds him, Trump responded, "There was great lawlessness in the Obama administration."  The reporter wimped out without asking for the name of even one indicted Obama adviser.  Live to "journalist" another day, huh?

She's a former judge now, but just for Saturday night fits & giggles, read what Maryanne Trump Barry thinks of her brother.  Read it!

Perfectly normal

"On September 5, 1933, a Category 3 hurricane made landfall at Brownsville, Texas.  At the same hour...a tropical storm moved ashore at Cedar Key, Florida..."

We can do better than that.  A hurricane named Laura and an as-yet-unnamed tropical depression are in the Atlantic, predicted to be aimed at the Gulf Coast.  Forecasters think Chauvin, Louisiana, may experience both of them.  Isn't that something?

The west could use some storms, as large parts of it are on fire.  Years of drought have a lot to do with it, and of course failure to rake the forests as they do in Finland.  (They don't.)  Before grudgingly releasing FEMA funds, Trump told some cultists in Pennsylvania,  "I said, you gotta clean your floors...Maybe we're just going to have to make them pay for it, because they don't listen to us."  Then he began ranting about sharks, for some unfathomable reason.

Lou Dobbs has not signed on with QAnon (maybe next week) but he's a firm believer in the "deep state" and blames it for persecuting Steve Bannon.  The same deep state that Bannon himself once said was "for nut cases," not a bad description of Dobbs.  We now know more about the yacht where Bannon was arrested:  It's called the Lady May and it's up for sale, a steal at $27.9 million.  The current owner is Guo Wengui  alias Miles Kwok, wanted in China for money laundering, bribery and fraud.  A former business associate is also suing him in New York for rape.   He was set to be deported from the US as a Chinese spy until Trump found out he's a paid-up member at Mar a Lago.  This is how the Shallow State conducts business, and Lou Dobbs is fine with it.

Joseph DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer, received twelve life sentences yesterday for thirteen murders and dozens of rapes committed while he was a police officer.  I bring that up in case Defund the Police can use it in future.

Do you believe in miracles?  Sexy thing Mike Pence does.  He thinks a miraculous vaccine or two is "around the corner" and it's all down to Trump.  Hallelujah.

"There is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party," said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California.  He didn't go as far as Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), who called it "the mental gonorrhea of conspiracy theories.  It's disgusting, and you want to get rid of it as fast as possible."  Riggleman will be gone in January when the knuckle draggers of the Georgia 14th send Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress; McCarthy probably won't.  But will there be a whole QAnon caucus by then?  And why does Riggleman sound like an expert on clap?

Cecilia Fulbright is not currently running for Congress, although in Texas, who knows?  Neither is she waiting for The Event, or whatever QAnon calls its apocalypse.   She likes to get hammered and pursue people she believes are pedophiles around Waco, ramming them with her car.  It's as I told you -- someone sent her Q qrap as a joke and she took it seriously.  This is not funny.  Although I enjoyed the part about aliens powering her 1984 Pontiac.

Joe Biden's acceptance speech got high marks from Chris Wallace, Dana Perino and even Karl Rove last night.  (Laura Ingraham called it "fairly well delivered.")  It looks like Fox News is preparing for life AD (after Donzo).   More to the point, the necessity of a virtual convention was a boon to Biden, who is most effective in a low-key, one-on-one setting.  Ninety years ago Franklin Roosevelt figured out that the new medium of radio would allow him to communicate conversationally in the wildly popular "fireside chats," while Hitler and Mussolini were still yelling at crowds in vast arenas.  Guess which method Trump favors.

We won't have to guess, because The Leader is supposed to address all four sessions of the Republican convention next week.  As of today, the RNC has not announced other speakers.  Do you suppose there will be any?

In the meantime, enjoy this hilarious campaign video spoof from Comedy Central, narrated by the legendary Steve Buscemi.  I have to start watching The Daily Show again.

Schadenfreude Week

The Democratic National Zoom Convention peaked too early, with unforgettable speeches by Gaby Giffords, Barack Obama and Kamala Harris.  Joe Biden is going to have a hard time topping them -- he's never been one to bring the thunder and lightning.  Not to worry -- reality has stepped up to make this a memorable Thursday.

Our top story:  Steve Bannon is under arrest.  You may remember him from such films as "American Carnage" and "Save the Judeo-Christian World from Islam."  Then he put together a new scam, "We Build the Wall," a crowd-fund that took in $25 million and, according to the acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, spent almost none of it on WALL.  Even tastier, their general counsel is Kris Kobach and the advisory board includes former Milwaukee sheriff David Clarke, former Congressman Tom Tancredo, former pitcher Curt Schilling, and Erik Prince, private "security" contractor and brother of Betsy DeVos.  No charges for them yet but it's only lunchtime.  Apparently mail fraud was involved; as Charlie Pierce wrote, "Steve Bannon got busted by the Postal Service police.  Well played, irony."  No telling how this will affect his "Academy for the Judeo-Christian West," but it may be just what Italian authorities need to evict the "populist" hate school from its 800-year-old monastery in Collepardo. 

United Steelworkers Local 2 is holding a rally of Goodyear workers in response to Trump's call for a boycott over the company's ban on political clothing.  Goodyear is one of the biggest employers in Akron, which is in Ohio, which is a swing state, which anyone slightly less stupid than Trump would have known before launching a tweet.  In an economy reeling from Trumplague, most people would rather leave their red hats at home than lose a good union job, but please tell me once more what a political genius Trump is.

As Putin confronts the possibility of losing puppets allies in Minsk and Washington, he seems to be getting more reckless, or more nervous.  It's not good timing that opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in the ICU after "suspected poisoning."  By now Putin's opponents should know better than to drink tea anywhere. 

Another baseless lawsuit went down in flames as Judge Victor Marrero ruled that District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., can too see Trump's tax returns.  Still no tweet about Marrero's "bias" but as I said...lunchtime.  (The judge was born in Puerto Rico and appointed by Bill Clinton.  Does that help?)

It's Infrastructure Week in China, as the Three Gorges Dam deals with record levels of water after two months of extreme rain.   A breach would be "embarrassing" for China, says the Guardian, not to mention fatal for tens of millions.

Asteroid 2020QG flew within 1,830 miles of the earth last Sunday, the closest any object has come (that we know of).  The car-size rock skidded past, but I can't shake the feeling that something is getting our range.  Maybe the mysterious Oumuamua (Hawaiian for "scout").

Preet tweets!  Tweet of the day from former US attorney Preet Bharara: "Is Mexico going to pay Steve Bannon's bail?"

From Donald Trump, Jr., at a 2018 event for We Build The Wall:  "This is private enterprise at its finest.  Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else.  What you guys are doing is amazing."

From Donald Trump, Sr., August 20, 2020:  "I know nothing about the project other than that I didn't like it.  I said this is for government, this isn't for private people...And it sounded to me like showboating."  (Can you stand any more irony?  Bannon was arrested on his boat.)

 

Spinning his wheels

Pandemic, recession, Russian election interference, record-setting temperatures, fires...

First things first.

"Don't buy GOODYEAR TIRES -- They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS.  Get better tires for far less.  (This is what the Radical Left Democrats do.  Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!")

A message from The Real Donald Trump, of course.  Still waiting for the picture of Ivanka holding up a set of Bridgestone Duelers.  Fact check:  Goodyear has banned all employees from wearing political hats at work, probably to promote workplace harmony and prevent fistfights.  Customers are free to wear whatever they like.  Heavily armed MAGAts are asked not to shoot at the Goodyear Blimp.  Please do not burn piles of Goodyear tires to express your displeasure.  Trump and his EPA are perfectly capable of fouling the air without your help.

Apparently irony was suspended for twenty-four hours, during which Trump tweeted "SAVE THE POST OFFICE!" and James Comey posed in a shirt that said "ELECT MORE WOMEN."  Hillary Clinton had no words but shared a picture of her "Go fuck yourself with a rusty sickle" face.

The Democratic Party has a new star today, Jacquelyn Asbie.  She's not running for office, she runs an elevator in the New York Times building.  (Yes, they still have elevator operators, like sweet Miss Kubiak in The Apartment.)  Asbie met Joe Biden one day and he treated her as if she was important.  "He saw me," she said as she nominated him for president last night.  They spoke.  There was a selfie.  "In all these years David Brooks never even said 'good morning,'" she didn't have to add.  I've had mixed feelings about Biden, his spotty record as a senator, his sentimentality, his awful slogan ("Build Back Better" sounds like something rejected by Home Depot).  I was always going to vote for him -- I'd vote for Marianne Williamson if she was the only viable alternative to the Russian puppet.  Now I feel a little better about it.

The two soldiers who appeared in last night's roll-call video from American Samoa are being investigated for wearing their uniforms to a "partisan political event," the same camouflage that General Milley wore for the Trump Bible stunt last June.  Of course, they're privates ("specialists"), not generals.  They're also masked, so good luck, Espy.

After ninety-two years it's still an event when the Democrats (it's always the Democrats) nominate a Catholic for president.  In 1928 evangelicals ranted that Al Smith's election would usher in the domination of "rum and Rome," and even that Smith would construct a tunnel from the White House to the Vatican so the pope could drop in and supervise his administration.  (Protestant fundamentalists lost their minds long before Trump.)  The difference in 2020 is that the abuse is coming from inside the church.  Attention-seeking clerics are attacking Biden, like John Kerry before him, for supporting abortion rights, questioning whether he really is a Catholic.  I suppose we need a term equivalent to "birthers" for those who want to see his real baptismal certificate.  Fine, endorse the adulterous pussy-grabber, Cardinal Burke -- that should bring nothing but honor to your church, especially since you can't even get along with your pope. 

Late today we finally got a Trump diagnosis from a medical doctor, David Reiss, and it's just as I suspected:  "serious clinical question of psychotic megalomania...quasi-delusional...unfit and very dangerous."  All because Trump finally came out as a full-blown Q Qrazy.   "I don't know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much."  Even with "conspiracy-theory driven domestic extremists" (the FBI's description), it's all about him.

This will be the longest four months in any nation's history.




 

Remember the ladies

This is the centenary of the Nineteenth Amendment, better known as "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."  Short, to the point, and less confusing than the previous one, which tried to get Americans to give up alcoholic beverages.  That didn't end well.

Here's how some of the boys chose to celebrate:

Marco Rubio dumped on Eva Longoria, who hosted the first night of the Democratic Virtual Convention:  "Brilliant move!  Nobody is more in touch with the challenges & obstacles faced by everyday Americans than actors & celebrities."  Many people pointed out the idiocy of attacking Longoria on behalf of a reality-TV "star," but the most savage comment was from Fred Guttenberg:  "My daughter was murdered in the state you represent because of the gun violence you fail to address.  This convention represents me & all others wanting leadership.  Real Americans."

Trump in Minnesota chose to sneer at Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern because 22 cases of covid were disgnosed in New Zealand this week, after over a month with none.  "They beat it, they beat it, it was like front-page news because they wanted to show me something!" he brayed, because Kiwi public health officials are always trying to make him look bad.  A lot more new cases were reported in places with real, male prime ministers like Italy and Sweden, but he didn't bring them up.  The United States had 40,022 new cases yesterday because we haven't slowed the testing down enough.

Of course, the main reason for the trip was to insult Rep. Ilhan Omar.  "How the hell did she win the primary?  She's a horrible woman who hates our country."  "Mail-in votes," yelled a helpful Trumpanzee.  What she needs is a male in, right, fellas?  Shut her up, hah?

Workmen unblocked a drain near Trump Tower and out squirted Rudolph Giuliani in the act of tweeting that "Big sign of Democrat trouble was Michele [sic] Obama deliberately not mentioning Kamala Harris" in her keynote speech.  Meee-oww!  Cat fight over here!  Or possibly she recorded the speech before Joe Biden chose Harris last week.  Rudolph was listening so intently for Harris's name that he didn't hear the Last Lady say this:  "If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can; and they will if we don't make a change in this election." 

While Moscow Mitch and the gang drink juleps on the veranda, Madam Speaker is still at work, pushing a $25 billion postal service funding bill and scaring Louis DeJoy into promising not to fuck it up any worse than he already has.  Exactly how removing sorting machines and mailboxes was supposed to save money is not clear, but an enraged public and a proactive postal workers union apparently got someone's attention.  I wonder if anyone envisioned a female Speaker in 1920.

Trump didn't spend the whole day slandering Ilhan Omar and rage-tweeting about Michelle Obama's evisceration of him.  He told followers in Oshkosh, Wisconsin,  "We moved the capital of Israel to Jerusalem.  That's for the evangelicals," he added, surprised that they're more excited about it than "Jewish people."  I'm surprised, too -- I didn't realize we had the power to pick out capitals for other countries.  But evidently Zionism, not chronic unemployment, is issue number one in Oshkosh.

And then it was time to throw a bone to the "suburban housewives" he sees as the key to victory:  a full pardon for Susan B. Anthony on her conviction for attempting to vote in 1872.  "She was never pardoned, did you know that?  What took so long?" he asked of the woman he never heard of before today.  Anthony was pretty badass and she's dead -- just the way Trump likes troublesome women (and Black men like Jack Johnson).  I don't know all the facts, but Anthony was probably convicted of breaking New York law, since elections are the purview of the states, so she isn't really eligible for a presidential pardon.  I doubt she'd accept one, especially from someone accused of multiple rapes.  In other words, Donzo, you should fold your pardon into thirds and insert it in the pink mailbox. 

Well, that's interesting

Dictator:  "We held elections and as long as you don't kill me, there won't be any other elections."

Belarusians:   "Fine, whatever it takes."

War, they say, is what teaches Americans geography.  Belarus, just west of actual Russia, was the heart of what Timothy Snyder has called the bloodlands, the part of Europe that saw the worst of mass killing between 1939 and 1945.  I don't think the grandchildren of the people who survived that are too bothered about one more death.  When you've lost the TV news stars and the factory workers, it might be time to get out of Minsk.

 You can't tell about families.  Edwin Booth was a highly esteemed actor.  William Patrick Hitler served in the US Navy during World War II.  For all I know, Robert Trump was a prince.  He raised a fine daughter.  It's certain he deserved a better tribute than he got from his older brother the galaxy-class narcissist:  "He was my biggest fan."  Big brother wants to hold his funeral in the White House because it's cheaper than Frank E. Campbell, especially if he can get the DoD to send over a coffin.

Another week, another quack covid cure:  Trump wants the FDA to hurry up and approve an extract of the toxic plant oleander because the ridiculous MyPillow guy has a lot invested in it.  Why should Kushner be the only one to monetize the Trumpandemic?  I just decided I don't care how many idiots destroy themselves by taking medical advice from a game-show bankrupt.  A votre sante!

If the Democrats plan to give one minute to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and unlimited time to John Kasich, they have not been paying attention.  Why is this anti-choice Republican even on the program?  Just give his time to a series of Lincoln Project spots.  The time to be reach-across-the-aisle conciliatory is when Trump and his co-conspirators are awaiting trial.

It seems like only yesterday that Murdoch's New York Post was declaring New York in play.  Probably not so much now that Trump has re-tweeted (from some racist named Straka) "Leave Democrat [sic] cities.  Let them rot."  On a lighter note, there's fresh video of the First Escort refusing to hold hands with the Pussy Grabber as he totters down the steps of Air Force One.   If the DNC doesn't like my Lincoln Project suggestion, maybe a montage of all the times she has pulled away, accompanied by "I Wanna Hold Your Hand."  Work with me, Tom Perez.

Coronavirus cases are rising alarmingly from Italy to New Zealand.  It looks like the rest of the world is already on its second wave.  Come on, Yanks, don't let those foreigners creep up on you.  Tear the masks off old people and spit on them!  Pack the little ones off to school!  Hit the water parks and bars!  Play (every kind of) ball, and don't forget to crowd the churches!  Half a million dead by Labor Day sounds like a lot, but we used to build a Liberty Ship every twenty-four hours.

We still don't know the name of the bareassed Berliner who chased a wild boar to retrieve his laptop, but we know the boar's name is Elsa.  She and the shoats are a regular attraction of the park, where they enjoy visitors' food.  "They phlegmatically forage in broad daylight," said Katja Kammer of the Grunewald district forestry office.  Excellent use of "phlegmatically," but why do you have to kill them?  Man got his computer back and we all enjoyed the show.  "Withdrawn as a matter of priority" is a terrible euphemism.  Save Elsa and her babies.

And by the way, more Germans:



It says they're protesting the commercialization of football.  Maybe this could replace taking a knee?

Double plus unsmart

It's been less than a week, but the misogynoir is in full bloom.  Kamala Harris is not only disqualified despite being born in Oakland, California -- no one has yet disputed that -- but she's "Hillary's girl," "a corrupt and dangerous fraud" and "an opportunistic authoritarian interventionist."  So many big words, all linked up, must amount to something.  Did you know that Wikileaks has already released everything they have, 137 documents?  Must be mainly birthday greetings and recipes because nobody is paying any attention to Assange's Russian propaganda outfit this time.   I'll leave the last word to elegant aphorist Eric Trump:  "Harris was a whorendous pick."  It's a pun!  Because Daddy told him women are basically all tramps, especially the Black ones.

There's really no place to go except to suggest that she's really a man, like Michelle "Big Mike" Obama (because Barack is a Total Gay, everyone knows this) or possibly one of David Icke's shape-shifting lizards.  Why not both?  I'll bet she also wants to "hurt God" because her mother used to take her to a Hindu temple.  And eats baby glands.

It's not a Republican campaign until at least one fictional character has been dragged in.  One of the Trumpettes complained that Kamala Harris sounds like Marge Simpson.  Marge says she's feeling "a little disrespected."  Mrs. Simpson, have you met Murphy Brown? 

We can debate these issues because there is really nothing else to discuss, like where all the mailboxes went or why people keep dying of covid despite this administration's spectacular response like nothing you've ever seen.  Why don't millions of people want to give up their $200-a-week luxurious lifestyles and go back to work?  Why do parents who hate America not want their kids back in school?  Kids are practically immune and you can always have more. 

On the subject of viruses, say hello to Avian Leukosis.  Thanks to the latest contender for Mount Rushmore, you could be encountering it on your plate soon.  It makes tumors grow in chickens and has been shown to cross over into meat processing workers.   The National Chicken Council says it's no big deal because their chickens don't come from China.  Now where's that tweet where Trump demanded Obama's resignation after one American died of Ebola?
 
"Putin is laughing at Obama," Trump declared when Edward Snowden moved to Russia.  Also he did "tremendous damage" to the United States and should be executed for treason.  Did I say "executed"?  I meant welcomed home.  "A lot of people" are saying he has been treated unfairly, and a pardon may be the solution.  Maybe a parade, made up of all the criminals pardoned by Trump.  I hear Scooter Libby twirls a mean baton.  Did a large check clear, or does Putin just want Snowden out of his guesthouse?  We may never know.

"There's no evidence of widespread voter fraud," said Jake Tapper on CNN this morning.  Retorted Mark Meadows, "There's no evidence that there's not, either.  That's the definition of fraud."  Yes, without evidence you can be pretty sure of a crime.  But the important thing is, Meadows won't be fired as White House chief of staff for at least twenty-four hours.  It must be exhausting to be that stupid.  No wonder the others quit.

Leftovers

With 30 million unemployed and more than a hundred covid deaths a day, the Senate is on vacation until after Labor Day.  What are they, France?

The Biden-Harris campaign raised $26 million yesterday.  Sheldon Adelson should expect another panicky phone call.

NETFLIX COOPER!  Sarah Cooper's trumpantics on Tik-Tok got her a special on Netflix.  Must investigate!!

Trump is already claiming his Nobel Prize for "brokering" an exchange of ambassadors between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.  One hitch:  UAE says the deal will "suspend" further annexation of Palestinian territory and Israel says it won't. 

This morning Trump admitted to Maria Bartiromo that he wants to make voting by mail impossible.  Other people heard him say it.  There's video.

"My hair, I don't know about you but it has to be perfect.  Perfect."  Cardi B?  Justin Bieber?  Gavin Newsom?  It's Trump again, whining that there isn't enough water pressure for his daily shampoo-rinse-repeat.  Since that structure on his head requires at least a can of lacquer per day and regular applications of yellow dye, maybe the water is not the problem. 

Bob Woodward's new book Rage will finally share with a prurient world the "beautiful letters" Trump exchanged with Kim Jong-un.  Meanwhile Michael Cohen offered a taste of his forthcoming Disloyal, which portrays Trump as "a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man."  Yawn.  Get to the golden showers.

Kanye's been "running" again.  Kim needs to mash up his pills and put them in applesauce.

Yay, more methane in the atmosphere.  That'll show Obama.

Those protesters and their signs were more terrifying than we thought.  While Trump shat his diaper in the Leaderbunker, the Secret Service was calling in air strikes.  5/29 is the new 9/11.

Speaking of fecal discharge, Trump has unveiled his Official Derisive Nickname:  Phony Kamala.  Pathetic, right?  D+.  Too bad Joe Shapiro can't do this for you, Donzo.

Now that Georgia is poised to sent an actual Q Qrazy to Congress, I actually had to devote time and thought to this mess, neither of which I can spare.  I still think it began with a bunch of stoners watching Star Trek:  The Next Generation and wondering what if the Q Continuum was real?  When the others went out for snacks, one of them began writing on Twitface about an almighty Q who is waiting for the right moment to Make the Galaxy Great Again.  It was back in the era of Hillary's Slave Colony on Mars so he put that in.  His friends thought it was awesome, but not everyone got the joke.  Some deeply stupid people took it seriously and it went viral.  Before long it got away from them and now...I mean, has anyone else noticed that it's just another version of the twelfth-century Blood Libel?  Only instead of Jews and the blood of Christian children it's Hollywood celebrities and Democrats (some of whom are Jews) using baby glands for some fell purpose.  Also echoes of the Protocols (early twentieth century) with its world-wide conspiracy to something-or-other.  With some effort I feel like I can work in Freemasons and Prester John but seriously, who gives a damn?  Why don't I just take the rest of August off like the fucking Senate? 

Hugh Downs was the Lindbergh baby.  My cousin's oral hygienist saw the long-form birth certificate.

Misogynoir

(Thanks to Stephen Robinson at Wonkette for that sadly needed coinage.)

I hope someone cleaned the termites out of Trump's head before Kamala Harris moved in.  His obsession is now total.  Trump judges all women on appearance and fits people into ethnic categories, so he has no idea what to call a beautiful woman whose ancestry is Jamaican and Indian.  He fell back on "nasty," his one-size-fits-all for women who scare him.

This morning he started out with a few practice swings about Joe Scarborough's "ditzy airhead wife" Mika Brzezinski, "stone cold crazy" Nancy Pelosi and of course Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ("not even a smart person...she goes out and she yaps").  Having nailed down the "suburban housewives" he believes will re-elect him, it was Kamala Time:  "a mad woman...so angry...such hatred for Justice Kavanaugh."  Not to mention "liberal" and "weak on facts."

As Trump walked back to the dugout leaving the bases loaded, the rest of Team Trump tried to rally.  Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) declared Wall Street "delighted with Biden/Harris" while Ronna McDaniel (R-Thewholedamnparty) warned that she will abet "the radical socialists and anarchists."    The comedy team of Diamond and Silk turned up on WMAL radio to explain.  "Kamala is not even Black.  So you know when she talks about racism, that's why she don't care about it," said Silk.  "Somebody claimed that she's Asian American and then they're saying she's Indian.  I don't know what she is," added Diamond.  Baba-booey!  Meanwhile on Fox, Mark Levin was breaking the news that Harris is "not African American.  She is Indian and Jamaican."  A distinction without a difference, but white people like to announce this as definitive unless they're talking about Colin Powell, whose parents were also born in Jamaica.

But wait!  Harris may not even be American according to John C. Eastman, who published an op-ed in Newsweek debating (with himself) the meaning of "birthright citizenship" under the Fourteenth Amendment.  Eastman belongs to the Federalist Society, he used to clerk for Clarence Thomas and he ran for California attorney general in 2010, losing to the guy who lost to Kamala Harris, but I'm sure none of that affected his legal reasoning, or led to Newsweek having to publish a disclaimer.  (We're not birthers!  Why would you think that?)

Nobody ever worked harder for a pardon than Dinesh D'Souza, an authentic Indian.  (Expect to see a lot more of him and Nikki Haley over the next three months.)  He wasn't on Twitter to question the bona fides of Shyamala Gopalan, however, but to wonder about Donald Harris's complexion:  "If the Democrats want persons descended from slaves to receive reparations from those descended from slaveowners, how much should Kamala Harris have to pay?" See, because she is both, probably!  For him I have two words:  Sally Hemings.  Millions of people are descended from both slaves and slaveowners.  It's called rape.  You remember -- it came up at the Kavanaugh hearing.  I can't believe Christopher Hitchens called you "smart."

Down to their last out, Team Trump had a surprise on the bench:  "Just in case you thought Biden's candidacy was going to be anything other than completely nuts, team Trump has released a new video," said the tweet from Zombie Herman Cain.   Proof of life after...no, sorry, it's just some friends keeping his account alive because so many people depend on knowing what Cain would have said about stuff if he wasn't dead.  I know I do.