Slouching toward midnight

 ...when it all comes slithering down.  I'm facing the future with a clean scalp and an empty desk.

In a year distinguished by time-wasting lawsuits, this is my favorite:  Robert Galinsky of Yonkers is suing King's Hawaiian of Honolulu in a Manhattan court because its Hawaiian sweet rolls are actually made in California.  As it clearly says on the package.  May I suggest King's Hawaiian point out that Galinsky does not live in Manhattan, for a start, and is also a raging nutter?   

Gov. Mike DeWine reports that sixty percent of Ohio nursing home employees refuse to take the covid vaccine.  Surely this is grounds for dismissal.

The Secret Service was founded to track down counterfeiters but its main job now is protecting the president and vice-president for the rest of their lives.  The presidential detail is being "reorganized" because of fears that Trump has salted it with fanatics and potential assassins.  America in a nutshell 2020 -- we have to worry that his bodyguards will do to Joe Biden what the Praetorian Guard did to Caligula in 41 CE.

How many In Memoriams do I have to watch before somebody remembers Terence McNally?  

Trump is sure that Brad Raffensperger's brother Ron "works for China and they definitely don't want 'Trump.'"  Yes, he now puts scare-quotes around his own name.  He relayed this very important information from Dick Morris (remember that asshole?), who now graces Newsmax.  Raffensperger does not have a brother named Ron or anything else, but why let facts get in the way?  Hey!  Maybe Stacey Abrams is his sister, too!  As Fats Waller used to say, "One never knows, do one?"

South Dakota Governor and Sturgis Homecoming Queen Kristi Noem posted a photo of herself on Instagram with a flamethrower.  This was bound to happen after the 2008 Republican convention, when Sarah Palin toted an assault rifle onstage.  Rep-elect Lauren Boebert is so afraid of the Democrats, she promises to carry her sidearm on the House floor and has already pledged Free Dumb Caucus.  Will Nikki Haley continue the Repub Gals Arms Race by acquiring a bazooka?  Stay tuned.

The competition for Trump's Looniest Lawyer is equally fierce, and L. Lin Wood enters the new year with a commanding lead.  Today he used his Twitter account (soon to be cancelled, I'd guess) to assert that Jeffrey Epstein is still alive, that John Roberts probably killed Antonin Scalia and is also a pedophile.  When people demurred, he whined about "defamation."  Then he urged the patriots to stockpile "Second Amendment supplies" in case Biden tries to seize power on January 20.  He also calls Roberts and Stephen Breyer "profane anti-Trumpers," whatever the hell that means.  Kanye West called, Lin.  He says for god's sake take your meds.

Now that Brexit has been achieved, Stanley Johnson is applying for a French passport.  He says he'd rather be a European than a citizen of Britain, of which his son Boris is prime minister.  Ouch!

We broke our own record with 3,764 covid deaths on the last day of the year.  On January 19 Joe Biden will lead the nation in lighting candles and ringing bells at the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate all the dead of the Trumpandemic.  Even FDR in 1933 didn't come into office like this.

Before I go I'd like to thank Google for making it harder to write this, especially the links.  Had to be said.  

Enough.  We're all tired and fed up to here, and I plan to spend the night listening to the late Scottish singer/songwriter Jackie Leven on YouTube.  If Dylan or Lou Reed could really sing.  Treat yourself.  This guy was great.  Why am I just finding out now?  Thank you, Ian Rankin, and happy Hogmanay.

Nearly done

 Everything ends -- the Black Death, the Hundred Years War, and the Year of our Ford 2020.  Tomorrow night, in fact, even if Times Square is not writhing with idiots taking pictures of themselves and getting their wallets lifted, the piece of time we have chosen to call 2020 is over forever.  Of course, it's only an artificial distinction we impose on the planet's trip around the sun -- look, it's not as if the madness will end but we can act like it will.  Meantime...

A lot of people died in the Trumpandemic.  One was Dawn Wells, who was on some show called Gilligan's Island.  Oh, all right, I've heard of Gilligan's Island, I didn't spend all of the Sixties reading Hegel.  Ms. Wells was 82 and died in an assisted-living facility in California.  Rep.-elect Luke Letlow (R-LA) was half her age when he succumbed to the Democrat hoax in a Shreveport hospital.  Alan (Lord) Sugar, the entrepreneur who hosts the British version of The Apprentice, announced the death of his sister Shirley at 88.  

The super-contagious form of covid identified last week in Britain has turned up in Colorado and California in people who had no connection to the UK.  Surprise! the virus is evolving like every other living thing.  Experts think the newly developed vaccines will still be effective against it, but so far no one really knows if they work at all.  About two million Americans have been vaccinated so far; at this pace, it will take ten years to get around to everyone.  Trump blames the states.  Astonishing, right?

This is exciting:  Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Jr., has hired a firm of forensic accountants to examine Trump's tax records.  Of course it's all completely UNFAIR & CORRUPT because Cyrus Vance, Sr., was Jimmy Carter's Secretary of State back in 1977-1980.   Witch hunt!!!  Must recuse!

On August 21, 2019, Pamela Perry told Nashville police that her boyfriend Anthony Warner was building bombs in his RV.  She gave them two of his guns and said she did not want them in her house.  They took her in for a psychiatric evaluation.  Then they explained that since he was not a Black woman or a Middle Eastern-looking guy, they could not enter his home to check.  No, that's not correct -- they didn't tell her.  

No $2,000, no $600, no nothing.  Prepare for eviction on Monday, and thank Mitch and the gang.  

Never mind the foodbanks:  the Dow is surging!

It's a Hawley jolly New Year -- Josh Hawley plans to join Mo Brooks in making Missouri a laughingstock next week by trying to overturn the election result one last time.  Could this yutz be opening his 2024 campaign?  Sure, why not, what the hell.

Three more weeks of this sedition kabuki.

Suppressors gonna suppress

 It seems only weeks ago that Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger were celebrated as heroes for doing their jobs -- governor and secretary of state respectively -- and following the law.  Only last week Trump supporters wanted them imprisoned or worse, and the death threats threatened to drown out "White Christmas."  Georgia was so proud.

But the electing isn't over, and it seems ol' Brian and ol' Brad have been up to their ol' tricks, purging voters because of unverified change-of-address information.  Over 4,000 were removed in Muscogee County, which Biden won; another 150 were in Ben Hill County, which is Trump country.  Today federal Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner ordered the voters reinstated in a suit brought by Majority Forward.  Expect the whining and death threats to be dialed up to eleven, for Judge Gardner is the sister of Stacey Abrams and declined to recuse herself for that reason.  Fraud!  Illegal voters!  You know the song.

It matters because there has already been record turnout for a special election.  Nothing riding on it except Moscow Mitch's ability to block every attempt by the Biden administration to pull this country out of the abyss Trump drove it into.  Mail ballots are having their signatures scrutinized under a microscope, attempts to make early voting more difficult had to be smacked down, and the TV ad blitz is relentless.  What will the boys come up with next?  Strap in, it's a week to election day.

As of today, 346,258 Americans have died in the Trumpandemic, a number which is sure to spike after the big "Fuck it, let's travel a lot for Christmas" event.  President-elect Biden promises to use the Defense Production Act to make vaccines as soon as the White House is vacated and fumigated.  I wonder why Trump never thought of that.  Maybe it's because he has so much on his plate:

Complaining (prompted by Breitbart) about "elitist snobs in the fashion press" failing to put the First Escort and her relatively new kidneys on the cover of any fashion or lifestyle magazines during her four years as  "the greatest of all time" (greatest what is unspecified).

Issuing a proclamation about ending "religious persecution worldwide" on the 850th anniversary of the assassination of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.  Sign me on, I'm tired of being persecuted by the religious.  Tax the churches!

Putting out a video claiming he won a Nobel Peace Prize with the wrong medal (spotted by a sharp-eyed numismatist named John Kraljevich).  Dementia -- how does it work?

Ignoring the car bomb a white man set off in Nashville.  I guess it's just another "Democrat-run" hellhole.

Tweeting about his new imaginary friend, "a young military man working in Afghanistan," who told him that their elections are fairer, more secure and much tastier than ours.   (Wouldn't that be "a soldier"?)

Shopping for a Palm Beach Xanadu large enough that he will never have to see Melania and the kid, or notice when they leave.

Pardoning, unnoticed among all the celebrity sleazebags, former Maryland cop Stephanie Mohr (and presumably her "black ass"-savaging dog, too).  I didn't know Bull Connor had a granddaughter.

Demanding, after months of negotiations, that the covid stimulus check be increased from $600 to $2,000, solely to give McConnell an excuse to blow it up.

Having his incoherent veto of the National Defense Authorization Act overridden by Congress, which is not as passionate as he is about keeping the names of traitors on military bases and punishing social media which tag his bullshit as "This is bullshit."  The power of McConnell compels you!

Still insisting he won the election.

Tirelessly golfing.

Blowing the bloody doors off

 OF COURSE it was terrorism.  It's not useful to distinguish between personal grievance and ideological program when trying to understand the thinking of a suicide bomber.  It's not significant (though gratifying) that he tried not to harm anyone else.  It's not important that he parked in front of AT&T rather than a library, a synagogue or the Grand Ole Opry.  And it doesn't matter that he didn't leave a hundred-page manifesto that anyone has yet found or deciphered.  If Anthony Warner just wanted to listen to Petula Clark and kill himself -- and who hasn't been there on Christmas morning? -- he could have parked his RV in the woods, injuring only trees and squirrels.  Several blocks of a major American city (and state capital) are now a blackened crime scene and lots of people were terrorized.  Reason not the need.  As Mr. Pierce observes, "Had Warner been a Black Lives Matter activist or a Muslim cleric, we would not be having these angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin discussions about who is or isn't a terrorist."  

You don't need a bomb or a gun to be a terrorist.  A few hours after Mr. Warner merged with the infinite, the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court had to issue a statement condemning "threats of actual or proposed violence" against herself and others from citizens displeased by the court's recent ruling against another ludicrous Trump lawsuit.  In particular, Justices Dallet and Karofsky have been subjected to "a torrent of misogynistic and anti-Semitic messages."  Justice Brian Hagedorn, a Republican, was especially shocked to find himself accused of membership in the Chinese Communist Party.  I'm shocked that he's shocked.  This is your party's base, Mr. Justice.

In Prince William County, Virginia, a sheriff's deputy was fired for suggesting that the life of Chief Justice Roberts "needs to be shortened" after two more anti-Trump rulings.  (He claims his Parler account was hacked.)  He also proposes to kill nurses who administer vaccine, "the mentally ill," Barack Obama, you know, the usual.    

Louie Gohmert, one of the more creative crazy people, has sued Mike Pence in a Texas federal court, so expect another quick dismissal and more death threats.  The suit seeks to overturn the Electoral Count Act of 1887 and force Pence, who will preside on January 6 when the Senate confirms the Electoral College, to throw out electors from Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and Michigan and appoint others who will do it to Louie's liking.  If nothing else, we are learning a lot about obscure laws.

If Gohmert v. Pence doesn't excite you, how about Geraldo Rivera rowing away from the Trumptanic?  The TV personality who wanted to name a vaccine in Trump's honor barely a month ago is now officially done with the "entitled frat boy" who no longer takes his calls, and with his "pathetic lawyer" Sidney Powell, too.  Could it get worse?

Apparently.

No, it's not photoshop, it's yesterday's Murdoch Post.  "Here's how to save your legacy," it says.  Oh, Rupert, the destruction of the democratic system is Trump's legacy, and history will record your role.  Why jump ship now?  Do as scores of real journalists have had to do and hire more bodyguards.  Let's hope the next Cesar Sayoc or Tony Warner doesn't find out where you live.  

My book report: The malady lingers on

Timothy Snyder, Our Malady:  Lessons In Liberty From a Hospital Diary, 2020, Crown

"In short, a man comes in here in perfect health," says Dr. Bock (George C. Scott) in The Hospital,  "and in the course of a week we chop out one kidney, damage the other, reduce him to coma and damn near kill him."  In Paddy Chayefsky's film, the victim gets revenge in ways which illustrate the shortcomings of modern American medicine.  Most of us would sue.  Timothy Snyder wrote a book.

The author of Bloodlands, Black Earth and other important works on twentieth century Europe was not in perfect health when his ordeal began.  He presented, as they say, at a Munich hospital with abdominal pain but perhaps because he didn't complain enough (coming from a Midwestern farm family where men did not gripe), they failed to diagnose appendicitis.  He flew home with a perforated appendix and underwent surgery in New Haven.  The post-op antibiotics were insufficient or incorrect, and by the time he joined his family for a Florida vacation he was already septic.  

Unsatisfied with his treatment in a Florida hospital (he's not specific) he returned to Connecticut thanks to his wife's organizational skills with paperwork and wheelchairs.  In the emergency room, surrounded by cases eerily reminiscent of Chayefsky's film, he was eventually admitted, wheeled into an alcove and all but "neglected to death" with an as-yet-undiagnosed liver infection.  Snyder had an advocate in the form of a physician friend who stayed with him and tried to attract the attention of someone who could help, but even she was unsuccessful.  Tests were done but nobody recognized the implications of the results.  He endured two spinal taps because something went wrong with the first.  Eventually he had liver surgery and it only took three tries to get the drain properly positioned.  And in spite of all this, he observed and thought and kept the diary "stained by saline, alcohol and blood" which forms the basis of this book.                  

You might expect the holder of an endowed chair at Yale with excellent insurance to get better care than, say, a Medicare patient in Georgia.  You would be wrong, I note with ill-concealed satisfaction.  The system of medicine for profit does nobody any favors and will only change when more privileged patients are forced to experience it.  Living part of the time in Vienna, where his son was born, Snyder contrasts the Austrian system of pre- and post-natal care with America's, where newborns and their mothers are hustled out of the hospital and the obsession with the unborn does not translate into concern for the early lives of children.  We are falling behind in life expectancy, crippled by opioid addiction resulting from bad care as much as from despair, and told that ours is the best system on earth because of the freedom it affords.  But as the sacred Founders knew (this is where it helps to be a historian), freedom without health is meaningless.  

All this is starkly in evidence because of the covid pandemic, which arrived during Snyder's time in the hospital.  A month or two later he would not have even been admitted to the overflowing emergency room.  He mercilessly quotes Trump's own tweets full of magical thinking and astonishing propaganda:  "Great discipline is taking place in China, as President Xi strongly leads what will be a very successful operation."  (The White House banned the Washington Post and New York Times but apparently still gets the People's Daily.)   When this book went to press only 150,000 Americans had died of covid.  It seems like a very long time ago.  Competent, less corrupt leadership could have saved lives but the system, as it exists, would still need an overhaul.

Dr. Snyder's prescription is a familiar one:  single-payer for all.  Take power from the corporations and insurance companies and return it to doctors and nurses.  Forgive student debt for doctors who locate to underserved communities.  Plan for epidemics, because there will be more.  Revive the ancient and honorable practice of making house calls.  Remember that the first years of life are crucial, that no parents can or should have to go it alone, that a free and fair society starts with happy, healthy kids.  On the last page he writes, "We deserve freedom, and we need medicine that works...It would begin from the premise that we have a right to health care.  Does that sound like a dream?  Let it be the American one."

It's a short book, a pamphlet really, only 146 pages.  Joe Biden could read it in a weekend.  Someone needs to make sure he gets a copy.  

   

Son of a gun

 I'm trying to maintain my good mood -- don't call it holiday cheer -- by ignoring the criminal scum who got pardons and commutations in their stockings.  I want to look to the future, when a sometime rock critic and lead singer of Coalition of the Willing joins Joe Biden's Cabinet.  Bill Clinton announced himself to a lot of people with his sax playing on Arsenio Hall's show and Barack Obama could ease into "Amazing Grace" or "Sweet Home Chicago" as stylishly as he does everything, but they worked solo.  Give it up for our next Secretary of State, Tony Blinken.  

Twenty-seven days until Mike Pompeo takes his Lawrence Welk mix tape and departs forever. 

Domestic disturbances

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

The good old Third Amendment has been in place since 1789 and while you might question the punctuation (was the comma newly invented?), you can see what Madison and his colleagues were thinking.  Freedom of speech, press, assembly and no established church like England's -- check.  Keep your muskets and drill with the militia -- what could go wrong with that?  No soldiers tracking mud into the house and hassling the serving wenches -- obviously more important than self-incrimination, cruel and unusual punishment and all the other stuff.  As far as I can tell, the Third Amendment has been uncontroversial and unviolated since it was ratified.  

It's time to amend the amendment:  No law enforcement officer shall enter a home unannounced for the purpose of terrorizing or killing the inhabitants.  This is getting out of hand.

In the best-reported of recent cases, a clinical social worker named Anjanette Young was in her bedroom when police battered down the front door and charged in, searching for a 23-year-old man with a gun (and an ankle monitor).  This description did not fit the 49-year-old Ms. Young, but no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of police.  They handcuffed the naked woman and pointed multiple guns at her while searching her home.  Surprise!  Some snitch had given the wrong address.  The city of Chicago tried to cover it up but after more than a year the police video came into the hands of the local CBS affiliate.  Ms. Young is luckier than Breonna Taylor but somehow she doesn't feel lucky.

Two weeks ago in Tallahassee the home of Rebekah Jones was similarly invaded by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in search of her computer and phone.  No one even pretended she had a gun.  This appears to be a straight-up act of revenge on the part of Governor Ron DeSantis, who fired Jones from her data science job because she refused to rig the state's covid dashboard to make the numbers look like the pandemic is "going away, like a miracle."  Most Republican governors have been AWOL in the pandemic; DeSantis, for one, welcomes his viral overlords and has done all he can to serve them.  (The first big spike followed "spring break," when the Trumpoid governor refused to close the beaches, encouraging students to bring the virus back to their communities and campuses.  Remember "We want them infected"?)  To seize her property it was necessary to point guns at Jones, her husband and their two children ages 11 and 2.  She has video.

The Constitution already forbids "unlawful searches and seizures."  It's the "lawful" ones that are leaving a trail of death and trauma.  People are made nervous by proposals to defund the police, but maybe just don't give them more high-tech weapons than a Navy SEAL and carte blanche to let themselves in.  Put home invasion back in the hands of criminals who don't have badges.

   

 

Twenty-nine days

 News for making us happy:

Some people can identify a Grateful Dead song from the crowd noise before a note is played.  Dr. Salvatore Cerchio is like that with blue whale songs.  That's how he found a previously unknown blue whale population in the Indian Ocean near Madagascar three years ago.  He found some cousins singing the same song off the coast of Oman in the Arabian Sea.  The whales are probably hoping he won't give them away to hunters or those pain-in-the-ass tourists.

Trump, his campaign and the Republican Party are being sued by the NAACP on behalf of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and three Detroit residents, for "a coordinated conspiracy to disenfranchise Black voters" under the Voting Rights Act and the Third Force Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act.  I wonder how many other Reconstruction laws are still in force.

As expected, Trump has turned on Mitch McConnell for acknowledging Joe Biden's victory, claiming that only his tweet saved the Kentucky homunculus from certain defeat.  In a message to Republican senators he showed that he has internalized the Titanic trope:  "He was the first one off the ship."  

Mitch has been busy wrangling the covid relief bill through the Senate, not that even one Senator read the whole 5,593 pages.  Not to worry, Charlie Pierce brings us the highlights this morning.  It covers vital matters like the selection of the next Dalai Lama, tax breaks for racehorse owners, and making sure no money goes to ACORN, which ceased to exist ten years ago.  As you decide what to spend your $600 on, be warmed by the knowledge that Israel is getting half a billion.  For defense.

More cannibalism in the lifeboats:  On Newsmax -- is it a cable channel?  A podcast?  A treehouse?  I don't know -- Mike Lindell started to air the Dominion voting machine garbage and Sebastian Gorka told him to stick a pillow over it.  Probably because Newsmax backed down, like Fox News, after that terrifying letter from the Smartmatic lawyers and they don't want a problem with Dominion.  (Biden should hire those sharks for his Justice Department.)  

The next Secretary of Education will be Miguel Cardona, currently education commissioner of Connecticut.  Before that he was a public school teacher and superintendent, so probably he doesn't own even one yacht.

Everyone thought it was polonium in his tea, but Alexei Navalny got an FSB officer to admit it was Novichok in his shorts.  Navalny is all better now, to the annoyance of Putin mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov, who accuses him of having a "persecution complex" and "comparing himself to Jesus."  "And the rest, of course, is an expression of Freud.  The fixation on the crotch area."  Freud, Jesus -- what's wrong with Dostoevsky?

The Kansas City Star has become the latest newspaper to apologize for decades of racist reporting.  How nice.

Trump's not interested in the Russian hack or the covid death toll or any of that other stuff but that doesn't mean he spends all his time plotting sedition.  He signed a executive order requiring that new federal buildings be "beautiful."  This means only "Neoclassical, Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Beaux-Arts or Art Deco."  Hey, Donzo, have you met Prince Charles?  I read The Fountainhead (I was bored) and even Ayn Rand thinks this is nuts.

No matter how bad things get in America, we will never experience Christmas panto, much less the "car park panto" the Brits are getting.  Watching faded sitcom stars enact dreary old stories and shouting "He's behind you" at the windscreen -- poison my pudding now.

Seventy-three West Point cadets have been accused of cheating on a final exam in calculus.  If you don't understand how such a thing could happen, remember that cadets are appointed by Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Gym Jordan, Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, Jody Hice, Ted Yoho, Devin Nunes, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, Clay Higgins, etc., ad nauseum.  And next class, Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene.  They'll be cheating on Introduction to Hygiene.

Et tu, Marion?  Now Pat Robertson has decided Trump is of no further use to the superstition industry.  "You've had your day and it's time to move on," he told Trump via his TV show.  Trump lives in "an alternate reality," added the man who says he believes in talking snakes and zombie carpenters.  And don't even think of running in 2024.  Let the blog say "Amen."   

  

The devil wears sweatpants

 I see we haven't looked at the world of fashion here -- ever.  Big doings, even if nobody leaves the house even to work anymore, and many of us have been in bathrobes longer than Hugh Hefner.  It's not my area but here we go:

K Tyson Perez of HardWear Style has accused Givenchy of stealing his design for a leather hat.  Not a new one, one from 2013.  "This shit has to end," he says according to the Guardian, which unforgivably does not include a photo of said hat.  All leather hats look alike to me.  I think I owned a straw hat once but it kept falling off.

Angela Davis is launching her own fashion line at age 76, in conjunction with the Los Angeles label Renowned LA.  The logo to be featured on shirts and hoodies is "We not asking no more" and part of the proceeds go to appropriate causes.  

Best not to wear your Angela Davis hoodie with a kilt for now.  The Verillas kilt has unfathomably been adopted by Trump's favorite thugs the Proud Boys, and the company is not happy.  "Disgusted to see members of 'Proud Boys,' a fascist terrorist [organization] wearing our products," they tweeted.  Verillas, which is LGBTQ+-owned, retaliated with a contribution to the NAACP.  I'm sorry but I find the yellow and black garment butt-ugly (sorry) no matter who wears it.  But if your political program looks best on your ass, be my guest.

Were you a lucky recipient of the 2020 White House Christmas card?  Where Melania and the one-term loser are grinning on a staircase in matching pants suits?  Good, then I don't have to link to it.

I think that's enough from the runway.  It's time to play "What Scares Lou Dobbs?"  The answer is a twenty-page letter from a law firm to Fox News demanding a retraction of last week's lies about the election tech company Smartmatic.  The walk-back was shown on Dobbs's show, "Justice With Judge Jeanine" and Maria Bartiromo's "Sunday Morning Futures."  Trump wishes he could find lawyers as effective as Smartmatic's, but there's only so much you can do when your client has no case.

Readers will recall that the Pompeos' Christmas party was cancelled because the wait staff outnumbered the guests, but when your address is 1600 Black Lives Matter Plaza, it's a different story.  Even Brian Kemp and his daughter showed up on Friday night so the "so-called Republican" could be abused in person for failing to rig the election for Trump.  I assume.  It's not clear if the host even stopped sulking and greeted his guests, or if he was hashing out coup plans with Powell, Flynn and Giuliani.

Sure, they talk about it, but here's someone who's taking action, damn it:  Retired Houston cop Mark Aguirre, who forced a truckload of air conditioner parts off the road because he was certain it contained fake ballots.  It was sheer luck that the driver wasn't killed.  Something about getting children to sign the ballots because their fingerprints can't be traced...I gave up halfway through.  This guy is cabinet material for the second Trump term, or possibly the third.   Otherwise, I suggest an insanity plea.

 

Ignorance and want

 

(Swiped from today's Wonkette.   Thanks to the anonymous genius who created it.)

Only one president has been called a liar while speaking to a joint session of Congress on national television, and surprise! it's the Kenyan Muslim Usurper.  His noisy critic, Wilson of SC, was recently found taunting Democrats for cowardice in the face of covid -- until he himself tested positive.  "You die!"  Merry Christmas, Michelle and Barack.

Wilson isn't dead yet but his fellow idiot, Ken Buck (R-CO), has a good reason to refuse vaccination:  "I'm an American.  I have the freedom to decide..."  Another proponent of "my body, my choice" (as long as your body will never house a zygote).  I'm with you, Ken -- more vaccine for intelligent people.  Don't let me catch you wearing a mask or washing your hands.  I assume you're headed for church tomorrow.

Mike Pompeo could be the next Cabinet member to beat the Christmas rush out the door:  He says Russia is "pretty clearly" behind the Pearl Harbor-size cyber attack on the government.  This contradicts Trump's insistence that "it may be China" and is in any case exaggerated by the "Fake News Media."  Palm Beach residents are in court trying to prevent him living full-time at Mar-a-Lago, so it sounds like he's making sure of a welcome in Moscow.

Congress managed to vote a budget extension but is still wrangling over relief for victims of the Trumpandemic.  The main goal in the Senate seems to be screwing both desperate families (who have probably blown through the $1,200 they got in April) and the Biden Administration by limiting the Fed's emergency lending powers.  It's a two-fer!  Leading the fuckery is the very same Ron Johnson who held a hearing for conspiracy nuts only days ago.  "If they would rather die they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population," right, Ron?

Sidney Powell may be rewarded for her unbroken string of courtroom defeats by becoming a special White House counsel investigating "fraud," i.e., the ass-kicking administered by Joe Biden over a month ago.  Even Giuliani thinks this is a bad idea.  Powell brought along her former client Michael Flynn, who again argued for martial law.  As long as the MyPillow clown is writing checks, this could be yet another profitable exit scam for everyone.  Meanwhile, more judges in Wisconsin and Arizona have batted aside challenges to the election results from Powell and her tame kraken.  (I don't believe a federal judge has ever called a filing "bass-ackward" before.)

The struggle continues outside the courtrooms, too:  A family in Little Elm, Texas, erected a BLACK LIVES MATTER sign in their yard and woke to find their two cars on fire and "Trump 20" spray-painted on the garage door, as if there was any question.  

Britain has doubled down on its restrictions a week before Christmas because the coronavirus is not only spiking but mutating and becoming 70 percent more transmissible.  Nevertheless Trump wants to lift travel restrictions between the US and Europe in the next week because the airline industry is hurting.  Also, "We want them infected."

In two days Jupiter and Saturn will come together for the first time since 1623 in a "Great Conjunction," unleashing torrents of bullshit about a "Christmas star."  Feel free to ignore it, even if you live in Bethlehem (Pennsylvania).  Sleep in whatever peace you can muster. 

Last things

Did you know you can't drink alcohol on the floor of the House of Representatives?  I don't know about the rest of the building -- some of those people are not legally qualified to drive -- but not in the hallowed chamber, where apparently guns can be carried.  Anyway, outgoing Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-SC) toasted the end of his one term by opening a can of "Joint Resolution" ale but not imbibing.  It's that lack of commitment that stalled his political career.  What are they gonna do, Joe, censure you?

Bigger doings elsewhere.  For instance, acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller cancelled further cooperation with the Biden transition team because everyone is too busy trying to grasp the extent of the catastrophic Russian hacking at DoD and elsewhere.  (You know it will turn out to be Obama's fault, him and his "wire tapps.")  They're enraged that Biden proposes to end work on WALL, some of the money for which came from, let's see, the cybersecurity budget.   How about that?  Not to worry, Trump is on the Twitter:  "Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded."  The hell with all the missile data, hang onto that obsession with "election hacking."  

Other Trump obsessions got an airing this week:  the water pressure in his damn shower, the Supreme Court ("I am very disappointed...and so is our great country!"), the election he lost ("We won Wisconsin big.  They rigged the vote!") and -- wait for it -- John McCain.  "Check out last in his class John McCain, one of the most overrated people in DC."  Also dead for over two years, but sure, why not?  Nothing about Rosie O'Donnell?

The Pfizer vaccine distribution is proceeding about as well as everything else the executive branch has touched in the past four years.  The company says it has millions of doses ready to deliver if only someone would tell it where.  Even red states are getting shortchanged, so it's not your basic revenge, it's your basic blithering incompetence.  Some suspicious types are beginning to ask who's found a way to profit from this, as they did last winter when Slumlord-In-Law Kushner told the states they couldn't have any from his stockpile of ventilators because they were his, go get your own, Governor Cuomo.  See, that's what happens when news breaks about shell companies and missing money.  Loss of faith.  Some people are whispering that Trump has a bigly share of Moderna, whose vaccine was approved today.  Stop whispering, mean people.  So vicious.

It's December and we know what that means -- decorations, presents and government shutdown.  Moscow Mitch can't even get his demented caucus to keep the lights on, much less do something for those wonderful people out there in the dark.  Some leader.  I wonder if the Magic Bus containing Sarah Palin and her Merry Wanksters is still rolling through Georgia in an effort to keep him in power.  Democrats say the Warnock/Ossoff cause benefits every time Trump snarls at Kemp and Raffensperger, which is daily because he continues to have lost Georgia.

Could Wilbur Ross's Commerce Department have had its thumb on the scales when the FAA cleared the Boeing 737 Max for takeoff (and subsequent crash in Ethiopia and Indonesia)?  What do you think?

.

 

Have to get a bigger chart.

My Day

 The title today is borrowed from the column Eleanor Roosevelt used to write while her husband was President.  She also made speeches, advocated for important causes and, when war came, visited American troops fighting all over the world.  She was the first "First Lady" who got up Republican noses because she didn't give tea parties and shut up.  For this, and for not being remotely glamorous, she was mocked without mercy.  (She once declared she would never cross a picket line.  Long after she died, William Buckley was still repeating his zinger about throwing a picket line around her.)  Hate for both Roosevelts continues to energize the right wing, or at least that segment which has heard of something that happened before 1970.

Mrs. R comes to mind because high-achieving women continue to panic the boys.  It's bad enough they have to pretend to tolerate the ones who hold elective office.  When they come along with their husbands and have the gall to involve themselves in policy, like Hillary Clinton with health care, the venom really flies.  Michelle Obama was Public Enemy No. 2 because she believed children should eat vegetables and exercise regularly -- the greatest threat to Western Civilization since Genghis Khan.  Curiously, no one had a problem with Laura Bush, a former librarian, urging people to read (she even created for her husband a list of books he was too drunk to read in college).  Maybe not so curiously.

Nobody bounced off the ceiling when Dr. Jill Biden's husband was Vice President and she continued to be identified by her academic title and to teach at a community college.  (Doesn't Karen Pence teach art at some superstition academy?)  As she prepares to move into the White House every asshole is proffering an assholish opinion:  It's elitist and pretentious, her dissertation doesn't meet his exacting standards ("like pig Latin or dogs barking"), and she got a negative notice on some blow-off-steam website (she's a bad teacher and she grades too hard -- the slacker's equivalent of "terrible food and such small portions").  Also, if she's such hot stuff, why does she teach at a community college instead of GWU or Georgetown?  She should smile more.  What's up with her hair?  

Dr. Biden and I are fed up to here with your shit.  So is Jen O'Malley Dillon, who ran Mr. Biden's highly successful, landslide-victory campaign (81 million -- it's a record, like the daily death toll from the Trumpandemic!).  Dillon told Glamour that Biden "was able to connect with people over this sense of unity."  Some mocked him:  "'You think you can work with Republicans?'  I'm not saying they're not a bunch of fuckers."  There was a 0.1 earthquake as men fell to the floor in shock.  What if some toddler got hold of her mother's copy and thought it was all right to talk like, well, that fat man who's always yelling about "shithole countries" and "grab 'em by the pussy" "beat the crap out of them."  CIVILITY!  Of course, she's right.  They are a bunch of fuckers.  What else can you call them?  "Basket of deplorables" shocked them, too.  I prefer "bucket of chum."  But fuckers will do.  

"We want them infected."  Paul Alexander, HHS fucker

California, where the spread-the-infection policy has triumphed, will lose $200 million in Medicaid  funds in the next quarter because it requires state health plans to cover abortion.  

Speaking of education, in her farewell to the troops Betsy DeVos encouraged staffers to "resist" attempts to forgive student debt, regulate for-profit colleges, repair Title IX rules about sexual abuse and other socialistic plots to spoil all her good work.  

Coach Tuberville has volunteered to be Mo Brooks's accomplice in "overturning" the election result on January 6.  He proposes to "beat the Electoral College," possibly in the Orange Bowl.

Just a sampling of today's fuckers.   A fucker is a fucker.   They aren't even smart fuckers, smart enough to stave off the worst cyberattack in history.  Not even smart enough to change the password on the Stable Jenius's Twitter account.  Dumb fuckers.  

Apologies to Mrs. Roosevelt, who probably didn't even know that word.  That's my fucking day.

Unsustainable

 Robert Reed (not the dad from The Brady Bunch, the retired police officer from East Lampeter, Pennsylvania) says the election was "stolen from Donald Trump."  He is, however, ready to move on.  I know the feeling, Mr. Reed.  Four years ago the lady got 2,868.686 more votes than your guy and all she won was a trip home to Chappaqua.  I had to move on, too, grousing all the way -- read this blog if you don't believe me.  But I respect your willingness to be an adult about this.  There should be more Republicans like you.  Start a blog, you'll feel better.

It seems that Mr. Reed and like-minded voters are a lonely minority.  Most of the Mouse King's base are still roiled with rage, egged on by office holders and propagandists for reasons of their own.  For example, the pride of the Peach State, newly elected Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, tweets, "Every Republican that isn't fighting for @realDonaldTrump's 2020 landslide victory is supporting the Chinese Communist Party takeover of America."  She didn't just read that in the QAnon Qarterly, either -- it's a drumbeat among the NeverBidens.  Lin Wood, the Darrow of the Dirteaters, knows why Mitch McConnell did treason yesterday:  "Mitch McConnell is NOT a Patriot.  Ask his wife.  She knows."  McConnell's wife, Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, was born in Taiwan, which is not only not Communist China but is desperate not to become Communist China; nevertheless, guilt by racist association and/or geographic proximity.  Happy as it makes me to see McConnell the recipient of racist slander for a change, this is extremely fuckbonkers even for Wood.  Taylor Green was praised by freshly pardoned Michael Flynn ("Now here's a Georgian who gets it & is demonstrating courage unlike many other Republicans"), while Sebastian Gorka chimed in, "@Senatemajldr caves to the mob, refuses to wait for the final January 6th Electoral College count."  With friends like these, Mitch...

Some dead-enders promise to make all sorts of trouble when Congress accepts the results of the electoral vote.  (Will Lauren Boebert bring guns for everyone?)  Ron Johnson (R-WI) says he won't play.  He will, however, hold hearings because "a large percentage of the American population don't view this election as legitimate."  A large percentage also question the moon landing, the shape of the earth and the death of Natalie Wood, but Johnson won't be looking into those because they offer limited opportunities to repeat "HUNTER BIDEN'S TAXES" at least thirty times.  As a witness he plans to call Ken Starr, who is still outraged over Trump's impeachment.  Can you wait to hear what he has to say about election fraud?  Then perhaps one of the Democrats can ask him about his stint at Baylor and the rapey football players, which is certainly just as relevant.

China -- excuse me, Communist China -- is so toxic among the profas (opposite of antifas, I just coined it) that David Perdue is sending years of his life down the memory hole to escape the taint.  Before he was a senator he was a Sara Lee executive who specialized in closing Georgia facilities and finding cheaper labor in Asia.  He did the same for Pillowtex, a "failed North Carolina textile manufacturer" of which he was CEO.  Not only has he scrubbed his own CV, he likes to accuse Jon Ossoff of taking money from the CCP and being endorsed by the Communist Party USA.  So do not waste time looking at this picture of the Perdues visiting the Great Wall, because they would never.

There is hope, even in Washington, it seems:  Mike and Cindy Pompeo invited 900 close friends to their Christmas coronavirus party; only 70 RSVP'd and even fewer decided that eating canapes with a failed Secretary of State was worth risking their lives.  Mike is currently quarantining, so he can finish off all the party food while he waits for another test result.

Fox News is dead.  Trump said so.  Also he's annoyed by all the "unedited commercials" and says they're "floating in limboland."  (Could he mean "Limbaughland"?)  But it's still the place to go when you want to get a message to Dear Loser Leader, and it's where Lindsey Graham went to express his support for a special prosecutor to investigate All The Bidens.  Poor Lindsey, he'd give Trump a lap dance if he had a lap.

Dear, dumb Kelly Loeffler had no idea she was posing with a former Klan leader.  She thought Chester Doles was just an ordinary militia founder and Trump supporter who marched with "Unite the Right" in Charlottesville.  She would like you to ignore this picture and help her save America from dangerous extremists like Rev. Warnock.

OK?  OK.

Now, where are we?

In basic reality news, Vladimir Putin and Mitch McConnell acknowledged that Joe Biden is the President Elect after the often fraught voting by the state electors.  Today they were joined by Kayleigh MAGAnanny in what may be her last assault on the press.  Jim Acosta thought so -- he called her a hypocrite as she flounced out.  In two months the punters will be complaining that White House briefings aren't great TV anymore.

Having visited Georgia to urge a vote on June 5 -- fine by me -- Trump has reverted to the grift he knows best, raising money for the Senate runoff election, most of which will find its way to him.  Meanwhile he retweeted this threat from mob lawyer Lin Wood:

  

I'd say Kemp and Raffensperger have as much chance of "going to jail" as Hillary Clinton but as Hemingway would say, isn't it pretty to think so?  The flag pins are a lovely touch, by the way -- nice work, Wood's Photoshop intern.   Trump added his own Vercotti brothers comment:  "What a fool Gov. @BrianKempGA of Georgia is.  Could have been so easy but now we have to do it the hard way.  Demand this clown call a Special Session and open up signature verification NOW.  Otherwise could  be a bad day for two GREAT Senators on January 5th."  Nice state you got here, Brian.  Would be a shame if it was to get two Democratic senators, the HARD way.  You like cucumbers?

I've been working all day on an extra-wide-bus joke but it just didn't come together.  Anyway, that's where Bill Barr will be thrown on December 23, having perverted the hell out of the Justice Department but somehow failed to shout HUNTER BIDEN INVESTIGATION in a timely manner (James Comey, who publicized HILLARY EMAILS four years ago, is the template).  For less than a month he'll be replaced by Jeff Rosen, whose firm represented Bain Capital (Mitt Romney), BP (Deepwater Horizon) and Jeffrey Epstein (dead procurer of underage girls), so, you know, very fine people.  Barr was allowed to use his service revolver write a slavering resignation letter, but he was obviously fired.  

Joe Biden coughed several times during his speech last night and again today campaigning in Georgia, so he must be dying.  You can wait for confirmation from Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs, but remember, you saw it here first.  

Somebody (the Russians) carried out a huge security breach at the Treasury and Commerce Departments.  Expect more of this after their puppet's strings are cut on January 20.  Chris Krebs could not be reached for comment.

Maybe you watch the cable news too much and you see Pfizer vaccine being loaded into/unloaded from FedEx trucks.  Maybe you think, "Hmmm, I don't see any postal vans or even UPS.  I wonder why that is."  This is why -- the Haslam family of Tennessee cut a nice, big check to the Trump Inaugural Slush Fund.  (Bill Haslam is a former governor and dead ringer for Dana Carvey.  There's a Haslam College of Business in Knoxville.  They can afford to grease the skids.)  

Daniel Uhlfelder is a Florida attorney who sued to get his state's beaches closed in order to prevent the tsunami of covid infections and deaths it is currently experiencing.  He also dressed as the Grim Reaper and tried to frighten away the bathers, but I think that's protected free speech.  The governor wants the court to sanction him over his "baseless" lawsuits.  In a climate where Sidney Powell, Rudolph Giuliani, Lin Wood, Pam Bondi, Alan Dershowitz, Joe DiGenova, Victoria Toensing, Jenna Ellis et al. impersonate drunk squirrels in courtrooms all over the country, I don't think Uhlfelder has much to worry about. 

Social note:  Mike Pence is hosting a Life Is Winning Event to celebrate the return of septic self-induced abortions, an uncontrolled pandemic, federal executions and the other accomplishments of "the most Pro-Life President ever," you know who.  Sadly, I'll be busy celebrating the achievements of Ludwig van Beethoven, born 250 years ago tomorrow.  Remember the 200th?  We didn't get home until four in the morning.   

Defund the electoral college!

 It's Other Election Day.  Let's see what one candidate is up to.

1.  The nation's business.  "Oh no!  What is going on?   This is not good news, even for 'Indians'.  Cancel culture at work!"  This refers to a decision by the Cleveland baseball team to change its name to something less racist.  As national spokesman for racists, Trump needed to weigh in.  First they came for Chief Wahoo, but I was not a cartoon stereotype so I said nothing...

2.  Prison reform.  "Among others, I am considering a FULL PARDON for America's Dad, the great Bill Cosby who is in all likelihood totally innocent.  Sad we live in a country where great men like 'Dr' Cosby are in prison and crooked Hillary is not!"  As national spokesman for rapists...Wait, is he saying Cosby is not a real doctor?  I believe he holds an Ed. D., as does Jill Biden.   Only yesterday Joseph Epstein was attacking her for using the degree she earned when "Mrs." was good enough for every other presidential wife.  (For this and other outrages to decency, Northwestern University took down his page, so expect them to be attacked for "cancel culture" too.)  Back to Cosby.  Who are these other "great men" languishing in dungeons because some broad changed her mind about being drugged and assaulted?  I'll bet Roman Polanski's starry friends are burning up the White House switchboard as I type.

3.  American democracy.  In Michigan, hotbed of patriotism, Democratic electors are receiving armed escorts from their cars to the Capitol, while electors in other states are meeting in secret locations.  Meanwhile the loser's tiny thumbs fly over his keypad:  "dead people, below age people, illegal immigrants, fake signatures, prisoners...ballot harvesting, non-resident voters, fake ballots, "stuffing the ballot box", votes for pay...THIS ELECTION IS UNDER PROTEST!"  Complain all you want about that muffed play at third, this game is going into the record as a W for Biden/Harris.  If you don't believe me, talk to the nine umpires in the black robes.

(Wait till he sees this:

]

It's the first two electoral votes in New York being cast by BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON!  What more evidence of ILLEGAL CORRUPT FRAUD!!! do you need?  And they're wearing masks so you can't see them grinning.  In Georgia the result was announced by governor-in-exile Stacey Abrams, who conspired with Brian Kemp, Brad Raffensperger, the Chinese Communist Party and George Soros to steal the state from Trump.  Long story, don't have time now.)  

4.  Public health.  As the death toll passes 300,000, health care workers and the at-risk are getting the first doses of Pfizer super-cooled vaccine.  Trump wanted some for the White House where everyone has already been infected, but was talked out of getting it himself because needles are ouchie.  There is as yet no vaccine suitable for snorting. 

 

          

Dismissed as moot

 I can't understand it.  Usually an amicus brief from an imaginary state is enough to put you over the top.  But the Supreme Court had this curt response to Ken Paxton's historic lawsuit:  "The State of Texas's motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution.  Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections.  All other pending motions are dismissed as moot."  Vague demurral from Alito and Thomas (as predicted here on Thursday), but not a whisper from the illegitimate Merrick Garland replacements Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett.  

It wasn't just New Nevada and New California who signed on -- there were 126 Republican members of the House, including their minority leader, who associated themselves with this act of sedition.  No doubt they plan to continue their assault on democracy in January, when they "debate" the vote of the electoral college.  When that fails, they go to the mattresses?  Bring out the vuvuzelas?  March around the Capitol banging on pots?  We haven't been here before -- in 1860 they just went home.

  

Trump just missed out on Time's Person of the Year -- in fairness, it took two people to beat him -- but Der Spiegel has named him Loser of the Year.  "Trump's presidency ends as it began.  Without decency and without dignity."  As if to make their point, he blew off a White House Christmas party so he could spend more time rage-tweeting about Barr, Kemp, Ducey, Hunter Biden, and of course the Supreme Court ("No Wisdom, No Courage!").   

Remember that as Trump continues to plant flunkies and die-hards on "advisory boards" to continue spreading his contagion.  Today's winner is Douglas Macgregor to the West Point advisory Board of Visitors.  He's a retired army colonel and a real pip who has some quaint views on martial law, the urban "underclass" and slavery.  Doesn't like Muslims but seems to think people like Mike Pompeo and John Bolton are getting rich off the "Israel lobby."  As for World War II he believes war with Japan was "engineered" to end the Depression and that the big mistake was fighting the Nazis -- which might be the reason the Senate refused to confirm him as ambassador to Germany.  In short, it will be just like having Trump around for another three years.  Sorry, cadets.

I have no clear idea who Todd Starnes is except that he shows up on Fox News and spreads disinformation.   I think he just got Trump (who is in a particularly excitable condition today) to admit to treason.  This morning Starnes tweeted,  "At this point @real Donald Trump should declassify everything.  Everything."  At 8:36 am Trump confessed, "I have been doing this.  I agree!"  Giving Kellyanne Conway a job on a part-time Air Force Academy board is one thing but this has to cross some kind of national security line.  Isn't this why Chelsea Manning went to prison?  Are you allowed to betray your country's secrets just to stick it to Joe Biden?  It's bad enough that by tradition the Bidens' china pattern will be selected by Melania von Schtupp.

Most people have harmless ways of dealing with depression:  shopping spree, spa day, loud music, controlled substances, alcohol, pint of Cherry Garcia.  Trump handles the blues by killing people.  Four more federal executions are scheduled between now and January 20, a tacit acknowledgment that he's really going away.  "A most intolerable ruffian, a disgrace to human nature, and a blot of blood and grease upon the History of England" is how Dickens concludes his account of Henry VIII.  May I borrow those words?

***************************************************

I'm all out of ice cream and firewater.  Luckily Dolly Parton still walks among us.  I'm not surprised that she saved a little girl from being hit by a vehicle on a movie set.  It's what she does when she isn't helping fund the Moderna covid vaccine, or making sure kids have books to read, or awarding scholarships, or basically being the patron saint of east Tennessee.  So if she wants to pose for Playboy on her 75th birthday or sell her song catalogue for a mountain of money or sail away on a yacht the size of Minorca (she won't), it's fine with me.  Obama said his greatest regret was not giving her the Medal of Freedom.  Can't we do better than that?  Maybe a ship?  

  

  

Road to Nowhere

 Club for Growth, Sarah Palin, Louie Gohmert, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Jim Jordan, Steve Daines, on a bus.  WIN GEORGIA SAVE AMERICA.  That's all.  That's the entire joke.

More?  Have a tweet sequence from Junior Trump warning about the "radicle" left.  Three times, not a typo, just dumb. 

Not to be outdone, lawyer to the stars L. Lin Wood, Jr., misspelled his own name on a motion for certiorari from the Supreme Court.

"The bookies" don't pick the president and neither does Time, but it's hilarious to imagine Trumbert Trumbert's reaction to this.  How many times can a loser lose?

Mellissa Carone -- I know, right?  She's not worried about catching covid from Giuliani, nor will she get tested unless Trump tells her to ("Trump cares about American lives").  That's not the funny part.  She's signed on to the bat conspiracy theory, that Obama paid a laboratory in Wuhan to "create" the coronavirus.  Presumably to steal the election from Trump because everything that happens is a plot against Trump.  There must be a seat for her on the bus.

Alamance right!  The First Amendment is no longer in effect in Alamance County, North Carolina, where Judge Fred Wilkins has banned reporters from his court.  The case in question in one in which Black Lives Matter has taken an interest.  The funny part is that Wilkins is only a "visiting judge," the voters in another county having turned him out.  I didn't say funny-amusing.

"Let it go.  The election is over."  Who said it?  I won't keep you in suspense:  Jeb Bush.  The same one who didn't care how many legal challenges it took to secure the 2000 election for his brother George.  Blood is thick, they say, but Republicans are thicker.  All right, I say.

Haim Eshed's claim that aliens have visited earth and that only the "Galactic Federation" has prevented Trump from talking about it was walked gently back by people who want to remember him as the former head of Israel's space security program and in possession of all his faculties.  As if a mere Federation of Planets could keep Trump quiet.

"I just want to stop the world from killing itself!" the most harassed president in all of history tweeted today, as the days dwindle down to eviction, disgrace and probable indictment.  Apparently the way to do that is to end the 250 year experiment in self-government and give a crown (and a Noble Prize and a blanket pardon and a He-Man of the Year cover and a vaccine with his name on it and maybe a one-time emolument to cover all the money he owes around the world) to Mighty Sleazer.  Also, he'd like to buy the world a Diet Coke and teach it to sing.  Sing, damn it! 

Trumpusha!

 Here we are wondering what Trump will do when he finally realizes his eviction notice was signed by eighty million people, and Russian state media has the answer:  "Our Donald" should be granted asylum in Russia so he can avoid prosecution -- sorry, persecution -- in this country.  One member of the Defense Ministry compared his troubles to the Stalinist terror of the 1930s but added a stipulation that he should "transfer his capital here and finally build his famous Trump City somewhere in our New Moscow."  At that point I realized it was a Borat-level put-on:  Trump has no capital, as any Russian insider would know.  The pity bucks he continues to squeeze out of the MAGAts, for now, don't come near the amount he owes just to Chinese banks.  He never paid attention during classified briefings so he has no information to trade that he hasn't already blurted out ("super duper missiles").  Just another old man kicking pigeons in Gorky Park.  Nice try, Russian Sixty Minutes.  Real original name, too.

(Do enjoy the proposed New Moscow, though.  Unlike Germania, it might actually be built.  Not exactly Haussmann's Paris, but maybe better than Brasilia.)

In hate news, Moscow Mitch is still resisting even a tiny check for needy Americans -- there's your "war on Christmas," Fox News -- but the Payment Protection Program has shoveled $4.3 million to some of America's finest hate groups, including the American Family Association, the David Horowitz Freedom Center and Church Militant/St. Michael's Media.  What, nothing for Opus Dei?  Not a "small business"?

With that in mind it's hard to be shocked when the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial is defaced with swastikas and Nazi propaganda.  Yesterday a mask mandate vote had to be cancelled because Ada County commissioner Diana Lachiondo got a call from her twelve-year-old son about protesters surrounding the house and pounding on the door.  Lovely spot,  Idaho.

Speaking of hate, the newest member of Trump's legal team of dreams is racist/homophobe John Eastman.  His last imposition on the national dialogue was that Newsweek op-ed about how Kamala Harris is too [birther garbage] to be Vice President, for which they had to apologize.  He sounds perfect.  Yes, that assault on the legal system the Paxton Lawsuit is still awaiting dismissal by the Supreme Court, with seventeen other Republican attorneys general as passengers.  Do they all need pardons?  It would be wrong to speculate.  

Trump is still spewing most of his bile at Brian Kemp ("What's wrong with this guy?  What is he hiding?") which just fills me with holiday spirit.  The gist of it is that Georgia elections are hopelessly corrupt but everyone should vote for Perdue and Loeffler because Biden won and Vice President Harris will be the tie-breaker if Ossoff and Warnock win, although Trump won bigly, all the bookies say so, and therefore no big deal.  #CONFUSE-A-CRACKER.  Twitter can't cancel his account soon enough.  Meanwhile Giuliani, who got the deluxe covid therapy you can't afford (the one that involves tissue from aborted fetuses, ssshhhh, don't tell anyone), is out of the hospital and testifying virtually to the Georgia legislature about his latest thrilling accounts of computer hackery and ballots being delivered by carrier pigeon.  Whatever.

The "legal" challenges are going nowhere, even if Alito says to Roberts, "Let's hear this one just to listen to the Cruz guy pretend he's Perry Mason," but not to worry:  The Big Guy will make it right.  I refer to Jericho March, the problem Barack Obama described back in 2008, "clinging to guns and religion."  They're going to #OVERTURN the old-fashioned way, by marching around and around various government buildings making noise and talking to themselves.  When the "patriots and people of faith" are finished, Joe Biden better not pretend he's the president because -- I can't wait to see.  Earthquake?  Lightning?  Walls a-tumblin' down?  Superstition, it's super. 

 

Yesterday's heroes

Remember how everyone was all "Kemp really stood up to Trump, didn't he?  And the other guy, Brad, he ignored all the death threats.  They saved democracy!"  Well, not so much.  Yesterday we learned that populous Cobb County, next to Atlanta, has closed six of its eleven early-voting sites.  With all eleven, voters waited up to ten hours in last month's general election.  So ol' Brad and ol' Brian are up to the ol' voter-suppression tactics which worked for them in 2018.  They're probably hoping ol' Don will forget to abuse them on Twitter this week.

They got lucky.  Trump has a new enemy of the people to obsess about, no less than the Supreme Court of the United States.  There were two lawsuits yesterday trying to get Pennsylvania's absentee ballots thrown out, one brought by Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Ofcourse), the other by the Texas attorney general.  Both were shot down like this:  "The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied."  SCOTUS TO POTUS:  DROP DEAD.  Even if they find more star witnesses like Mellissa Carone, Schlemiel Team Six may be out of legal remedies.  

This is the danger week before the electoral college meets on December 14.  Trump could continue calling Republican governors and state legislators, alternately wheedling and demanding that they somehow replace all their electors with Boogaloo Bois.  Or he could "encourage" the Michigan and Arizona rioters and their ilk to take the next step, a violent coup.  It wouldn't be the first.  On November 10, 1898, a mob of white supremacists overthrew the elected government of Wilmington, North Carolina, a piece of history you don't learn about in school.  As recently as 2007 state representative Thom Tillis tried to muddy the record by pretending that the Democrats are still the racist party they were 122 years ago.  Now the bastard's a senator.  

Or Trump could simply continue his long trek into senility and incoherence.  Today he tweeted, "At 10:00 PM on Election Evening, we were at 97% win with the so-called 'bookies'." Even if this were true it seems to lack evidentiary value.  Still, the grifting is constant:  the Trump "legal defense fund" has collected at least $200 million from the rubes since November 3 while spending only a fraction to fly Powell, Giuliani and their viral loads from city to city.  When Elvis died, Col. Tom Parker said, "I plan to keep right on managing him," and Trump plans to keep right on monetizing the presidency.  An outfit called Paramount Realty USA has set up a GoFundMe to buy the Trump ancestral home in Queens and present it to him for "a charity of his choosing" (whatever scam replaces the Trump Foundation) or "a token of appreciation."  Given the Drumpf family history, maybe a whorehouse.

In what I believe the football folk call a "Hail Mary," Hunter Biden reports that his taxes are being investigated by the US attorney in Delaware.  Better late than never, I guess.  Say, whatever became of that Very Significant Laptop?

Pfizer vaccination has begun in the UK, with 90-year-old Margaret Keenan the first recipient.  Two other people had allergic reactions, so the NHS is advising people with food allergies and other sensitivities to hold off for now.  Meanwhile in Russia, doctors are telling people who get the Sputnik V vaccine to avoid alcohol for two months.  You can imagine how well that's going down.  ("I'll take my chances with the impotence, spasibo.")  Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to be first, to demonstrate its safety -- apparently Israel also has its share of anti-vaxxers.  I wonder if they're given platforms like the one Senator Ron Johnson afforded crackpot Jane Orient this week.  (Jane Orient?  Scott Atlas?  Who's inventing these characters, Neil Gaiman?)

Speaking of covid's lingering effects, Louie Gohmert's tooth fell out at a press conference.  I'll spare you.

Joe Biden is reportedly considering Pete Buttigieg as ambassador to China.  Oh, but Russia would be so much better!  I want to see Putin's face when Pete and his husband Chasten walk into the Kremlin.

Still promoting "herd immunity" and ignoring nearly 300,000 dead, Trump says it's "terrific" that fifteen percent of Americans have confirmed coronavirus.  If he's denied credit for the vaccines, he should definitely get praise for all the dead.  No question, even George W. Bush and "Heckuva job" Brownie didn't destroy this many lives through incompetence and neglect.  Not even close.  And his favorite place is deep-red South Dakota, where one person in three is infected thanks to Governor Kristi Noem ("Oh golly is she dumb!" -- Sarah Palin).  Her victory dance in the Wall Street Journal has been reprinted as a pamphlet by Funeral Director Monthly.  Allegedly!

We have a real hero in Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ).  Alone among elected officials as far as I can tell, he wants Trump and his enablers prosecuted so this crap never happens again.  Others have called for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission like South Africa after apartheid.  That was a way to shine light on past injustices and allow white and black South Africans to go on living in the same country.  What Pascrell has in mind is crime and punishment, making Trump and plenty of others rot in prison.  I couldn't agree more.  There's already talk of a January 20 hate rally to distract from the Biden-Harris inauguration and kick off the 2024 campaign.  Make them dodge US marshals and process servers instead.  I hear there's a vacant cave in Tora Bora.