Best served lukewarm

 "Until I think of someone I'd like to kill," said the great artist Ed Sorel, "I can't get out of bed in the morning."  Nothing gets Trump out of bed in the morning except an early tee time, but he too relies on rage, it seems.  Usually it's a woman he blames for all his woes -- an uppity reporter, a political opponent, one of his wives, an assault victim/adult film actor who goes public.  This week it's Rep. Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who betrayed him by voting for impeachment.  Kevin "Steve" McCarthy made the hajj to Mar a Lago yesterday and it looks like the main topic of discussion was Getting Rid of Liz.  Trump wants her primaried and has ordered Junior to let fly with his witty tweets (Senior is still banned).  McCarthy says he supports Cheney but has "concerns"  -- a real leader.  

Another probable rage target is the writer Craig Unger, whose new book American Kompromat says Trump was talent-spotted by the KGB back in 1977 when he married Ivana Zelnickova, a Czech model.  Ten years later they were being entertained in Moscow and Leningrad, where the stupid, vain American was encouraged to think of a political career.  And I thought Putin picked up his scent in 2013 when he brought the Miss Universe skinshow to Moscow and eliminated the "too ethnic" contestants. One more book for the winter reading list.  

I know who I'd like to kill:  The managing editor or whatever they're called at MSNBC.  Every time I look up it's Marjorie Taylor Greene committing more verbal atrocities.  She's colorful, she's "good copy" -- have the media forgotten that this is how Trump began to be taken seriously six years ago?  No backwoods freshman needs wall-to-wall coverage when there's a new administration struggling like Hercules with a hernia to clear out the Collyer brothers mansion of trash it inherited.  (Too many pop culture references there, I'm a little dizzy.)  She's even known breezily as MTG.  Stop thinking of the ratings for a minute, you're about to lose at least one viewer.

Greene held a "town hall" in Dalton where, despite constant whining about "censorship," she refused to answer a question from a reporter and threatened the TV crew with arrest.

Greene believes "space solar generators" caused the California wildfires of 2018 and that a sinister "vice chairman of Rothschild, Inc." is somehow involved.  (They start fires for no reason!  I saw it in a Christopher Marlowe play!)  This particular outburst has since been deleted from Facebook because she is pretending to be a serious lawmaker now.

Greene yelled abuse at Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg as he lobbied Congress for anti-gun legislation in 2019.  Her tweet, referring to Hogg as #littleHitler -- you remember how Hitler hated firearms -- has not been deleted because this kind of thing appeals to her cracker constituents.

Greene's neighbors hate her already.  Cori Bush (D-MO) has to move her office after Greene and her minions berated her (she only wears a mask when she's screaming about being CENSORED) and called her "the leader of the St. Louis Black Lives Matter terrorist mob."  

Greene's too nuts for at least one backer, TV producer Alander Pulliam, who has cut off donations.  How nuts?  Well, Pulliam wrote a Trump-loving book called God's Plan so molto nuts.  "Grow up, you're a grown woman," he told her somewhat confusingly.  

Greene's Facebook page is a treasure trove of murderous violence, where Nancy Pelosi deserves "a bullet to the head" while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would merely be hanged.  Maybe that's why Pelosi was livid when McCarthy's "conversation" with Greene led not to disciplinary action but a place on the Education and Labor Committee.  That should sit especially well with the Sandy Hook and Parkland parents ("False flag!").  Maybe she'll try to force schools to "Teach the Q Controversy."  Maybe that's why Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) introduced a resolution to expel the mad cow.

"The enemy is within the House of Representatives...in addition to what is happening outside...We have members of Congress that want to bring guns on the floor and have threatened violence on other members of Congress," the Speaker said yesterday.  Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) is not waiting for the Gomez resolution to pick up support -- she and others are buying bulletproof vests.  Even the last Reichstag of the Weimar Republic didn't have to do that.

I am now officially done with the Fuckface of the Fourteenth.   Unless she shoots someone, is expelled,  or gets her stringy hair caught in the wheel of an Amilcar CGSS and is decapitated, I do not plan to revisit the subject.  

Sorel was right, though.  Got me out of bed.

 

The morning after

 Now that Mar a Lago is no longer a no-fly zone, someone has hired a pilot to fly over the country club and "Office of the Former President" towing a banner that reads "TRUMP YOU PATHETIC LOSER GO BACK TO MOSCOW."  He should have expected nothing better:  Joe Biden carried Palm Beach County by nearly 100,000 votes.  Then there are the full-time residents reminding him (in court) that he gave up his right to live there in a 1993 tax dodge.  

He's still doing better than Mike and Karen Pence.  Long accustomed to public housing (Indiana governor's mansion, Vice Presidential residence), they're reportedly holed up in a cabin the present governor uses as a retreat or "staying with family."  Some are calling it "couch surfing."  After Trump's lynch mob invaded the Capitol chanting "Where is Pence?" it sounds more like witness protection.

Hard times have also come to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).  They lost the White House, they lost the Senate and they appear to have lost their headliner, who is sulking in Florida.  As a result, they are losing corporate sponsors who would rather not have their brand associated with violent sedition.  In search of someone to blame, CPAC settled on Politico for writing about their predicament.  A lawsuit is threatened but don't dare call it "cancel culture." 

More bad news:  In states which report party affiliation of voters on a regular basis, more than 30,000 Republicans have already changed their registration to Independent or Democratic.  The states include Pennsylvania, Florida, Colorado, Maryland and North Carolina.  I wonder if CPAC will threaten to sue them for reporting.  Nevertheless Mark Meadows told "Two Foul Ball and a Miss" that the attempted coup is not "important to Main Street." 

Meadows found a job so he's luckier than many former White House staff, with one recruiter calling them "narcissistic."  Shocked I am.  Maybe leave it off your CV -- tell them you were in a coma.  Or prison.

Trump's stand-up guys the Proud Boys may soon be recruiting a new leader.  Enrique Tarrio used to be a snitch for the FBI.  Nothing political, a case involving stolen goods, but his agent/handler says he sang like a canary.  It's hard to get good help these days.

Ty Garbin of the Wolverine Watchmen has pleaded guilty to plotting the kidnap of Governor Gretchen Whitmer last October and is ready to testify about his co-conspirators.  Bummer.

The police are investigating why Kellyanne Conway thought it would be a good idea to post a topless picture of her sixteen-year-old daughter Claudia on Twitter where Trump can't see it.

And finally, there's a new meme in town:  Peter Doocy, Fox News:  "What did you talk to Vladimir Putin about?"  Joe Biden, USA:  "You.  He sends his best."  Thank you, folks, he's here until 2025!  At least.

   

A few buttons short of a cardigan

 You're mad.  I'm mad.  We're all mad.

Jimmy Patronis is Florida's Chief Financial Officer.  Most states have a comptroller or a treasurer, but let that go.  Patronis has written to the International Olympic Committee to say that Florida is ready to step in if Tokyo decides to opt out of next summer's games.  Florida has had nearly two million cases of covid and over 26,000 deaths.  Tokyo has had 95,500 cases and 793 deaths.  Of course, Tokyo lacks anyone like dynamic Governor Ron DeSantis, who is so desperate to downplay the catastrophe that he is pursuing a criminal case against whistleblower Rebekah Jones.  According to sport economist Victor Matheson, there is no way Florida could complete the required structures by next summer just to boost the state's economy and fill its empty hotel rooms.  Not to mention it's too damn hot in the summer.

Mellissa Carone has announced her candidacy for the Michigan House of Representatives.  She was introduced to America as Giuliani's star witness at a committee hearing in Lansing, where she claimed to be a contractor for Dominion Voting Systems.  It turned out she was hired for election day to spritz and wipe the voting machines between uses.  Also, some mean people said she appeared to be drunk.  Undaunted, Carone promises to "clean out Lansing just like draining the swamp in D.C."

About that swamp.  Millions of coronavirus doses allegedly shipped to the states appear to be missing, leading to cancelled appointments and harried officials.  Sure, some of that is rich people pulling strings, but not twenty million vials.

Ted Wheeler, the mayor of Portland, was outside a pub after dining with former mayor Sam Adams when they were confronted by a man with a video camera demanding to know why they were not wearing masks.  When he ignored a request to back off, Wheeler pepper-sprayed him.  Tempers are frayed in Oregon.  I remember when only women carried pepper spray.

Victoria Gagliardo-Silver wants it known that the Biden administration's plan to put Harriet Tubman on the twenty is Not Acceptable To Her.  First they need to address police brutality, the high birth mortality rate among Black women, disproportionate covid deaths, economic inequality and the lead-polluted water in Flint, Michigan.  She's right, the Tubman twenty is a symbolic gesture, like removing Confederate statues and re-naming military bases.  Should we cancel those things, too?

The TSA reports that there were fewer passengers last year but more of them brought guns.  

Under fire for her support of impeachment, Liz Cheney goes on the offensive.  Her spokesperson said of one of her attackers, "Matt Gaetz can leave his beauty bag at home.  In Wyoming the men don't wear makeup."  Cat-fight on Aisle Two!  Do Biggs next!

Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers want her case thrown out because the grand jury that indicted her was not ethnically diverse enough.  (She was indicted in White Plains because of covid restrictions in Manhattan.)  Since grand juries are a rubber-stamp procedure after prosecutors decide to make a case -- proverbially against a ham sandwich -- this is not going anywhere.  Trump wished her well but forgot to issue a pardon.  As the star of Home Alone 2, at least in his own mind, he knows there's always someone you forget in the rush to the airport.  

As Russians demonstrate their support for Alexei Navalny and risk arrest and worse, Dutch teenagers are rioting because they don't like the covid curfew. 

Where are they now?  Larry Kudlow has been hired by Fox News but talks with Kayleigh McEnany appear to have broken down.  Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who does not meet Fox's journalistic standard for on-air women, is running for governor of Arkansas.  It's a living.

I didn't even know there was a U.S. Space Command.  I thought it was like the Garden of Statues of Noble Americans that Trump was maundering on about last July at Mount Rushmore.  Well, it's real and it's in Colorado, and their entire Congressional delegation is lobbying President Biden to cancel a proposed move to Alabama.  Maybe Joe could cut a deal where they have to leave their guns at home when they come to work.  It's a small price to pay for all those jobs.   

 

Moot?

 

Just a reminder -- these guys were also out of office when we put them on trial.

Unhappy talk

 On the fifth full day of the Biden administration, the way the president tells time continues to be of overriding importance.  Is he a big phony for wearing a Rolex?  Would it be phonier if a successful man bought a watch at the drugstore?  The internet is saying the watch belonged to Beau Biden, so by tomorrow the rightermost edge of Blogenheim will be whispering darkly that the decrepit, confused old man has conversations with his dead son.  (He also keeps Beau's rosary in his pocket, a whole other level of weird.)    

None of this should surprise those who remember "Ocasio-Cortez paid more than ten dollars to get her hair cut, what kind of socialist is she?"  Some of us can even recall "Al Gore talks about global warming but he lives in a big house!"  And probably has air conditioning, too.  This sort of thing evidently has deep significance for people who measure current events by the sneer on Tucker Carlson's face.  Of course if you attend an outdoor inauguration in sensible parka and mittens, you won't get credit for that either.   The one simple trick is not to give a damn.

The only aspect of Joe Biden's health I worry about is the possibility of carpal tunnel.  Every time I see him he's signing a stack of executive orders designed to restore this country to some semblance of normality while the Senate drags its feet on confirming his cabinet and squabbles over the filibuster.  It  got harder to pass the $1.9 trillion covid relief package, because the latest Article of Impeachment was just presented by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD).  Another first:  no president ever incited an insurrection before. 

Two weeks ago Lauren Boebert was wearing a mask that said "CENSORED" while shouting into a microphone on the floor of the House of Representatives, on national television.  Not to be out-dumbed, Josh Hawley complained of being "muzzled" on the front page of the New York Post.  If everyone is not listening respectfully at all times or giving them money to produce written words, Rightzis think they're Galileo touring the Vatican torture chamber.  Regular people just have to put up with curbs on their free speech.  Last week Lauren Wolfe, an editor at the New York Times, tweeted that she had "chills" seeing Joe Biden's plane land at Joint Base Andrews.  For this she has been fired as Rightzis howled of media bias.  Not only fired:  in addition to the usual abusive messages, she was stalked and photographed walking her dog -- photographs which turned up in the very New York Post which was so solicitous of Senator Sedition's free speech.  No bias there.  No reason for the continued existence of the Times, either, as far as I can see.

Josh Hawley might want to think harder about how he exercises his right to free speech.  Someone discovered a column he wrote for the Lexington News back in 1995, when he was fifteen, praising good folks who "feel alienated from the government" and take refuge in militia movements.  The occasion was the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in which 168 people died, but there is no reason to think his views have matured since then.  He still gets a thrill when "the people" rise up against a "federal government...out to get them."  

Deborah Birx wants it understood that she was not free to say what needed to be said while she served as Mike Pence's "right arm" on the coronavirus task force.  Someone was slipping Trump what she charmingly called "a parallel data stream coming into the White House that were not transparently utilized," i.e., bullshit.  She did manage to pour on the syrup back then about the attention Trump paid "the scientific literature and the details and the data.  I think his ability to analyze and integrate data that comes out of his long history in business has really been a benefit during these discussions about medical issues."  Doctor, the man went bankrupt running a casino.  I wouldn't ask him to analyze the data on a box of Band-Aids.

Rudolph Giuliani's free speech in defense of his indefensible client slid over the line into defamation, according to Dominion Voting Systems, and now he's learning the price:  $1.3 billion, same as they're seeking from Sidney Powell.  (Lawyer:  "That's not a kraken.  This is a kraken.")   Trump's not paying him because he's a loser and I'm not sure Giuliani's YouTube extravaganza "Common Sense" -- Thomas Paine should return from the beyond to sue him -- is bringing in that kind of scratch.  (Although I was happy to learn he's sponsored by a "conservative alternative" to radicaliberal AARP.  One of the A's stands for "antifa," you know.)

Garret Miller of Texas is facing federal charges for participating in the January 6 terrorist attack but not for exercising his First Amendment right to tweet about it.  Not even "just wanted to incriminate myself a little lol" and "Assassinate @AOC."  Just caught up in the spirit of -- he's 34?  Jeez.

White House press briefings will feature a sign-language interpreter.  It's a rich and subtle language.

 

Goofy season

Sidney, Rudolph, Lin, I'm afraid there's a new contender for Worst Lawyer in America.  Meet Paul Davis of Texas.  Davis has some free time since he was fired by Goosehead Insurance, which apparently hates freedom.  They saw the video Davis posted of himself storming the Capitol on January 6 and said, "No."  Anyway, Davis now represents a coalition of groups like "Blacks for Trump" and "Latinos for Trump," which even in Texas had to club together to afford his retainer.  They are suing the entire Congress and some other people in US District Court in Waco on the usual grounds of "election fraud" but this time under the seldom-used theory "Gondor has no king."  Long story short -- extremely long story -- Aragorn has been exiled to Palm Beach and a steward from his cabinet must he appointed until Sauron (Joe Biden) is vanquished.  Gollum (Mitch McConnell) installed some grim specimens on the federal bench but it's hard to imagine one of them giving this more than a quick skim.  Still, it's bound to bring Davis and the renascent Orly Taitz to Aragorn's attention as he prepares for next month's trial by combat impeachment trial.  

State representative Jeff Pyle of Pennsylvania says he's sorry for a Facebook post mocking the appearance of Dr. Rachel Levine, the trans woman nominated for Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services.  But he's not resigning, despite "tens of thousands of heated emails."  Instead he plans to "Be a bigger man."  

Kevin McCarthy knows who is responsible for the terrorist attack on the Capitol.  Apparently I am.  Everyone is.  "I also think everybody across this country has some responsibility," he told Greta Van Susteren.  This evoked many a bemused tweet, the best from George Conway:  "Is this the insurrectionist version of 'she was asking for it'?"  As Mrs. Conway has already observed, if only we all had voted for Trump this never would have happened.  I see them at the breakfast table, reading wildly contrasting newspapers -- no, wait, that's Citizen Kane...

What time is it?  It's New York Times to criticize Joe Biden for wearing a $7,000 Rolex to his inauguration.  Biden is already under fire for using a Peloton exercise bike, whose microphone and webcam pose a "cybersecurity risk."  The honeymoon is over.  For four years classified matters have been discussed openly in the dining room at Mar a Lago while Russian officials strolled in and out of the Oval Office like stewards bearing Diet Cokes, but sure, bicycles and bling.  After every trip on Air Force One I expect to read how much carbon was added to the atmosphere.  The Democrats are in, baby!  

Hey, Kamala, how much did that necklace cost?  Kamala Harris must wince whenever she hears the word "first" -- female Vice President, Asian American, African American.  None of those are achievements.  She was born that way.  People should know about what she did since birth.  

Junior Mance died today aged 92.  He played piano with Cannonball Adderley, Dinah Washington, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Lester Young.  Apparently some TV interviewer has also died and is taking up all the space, so I thought I would remember Mance here.

 

Some kind of week

 I saw him once.

It was probably the end of his career, after he broke The Record.  My dad took me to an afternoon game at Shea Stadium, when those still happened on weekdays.  The Mets were ahead when he pinch-hit in the ninth.  Didn't reach base, but I remember the "oooooh" that rolled around that unlovely ballpark, not booing but nervous respect as Number 44 came out of the Braves' dugout.  So I saw Hank Aaron on a late summer afternoon.  America lost a hero today.  

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

Aaron grew up in the apartheid South.  He said he felt free in Milwaukee, and has been credited with helping John F. Kennedy win the Wisconsin primary in 1960.  He was very unhappy when the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966.  Imagine how he felt when Georgia elected its first Black senator this year.  And in the wake of the attempted fascist takeover of the Capitol, imagine how Senator Raphael Warnock felt:  Video has surfaced of his arrest there in 2017, with a delegation praying for the survival of the Affordable Care Act.  So there is Capitol security, sometimes.

Anthony Fauci isn't the only person who seems a little giddy these days.  People are also having fun with Ted Cruz, who tweeted, "By rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, President Biden indicates he's more interested in the views of the citizens of Paris than in the jobs of the citizens of Pittsburgh."  It's hard to know where to start.  Does he think the Agreement somehow makes us part of France?  Does he think Pittsburgh is still the steel-milling, coal-burning place it was in 1948, when the Donora smog killed twenty and sickened thousands in the Monongahela Valley?  Does he think?  

Over on Fox News, Harris Faulkner is livid about the Time cover by Tim O'Brien depicting an Oval Office covered in litter and fast-food containers while Joe Biden gazes out the window.  "That's not real!" she said.  "That picture isn't real.  Don't we care -- I thought we are a nation that cared about the facts."  Ms. Faulkner, this is what we call satire.  The artist has represented visually the chaos left behind by Trump -- even before we found out that his vaccine distribution plan does not exist.  Please remove those enormous fake eyelashes and look at O'Brien's cover from April 23, 2018, in which Trump is seated behind the desk, waist-deep in water.  Also not real.  Are you familiar with a publication called The New Yorker?

Yes, there's no plan.  Not even a bad one.  Not even Have All Americans Line Up In Alphabetical Order.  But instead of grabbing his phone and tweeting blame and abuse, the president has a plan of his own to have FEMA open a hundred mass vaccination sites within a month.  And invoke the Defense Production Act to mass-produce vaccine, syringes, masks and other necessities.  It's amazing what a signature can accomplish -- it can save lives or it can pardon criminal scum.  

Biden accomplished this and more under the shadow of impeachment.  You hadn't heard?   He's being impeached by "Cuckoo for Coco Puffs" Marjorie Taylor Greene for stuff he did years ago, like being related to Hunter Biden.  And still not a single rage-tweet.  The man's self-control is impressive.  No doubt the Q Qontinuum is eager to sign on, like Andy Harris (Q-MD) who tried to bring his gun to work yesterday, and Lauren Boebert (Q-CO) who helped the rioters case the place on January 5 and kept them updated on the Speaker's location.  I don't see this one making it out of committee, but they'll keep trying as long as Biden spreads "disunity" by refusing to do whatever McConnell and McCarthy want.

Lest we forget, there are still 5,000 National Guard troops stationed in the Capitol.  Today Dr. Jill Biden brought them cookies.  They were baked in the White House but not by her.  The woman is a monster.  

What's the traditional gift for a sixteenth wedding anniversary?  How about spite?  The Trumps shared a heaping bowl on Wednesday.  They fired the Chief Usher Timothy Harleth and sent all the butlers home early so there would be no one to admit the Biden family, who waited on the steps of the White House for ten seconds before someone (who must have been watching television) opened the door.  Beautiful and classy.  

  

  

Photoshop of the day

 

Hello -- remember us?

 Now that the US has rejoined the world, we will do the same.  Big doings out there.

There was a double suicide bombing in Baghdad today, leaving at least 32 dead and 110 wounded.

Sri Lanka is reopening despite a surge in coronavirus cases.  Some are pinning their hopes on an elixir which the goddess Kali revealed to a shaman named Dhammika Bandara.  Made from honey and nutmeg, it sounds tastier and safer than bleach.

Following months of lower-than-average rainfall, most of Turkey's major cities are running out of water.

Forty migrants drowned off the coast of Libya.

India takes comedy seriously.  Muslim funnyman Munawar Faruqui has been arrested for making jokes about Hindu deities.  In Meerus, a statue of Nathuram Godse, who assassinated Gandhi in 1948, has become an object of worship.  Humor is very idiosyncratic.

I knew you'd ask so I checked:  yes, there's a statue of Gavrilo Princip in  Belgrade.  He and drama critic John Simon are the only two Serbs anyone has heard of, and they decided to honor the one who started the First World War.  I see their point.

Happy article about Japanese temples preserving ancient forests.

Unhappy article about poachers in Africa using military-grade equipment like helicopters, armored vehicles and machine guns against elephants.  Don't tell Junior Trump.

British shoppers buying from EU websites during the latest lockdown are being hit with substantial import duties, VAT and other charges, although assured by Boris Johnson that this would not happen.  Could he possibly be lying?  

Tunisia, where the Arab Spring began, is torn with violent demonstrations set off by unemployment, falling standards of living and, yes, covid lockdowns.  

We thought he was crazy to go home but even in jail Alexei Navalny is worrying Putin, who can't very well poison him again with everybody watching.  He's making what John Lewis used to call "good trouble" for the diminutive dictator and his tacky taste in dachas.  

When Barack Obama had Churchill's bust removed from the Oval, Boris Johnson, then mayor of London, went quasi-birther:  it was "the part-Kenyan president's ancestral dislike of the British Empire."  Now that Joe Biden has evicted Winnie again, Trump-Lite sounds more conciliatory:  "It's up to the president to decorate it as he wishes."  Has Boris mellowed over twelve years, or is he desperate for trade agreements post-Brexit?  And for the record, Prime Minister, Kenya is not the only country that used to be part of your bloody empire.

The Oval Office now features busts of Harry S Truman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez.  The painting of Andrew Jackson has been replaced with one of Benjamin Franklin, joining portraits of Hamilton, Jefferson and FDR.

Mark Steel won't let us have our moment, cataloguing some of the appalling things we did before Trump.  Yes, Mark, we segregated our population "until fifty years ago."  When did you stop beating confessions out of Irishmen?  Weren't you threatening the Belfast Agreement as recently as last year?  Let's not even talk about the famine.  You chaps better hope Biden doesn't harbor an "ancestral dislike of the British Empire."  

He's got more important things to deal with.  Three white women in Texas are selling a re-designed mahjong game that is getting them accused of "cultural appropriation."  Nations have gone to war over less.  

 

Anything goes

 

I never thought I'd link to Vogue but it's a historic day.  Where else would you go to find out about Bernie Sanders's mittens (made from repurposed materials) and parka (from the Vermont clothier Burton)?  Knitted for him by a teacher, if you please.  Bernie will always be Bernie and his hands were warm.

Eugene Goodman was promoted to Acting Deputy House Sergeant at Arms.

The crowd that saw Trump off at Andrews this morning was the biggest, most delirious crowd in the history of crowds, according to Sean Spicer.

Q Qracker Marjorie Taylor Greene celebrated by adding another conspiracy theory to her collection:  the seventeen people murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were part of a "false flag planned shooting."  She saw it on Fox News, of course.  She also believes Francis Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare, but she's on the fence about the Duke of Clarence being Jack the Ripper.  

Lots of retailers are struggling and dropping products that don't sell well because of the continuing pandemic and the economic morass it created.  Only Mike Lindell is bitching about being the object of a political vendetta.  No, say Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl's, it's because nobody is buying MyPillows.  Do consumers hate the product or the martial-law-promoting CEO?  This calls for investigation.  Senator Graham, get to work.

Half the fun of taking part in an insurrection is bragging about it to your family, right?  Not for Guy Reffitt of Wylie, Texas -- his kids turned him in!  And after he warned them that "traitors get shot."  Why must Biden tear families apart?  Where's the healing?

All the state capitols are locked down today in preparation for the mass protests.  Here's the one in Albany:

Hmm.  Not even raining.

Austin has limits.

All quiet in Tallahassee.

Trump's adult children didn't get pardons but something better:  Secret Service protection.  Agents still can't use the bathroom, though.  

Now eighteen and full of beans as ever, Greta Thunberg tweeted about Trump:  "He seems like a very happy old man looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.  So nice to see!"  The snark is strong in this one.

All over the country the Q Qontinuum stared in disbelief at their televisions as nothing happened.  Did Trump mislead them by standing in front of seventeen flags (Q being the seventeenth letter of the alphabet)?  Or did they misinterpret the prophecies like the Millerites and the followers of Sabbatai Sevi and countless others?  That must be it.  Q cannot fail, Q can only be failed.  Welcome to the perpetual disappointment of joining an apocalyptic cult.  I hope you're wearing comfy shoes, it's going to be a long wait.

 

Day of days

 

Some impressions.

I love C-SPAN because they let me listen to the Marine Band in peace, without Brian Williams yammering all the time.  These guys must practice, they're really good.

The last four years were so horrible that they didn't even wait until noon.  The Chief Justice swore Joseph R. Biden, Jr. in at 11:54 am, which technically means there were two presidents today.  Imagine if there had been a national emergy.

But all looks peaceful at the Capitol.  The sun is shining, the dignitaries are dignified (Laura should have pulled the price tag off George's mask unless he's going for some Minnie Pearl tribute), and Lady Gaga just sang the hell out of the National Anthem.  Mostly in 4/4 time, which is strange, and with a little attempt at Aretha near the end, but very fine.  I'm sure most of the comment will be about her dress (big red skirt and a dove flying across her chest).  Woody Guthrie was in the house through Jennifer Lopez's "This Land Is Your Land," which should be the National Anthem. 

Is that Rosario Dawson with Cory Booker?

Evidently someone forgot to rescind the invitations of Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, or they forgot to learn shame as children.

It's cold in Washington.  Some of the men are wearing hats, but few of the women, who are tougher.  Garth Brooks just took his off to sing "Amazing Grace."  I don't think I've ever seen him hatless.  Oh, he's making them sing along.

I remember when they used to dress in top hats and cutaways.  LBJ put a stop to that.

Who the hell invited Kristi Noem, crazypants governor of South Dakota?  Did she bring her flamethrower?

Amanda Gorman, poet laureate.  Is this a poem or a speech?  I'll have to see it in print.  She's 22!

Dan Quayle is here without Marilyn, and there's no sign of the Cheneys.  Otherwise a full house.  (Nobody expected the Carters, who are old and fragile, to leave their home in Georgia.)

Why do people close their eyes when someone is praying?  

Exit music at 12:31.  Short and sweet.

Did the Marine Band really play "Hit the Road, Jack" as Trump exited the White House?  Oh, please. 

The Orange Aberration aside, has there ever been a president who didn't call for, or at least hint at, unity?  Even Lincoln, with artillery already trained on Fort Sumter, insisted that "we must not be enemies."  Last night on one of the cable shows Timothy Snyder pointed out that history has not been kind to democracy, from the ancient Greeks to the states founded so hopefully after World War I.  He's not at all sanguine about our little experiment of 1789.  

The men who named this The United States were defying the gods.  At no time has this country been united politically or any other way.  It has always been rich against poor, white against non-white, native-born against immigrant and so on, those pieces shattering into smaller fragments regionally, ethnically, even in terms of gender and religion.  Democracy held us together because it assumes compromise and bearable tension.  Fascism allows neither.  Every fascist regime is about the will of one leader and the destruction of his opponents, which is what we glimpsed on January 6.  "Democracy has prevailed," Biden said.  Because we need to reaffirm that, apparently.

Well, let's celebrate democracy while it lasts.  The platform is still emptying but President Biden is already at work.  He has dismissed Jerome Adams, the useless Surgeon General ("Roses are red, violets are blue, risk is low for coronavirus But high for the flu" will be his epitaph); dissolved the "1776 Commission" designed to promote the all-is-beautiful view of American history;  and formalized his Cabinet nominations.  This painting by (African American) Robert S. Duncanson will hang in his office:

 I understand we will be re-joining the Paris Climate Accords any minute and SCIENCE will be represented at Cabinet level.  I am plotzing here.

So little time, so much evil to undo.  Maybe he can sign executive orders while reviewing troops.  (They say FDR could carry on a conversation while organizing his stamp collection.)  It's easier if you don't keep holding them up like a five-year-old with a finger-painting.  

Here's the military parade Trump didn't get.  Ha!  Say, wasn't that the EU flag carried by Colonial cosplayers?  I don't miss the state floats and random bagpipers.   

Keystone pipeline?  Dead.  World Health Organization, we're back; say hello to Dr. Anthony Fauci.  Transgender people, continue your military service.  No more gag rule on abortion for organizations receiving American aid.  Moratorium on student loan payments and evictions from properties with fed-backed mortgages.  DACA people won't be deported.  No more ban on travel from Muslim countries, but you may want to wait until we get this pandemic under control.  I'm dizzy.

Trump's last sinister words:  "We will be back in some form."  So check the soles of your shoes.   

 

Forty-five skiddoo

 Today the secretary of state emerged from his secure location to certify the election of Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to the Senate, and Sidney Powell dropped her final (?) lawsuit challenging the results of the presidential election.  We can close the books on Georgia.

Other states are more unsettled.  Wyoming, for one, where the Carbon County Republican Party voted to censure the state's sole US Representative Liz Cheney for voting to impeach Trump, after she voted to confirm Joe Biden's victory in the Electoral College.  The Central Committee will probably demand a DNA test to determine if she's really Dick Cheney's daughter or some sort of Democrat changeling.  There's muttering about secession, too, of the kind we get every time a Democrat is elected president.  With its skiing/herding-based economy (49th in GDP) and its population of fewer people than Philadelphia, I'm afraid Wyoming will have to lump it.  

"We used to enter the city like gods; now we sneak in like rats," someone said of the destruction of New York's Penn Station and its replacement with that glorified subway station under a sports venue.  The words seem to resonate as Trump prepares to flee the tire fire he started four years ago.  Like a tire fire, it will smolder for years and foul the lungs of a generation just being born.  Nothing he touched has not been made worse.  In four years, only the reputation of Andrew Johnson has been enhanced.

Trump wants to be sent off the way Lindbergh was greeted in Paris, but it's not shaping up like a joyous occasion.  The temperature at Joint Base Andrews at 8 tomorrow morning will be in the 30s with significant wind.  The emotional temperature can be guessed from the invitation to Anthony Scaramucci, who worked in the White House for what ballplayers call "a cup of coffee" back in 2019.  Like all the other "honored guests" he was entreated to bring up to five friends to make it look like a crowd.  Another no-show will be Mike Pence, allegedly because of the difficult "logistics" of getting him to the Capitol by noon; it's not as if he could be helicoptered. or driven in a lights-and-sirens motorcade.  Or possibly he wants to attend mass with the Bidens at 8:45 like Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.  I wonder if Ted & Lindsey & Josh & Louie will be at the airport.

Gov. Greg Abbott is "incensed" because all National Guard are being vetted for right-wing militia connections, including the ones from Texas.  Nevertheless, two members have been removed from the inauguration security mission for unspecified reasons.  Some, including Keith Olbermann, have called for a virtual inauguration from a secret location, but this would mean sneaking in like rats.  No matter how nerve-wracking, the ceremony must take place in front of the west entrance to the Capitol in the full light of day.  Anything less is surrender to fear and would embolden the Trumpanzees. 

What, we all wonder, will Trump do without all the power and pomp, all the crises he has handled, much more than Nixon's six, probably hundreds?  He's a hopeless workaholic, according to Ainsley Earhardt:  "...No one can argue, he is a worker.  He doesn't drink alcohol, he stays up late at night, he watches every show, he's working -- he got to work immediately."  Then he shares his wisdom with the world, or he did until Big Tech censored him, just like Jesus and Socrates.  Fortunately Trump still has friends in Russia, and they have re-launched Parler under the auspices of DDoS-Guard, whose other clients include the Russian Defense Ministry.  It's just like home!  Eight hours of television, some parling (or whatever verb they settle on), a bucket of chicken and picking out gold fittings for the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library and Omelet Bar -- a full life.  Just keep those marshals and process servers from crossing the moat.

Nineteen hours to go.

Everything must go

 As his latest bankrupt enterprise moves into its final hours, Trump is busy maximizing his last asset, pardons.  Jeremy Hutchinson, son of a former Arkansas legislator; Parker Petit, Georgia finance chair of Trump 2016; and Ross Ulbricht, founder of the online drug supermarket Silk Road are among those expecting to have their sins washed clean by the blood of the bribe this week.  If Trump is going to apply his chimp's-EEG signature to all those pages, he's entitled to a small profit ($100,000 is rumored to be the asking price).  

Public opprobrium closes a door and opens a window:  As predicted, Josh Hawley has found a new publisher for the volume the "woke mob" at Simon & Schuster declined, and all that free publicity, too.  (You may recall that Woody Allen had a similar problem last year, minus the First Amendment whining.)  But Hawley's insurrectionary activities have lost him a very rich friend, Jeffrey Yass of Susquehanna International Group and the reactionary Club for Growth.  Yass doesn't believe the "stolen election" crap and didn't expect his money would be used in an attempt to overthrow democracy in the United States.  As a Pennsylvanian, he's angry that outsiders like Hawley and Ted Cruz questioned the way the Commonwealth runs its elections.  Hawley has also alienated his mentor, former Senator John Danforth, who called endorsing him "the worst mistake I ever made in my life."  Several Missouri newspapers have demanded that he resign.  And he didn't even address the lynch mob on the morning of January 6, although a raised fist is, like Yass's millions, protected free speech.

Well, color me shocked.  It seems that not everyone who attacked the Capitol on 1/6 was a patriot.  The FBI is looking for Riley June Williams of Pennsylvania, who allegedly stole a laptop from Nancy Pelosi's office and tried to pass it to her friend in Russia and thus to Russian intelligence.  It's looking as if a lot of planning went into this coup attempt, which Counselor Giuliani says exonerates his client and invalidates the second impeachment.  See, if you can prove voter fraud, which he will totally do one day (if at sixtieth you don't succeed, try, try again), then Trump was right to dispatch his flying monkeys to the Capitol, there being no other way to STOP THE STEAL!!!  So Riley June can come home and the rest are off the hook and all is right, too-loo-ra-lay, I'm so glad he's not my lawyer.  

Lindsey Graham, who scampered to safety with everyone else, is outraged by the riot in the Capitol and he knows just who to blame:  "Where was Nancy Pelosi?  It's her job to provide Capitol security.  We'll get to the bottom of that."  Will you?  Are you still chair of the Judiciary Committee?  Will you be holding years of BENGHAZI!-style hearings?   Why don't you go stand outside Pat Leahy's office and sing "Will You Be My Neighbor?"

Twitter warned her to stop posting nonsense about election fraud.  Nevertheless she persisted, and now Marjorie Taylor Greene has been suspended and told to go think about what she did.  (Sure she will.)  I suppose they were alarmed by tweets like "The 1/5 disaster in Georgia lays [sic] solely in the hands of state leadership who failed voters in our state."  I'm no Ben Sasse fan but I thought he put it well in the Atlantic:  "Marjorie Taylor Greene is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs."  Of course, only a RINO would write for the Atlantic. 

I was heartbroken to read CNN's  account of the last, sad days of Ivanka and her glaceed husband.  They've cancelled their "farewell tour," they fear their political future will suffer from Daddy's post-election meltdown, and nobody will propose them for membership in the country club on Billionaire Bunker island.  Maybe it doesn't accept Jews.  They should have checked first.

Luke Mogelson of The New Yorker is the Robert Capa of the attempted coup.  He has posted jaw-dropping video he took of two Trumpanzees rummaging through a senator's desk:  "I think Cruz would want us to do this.  I think we're good."  As any lawyer but Giuliani would tell them, that won't hold up in court.

One thing that isn't going is covid-19 in all its varieties.  It's exploding everywhere but New Zealand.  A new study indicates that 30 percent of patients discharged from English hospitals were re-admitted within five months; one in eight died.  Inauguration Day will be the first anniversary of the first diagnosed case in the US.  That patient survived.   Joe Biden wants a hundred million Americans vaccinated in his first hundred days, traditionally a honeymoon but this is war and nobody has time.  And that's not even a third of the population.  Welcome our next contestant, Nipah virus in India.  This one has symptoms like epilepsy.

Today is Martin Luther King Day, and you can find his words, both inspirational and angry, all over.  If anyone tries to tell you he'd be a conservative today, take his phone and beat him about the ears with it.

 

  

 

Relaxin' at Camarillo

 (Nothing to do with the great Parker, I just feel like I'm an inmate at one of those high-wall institutions.)

Trump continues to potter around the White House, probably in a bathrobe and golf shoes, continuing to do no "work" -- same as the last two months.  (Again, why do we need to transition?)  He has forbidden the handful of remaining staffers/keepers to use the N-word, Nixon.  That guy could afford to resign because his vice-president promised to pardon him.  Apparently no such promise has come from Mike Pence.  Strange how a narrow escape from a murderous mob can change a person.

One Trumpite who thinks we need still more transition is improbably uninformed Senator Tommy Tuberville from the great state of Alabama.  "We probably could have had a swearing-in and done an inauguration a little later on after we got this virus behind us a little bit," he told CBS-TV 42 in Birmingham.  "But again we're talking about Washington, D.C."  Coach doesn't care for Washington.  He also hasn't noticed that Trump had a year to get "this virus" behind us but it's worse than ever, which is why we desperately need a new administration.  Not surprisingly, the senator who can't name the three branches of gubmint doesn't know the Constitution specifies January 20.  Other than that, good choice, Alabama.

"The revolution will not be televised," said Gil Scott Heron hopefully.  But that was way back in 1971, before the internet was born.  Not only was the insurrection televised start to finish, it came with commercials.  Jenna Ryan of Frisco, Texas, traveled to Washington in a private jet and live-streamed her patriotic assault on Facebook with narration:  "Life or death, it doesn't matter.  Here we go.  Y'all know who to hire for your realtor, Jenna Ryan for your realtor."  She's surprised she got arrested.  I'm surprised she didn't have a catchy jingle.  Real estate is a cutthroat business.

I wonder if Jenna was among the patriots who nearly killed Michael Fanone, an undercover officer who rushed to the Capitol when he heard of the riot.  He was beaten, tasered repeatedly and robbed of his badge and radio.  Someone yelled, "Kill him with his own gun!" which might have happened had he not told them he had children.  At that point others stopped beating him with an American flag and protected him until help arrived.  When CNN asked what he would say to his rescuers he replied, "Thank you but fuck you for being there."  Many other "great men and women in blue" have similar stories of Kristalltag and I look forward to reading their testimony.  For example, Officer Christina Laury of the Metropolitan Police, who was sprayed with a substance designed to subdue bears.  Or Officer Daniel Hodges, crushed in a door by a rioter he describes as "practically foaming at the mouth."  Clearly a rabid Trump fan.

It must be unnerving for officers like these to know that some of their colleagues were unlocking gates and escorting the criminals in like visiting diplomats.  Or that urgent requests for National Guard assistance were refused by the Secretary of the Army, no less, because he didn't like the "optics" of armed troops inside the Capitol.  Or the growing evidence of collusion by members of Congress leading what Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) called "reconnaissance tours" on January 5.  (For one example, Rep. Jim Clyburn described rioters ignoring the Majority Whip's office near the Rotunda and proceeding to his private third-floor office, which doesn't even have his name on the door.  Good guess, huh?)

What goes around comes around, and Iraqis must be bitterly amused to read that in advance of Biden's inauguration, Washington has its very own "Green Zone."  This is the post-Trump new normal:  a space safe from Y'all Qaeda or Vanilla ISIS where "the orderly transfer of power" can take place.  And it only requires more American troops than there are in Afghanistan.  How do you like them optics, Mr. Army Secretary?  Christopher Wray says the FBI is monitoring plans for more right-wing violence this week; we'll see if the Green Zone stays green.  

Now that he has resigned from the West Virginia House of Delegates, insurrectionist Derrick Evans will have more time to harass the clients of the only abortion clinic in the state, as well as Black and LGBTQ people generally.  And women.  He really has a problem with women.  Where was he when Trump was hiring?  Timing is everything, Derrick.  When your trial comes up, maybe you can get a selfie with...

Jacob Chansley, a/k/a Jake Angeli, a/k/a QAnon Shaman, a/k/a Yellowstone Wolf, a/k/a The Fool In the Fur and Facepaint.  Jake is the breakout star of the insurrection because, as Jack Nicholson observed while filming the very first Batman, "Sometimes you just have to let the costume do the acting."  His lawyer says he practices yoga and requires organic food; the unimpressed judge ordered him held without bail (probably should have left the spear at home).  When he gets hungry enough, he'll eat the bologna sandwiches like everyone else.  Jake thinks Trump owes him a pardon.  He should talk to Crystal Mason of Fort Worth.  She's serving five years because she didn't know she wasn't allowed to vote in Texas while on supervised release.  Forget it, Jake, it's the law and order party. 

And now apparently the Pity Party.  Republican freshmen who haven't been in town long enough to know the best places for Cuban food are getting up in the House all outraged because they have to wear Trumpandemic masks and pass through metal detectors.  Imagine!  Six-gun Lauren Boebert called "Bullcrap!" through a mask that said CENSORED, which is pretty much the opposite of what it means.  Millions of her fellow citizens have to clear the metal detectors to enter a courthouse, high school, museum, airplane or hospital every day; it's the price we pay (the smallest price) for living in a gun-crazed society.  If we brush the security guard aside we don't get fined by that "bitch" Nancy Pelosi -- we get damn well arrested and cavity-searched, or at least denied entry.  What planet do Gaetz, Jordan,  Gohmert, Cawthorne, Greene and the other entitled white people inhabit?  You want a free pass to bring your warm gun and your millions of viruses to the floor and menace your fellow Representatives?  Go the fuck home. 

And now it's time for my medication.  Nurse, I hope the gin is cold today.  

  

Last Infrastructure Week

He wants a parade.  A goddam military parade.

 

Meanwhile, policy advisor and pillow entrepreneur Mike Lindell was seen entering the White House to discuss (squints) MARTIAL LAW.  (They don't know CNN has the technology to enlarge their notes.  Or they want us to read their notes.  False flag!)

There is no federal reserve of coronavirus vaccine.  HHS Secretary Alex Azar knew this three days ago when he promised to begin releasing it to the states.  But that happened in December, the better to hobble the incoming administration.  Joe Biden is putting retired Gen. Russel Honore in charge of both organizing future distribution and finding out why security at the Capitol was so compromised.  Gen. Honore sorted out the mess in New Orleans after Katrina and after Brownie did a heckuva job.  I imagine he will use the thousands of National Guard already on active service in Washington and every state capital, because this is not America anymore.

With the economy in tatters (except for undertakers and crematoria), the hospitals beginning to practice triage and climate change not just ignored but accelerated, Trump wants a red carpet, a military band and a twenty-one gun salute before he drags himself up the steps to Air Force One for the last time.  Maybe a cheering crowd, if it can be assembled.  Maybe he'd like some of these:

He has yet to say Joe Biden's name in public, much less concede his election.  The First Escort, who was supervising a photo-shoot during the riot at the Capitol for her coffee-table book about White House tchotchkes, has not received Dr. Jill Biden or shown her around the house.  (To be fair, she might fear verbal or physical abuse.)  Visitors seem to be departing with government property -- allegedly.  It's possible the bust of Lincoln was made by Barron in art class.  The photo of Trump with Xi, toted away by a grinning Peter Navarro, looks like something the National Archive might want.  

"...We are just temporary occupants of this office.  That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions -- like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties -- that our forebears fought and bled for...it's up to us to leave these instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them."  That's what Barack Obama wrote four years ago in the now-traditional letter to one's successor.  Trump liked it so much he carried it around like an autographed Roger Maris card and showed it to people, probably because he considered it a unique encomium to his specialness.  Clearly he didn't understand it.  Unlikely he'll be writing to Biden, unless it's an obscene rant.

Orderly succession is the difference between liberal democracy and dictatorship.  When Putin dies, nobody knows what will happen to Russia and nobody is allowed to speculate.  If Jair Bolsonaro or Victor Orban loses the next election, will he pack up and go?  If not, will there be scenes like last Wednesday?  

Almost unnoticed, Monday is a national holiday, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day.  If there's anyone left in the West Wing who can use a computer and a thesaurus, no doubt we'll see the usual boilerplate about civil rights and brotherhood, and maybe a specious parallel with the insurrection.  Some numpty already compared the murderous thugs inside the Capitol to Rosa Parks.  Because smashing your way into the Capitol intent on murder and being shocked that there might be consequences is exactly like refusing to vacate a bus seat in the certainty of being arrested.  These men understood:

I'm all out of hope.  I want to close by quoting Christopher Krebs, fired for saying the election was secure from cyberattack:  "We are on the verge of what I fear to be a pretty significant breakdown in democracy and civil society here."  The Trump legacy.

Fallout keeps fallin' on their heads

 The FBI maintains a Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) of thousands of potential troublemakers, mainly white supremacists.  It is supposed to be used as an "investigative and early warning tool."  According to the Washington Post "FBI agents visited a number of suspected extremists" and "advised" them against heading for Washington.  Some complied, and the rest apparently said, "The sixth?  Thanks, I hadn't heard!" and loaded up the car.  The FBI insists it had no reason to think the riot would be other than a peaceful protest, yet the Bureau of Prisons sent a hundred officers to help secure the Justice Department building, where nobody even showed up to sing "We Shall Overcome."  In short, the Trump-polluted FBI either dropped the ball or intentionally grounded it.

The Kushners were happy to accept free protection from the Secret Service but would not allow agents to use any of their six bathrooms.  At the bargain basement (literally) cost of $36,000 a year, a studio apartment had to be rented with a toilet suitable for The Help.  These are the agents Biden and Harris want around them, for they are bound to be (sorry) pissed off at all things Trump.

 The Secret Service may have to worry even more about Kamala Harris than about Barack Obama, and not only because Trump has spent the last four years empowering the racists.  "That Harris is not only Black, but also a woman and a daughter of immigrants, combine to make her a unique focus of racist and misogynistic animus -- a symbol of a changing America that white supremacists loathe to see," writes Chelsea Janes.  And because she chose not to have children, I'm sure they're already calling her a lesbian, if not a secret man (cf. Michelle Obama).  May as well put all your hate in one basket of deplorables.  Look at what WASPy Hillary Rodham Clinton still endures.

And what of the man of sorrows, the most harassed person in the history of the world, Your Favorite President?  I thought you'd never ask.  It's all spite and vengeance now.  Last night Lisa Montgomery was executed and today it's the turn of the northern spotted owl.  In a final "fuck you" to environmentalists, millions of acres in the Northwest will be opened to the timber industry.  He's mad at Mark Meadows, Jared Kushner and Kayleigh McEnany for not defending him enough, though it's not clear what more they could have done short of actual "trial by combat."  Speaking of which, it looks like Rudolph Giuliani is about to get stiffed like literally everyone else who ever worked for him:  Trump thinks $20,000 a day is exorbitant given Giuliani's record of failure, incompetence and buffoonery.  He's not wrong.  Giuliani should sue, if he can find a lawyer more skillful than Lin Wood, Sidney Powell or himself.  A lot of secure creditors ahead of him, but you never know.

Banned as he is from social media, Trump may not have heard this, but it's not going to help his mood:  there's an online petition to remove him digitally from Home Alone 2:  Lost In New York, his two-second appearance to be replaced by an older version of Macaulay Culkin or possibly Joe Biden.  Why not Hillary Clinton?

Not that Trump cares but his onetime doctor Harold "Bone Spurs" Bornstein has died at age 73.  He's the one who signed off on his draft-board disability and later described his health as "astonishingly excellent," which is the kind of language real doctors use about obese men with problem cholesterol.  They also don't object when goons show up and grab the patient's file.  Then they live to be 73.

There goes another $17 million a year!  New York City no longer wants the Trump Organization to manage the Central Park Carousel, two ice rinks and a golf course.  Suspecting that he is about to get blamed, Eric is already whining about "cancel culture," last year's most tiresome dog whistle.

Before it was "You're fired" by Amazon Web Services, Trump wanted to create an account on far-right platform Parler as "Person X."  (Not "Individual 1"?)  No doubt his calls to further violence would be distinguishable by their weird spellings and covfefe syntax.  But Evil Jeff Bezos has muzzled him again, leaving only the option of attacking Democrats through coded restaurant reviews on Yelp.  ("Low IQ Maxine's 'Guacamole' is disgusting!  Chinese Avocadoes will never overthrow our great Country!!!")

Lindsey Graham is back on the Trumptanic, at this point indicative of a possible brain injury.  He flew to Texas with Dear Leader and held his hand, and then he went to Hannity to rage against late-term impeachment:  "Why don't we impeach George Washington?  He owned slaves!"  Which unfortunately was legal in the 1790s, unlike sedition.

"Amtrak Joe" Biden would love to travel from Delaware to Washington as he has thousands of times, but there are just a few security concerns in this low point of our history.  Like Lincoln, he may have to slip into the city in disguise.  Lincoln took a lot of crap for that, but on April 14, 1865, it turned out he had made the right choice.

America desperately needs a hero and it appears to be Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, who decoyed rioters away from the Senate chamber, getting them to follow him up a staircase.  (The prospect of assaulting a lone Black man was irresistible, I guess.)  He is being proposed for the Congressional Gold Medal, an award he won't have to share with the likes of Limbaugh and Meese.

The second time around

The first impeachment -- was it only a year ago, or a lifetime? -- was a little confusing.  Abuse of power, obstruction of Congress, kind of depends how you look at it.  Incitement of insurrection, on the other hand, with all the physical and video evidence, should be a ten-minute Law & Order episode.  The world watched in real time, no fiddling with the video like that fake-Christmas message from the fake-Queen.  The bodies of the dead were collected and autopsied, no "crisis actors" alleged.  (Or maybe there were, who has time to look at Breitbart?)  Just before it kicked off there was Trump, on video, ginning up the mob, as usual not wearing a mask.  Definitely not Alec Baldwin cold-opening SNL.  This had to be debated?

Some Republicans even voted to impeach.  What a difference a year, an election and armed thugs intent on murdering the vice-president make.  Of course, most of them stood by their man, denouncing "divisiveness" and calling for unity.  (Which always makes me think of Unity Mitford, who shot herself in the head because Britain was going to war with her beloved Third Reich.  Hitler paid her hospital bill.)  Sorry, folks, the body can't heal until the malignancy has been excised.  There are only seven days left, but it won't go away like a miracle.  Trump didn't do this alone.  America is septic.  America needs to be detoxified.  It will probably take years; this is only the surgery.

Ali Alexander, the principal organizer, says he planned it with three members of Congress, Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs.  If he's telling the truth, these three need to be expelled as soon as possible.  (Gosar called him a "true patriot" on Twitter, Biggs is doing the "Ali who?" schtick.)  It seems clear that the mob had inside help.  Although the House Sergeant at Arms warned members to stay off social media, Lauren Boebert tweeted, "The Speaker has been removed from the chambers."  Ayanna Pressley and staff members locked themselves in her office where they discovered that the panic buttons had been ripped out.  Holly Figueroa O'Reilly posted a video of insurgents going over schematics of the Capitol and discussing strategy (these idiots love to record their crimes, which always makes it easier).  A shaken Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she feared for her life, and Cori Bush wrote, "They're putting barriers around the Capitol, but the threat is on the inside right now."

The peaceful transfer of power after Trump:

Take up the orange man's burden

 You have no idea what trouble is.

Trump has now been banned from every social media platform except the YouTube comments section where, actually, he would be a natural fit.

He's been cut off by Deutsche Bank, which was willing to carry his $340 million in debt until last week.  Then they checked and found he isn't even paying the interest on it.  And Signature Bank says it won't do business with any member of Congress who voted with the Sedition Caucus.

In the wake of the PGA snub, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club reiterated that it won't be returning to Turnberry "in the foreseeable future," i.e., until you sell the place or die, you jobby-flavoured fart lozenge.

GoFundMe will no longer allow fundraising for travel to Trump events like last Wednesday's violent insurrection at the Capitol.

Bill Belichick decided not to accept a Presidential Medal of Freedom, citing "the tragic events of last week."  First Schwarzenegger, now Belichick -- who's next?  Do I have to change my opinion of Howard Stern?

A number of corporate donors are cutting off the Republican members of Congress who voted not to certify the election result, including Blue Cross Blue Shield, Marriott, American Express, Comcast, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.  Hallmark wants its money back from Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Josh Hawley.  It will be fun to see Hawley invoke the First Amendment against a greeting card company.

Sheldon Adelson won't be bankrolling any more coup attempts.  He died at age 87.  Adelson just couldn't face life under the communist dictatorship of Joe Biden.  Also, lymphoma.

When I heard that the last leg of Mike Pompeo's Grifty Tour had been cancelled, I checked to see that no harm had befallen Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Grassley, his immediate predecessors in the line of succession.  (Nothing is out of the question.)  Turns out no EU or NATO official wanted to talk to him; even the foreign minister of Luxembourg is calling Trump a "criminal" and a "political pyromaniac."  Sorry, Mike.  You'll always have Paris.

Nobody is being banned from flying just because they tried to take over the Capitol and murder elected officials.  But Chuck Schumer thinks they should be.

Several weeks in advance of Punxsutawney Phil, Dirty Don emerged from his burrow and held a media shouting session at the airport.  To the surprise of no one, he takes no responsibility and feels no remorse.  The real problem was the "horrible riots in Portland and Seattle and various other places."  And Hunter Biden, presumably.  He'll be disappointed when he finds that The Alamo is not in Alamo, Texas.  As a Texan observed, "Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice...won't get fooled again."  We used to think that guy was dumb.

"He was hard to reach, and you know why?  It was live TV," says the inevitable unnamed White House equerry in the Washington Post.  For six hours he stared at the bigliest-screen televisions he ordered four years ago, enthralled by the violence but annoyed at how his cult was costumed:  "He doesn't like low class things."  If you're planning to loot the Capitol and shit on the floor, wear something smart.

Other people have problems, believe it or not.  Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) was sheltering with other members during the riot.  Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) tried to distribute masks to Republicans but they waved her away, laughing.  Now Coleman, 75 and a cancer survivor, has covid.  Rep. Lisa T. Sanchez (D-CA) decided to take her chances with the mob rather than risk infection.  Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) have also tested positive.  

Here's a poor West Indian manatee in Florida with 'TRUMP' carved into its back, a violation of the Endangered Species Act.  Probably the work of antifa.

While domestic terrorism reaches a climax, the Department of Homeland Security lacks even an Acting Secretary as Chad Wolf shoves a grandmother aside and jumps into a lifeboat.  Never have the words "homeland security" looked so forlorn.

About the only satisfaction Trump still has is killing people.  Three federal inmates were scheduled for execution this month because Joe Biden opposes capital punishment.  Two of them contracted covid, which is all but universal in prisons, so their deaths were postponed because their lungs are a mess and the lethal injections might be worse than usual.  That leaves Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on death row, whose horrific crime was probably precipitated by mental illness.  At this hour the Acting Solicitor General -- this administration has more actors than the Royal Shakespeare Company -- is harrying the Supreme Court to let them get on with killing her tonight.  It's Montgomery's bad luck that she is the stand-in for Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Jean Carroll, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sally Yates, Angela Merkel, Stacey Abrams, Stormy Daniels, Fiona Hill, Ilhan Omar, Gretchen Whitmer and every other woman Trump would like to kill.