Monday in America

 I'll be the first to admit that it's gotten harder to blog without the daily tsunami of outrageous bullshit from the White House to fuel my anger.  Some days I don't even want to turn on the computer.  But this weekend has left a cornucopia of crazy.  To note but a few:

Cancun Cruz is Swift Boat Teddy Now! should be a Jimmy Rogers song.  Canada's gift to Texas strapped on body armor and found someone to take him out in a boat bristling with machine guns in search of a photo-op to make people forget poor Snowflake at the front door of the Cruz manse, whining (probably).  He brought along a bunch of other Republican senators with fuck-all else to do, and together they sought the elusive CARAVANS OF TERROR arriving from Central America, where it's even worse than Texas.  They found cartels.  They found human traffickers.  I think they found Hunter Biden's laptop with Hillary's emails on it.  Too bad they didn't find the nine-year-old girl before she drowned trying to cross with her mother.  This is what happens when a bunch of idiots confuse the Rio Grande in 2021 with the Mekong in 1970 and waste the time of the Border Patrol.

Brian KKKemp looks like a moron and talks like a moron, but he's just bright enough to know he can't steal another election if people can vote.  He positioned himself beneath a painting of a fine old Georgia plantation and signed a bill that bans most forms of voting in the state and even puts the legislature in charge of counting the votes instead of the secretary of state (charitably, we could construe that as protecting the Raffensperger family from death threats if the numbers are not to Trump's liking).  As other states race to disenfranchise their poorer, less-white citizens, expect more governors to follow KKKemp's example, maybe with pictures of lonely Indians or drunk Mexicans in place of Tara.

What do you do when a five-year-old acts up in kindergarten?  If you're Miss Karen you call the St. Petersburg police.  America's law guardians seem to be competing to see which force can overpower, handcuff and traumatize the youngest child.  A few cities like Los Angeles are trying out a system of sending mental health professionals to try to talk down adults in crisis instead of sending police to kill them.  In the long run, if employed in cases of brattiness, it could save money on lawsuits and tiny handcuffs.

Michigan Republican chairman (and former ambassador, if you can believe it) Ron Weiser doesn't like having three women occupy the highest elective offices in the state.  He called them "witches" who need "burning at the stake" (with votes, of course), which is exactly the way he would have talked had Gretchen Whitmer, Dana Nessel and Jocelyn Benson been men.  Because when a woman complained about two Republican congressmen who voted for impeachment, he replied, "Ma'am, other than assassination I have no way of voting out, OK?"  This amused the mob audience at the North Oakland Republican Club.  Very violent place, Michigan.    

I was under the impression that "Meth -- We're On It" was the brilliant slogan of South Dakota's just-say-no-to-tweaking campaign.  Now I'm not sure.  Senator Steve Daines of nearby Montana was part of the Cruz junket to the border and his reasons were a little different from most of the other Republicans':  "Twenty years ago in Montana meth was homemade.  It was homegrown.  And you had purity levels less than 30 percent.  Today the meth that is getting into Montana is Mexican cartel."  Even Mike Lee had to conceal his laughter.  Steve, you should have said something last year.  I'm sure Trump would have Hereby Ordered tariffs to protect American meth.  I'm equally sure the little girl and her mother were not meth mules.  The cartel would have given them plane tickets.

The propaganda outlets have been needling Joe Biden since November 6 to hold a press conference ("What's Biden Hidin'?")  So last week he did and now they're yapping because he used notes and didn't trip on his way to the lectern.  It will take a while to get used to coherence and the absence of racist abuse, but I'm in it for the long haul.  I also thought there would be at least one question about the pandemic.  You remember.  The dead people?  The vaccines?

Have you heard about the GRINCH act?  Rep. John Joyce (R-PA) has come up with the Guarding Readers' Independence and Choice bill because he is so enraged at the Seuss Foundation's non-governmental decision to stop publishing six books from Mr. Geisel's High Racist period.  The bill would deny federal money to states and local authorities which ban books, and I for one am thrilled.  Bipartisanship at last!  Banned Books Week is coming up in late September, although I suspect putting To Kill A Mockingbird, Heather Has Two Mommies, Of Mice and Men, Slaughterhouse Five and Invisible Man back on the open library shelves and in the backpacks of American students is not exactly what Joyce has in mind.  On a related note, God's Own Party is pushing a bill to make the Bible (KJV, presumably) the "official book" of Tennessee.  I hope the GRINCH Act discourages them from banning The Origin of Species again.

Are you ready to laugh?  Trump is so miserable he's crashing weddings at his plague-ridden resort.  He's issuing Official Statements on his "45th President" letterhead that everyone ignores.  He's threatening to launch the mother of all social media platforms as soon as he finds someone to create it without seriously expecting payment or credit.  He's proposing to visit the Mexican border and cause more problems for everyone who has to work there.  And of course he's still claiming he won.  Here, enjoy the comments ("Full LaMotta!") and the Elaine Stritch bonus track.

Good news!  They moved the ship.