The last trumpet

Here in the heart of the pollen belt, the city fires off its emergency siren at noon on the first Wednesday of the month by way of a test.  Today it signaled the end of the once-serious Republican Party and all its creatures, because just as it sounded I read the latest from Judicial Watch.

For those who need more information like me, Judicial Watch says it "fights for accountability and integrity in law, politics and government.  Because no one is above the law!"   (Did you hear that, Andrew Giuliani?)  Today they announced filing of "a FOIA lawsuit against the United States Department of Homeland Security for records of communication between Secret Service officials assigned to the White House regarding the Biden family dogs."  Because America is waiting for someone to get to the bottom of this before the new cat arrives and the whitewash begins.   Then we'll never find out Who's a good boy? and Where is the squeaky toy?  Hearings!  We need hearings.

By contrast, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a FOIA request for the Mueller report which was suppressed by Bill Barr, who assured us that it totally exonerated Trump and we should get off the street and go home.  Judge Amy Berman Jackson has now ruled that Barr was full of shit "disingenuous" with his four-page precis, and has given Merrick Garland's new, improved Justice Department two weeks to release every incriminating word.  Judicial Watch has nothing to say about this yet, but I'll keep checking.

CREW also got records from the Secret Service, but not about dogs.  One of Trump's last acts before fleeing the scene of the crimes was to order six months of free babysitting for his adult spawn, the spawn spouses, and other rich people like Steve Mnuchin, Robert O'Brien and Mark Meadows.   They and their Secret Service minders have done more traveling since January than Champ and Major, though it's not known if they bit anyone or left poo on the floor.  (Eric?)

On the subject of tax dollars, if we can't defund the police, how about the sheriffs?  I don't know why a place like Los Angeles needs both a police and a sheriff department, but these deputies seem to have way too much time on their hands.  According to investigations by the ACLU and the National Lawyers Guild, they routinely harass the families of people they have killed.  Favorite techniques include parking in front of their homes, mocking them at vigils and memorial services and arresting them if they protest the killings.  Whatever sheriff deputies are meant to be doing obviously isn't getting done.  Has anyone in Los Angeles County noticed?

Would you like "A Shot and a Beer"?  New Jersey unveiled a program offering a free beer to any resident over 21 who presents proof of covid vaccination.  This follows Connecticut's similar "CT Drinks On Us."  I wonder if any other countries have to bribe their citizens to get a free inoculation which could save their lives.  If we don't pick up the pace, herd immunity won't happen this year.

This is the two hundredth anniversary of the Manchester Guardian (now the Guardian).  As far as I can see their first big story was not the death of Napoleon Bonaparte, also May 5, 1821; it took a while for the news to arrive from St. Helena.  France doesn't quite know what to do about "Boney."  On the one hand, he did re-write the legal code, liberate the ghettos and get France into the empire business.   He also re-instituted slavery in France and its territories, was a world-class misogynist even for that time, and got a hell of a lot of people killed.  For this reason the ceremony in Paris today was called "a commemoration, not a celebration."  He enraged Beethoven, who famously scribbled his name off the Third Symphony and then marked Waterloo with a terrible piece called Wellingtons Sieg.  I think I'll stick to Tchaikovsky and the 1812 Overture.   It's a lot shorter than Prokofiev's War and Peace.