All your news are belong to us!

 It's Thursday, and you know what that means.  Let's dial the weird up to eleven.

Once a member of the Amish community is shunned there's no returning to the farm.  I imagine it's the same with the cult formerly known as the Republican Party, which makes the recent activities of Mike Pence all the more pathetic.  He told Sean Hannity that the media focus on the January 6 lynch mob is meant to "demean" those happy patriots and distract from Joe Biden's "failed agenda."  (It can't be judged a failure if Manchenema won't let it be enacted, but let that pass.)  Pence imagines that he can somehow pursue the 2024 nomination, and is raising money for that purpose.  Yeah, and Carlo Rizzi thought Michael Corleone was sending him to Las Vegas.  Mike, you had one job.  Did you not get John Eastman's memo?  Who told you to seek advice from Dan Quayle?  Who thought he would be right?  As J.J. Hunseker would say, you're dead, go get yourself buried, and be glad it's just politically.

Former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning was invited to an immigration hearing in Montreal just so Canadian officials could throw her out of the country.  Really, Canada?  It's not like you to be this childish.  Did you also scrawl "DOODY-HEAD" across her passport?

Andy Murray is the UK's most successful tennis player since forever, but off the court he acts like a sitcom dad.  After practicing for a California match he decided his sneakers were sweaty and smelly so he put them under his car to dry, with his wedding ring attached.  Perhaps it was also sweaty.  Next day, no sneakers.  He bought new shoes but would like the ring returned.  "I'm an idiot," he bragged on Instagram.  No one has disputed this.

Chuck Grassley is 88 and says he wants another term in the Senate, where he has nested since 1981.  He may want to reconsider after being called out for congratulating Lucy Koh, nominated to the US Court of Appeals, for the work ethic of "your people" (Korean Americans).  Clearly his wife should take his hand and gently lead him away before his obvious dementia -- oh, he's a Republican?  Never mind.

Today in Trumpandemic news, Jeffrey Burnham of Maryland allegedly shot and killed his pharmacist brother and sister in law because he decided they were "killing people with the covid shot."  It's not clear why he also thought he should slash the throat of Rebecca Reynolds, 83, a friend of his mother.

Germans are nothing if not thorough.  Last week Irmgard Furchner, 96, ran away from her nursing home shortly before she was to be tried for aiding and abetting murder at the Stutthof concentration camp, where she was a secretary.  She was tracked down and taken to court.  Now Josef S, 100, is being tried on 3,518 counts of murder as an SS guard at Sachsenhausen.  No, I don't know why his last name is redacted but not hers.  

It makes more sense when you know that anti-Semitic graffiti in English and German were painted on former barracks at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum in Poland.  In Europe the past is never dead.  It's not even past.

Anti-Trump Republicans are at a higher risk than Democrats.  Jay Allen Johnson of Delta Junction, Alaska, is in hot water for leaving scary voicemail messages for Senator Lisa Murkowski, one threatening arson and another inquiring conversationally, "Fifty caliber shell, you ever see what that does to a fucking human head?"  He's charged with threatening two senators but the indictment doesn't name the other.  

School shooting...Texas...you know...

New Hampshire state representative Ken Weyler (guess) has resigned as chair of the House Finance Committee after sending the other members an interesting document which asserts, among other things, that there are "tentacled creatures" in covid vaccine and that the pope is controlled by a shadowy figure known as "the Grey Pope."  Then it gets weird.  Weyler, who says he only read the first few pages (which were perfectly lucid, I guess), remains in the House and on the committee because his "institutional knowledge is unmatched," according to Speaker Sherman Packard.  Or maybe he said something else about an institution.

If you ever looked at the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind Spencer Elden may be suing you.  He's suing the band, the photographer, the record company and everyone else who saw his little peepee back in 1991 because of "lifelong damages" he says he suffered.  Any reasonable person would be dining out on this forever -- "Remember Nevermind?  No shit, that was me."  But Spencer is still pursuing that dollar.  Hey, it beats working.  

A Black family in Virginia Beach has been subjected to constant harassment because the police refuse to enforce noise ordinances or classify the "monkey noises" as hate speech.  But earlier this year they did manage to shoot Donovan Lynch and nine other people.  Now Lynch's cousin Pharrell Williams has moved his annual Something In the Water festival out of there, citing the city's "toxic energy."  Last year it brought $41 million to the Virginia Beach economy, so the mayor is anxious to meet.  Question for Tucker Carlson:  Is it "cancel culture" when you cancel yourself?  And how does this relate to the Supreme Court's refusal to consider the question of ending "qualified immunity" for killer police?

In related news, Ed Mullins quit as president of the NYPD Sergeants Benevolent Association but we still don't know why the FBI searched his house and their offices.

Al Capone's vault was a bust but his family has many personal items they plan to auction including jewelry, photographs, and of course guns.  They want him to be remembered as "a loving father" and not just a man who took a baseball bat to an underling's head that one time.  The bidders are lining up.