Thursday potpourri

 A few days ago I had occasion to research the other woman who died in the January 6 coup attempt, Rosanne Boyland.  Because she was carrying one of those DONT TREAD ON ME flags when she fell, Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Georgia, was assumed to have been trampled to death by other devotees of Q and/or Trump.  Who doesn't love a good cosmic joke?  But three months later the DC medical examiner ruled that she died of "acute amphetamine intoxication" because reality is prosaic.  It helps to explain why she has not been elevated to the status of Martyr Ashli Babbitt and remains literally unsung:  Boyland was bombed on speed.  

You have to wonder how many of her fellow tourist-patriots were flying that day.  Two of them, men in their fifties, died of "hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease," a fancy way of saying heart attack.  Some of these people were climbing the walls, literally, while others posted video of themselves committing federal crimes.  Many assaulted police.  This is not normal, even for Trumpanzees.  Neither is urinating or defecating in a public building.  Try it at the post office and find out.  It can't be  adrenaline alone.

A few years ago the German writer Norman Ohler published Der totale Rausch:  Drogen in Dritten Reich (English title:  Blitzed:  Drugs In the Third Reich.).  It's an eye-opening -- literally -- study of the extent of amphetamine use by everyone from Hitler to Wehrmacht foot soldiers.  The reason the German army moved so fast across western Europe was, quite simply, they never slept.  The whole society was on speed.  Under the brand name Pervitin it could be purchased without a prescription.  Nor was it confined to the Reich:  In 2002 American pilots deployed to Afghanistan were still using, with official sanction.  It only came to light when two of them faced court martial after mistakenly killing four Canadians and wounding eight.  

I have to wonder if the violence of that day and the violence surrounding it -- at Trump rallies, at school board meetings, polling places, hospitals, on planes and in stores -- is also fueled by amphetamines.  They're easy to acquire, as long-haul truckers know.  Habitual use can lead to the kind of psychosis that makes Q believers incomprehensible to normal people.   Pervitin was not responsible for the Nazi atrocities, as Ohler suggests -- they were, after all, government policy --  but I'll bet it made it easier to shoot babies like clay pigeons.   A scary time grows scarier.

Well, that was dark.  Let's have some fun.  Is it too late to replace Merrick Garland with Jamie Raskin?  Because yesterday he knocked the heads of Gym Jordan and Statutory Gaetz together like Moe from The Three Stooges when they tried to disrupt the House Rules Committee debate on the contempt citation of Pigpen Bannon.  (The full House voted for it.  Lock him up!)  Raskin has no kumbaya for these odious creeps and neither has Rep. Norma Torres:  "This is not about somebody paying to have sex with a young girl or somebody not protecting people that are under their jurisdiction.  This is about our democracy."  Run and hide behind Big Bad Marge, guys, she's got your numbers.  When does Clooney's documentary about Ohio State drop?

Gaetz was back in the House last night whining about a single death threat he claims he got on Twitter and why won't the Justice Department do something about it.  That's not a death threat.  This is a death threat.  

If you want to see Rudolph Giuliani impersonate Lincoln, it's here.  Let's be charitable and assume he's auditioning for the sequel to Abraham Lincoln:  Vampire.  Oh, it's Vampire Hunter?  Never mind.

With two months to go, 2021 has seen a record 117 bills introduced in 33 states to curb the rights of transgender people.  Only yesterday Republican senators turned a judicial appointment hearing into a ghoulish celebration of hate.  Dave Chappelle is not the problem.  He's a symptom.

Among others (scorecards available in the lobby) Trump is being sued by Eddy Grant for using his song "Electric Avenue" in a silly campaign ad without permission.  His current set of lawyers, Dodge & Hyde, tried for dismissal by claiming -- you'll love this -- "Plaintiff's claims against Donald J. Trump are barred, either in whole or in part, by Presidential absolute immunity."  No, said US District Judge John G. Koeltl, they certainly are not.  Not even if he's perpetually president in his own deranged mind.  No one is absolutely immune to anything.  There is no vaccine for the principle that everybody is subject to the law.  Trump is now 1-98 in the courts, even the ones where he and Scrotum-Face McConnell handpicked the judges.

Candace Owens has a daily TV show and she has to fill the time with something, so today she called for the US to invade Australia and free its captive population from the "tyranny" of covid lockdowns and vaccine mandates.  Australia could not be reached for comment.

John Hinckley, Jr., now well enough to rejoin society, has released his country songs on Spotify.  That's it.  I have no jokes.  Although it's time to lay off Hunter Biden for selling his paintings.

Happy Halloween!