Gobbledygook

Another day, another court appearance by another Trump acolyte, but thanks to Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the US District Court in D.C. we finally know how to characterize their utterances.  "I am an American standing under public law and I am here by special divine appearance," said actor/Michael Jackson impersonator James Beeks.  "I cannot represent myself because I am myself.  I reserve all rights at all times and waive none, ever."  Said the judge, "That's all gobbledygook.  I have no idea what you're saying."  In fairness Beeks, a/k/a James T. Justis, a/k/a "Delisco," has been playing Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar and regular exposure to Andrew Lload Rubbish can result in cognitive damage.  In fairness to Judge Howell, she has been hearing a lot of this since January 6 coup-coups began flooding her courtroom.  But instead of ordering a psych hold or appointing a real lawyer, she sent Beeks home to Florida as soon as he can recover the "silver and gold" he claims the FBI took from him along with his car keys.  There he can hide among the other wandering Judases.

When Lauren "Bullets" Boebert issued her apology to "anyone in the Muslim community I offended" she meant "anyone but Ilhan Omar."  Don't pick on her, the "strong Christian woman" only recently finished high school.  During a phone call Omar demanded a public apology, leading Bullets to demand Omar apologize for "anti-American, antisemitic, anti-police rhetoric."  They're not meeting for coffee.  Nor is Kevin McCarthy coming out of his hidey-hole to get involved.  

We have a late entry in the Trumpette cat fight.  Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) had her faith sorely tested on January 6 and grieves over how the riot wiped out Trump's "legacy" of incompetence and racism, leaving his party to "start over."  Words only, she never voted for impeachment or did anything else on the record, but King Donald exiled her anyway.  Anyway, she and Big Marge are slinging mud  on the Twitter machine, calling each other stuff like "trash" and "pro-abort" and "batshit."  China and Taiwan even got dragged in.  Read it, it's hilarious.  Big Marge spends most of her time pumping iron and wheedling estrogen tablets out of Ronny Jackson, but Mace has committees; you'd think she had more important things to do.  Female scorpions in a bottle are such fun.  (If I may, Nancy, don't waste time correcting Margie's spelling.  Others have tried.)

As of this hour, the most clicked-on article in today's Guardian is "The Life and Tragic Death of John Eyers -- A Fitness Fanatic Who Refused the Vaccine."  So I clicked.  Eyers was a bodybuilder, mountain climber and triathlon competitor who evidently thought a rock-bottom BMI would render him immune to a virus.  He was wrong.  Turned out he had a chromosomal anomaly that made him dangerously susceptible to it.  His twin sister got the vaccine.  She doesn't climb mountains but she's fine.  Maybe taking medical advice from Russian media is not such a great idea.

The pro-virus camp has drawn all the gobbledygook from its weapons locker and backed up the truck at Fox News.  Faux ophthalmologist Rand Paul accused Anthony Fauci of "hubris," which must have puzzled most of his Kentucky Konstituents.  That was just the curtain raiser.  Lara Logan compared Fauci to Josef Mengele, drawing a rebuke from the American Jewish Committee.  Not to be out-dumbed, Baby Tuckoo Carlson called him "an even shorter version of Benito Mussolini."  So you don't like fascists?  Would that make you...antifa?  Sort this out, would you?  /s/ Confused in the Low Country

Let us go then, you and I, to the gobbledygook mother ship, the Q Continuum.  A paid-up member named Danny Warren wrote an open letter to Trump Himself complaining about promises broken.  The Great Awakening promised for "Red October" awoke nobody; not a single cannibalistic pedophilic Democrat was arrested/executed.  Not even in November, with just nine hours to go.  Warren is tired of waiting for "my  President and his crews of patriots [to] take back our country and our freedom."  He cc'd Michael Flynn, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and John F. Kennedy, Jr.  I thought it was a put-on by Andy Borowitz or somebody at McSweeney's until he brought up his wife and her autoimmune disorder.   This poor fool is suffering.  Trump's heedless, selfish cruelty is turned even on his most pathetically loyal followers.  For him there are no consequences.  He's Daisy Buchanan.  He wants to debate just about anyone on the "Real Big Lie" because he can't accept that he's a loser.  He would rather damage irreparably the country that gave him, a dumb, talentless slob, an amazing life.  He wants the open wounds he inflicted never to heal.  And he promises "a ratings bonanza for television!"  In the words of a real President, "Would you shut up, man?"

On second thought, I've got someone you can debate.  Father Sergiy of Yekaterinburg is right up your street.  A former Soviet cop born Nikolai Romanov (if you can believe that), he was an early covid denier who denounced his government's efforts to stem the pandemic as "Satan's electronic camp."  When vaccines were introduced he embraced the whole microchip madness.  He openly preached that followers should "die for Russia," like the end of Khovanshchina.  So far, so good, but then he denounced Vladimir Putin as a "traitor to the Motherland"  organizing a "satanic world government."  Father Sergiy, who has already done time for assault, robbery and murder, is about to do more for "breaching the freedom of conscience" and "arbitrary moves."  (I love Russian law talk.)  In three and a half years he should be out and full of even more gobbledygook. 

Robin Steenman -- here she is, rocking the Margie Greene look -- is head of the Williamson County Moms For Liberty.  She has filed the first complaint under Tennessee's No Teaching About Our Racism law, having discovered books about school integration in the 1960s were being used six decades later.  But the state education department refused to take action because they remember the 1920s and don't want to look like hillbilly extras in Inherit the Wind again.  Sorry, Mom.  You should get in touch with Bill Lee.  Not the governor, the pitcher.  He'll set you straight.

 

 

Be kind, goddammit!

 

Would you believe it?  All that wasted electricity.

Who do they think they are?  Telling us how to think.

How much did that cost?  And where is the baby Jesus?

All this and more is doubtless burning through the haternet as Dr. Jill Biden unveils her first White House holiday decorations.  Some of us, however, are glad to say goodbye to the Tim Burton-inspired

"fucking Christmas decorations" of the recent past.  A small thing, but defiantly gladdening.

There's not much gladness on offer, what with the new super-contagious Omicron variant shutting down whole countries.   Israel closed its borders on the first night of Chanukah, which is upsetting, and don't even think about visiting Bethlehem this year.  Anthony Fauci has come in for a fresh onslaught of abuse from the usual gang of idiots who think they know more about respiratory diseases than someone who has fought them for five decades.  Am I wrong, or does he look younger and happier as their rants get dumber?  Fauci has remained apolitical his entire career but he's being dragged into it now, and he has a lot of anger stored up.  When Ted Cruz demanded he be prosecuted for lying to Congress about how he and China invented the pandemic, Fauci retorted, "I should be prosecuted?  What happened on January 6, Senator?"  No response yet from Cancun's most famous fugitive.  Keep asking, Doctor, the Thompson commission would like to hear his answer.

Most people have never heard of the FQMSP but they have the power to ruin breakfast for half the world.  The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers take that responsibility seriously and are releasing 22 million kilograms of syrup from their strategic reserve to cover increased demand (all those people working from home while eating waffles) and make up for a shorter sap season.  I for one am glad we can still rely on the OPEC of sugary happiness.  Of course, the price will go up.

The price of everything is up, from gasoline to haircuts, and the wise pundits have already declared Joe Biden a one-term president if he doesn't wrestle prices to the mat.  Why isn't he on Twitter eleven times a day blaming everyone but himself, "your favorite president"?  Does he even know how to do the job?  

What's Kyle up to today?  He's taking an online nursing class at Arizona State and a campus alliance of lefty students wants him expelled.  "Our campus is already unsafe as is and we would like to abate this danger as much as possible," they wrote, on the assumption that one day the little shit will have to show up in person, nursing being a hands-on sort of training.  Is he crying yet?  Depends who's watching.

Here's something else I did not know:  For the previous four years there was a VPDB.  That's because Trump was so lazy, ignorant, uninvolved and just plain dumb that the Presidential Daily Briefing was usually delivered to Mike Pence.  The intelligence community just gave up on Agolf Twitler.  We came full circle from 1945, when Harry Truman took office without having heard of the Manhattan Project, among other things.  Jeez, even Bush II got a daily briefing.  He ignored it the day it was headed "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In US," but he read it before he went fishing.  And now I'm thinking of the BBC I, Claudius, where Antonia wants to get word to Tiberius by concealing a letter in a book Claudius has written.  Her son demurs -- he's not happy with the copyist's workmanship.  "Fool!" she erupts.  "He's not going to read it unless it has pictures of naked women!"  I'll bet that would have made the PDB more intriguing to Trump.

George Orwell, player?  Orwell famously had little to say about his first wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy, who died during a hysterectomy.  He married Sonia Brownell on his deathbed.  The women in his novels, even Julia in 1984, tend to the forgettable.  But a cache of letters newly discovered reveals a man who wrote to two girlfriends throughout his short life and liked to share long walks and ice skating with them (one at a time).  His adopted son Richard Blair says, "He wanted a bit of an open marriage with my mother Eileen, but she put her foot down."  Well.  For me the most shocking fact is that "he wrote them almost identical letters."  Like Sir John in The Merry Wives of Windsor?  Yeah, women love that.

Who is Ron Filipkowski?  I kept seeing his name and I finally checked him out, finding a man who had a real road-to-Damascus experience last year.  He was a Republican, a prosecutor, appointed to the 12th Judicial Circuit Nominating Commission by Ron DeSantis.  Then Florida's top data scientist Rebekah Jones was fired and subjected to an early-morning armed raid for refusing to fudge the covid numbers.  Filipkowski was already an anti-Trumper but he didn't settle for signing on with the Lincoln Project.  He quit, became a Democrat and a defense attorney in Sarasota, and now tracks the right on Twitter (so you don't have to).  He bills himself as General Counsel for the Woke Mob.  There's hope for everyone.  Almost everyone.

  

Republicans in disarray!

 Trouble in paradise?  Today in Politico we learn that several Trump-anointed office seekers are disappointing in their quest to become Senators.  Mo Brooks, the rabble-rouser of January 6, is making little headway in Alabama, for instance, and Kelly Tshibaka is losing ground to Lisa Murkowski in Alaska.  It seems the Orange One's "iron grip" on the cult party may be in the eye of MSM beholders like the New York Times.  Not even including the wife-beater who had to drop out in Pennsylvania.  (Trump may transfer his love to Mehmet Oz, the TV charlatan/doctor whose qualifications mirror his own.)

Young Kyle is engaged in a very public brawl with his unstable lawyer Lin Wood, accusing him of mismanaging the case and the $2 million bail money.  As a result, the party's Q wing has turned on Kyle, accusing him of being "manipulated by the Deep State."   Say it ain't so!

The party of billionaires and Russian oligarchs embarked on its first Thanksgiving Offensive by accusing the President and Vice President of being out of touch with Real Murkins because he spent the holiday in Nantucket and she spent her own money on expensive kitchenware during her trip to Paris.  It did not end well.  Too many old-timers still remember how much Trump billed the Secret Service for rooms and golf carts at his tacky resorts, where he seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time.  And by the way, did that super-costly Japanese whiskey ever turn up?  Last seen in the vicinity of Mike Pompeo?

Calamity Boebert also had an unfortunate week.  She entertained an audience of supporters with an anecdote about that time Ilhan Omar got on a Capitol elevator with her and her minders, uh, staff.  The Boeb claims she said, "She doesn't have a backpack, we should be fine."  Because, see, the "Jihad squad" are all suicide bombers, right? says Ms. You're-Never-Fully-Dressed-Without-a-Sidearm.  That was fine with her fellow Rightzis, including "Leader" McCarthy.  Boebert's error was to apologize to "anyone in the Muslim community I offended."  Weakness!  RINO!  This is not over.

Kevin McCarthy would grab his ankles for the Hells Angels to be Speaker of the House.  All over the country state legislatures are furiously (if quietly) gerrymandering to make it so.  But there's one power broker he shouldn't rely on.  Margie Three Names told Matt Gaetz's Scheme Time Radio Hour that his failure to support her, Gosar and other neo-Nazis means he "doesn't have the full support" of the House Republicans.  Who does?  Gym Jordan!  At least until Clooney's documentary drops.  (Since the party had no platform last year except "Trump ha sempre ragione," I'm not sure how they stand on the sexual abuse of male college athletes.)

I am not ready to write about a number of issues, including startling news about George Orwell and Canada's strategic maple syrup reserve.   Meanwhile...

No sale

 Crowds of people in hoodies are smashing department store windows, swarming over the high-end electronics, designer clothes and leather goods like a colony of angry ants before vanishing into the night.  So where is the unasked avenger of retailing under siege?  Where is Kyle Rittenhouse when his country needs him?

Still completing his victory lap.   There's zero likelihood that Big Marge's bill to give him a medal will go anywhere, but it's an honor just to be nominated, right?  Like the White People's Choice Awards.  He can have his pick of (unpaid) Congressional internships, matriculating in fascism at the feet of America's most loathsome.  I'm sure colleges are bidding for him, some of them accredited.  Candace Owens wants to have his children.  Now about those smash-and-grab gangs...

A security guard named Kevin Nishita was shot while protecting a TV news crew in Oakland as they covered one of these robberies, and has now died.  That lifts the event above "non-traditional shopping" and "the insurance will cover it" wisecracks.  This is the violence that the Trumpers rant about, and which seldom occurs, during BLM demonstrations.  I'm not seeing any Oaf Keepers or Prod Boys, or even the Guardian Angels whose founder just got ass-kicked in the New York mayoral race.  Not so brave in the face of real violence from real criminals.  It's easier to wave guns at unarmed marchers, as Bonnie and Clyde McCloskey did.  True colors.

 

  I'm known for my off-label sense of humor but it's not dark enough to come up with this.  There's a rumor that tickets are going (or not) for $20,000, and you get to touch Melania on any silicone surface.  Notice, please, it says "holiday season."  No C word.  Gods help us, every one.

 

One step forward

"I'm floored, with a capital F," said defense attorney Laura Hogue after the jury brought in three "guilty as hell" verdicts for the murderers of Ahmaud Arbery.  You and me both, counselor.  Maybe it wasn't a good idea to mention the victim's "dirty toenails" in your summation.  Maybe your co-counsel should not have reminded the jury of this country's grim history with the word "lynching."  Maybe it wouldn't have mattered.  There was video.  There was audio, with one defendant yelling "n-----" over the dying man.  It's 2021, not 1921.  At least there will be no photo-op with Trump, who won't be able to complain that the killers "should never have been put through a trial."   

Of course, that was the view of prosecutors, who passed the buck for over two months before having these three arrested.  Even then they had to bring in a judge, Timothy Walmsley, from Savannah, who took no shit from the defense.  (Yeah, he's a Republican.)  But it's over.  Let's go home and eat too much and recover from this ordeal.  Not relax; you can never relax.  There is only sometimes.

In Syracuse, New York, another overturned conviction.  Anthony Broadwater, now 61, was convicted by "junk science" and exonerated by DNA in the rape of Alice Sebold.  She wrote about her assault in several books including the fictional The Lovely Bones, but she failed to pick Broadwater out of a lineup.  Nevertheless, he served sixteen years.  "I'm so elated, the cold can't even keep me cold," he said today.  Broadwater left prison in 1999 but a rape conviction and the sex-offenders registry have blighted his life, leading even to a decision not to have children.  Maybe Sebold would like to write a book about that.

One more legal story and I'm done:  A team of attorneys for four would-be entrepreneurs got permission from a federal judge to see outtakes from Celebrity Apprentice which MGM has been guarding like the Norden bombsight.   It's not that important why these contestants think they were defrauded by another Trump enterprise (get in line).  More to the point, what is so toxic that MGM won't let anybody see discarded footage from an old TV show?  Could it contain Trump's Face In the Crowd moment?  The Trumpanzees have a lot more invested in him that Lonesome Rhodes's fans ever did, so I'm not hopeful.  Might be fun, though.

I'm not at all happy about DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), where NASA has sent a rocket to crash into the asteroid Dimorphos.  It poses no threat to Earth, they just want to see if they can change the orbit of a big space rock in case they ever need to do it.  I guess they've all seen Armageddon.  Now they need to see The Day the Earth Caught Fire.   Oh, too late.   

Several examples of wasted space are fighting over Kyle Rittenhouse, the new poster boy for armed fascism.  At least three have offered him Congressional intern jobs as a reward for getting away with murder.  Whose invitation was the most disgusting?  If you said Ptomaine Lauren you wouldn't be wrong.  The clever Coloradan "challenged" Madison Cawthorn to a sprint, winner gets the dear boy.  Wasn't that hilarious?  If it were anyone but the Hitler fanboy I would be angry.  As it is, well, scorpions in a bottle.

Over on the Senate side Rafael Cruz thought it was funny that Gavin Newsom is spending Thanksgiving in Mexico.  It isn't, and only an idiot would keep reminding everyone why Texans still call him "Fled."  You can't bring the funny if the tank is empty.

Happy Last Thursday in November, y'all.

 

   

Happy talk

Relentlessly upbeat I am, as good news floods in from everywhere.  Call me Sky of Buttermilk farm.

November is reprieve month and I'm not talking about that stupid turkey "pardoning" at the White House.  When AOC is President I hope she puts an end to it.  Another conviction has been vacated and this time the wrongly convicted person is still alive.  Kevin Strickland is free after serving 43 years for a triple murder in Missouri he did not commit.  He left prison in a wheelchair but he is 62 and still alive, and he wants to visit his mother's grave.  

Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter -- what a sonorous title! -- ordered two Colorado lawyers to cough up $187,000 in legal costs for their frivolous lawsuits challenging the 2020 election results.  He accused them of filing "unverified and uninvestigated defamatory rumors that strike at the heart of our democratic system and were used by others to foment a violent insurrection."  Pay the clerk, guys -- I'm sure your client will reimburse when he moves back into the White House next week.  

Or possibly not.  Mike Lindell -- Mike the Baptist to Trump's Messiah -- has been thwarted by the RNC, Ronna McDaniel, Fox News, Newsmax, antifa, and a conspiracy of Republican attorneys general who refuse to sign something he was planning to shove under John Roberts's nose today.   And that would do it.  Undaunted, the Pillow King will publish incontrovertible proof of election theft on his website in time for the "Thanks-a-thon" scheduled for tomorrow midnight (CST?).  Ninety-six hours of non-stop holiday rantings for the Qcumbers to share with their long-suffering families around the table.  I'll be in front of the TV with a folding table and Ninotchka.

I haven't paid much attention to the latest installment of Treasonous and Insane Stuff Trump Told Me Which I Saved For My Book.  That would be Jonathan Karl's Betrayal:  The Final Act of the Trump Show.  (They all have titles that sound like the last days of Ceausescu or Gaddafi.)  Karl, however, won the cake with a wholly weird anecdote about the time Trump called him "very cool.  He's like my son."  He was comparing Karl's lack of excitement about a Trump appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner to Barron Trump's reluctance to tell Daddy he loves him.  Trump has not noticed that he has two other sons who would do backflips on hot coals just to get his attention but he's obsessed about the youngest one.  How Old Testament.  How creepy.  There may be hope for Barron after all.

Firsts!  For a little over an hour last week Kamala Harris was Acting President of the United States while Joe Biden underwent a colonoscopy.  (NOW they activate the 25th Amendment.)  So the first woman, the first Asian American and the first African American woman to assume the office.  But wait!  There's more!  Today she and Doug Emhoff, who I refuse to call the Second Gentleman because it's silly, moved into the renovated Vice Presidential residence and marked the occasion by nailing a mezuzah to the doorway.  It was loaned by The Temple in Atlanta, where Leo Frank once worshiped.  Emhoff's parents attended, the first time they have seen him since the pandemic began.  I am now officially verklempt.

The patriots who marched through Charlottesville in 2017 to celebrate the Trump era have been ordered to pay $26 million to nine people who were traumatized by the torchlight parade of "Unite the Right."  Most of it is owed by James Fields, who is doing life for the murder of Heather Heyer, so there's little likelihood he'll be able to pay, but the judgment is on record.  Spencer, Cantwell and the rest are officially having a bad day.  "Jews will not replace us"?  Stand back and stand down.

Remember this idiot?  He pleaded guilty.  He's going to do time.  And he had to give back the Speaker's lectern.  Wave goodbye to the idiot.

 

  

Black Monday

 Based on the commercials, Thanksgiving is just a speed bump on the road to Black Friday, the opening of the commodity exchange season that makes our lives just a little bit grimmer.  It's already on! at least one retailer assures us.  Soon it will swallow the whole week, then the rest of November, in a relentless assault on our time, patience and credit cards.  With all the ginned-up panic about inflation, you might think people would stay out of the malls.  No sign of it.

But there's always someone with worse trouble.  Here's a woman on the UK site Mumsnet who just found out she's invited to pay for Christmas dinner.  The money will allegedly go for champagne, which she does not drink.  If that's not bad enough she'll be expected to put on a paper hat and listen to wince-inducing "jokes."  Were I she I'd go back for seconds on the dressing.  I know, it was a matter of time when people -- all right, Americans -- began sending out bills with their wedding invitations, but come on, Christmas?  Even Ebenezer Scrooge wouldn't be that mean.

The German health minister Jens Spahn practices tough love that Anthony Fauci might envy.  As the pandemic enters its second winter he states, "Probably by the end of the winter, more or less everyone in Germany will be vaccinated, cured or dead."  The Delta variant has Europeans using words like "triage" and "lockdown" again, and it's a matter of time before the wave crests over here.  Vaccinated or dead works for me.  Stick to your guns, Republicans!  In every sense.

You may be wondering just how long the arc of the moral universe is and why it takes so long to bend toward justice.   You may even be wondering if King knew what he was talking about.  There have been two reasons to doubt lately, the exoneration of the men convicted of killing Malcolm X and this stunner from 1949.  The Groveland Four were accused of raping a white woman in central Florida.  Two were convicted on fake evidence and later paroled.  One was "shot while trying to escape" and the other was shot by a "posse" (lynch mob) over 400 times.  All are now deceased, of course, but their families welcomed the good news. 

We all need to sit down and decide exactly what constitutes a "terrorist" attack.  Yesterday a man named Darrell Brooks is accused of driving into the Waukesha Christmas parade, killing five people and injuring 48, including many children.  Since Brooks is Black some people immediately saw a connection to the outrage in nearby Kenosha, but it appears he is only a domestic abuser who was having a bad day.  After an earlier incident he had been released on a surprisingly low bail, but the chief of police wants it known that he acted alone and "this was not a terrorist event."  Would that require a political agenda, maybe a manifesto?  Because I don't think Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook was concerned with justice for Palestine, or even trying to impress Jodie Foster.  How about:  You terrorize a lot of people with a gun, a car, a gender-reveal party -- congratulations, you're a terrorist.

On the subject of domestic abuse, it looks like Trump-anointed candidate Sean Parnell will not be the Republican running for the Senate in Pennsylvania.  His estranged wife was granted custody of their three children.  It's the usual litany of choking, screaming and chair-hurling, but what caught Dear Leader's eye was the time he dropped Mrs. Parnell off on I-79 when she was six months pregnant and told her to get an abortion.  Too bad.  He would have been a good playmate for Cruz, Hawley, Cotton, Neely K and the rest.  

Who said, "I'm not a racist person, I support the BLM movement.  I support peacefully demonstrating."  If you said Kyle Rittenhouse you win all the jelly beans.  Of course, he said it on Baby Tuckoo's White Power Hour, where nothing truthful is ever allowed to be said, so feel free to assume crossed fingers and a smirk.  Didn't Trump say he was "the least racist person you will ever see"?

Maybe hope, the thing with feathers, is worse than cynicism.  After Kenosha I'm not optimistic about Brunswick.  But the McMichael/Bryan lawyers are already complaining that Judge Walmsley's instructions to the virtually-white jury will make it clear that there was no probable cause to detain, much less kill, Ahmaud Arbery, knocking their case into a cocked hat.  "This is what a public lynching looks like in the 21st century," Kevin Gough actually whined.  Tell it to Tucker, Kevin.  (You know he will.)  I will wait and see, and follow the Scary Black Pastors Act as it works its way through the Georgia legislature.

She put on blackface for a college skit, she refused to mandate vaccines or masks, she signed a law to protect Alabama's Confederate monuments, she tried to keep same-sex couples from adopting babies, she criminalized abortion -- not good enough!  Trump is gunning for Kay "Poison" Ivey because he blames her for cancelling one of his hate rallies last summer.  What can I say?  She's not his type.

  

Murder without victims

 A world of possibilities.

Maybe Bruce Schroeder is not a racist bigot but just a Lee Greenwood fan.

Maybe Ron Johnson keeps getting elected because Wisconsin is overflowing with people even dumber than he is.

Maybe Milam and Bryant killed Emmett Till in self defense.

Maybe they'll find Jimmy Hoffa under the Pulaski Skyway.

Maybe Ronna McDaniel will be fired as RNC chair after admitting that Trump lost.

Maybe the RNC will go broke bulk-buying the Trump book of pictures and captions.  So many publishers were bidding for it that Junior had to start his own publishing company!  (Mark Richards, someone wants to hire you.)

Maybe Erik DeValkenaere was convicted of killing Cameron Lamb in his garage because it was wrong or because he and his partner planted evidence to make it look as if Lamb was armed.  Yes, of course the officer cried on the witness stand.  Why do you ask?

Maybe I should find something else to write about.

It's only a beaver moon

 The land of the free famously has more people locked up or otherwise entangled in its prison-industrial complex than any other, so it's not surprising that our top stories concern "justice."  What is surprising is that some of the news is relatively good.  Julius Jones's death sentence was commuted to life in prison with no possibility of parole.  In New York two men convicted of assassinating Malcolm X in 1965 had their convictions vacated.  Muhammad A. Aziz is 83 and Khalil Islam died in 2009, so maybe not such a great day for America, especially since it took a Netflix documentary to bring this about.  Still.

No verdict in Kenosha at this hour.  Punk crosses state lines with an illegal weapon (no matter what Judge Alzheimer says), kills two men, gets a job offer from Statutory Gaetz, what more do they need?  A marriage proposal from Laura Loomer?

Yesterday in the Guardian Tayo Bero detailed amusingly how "Harvard students aren't that smart after all," news which will shock absolutely no one.  Bero should write a series.  Next:  Yale, land of Bushes.  Or closer to home, Magdalen College Oxford, which can boast John Neely Kennedy (R-LA) among its alumni.  Neely K is the master of confirmation smear, asking Comptroller of the Currency nominee Saule Omarova if he should call her "professor or comrade" because she was born in Kazakhstan while it was part of the USSR, and because she once wrote a paper critical of the greatest banking system ever, ours.  (Yes, the C-word is back; everyone the Republiclowns dislike is a COMMUNIST.  If you're too young to remember McCarthyism, this is how it smelled.)  The bayou buffoon has also asked Justice nominee Hampton Dellinger if he believes in god and called Deb Haaland a "neo-socialist left-of-Lenin whackjob."  I can't tell if he read history or English at Magdalen.  Either way, the place with the dreaming spires needs to revise its admissions policy.

Here's some news Neely K will hate:  John Deere fought the United Auto Workers and the UAW won.  After a month-long strike, ten thousand workers will get a 20 percent wage hike over six years, a "signing bonus" of $8,500 and cost-of-living adjustments they had previously lost.  Unions are awakening everywhere, from Starbucks to the coal mines of Alabama.  Where did I put that Woody Guthrie record?

Down in Brunswick Travis McMichael took the stand and turned on the tears as he explained he had no choice but to shoot Ahmaud Arbery after the previously unarmed jogger grabbed his gun.  Well, he could have refrained from chasing, cornering and drawing on him but, you know, maybe he was a burglar.  Jimmy Swaggart, Alex Jones, Brett Kavanaugh, Kyle Rittenhouse, this guy -- did the original Nazis blub this much?

If Lee Harvey Oswald were around today he’d say he shot JFK in self-defense. - Andy Borowitz

More good news, I guess -- the US Conference of Catholic Bishops voted 228-28 to allow pro-choice politicians access to communion, only seventeen years after raising a stink over John Kerry's presidential campaign.  Maybe they'll butt out of politics for a while and clean out their own Augean stable, the criminal abuse of thousands of children.  

Today in science news, catastrophic floods in British Columbia and Washington state; and get ready for another winter of covid.  Thanks, Trumpanzees, we couldn't do it without you.  At least you won't be full of horse worms.

BLM can stand for Black Lives Matter or Bureau of Land Management, but apparently the two are not compatible -- or they weren't when the previous administration moved the Bureau's main office to Grand Junction, Colorado.  This had the effect of reducing Black employees to 312, less than four percent of the total.  Inadvertent, I'm sure.  The good guys are moving it back to the District of Columbia.   

Here's a reason to thank Rittenhouse and the McMichaels -- not much coverage of the Unite the Right trial in Charlottesville.  Casual TV viewers have been spared the praise for Hitler, the racial slurs and the abandonment of all decency in Tom Jefferson's hometown.  Did Christopher Cantwell weep again from the witness stand?  (Yeah, another one.)  Will Richard Spencer recover from this "character assassination"?  How much will the plaintiffs get?  All I know is, the judge's name is Norman Moon.  

 

Mid-week roundup

 Chansley lawyer scoffs at client's role, endorses smoking crack:  After Shaman Jacob Chansley was sentenced to 41 months for participating in the attempted coup, his attorney Albert Watkins was still trying to downplay his actions:  "Are you going to follow the guy who's naked, tattooed, nipples, January DC, hours outside with horns, face paint and a fur and say, yeah, that's the guy I want, I'm following him?  Unless you're smoking crack, which, you know, is not bad on occasion." 

You believe this Stitt?  As the hour for another horrific state killing by lethal injection approaches, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt continues to ignore calls for clemency from clergy, high school students, the European Union and many others.  Apparently Stitt wants to run for president and hopes Julius Jones will be his Ricky Ray Rector.

Granite Old Party.  It is against the law to teach "critical race theory" in New Hampshire public schools, but that's not good enough.  Inspired by Texas's "rat out the slut" law, a bunch called Moms For Liberty [sic] has offered $500 to "the person that first successfully catches a public school teacher breaking this law...we will pledge anonymity if you want."  Like if you don't want to be laughed at, or you're afraid the teachers union will order a hit on you.  Gerrymandering, restrictions on voting, giving electoral veto power to the state legislature, those are all very well, but if you want to kill democracy you have to attack it at the molecular level. 

House of Reps or Roach Motel?  The House just voted to censure Cockroach-In-a-Dentist-Skin Paul Gosar for sharing some of his violent fantasies with social media.  He will lose a couple of committee seats but will not be expelled, no matter how many of his siblings beg for it.  The interstellar insect refused to apologize, comparing himself to Alexander Hamilton.  Not Jesus?

Wires crossed, Todd.  In Chuck Todd World nothing the Democrats do is ever good enough.  The infrastructure bill "might have been impactful in August or September or October.  It feels more like...[it] might not be a good story for Democrats in 2022," because voters make up their minds no later than Halloween of the preceding year.  But Trump Himself calls it a "big victory" for Biden and Pelosi and blames it on Scrotum-face McConnell.  Chuck?  Want to rephrase?

The agony and the amnesty.  Judge Matthew J. Murphy III "agonized" over the case of Christopher Belter, who pleaded guilty to raping four girls at a party when he was 16 or 17.  He's twenty now but Murphy decided "incarceration or partial incarceration isn't appropriate" and gave him probation.  His lawyer said he can "empathize" with his victims, which should certainly enable them to heal and move on.  You can stop having nightmares now, girls.  One day you may testify at his confirmation hearing. 

Oops!  Turns out the Bureau of Labor Statistics undercounted new jobs by 626,000 over the last four months.  Could there be a Trump mole hiding behind the file cabinets?

No religious Test shall ever be required...except for Muslims.  The Republiclowns continue to boycott a confirmation hearing for Dilawar Syed, nominated for deputy director of the Small Business Administration.  It's bad enough they got an Injun at Interior, damn it!

That's not at all weird.  Mike Tyson says he smokes toad venom three times a day.  The hallucinogen makes him "more creative and focused," said the man who used to beat people's brains out and chew off their ears.  I couldn't be happier for him.

Such, such were the joys.  The British historian Helen Roche's new book investigates the way Nazi elite schools were carefully patterned after Eton, Harrow and other public schools.  There were sport programs, exchange students, and many other reasons the British upper classes were so supportive of Mr. Hitler, at first.

A little effort, please.  With all the clever nicknames available to a jenius, "Liz Harrington" is sticking with Old Crow (sometimes Broken Old Crow) for his no-longer BFF McConnell.  What's wrong with The Turtle, Scrotum-face, Addison DeHalfwit, The Wall-eyed Chinless Homunculus or Evil Incarnate?  I have others.  

Topsy-Tuesday

 Groucho:  "Look at Chicolini -- he sits there alone, an abject figure."

Chico:  "I abject!"

The espionage trial at the climax of Duck Soup is no longer the limit of courtroom absurdity.  It was superseded yesterday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA, when Mark Richards, attorney for the defense, explained to the jury that Kyle Rittenhouse should be acquitted because he only fired four times.  (Two men died but they aren't victims.)  By contrast Officer Rusten Sheskey shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times and is not only back at work but has not even been indicted.  Rufus T. Firefly could not have put it better.  In the movie, the courtroom soon erupts in delirious celebration, including the defendant, as Freedonia goes to war.  In Kenosha that part hasn't happened yet, but the National Guard is standing by.   The trial has begun to attract fascist celebrities:  Mark McCloskey took time from his senate campaign and brought gun-moll Patricia to enjoy the fun, a brave move since they appeared to be unarmed.

Three "silly, bubbly and handsome" snow leopards in the Lincoln Children's Zoo have died of covid.  There have been reports of big cats being infected before and recovering but this appears to be a new and more virulent strain.  I mention this because it is sad on its face and because Pharisee Greene continues to grandstand for her supporters, boasting of how much she has been fined for refusing to be vaccinated or mask her "face" on the House floor.  (It's less than she owes the state of Georgia for claiming a tax exemption on two houses.)  You have to admire the relentless way this virus mutates.  Fingers crossed.  

I finally figured out who Rittenhouse looks like.  Imagine Tucker Carlson raped a comatose woman in an ICU, and nine months later...

Henry Tarrio, Ghislaine Maxwell, the Shaman guy, just nobody likes the conditions in American jails.  Which would be fine if it led to major reforms, maybe another infrastructure bill to build comfy facilities with health clubs and media rooms.  But it won't.

Years ago the medical research institutes used to announce every couple of months that binging on some vegetable would prevent cancer -- broccoli, kale, spinach or something else you would normally ignore.  Now it's dementia.  Caffeine, apparently, is the magic substance for those who are starting to lose their train of thought, like Judge Bruce Schroeder during jury instructions ("I've got myself into a mid-sentence and I don't like it").  Ten-minute cappuccino break?

Here's a crime Schroeder will never have to worry about:  "Insulting the memory of Ataturk."  Turkey regularly locks up writers on bullshit charges; this case got noticed because it involves Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and is based on a work of fiction, Nights of Plague.  If Erdogan fears Pamuk he's going to hate the Netflix series The Club.  Netflix has a history of caving to tyrants so see it while you can.  And read the book.

But all the news is not bad:  Danny Fenster is home after getting an eleven-year sentence in Myanmar.  Thank you, Bill Richardson.

Gummed by newts

 Molly Ivins wrote, "I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt.  It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle."

Limbaugh's sliming days are over, but plenty aspire to his pre-eminence.  When speaking in Paris Vice President Harris apparently pronounced one word in a non-canonical manner and was instantly accused of undermining the infrequently-special relationship with France by imitating a French accent.  Last I heard the French were all huffy about a submarine deal with Australia, not American speech.  (For the record she said "thee" for "the," not "ze" or ''zut alors!" or anything like that.)  Emanuel Macron has not recalled his ambassador.  Nobody even noticed but the Fox Gang and, of all people, Ari Fleischer, who used to translate Bush-speak into basic English for a living.  Is it still hard to put food on your family, Ari?

Mick & Keith should also check their ankles for slime.  Paul McCartney recently called them "a blues cover band," which certainly describes their first recordings half a century ago.  Now Roger Daltrey has pronounced the Stones "a mediocre pub band," while conceding that Jagger is "the number one rock'n'roll performer."  And how are their tours going?  Oh.  Sorry.

I'm surprised the Fox Ministry of Public Enlightenment can talk about anything other than Camilla Duchess of Cornwall's encounter with Joe Biden, during which she says he trumped.  She says so to everyone within earshot, apparently.  Camilla may be days (or years) away from becoming the most disliked queen since Anne Boleyn, and she can't be happy that the current queen's place at Remembrance Day ceremonies was taken by the Duchess of Cambridge.  How do we know she didn't cut the cheese herself?   At any rate, Biden hasn't tendered his resignation.  

Who said this?  "When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.  I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.  But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen."  Whoever it was, he forgot to add "and don't post a picture of yourself doing it, you vicious hate-filled idiot."

 1.  I see she concentrates on Revelation.

2.  Needs a few more wall crosses.

3.  Can we call her Pharisee Taylor Greene?

No doubt she agrees with convicted/pardoned felon and traitor Michael Flynn, who called for "One nation under god and one religion under god" on the crackpot caravan known as ReAwaken America.  He was seconded by Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel.  Mandel is running an ugly campaign and has now been the object of an ugly attack from an opponent named (appropriately) Mark Pukita, who wants everyone to know that "he's Jewish.  Everybody should know that, right?"  These are the people who claim vaccine mandates are a summons to the cattle cars and a mask is just a disposable yellow star.  Whatever Ohio decides will further slime public discourse.  

Pigpen Bannon was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday and is scheduled for arraignment tomorrow.  Unless he and all the others glorying in their contempt of Congress are convicted and locked up, it's just another exercise in newt-gumming.

Outrage of the day

 Three Texas teenagers dressed as Klansmen for Halloween, which is tasteless but not illegal.  Then they attacked a Black high school student (and possibly five other children) with a Taser, which is.

Attacks on Asians in the US continue largely unnoticed.  An exception is the Olympic gymnast Suni Lee who was pepper-sprayed in a drive-by attack in Los Angeles last month.  

Kevin Gough, attorney for the lynchers in the Ahmaud Arbery case, objected to the presence of Al Sharpton in the courtroom because "he has no church in Glynn County."  "We don't want any more Black pastors in here," he added, singling out Jesse Jackson, who has not attended the trial.  He then compared it to "people dressed like Colonel Sanders with white masks," which was slightly confusing, and expressed fear that the nearly-white jury might be "intimidated" by Sharpton.  Judge Timothy Walmsley told him to knock it off.

Meanwhile in Kenosha (Ojibwe for "clusterfuck"), Bruce Schroeder made it clear that he's not biased against Blacks.  Sorry, that should have read "not just biased against Blacks."  In a discussion of lunch he "joked," "I hope the Asian food isn't coming -- it's not, isn't one of those boats in Long Beach harbor."  Kyle's mom Wendy visited Sean Hannity last night to praise Schroeder's fairness ("A Daniel come to judgment," she didn't quote) and to attack President Biden, a prerequisite for a Hannity booking.  "President Biden don't know my son whatsoever....he defamed him" by using video of Kyle strutting around with his AR-15 in a campaign ad.  "I thought my son was going to die that night...this guy just pointed a gun at his head...But he has a lot of healing to do.  He does have nightmares from this," said the woman who drove him to Kenosha.

"I'm totally confused," said SpongeSean's stablemate Tucker Carlson, perhaps the first true words he has spoken this year.  He was admiring Russia's huge reserves of energy and its "major player" status, and couldn't understand why we would support piddly little Ukraine against Russian aggression.  A Republican Congressman from Ohio, Mike Turner, tried to straighten him out, but Tuckums did not appear to grasp why a democracy might be worthier than a dictatorship.  Hungary, that's his kind of country.

Another Republican Congressman, Fred Upton of Michigan, is upset because his vote for the infrastructure bill has called down death threats on him, his family and his staff.  He has been in office for 36 years but this is something new, he says.  He had to close his two Michigan offices while security was upgraded.  I wouldn't worry, Congressman.  Anonymous death threats are Valentines from impotent morons.  And those who kill don't threaten.  It's bad tactics to warn the victim.

Britney Poolaw is a Native American woman in Oklahoma who suffered a miscarriage in her fourth month of pregnancy.  She has been sentenced to four years in prison for manslaughter.  Ball's in your court, Texas. 

Mark Meadows ignored a subpoena to appear before the Select Committee on the insurrection.  He faces contempt charges.  But hey, it's not like he's Arthur Miller or Dalton Trumbo.  All he did was conspire to overthrow an election.  Could somebody slip a mirror under Merrick Garland's nose?  

In fake outrage news, Newt Gingrich, Eric Trump and Hannity jumped on Joe Biden's use of the word "Negro" in his Arlington remarks yesterday to claim him as a fellow racist.  In fact he was talking about Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson having played in the Negro Leagues before joining the majors.  (If Biden ever has occasion to talk about the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People they might "faint" on the air.)  Really, boys?  Running out of material so soon?  Better pace yourselves, he'll be in office another three years, no matter what Pillow Mike says.

Journalist Danny Fenster was sentenced to eleven years in prison for various bullshit "crimes" in Myanmar, a military dictatorship and Tuckums's kind of country.  Trump would be gloating if he had the vaguest idea where Myanmar is.

Enough outrage.  Vote now.

 

Purple mountain travesties

Everyone knows America is the envy of the world.  Let's see why!

The Rittenhouse trial is basically an Armando Iannucci film at this point.  The judge ruled that the two men killed by the defendant's gun could not be called "victims" but had no problem with a defense witness calling them "antifa" and "rioters."  The same witness, a rightwing reporter named Frank Hernandez, went further, testifying to Kyle's courageous effort to "de-escalate" the violence.  Another defense witness, a "use of force expert" named John Black, easily convinced Judge Schroeder that the "pinch and zoom" feature on Apple phones might distort a video's "logarithm" (perhaps he meant "algorithm").  Even before Black took the stand Schroeder made everyone stand and applaud him because he is a veteran and it's Veterans Day.  The judge got a call during testimony and it turns out his ringtone is Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA," the Trump rally anthem.  Here is a picture of Judge Schroeder whiling away the trial with a book which purports to celebrate military service with cookie recipes.

 

  Does he know people can see him?

The Republiclown Ignorance Offensive continues to expand:  James Whitfield had to resign as principal of Colleyville Heritage High School in Texas after being charged with teaching children that racism exists.  This is called "holding extreme views on race."  Meanwhile in Jefferson's home state the Spotsylvania school board has caved in to a couple of rioters called Rabih Abuismail and Kirk Twigg and removed "sexually explicit" books (i.e. those that acknowledge the existence of LGBT people) from libraries.  Twigg insists they "see the books before we burn them," which is borderline liberal of him.  "There are some bad, evil-related material that we have to be careful of and look at," he added, grammar abandoning him in the face of danger.  Where they burn library books they will ultimately also burn bookstores.  Incidentally, the hundredth anniversary of Ulysses is coming up.

When will the persecution end?  Julian Assange's baby-mama Stella Morris says he's wasting away in the London jail where he awaits extradition to the United States.  He no longer has disciples bringing him meals from high-end restaurants and has not been allowed to marry Morris, which he suddenly needs to do.  He should have thought of the consequences before he hacked Hillary Clinton's emails.  Or pissed off everyone at the Ecuadorian embassy.  They never believe there will be consequences.  Speaking of which...

Send for Big Marge!  A couple of "political prisoners" awaiting trial for various January 6 tourism activities, including the assault of an officer, are being force-fed --- critical race theory!  They say it was loaded on the free tablets issued by the DC Department of Corrections so they could play Angry White Birds and keep up with their militias back home.  There's even "anti-white messaging," for which they provide no examples.  Maybe people laughing at Pat Boone's version of "Tutti Frutti"?  At least they can masturbate to enjoy Trump's Veterans Day video, basically a lament for the "very very tough" period the country is being forced to endure since the election was stolen from him.  Trump can't order a burnt steak without complaining about the ass-kicking he got a year ago. 

In much of the Southland it's still 1955.  Glynn County police sergeant Roderic Nohilly testified in the trial of the three men who killed Ahmaud Arbery about his post-arrest interview with Gregory McMichael, who said he knew Arbery "wasn't out for no Sunday jog.  He was getting the hell out of there," probably because he was being pursued by two white men in a truck.  "He was trapped like a rat," he continued.  Even regular runners have to stop some time and that's when they shot him like a rat.  I will be very surprised if these three cry, except possibly at sentencing.  If there is any.

Because it is Veterans Day I want to remember Max Cleland, who died this week at 79.  After losing both legs and an arm in Vietnam, Cleland went on serving this country as VA administrator, Georgia secretary of state and finally US Senator.  In the end he was defeated by a sleazy Republican campaign that was a warm-up for the sleazy Republican campaign unleashed against his fellow Vietnam vet John Kerry.  They love them some veterans, unless they're Democrats.  Rest in peace, Senator. 

Troubles

 So this is all about me and my problems.  Like the way I want to hurt people who start every sentence with "so."  So when did this start?

Apparently Paul Rudd, who is an actor, was chosen by People magazine for the title Sexiest Man Alive (which suggests that his predecessor, Michael B. Jordan, is no longer alive but let that pass).  I was thrilled because I confused him with the writer Paul Rudnick.  Funny is sexy, too.  Rudd is OK.  He's fine.  But he's not that funny.  Do men resent being objectified this way?

Albert Watkins, lawyer for Jacob "Shaman" Chansley, filed a 23-page memo requesting a lesser sentence.  It opens with a quotation from the philosopher "Forest" Gump:  "My mama always said you've gotta put the past behind you before you can move on."   It's astonishing the number of insurrectionists and their apologists who want to follow the teachings of Gump.  I would have gone with "Stupid is as stupid does." 

Brave auxiliary police officer Kyle Rittenhouse took the stand in his trial and decided, welp, it worked for Bret Kavanaugh.  He turned on the tears so well that his friend the judge called a ten-minute time-out so Kyle could compose himself.  Like any real, armed cop, Kyle was In Fear For His Life when Anthony "Not a Victim" Huber attacked him with a skateboard.  It was deeply moving.  Then the judge yelled at the prosecution for referring to a cellphone video he had excluded and the defense demanded a mistrial.  Police in Chicago have been ordered to expect trouble if Kyle gets off.  It's a prudent plan.

In a related story Myles Cosgrove, who shot and killed Breonna Taylor while she slept in her own bed, would like the Louisville Police Department to rehire him.  Other cities should probably cancel police leave.  Just don't deputize any teenagers.

Prince Harry (or as I call him the Duke of Sussex) says he was back and forth with Jack Dorsey warning that Twitter was being used to organize a coup, but has not heard from the CEO since January 6.  This guy could see what was coming but the FBI, the Capitol Police and the DC Police couldn't?

Or the Secret Service?  Insurrectionist Scott Fairlamb, brother of an agent, just got 41 months for storming "the fucking Capitol!"  He tried the crying game but Judge Royce Lamberth is made of sterner stuff than Judge Schroeder.  For a white man who assaulted an officer, three-and-a-half years is downright harsh.

Fear of reading has spread to Kansas.  A school district in Wichita pulled 29 books out of school libraries, including such incendiary titles as The Handmaid's Tale, The Bluest Eye, and August Wilson's play Fences.   One parent complained about the language in The Hate U Give, which concerns a Black teenager shot by a white cop.  I wonder why nobody complains about the language in Huckleberry Finn.

The January 6 Select Committee continues to issue subpoenas nobody will enforce, but at least Trump's legal efforts to hide the records of the conspiracy in the National Archives are being swatted away by judges.  The most recent, Judge Tanya Chutkan, wrote, "This is a dispute between a former and incumbent president."  Trump seems to think presidential power "exists in perpetuity.  But presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not president."   Trump didn't notice because he was back on Twitter under his secret identity Liz Harrington, blaming "Old Crow Mitch McConnell" for helping pass Biden's infrastructure bill.  And Scrotum-face got off a surprisingly good one, noting that Old Crow was "Henry Clay's favorite bourbon.  It's quite an honor."  Also the $4 billion earmarked for Kentucky is desperately needed.  Let the games continue.

"The music industry is demonic and collects souls," says the post on TikTok.  Yes, nothing happens anymore without a lunatic conspiracy theory metastasizing on social media.  This one was touched off by the awful Astroworld stampede where eight concertgoers died (a ninth has now been declared braindead).  Travis Scott, who organized the show, is guilty of staging a satanic ritual for reasons that are unclear.  Could he be Q?  Could I?

Well, here's a surprise.  Texas, of all places, banned "spiritual advisers" from its heavily used execution chamber.  Then it relented, praise the gourd, but they have to remain silent and keep hands off.  That's how the case of John Henry Ramirez comes before the US Supreme Court:  he wants his pastor to pray aloud and lay hands on him before he's killed.  Thin end of the wedge -- why not a Baptist choir in robes singing and dancing?  What body part or parts can be touched?  For how long?  If Ramirez were Catholic could he be anointed -- "Extreme Unction" used to be its vivid name, replaced at Vatican II by the prosaic "Sacrament of the Sick"?  What do Wiccans do at this point?  Buddhists?  Whatever they rule is going to piss somebody off.  Good.  I like a grand piss off, especially when the religion industry is involved.   

 

 

My book report: It can't happen here?

James Q. Whitman, Hitler's American Model:  The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law, Princeton University Press, 2017

The men who framed the so-called Nuremberg Laws proclaimed at the "Party Rally of Freedom" in 1935, setting forth the terms of German citizenship, were highly intelligent and educated, many with doctorates.  They were experts in law, history and "race science" as they understood it.  They could have laid the groundwork for the Holocaust with no help from an upstart nation not two centuries old.  The example of the United States just made it easier for them.  

Hitler in Mein Kampf expressed great admiration for America, where the Nordic settlers had eliminated most of the savage inhabitants and created a society based on white supremacy.  He dreamed of doing the same in the east, where rich soil was wasted on Slavs and Jews, making Germany forever self-sufficient.  In Ukraine as in Mississippi, an enslaved race would toil for German pioneers.  But first Germany must put its house in order.  

James Whitman's short, quietly brutal book details how American racism both inspired and differed from the German variety.  The first Nuremberg law created two classes of citizenship, Aryan and non-Aryan, spelled out more deliberately than the US Constitution.  The Germans knew that the post-Civil War amendments, especially the Fourteenth, guaranteed the citizenship of anyone born in the country.  They also knew that the very first Congress limited naturalization to "free white persons" in 1790, and that the immigration laws freshly written in the 1920s created quotas for the immigration even of white people from Russia, Italy, and other places; and that Chinese, Filipinos, Malays and Puerto Ricans were legally beyond the pale.  And of course nearly all states limited options for education, residence and voting for African Americans.  The indigenous people were not even citizens.  Whatever the Constitution said, the decentralized American system and the deeply conservative judiciary had the last word.  Germany would save time and incorporate discrimination into national law.

The second law was designed to preserve the "purity" of German blood by criminalizing all sexual relations, including marriage, between Germans and Jews.  Here the American example of miscegenation law was intriguing but, in their view, too harsh.  A German with only one Jewish grandparent could be considered a German provided he neither married a Jew nor practiced the Jewish religion.  By contrast American states went by the principle of "one drop" of blood to determine black or white.  Nor did the Nazis, until years later, try to create a system of Jim Crow segregation.  Ideally, Jews would be made so miserable that they would emigrate.  If not -- well, America by custom separated the races through a system of lynch law.  There were attacks on Jews, certainly, climaxing with Kristallnacht in 1938, but these offended the German sense of order and discipline.  Lynching would be the business of the national state.

Why did America never experience an equivalent to the Holocaust?  The labor of African Americans was still too valuable even after they ceased to be chattel.  Nobody wanted them to emigrate, with occasional exceptions like Marcus Garvey.  Post-bellum Black Codes kept most of them tied to the land like Russian serfs.  To the bemusement of the Nazis, American Jews were considered white; the law never singled them out for discrimination, though plenty of universities, employers and landlords did.  The "gentleman's agreement" would be spelled out in the German law code.  

Germans knew perfectly well that most Blacks were impoverished and disenfranchised, while in their minds all Jews were rich and powerful.  Both groups, somehow, were trying to "gain the upper hand" in their respective societies.  It's always a matter of self-defense for the Volk or white culture or whatever the term of art is.  The Nazis looked around the world, including South Africa, but found no racist model as useful as ours. 

This book was written before "critical race theory" became code for "anything that might make white children uncomfortable," anything that causes Americans to question their homeland's claim to hold that "all men are created equal."  If it doesn't ruin your sleep, you haven't read it correctly. 

 

Mad, bad, sad

 Didn't you always suspect he was named after a disease?  Addison Mitchell McConnell III, alias Scrotum-face, approached Trump back in the lovey-dovey days, possibly with tears in his eyes, to ask that he "write" an introduction to Moonlight and Fascism or whatever his autobiography is called.  Trump told Addison to write it himself (as if he doesn't employ a ghost, too) and make-pretend it was an Official Presidential Introduction.  But they broke up in January over Addison's failure to stop the certification and the rift widened when McConnell supported the Biden infrastructure deal (or as Trump inexplicably calls it "Democrat longevity").  It's so sad.  You almost wish they'd stay together till spring like Mimi and Rodolfo, and then loathe each other.  Oh, well.

In the grim McCarthy days nobody ever told dissenters to "Go back to Belarus!" but that may change.  Evan Neumann helped storm the Capitol in January but he's terrified by the sentences being handed out to his fellow Trumpanzees, some as long as two months.  He's seeking political asylum in Lukashenko land and has already participated in anti-American propaganda on state TV.  I wonder how many patriots will follow his example.  

Republicans are having a bad week everywhere.  Jeff Hoverson is a pastor and North Dakota state legislator who organized an anti-vaccine rally but had to miss it.  He has covid.  Not to worry, the horse de-wormer is pepping him right up.  But if the veterinary self-medication doesn't work and he ends up hospitalized, I hope he shows as much class as Richard Soliz, who thanked the doctors and others who saved his life at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.  He apologized for not getting the vaccine.

The soreheads in the formerly-biggest state yammer about secession so much that there's a word for it:  Texit.  And there's no sorer head than the unlovely object adorning Ted Cruz's neck.  He doesn't want to do it but he's afraid we're leaving him no choice:  "I'm not ready to give up on America.  I love America," he told some other patriots at Texas A&M.  "Texas is right now an amazing force keeping America from going off the cliff.  Keeping America grounded on the values that built this country."  Like ripping it away from Mexico to make it safe for slavery.  Voter suppression, book banning, and reducing women to the status of fleshy incubators.  Please give up, Ted.  Leave us to our fate and take Screwy Louie and that nasty, bitter governor with you.   Leave the Johnson Space Center and all the military installations.  Oh, and El Paso says it wants to join New Mexico, pendejo.

There's so much crazy in Texas that the crazy in other states has to work overtime for even a little internet mockery.  One of the most tireless is the interstellar cockroach from the planet Gosar which crashed into Arizona and appropriated the skin of a dentist.  It has now appropriated a Japanese anime called "Attack on Titan," now cunningly retitled "Attack on Immigrants."  It shows our hero and two other possible insects Boo-boo Boebert and Big Crazy Marge wielding swords against the favorite target of the mad, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.   Who is not an immigrant.  Puzzling, but I guess it's uncomfortable walking around in a dentist suit.  

 

Now spit.