2021 and done

 

I would love to think Betty White died today at 99 just to make People look stupid.  

Ted Cruz doesn't need help from Betty or anyone else.  He noticed a tweet from WA Government advising a woman that dancing will not be permitted at her New Year's Eve party.  "Blue-state Dems are power-drunk authoritarian kill-joys," he retorted.  "Washington State:  NO DANCING ALLOWED!!!  Any rational & free citizen:  Piss off."  The Princeton and Harvard Law alumnus failed to notice that WA Government is the handle for the state of Western Australia.  Tweeted-and-deleted, but too late, and now the whole world knows he's an idiot.  Piss off, Ted.

Nicolas Cage wants to be called a thespian rather than an actor, while acknowledging that he sounds like "a pretentious a-hole."  I would suggest that the star of Jiu Jitsu, Gone In Sixty Seconds and Left Behind settle for actor.  Or maybe "paid-up member of SAG."

What's the opposite of a ringing endorsement?  "One of the great things about our democracy is that every citizen can decide to run for public office.  Mehmet Oz has made that decision.  And now it's up to the residents of Pennsylvania to decide who will represent them."  You hear that, Pennsylvania?  Mehmet Oz is a citizen.  Oprah says so!

She may already be regretting that much, as the Oz phone skills rival those of a drunk Giuliani.  Olivia Nuzzi of New York magazine called Lisa Oz, who tried and failed to hang up after a brief talk.  Nuzzi got to hear the would-be senator and his wife call her "a liar" and "a fucking girl reporter," so they've mastered the Republican hatred of journalists.  Now to work on the technology.

Get out your buckets and spades.  "Maybe -- you know what -- maybe I should just dish all the dirt -- you know what, you know what -- I am going to dish it all on Trump next hour," promised Alex Jones on Wednesday night.  Thursday came and went but the earth didn't move.  Could Alex be fibbing?  For once, you hope not.

Expect astrophysicists to go to the mattresses in 2022 -- the debate over the planetary status of Pluto is about to get crazy.

Bingham County, Idaho, Sheriff Craig Rowland can keep his job, but a judge says he must turn all his weapons over to the state police.  The ruling stems from an incident when he pulled a Mormon youth group leader out of her car by her hair and pointed a gun at her.  The aggravated assault and aggravated battery charges have been dropped.  But can he carry one bullet in his pocket like Barney Fife?  What if the LDS kids come back?

The BBC said its choice of Alan Dershowitz to comment on the Ghislaine Maxwell verdict was "not suitable."  Then they invited her brother Ian Maxwell to defend his sister because Radio 4 doesn't count.

As the debate rages about asylum seekers and undocumented workers in the US, spare a thought for the thousands of Americans caught in a web of red tape abroad.  As many as 30,000 are trying to renounce their citizenship and waiting for hearings at embassies and consulates closed by the pandemic.  It was easier for Dillinger to escape from jail.

Maybe we'll wake up and it will have been a bad, bad, long dream.

News of fresh disasters

 Is the BBC trying to commit suicide?

Oh, now they have editorial standards.

First it was the creepy pedophile Jimmy Savile, who used his TV stardom to achieve the celebrity (and knighthood) he needed to frighten people away from reporting what was long suspected by many, until two courageous reporters risked their careers to pull back the curtain.

Then we learned what Martin Bashir did to secure his 1995 interview with Princess Diana, a ratings bonanza for him and the Beeb, a divorce-precipitating disaster for her.  It seems that forged bank statements implicating her brother Earl Spencer are not considered good journalistic practice.

Then there was the Newsnight debacle when Lord McAlpine, a former Conservative Party treasurer, was falsely accused of being a pedophile.  The director general George Entwistle had to resign over that one.

A chastened Newsnight then scheduled an interview with Prince Andrew from which viewers learned that he was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein ("not close"), that he broke it off in person "to show leadership" and that he once ate pizza in Woking.  Also he stopped perspiring because of the Falklands War, which is a unique symptom of PTSD.  After that the prince was relieved of his royal duties, whatever they were.

Yesterday Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted on five of six counts of sex trafficking and who do you suppose the Beeb sought out for comment?  Alan Dershowitz, onetime lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein; alleged recipient of the services he provided to men like the prince; defendant in a defamation suit by Virginia Giuffre (who says Andrew and others raped her when she was a child); and currently suing Netflix, et al., over the documentary Filthy Rich, which portrays him in an unflattering way.  The BBC interview mentioned none of this, identifying Dershowitz as a "Constitutional lawyer."  Well, we have a lot of those.  According to the American Bar Association there are 1.3 million lawyers in the US, and this is the only one whose name is known in London?

And because, like another of his former clients Donald J. Trump, Dershowitz has a Twitter account and no idea when to shut up, he took this as an opportunity to defame Giuffre all over again.

It's no secret that the Tories and their buffoonish leader, eager for any distraction from the slow-rolling disaster of Brexit and their kak-handed management of the pandemic, would love to end the BBC.  They can crow (possibly on the sides of buses) about how much money it will save; denounce it as a nest of loony leftists; celebrate yet another triumph of privatization like mail delivery and the railroads.  And these charlies just keep making it easier.

More of the same

 Here at the Organization the R&D Division is road-testing the slogan "Hooray for Hamilton!"  It refers not to the musical but the British race driver Lewis Hamilton.  Of course it really means "Hack Trump into small pieces and shove him back inside his dead mother's smelly twat."  Try it, see if it works for you!

As the civilized world mourns Desmond Tutu, Alan "Somebody Notice Me!" Dershowitz found his way to Fox News to call the archbishop "a rampant anti-Semite and bigot."  In a 2002 Boston speech Tutu criticized the power of "the Jewish lobby," the same lobby that Trump credited just last week with "controlling Congress" and the media.  Giving Trump a pass makes Dershowitz the real bigot and helps to explain why he doesn't get invited to the cool Vineyard parties.

It's a busy time for bigots.  When College Republicans tweeted a Kwanzaa greeting, M.T. Greene (henceforth we'll call her Empty) was enraged:  "Stop.  It's a fake religion created by a psychopath."  Kwanzaa is famously not a religion but a cultural observance based on West African harvest festivals.  Like every other holiday it was invented.  As to whether Maulana Ron Karenga is a psychopath, I lack Empty's expertise in that area.

"So dead people voted and I think the number is close to five thousand people," Trump told Brad Raffensperger four days before he tried to overthrow the government.  They found four.  That's the kind of skill with numbers that pissed away Fred Trump's fortune and left his idiot son dependent on Russian gangsters and the dwindling pool of Fox News viewers who respond to his demands for charity.  So sad.  

Here's one of the better episodes of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio dedicated to cars.  The whole show is fun.  Pay special attention at 29 minutes, where Frank Sinatra sings about Peter Epstein Pontiac at a low point in his career.  Wonderful!

Happy whatever totally artificial holiday you keep.

Not so fast

 "I believe we have it in us to be better than we have been.  I believe we have it in us to be better than we are.  I believe we can rediscover our common humanity if we just look for it.  There are all kinds of things we knew and loved once that we've forgotten.  There are better parts of ourselves that have lain dormant for far too long.  Rediscovery can be as exciting as discovery was in the first place," wrote Charles P. Pierce a few days ago in an uncharacteristic burst of seasonal joy.  I refuse to argue with the landlord of the shebeen where I have passed so many happy hours, but I'm guessing he hadn't seen this:

Rep. Debbie Dingell shared a voicemail with the CNN audience that went, "You ought to get the fuck off the planet, you fucking foul bitch.  They ought to fucking try you for treason, bitch...I hope your family dies in front of you.  I pray to God, if you've got any children, they die in your face."  [Emphasis added.]  Her fellow Michigander Rep. Fred Upton is getting similar wishes since voting for the bipartisan infrastructure bill:  "I hope your fucking family dies.  I hope everybody in your fucking staff dies, you fucking piece of fucking shit.  Traitor!"  Upton is a Republican.  Presumably these are just some of the "Christian values" that M.T. Greene wants to "restore."  I'd say they're permanently branded on this country, like racism.  "Once you're in that Trump hate tunnel, you kind of don't escape it," Rep. Dingell observed.  

You better watch out, you better not lie, Donald -- Alex Jones has issued a warning.   "This is an emergency Christmas Day warning to President [sic] Trump.  You are either completely ignorant about the so-called vaccine gene therapy that you helped ram through with Operation Warp Speed or you are one of the most evil men who has ever lived."  Come on, Alex, it's Christmas!  Why not both?  Are you missing Erika?  Calm down, have some colloidal silver and chill.  Between Jones's threats and the booing of Trumpanzees, the orange one is enduring his very own Golgotha.  No, I am not smirking, I have Bell's Palsy.

The Omicron flavor of covid is picking up speed, but all sorts of new therapies are coming to the rescue and it seems to be, in general, less virulent than it was a year ago.  All of this may not matter, though:  Our old nemesis H5N1 bird flu is back, killing thousands of migratory birds in Israel and leading to the cull of domestic birds as well.  Israel has been aggressive in limiting foreign visitors and promoting a fourth dose of covid vaccine, but try closing your borders to cranes.

Of course home schooling is an alternative for parents who worry about exposing their children to Omicron, bird flu and critical race theory.  One resource is the new School of the West, which originates in Arizona.  That's not exactly what its headmaster means by "west," though.  Brant Danger, a/k/a Brant Williams, is selling the idea of "the White Race known as Westernkind" and why it's a gift to be born into it.  The curriculum also covers Holocaust denial, the evils of feminism, how to respond to "anti-White propaganda" and the "science" of racial difference.  Danger/Williams is cagey about his identity, but it looks like he used to teach in a school whose students were mainly Native American; that's where he learned that their tribal lands are dirty and badly maintained because they just don't care about the earth.  Yeah, sounds like indigenous people.

"Heavy, heavy prayers" are being sought for Doug Kuzma, yet another victim of the smoke-machine anthrax at the Dallas ReAwaken America jamboree.  (I have no time to explain it again.)  He's well stocked with ivermectin but still on a vent.  How could that be?  

Dreaming of a Spite Christmas, the Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles recommended clemency for two dozen felons and then withdrew them all because one was the late George Floyd.  They mumbled something about "procedural issues."  It can't matter to Mr. Floyd, who was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, but the others would probably like to have their civil rights restored, maybe qualify for government programs, better jobs...Y'all have a happy new year, OK?  Here's a link to Beto For Texas.

I almost feel pity for Musclebound Marge, Screwy Louie, Mad Mad and Boom-boom Boebert vying to outdo one another in batshittery.  So it's with a slightly heavy heart that I warn them -- keep an eye on Nevada.  Noah Malgeri is running for Congress on a platform of We Should Hang Mark Milley Live On C-SPAN.  Oh captain, my captain, that is totally not what C-SPAN does.  They ask politicians about their summer reading (Bell's Palsy again), they cover without comment the posturing of committee members, they let you watch people walk into the White House Correspondents dinner, but they have never covered an execution.  Fox News, on the other hand, would sneak Peter Doocy in with a camera under his pants like Cagney in Picture Snatcher.  And now my heart is lighter.  

The interminable days of Christmas

Joe Biden got an unexpected gift on Christmas Eve -- an outpouring of sympathy.  He and the good doctor were taking calls on a line set up to let children "track" Santa Claus via NORAD.  (They must have been tempted to discontinue it after 2018, when Trump shat on a little girl's hopes by asking if she really believes in Santa "because at seven it's marginal, right?")  All went well with the Bidens and some children in Oregon until their father grabbed the phone and rang off with "Merry Christmas and Let's Go Brandon!"  Because nothing says "good will toward men" like a coded insult.  

Now the clever wordsmith, an ex-cop named Jared Schmeck, is whining because his "freedom of speech" is being attacked from left (Eric Swalwell) and right (Erick Erickson).  No one told him that's how free speech works -- you get to say whatever you want to the President without armed men breaking down your door, and then other people get to say things about you.  If you don't like it, don't be a schmeck.  (See what I did there?)

Meanwhile in Austin, armed men were making an arrest at the home of Alex Jones and it wasn't Alex!  It was his wife Erika Wulff Jones on charges of causing injury to a family member and resisting arrest.  Alex says it was the result of "medication imbalance."  We've all been there, especially around the holidays.  The good liquor is all gone, somebody makes a remark about the pate you spent three hours on, or the decorations, or Aunt Vicki who can't help being a tad incontinent, somebody else makes a grab for the remote...let's just say I've been there.  I'm sure Mrs. Jones will make bail by New Year's Eve and they can start all over.

Expect the next battle in the culture wars to involve Bambi.  A new translation to be published in January promises to make the author's intentions more explicit.  In 1923 Felix Salten was not writing a children's story that Walt Disney would make into a saccharine movie, but "an existential novel about persecution and antisemitism in 1920's Austria."  The Nazis got it:  In 1935 they banned the book as "Jewish propaganda."   I expect the new translator, Jack Zipes, to be assailed for ruining a "beloved classic."  Can't we let children enjoy the book/movie without all this wokeness? they will cry.  The old argument about whether Disney was a racist, or any more racist than other filmmakers of his era, will be aired again.  Salten may join Toni Morrison and Ta-nehisi Coates on the list of writers who promote CRT.  And that's January.  

Here's a bombshell to play with until then:  According to Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas, when Clement Clarke Moore wrote "A Visit From St. Nicholas" in 1822 he was one of the richest men in New York and owned five slaves.  I thought this would be of interest in the place where a statue of Jefferson was recently banished from the City Council chamber.

From California comes an animal story the kids will love.  Simon Curtis says he found a baby tree frog in his package of romaine lettuce.  He's debating whether to keep Tony (as he calls him) or release him "if it's warm enough."  At some point in his journey Tony has certainly been refrigerated, so I feel sure he can cope with California weather.  Dole and Fresh Express recalled tons of romaine after listeria was detected at three plants, but they did not mention amphibians.

I guess I don't give enough thought to Queen Elizabeth.  At 95 she's spending her first Christmas without her husband of 73 years; she can't have but a few relatives because of the bloody pandemic; and a man was arrested for trying to breach Windsor Castle with a crossbow.  Here's a woman who never wanted anything but a quiet life in the country with her horses and dogs, and then her Nazi-loving uncle got entangled with an American divorcee and her world turned inside out.  That devotion to Duty and to an archaic institution called The Crown is vanishing.  Cherish it while you've got it, Britons.

Claire Foy played the queen in the first seasons of The Crown and is now to be seen as the Duchess of Argyll in A Very British Scandal, a BBC series about her tabloid-transfixing 1963 divorce.  I believe this is the only case of a salacious story becoming an opera (Thomas Ades's 1995 Powder Her Face) before it reached the home screen.  Ades must be the first composer to set oral sex to music; I wonder how the Beeb will handle it.

Desmond Tutu is dead.  When he began demanding political equality for Black South Africans he had to explain that there was no intent to "destroy white people."  You have to say it over and over.  

Pop-tarts and beer

 No voting rights, no Build Back Better, but we can all hunker down next to the fake Yule log and survey the wreckage.  Some of the news is actually good.

For instance, the UK will soon begin distributing Palforzia, an oral drug for children with peanut allergy.  It isn't a cure, but it decreases the possibility of anaphylaxis or death as a result of exposure.  It will be even more welcome in the US, where epipens can cost hundreds of dollars because one piggish Senator wants to keep drug prices obscenely high.

Here's a holiday laugh:  After four years of dumping on China for every imaginable reason, Trump Media & Technology Group wants to partner up with Arc Capital, a Shanghai-based investment firm whose practices are already being investigated by the SEC.  Anyone surprised?

Oh, dear, the Madison Cawthorns are pfft! as Winchell used to say.  Maddy calls it "irreconcilable differences," while Cristina sighs, "I just don't want to be married to someone changing the world."   The last straw was evidently his address to the Young Trumpers of TPUSA:  "I think you should home school.  I was home schooled all the way through.  I am proudly a college dropout."  At which point Cristina realized she was expected to stay home and do the schooling.  Well, she gave it eight months.

Home schooling just got a lot tougher in Texas where the right, having hamstrung school libraries, is turning to public ones.  At least one county is requiring special sections of "age-appropriate" books so li'l Texans won't learn that transgender people exist or that racism is real until they're old enough to vote, assuming Texas still allows that.  Of course, it's a matter of time until books start to disappear from the adult libraries, lest kids sneak in in disguise.  Be of good cheer -- the kids, who are alright, are starting to organize and fight for the right to read.  When the power grid collapses this winter Texas can burn books, but they're already outflanked by Kindle and GoogleBooks.  

Kim Potter was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Daunte Wright, whom she meant only to tase.  Anyway that was her defense.  Of course she cried on the witness stand.  It worked for Rittenhouse, not so much for Gregory McMichael.  This has been a moist year for killers.

Trump's support for covid vaccine got a little easier to understand when he was interviewed by the usually worshipful Candace Owens.  He took credit for developing all three vaccines ("the vaccine is one of the greatest achievements of mankind") so it's all right and he's not a clone.  Try telling that to Q!

The ReAwaken America Tour pulled into Dallas -- some week for Big D! -- and out of the little car jumped Michael Flynn, Mike Lindell, Jovan Pulitzer, Eric Trump, Roger Stone and a new clown named Joe Oltman.  Strangely, the unvaccinated, mask-free crowd soon began to report symptoms like "fever storms...from rashes to blistering...passing blood...two solid days of haculicinations [sic]" -- sounds bad.  It was Oltman who decided he was the victim of biological warfare in the shape of...ANTHRAX spread by the smoke machine (stay with me) in the First Baptist Church where the confab took place.  Not covid because there's just no such thing.  You guys are in luck -- anthrax can be treated with antibiotics.  Rush to your overburdened hospital and ask for it by name:  ciprofloxacin.  Tell 'em Louis Pasteur sent you.  (I know you think the FDA is controlled by Bill Gates and the Freemasons but maybe take a look at their warning about ivermectin first.)

Here are some workmen in Hong Kong removing the Pillar of Shame, a monument to the dead of Tiananmen Square 1989, in the middle of the night.  China does not permit the teaching of Critical Democracy Theory.

Festivus is here!

 As usual, I have a lot of problems with you people.  Let's dig in.

Sexual harassment -- mostly of men harassing women, if we're honest -- continues to be a problem, but it should not be an attention-seeking technique.  If you have been victimized you have a responsibility to be specific and prevent it happening to others.  #MeToo should not be used to sell books (Houma Abedin) or keep your face in the papers between movie roles (Naomie Harris).  A lot of women risked careers to stand up to Andrew Cuomo.  Name names or STFU.

Speaking of the ex-governor, we know a lot about people from how they treat animals.  Junior Trump likes to kill them to assuage his feelings of inadequacy (his father won't even take his calls).  Ted Cruz left his dog in an unheated house while he sunned himself in Mexico.  When Cuomo departed the executive mansion he didn't even bring his dog Captain.  When you guys get to hell, Messer Alighieri says there's a dog called Cerberus waiting to greet you.

Categories are important, people.  They are the mortar that holds a society together.  Last week C-SPAN promised to carry "the memorial service for Bob Dole."  No.  According to Abigail Van Buren, it's a funeral if the guest of honor is present, a memorial service if he isn't.  You don't like it, take it up with Dear Abby.

Still in Washington, when did all this "leader" shit begin?  As in a tweet from "Leader McConnell."  It's creeping fascism, and why am I not surprised?  It's particularly grotesque when describing Kevin McCarthy, last seen hiding under his desk rather than referee between Teargas Mace and Musclebound Marge.  When Lyndon Johnson was undisputed master of the Senate, you know what he was called?  Senator Johnson.  If it was good enough for LBJ it's good enough for Chuck Schumer.  Johnson would have made Joe Manchin soil himself.

In the name of decency you have to stop comparing your hate-filled selves to Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, or actual victims of the actual Holocaust.  Wearing a mask on a plane is not remotely like being forced to dig your own grave in the forest.  What went wrong when you were born?

On a completely related note, KNOCK IT OFF, YOU ANTI-CHOICE MISOGYNISTS WHO CALL YOURSELVES THE SUSAN B. ANTHONY LIST. 

Once more:  movies are released.  Books are published.

I don't want anyone using the word "'tis" unless discussing the sequel to Angela's Ashes. 

Same goes for "white Christmas," as in, "will we have a white Christmas?  I hope we have a white Christmas."  No, you don't.  Snow is dangerous, treacherous and frankly a pain in the ass.  It has to be shoveled, plowed, driven on, and people get hurt.  It doesn't exist to be decorative, it's frozen water on its way to becoming filthy slush.  You want a white Christmas, buy some of that stuff in a can that probably causes cancer and spray it all over your windows.  You'll only have to clean it off.  Fuck Irving Berlin, and while we're at it, he can shove "God Bless America" up his ass.  Look at this, now I'm mad at Irving Berlin.  It must be time for the Feats of Strength.

The dark time

Trump loves the retirement community known as The Villages in Florida.  He loves it so much, he re-tweeted a video of a Villager shouting "White power!" last year, when he still had a Twitter account.  Three residents love him back enough to risk five years in the sneezer for voting twice.  They must have thought no one would notice if they returned absentee ballots to distance places like Michigan, but thanks to their hero screaming about "fake votes" every ballot is being scrutinized.  Too bad.  Five years is a life sentence when you're already 73.  

Fox News stooge Jesse Watters arrived at Turning Stomach USA with the burden of having to follow murderous darling Kyle Rittenhouse.  The little shit has his own theme song -- just his name being chanted over and over -- and is tenderly protected from journalists who might make him cry again.  (Mom wasn't onstage with him.)  So Watters took aim at Anthony Fauci, literally, using terms like "ambush" and "kill shot."  Of course he was speaking metaphorically, wink wink.  Fauci wearily told CNN that Watters should be fired but he's been listening to this crap too long to think it will happen:  "He's going to go very likely unaccountable."  Then he went back to saving people who violently don't want to be saved.

But the turning ain't over until the cokehead sings.  "THEY CAN'T CANCEL US ALL!" yelled Crown Prince Donald, and went on to explain that the right has been fatally weakened by "the Biblical reference, the mentality," but no more.  For a "half century" the libs have played hardball, while the fascists were turning the other cheek and loving their neighbors and all that garbage.  Now I guess they're getting tough, marching with Tiki torches, burning books, vowing that Jews will not replace them...you know, I had the strangest sense of deja vu, which is French for "Shut up and send your crazy girlfriend out here, at least she doesn't look like a whipped beagle."

The forever fuhrer himself promises to "address the nation" on January 6, just as Hitler used to deliver a speech on November 8, the anniversary of his failed coup.  Using a front, he continues to rant about "the Unselect Committee" because a jenius can invent his own words.  (The random capitalizations are also somewhat reminiscent of German.)  A year is a long time to stew over a delusion.  New York Attorney General Letitia James still plans to depose the orange one on January 7, so maybe he should husband his strength.  Or maybe this time his lawsuit claiming a "bitter crusade" against him will be upheld.  I kid, or course, Trump and his lawyers (now drawn from the cash-for-your-crash branch of the bar) are going for a record number of "Get the hell out of my courtroom" rulings.

Here's something else we need to worry about:  palingenesis.  Don't panic -- I also thought it referred to those awful people in Alaska.  It's actually worse.  You see, Trump got booed by some acolytes in Dallas (the city where John F. Kennedy, Jr., failed to resurrect last November) when he recommended getting a covid booster.  The Q Continuum's explanation for this shocking event was the simplest one:  That's not the real Trump, it's a clone.  Honestly, palingenetic ultranationalism is not something I'm prepared to tackle right now.  "Fascist expectations of rebirth with purification will persist in proportion to America's exceptionalist anti-intellectualism."  We're screwed.

When the Soviet Union went bust, an informal rummage sale of weaponry took place and we thought, what a chaotic way to run a military.  Well, that was thirty years ago.  Take a look at the stuff the US Department of Defense can't account for.  Enough assault rifles, armor-piercing grenades, mortars, machine guns and plastic explosives to equip an army of Prod Boys and Oaf Keepers.  If we're lucky, they were bought by drug gangs and human traffickers first.

Maybe if Biden had offered Manchin Secretary of the Navy:

 

Winter of death

"Cancel Christmas," snarls the Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman) in the otherwise pointless Robin Hood:  Prince of Thieves (1991), to show what a baddie he is.  The people of North Korea were not planning to celebrate Christmas anyway, but now they have been forbidden to laugh.  It's the tenth anniversary of the death of Kim Jong-il and there is to be no laughter for eleven days.  Or grocery shopping.  I wouldn't report this if reality hadn't surpassed The Onion again.

Donald Nixon, Roger Clinton and Billy Carter were embarrassing to their politician brothers, but not to the same extent as Piers Corbyn.  The brother of the former Labour Party leader was arrested over a video in which he urges people to "hammer to death" the "scum" who are promoting fascism in the form of covid restrictions and recommends burning down the offices of MPs who voted for them.  This would seem an abuse of free speech, especially in a country where two members of Parliament have been assassinated in recent years.  Some would say his real crime was performing this rap, which is offensive on a whole other level.

Female humans in Texas and several other places cannot have abortions performed by licensed medical personnel, but at least they can have mifepristone and misoprostol delivered by the US mail, with which it is a crime to tamper.  It's not ideal -- a Texan with an ectopic pregnancy will probably still have to die to satisfy Greg Abbott's twisted politics -- but it beats the hell out of a wire hanger.  Nearly fifty years after Roe, how many women would still know how to use a Coney Barrett snake?

Republicans who won't do anything constructive about the Trumpandemic nevertheless cherish it and want to build it a little village 'neath the tree.  Baby Tuckoo has called for a moratorium because it's boring like "telling people about your prostate every day" (he's at an age when that becomes worrying, I guess).  But Steve Bannon is delighted to have it take up all the bandwidth while he and the other serious people get on with "taking over the election apparatus" from his podcast studio/hall closet, presumably.  Sarah Palin emerged from her insecure location long enough to tweet, "It'll be over my dead body that I'll have to get a shot," eliciting many suggestions and offers of help.  I don't think the government mandate extends to people who put in a few months as governor years ago.  

And while they rant and rave, Omicron spreads like a QAnon rumor.  Joe Biden warned of "a winter of severe illness and death" for the unvaccinated.  Responses ranged from "why hasn't he fixed this?" to "but how will it affect his approval rating?"  And maybe a few people said, "You know, now I'm getting the vaccine."  Being president is like herding stupid, rabid weasels.  With mange.

Here's a bombshell from the Chattanooga Times Free Press via the Independent:  What Congress creature who won't get a shot because she's washed in the blood of Jesus also owns stock in AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson?  If you guessed Margie Three Names, have a cookie.  It's OK by Jesus if she collects the dividends.

Enjoy a rabid weasel.

In the bleak mid-winter

Britain has been Ground Zero for Christmas at least since Dickens published A Christmas Carol in 1843, helping to transform a religious holiday into an orgy of feasting, gift giving, carol singing and decorating.  The practice of sticking a dead tree in the parlor was imported from Germany by Prince Albert, allegedly, and soon the Royal Mail was delivering millions of mass-produced greetings called Christmas cards.  Even in a multicultural UK, Christmas can't be ignored. 

So it's delicious as plum pudding (if you like that sort of thing) that the downfall of Boris Johnson could be the result of all the seasonal feasting the Tories have done in contravention of their own lockdown rules for everyone else.  It's not just the "bad optics" that all politicians dread -- the police are getting involved.  Members of the opposition parties asked Commissioner Cressida Dick (a wonderfully Dickensian name) to investigate a blowout at Conservative Party Headquarters last year with an eye to criminal charges.  The Tories have already lost a safe seat in North Shropshire to the Lib Dems, which is not supposed to happen; the back-benchers are revolting; and the country saw over ten thousand cases of Omicron covid in just a few hours.  Poor Boris, and with yet another baby in the house.

For collectors of UL-certified irony we have a choice today.  Anti-vax activist and Fauci-hatchet-job author Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., threw a holiday party last week for which guests were encouraged to be vaccinated.  Kennedy blames his wife Cheryl Hines ("I'm not always the boss at my own house") for the outrage.  I wonder if any of the guests exchanged "anti 5G accessories" as gifts.  The ones sold in the Netherlands are not just worthless and pointless, they're radioactive.  "When the curie is worse than the disease," wrote today's internet winner Alex Selby-Boothroyd.  And they resemble little manhole covers.

Elon Musk was named Time's Lifeform of the Year.  I didn't know they were still doing that, or publishing.  Did you know it could have been worse?  No, not Trump.  According to the spectacularly rigged online voting at the messaging app Telegram, the people's choice was Jair Bolsonaro, the Trump of the tropics.  Even Kim Jong-un doesn't crave praise this much.

  

  

 

Protocols of Trump

 Did you know that Israel used to control Congress?  It must be true.  "The biggest change I've seen in Congress is Israel literally owned Congress...ten years ago, fifteen years ago.  And it was so powerful.  And today it's almost the opposite," Trump told a rightwing radio show.  Not any more, because Congress is controlled by "AOC and Omar" (if only) and that schvarze Obama got "a lot" of votes from Jews -- "the Jewish people in the United States either don't like Israel or don't care about Israel."  Also the New York Times which is run by "Jewish people," the Sulzbergers.  And then he got to it:  "The evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country."  Last week he was kvelling over Mahmoud Abbas -- "almost like a father, couldn't have been nicer" -- and now he's speaking for both Jews and Israelis.  (Yes, they are separate groups of individuals.)  Trump didn't work this hard when he was putatively the president.

The right seems to be having a sputtering breakdown these days, like a really old string of tree lights.  As the Judiciary Committee labors to confirm the backlog of federal judges, John Gumboforbrains Kennedy chose today to go on the fritz.  Nine times he asked Anne Traum if she thinks crimes should be forgiven "in the name of social justice," as if that was a thing judges do.  Nine times she said no.  "So that's no?"  Then he informed her he would not be voting for her, which had not been in doubt for approximately all day.  And then a serious person had a turn.  

"Witch hunt 3.0" was Roger Stone's description of the January 6 commission before which he repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment.  "I did not march to the Capitol."  Neither did Mark Meadows, Steve Bannon, or any of the Fox News personalities frantically texting Meadows to intercede with Trump.  So why the Fifth?  Something you want to tell us?  Not covered by your pardon?

Eric Trump came up with a singular defense against charges that Daddy invited Russian participation in the 2016 election:  stupidity.  "We weren't smart enough to collude with Russia.  We didn't know what a delegate was," he told podcaster Jay Cutler.  Who needs a smart puppet?  Eric seems unfamiliar with the term "useful idiots," usually attributed to Lenin.  But Lara, a Trump only by marriage, appears to be gaining on him.  Not only did father-in-law not tell people to go to the Capitol, despite what we all heard him say, but weeks, no, months before he had warned the Speaker that there was not enough security, so it's all Nancy's fault.  Apparently that's the new line, replacing They were patriotic tourists, They were antifas in disguise, and What riot?

I think this is known in football as "piling on" -- Trump is enraged because Mark Meadows's book described his precious "hair" as "a mess" during the hours he spent in bed with severe covid.  In one of Michael Wolff's books Ivanka provides a hilarious description of the bald-spot-concealing procedure he performs every day, but Princess can do no wrong.  If Trump is as broke as many suspect -- the RNC just earmarked $1.6 million for his legal bills -- he can find work at Starbuck decorating those caramel coffee concoctions.

Who knew the People's Daily had a sense of the ridiculous?

  

Where to begin?

 Ruben Gallego better run.  The Arizona Democrat suggested that Biden provide Ukraine with weapons and now a loudmouth named Alexei Zhuravlyov wants him kidnapped and brought to Russia.  Zhuravlyov proposed the crime on Russian 60 Minutes and got no pushback from the host Olga Skabeeva, because thuggery is the way things work there.  He's head of the Rodina party, which occupies the narrow space to the right of Putin.  You can drop him a line or just wait for him to show up on the Baby Tuckoo Show.

Yesterday it was Amazon and today Facebook appears not to be working.  Where will the Qcumbers exchange the latest conspiracy theories?  Could this be the Storm, or the Quickening, or whatever they call it?

Kyle Rittenhouse has scored his first paid speaking engagement with Turning Point USA.  Last month The Onion wrote, "Rittenhouse sentence to 45 years of CPAC appearances."  It begins.

A 58-foot pedestrian bridge across the Cuyahoga River in Akron, Ohio, is missing,  The police suspect thieves.

If there's one thing a "sovereign citizen" hates, it's being hauled into a court he does not recognize for making fraudulent statements on financial records required by a state he does not belong to.  (They respect no authority above county sheriffs, it says here.)  That must be why S.C. Joseph Catarineau assaulted the judge, the bailiff and the prosecutor in a Houston courtroom.  Now he's facing three more charges.  Keep it up, sov cit, you've got them on the run.

Ethan Crumbley would like to be moved to a juvenile facility so he doesn't fall behind on his schoolwork.  His lawyer is concerned about his "mental well-being."  (No, not The Onion.)

Another piece of Trump's legacy is gone.  The Department of Energy reversed his historic ruling which allowed multiple shower heads to spray more water on that yellow structure he apparently washes every day.  Back to Hope Hicks with a firehose, but at least it will give him something to bitch about on the Trump/O'Reilly illogical history tour.  It's a shame about all those empty seats.

Two years ago some of Chicago's Finest broke into Anjanette Young's apartment in search of something and kept the naked woman handcuffed for forty minutes while she repeatedly pointed out that they had come to the wrong address.  Now the city owes her $2.9 million, according to the City Council's Finance Committee.  Doesn't mean it won't happen again, of course, but there are a lot of things Chi could have spent that money on.  And that's what we mean when we say or we sing, "Reform the police."

The Salvation Army put out a guide called "Let's Talk About Racism," which of course means that they hate all white people and want them to die.  So Liz Wheeler of ONAN showed up on Fox News to celebrate the fact that donations are down.  I wonder what she would say if Ilhan Omar went on CNN to attack a Christian denomination.  No, I don't.

Today is Beethoven's 251st birthday.  Last year a lot of people were ready to do the 250th thing but covid got in the way.  It's still in the way.  Have a late quartet, it will do you a power of good.  (Opus 131, Quartet No. 14, the Takacs Quartet.)

Last week the tornado that killed 75 people in Kentucky and wiped several towns off the landscape also broke the continuous-path record set in 1925.  Yesterday the middle of the country experienced what is being called the windiest day ever recorded.  In five days winter officially begins.  I can't wait.

A Savannah, Georgia, man has died after being shot by a child of not quite two years.  This, sadly, is not a record-breaker.  

A judge in Lafayette, Louisiana, claims sedatives made her use a racial slur -- the racial slur -- to describe a Black man allegedly trying to break into her house.  Come on, Judge Odinet, that didn't work for Roseanne.

I knew it

 As the death toll rose and the shocking devastation filled screens, I said to myself, "How can they make this Joe Biden's fault?"  Like this:  "Big, huge geoengineering systems...sucking carbon dioxide out of the air...millions of years ago...plants and animals were so much bigger and healthier...the question is, did Biden this year order the power turned off in Texas?...did they use weather weapons to cause the tornadoes?"  

Alex Jones, of course.  (If you guessed Stella Immanuel, Lin Wood or Paul the Octopus, thanks for playing, come back tomorrow.)  Jones did add, "This is insane, ladies and gentlemen."  This is also what millions of Americans regard as science.

And what of the underpaid people struggling to teach them otherwise?  If you think Japan is home to the world's cruelest game shows, you've never been to South Dakota.  During a high school hockey game in Sioux Falls, ten local teachers entertained the crowd by scrambling for $5,000 in one-dollar bills.  The money was contributed by a local (and cheap) mortgage company and is to be spent on classroom supplies not covered in Kristi Noem's budget.  Some appalled onlookers compared it to Squid Game or the Hunger Games films, but I have not seen those.  To me it sounded like the way the Germans fed Soviet prisoners of war, by tossing a piece of bread or a potato over the barbed wire.  But one teacher pronounced it "really cool" because her expectations are that low.  Perhaps she was grateful that they lent her a helmet.

Fox News continues to bang its dying and reviving Christmas tree like a cheap drum.  This morning Peter Doocy suggested that the homeless man's arson was Joe Biden's fault, like the weather, because he doesn't support the tactics of the NYPD and the courts, which often release low-level offenders before trial.  Presidents have no say in such local matters, of course, and if they tried to interfere the Doocys pere et fils would burst into flames (unless it was Trump with some misspelled Tweet), so Jen Psaki had to slap him down again, a regular part of her job.  She's good at it.  

It looks like Mark Meadows will join Steve Bannon on the Group W bench where you have to sit when criminal contempt charges are filed.  Meadows won't testify about the coup but he has released thousands of documents and a book; what more could he be holding back?   Prior to the insurrection he sent an email promising that the National Guard would "protect pro-Trump people," presumably from members of Congress.  Even in sedition they must play the victim.  I'm waiting for someone to set the How To Coup power point to music. 

On the lighter side, Devin Nunes will not seek another term in Congress because he's going to work for Trump Media & Technology Group, if you please.  TM&T is already being investigated by the SEC (Very unfair!!), which has some questions about a shell corporation called Digital World Acquisition Corp.  It seems like a long way to go just because Twitter shut you down.  Devin N. will be working with Josh A. and Billy B., which sounds totally above-board to me.

And Trump?  He's still furiously dumping on the man who once named a rest-stop or something in his honor.  Netanyahu is the reason there is no peace settlement with the Palestinians, not the bumbling incompetence of Jared Kushner.  As for Mahmoud Abbas, "He was almost like a father.  Couldn't have been nicer.  I thought he wanted to make a deal more than Netanyahu."  Trump is the best deal-maker, he practically invented deals, and the prime minister just wouldn't cooperate.  Welcome to the Trump Official Shit List, Bibi.  Grab a seat between Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence.  Feel free to chat about the good old days, when he adored you.  

The Geminids are coming.

 

  

The season of giving and taking

In Major Barbara, and even more explicitly in its Preface, George Bernard Shaw stated his position on charity:  It's what you do with your money that matters, not how you came by it.  Nearly all excess capital, Shaw believed, is generated by something we would rather not examine too closely because it exploits labor, despoils the environment or results from a product the world would be better off without.  (The examples in the play are cheap whiskey and weapons of mass destruction.)  

Shaw may have been thinking about Andrew Carnegie, the self-made millionaire best remembered for endowing free public libraries, Carnegie Hall, Carnegie-Mellon University and other monuments to his benevolence.  Only a few of the millions of readers served by those libraries will have come across the story of the 1892 Homestead strike that pitted Carnegie's steelworkers against armed Pinkerton guards and cost twelve people their lives.  Carnegie paid lip-service to organized labor, but when it made serious demands he fled to his Scottish castle and let his manager Henry Clay Frick play the villain.  If it was intended to cement his reputation for good deeds, it worked.  

But all the rapacious scoundrels of unregulated nineteenth century capitalism excelled at moral money-laundering.  Leland Stanford, Johns Hopkins and James Buchanan Duke, among others, founded universities.  John D. Rockefeller and his sons established the Rockefeller University, Foundation and other endowments.  Henry Ford's money started the Ford Foundation, though the old bigot would not be pleased with some of its projects.  Perhaps the most ironic use of money, however, was the Pulitzer Prizes for, among other things, outstanding reportage -- pretty rich from one of the founders of yellow journalism.  Of course, Joseph Pulitzer, another start-from-scratch immigrant, made better use of his fortune than the other purveyor of fake news, William Randolph Hearst, who spent on a big, goofy castle in California, his own political career, an imperialist war with Spain and a studio to make movies starring his mistress.  Unlike Pulitzer (but like Charles Foster Kane) he was always rich.

What started me on this meditation about giving it away -- even before there was an income tax to deduct it from -- was the news that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is removing the Sackler name from its galleries, including the one custom-built to house the Temple of Dendur.  The Sackler name has been muddied by Perdue Pharma, a company owned by the family, and its best-known product OxyContin, credited by the CDC with over 70,000 deaths in 2019 alone.  In Mingo County, West Virginia, there were thousands more pills than people.  Doctors were bribed to prescribe the stuff.  America is now said to be in the grip of an opioid epidemic.  The Sackler family probably wish they had taken the company public so they could share the financial penalties with shareholders.

The article says the Met "reached an agreement" with descendants of two of the Sackler brothers.  Does this mean they will give back the millions of dollars?  (Mortgage the Temple?)  I doubt it.  I remember when the other Met, the Metropolitan Opera, got a pile of cash from the financier Alberto Vilar back in 1998.  They were so grateful they named a chunk of the house after him, the Vilar Grand Tier.  It's not called that now because Vilar went bust and got ten years for fraud.  He also was not reimbursed.  There must be some "no-taking-backsies" clause when you share your good fortune with others, while it lasts.

Today those plutocrats would be included in this helpful, if partial, list of offshore cash-stashers provided by Wikipedia for those who don't have time to study the entirety of the Pandora Papers.  If these folks and organizations paid some tax we wouldn't need benevolence.  There are so many famous names here it's hard to single anyone out for naming and shaming like Jimmy Carr, who 'fessed up, paid up and survived a savage ribbing.  How about Rev. Luis Garza Medina, former Vicar General, and the Legion of Christ?  Are they supposed to need tax shelters?  Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine?  He'll be all right when the tanks roll in.  Laurent Lamothe, former prime minster of Haiti -- I wonder why it's so poor.  Tony and Cherie Blair?  This is my shocked face.  A suggestion:  Stop availing yourselves of the fire, police, sanitation and street-cleaning services the rest of us pay for.  Go live on an island with your money.

And tax the damn churches.

 

Loose ends

The Savior must have been

A docile Gentleman -- 

To come so far so cold a Day

For little Fellowmen -- 

The Road to Bethlehem

Since He and I were Boys

Was leveled, but for that would be

A rugged Billion Miles --

I have no idea what it means but this is the birthday of Emily Dickinson and I wanted to lend the place a little class.  

Almost equally baffling is the news that Trevor Noah is suing an orthopedic surgeon and the hospital where he underwent an operation he's unhappy about, not to mention "sick, sore, lame and disabled."  We're just supposed to guess what body part is not working properly, so why even report on the suit?  Is it true that there's no such thing as bad publicity?  

Here's a new name to learn:  Trevian Kutti, a publicist for Ye (you may still know him as Kanye West), traveled from Chicago to Georgia to harass temporary poll worker Ruby Freeman about "confessing" to election fraud when the state unexpectedly went for Joe Biden last year.  Ms. Freeman and her daughter Wandrea Moss have been getting death threats ever since their names were made public, but probably nothing as sinister as Kutti's:  "You are a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up," he told her.  "....it will disrupt your freedom, and the freedom of one or more of your family members."  They play rough in Chicago.  Loose end?

The newly rebuilt Fox News Sacred Christian Christmas Tree was dedicated with the pomp you might expect, including acres of American flags and a sermon by Rev. Jacques DeGraff.  "I'm here because these colors do not run," he proclaimed, a reference to the red, white and blue decor of the new contraption.  Wait, it gets better.  "Eighty years ago this week they tried to extinguish the darkness in a place called Pearl Harbor.  We didn't fold then and we won't fold now."  It's as puzzling as Dickinson but not as funny as Blutarski. 

Another week, another loss in court for The Forty-fifth President.  The DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that he cannot claim double-secret executive privilege forever to keep the January 6 commission from getting the emails and other evidence of his coup attempt.  Of course, it's not over until the partisan hacks of SCOTUS get a chance, but someone in Florida is acting as if he can see and hear walls closing in.  To make matters worse, Letitia James ended her campaign for governor of New York citing "a number of important cases and investigations" she needs to work on, like making Trump  testify next month in the criminal probe of the Trump Organization.  Of course, 45 is responding with the dignity we cherish in ex-presidents.  First he accused Boris Johnson of becoming a Red because he "cancelled Christmas" last year and expressed mild support for certain environmental issues.  Then he assailed Benjamin Netanyahu ("Fuck him") for congratulating Joe Biden prior to January 20.  Israel would practically not exist without Trump and this is the thanks he gets.  Then he sent former flunky Peter Navarro to Newsmax to explain that Ukraine is "not really a country" in much the same way Hitler described Poland and Czechoslovakia.  David Ignatius calls this encouraging a Russian invasion, but since when does a puppeteer need encouragement from his doll?  I'm only surprised he hasn't jumped into the French presidential election yet.

Loose ends may account for the noise you can hear when Ron Johnson from Wisconsin shakes his head vigorously.  The Senate's stupidest inmate by quite a lot was at a town hall talking up the ability of mouthwash to combat covid.  This caused both Crest and Listerine to post warnings that, although fine products, their gargle is not an antiviral nor was it designed to be.  Even the Republican governor of New Hampshire Chris Sununu chimed in:  "When crazy comes knocking at the door, slam it shut."  RINO.

Long before the Reverend DeGraff joined the Malaprop Club there was Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago:  "The policeman is not there to create disorder.  The policeman is there to preserve disorder," he said prior to the riot his policemen caused during the 1968 convention.  I thought of him when Baby Tuckoo Carlson told Steve Krakauer, "I'm from Washington.  I hate disorder."  He explained that his son Buckley -- Buckley? -- was in the Capitol on coup day because he works for Rep. Jim Banks.  (Banks is the class act who whined about being Twitter-banned after referring to Gen. Rachel Levine as a man.)  Naturally Tuckoo was worried -- if the Trumpanzees brought a gallows for Mike Pence, how safe was Buckley?  Not worried enough to denounce the rioters, of course -- what could you expect when eighty-one million people stole the election from Trump and neither Pence nor McConnell would stop them?  Tuckoo's my nominee for Dad of the Year.

Someone else who wouldn't stop them was Brian Kemp, the so-called governor of Georgia.  That's why David Perdue says he would not have certified the election until the legislature was able to "protect and fix what was wrong," i.e., Black votes.  And he's primarying Kemp because of some lunatic notion that Kemp "turned our elections over to Stacey Abrams," his good friend from 2016.  Perdue got his ass kicked by Jon Ossoff, who had never held electoral office before, and "perdue" still means loser.  But by all means, jump right in, Dave.  Ask Sticky Fingers Loeffler if she'd like to run against Brad Raffensperger.  

Congratulations to Magnus Carlsen, who beat Ian Nepomniachtchi for chess champion of the world.  And thanks from bloggers everywhere who will not have to type Ian's name.

 

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Airing of grievances

 The right must have asked White Santa for a big box of self-pity, and they've opened it early.  There's nothing quite as satisfying for the privileged as victimhood.

Tim Unes used to work for Bob Dole back when the Republican Party was a collection of racists and plutocrats who had not yet lost their minds completely.  (Bipartisan!  Reaching across the aisle!  Allegedly!)  But then Tim Unes went over to the dark side to the extent that he was subpoenaed by the Thompson commission to chat about his role in planning last January's coup attempt.  And now, evidently on the insistence of Elizabeth Dole, he has not been allowed to help plan Bob Dole's funeral.  Looks like it was Mitch McConnell who finked.   Tim Unes is sad.  Another target of the Woke Mob.

Won't somebody think of America's political prisoners?  Somebody besides Big Marge from Georgia, who thinks of little else.  It seems every hour in the DC lockup is like one day in the life of Ivan Denisovich for the Putsch people.  Apparently they are being brainwashed with critical race theory, though it isn't clear if the torture is being performed by brutal guards or fellow inmates.  Bologna sandwiches!  No protein shakes!  Tell it to Amnesty International.

Another chapter in American history has been lost with the removal -- finally -- of the epically ugly Nathan Bedford Forrest statue from Nashville.  I say statue, turns out the thing is made of polyurethane and probably could have been pushed over years ago by a determined Girl Scout troop.  As Forrest was not only a Klan founder and a traitor but a war criminal it's hard to make a case for preserving it on some plantation's lawn.  Maybe cheap upholstery.  (Fun fact:  polyurethane was first made in 1937 by I.G. Farben.  Don't read too much into it.)

But nowhere is the self-pity with a side of outrage thicker than at Fox News, where for two solid days the regular gang and guest mourners like Ronna McDaniel have proclaimed the destruction of the outfit's "tree" the worst atrocity since Kamala Harris bought a French saucepan.  As usual Baby Tuckoo won the door prize by demanding Merrick Garland prosecute the sad, homeless arsonist for a FEDERAL HATE CRIME AGAINST CHRISTIANITY.  Will they "rebuild" or will they leave the blackened ruin as a witness to inhumanity like Coventry Cathedral?  Whatever they do, it's bad for the Democrats.  Somehow.  Personally I think the flaming tree on the left would make a better Christmas card than the children of depraved politicians waving their firearms and asking Santa for reloaders and bump stocks, but I'm old fashioned.  Like my ancestors I celebrate Festivus.

Infamy

Eerily timed to coincide with the eightieth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor,  a homeless man named Craig Tamanaha was arrested for setting fire to the aluminum Christmas tree outside Fox News.  He is well known to the police after many arrests for low-level offenses and reportedly suffers from mental illness, but the Fox crew are already re-making him as the Marinus Van der Lubbe of lawless, leftist New York.  Ainsley Earhardt knows the rot doesn't end with honorary Squad member Bill DeBlasio -- this conspiracy goes all the way to Joe Biden.  She appropriated his campaign slogan to assure grieving viewers, "We are going to build it back better."  (How you build a Christmas tree is a little unclear.)  "This Scrooge is not going to get away with it."  Say what you like about old Ebenezer, he was no arsonist.  In fact, he'd be glued to Fox News all day, especially the stories about how raising the minimum wage is Communism.

And speaking of misers, a metal tree, Rupert?  Alimonies starting to bite?

Fox Nation was already on edge after Pete Hegseth reported on "Black Lives Matter trying to destroy Christmas as we know it."  How?  Through their dastardly campaign "Dreaming of a Black Christmas," which encourages Black people to spend their money at Black-owned businesses.  The carnage.  Nothing this awful has been proposed since, let me see, the 1960s when Malcolm X urged the exact same thing and not just at Christmas.  Before that for about a century Black people had no choice about where to shop, since they were only welcome at Black-owned businesses (except for sharecroppers who had to run up bills they could never pay at landlord-owned stores).  I think Hegseth is mostly enraged that Black people have surplus income to spend on the holidays and it isn't all going to Macys or L.L. Bean.  Relax, Pete, if enough white people refuse to be scared away from the malls by the media's relentless wailing about inflation, all those merchants will survive.  

And speaking of interracial shopping, the Justice Department has again closed the Emmett Till case.  If only there had been a Black-owned store in Money, Mississippi in 1955.

That wasn't even the dopiest thing on Fox News.  Baby Tuckoo's very special guest was Oswald Mosely impersonator Nigel Farage, and they bonded over the sad story of Tuckoo's nameless friend who got covid and was "emasculated...it feminized him, it weakened him as a man."  (Sounds like a good reason to get a vaccine.)  Before that he was one of those big, strong guys who used to come up to Trump with tears in their eyes and either beg him to stop the antifa terror or thank him for being so stupendously wonderful.  But Tuckoo wasn't finished.  He more or less ordered President Biden to quit the saber-rattling and leave poor Vladimir Putin alone because "he just wants to keep his western border secure."  But will 120,000 troops be enough to protect Russia from those savage Ukrainians?  Putin must be remembering Poland's sneak attack on Germany in 1939.  Never again!

Also, the US diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in China is bad because Trump isn't doing it.

There's good news for Fox News and for the right in general:  America is experiencing a silent epidemic of lead poisoning among its children.  "As a society we're losing IQ points," said Tom Neltner of the Environmental Defense Fund.  It's like covid last year -- as long as you don't test for it, it's not a problem.  

The Christmas spirit is not apparent in Oakland County, Michigan, where James and Jennifer Crumbley have hired a couple of "high-powered attorneys" to represent them on charges of involuntary manslaughter.  They were not so generous with their son Ethan -- the court had to appoint a lawyer for him.  Hey, he already got his present.

  

Sunday bloody bloody bloody...

 Viagra spokesman and Purple Heart recipient Bob Dole is dead.  He was a horrible politician with a horrible wife and I have nothing more to say.

You will not be unsurprised that the idiot who said, "I love the poorly educated!" was poorly educated.  We covered the double negative in third grade, when Donnie was learning to tie his shoes.

This is better:

A teacher in Hopkins, Michigan, was suspended because he freaked out his students with a suggestion about how Ethan Crumbley could have killed "the people that he would need to" by pulling the fire alarm.  Sure, hindsight's 20-20.  Meanwhile over a hundred Michigan school districts closed Friday after receiving threats of "copycat" shootings.  Someone wants to create more of the "poorly educated."

Vive la France!  Far-right, anti-Muslim, anti-immigration presidential candidate Eric Zemmour held a rally near Paris.  As he left the stage a French antifa put him in a headlock to express disapproval of his "Make France great again" program.  We need more of this here to scare away the draft-dodging wusses.

Covid has been diagnosed in two hippos in the Antwerp Zoo.  They seem to be doing well apart from runny noses.  It's as gross as you'd expect.

Never mind Bob Dole.  Col. Edward Shames, the last survivor of the so-called "Band of Brothers" in Stephen Ambrose's book, has died.  According to his obituary he liberated several bottles of cognac from the Eagle's Nest labeled "for the Fuhrer's use only" and later opened one to toast his son's bar mitzvah.  I'll bet it tasted sweet.

"The trigger wasn't pulled.  I didn't pull the trigger," Alec Baldwin told George Stephanopoulos more than a month after the gun in his hand somehow killed Halyna Hutchins.  He will admit to cocking the hammer.  He doesn't feel guilty, only emotionally "scarred."  He also acknowledges that his acting career may be over.  I don't know about that -- America is a lot darker and harder to shock than it was in the days of Fatty Arbuckle (acquitted, in case you forgot).  Depends, doesn't it?  Michael Richards's career ended after one bad comedy set.  A two-time Oscar winner like Kevin Spacey may have room for redemption.  It would help if Baldwin and Spacey would acknowledge that they did terrible things.  It would help me.   I'm not saying weep all over Barbara Walters (is she still around?) but mensch up and we'll see.  Don't be a trump.

Here is a picture of some mountains with snow.  Stare at it until the rushing noise in your head comes to a complete stop.