When history calls

 

When this man, whose name may be Wang Weilin, woke up in Beijing one summer morning, he did not plan to be part of one of the most famous images of the twentieth century.  But he saw a column of tanks headed for Tiananmen Square, stepped into the street and the rest is history.

When Volodymyr Zelensky went on the Ukrainian version of Dancing With the Stars in 2006, he was probably thinking only of raising his profile as a comedian.  But sometimes, if you dance like nobody's watching, the whole world will see you.  Pay attention, Rick Perry, this is how it's done.

"The War In Ukraine Isn't Working Out the Way Russia Intended," advises the Washington Post ("No Flies On Us").  Well, yes.  When the Russian army needs help from Belarus that looks like a definite snag.  Is Lukashenko as crazy as Putin?  Why are they both talking about nukes?  Joe Biden says we needn't worry about World War III.  Fiona Hill isn't so sure.

What we know is that the enormous Russian air force hasn't established control over Ukraine; that the major cities have been shelled but remain defiant; that Russian supply lines are as fragile as the ruble and Russian banks have been severed from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication system (SWIFT to you).  Russians aren't fleeing or getting bombed, but their money is only useful for playing Monopoly.  As for their sons in uniform, Ukrainian women are blocking their progress and handing them sunflower seeds "so they will grow after you're dead."  I'm reminded of American girls at Vietnam War protests putting daisies in the barrels of National Guard rifles.

And as Russia is isolated from FIFA, UEFA and FEE-FI-FO-FA; as Putin loses his job as Honorary President of the Worldwide Judo Federation; as Ukraine's UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya cordially invites him to "do what the guy in Berlin did in a bunker in 1945"; there is one place that still has a warm spot for Mad Vlad -- the Republican Party.  This tweet from the pride of Louisiana Clay Higgins has been causing hilarity all day:  "You millennial leftists who never lived one day under nuclear threat can now reflect upon your woke sky.  You made quite a non-binary fuss to save the world from intercontinental ballistic tweets."  Bath salts?  Mad Libs?  I don't know, but "Woke Sky" is the name of my balalaika/steel drum Pink Floyd tribute band.

Trump, of course, continues to call Putin "smart" and the American government, deprived of his jenius by the stolen election, "stupid."  Speaking of stupidity, Lauren Boebert has also demanded that Canada and the US be liberated from tyranny (i.e. vaccines) just like Ukraine.  What Ukrainian refugee trying to get her family into Poland tonight could fail to resonate with that?  Matt Gaetz at CPAC fulminated against Americans having to "foot the bill" for Ukraine, details unclear, but obviously the sex-crime investigation is getting closer and any SQUIRREL!! in a storm.  Putin and the GOP are muy simpatico on most issues, including LGBTQ people, censorship and the desirability of fossil fuels.  

This, however, is wrong:  Valery Gergiev is being literally cancelled over his refusal to denounce his long-time patron Putin.  He has been publicly dumped by his management (how much money have they made from him?), threatened with firing by several major orchestras and booed at La Scala.  Silence will not do, he must say the words.  Can you say "show trial"?  How about "blacklist"?  People, we should be better.  And I'm not even a Gergiev fan.  

Finally, some unrelated things I thought were...interesting.

CNN, now under new management, has cancelled a documentary about Alex Jones.

Four trucks from the right-wing "People's Convoy" crashed in Oklahoma on their way to disrupt tomorrow's State of the Union address.

The California version -- all five rigs -- made it to Las Vegas before giving up.

Mehmet Oz complained that Anthony Fauci has not responded to his debate challenge. It was pointed out to him that Fauci is not running in the Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary.  

Mitt Romney called Paul Gosar and Margie Greene "morons."  And this is someone who transported a dog on the roof of his car.

Trump, who wanted the US to leave NATO because the other members weren't paying enough, now wants credit for saving it.  "Let History so note!" he actually said.  It has.

Andrew Walls, described as a leader of the Proud Boys (aren't they all?), was arrested in Akron for yelling "Fucking n-----s" and slugging a woman in the face.  With pride.

Ron Johnson blames Adam Schiff, Alexander Vindman and Nancy Pelosi for the invasion of Ukraine.  Insert joke here.

FedEx and UPS have suspended deliveries to Russia.  I'd like to know what Amazon is doing.

  

 

Life goes on

 Pay attention to me!  Jealous of the war in Europe, North Korea lobbed a missile harmlessly into the Sea of Japan.  Again.

Bars and liquor stores are removing Russian vodka from shelves and in some cases pouring it down the sink.  That should stop Putin.  But can we still listen to Tchaikovsky?

War in the twenty-first century:  Volodymyr Zelensky found time to "follow" Madonna yesterday after she posted a supportive video on Instagram.

The Ukrainian president told other Americans who offered to evacuate him, "I need ammunition, not a ride."  In response, Germany is sending 500 Stinger missiles and a thousand antitank weapons.  Hungary is supporting all EU sanctions and Turkey is considering blocking Russian ships from the Black Sea.  The French navy "escorted" a Russian ship in the Channel to Boulogne with its cargo of cars.  

Happy to get out from under "Partygate" if only for a while, Boris Johnson told the Russians, "I do not believe this war is in your name."  In Russian, which was, I gotta say, impressive.

For those who couldn't get into CPAC -- imagine! -- Nick Fuentes organized America First Political Action Conference in Orlando, the Nuremberg of the South.  His star attraction was Empty Greene, who claims not to know about his white nationalist views but has little else to occupy her.  "Now they're going on about Russia and Putin is Hitler -- they say that's not a good thing," said Fuentes (three guesses who "they" are).  Greene told the brethren they must "stop the Democrats who are the Communist Party of the United States."  She then said she is opposed to Putin and threw in some tested laugh lines ("Fire Fauci!  Investigate Hillary Clinton's campaign!  Lock her up!") and an attack on this year's BLM, transgendered people, before staggering away.  (Did Fuentes provide an open bar?)

Between paying Trump's legal bills and bulk-buying the literary output of his spawn and enablers, the Republican Party may have trouble keeping the lights on this spring.  What will they do about Bill Barr's forthcoming One Damn Thing After Another, a 600-page account of his two years as attorney general?  According to the Wall Street Journal it's pretty heretical, stating that Trump has "neither the temperament nor the persuasive powers" to lead the great backward movement entrusted to him, and that "the election was not 'stolen.'  Trump lost it."  (He could have said that before the insurrection but characteristically kept quiet.)  Is it wrong that I want to read the fat-shaming nickname his ex-boss is working on?

Which is pretty funny coming from a load like Trump.  Lucky CPAC guests were treated to a junk food meal before last night's rant featuring his trademark cheap-ass Mickey D cheeseburgers.  He's always had an elaborate theory about how chain restaurant food is somehow cleaner than individually prepared meals, which could well be based on the number of people who would gladly flavor his burnt steak with various bodily substances.  Of course the Chipotle chain had to close 2,000 restaurants in 2016 after repeated outbreaks of food poisoning, but Trump probably blamed Mexico.

In other hospitality news, the Pravda Brewery in Lviv has suspended beer production and is making Molotov cocktails instead, the fastest and most impressive re-tooling since Ford shifted from cars to B-24s in 1942.  Can't confirm but I'm told the labels say "Putin is a dickhead."

Nigel Farage also showed up at CPAC before a bemused crowd that didn't quite know how to take his suggestion that they get over the "stolen election" crap and move on.  "I'm not allowed to say 'Let's go Brandon' because it's rude.  So let's go Brandon!" he added, confusing them even more.  The old man seemed genuinely hurt that his good friend Putin is making such a mess of things, and called Black Lives Matter "openly Marxist."  I always thought they did a good job of hiding it.  But then, I thought the white nationalists would have tired of the Brandon "joke" by now.  Were they trained by Pavlov?

Remember covid?  Two studies by international scientists have concluded that it originated in the wet market as originally thought, not the Wuhan Institute of Virology.  This will have no effect on the nippleheads of the "blame Jyna" axis, but perhaps it will slow attacks on Asian people in the US.  

When the USSR went out of business in 1991, Ukraine found itself with the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world.  They returned all the warheads to Russia in exchange for Crimea, over which they have already been betrayed.  So when Russia's nuclear "deterrent" forces were put on alert, the world wondered exactly what it planned to deter.  It's no secret that Putin's plan to "kick in the door" and bring down the whole structure has run into a snag, much like the German plan back in the 1940s.  So many civilians from all over have expressed a desire to fight that Zelensky announced the formation of a new International Brigade like the one that went to Spain in 1936, and the UK foreign secretary expressed support even though it would violate an 1870 law for Britons to join.  (They never prosecuted George Orwell -- they erected a statue of him in front of the BBC.)  Could Putin be crazy enough to plan a war with NATO?  Is he really suffering from a combination of paranoia and Parkinson's?  

It's far from over.   

  

Weather birds

Senate hopeful J.D. Vance, February 21:  "I gotta be honest with you, I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another."

Senate hopeful J.D. Vance, February 26:  "Russia's assault on Ukraine is unquestionably a tragedy, especially for the innocent people caught in the crossfire.  It's also a stark reminder of our own failed leadership...elites pursued a policy of isolating Russia...media elites slander those of us who believe in 'America First'...Trump deserves a tremendous amount of credit...foreign policy establishment...supposed 'experts'...yadda yadda yadda."  

Well, I guess he decided to care after all.  Not coherently, but a lot.

Tommy Tuberville, already a Senator, on why Putin invaded Ukraine:  "He can't feed his people.  It's a Communist country, so he can't feed his people, so they need more farmland."

Tommy thinks the three branches of government are the offense, the defense and the special squad.

July 7, 2021:  Tucker Carlson admits he was seeking a Putin interview when he accused the National Security Agency of spying on him because the Biden administration wants to "take this show off the air."

February 23, 2022:  Tucker Carlson tells his spellbound spit-droolers, "Ukraine, to be technical, is not a democracy.  Democracies don't arrest political opponents and they don't shut down opposition media...[it is] a pure client state of the United States State Department..."

As for Russia, "Has Putin ever called me a racist?...Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination?  Is he trying to snuff out Christianity?  Does he eat dogs?"  (Not clear, but apparently these are all reasons Putin is better than Biden or Xi, one of whom "manufactured a world-wide pandemic.")  Without Trump around to prevent it, "Hating Putin has become the central purpose of America's foreign policy.  Very soon that...could bring the United States into a conflict in eastern Europe."    

February 24, 2022:  Tucker Carlson says "Vladimir Putin started this war...He is to blame for what we're seeing tonight in Ukraine."  I guess he didn't snag that interview.  

But Tuckoo, you are a racist.  You forgot all about Ukraine last night because you had a new Black woman to hate:  If Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed it will "defile" the Supreme Court and "humiliate and degrade" the entire country.  You opened your face and said that, adding something about DNA and Rwanda which probably impressed the dullest 25 percent of your fans.  Unlike Coney Barrett, Judge Jackson has been appointed because of "how she looks," not her years as a public defender, judge, and now US Circuit Court of Appeals.  Tuckoo, you are a racist and a misogynist and a fascist.  You humiliate and degrade this country every weeknight at 8 Eastern Time.  

Muhammad Ali said, "No Viet Cong ever called me n-----" to explain why he preferred to lose his boxing title and risk prison rather than fight in a pointless war.  When Tucker Carlson asks, "Has Putin ever called me a racist?" he's admitting that Putin doesn't know him from a gruesome TV dinner. 

The rest of the idiocracy has been at work, just as hard and just as disgustingly.  Tulsi Gabbard wishes Ukraine and NATO and just, you know, everybody had "acknowledged Russia's legitimate security concerns" and Putin would have taken everybody in Kyiv out for ice cream.  His weird speech about "denazification" and "genocide" of Ukraine's ethnic Russians would have remained in the desk where it belongs.  Michael Flynn spelled it out even farther, managing to work covid, "millions surging across our southern border," the "fraudulent" election and even "a certain Biden owned laptop."  Did Q tell you to say that, Mike?  But the blue rosette goes to "Steve Bannon's Morning Sickness" where Pigpen and his guest Erik Prince praised Putin for not being "woke."  "The Russian people still know which bathroom to use."  "They don't have the Pride flags."  "How many genders are there in Russia?"  "Two!"  These guys, they're like Car Talk with gay panic instead of the Puzzler.

Of course it's possible that all these fans of the Big Vlad Wolf will have changed their song now and, like Vance, found a way to snuggle up to Trump without fellating Putin.  It's always easier if words have no meaning for you.      

 

What's Ukrainian for "Nuts"?

 "It takes a special kind of son of a bitch to see innocent people fleeing their homes and think, 'How can I make this about me?'  But nobody does that better than Donald Trump," said Jimmy Kimmel, speaking for most of us.  At last night's Lago de Merde fundraiser, the SOB said admiringly, "He's taking over a country for two dollars' worth of sanctions.  I'd say that's pretty smart."  At the same time, if the election hadn't been stolen this wouldn't be happening, too bad, serves everyone right.  If the champagne-swilling crowd detected any contradiction, they haven't said.

War moves faster than it used to.  Five years into the Second World War the German commander at Bastogne demanded the surrender of Anthony McAuliffe's "battered bastards" and got the immortal response, "Nuts."  Barely a day into Putin's criminal war thirteen border guards on Snake Island in the Black Sea were called on to surrender by a Russian warship and replied, "Go fuck yourself."  All died.  One day we may learn their names.  Today we know the name of Vitaly Shakun, the Ukrainian soldier who died while detonating the Henichesk Bridge to stop a column of Russian tanks.  

On a conference call last night from besieged Kyiv Volodymyr Zelensky told EU leaders, "This might be the last time you see me alive."  None of them offered to send troops.  Only one head of state personally intervened at a Russian embassy:  Pope Francis.  Joe Biden repeated for maybe the thirtieth time, "We have no intention of fighting Russia.  We want to send an unmistakable message, though, that the United States and our allies will defend every inch of NATO territory."  Good news for Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.  Maybe Finland would like to join.  Not much help today.

The Poison Dwarf is getting more pushback from his own people than from Europe, as 1,800 Russians were arrested at protests across the country.  From his latest kangaroo court Alexei Navalny called the invasion an attempt to "divert attention from Russia's problems," and he's probably right.  The European Broadcast Union courageously banned Russia from this year's Eurovision Song Contest, then changed their minds because it's "a non-political cultural event."  Could the EBU be as corrupt as the IOC?  Who gives a shit?

"I can't imagine why someone would look at what's happening there and see it as anything other than a criminal act, " John Kelly told Jake Tapper this morning.  John Kelly.  Retired Marine general.  Trump's chief of staff, and he can't imagine why Trump is full of praise for Putin.  It must be easier to make general in the Corps than I thought.  Trump, general, the fat guy who stood next to you at your son's grave in Arlington and said, "What was in it for them?"  Remember him now?  Kelly is just my age.  Should I start taking those jellyfish memory pills?

If everything is a distraction then nothing is a distraction unless it distracts from...I give up.  Marsha Blackburn (or is it Masha?) says it was "extremely inappropriate" for Biden to nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court on this of all days, when we should all be trying to stop Russian aggression with our minds, I guess.  What would be a good day, Masha?  You're not going to vote for her because she was a public defender.  Lindsey Graham isn't going to vote for her because she's not Michelle Childs.  John Kennedy is going to ask her nine times if she thinks cocaine should be legalized.  Rand Paul -- look, why don't you leave early and get a good seat at the book-burning?

Presidents have to multi-task.  Remember the last four years of no-tasking?  Unless you count eating documents and washing them down with Diet Coke while watching TV.  Joe Biden got a PDB today and you can believe he paid attention and asked questions.  He talked to NATO people.  He talked to economists about energy prices and inflation.  He was briefed on the war.  He introduced Judge Jackson.  He probably went to the toilet.  He got a covid briefing.  It's just another Friday.  Why anyone wants that job I could not say.

Senators don't have much to occupy them, it seems. They have time to jet off to Florida and make speeches to the deplorables, like Ted Cruz comparing Jen Psaki to Peppermint Patty (she has red hair).  Well, they thought it was funny.  For an Ivy League elitist Ted sure loves some children's lit -- he also read Green Eggs and Ham into the Congressional Record.  Maybe it's time to move on to Young Adult.  I think he'd enjoy the Narnia books.

The Poison Dwarf can multi-task, too.  He's hosting Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan, who sounds thrilled to be in Moscow:  "What a time I have come -- so much excitement!" he was heard to say.  Just wait till the victory parade next May.  They're sprucing up Lenin.

War bulletins

 First, a correction:  No American forces, amphibious or otherwise, have landed in Ukraine.  It was just Trump being wrong again.  The Ingraham Obtuse Angle carried a bulletin about a possible Russian naval assault on Odessa and The Forever President called to gently chastise her:  "You shouldn't be saying that, because you and everybody else shouldn't know about it.  They should do that secretly, not be doing that through the great Laura Ingraham."  (I don't know what it means either.)  She had to explain that it was the Russians.  I wonder if he has a scale-model Situation Room next to the omelet bar in Lago de Merde where he pretends to "monitor" the world.

For over a century historians have debated the causes of World War I without arriving at a consensus.  This war is hours old and already the experts know whose fault it is:  the environmentalists.  Kristi Noem, who is not a historian but would like to run for national office, told another idiot, "From the very day [Biden] got into the White House he gave Putin all the power."  How?  By cancelling the extension of the Keystone Pipeline from Alberta to Nebraska, of course,  This frightened poor Vladimir into believing that the end of fossil fuels is just around the corner and he...decided to reconstitute the Russian Empire.  

Eric Erickson, also not a historian but a self-described intellectual, knows the environmentalists forced the US to cut back on fossil fuels and invest in renewables.  "Knowing that the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine" -- snork -- those wise Europeans put all their eggs in the oil-and-gas basket that is Russia's only asset, leaving them at Putin's mercy.  I can't speak for the windless countries of Europe but I happen to know Denmark gets nearly half its energy from wind.  Also, it's pretty sunny in Spain.  Well, why argue with someone who knows everything?  

Like Charlie Kirk of Turnip Point USA fame, who got even more specific:  "Cheap oil is a deterrent from tyrannical Third World dictators from invading other countries.  Could it be that Greta Thunberg and Leonardo DiCaprio actually might be to blame for what Vladimir Putin is doing?"

Leonardo DiCaprio?

Russian state television -- don't bother logging on to RT, you can get it all from Murdoch -- likes to tell its couch potatoes that the US put Ukraine up to it and made the "pacification" necessary.  Tulsi Gabbard takes it deeper.  The American "power elite" have betrayed both the American and the Russian people for their own gain.  "Maybe expensive energy would be good for the many renewable deals their friends and donors are invested in," insinuated her new friend Tucker Carlson.  In future, can we give the Karens a break and refer to clueless, entitled female idiots as Tulsis?

It's a jenga of lies, and if you get to the bottom you'll find the stubbornly held fantasy that climate change is a leftist plot to destroy Our Way of Life, just like vaccines and masks which undermine FREEDOM!  

By coincidence, it's the opening day of CrapPAC with the Usual Gang of Idiots denouncing everything that makes life marginally tolerable and screaming about a "Red Wave," probably bloody diarrhea.  Nothing but derision for a democracy under attack and predictions of an "extinction level event" for the "woke left."  They'd kill us if they could.  Can hardly wait for Tulsi's debut as the next Phyllis Schlafly.

Taiwan is worried that China will take advantage of the world's one-track mind to attack, and has already turned back an air incursion.  The hits just keep coming.  How long before Chuck Grassley demands that Biden unleash Chiang Kai-shek?

Meanwhile, Islamic State has showed up again in Syria.  But did they ever leave?

Some images of Ukraine from the Independent.  Tune in tonight to find out if the woman fell down some stairs or was assaulted by Greta Thunberg.

Not so fast

 CBS News took a poll on the subject of book-banning and look what they found:

Critical race theory?  Depends on whether you get your information from Fox News or real news:

Equally intriguing, Virginians seem to have a case of buyer's remorse about their new governor, who has been in office about a month.  The license plates used to say "Virginia is for lovers."  Not much of a honeymoon.

I don't put much credence in polls -- all you have to do is answer the phone, compared to the increasingly Herculean task of actually voting.  But it's something to think about.  

Days of infamy

 When Pearl Harbor was bombed, Winston Churchill reacted with delight.  Quietly and inwardly, of course, but he knew Britain was down to its last Lancaster.  And now they would survive.

I have to tell you that there is no uniformity of response to the Russian assault on Ukraine.  Boris Johnson, who fancies himself Churchill's heir, has called for this year's Champion League final to be moved out of St. Petersburg.  That's fighting them on the landing ground, or at least the football pitch. (He also sanctioned five banks and three people, according to the BBC.)  Olaf Scholz announced that Germany will hold off certifying the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which is more likely to get Russia's attention than footie.  It's also a brave step, considering that it's still winter in Europe -- Russia has always been clever about deploying cold weather -- and if all the gas stops flowing life could get dangerous and miserable for a lot of people.  As for the US, I guess we'll find out what there is left to sanction.  Is the Russian Tea Room on 57th Street still open?

And then there's Putin's kukla.  On something called "The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show," which unfortunately does not seem to be a showcase for country music, Trump swung like an unmedicated bipolar patient between whining about the election ("Had I been in office not even thinkable") and burbling delightedly about how "savvy" Putin is, what a "genius."  ("He's gonna go in and be a peacemaker.  I said 'How smart is that?'  We could use that on our southern border.  That's the strongest peace force I've ever seen.  They're gonna keep peace, all right."  At that point Hope Hicks had to sponge him off.  "I know him very well.  Very, very well."  This is precisely why 81 million of us conspired to steal the presidency from this degenerate.  And we all remember why he hates Ukraine.

Nothing very startling here -- Trump has always been aroused by violence as long as he can watch from a safe distance as a weaker party is abused by a stronger one.  (If only Ukraine were a woman...)  And he has plenty of company from the fascists in Congress and on the Murdoch payroll.  Mike Pimpeo also calls the poison dwarf "savvy" -- I don't own a Word-A-Day calendar, is that today's?  It's all a splendid distraction for the knuckle-draggers.  

For what feels like the fiftieth time the Supreme Court told Trump he can't claim executive privilege to hide his coup evidence from the Thompson Committee.  Judge Engoron says Trump and his oldest spawn have to answer the subpoenas from the attorney general of New York, even if she is a racist, leftist, crazy Black woman.  Jean Carroll's defamation suit continues to work its way through the system.  The classified documents recovered from his lair are in the hands of the Justice Department.  How long?

Of course, madness rolls on no matter how many Ukrainian neighborhoods the poison dwarf "recognizes."  There was a particularly weird outbreak in Utah today:  A man in Midvale had a dispute with the drive-through window at McDonalds and pulled a gun.  As you do.  He pulled over to wait for his food and some nervous Nellie called the police.  They ordered him out of the car and he was heard to instruct his four-year-old to fire at the police.  Everyone's fine, so I guess they were white.  Later that same day people had to vacate their dorm at Brigham Young University after an explosion caused by a student making rocket fuel on the stove.  (Not a euphemism apparently.)  Whatever happened to "No cooking in the dorm"?

Eager to prove that he's even dumber than George Zimmerman, Kyle Rittenhouse is launching the Media Accountability Project to sue everyone who calls him a murderer just because he got away with two murders, which is one more murder than Zimmerman.  The teenage murderer is taking aim at "quite a few politicians, celebrities, athletes" who hurt his feelings, and also Cenk Uygur and Whoopi Goldberg, who are at least arguably part of the media.  Don't forget the Sky Organization, Kyle, we could use the publicity, you baby-face murderer.

The governor of Iowa will deliver the response to next week's State of the Union address, which makes me wonder how many people turned them down.  Also, when did this response thing start?  We haven't had a fairness doctrine since it was abolished in 1987 by Bonzo's FCC.

Canada's House of Commons has confirmed the emergency powers granted to the prime minister to deal with Rightzi-funded insurrectionists in Ottawa and elsewhere.  I tell you, Trudeau is practically a dictator.  You watch, he'll be closing down the Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve and making pancakes unaffordable for those brave truckers!  What are they supposed to eat, tofu?

Poison Dwarf Putin made a speech that was Trumpesque in its incoherence and self-pity.  He even evoked "our ancestors."  Enjoy.  

Dignity, always dignity

 Hey, didja see that way-clever Presidents Day tweet from the Party Formerly Known as Lincoln's?  I thought I'd never stop laughing.

Get it?  Because Biden isn't the real president!  It's even funnier than "Let's Go Brandon."  How do they come up with them?  Of course, there are always omissions...

That's MY president.  Better actor than Reagan and smarter than both Bushes laid end to end.

  

History is cool

 Sixty years and a little bit ago (February 10, 1962) Francis Gary Powers was exchanged for Rudolf Abel of the KGB at the Glienicker Bridge in Berlin.  I bring this up not just because Cold War II, or possibly Warm War, appears to have begun in eastern Ukraine but because the Second American Civil War has reached an unusual stage.  Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is the scheduled Gipper-Gabber at the CrapPAC Ronald Reagan dinner in Orlando.  I assume the time is coming when she will be formally exchanged for Liz Cheney at a bridge to be named later.  We will also hear more about her very serious reasons for this, no doubt, for sure.  

"One of the things I've said to the president [sic] is that he gets to decide the future of our party and our country because he is still the loudest voice," a sad Tim Scott told Maria Bartiromo, after hinting that he'd love to be Trump's running mate.  If power was measured in decibels, Brian Blessed would be the British prime minister.  But he should go for it, if only to stop Trump calling him "Tom."  (Actually a lot of people call him "Tom" but for other reasons.)  Lucky South Carolina -- two Senators in complete denial about themselves.

Please give it up for the comedy stylings of Ted Cruz!  A pal of Jeffrey Epstein was found hanging in his jail cell in Paris, and Ted tweeted, "Anybody know where Hillary was this weekend?"  This would be a good time for that defamation suit, Madam Secretary, before it gets cold and he buggers off to Mexico.  Bernie Madoff's sister and her husband were also found dead in what the Boynton Beach, Florida, police are calling a murder-suicide, but so far the third Chuckle Brother has not accused her of that.  

Franklin Graham, CEO of the Graham Grift started by his father, wants all his followers to pray for Vladimir Putin in his time of need.  For the people of Ukraine, bupkus.  Some commentators suspect the presence of many rubles in the Samaritan's Purse and suggested its contents be taxed, but mostly it's just Graham being Graham, i.e., a sanctimonious asshole.  

Of course, Putin is known to be a pious Christian -- George W. Bush said so, not to mention these folks  at the Chapel of Russia's Resurrection.  (Myrrh?)  Check this out:

Not even Hitler.

Sorry you Trumpanzees can't gather online to pray for Vladimir because, surprise, Truth Social has crashed.  Suckers Users are assured it will be back up by "late March," and meanwhile they should keep paying their $4.99 a week.  Say, does this remind you of anyone?  Like Mike Pillow and his promise of millions of arrests by now, followed by the Supreme Court's restoration of Trumpism?  

It took two years but we finally have a metaphor for the Deploring Twenties:  Felicity Ace, a cargo ship loaded with Porsches, Audis and Bentleys, abandoned by its crew, burning and adrift off the Azores.  Also available as a porn name. 

 

   

 

Problem solver

 Sometimes I wake from a deep dream of peace, like Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!), to find that I have solved a knotty problem.  Last week some lawmakers in Tennessee, which is fast becoming the nuttiest place on earth that doesn't have its own power grid, have worked up a law which "expands the definition of 'law enforcement officer' to include a person who has been issued an enhanced handgun carry permit."  In effect, this would deputize everybody with a gun and a relatively clean record, either to solve the state's out-of-control crime problem or to get ready for Civil War 2:  Chattanooga Choo Choo.  The state senate sponsor, one Joey Hensley, has quite a colorful background himself which would preclude anyone legally selling him even a starter's pistol, but that's another matter.  Instead of dismissing the bill as the work of yet another lunatic, I tried to think of its useful applications.  Opposing the madness will just make you tired and cranky.

Republicans are always bloviating about how much they love Our Men and Women In Blue, except for when the blue meanies get in their way as they did on January 6, 2021, at which time they become Nancy Pelosi's Gazpacho Police.  Republicans are also outraged that Delta and other (private) airlines want the Justice Department to create a no-fly list for the tantrum-throwing "skeptics" who have made flying more miserable than Osama bin Laden ever dreamed.  My suggestion:  Deputize everyone who has to deal with this pestilence.  Flight crews, obviously, but also health care workers, school boards, librarians, maybe even restaurant employees who must enforce vaccination rules.  Level the field.  I'm not saying guns, but arm them with pepper spray, cattle prods, zip ties, hell, animal tranquilizers.  (The thugs take animal drugs, don't they?)  If nothing else, it will make The Party of Law and Order choose a side.  "This is trying to open it up so that people who go to the extreme to get this extra permit can have the right to defend themselves in more places," is how Senator Joey put it.  Based on his record he means "white people."  I mean all of us.

                * * * * * * * * * *

This is a day for rejoicing, because the Olympics are well and truly over.  Congratulations to little socialist Norway for winning most medals (sixteen gold, thirty-seven total).  Good luck to Kamila Valieva, who cheated her way in and fell repeatedly on her ass -- Sha'Carri Richardson says "Bye, bitch."  But it was left to Remi Lindholm to symbolize the glory of sport when his penis froze during the 50k -- make that 30k -- cross-country skiing.  He's from Finland, you'd think he'd know better. 

For those who need something equally pointless to obsess and tweet over, the Grammy Awards are roiling in controversy.  Works by Curtis Stewart and Jon Batiste are nominated in the classical category, apparently because they studied at the Eastman School and Juilliard respectively, and people who are still writing, you know, operas and stuff can't understand why.  Neither can the nominees.  All I know is, the classical Grammys are handed out in somebody's living room and have not been part of the big official show since Georg Solti used to win every year.  Hey, it's all politics.  

Did Prince Charles give his mother covid?  Is she going to be all right?  Could this be the start of the weirdest succession crisis since Stephen and Matilda.

With a fascist power itching to invade, was it a good idea to hold this year's security conference in Munich?  It has a sinister history when it comes to selling out small countries for short-term gain.  

Baby Tuckoo reached down and let fly with a spurting hate-gasm aimed at "Sandy Cortez," which is his clever name for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  Now she's "a rich, entitled white lady," and I guess the frozen dinner heir would know.  He's so desperate for attention he completely ignored the party line that Hillary is supposed to be the designated villain.  But he probably feels better now.  And he's not even the most insane Rightzi Mouth this week.  That would be Candace Owens, who wants to invade Canada and free its oppressed millions from the tyranny of "Justin Trudeau Castro" (she's decided he's the illegitimate son of Fidel Castro, don't ask me why).  She apparently got the idea from Candace Owens, who proposed last fall to invade Australia and free its oppressed millions...Anyway, Trudeau wins Bugfuck Bingo this week by being compared to both Hitler and Castro.  Better luck next week, Dr. Fauci.

   

International Butt-Ache Day

 Do you live a mile from potable water?  Have men dressed in black bombed your daughter's school?  Have you waited months for a covid shot while American hospitals throw away vaccines too old to use?  Take a number, we have people with real grievances today.

Elon Musk is whining about having to recall half a million Teslas because they emit obnoxious noises ("preset or custom sounds") which could confuse or disorient pedestrians.  "The fun police made us do it (sigh)" he tweeted.  The fun police presumably did not cause the recall of 27,000 cars over windshield defrosting problems, 817,000 cars with a seat-belt activation flaw, 500,000 cars with front hood-rear camera problems, and 50,000 self-drivers that did not quite stop at intersections.  Buzz-kills, or just a shitty car?

Eight Republican Senators have written to Merrick Garland grousing about Delta's request for a no-fly list which would be a perfect Venn diagram for their loose-brained voters.  "Creating a federal 'no-fly' rule for unruly passengers who are skeptical of this [mask] mandate would seemingly equate them to terrorists..."  Yes, and?  "Skeptical" doesn't quite cover assaulting flight attendants, disturbing other passengers and trying to open emergency doors mid-flight, often forcing diversion to other airports than the one where normal people were expecting to make a connecting flight.  "Unruly" is more like getting drunk and taking your pants off or occupying the toilet with a friend for half an hour.  These people are terrorists and you people are their enablers.  Give them directions to the nearest Greyhound terminal.

For example.

When a crime scene becomes a restaurant, expect to be ripped off.  That's what happened to a woman who ordered the $18 Caesar salad at Gianni's in Miami Beach, where Gianni Versace was murdered in 1997.  In short, terrible food and such small portions.  The epitome of first world problems.

Elsewhere in Florida the passion of the privileged continues:  Melania Trump is disappointed in the media for trying to "cancel" her and the "hopes and dreams" of children over her fake charity "Fostering the Future" (what does that even mean?).  In the wake of the "Trump Foundation" and Eric's supposed golf tournament to support St. Jude Hospital, it's not entirely her fault that when the words "charity" and "Trump" appear together, suspicious minds envision money laundering or worse.  But Florida still has no record of her enterprise.  

Charlie Kirk of Turning Stomach USA is having trouble getting lunch, too.  He went into a restaurant in his home state of Arizona, if you please, and they asked to see proof of vaccination.  Charlie immediately had a flashback to 1935 because it was "literally, no exaggeration" like Nazi Germany (or the DDR, he's not sure).  Show us your papers!  The same thing a traffic cop says when he pulls you over for a broken tail light, or one of the TSA Gazpacho when you want to board a plane, or even (in Arizona, I'll bet) if you want to vote.  Woke liberal tyranny, because restaurants are all agents of the government, I guess.

When it comes to fine whine, Mar a Lago is THE vineyard.  After a week of bad news from his lawyers we've all been waiting for Metamucilini to snap and he didn't disappoint.  The Bad Guy (a judge said so!) spewed a three-hundred-word aria of confused blame and insult, climaxing when he accused Hillary Clinton of "breaking into the White House, my apartment, buildings I own, and my campaign," where she ran amok flushing documents down the toilets and smashing Barron's Tonka trucks.  The closing section about "an unconstitutional attack on our Country" really should be set by Andrew Lloyd Webber in Puccini mode.  

Postscript:  A catastrophic wind storm in the British Isles tore the roof off London's O2 Arena, which opened in 2007.  Buildings from the sixteenth century are fine.

 

  

Curiouser and curiouser

 This is the world we all have to live in.

Not content with getting away with the murder of Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman sued his parents for "conspiracy" and defamation.  Today Judge John Cooper of Tallahassee told him to go away.  And just when he had a shot with SCOTUS.

Panicky Wyoming Republicans introduced a state senate bill to stop "crossover" voting in primaries, because Democrats might vote for Liz Cheney.  

Baby Tuckoo says Democrats can't accept electoral loss.  Wait.  Let that wash over you.

The Adam Smith Institute has a plan to end poverty:  Privatize the moon, divvy it up and let different countries lease it to businesses for tourism and "discovery."  Why not?  Everyone respects territorial borders on earth, nyet?

Finally a definitive ruling from a New York Supreme Court judge.  When Trump's latest mouthpiece Alina Habba argued that subpoenas must be quashed because Trump is "a protected class," Arthur F. Engoron was not having it.  "What protected class is he a member of?"  "His free speech," she replied, strangely.  Letitia James, called a "racist" by Trump, is unfairly targeting him.  "If Ms. James has a thing against him, OK, that's not in my understanding unlawful discrimination.  He's just a bad guy she should go after as the chief law enforcement officer of the state."  Thank you, Judge, some of us have been saying this for years.

Look up, Canadian Free-Dumb Truckers!  Those objects about to crash into you are genuine MyPillows attached to itty-bitty parachutes, compliments of Pillow Mike, who was definitely not smoking meth when he thought of it.  The debate rages as to whether he was inspired by the Berlin Airlift candy drop, Operation Market Garden or that episode of WKRP In Cincinnati with the turkeys.  Maybe one of them has a golden ticket which will admit you and a parental unit to Lindell-land!  Just be glad he reconsidered the idea of dropping Bibles.  And no, I'm not smoking anything.  

 

 "Sorry, I'm a little short.  How much did you have to pay her?"

How many fingers?

 "I think if you compare today's films from [sic] some of his films even a year ago, you see a deterioration in his mental capacity."  

Films?

That was Roger Marshall (OB/GYN-KS) pulling out last year's hint that Joe Biden is way too feeble-minded to carry out his job and should immediately -- make way for Kamala Harris, I guess.  Questioned by the fair and balanced Maria Bartiromo, he promised to work with Jim Jordan and Rand Paul on legislation requiring presidents to have an annual cognitive exam.  (If you're keeping score, that's a gynecologist, a self-certified ophthalmologist and a former athletic director of questionable morals pretending to be experts on mental capacity.)  I'll save you some time, Roger.  Here are three questions you can ask right now:

1.  Has Joe Biden ever stared at a solar eclipse without sunglasses?

2.  Has Joe Biden ever told people to drink bleach or eat horse medicine?

3.  Has Joe Biden ever exchanged "love letters" with a dictator who has his relatives murdered and enjoys threatening the United States?

If all three answers are "no," he's fine.

As Steve Benen writes at MSNBC, "Republicans were unsubtle in pushing a similar line in 2020, right up until Biden scored the biggest win for a challenger against an incumbent president since FDR."

Funny he should mention FDR.  In the 1932 campaign, Republicans claimed (not publicly, they weren't completely Reaganized yet) that FDR's disability was the result not of polio but of syphilis.  They've been sleazebags since 1876, when they sold out African Americans to gain the White House.  They're sleazebags still.

At least stop pretending you're "concerned" about Biden's health.  There are qualified people handling that, Roger.  Not pill-pushing drunks like your colleague Jackson over in the House.  Not rape-enablers like Jordan.  So go sniff your collection of pap smears.

It's the end of the world

Not really, but I defy you not to think of that line from The Birds.  In Cuauhtemoc, Mexico, yellow-headed blackbirds were caught on video falling out of the sky dead.  Possible explanations include the scientific (electrocuted by power lines, toxic smoke inhalation) and the crackpot (5G technology, chem trails).  Since the birds were migrating south from Canada it's also possible that they were poisoned by Justin Trudeau because he's just so evil.

Predictably the Republicans are split on Russia-Ukraine, with some demanding the US stop picking on Russia for being a fascist dictatorship and others complaining that the Biden administration isn't doing enough for Ukraine.  In one small respect, however, they seem less egregiously dumb:  No one has proposed re-naming caviar "Freedom Fish Eggs."

Bonnie and Clyde McCloskey had their law licenses suspended for pointing guns at Black people who had the nerve to walk past their house and scare them.  Be that as it may, Clyde continues to run for the Senate in Missouri, hoping this will be the boost his campaign needs.

Griftorama I!  Police in Miami Beach who give out traffic tickets are also giving motorists a flier directing them to a website for payment.  Except, no.  They're actually directed to a site where they can purchase Trump junk.  Police spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez blames a typo, while Josh Hawley wonders if he can rig up something similar for his collectible fist-pump coffee mug.

Griftorama II!  Trump's own personal free-speech platform Truth Social is up, with a low-low weekly price of $4.99.  Eat his dust, Twitter!

Ken Kurson, best buds with Jared Kushner, got a Trump pardon for his stalking conviction last year.  This year he pleaded guilty to computer trespass and attempted eavesdropping.  The scamp must have thought the pardon was good forever, like Trump's claim of executive privilege.  They aren't.

Speaking of the Slumlord-In-Law, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) has again nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace to the Middle East.  I know, but wouldn't it be funny if he won what Big Daddy covets so much?  And then became Time's Biped of the Year?

Did you know there was a National Association of Counties?  I didn't, but it sounds like a good way to get out of your county and head to Washington for an annual "conference."  This year's was treated to a story from Joe Biden about a dead dog and a woman we would now call Karen.  It was actually pretty funny.  

Were you baptized by Father Andres Arango in the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix between 1995 and the present?  You may be going to hell.  You may already be there.  Also in his previous postings in Brazil and San Diego.  Father Arango said "We baptize you" when it should have been "I baptize you."  Huge deal, apparently.  Raping children is unfortunate, but getting the words right really matters.

 

Opera buffa

 America's leading crime family could do with less vendetta and more omerta.  My understanding, based largely on movies, is that crime bosses never used to talk on the phone (Casino and GoodFellas) and strenuously objected to being photographed even at a wedding reception (The Godfather).  Every time Trump opens his mouth he incriminates himself a little more, and the behavior of his foot soldiers live-streaming their crimes is just weird.  

Whining to the media was also unthinkable, but here's Fredo on the Sean Hannity Self-Pity Party, vowing revenge like a Verdi father:  "It violates the Constitution, it's unethical, it's wrong..." he declared, referring to Letitia James doing her job as attorney general by enforcing the laws of New York State.  (Perhaps Merrick Garland will do something similar before his enterprise has to be called Voterdammerung, the Twilight of Democracy.)  Fredo promises -- what else? -- a lawsuit, although James should check her bed for severed horse heads every night.  Whaddaya gonna do when your accountant not only quits mid-investigation but publicly retracts ten years' worth of financial statements?  It may be too late to take the accountant on a little trip (The Untouchables).  How about your consigliere "negotiating" to testify at the January 6 committee?  When he's babbling about "gobbledygook...supported by about a thousand pieces of evidence" which may be in his bedroom or possibly his den?  (I still think he's living in a Motel 6.)  

Right on cue the Family got its media whores yelling about how Hillary Clinton ordered up wire tapps on Trump (with her authority as a retired Secretary of State) to make it look like he was colluding with foreigners with obviously fake names like Lavrov and Kislyak, solely to undermine him, because she just can't accept that she lost in spite of her three-million-popular-votes margin.  

Hey, you want distractions?  You got distractions!  The whole impending invasion of Ukraine?  Nah, just to take our minds off the yuge Hillary scandal.  The Trump-inspired "uprisings" in Canada?  They desperately need to be liberated from Trudeau's tyranny so they can become American!  And why didn't Joe Biden stop the riots in the summer of 2020?  Not yet being President is no defense according to Judge Pirro, who likes a drink occasionally.  Think of it as the ballet in the opera's second act, the one you use for napping.

One thing the old-timers never did was threaten judges.  (Or kill cops except corrupt ones -- Godfather again.)  Probably not school boards or public health doctors either, because who but a strunz would do that?  And yet here's the US Marshals Service reporting more than 4,500 threats to federal judges last year.  Some states are increasing security for state and local judges.  Pazzo!  But this is a new kind of organized crime.  Even Murder, Inc., never tried to overthrow the government. 

Valentine's Day Near-Massacre

 As the dust from the BIG GAME settles, certain events get elbowed aside.  They shouldn't.  Like this disturbing story from Louisville, where an "individual" walked into the office of mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg this morning and fired five shots, one of which struck his clothing.  A Republican opponent, Bill Dieruf, said, "Our prayers go out to Democratic mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg and his family and staff," demonstrating that they can use the adjectival form when they want to.

Say you're an asshole who wants to cause havoc for your neighbors, but you lack the skills for an old-fashioned gender-reveal pipe bomb.  For you they make Mylar balloons, especially popular in southern California where they tangle in power lines and make them short out or even catch fire.  What better way to say "I love you, be my Valentine, I think something just exploded"?

"Sexual anarchy" at the half-time show?  This happens every time I fail to watch, which is every year since the Vince Lombardi Trophy was first presented to Vince Lombardi (1946?).  Apparently Eminem, or Marshall Mathers III as I call him, took a knee.  He's 49, did he need help getting up?

"Inflation Falls Hardest On Low-Income Americans" -- that's the kind of eye-opener I read the Washington Post for.  Democracy dies in derpness.

You just wouldn't expect a racist incident at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, but that's what the Howard University women's lacrosse team experienced yesterday, "a bunch of boys hurling obscene and threatening insults."  Back in Washington, the campus locked down in response to the fourth bomb threat this year.  Maybe things will quiet down after Black History Month ends.

Sexual anarchy on "Friends"?  I never watched it, but the 1994-2004 sitcom has finally reached People's TV, sort of.  References to one character's ex-wife, evidently a lesbian, have been purged, and the phrase "multiple orgasms" became "endless gossip."  All right, everyone, point and laugh at the Chinese government.  (Not the people, they're annoyed by this silliness.)

Guest editorial from Charles P. Pierce:  "The people of Ukraine want to govern themselves...That's all our revolution was about, too.  We've lost sight of that, and largely abandoned the concept over here.  No wonder our response to the most American principle is so muddled elsewhere."  It explains everything, including the cheerleading for Putin from the likes of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Tucker Carlson.  Eighty years ago this kind of thing was personified by Charles Lindbergh, who was at least a courageous aviator.  What have these slobs done?  

  

  

O-K-L-A-H uh....

Oklahoma, twenty-first in literacy and first in your hearts, sent Brittney Poolaw to prison last year for the crime of miscarrying a pregnancy.  Now the Sooner-You-Than-Me State wants to set up a database to keep tabs on flesh incubators (sometimes known as women) considering abortion.  Called the Every Mother Matters Act because irony was outlawed years ago, it would require women seeking legal (for now) abortion to register for seven years (do Okies know how long a pregnancy normally lasts?) and be nagged out of the sinful procedure.  Apparently many refugees from Texas have availed themselves of Oklahoma's relatively liberal regulations, and this must cease.

Even if you start talking to them in a calm and measured voice, anti-vaxers will soon be insisting, with dilated pupils, that the covid vaccine is really just a delivery system for Bill Gates microchips, so he can find out how often they pause The Walking Dead to make a sandwich.  This violation of their privacy will not stand, man, they would rather die than undergo this Mengele-adjacent outrage.  Many have.  But it's fine for a state to keep tabs on women who are, or were, or might become pregnant.  At least call it what it is, George Burns, if that is your name:  The Only Zygotes Matter Act.  Ozma, as in the L. Frank Baum book.  Oh, dear, we're back to literacy.

According to Maggie Haberman (so, you know, grain of salt) Trump is having a no-good, very-bad day because he heard that Lewis "Scooter" Libby, recipient of a prestigious Trump-trash pardon, will attend a fundraiser for Liz Cheney next month.  Well, he was her father's chief of staff before he was convicted of obstructing justice and lying to investigators.  (Yes, kids, I remember when those were crimes.)  Still unable to convince the squirrels in his skull that he is no longer president, Trumpelthinskin wants to rescind the pardon.  Oh, the ingratitude.  Good for ten minutes of whinging self-pity by the Man of Sorrows at his next hate rally, I expect.

Studying New York's wastewater for viral RNA has to be one of the worst jobs imaginable, but someone does it.  That's how a new "cryptic" strain of covid was identified, possibly in the city's vast rat population.   Before we blame the rats, consider:  it might have come from Wasilla with Typhoid Sarah.

Could classy Melania be running a fake charity?  What we know for certain is that nobody wanted to buy her funky used hat so she's selling tickets to a tea party, if you please, with "a portion" of the proceeds allegedly providing computer lessons to foster kids.  But Florida's Consumer Services Division, where legit charities have to register, has never heard of BeBest or Fostering the Future.  Probably a mix-up with the paperwork, like the diploma from Ljubljana Tech she never produced in support of her application for an "Einstein visa." 

Control the past and you control the future, as they say in Oceania.  This doesn't just apply to Texas school boards.  In Poland, where a significant portion of the Holocaust happened within living memory, new laws passed by the far-right government are already preventing historians from doing their job when it might anger, embarrass or make uncomfortable descendants of perpetrators.  A 2018 law making it illegal to accuse Poles of collaborating with the Nazis was used to sue Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, forcing them to make changes in Night Without End:  The Fate of Jews In Selected Counties of Occupied Poland.  Echoing the long-held policy of successive Russian governments, calling attention to Jewish suffering is "insulting Poland" and diminishing Polish victimhood.  Of course there is no antisemitism in contemporary Poland, just as racism in America is a thing of the past.  

Ask D'Monterrio Gibson, the FedEx driver who was delivering packages in Brookhaven, Mississippi, when beardy father and son team Gregory and Brandon Case began following him and fired five shots at his van.  Gibson was not on foot like Ahmaud Arbery, so he survived.  The story is that someone reported Gibson, who was wearing a FedEx uniform, as "suspicious."  Why this activated the Cases is not clear, but Gibson says he was not taken seriously, reflected in the fact that it took over a week to have the shooters arrested.  FedEx kept him driving the same route despite anxiety and panic attacks until he put himself on "unpaid leave."  

I will spare you the "soup Nazi" and "White House plumbers" jokes.   

 

  

Start making sense

 Like Whoopi Goldberg and Rachel Maddow but not nearly as well-paid, I could use some time off.  But as the great Flann O'Brien said, "When I want something to read I generally write it meself."  The jobs are up and the covid is down and farmers are recovering from the Trump tariff idiocy, but our news mediums are fixated on INFLATION, by one measure the worst since 1946.  You know, the year after the war.  Veterans flooding in with unspent pay, their womenfolk leaving industrial jobs with cash in the bank, things to spend it on after four relatively austere years -- more money chasing fewer goods.  Inflation.  Look it up.  It led to the greatest period of sustained prosperity ever, before the new housing boom, before the new middle class graduated from college on the GI Bill, before all the babies were born.  (But I can't get that PlayStation I want!  Biden is doooooomed!)

Don't ask me what's going on in eastern Europe, I don't know much more than Tony Blinken.  Why are we sending troops over if not to fight?  To make sandwiches for the Ukrainian Army?  I tell you what, when I hear fascism I think Putin, and the metastasizing convoys of "truckers" are a grand distraction.  I have to wonder about their claim to be a bunch of rugged, grass-roots freedom-lovers when I see Confederate flags and read of Rightzi governors raging at GoFundMe for refusing to have any part in this.  In short, I believe those Canadian dollars used to be rubles.  Disrupting fragile supply lines is a nice little extra.  Hey, Mr. Blinken, we're already at war.

And all around, the dance of crazy goes on.

If the Super Bowl isn't called on account of encroaching wildfires -- a first! -- America can look forward to a campaign ad for Jim Lamon, who wants to replace Mark Kelly by becoming Arizona's other Republican senator.  (See what I did there?)  It features a Western motif, as ol' Jim dresses up in a cowboy costume and pretends to shoot Kelly, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.  (I guess he couldn't find an Anthony Fauci lookalike.)  Since Kelly got into politics after his wife Rep. Gabby Giffords was shot for real in 2011, mebbe it ain't all that clever.  I wasn't planning to watch anyway.

 Toilets are inherently funny unless you need one, and Trump needed one to flush documents he couldn't eat or shred.  So says star Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who evidently knew about this years ago but decided to sit on it (so to speak) until she was ready to publish her Trump book.  (I'm not giving the title.  Look it up if you care.)  What better week, with the National Archives begging the Justice Department to do something about this criminal?  As for Lisa Casey's comment above, maybe he's afraid of fire, too -- like dogs, sharks, birds, ramps, blood, death, hospitals, loud noises, wind turbines, powerful women, tie clips...

Boris Johnson has been taking his inner Trump out for walkies.  After he repeated a right-wing trope about Keir Starmer protecting Jimmy Savile, the Labour leader had to be rescued by police from an anti-vax mob near the Houses of Parliament.  (They just happened to bring along a noose -- where have I seen that before?)  Meanwhile Cressida Dick is being forced out as head of the Metropolitan police over charges that she refused to investigate lockdown violations by the Johnson gang and malfeasance by her officers.  Loads of Tories are saying out loud that if BoJo broke his own laws, it's no big deal -- where have I heard that before?  Was it Charles the First?  Or Nixon the last?

Not content with being the highest-paid employee of Auburn University -- I just know, all right? -- Tommy Tuberville decided to get into politics.  As reported by Business Insider, Coach has been trading stocks with both hands ever since he arrived in Washington a year ago.  He's outraged that a bill by Mark Kelly and Jon Ossoff would forbid members of Congress to engage in insider trading.  I'm outraged that it isn't already illegal.  But the Justice Department says it won't investigate the insider trading of Richard Burr -- look, has anybody checked on the DOJ?  Maybe they've all succumbed to a gas leak?

The mysterious hooded figure who showed up on security camera dropping off pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC offices in Washington has never been identified, but Baby Tuckoo insinuated that it maybe kinda looks like Kamala Harris, whose Secret Service detail found the bomb when she visited the DNC early on Insurrection Day.  Harris Hatred has become practically a board game all the family can enjoy if they're Trumpanzee/QAnon droogs.  She runs a toxic workplace, she talks funny in France and spends her own money on fancy pots, she has failed to solve the social problems that make people flee Central America, and sometimes she laughs.  The hate has spilled over to her husband, who had to be rushed out of Dunbar High School in Washington after a funster called in another Black History Month bomb threat.  Why are the left so humorless, huh?

Oh, this is adorable:  Twelve-year-old Leidy Gellona was barred by the YMCA from a swim meet in Superior, Wisconsin, because she had the words BLACK LIVES MATTER on her suit.  The decision was quickly reversed because guess what, assholes, this is what "political discourse" looks like.  (Not this.)  All it took was a few calls from her mother to the YMCA and NAACP, and online support from LeBron James.

Every day it seems there's an article about a Netflix doc called "The Tinder Swindler."  Every day I think, "I haven't seen Orlando in years."  I really need a break.  

 

Both sides now?

I believe this country cannot endure permanently half human and half Trumpanzee.

Joyce Beatty, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, asked Hal Rogers (R-KY) to put on a mask as they boarded the Capitol choo-choo.  "Kiss my ass," he responded.  Meanwhile Stacey Abrams apologized for removing her mask before posing for pictures with students at a Decatur elementary school.

The Republiclown mayor of Hudson, Ohio, told the city council that ice fishing should not be allowed in city parks because the shanties will be used by sex workers.  Nobody laughed.

Did you know that the Capitol police are Nancy Pelosi's personal espionage organization?  Her Gazpacho, if you will?  Everyone knows now that Troy Nehls (R-TX) caught them snooping around in his personal, private office like ordinary citizens who had come in search of some political discourse.  Troy is 24/7 on the case of the Conspiracy Against Ashli Babbitt which is why they are copying his documents and installing spy equipment.

You thought I made that up?  I'm not that creative and I don't have any avocados in the house.  Or the House.

Gazpacho, Gestapo, potato, tomato.

Florida's state flag features three monkeys in a familiar pose.  Its senate is debating a bill that would make it illegal for teachers to "encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity," thus eliminating all forms of sexuality that make Jesus weep.   Remember when state employees were forbidden to used the words "climate change"?  Solved that problem good.  If it's 90 degrees in Los Angeles this weekend it won't be an indicator of you-know-what.  

"If you want to know how to torture a Jew, make them say this out loud," said the teacher, writing a transliteration of the Hebrew word for god on the blackboard.  For some reason Juniper Russo, the only Jewish student in the Chattanooga classroom, said she didn't feel safe in Bible class.  It is not clear why she was in Bible class (i.e. Christian indoctrination class) at all.  That was yesterday.  Today we learned that students in a West Virginia public high school were forced to attend an evangelical revival meeting between normal classes.  The venom is spreading.  School prayer and Bible reading have been banned since 1963, when the Supreme Court ruled in Abingdon Township v. Schempp that they are unconstitutional.  As soon as they dispose of Roe, be sure the Taney Roberts Court will go after this one.  

(If you want to know how to torture a Jew, make her watch The Passion of the Christ.  It's very graphic.)

It turns out there's no enforcement mechanism written into the 1979 Presidential Records Act.  The Seventies were the decade of Watergate (which inspired it), Nixon's resignation ahead of impeachment, the jailing of several of his co-conspirators including the attorney general, the end of the Vietnam catastrophe and the Church Committee's hearings into abuses by the intelligence agencies.  Not a naive time, yet they couldn't imagine anything as evil and corrupt as Trump.

Now I want gazpacho.