Good news, bad news

The "Freedom  Convoy" of sorehead truckers is driving in a big, mindless circle around Washington to protest covid restrictions.  Meanwhile in Dublin, one trucker made better use of his rig by backing it through the gate of the Russian Embassy.

 

The Irish don't like it when big countries push little countries around.  There are calls for the ambassador and his crew to be expelled, even though the Russian navy courteously refrained from sinking the Irish fishing fleet only a month ago.

If pouring your Stoli down the drain isn't enough of a gesture, Phil Hoad has an article in the Guardian about the showbiz folk who have been cuddling up to Putin for years.  Oliver Stone's fawning four-part interview with Putin is no more dishonest than his JFK documentary, and it should be fairly easy to "cancel" all the has-beens Hoad mentions -- do Russian citizens Depardieu and Seagal even make movies anymore?  Then we can have a pointless debate about whether DiCaprio's environmental credentials should excuse an appearance at a big-cat event.  It's always fun to argue about ephemera.  

In Brazil they do politics differently.  A far-right congressman named Arthur do Val claims to have visited the Ukraine-Slovakia border last week and couldn't help drooling over refugee women, impoverished and therefore "easy."  "...the queue outside Brazil's best nightclub doesn't come close to the refugee queue here...I've never seen anything like it in terms of beautiful girls."  Funny, all the women I see, like the men and the children, are bundled in parkas and knitted hats.  This guy has a vivid imagination.  "As soon as this war's over I'm coming back."  Next summer, bro, when they break out the shorts and halter tops.

The Washington Post has discovered that Russian oligarchs (I am so sick of that word, what's wrong with gangsters?) have donated millions to American museums, universities and medical charities "in hopes that Western society will look past questions about where their money comes from."  I believe I have cited Shaw on that particular question.  Expect your favorite museum to raise admission prices and cut hours as the rubles dry up.  

We haven't heard much about those supply lines that made avocados and toilet paper hard to find, striking at our very Way of Life.  Now it seems there is also a shortage of mental health care.  People coping with covid isolation and the deaths of loved ones face waiting lists to see a therapist, especially if they are not affluent.  Of course, this does not take into account the millions of Americans who need help and don't even seek it out, many of them armed.  Now, how can this be made to look like Biden's fault?  (Pro tip:  If you're already depressed, don't watch the news.)

The fraud is coming from inside the house.  The White House, that is.  Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows lives in Virginia but registered to vote from a mobile home in North Carolina.  A Black Lives Matter activist named Pamela Moses just got six years for registering in Tennessee despite a felony conviction.  On the other hand, a white Pennsylvanian named Bruce Bartman cast at least two votes for Trump and got probation.  So this could go either way.  Couldn't it?

Here's a blurb for Bill Barr's bloated book:  "I would imagine that if the book is anything like him, it will be long, slow and very boring."  Probably true, even though the blurber shows evidence of never having read a book, certainly not at six hundred pages.  Yes, Trump and Barr spent the day exchanging insults and animal comparisons.  ("You know, Mr. President, you're like a bull in a ring...someone's going to come and put a sword through your head."  "The radical left Democrats...broke him just like a trainer breaks a horse.")  Big Bill needs more training, because he says he'll vote for Trump is he's the 2024 nominee.  I'll wait for the movie, thanks.

As if we don't have enough to keep us up nights, the demon spirit of Tamamo-no-Mae appears to have escaped from her rock after a thousand years.  Great timing, nine-tailed vixen!

We don't hear much from Stuart Varney, the Piers Morgan clone operated by Fox Business, but when we do, it's choice.  Today he welcomed Col. Douglas Macgregor, a DoD Trumpite, who says the Russians have been "too gentle" with Ukraine and resistance is useless.  Zelensky is "a puppet" and should sue for peace.  Even Varney seemed troubled but didn't put up a fight.      

Sorry, SOTU harpies.  Too bad about that primary, Louie.  Gosar go home.  We got us a new Worst Congressclown of All Time today and it's Chip Roy, pride of the Texas 21st.  Last week Chip was one of three kourageous kluxers to vote against the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act and now he's back, calling for justice:  "We're talking about war crimes [in Ukraine] and I want to talk about the crimes against humanity that has been perpetrated by Anthony Fauci, the CDC and the federal government against the American people."  Chip, whose real name is Eugene, may not be aware that the United States never signed up to the International Criminal Court a/k/a The Hague.  But perhaps he plans to rendition Dr. Fauci to Moscow when their show trials resume.  A court's a kangaroo, yes?

Try harder, Texas.