Tales of the unexpected

Convicted felon Jeff Fortenberry surprised me by resigning from the House at the urgent request of Nancy Pelosi, Kevin McCarthy, Governor Pete Ricketts of Nebraska and possibly the ghost of Henry Fonda.  He did it in the most dickish way possible, quoting a remarkably self-satisfied sermonette by Mother, sorry, St. Teresa of Calcutta, but he did it.

A famous drummer did not die.  Charlie Watts, Sam Lay, Joey Covington (Jefferson Airplane) and Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters) have all died in the past year, but Chris Frantz survived a head-on collision with a drunk.  His wife Tina Weymouth suffered several fractures and is recovering.

Doonesbury abides!  As does Garry Trudeau.  Check it out.

In 1922, as the Jazz Age was hitting its stride, New Orleans, of all places, decided to ban jazz and dancing in its public schools.  The law, probably rooted in racism, has long been ignored and was finally repealed, exactly a century later.  

What if Trump held a hate rally in Georgia and nobody came?  All right, five thousand people, but it was cold and windy (headline at GPB:  "Trump's Republican revenge tour falters in Georgia").  It's probably good news for Brian Kemp, called by the Orange One "a turncoat, a coward, a complete and total disaster" because he wouldn't help Brad Raffensperger search under the couch cushions for the 11,700 ballots Trump demanded.  Now Stacey Abrams will "steal" the governorship from him (steal it back, more like).  The opening acts didn't overshadow Trump by even attempting to make sense.  Herschel Walker denounced critical race theory and promised to "get men out of women's sports," which is not a thing; while Empty Greene demanded that Pete and Chasten Buttigieg "stay out of girls' bathrooms," which is even more baffling.  Not a good night for mental hygiene.  According to the organizers (and Sean Spicer?) it was the largest crowd Georgia has seen since Sherman's army.  But it was Trump who delivered the best through-the-looking-glass gag of the night when he complained of how rude Judge Jackson was to those nice Senators as they politely called her an unqualified advocate of child pornographers.  "Total disdain and even hatred" is what it seemed like to Trump, who is absolutely the least racist biped that ever walked on land.  

In case it wasn't clear from his characterizations of Volodymyr Zelensky as "a thug" and Nancy Pelosi "a drunk," Madison Cawthorn told a roomful of supporters, "At 26 years old I don't have a lot of wisdom."  He plans to remedy that by taking Neuter Gingrich as his mentor.  Despite Cawthorn's claim of "charisma," Gingrich says he barely remembers talking to him.  You'd think the Hitler Youth haircut and the wheelchair would jog his memory.

In Poland Joe Biden pledged to admit a hundred thousand of the nearly four million Ukrainians who have fled their country to the United States.  It didn't take Laura Ingraham long to dig up a faux-intellectual who thinks that's a bad idea.  Todd Bensman is hooked up with many anti-immigrant groups and has even testified to the Free Dumb Caucus on the "crisis" at the southern border, so the surprising part is that he hates the prospect of white refugees, too.  "What about the American taxpayer?" demanded Ingraham, keeping her eye on the ball as usual.

The American taxpayers, or at least those Ingraham hangs out with, will pay a lot more if Joe Biden has his way.  A minimum tax of 20 percent on the richest 0.01 percent of households should pay for social spending and reduce the deficit that worries Republicans so much at the moment.

Ukrainian MP Rustem Umerov and Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich (best known as the owner of Chelsea football club) were apparently poisoned while attending informal peace talks in Kyiv earlier this month.  Really, Vlad?  Again with the polonium?  Kim Jong-un has moved on to nerve agents administered by cute girls in airports.  Try to keep up.  In other news it looks like Ukrainian forces have re-taken Irpin from the Russians.  Vlad had a worse weekend than his ex-puppet in Georgia.

Here's a shocker:  The former Roman Catholic bishop of Albany, Howard Hubbard, admitted covering up flagrant child abuse by his priests from 1977 to 2014, out of concern for "scandal and the respect of the priesthood."  So do you think there's more respect now, Bishop?

The Denver Police Department defunded themselves by $14 million, the sum a jury awarded to people they brutalized during a demonstration protesting the murder of George Floyd in 2020.  Be a shame if nobody got a raise this year.

Shocking violence last night, huh?  No, not a rich movie star slapping another rich movie star.  Men in fatigues invaded a cockfight in Michoacan, Mexico and killed twenty people with assault rifles.  They take animal abuse seriously.

This was forwarded by my friend and reader, Jackie.  I don't know who Robert Becker is but I envy his Photoshop skills.