The week ends

 

...with more sore butts than a proctologist's waiting room.

Mehmet Oz and Herschel Walker got quit-or-be-fired notices from presidential assistant Gautam Raghavan and refused to quit the President's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition.  So, fired it is.  Walker had his son Christian tweet support for him, while Oz created a witty riposte about how Anthony Fauci should quit instead.  It was all very mature.  These two are running, however ineptly, for the Senate as Republicans, so there is no earthly reason the Biden administration should continue to employ them, but their attitude is that what Trump giveth only Trump can take away.  Their replacements are WNBA star Elena Delle Donne and legendary chef/humanitarian Jose Andres.  Neither has assaulted a spouse or peddled quack cures on television.

Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican who proudly represents the great state of Nebraska, was found guilty of lying to the FBI about campaign money from a Nigerian billionaire, Gilbert Chagoury.  Speaker Pelosi released a statement that concluded, "Congressman Fortenberry must resign from the House," because a felony conviction is not enough to get you thrown out.  He won't, of course.

Because the Electoral College frequently prevents democracy, Trump became president in 2016.  Nevertheless, he is suing Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and an armful of other people who tried to prevent that.  He would like yuge damages because they revealed his Russian support, now that being Putin's puppet is considered a bad thing.  Also wire tapps.  I didn't know "sore winner" was a thing.  Trump actually found lawyers to represent him (is it possible they don't know about his deadbeat reputation?).  You can, too.  They're at legalbrains.com.

Mo Brooks showed up on January 6, 2021, ready to rumble in body armor.  He made a speech to the mob.  He voted against certifying the election.  He signed the letter.  For two years he was pathetically loyal.  Then one day he suggested it was time to "move on," i.e., accept reality.  And that act of disloyalty -- well, if Trump knew who Judas Iscariot was, that would be his witty name for Brooks.  Senate endorsement withdrawn!  Cast into the outer darkness, Mo doesn't care anymore.  He told WIAT in Birmingham, "He always brings up 'We've got to rescind the election.  We got to take Joe Biden down and put me in now.'"  By violence, because there is no legal framework for such a thing.  His mentor Putin wouldn't stand for the inconvenience of electoral defeat.

But Trump can always count on the devotion of his very own Renfield, Stephen Miller.  Miller has also withdrawn his endorsement, which carries so much weight in Alabama.  Does anyone else have the feeling that when Trump dies the Millers will poison their children and shoot themselves rather than live in a world without him?  

(Of course, the problem with Brooks may be that he's polling a distant third in the Alabama Republican primary.  Trump hates losers.  A man in his position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous, or any more ridiculous.  As Jennifer Rubin points out, his subservience to Putin is already coming back to haunt him, as even most Republicans are forced by public opinion to support Ukraine.)

Speaking of the Poison Dwarf, Putin becomes ever more shameless in his propaganda, now complaining almost daily that the West want to "cancel" Russian culture.  It must be said that he has plenty of help, with orchestras unhiring Russian musicians and scrapping Tchaikovsky.  But invoking "Joanne Rowling," as he calls her, is especially low.  True, she has been criticized for expressing unpopular opinions about the transgendered, but she's still the richest woman on earth and nobody is burning Harry Potter books except fundamentalist preachers who think they promote satanism.  Criticized, not tossed out a window.  That's how we still roll in the liberal democracies Putin despises.  And he has the gall to mention Shostakovich, who lived in terror of the regime under which thugs like Putin thrived!  Is it in his name that Ukrainian children have to be murdered, orphaned and kidnapped?

It wouldn't be the weekend if a Republican hadn't said something stupid.  Against stiff competition Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee took home the brass figlagee.  Republicans love to show off their devotion to the Founding Fathers and the Sacred Scriptures, which they mostly haven't read.  Blackburn left off searching her hair for a lost Kit-Kat to tweet, "The Constitution grants us rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- not abortions."  Sorry, Marsha, that's the other one, the open letter to King George that begins, "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America..."  Can you guess it now?

The anti-choice crew always insist that women eventually regret ending a pregnancy.  They usually don't but sometimes the baby-daddies do, especially when the abortion comes to light years later.  Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson of North Carolina, who found god when he got into politics, not only paid to have "his" fetus aborted but shared the news on his Facebook page in 1989.  The NCGOP declined to comment, calling it "a personal matter," which is distinctly not the party's position on the uterus of every other woman in the country.  

Have Russian troops bogged down in Ukraine discovered fragging?  According to reporter Dan Sabbagh, "More on the Russian commander officials believe was killed by his own troops.  The belief is he was 'run over.'  Was the commander of 37th motor rifle brigade."  Could be an accident...Sabbagh also reports that the Ukrainians may have more tanks than they started with.  The tanks run out of gas, the Russians abandon them, and farmers with tractors tow them away.

If Sarah Palin denies us all the gift of a House campaign it will probably be because she can't keep up with the next generation of Republiclowns.  As usual, Empty Greene was first out of the little car this week, complaining that she feels "threatened" by trans women.  Not that they've put out a contract or anything, she's afraid real women like her will be "replaced" by them.  Also something about "corporate communism," I don't know, she's a little hard to follow.  She has decided the Hitler Fanboy was right about "thug" Zelensky and his corrupt government, but denies she's repeating Russian propaganda.  She is apparently now an expert on immunology, comparing covid boosters to one-shot polio vaccine.  I can clearly remember getting multiple doses of both Salk and Sabine vaccines, and I was only about ten.  I also remember my mother saying, "Be sure of your facts before you speak."  Did Margie have a mother?  Would she be proud to see Georgians trying to use the Fourteenth Amendment "insurrection qualification clause" to prevent her re-election?

YouTube cancels Trump!  Actually they just took down video of his electoral fantasies at the last CPAC.  Will YouTube be added to the omnibus lawsuit?

Indicted attorney general Ken Paxton has proclaimed Pride Week "illegal" in Texas, calling it "a week-long instructional effort in human sexuality without parental consent."  This is a state where Confederate Memorial Day is still a legal holiday, despite being a twenty-four-hour-long instructional effort in sedition.  It's also the state where a young woman was charged with a felony for trying to give her baby away to strangers on the street in Corpus Christi.  But she didn't abort it!

Remember Al Sleet, "your hippy-dippy weatherman"?  Pointing to the map and describing a line of thunderstorms and a line of ICBMs, "so I wouldn't sweat the thunderstorms"?  Well, the Conger ice shelf has collapsed in Antarctica, so I wouldn't sweat the five-dollar gas.

People who live in real cities won't believe me but when you call 911 in Memphis you could be put on hold.  I thought of that when I read about Karen in Euclid, Ohio, who called the emergency number to demand that something be done about her incorrect KFC order.  How did Sherrod Brown get elected by these people?

Big exhale, people, Joe Manchin says he will vote for Ketanji Brown Jackson.  Not since Jackie Robinson in 1947 has a Black American endured so much vile abuse with such equanimity.  

If you want to understand why so many Ukrainians would rather die than submit to Russian rule again, and you don't have the time or the stomach to read Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands, see Agnieszka Holland's 2019 film Mr. Jones.