Stop! children, what's that sound?

 I don't want to raise hopes so often dashed, but things are happening out there in the heartland.  The FBI is raiding the homes and offices of officials and former officials who are implicated in the phony-elector phase of the coup plot.  The Nevada Republican chairman Michael McDonald had his phone collected yesterday; they also had a warrant for James DeGraffenreid, the party secretary, but he seems to be hiding.  These clowns not only created fake certificates -- they held a fake ceremony in Carson City on the same day as the real one.  That's a lot of trouble for six measly electoral votes.  They're also looking for Thomas Lane, who ran Trump's campaign in Arizona (eleven votes).

In Georgia (fourteen votes) subpoenas were served on state chairman David Shafer and fake elector Brad Carver.  The big game was the fakes (or "conditional electors") in Michigan (sixteen) and Pennsylvania (twenty), where the bloodhounds are busy.  And Jeffrey Clark, the goober Trump tried to install as last-minute acting attorney general and coup facilitator, was on the lawn in his pajamas this morning as the FBI collected his electronics.  A few hours later the Select Committee presented detailed testimony from the men whose thankless job it was to talk Trump out of gutting the Justice Department after seeing the Italian vote-flipping computer nonsense on YouTube.  (Remember Michele Ballarin, a/k/a Michele Roosevelt Edwards?  "Italygate" was one of her delusions.) 

Anyway, Merrick Garland is watching the hearings and he has Christopher Wray on speed-dial.  The other news is not so good because the Supreme Court is still in session.   In the space of a few hours they struck down the Sullivan Act so New Yorkers can carry concealed weapons just like Texans.  (Named for Tammany boss Big Tim Sullivan, this dates from 1911; no law is safe from the judicial vandals.)  They decided that religious "schools" can receive public funds just like real schools.  They said police who "forget" to Mirandize suspects can't be sued -- it could slip anyone's mind.  (The border patrol got a similar gift a few weeks ago.)  It's after six o'clock, so the Fourteenth Amendment appears to be safe for today.  Enjoy it.

Sadly, the gang couldn't do anything to prevent the impeachment trial of Jason Ravnsborg, now the former attorney general of South Dakota.  Two years ago, driving home from a gathering where intoxicating liquors may have been served, Ravnsborg struck and killed Joe Boever.  Boever was walking on the shoulder and carrying a flashlight (it was still on when his body was found the next day) but Ravnsborg said he thought he hit a deer.  He also failed to notice that the "deer's" glasses were inside his car, which looked like this:

He pleaded guilty to a couple of misdemeanor charges but the case did not go away, and now he is prohibited from holding elective office in South Dakota again.  Yes, WITCH HUNT!  A Republican legislature turned on a Republican official who had become a liability.  Ravnsborg spent the day lamenting his bad luck ("I believe I'm on the road and wham -- my life changes").  He thinks of Boever as often as Trump thinks of Pence.  A speed bump, literally.

I don't think anyone was surprised by the news that six of the usual suspects approached Mark Meadows for presidential pardons after the coup failed:  Brooks, Biggs, Gohmert, Gaetz, Scott Perry and Margie Greene decided it was better to be safe than sorry, along with John Eastman and other innocent victims of "vitriolic, deep-pocketed Socialist Democrats."  What, no Loudermilk?  He's dumber than he looks.

And in case we forgot how the problem is all Republicans, even after a bipartisan deal to extend school lunches through the summer was agreed, Roger Marshall (R-KS) says he may have to block it because LGBTQ students participate in the program just as if they were real people.  Marshall, I would remind you, is a physician and a large economy size shit.

Members of the House Select Committee will be getting extra security in response to the extra death threats they have received since the TV sessions began.  That's something we didn't see with the Ervin committee in 1973. 

It's a rightzi cliche that mass shootings are caused by violent video games, but what about games that result from shootings?  Kyle Rittenhouse is marketing a game where players shoot "fake news turkeys" to finance his lawsuits against all the media which have hurt his feelings.  He won't be enrolling at Arizona State or UT Austin or the East Japip College of Chiropractic so he has plenty of time.  Enjoy his rap, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

It has been a day.  As the Opus Dei court takes a wrecking ball to the wall between state and religion, I think it's time for a robot priest.

May BlessU-2 make his lights to blink and shine upon you.