Annals of law and order

 The retrial of Adam Fox and Barry Croft, Jr., has resulted in their conviction on conspiracy to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, as well as conspiracy to obtain a weapon of mass destruction.  They didn't want to get shots or wear masks and they expressed their reservations in the usual Trumpish way.

Paul Pelosi pleaded guilty to DUI charges and was sentenced to five days in jail, with credit for two already served and two for conduct.  He has also paid fines and restitution to the driver of the SUV he hit and got eight hours of community service and three years' probation.  It's as if he were an ordinary citizen whose wife is not the third most powerful person in the federal government. 

The Government Accountability Board in South Dakota has found that Governor Kristi Noem "may have engaged in misconduct" by intervening in her daughter's application for a real estate appraiser's license.  Among those pushing for further action is former attorney general Jason Ravnsborg, who turned against her when she demanded his removal.  Ravnsborg was impeached by the state legislature over vehicular homicide.  

Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton is congratulating himself and the state because his predecessor Glen Casada and a top aide have been arrested on federal bribery and money-laundering charges.  "Today is a good day for Tennesseans because we did not turn a blind eye on these criminal activities," he said.  But it was the FBI who put the cuffs on them, and they are under siege.  The FBI and DHS report an increase in threats to federal law enforcement since the storming of Mar a Lago two weeks ago.  A little praise from a Republican official like Sexton might go a long way.  Nothing?

About that raid, which will one day be taught to commandos.  Junior Trump, campaigning for Matt Gaetz if you please, asserted, "If Donald Trump actually still had the nuclear codes, it'd probably be good."  Because all our enemies would quake, instead of saying, "Pfft, Joe Biden, he is old and confused, let us land troops in New Orleans!"  Keep helping, Junior.  You're supposed to be saying, "Everything was planted by the FBI.  Also, he has the right to de-classify everything he took by saying 'Declassificio!' even nuclear codes.  Also, I have no idea how nuclear codes work."  I don't think a Gaetz crowd absorbed much of it anyway.  Your little brother is over on Newsmax saying, "The raid is a farce.  The whole country is revolting over it."  Revolting over a farce?  Can you say "cognitive dissonance"?  I know that you can.  

I just checked several news sources and apart from those heavy breathers calling the FBI, there are no actual signs of revolt.  Here are some things I noticed:

Laura Ingraham has ordered her peanut gallery to quit moaning about how terrible the Republican senatorial candidates are and start loving them.  "They haven't had a lot of experience but that's OK!  They're out there fighting for the average person!  They should be respected for getting in the ring!"  (Insert joke about Joe Louis propping up his opponents...here.)  

Mike Turner (R-OH) suggested that Trump needed those classified documents (FBI plants, remember) so he could write his memoirs, also presumably classified.  Ed O'Keefe of CBS did not laugh because he is a professional.

"I need people to help me because she's raising all this money from ultraliberals," Marco Rubio pouted on Fox this morning, the second time he's gone there to beg.  "She" is Representative and former Orlando police chief Val Demings, who gained prominence in the first Trump impeachment.  Question:  is an ultraliberal worse than a radicaliberal?  Asking for a close friend.

Meanwhile the Republicans scooped up $1.6 billion from Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society and his Marble Freedom Trust.  (I like my freedom well marbled, medium rare.)  The Fed Society is responsible for the three stooges McConnell Trump put on the Supreme Court, among other outrages.  Fun fact:  Christopher Wray, Trump's choice to run the FBI, is also a member.  Can you beat that?  Anyway, if Demings is out-raising Rubio, she's probably doing it in fifty-dollar increments, each small donation representing one vote.  This looks like a job for DeSantis's election storm troopers.

The authoritarian future the Rightzis salivate over has already arrived for millions.  

In China the party is cracking down on the illustrations in a math textbook because they do not "properly reflect the sunny image of China's children."  Western infiltrators have been blamed for causing "cultural annihilation."  Twenty-seven people have been punished for this offense against "correct political direction and value orientation."  (Perhaps the educators require re-education.)  Texas, take note.

  

On the left is Iranian writer Sepideh Rashno, looking like a young Cher.  On the right is Sepideh Rashno "confessing" on Iranian TV to wearing "improper dress."  Somewhere between the two, people seem to think she was tortured.  Probably the internal bleeding which led to her hospitalization after July 12, "Hijab and Chastity Day."  Think what Stalin could have done with television in the 1930s!  Anyway, veil up, ladies, if you know what's good for you.

Saturday was a national holiday in Hungary and the "biggest fireworks display in Europe" was scheduled on the banks of the Danube in Budapest.  It was cancelled after the National Meteorological Service predicted high winds and thunderstorms, which actually missed the capital.  For making Orban look bad, director Kornelia Radics and her deputy Gyula Horvath have been fired.  Obviously it could have been worse (see above). 

The Webb Telescope has gone to work just in time, reminding us that the universe is really, really big and our petty problems don't even register on it.  It turns out that a black hole sounds exactly like a black hole.  Share and enjoy!