First Monday in October

 Terrifying words, as the Opus Dei court homes in on the last shreds of the Voting Rights Act, hoping to save a few dribbles of the promised Red Tsunami.  They're so eager to get their hands on it, they brushed aside Pillow Mike Lindell's plea to stop the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit.  This could wind up costing him all his pillows and then some.

I love a good quote even when I don't agree with it, and this morning we have two.  Involuntarily retired DC police officer Michael Fanone shared his opinion of The Man Who Would Be Speaker:  "I think at night, when the lights are turned off, Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan have some pretty choice words to say about the fact that they have to hang on Kevin McCarthy's wall.  They did some fucking above-average things.  And they've got to adorn the wall of this fucking weasel bitch Kevin McCarthy, with his fucking spray-on tan, whose fucking claim to fame, at least in my eyes, is the fact that he amassed a collection of Donald Trump's favorite-flavored Starburst, put them in a Mason jar and presented them to fucking Donald Trump.  What the fuck, dude?"  We can demur about Reagan's achievements and his spray-on tan, but the sincerity comes through.

This is the week the Nobel Prize in literature is announced, and Irvine Welsh has some thoughts about the Big N and its 2016 recipient:  "I'm a Dylan fan, but this is an ill-conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies."  No Scot has ever won the Nobel, and at this rate no Scot ever will.  (Rancid Prostates is the name of my Iggy Pop tribute band.)

Rebuild Florida?  Shut down the government?  Being a Republican is hard!  When the Senate passed a stopgap bill to fund the government through December on Thursday, Rick Scott voted no and Marco Rubio didn't show up.  On Friday it passed the House despite the opposition of all sixteen Florida Republicans, outraged by a FEMA appropriation of $18.8 billion.  Then Hurricane Ian came ashore and now Rubio and Scott are asking "much-needed assistance to Florida."  Even Statutory Gaetz has been heard whimpering for help.  Amazing things, Cat 4 hurricanes.

"Vladimir Putin annexed four Ukrainian provinces and all I got was a draft notice and a lousy party" is the shirt I'd love to be selling in Red Square.  After a transparently phony "referendum" Vlad got the gang together for a celebration in St. George's Hall.  The vodka flowed, the four oblast puppets chanted "Russia!  Russia!" and then Vlad decided to make a speech.  You know how Trump rambles at his hate rallies with stream-of-consciousness irrelevancies like a drunk Leopold Bloom?  It was like that.  He mostly raved about the US and its attitudes toward gender, which he called "satanism."  Departing from the MAGA playbook he then condemned western "colonialism" (pretty rich in the circumstances) with reference to the Opium Wars and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Like Tucker Carlson, he blames America for blowing up the gas pipelines in the Baltic.  So it was to protect Russia's innocent children from the idea that there are "some genders besides women and men" that he had no choice but to invade Ukraine.  Afterward I can imagine Medvedev turning to Lavrov and saying, "That was some weird shit."

Of course Vlad's under a lot of pressure, what with the loss of Lyman, the disappearance of so many "reservists" and his increasing reliance on materiel from North Korea.  (Pro tip:  seal the borders before the general call-up.)  He can't even get his Ferris wheel to work.  He wanted a splendid little war and he's going to get another NATO member on his border.  An exceptionally pissed-off one. 

As if to demonstrate that the puppet has exceeded the puppeteer, Trump held a Ninety Minutes' Hate in Warren, Michigan, ostensibly in support of Tudor Dixon et al. but actually the same airing of personal grievances he performs everywhere.  According to Paul Egan of the Detroit Free Press, fifteen minutes in a lot of people suddenly remembered they left the oven on and made for the exits.  (And it wasn't a capacity crowd.)  He did a shout-out to insurrectionist Ginni Thomas ("Great woman"), attacked Maggie Haberman's "disgusting" book (she's not like his psychiatrist anymore) and said hello to everybody affected by Hurricane Ian (at least he didn't tell them to have a wonderful weekend).  Of course Ian would have been a late summer shower if Trump were still president.

Trump warmed up for the show by issuing a particularly sinister attack on Mitch McConnell for ignoring his wish to shut down the government and agreeing to the funding deal.  "He has a DEATH WISH!" he suggested subtly, and went on to attack McConnell's wife for no obvious reason, calling her "his China loving wife Coco Chow!"  Anybody think Trump put Elaine Chao in his cabinet just so he could amuse the others with his "Me so solly!" routine when she left the room?  You know you do.  

Twisted with hate and the need for revenge is no way to go through life, Donzo.  Look at this couple celebrating their thirtieth wedding anniversary.  "I'm not sure why you look exactly the same and I don't," Barack Obama tweeted to Michelle.  "I do know that I won the lottery that day."  It's called love, Donzo.  You might -- oh, what's the point?

At around the same time Jimmy Carter was celebrating his 98th birthday with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  So it was a good weekend for some people.