Post No. 1,750

 I am not sure why I started doing this in the Before Time (2006) and I'm not going back to look at those early efforts.  But it's harmless enough and it keeps me from breaking things.  They tell me blogging has gone the way of cassette tapes and tooth powder, and I think, I wouldn't mind having those things back.  So I go on.  The world is still weird and sometimes wonderful.

Mostly weird.  For instance, newly elected Arizona state representative Liz Harris says she will refuse to do her job unless the state immediately holds a new election because she doesn't like the way the last one came out.  Fine with me.  You own the libs, Liz!  Tell your friends.

A country singer named Jake Flint died a few hours after his wedding (to a woman called Brenda).  It's very sad but what a song it will make.

Someone asked Herschel Walker why he's running for the Senate.  "As I was sitting in my home in Texas, I was sitting in my home in Texas, and I was seeing what was going on in this country.  I was seeing what was going on in this country with how they were trying to divide people."  Like Trump, he sometimes needs two or three tries to get over the high hurdle posed by an English sentence.  This happened a year ago so maybe the people who water and prune him have explained the difference between Texas and Georgia.  Maybe not.  And if Empty Greene thinks this picture will help his chances...

 

...she's doesn't know as much about Georgia Republicans as she thinks she does.

The comedy team of Burkman and Wohl, who pleaded guilty to telecommunications fraud for making thousands of intimidating robocalls to Ohio voters in 2020, got a judge with a sense of humor.  Judge John Sutula sentenced them to probation with electronic monitoring and also ordered them to spend 500 hours registering voters in low-income neighborhoods in Washington, D.C.  I hope someone checks the forms they hand in.  

Mitch McConnell, RINO?  McConnell condemned The Dinner, saying, "There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy."  Trump responded by calling him "a loser for our nation and for the Republican Party."  Guys, guys, you're both right!

Even Benjamin Netanyahu stopped praising Trump long enough to suggest that eating with antisemites was "a mistake."  Hey, Donnie, another ungrateful Jew!

While the Republicans argued over who sat where and who brought the marble rye, Democrats were busy with actual stuff:

The House passed a measure to avert a pre-holiday rail strike and a separate bill giving railroad workers seven days of sick leave.  Enjoy it, you won't see anything this adult for two years.

The Justice Department sued Jackson, Mississippi, for failing to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The second Tribal Nations Summit was held at the White House.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York was elected leader of House Democrats.

The Senate passed the Respect for Marriage Act, after twelve Republicans were persuaded to vote for it.

Jurors were busy, too.  They convicted Oath Keepers Elmer Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs of seditious conspiracy for their part in the Trump putsch.  The two could have twenty years to keep oaths in one of our fine penal facilities.  It's hard to imagine they'll get probation.  Rhodes once promised that "the antifa flag or communist flag" will never fly over the White House.  Is that true, anti-fascists?  We have a flag?

Well, steam my dumplings!

 

Where to start?

It's on!  God has instructed Pillow Mike Lindell to save America, this time by assuming control of the Republican National Committee.  He announced his mission on his "Frank Speech" show, or on Steve Bannon's "War Room," or by opening the window and shouting -- it's not clear.  Ronna McDaniel prevented his very legitimate evidence from achieving a 9-0 victory in the Supreme Court in 2020, and now she will pay.  With the endorsements of Trump and God, how can you lose?

He can start by sorting out the 2022 election in Arizona, and specifically Cochise County, which is refusing to certify the results because they're worried about alleged irregularities in Maricopa County.  Concerned citizens expressed their concern in the usual way, bringing death threats, curses, promises of revolution and selected Bible readings to a meeting of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.  They are doing their best to obey Trump and "install" Kari Lake as governor.  As always, it's in the courts.  Supervisor Bill Gates (not the Microsoft one) is in a secure location.  If Cochise still refuses to certify, all ballots cast there will be tossed, probably resulting in another Democratic member of Congress.  Keep up the good work.

Meanwhile Ronna McDaniel has announced a new "Advisory Council" to search for the red wave that never arrived.  It's full of fresh new faces like Kellyanne Conway, Tony Perkins of the anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council, weird loser Blake Masters, Alabama Senator-elect Katie Britt and a couple of token minorities.  I'll save you some time:  Their conclusion will be "Keep doing what we're doing, harder and meaner.  Also, Hunter Biden's laptop." 

Running smoothly under new management, Twitter is evidently not meeting payroll for its European staff, which might have something to do with the enormous layoffs.  Loathing for the new owner is apparently spilling over into road-rage directed at Tesla drivers, who report being "heckled, cut off in traffic and blocked from charging stations."  Some drivers say it's the same old anti-e.v. abuse they have long suffered, especially from truckers.  Others are trading in Teslas for VWs, preferring a ride whose origin is entangled in the Third Reich to a Muskmobile.

According to the 2021 census, a minority of people in England and Wales now identify as Christian, with Birmingham and Leicester the first "minority majority" cities.  The survey did not distinguish among Christian denominations but the Church of England was already down to 12 percent in 2018.  Another 37.2 percent of people say they have no religion, up from 14.8 percent in 2001.  This is a big deal in a country with an established church and compulsory religious instruction in most schools.

Russia is accusing the pope of racism.  Pope Francis said in an interview that the more egregious war crimes in Ukraine are being committed by Chechen and Buryat troops who are Muslim and Buddhist rather than Christian.  He offered no evidence.  Ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented in the Russian army but the cruelty seems to be the point regardless of origins.  Alexandra Garmazhapova, founder of the anti-war Free Buryatia group, suggested the pope condemn Putin and the Orthodox Church instead, which seems fair.  Last June he suggested the invasion was "perhaps somehow provoked" by NATO, to which Ukraine does not belong.  Maybe politics is not Francis's strength.  Maybe this is why Christianity is losing adherents.

Handcuffed in the back of a police van and unrestrained by a seatbelt, a Black man suffered a broken neck and is paralyzed.  No, not Freddie Gray, it happened again in New Haven, Connecticut.  Randy Cox hit his head when the van stopped suddenly, begged for help and was mocked and ignored.  The police hauled him out, used a wheelchair to transport him and dumped him in a holding cell without any medical attention.  Now the five have been arrested and charged with misdemeanors.  All charges against Cox were dropped a month ago.  But he's 36 and will spend the rest of his life paralyzed.

Like Nikki "Deport Warnock" Haley, Herschel Walker thinks it's his job to decide who belongs here.  "If you know a place better, you go there, but you'll lose your citizenship here," he told people who think there are things about America that need changing.  America's been very good to him, a savant with a talent for catching spheroids.  Moreover, people born since 1990 "haven't earned the right" to change the country.  How one earns this right he didn't specify, but most active-duty service members are 32 or younger.  Did Walker serve?  Don't be silly.  He claims he founded a program for veterans called Patriot Support but even that is bullshit.  Herschel, playing for the Cowboys doesn't count as national service just because they call themselves "America's Team."  And why are you claiming (for tax purposes) that your house in Texas is your primary residence?

In news of what Basil Fawlty would call "the bleeding obvious," a report from the Senate Homeland Security Committee says the government "fails to comprehensively track and report data on domestic terrorism," in part because the FBI and DHS have had different definitions of terrorism since 2019, which muddies the statistics.  It's not your imagination or the liberal media:  Violence is up across the board.  So tell me again why I can't bring six ounces of hand lotion on a plane but Payton Gendron can bring an arsenal to the supermarket.

  

Monsters

 

Even if he meant to type "MOBSTERS" (see election/electron) this is a symptom of mental breakdown.  The only questions is whether it came before or after My Dinner with Yeezy and his sidekicks.  I would think a few hours of antisemitic fluffing would lift his mood.  But when he looks under the big golden bed he doesn't share with Melania, this is the monster he sees:

The twice-impeached loser is already on the offensive.  Did you know that Smith is married to Katy Chevigny, a card-carrying Democrat who produced the documentary Becoming based on Michelle Obama's book?  This makes her husband "a hard-line Radical Left Special Counsel (prosecutor), an acolyte of Eric Holder and Barack Hussein Obama."  Chevigny even gave money to the Biden campaign ($2,000).  Maybe Smith should recuse himself from the marriage just as Clarence Thomas -- no, never mind.  (BTW, we all known Obama's middle name, no need to keep typing it out, Liz.  I know it was your work because Trump doesn't know what "acolyte" means.)

The Germans had Drumpf's number early and tried to warn us.  But credit where it's due -- he may be the only politician in America who could wear his Herzl medallion to dine with Nazis.  He appeals to the morally bankrupt right across the spectrum.  Maybe we should listen to people who were forced to confront the truth about their history.  In Germany no serious person objects to the teaching of Critical Nazi Theory.  They insist on it.

In our multicultural country you can be Hispanic or African American and still be a Nazi.  It's not the Aryan race theory that counts, it's the antisemitism, and there was plenty when Kanye West brought along his pal Nick Fuentes to dinner at Mar a Lago.  The laird claimed he'd never heard of Fuentes but was glad to know him ("I really like this guy.  He gets me").  We can assume Fuentes laid on the flattery with a manure spreader.  West he called "a seriously troubled man who just happens to be Black" (well, nobody's perfect).

The saddest demurral came from Trump's ambassador to Israel, David Friedman:   "A social visit from an antisemite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable.  I urge you to throw these bums out..."  But they get him, Mr. Ambassador!  And they said the chocolate cake was the best in the history of the world!  Friedman even assured Trump of his bona fides by tying Barack Obama to Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan.  No use.  And Friedman was a lot more upset than most Republican officials.  (Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) was "appalled," but then he chairs the "Torah Caucus of the US Congress."  I assume they want to erect concrete versions of the Ten Commandments in all courthouses, but in Hebrew.  Maybe check the First Amendment before pouring, Don.)

Katie Hobbs was elected governor of Arizona by about 17,000 votes, so Trump is demanding that Kari Lake be declared the winner.  She gets him!  To be fair, he used the term "installed," which is what happens after a coup.  He repeated the same tired business about broken machines and long lines.  Meanwhile in Georgia, people are having to vote again for Senator Warnock and they're not complaining, although they already elected him once.  The lines are long, the wait time two hours or more in some places, and the Democratic Party had to sue to get ridiculously restrictive voting reversed (no Saturday voting if the previous week had a holiday, unless it's Bobby Lee's birthday, except in a leap year or some such).  Kids are voting, old people are voting, and all it took was the prospect of six years with a zombie for a Senator.  Lake visited Mar a Lago two weeks ago but she wasn't invited to the Nazi wingding, which was just for menfolk.

Party philosopher Margie Greene, who is credited with the Theory of Corporate Communism, says she needs $700,000 to pay her lawyers.  These were expenses she accrued by suing Twitter and then defending a suit by people who tried to use the "no sedition" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to throw her off the ballot.  Or as she incessantly whines, "Free speech is dead."  To revive a term from last year, she's been cancelled.  CANCELLED!  So everybody listen and give her money, 'kay?  Oh, and for those who say they barely speak, Margie assures us that both Melania and Donald are "just sick" about the poor January 6 rioters languishing in jail.  He will pardon them all the minute he takes power resumes his interrupted regime.  On day one, isn't that the expression?

China is roiled by anti-lockdown demonstrations on a scale not seen since the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, only instead of being unleashed by Chairman Mao, they're calling for democracy.  But the authorities have not lost their impish sense of humor.  Ed Lawrence of the BBC was arrested, kicked and beaten by police while covering street disturbances in Shanghai.  First they claimed he had not shown his press credentials, then they said they were trying to protect him from covid.  Most amusing!

At eighty-one, Bob Dylan keeps coming up with ways to surprise us.  When people who had paid extra for signed copies of his book The Philosophy of Modern Song complained about machine-made signatures, Dylan explained that he has vertigo.  This is an unpleasant condition but the folks at WebMD do not list "inability to sign one's name" as a symptom.  According to Dylan he required a crew of people to help him sign things and then covid intervened and, well, there were deadlines.  Anyway, he's working to rectify the problem, which involves the difference between $45 and $600, not to mention certificates of authenticity.  Then there's the question of his artwork...look, a lot of people are pissed off and it's not as if Dylan needs the money.

  

Intercalation

 

As they struggled to keep track of time the Romans set up a ten-month calendar and added days as needed to keep their holidays synched up with the seasons and the phases of the moon.  It's called intercalation or embolus.  Not sure how the latter came to mean the blockage of a blood vessel.  Since I refuse to call this B---- F-----, I'm going with intercalation, a day to sop up the remains of Thanksgiving and ease back into the regularly scheduled weekend.  It's not exactly a holiday but it's not really anything else, unless you work in retailing and are being driven like a rented truck right now.  My sympathies.

Apparently (oh, all right) the origin of Black Friday is lost in remote history, possibly as early as a football game in 1975 C.E. in the venerable city of Philadelphia.  Extra shifts of police were called to supervise the additional crowds.  No one is sure how it came to refer to department stores hoping to be "in the black" as a result of encouraging people to trample one another when the doors open at five a.m., but here we are.  I prefer to devote the day to good, clean fun like the marvelous Irish dancers at the top.

It's official!  For the second time this year Alaska voters rejected Sarah Palin in favor of Mary Peltola as their member of Congress.  It's the end of the Palin era, most of which she spent starring in a reality show and dancing about in a bear suit on The Masked Singer.  She also served part of a term as governor of Alaska.

Ronna Romney McDaniel is on notice:  Pillow Mike Lindell may seek her job as chair of the Republican National Committee.  McDaniel is a little too reality-based for Mike, having acknowledged that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.  He promises to let us know Monday after talking it over with God.

Rounding out a week when 22 people were killed and 44 injured in mass shootings, Killer Kyle Rittenhouse released a video promoting "Kyle Rittenhouse's Turkey Shoot."  In this Christmas must-have, players use "a highly specialized laser gun to strike down any turkey that spreads lies, propaganda or liberal bias."  Available from fine retailers everywhere, including the Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia, where five employees were shot Tuesday.  It's the second mass murder in Virginia this month.  Glenn and Suzanne Youngkin are nearly out of thoughts and prayers.

Fortunately America's crime wave seems to have crested.  According to Media Matters crime reports on Fox News have declined from 141 a day before the elections to just 71.  Probably something to do with all the snow in the Northeast.

Not, however, in Woburn, Massachusetts, where the human populace is being terrorized by a gang of five wild turkeys led by a male called Kevin.  (By a woman named Meaghan Tolson, we don't know what the mooks call him.)  Ms. Tolson says they attack children on bicycles, trap residents in their homes and are apparently plotting to get inside.  People fight back with brooms and garden hoses.  But no turkeys have been shot because, well, it's Massachusetts, not Mississippi.  

Peter Thiel started an "anti-woke, pro-freedom" bank called GloriFi, for real Americans like plumbers and cops who were sick of the socialists at JP Morgan Chase.  It offered discount home insurance for gun owners and credit cards made of shell casings.  Candace Owens was its spokesmodel.  Investors included Ken Griffin (Citadel Securities) and Kelly Loeffler.  And just like that, $50 million vanished and they're closing down next week.  It's all the fault of "startup mistakes, the failing economy" and of course the liberal media and certainly not Joe Scratchcard's failure to open an account.  So why am I smiling?  And are we sure Elon Musk wasn't involved?

Just in time to harsh your Nutcracker, Simon Morrison has published Bolshoi Confidential:  Secrets of the Russian Ballet from the Rule of the Tsars to Today.  "The history of Russia is a history of violence," he says.  Tell us something we don't know.  And you thought the problem with The Nutcracker was that the Arabian and Chinese dances in Act II were stereotypically racist.  Zhizn moya! 

Racism, reaction and Republicans

 "The most dangerous person in the world is Randi Weingarten."

That's a bold statement, considering that 99.2 percent of Americans have no idea who she is.  But Mike Pompeo, the answer to the question "Who could fuck up our foreign policy worse than Rex Tillerson?" has sidled toward entering the 2024 field by making it clear that he will run against public education in general and American history in particular.  He could have attacked Miguel Cardona, the Secretary of Education, but Cardona is not a woman, Jewish or gay.  This is easier.

To remove all doubt about his ability to assess threats, Pompeo compared Weingarten unfavorably with Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un, and he has called Vladimir Putin "elegantly sophisticated."  (Polonium tea has so much more panache than the old NKVD bullet in the neck.)  That's quite a burden to unload on the president of the American Federation of Teachers, so he allowed Nikole Hannah-Jones, a journalist, to share it because she created The 1619 Project.  Nevertheless it's the teachers who are systematically destroying America and its "exceptionalism," which to the pompeos means never having to say your ancestors were genocidists, enslavers and free-range bigots.  The Murdoch press is already on board.

The right has been trying to destroy the federal Department of Education more or less since it was established in 1979, without success.  (In the fondly remembered 2011 "Oops" debate it was one of the two departments Rick Perry could remember wanting to abolish; Energy, his future domain, eluded him.)  According to Wikipedia it has only 4,400 employees and a budget of $68 billion, the smallest of all the Cabinet departments.  Since they have had only limited success returning to the good old days of prayer and Bible reading, the Republicans have now widened their focus to ending public schools entirely.  It's way past Trump yelling, "I love the poorly educated!" after the 2016 Nevada primary.  The schools are blamed for forcing children to want to change their gender; for making them feel discomfort about things like slavery and lynching; for letting gay teachers "groom" them by just appearing in the classroom; for failing to provide "balance" about issues like the Holocaust.  Money is siphoned off for unregulated charter and religious schools while public school buildings become dangerous and teachers have to survive on second jobs and food banks.  School board meetings have become battlegrounds, often literally, where people with crackpot notions about everything from covid to lunch menus slug it out.  Some are even parents.

Republicans know that an educated electorate is not their friend, but the confluence of education and organized labor is irresistible.  They pretend to empower parents who fear change and feel power slipping from white Protestant hands, but when they run slates of book-burners and anti-LGBTQ candidates the response of voters is less than enthusiastic.  When I was in school, there was an all but armed face-off between Black parents in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn and white, frequently Jewish teachers who were perceived as out of touch with their concerns.  (Remember the joke in Sleeper?  "We believe the war began when a man named Albert Shanker got hold of a nuclear weapon."  Nobody outside New York got it.)  Now parents of minority and trans kids have come to see teachers as their line of defense against the Abbott-DeSantis-Youngkin axis of ignorance.  Randi Weingarten is just as tough as Shanker.  She had better be.  The anti-woke, anti-elitist, antisemitic mob is already at her gate.

And let's not forget the librarians.  Most don't have their own union, being represented by AFSCME.  They face the same challenges as teachers and even more threats of violence.  Too many communities like Jamestown, Michigan and Vinton, Iowa, have chosen to dispense with them altogether because somebody doesn't like some of the books.  There have been attempts to censor the stock in bookstores, even big chains like Barnes & Noble.  Does "profit" mean nothing?  Never mind, more troops on our side.  Every election is a battle against fascism, but every day the barbarians move closer.  Eternal vigilance. 

                     **************************************************************

 Fine words, Mr. Freeman.  Now tell us why you chose to take part in the World Cup opening ceremony in Qatar, where same-sex relationships are punishable by death.  The team from Iran showed more courage when they refused to sing their national anthem to show support for protesters at home.  

Let us also praise Rich Fierro, who was attending the drag show at Club Q Saturday night with his wife, their daughter and the daughter's boyfriend, Raymond Vance, who was one of the performers.  When the shooting began his Army training kicked in (three deployments in Iraq and one in Afghanistan with the field artillery).  He grabbed the gun and clubbed the shooter with it while another patron stomped him with her high heels.  Sadly Vance was one of the fatalities.  Fierro and his wife Jessica run a brewery called Atrevida Beer Co. and they sell shirts and hoodies.  What better holiday gift for your favorite senator-elect?

By the way, the police grabbed Fierro and held him for more than an hour while they figured it out.  Now he's credited with saving many lives.

One of the many places World Central Kitchen has been feeding people is Ukraine and today Chef Jose Andres got an award from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Not the Nobel Peace Prize, but he doesn't have to share it with Kissinger, either.  Chef is probably working out how to get help to the victims of today's Java earthquake.

After 38 years Dr. Anthony Fauci made his final appearance at the White House, still urging Americans to get covid vaccine boosters.  He is retiring to spend more time answering stupid questions from stupid House committees.

A nation is shocked.  Outgoing Rep. Carolyn Maloney is being investigated for improperly soliciting an invitation to the Met Gala fashion show in 2016.  Did she borrow Hunter Biden's laptop?

Today in American history:  Well, you know about 1963.  In 1909 20,000 female garment workers went on strike in New York City without much support from the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.  Two years later 146 of them would die in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.  We end where we began, with organized labor.  Which side are you on?

 

 

  

  

Tread softly

 I never remember my dreams, although I'm pretty sure they happen.  Against the odds, I'm not completely psychotic.  But sometimes I can reconstruct them based on what I wake up thinking about.  Today it was, "John Fetterman is not going to enjoy that little desk they give you on the Senate floor.  Even Barack Obama complained that it was too small for work, and he's only 6 feet 2."  As with a lot of the Constitution, America has outgrown some features of its Capitol.

Somewhat confusingly, my next thought concerned the excellent 1986 movie The Big Easy.  Dennis Quaid plays a slightly corrupt police detective in New Orleans, where such things are decidedly relative.  He has incriminated himself on a videotape which is mysteriously erased when a powerful electromagnet is placed next to it in the police property room.  Did I mention Lt. Remy McSwain is related to half the force?  Anyway, I was wondering...assuming it actually exists, what if such a thing happened to Hunter Biden's laptop, the Holy Grail of the Reichwing?  I suppose they'd just hold thousands of hours of hearings into Who Erased H.B.'s L.  It's all they have.  

Two awful things happened in Colorado Springs:  Lauren Boebert was re-elected and Anderson Lee Aldrich celebrated (allegedly) by shooting up Club Q, which had just held its weekly drag show.  Aldrich wore body armor and employed "a long gun in the style of an AR-15" to kill five people and injure more than twenty others.  Needless to say Boebert has already tweeted, "This lawless violence needs to end and quickly."  By Tuesday she'll be squawking about "groomers" again.  Aldrich was arrested last year for threatening to blow up his mother's house; his grandfather, California Assemblyman Randy Voepel, compared the Trump putsch to Lexington and Concord, adding, "Tyranny will follow in the aftermath of the Biden swear-in."    

Another thing happened in Washington:  The President's granddaughter Naomi Biden got married on the White House grounds and the press was not invited.  We'll find out in a few weeks if that's an impeachable offense.  CNN society reporter Kate Bennett suggested that the union of two young people on Saturday was designed to distract from the bride's grandpa turning 80 a day later.  Didn't work, did it?  (Thrift!  Thrift, Kate -- they served the leftover wedding cake with candles on top.)  Biden also "pardoned" a turkey and greeted the White House Christmas tree, so he's really bad at distracting attention from stuff.

Alex Jones can't have his Twitter account back because Elon Musk has "no mercy" for people who capitalize on murdered children.  Donald Trump, Kanye West -- no problem.  Espionage and bigotry are just character quirks.  Yes, Ye, as I suppose I must call him, was also reinstated in time to announce his run for the presidency in 2024.  For those who find Trump wobbly on antisemitism (looking at you, Nick Fuentes).  I wonder if Jones can get back on Twitter by entering the New Hampshire primary.

Speaking of which, Trump went to Las Vegas to scold the Republican Jewish Coalition for showing insufficient love to Israel.  Like they don't get enough abuse from the seventy-five percent of American Jews who think they're meshugah.

Kevin McCarthy has already promised that when he's King of the Forest Speaker of the House, he will kick people he doesn't like (Ilhan Omar, Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff for starters) off their committees.  Twitter had to explain how it works:  "The Speaker does not have the power to remove a member from a standing committee...Only a majority vote by the entire House" can do that.  Yes, Twitter has lost half its workforce and the rest still understand procedure better than this dolt.

While Sam Alito continues to pursue the Dobbs leaker, the Senate Judiciary Committee may look into the report that he leaked the Hobby Lobby decision (fundamentalists don't have to cover the costs of contraception for employees) in 2014.  It might also like to consider the number of Court nominees who perjured themselves when they swore, all wide-eyed, that they considered Roe to be "settled law."  There's a mephitic smell coming from this Court, and John Roberts needs to remember that the history books will attach his name to it.

Naomi Biden and Peter Neal.  All the best.

  

 

It's all true!

What is it about this picture that's upsetting all the Rightzis?

Could it be the very tall man who clearly does not buy off-the-rack, who has covered up his tattoos and left his hoodie in the car?  

Could it be his diminutive wife who came here undocumented as a seven-year-old from Brazil, supports every cause they hate and wore a $12 thrift shop dress to visit the Capitol?  Let's go with that.

Sorry Hillary, Nancy, Kamala, Alexandria, Maxine, there's a new lightning rod for hate in town.  So much joy in Murdoch Mudville.

Hey Barack Obama!  Nice work appointing Mark E. Walker chief judge for the Northern District of Florida back in 2012.  Because today he handed Governissimo DeSantis his own ass on a platter, throwing out key (i.e. totalitarian) provisions of the ridiculously named "Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act -- WOKE, get it, sort of?  I love a decision that opens by quoting the first line of 1984 and then fillets the way a law "muzzles professors in the name of 'freedom.'"  Since instructors at state universities are considered employees of the state, the state reserved the right to censor them, until Judge Walker came along brandishing the First Amendment.  See, Liz Harrington, this is how it works.

Shade-throwing 101:  On the floor of the House, after declaring she will relinquish the Democratic leadership next year, Speaker Pelosi said, "I have enjoyed working with three presidents."  That would be Bush, Obama and Biden.

Republican op Jesse Benton has (again) been convicted of funneling campaign funds from Roman Vasilenko to a pro-Trump superpac in 2016.  Also known in certain circles as "the Russia hoax."

Anheuser-Busch spent millions to sponsor the World Cup and now Qatar has announced no alcohol can be sold in the stadiums.  Also, part of the spectator housing looks like this...

...with kickoff two days away.  Even Sepp Blatter now admits giving Qatar the opportunity to burnish its horrible image was probably "a mistake," though not, of course, his fault.

Once again Alabama failed to lethally inject a prisoner condemned to death for a 1988 murder.  Maybe it's time to resume lynching.  They were very successful with that.

A draft of public school standards in Virginia is drawing attention.  Among other provisions, children must describe the Code of Hammurabi but must not be told about Martin Luther King until sixth grade.  The young ones will be curious about that random holiday in January.

Merrick Garland has named Jack Smith special prosecutor of Trump's theft of top secret documents.  Smith has a varied CV which includes investigating international war crimes in The Hague.  Interesting.

House Republicans have an actual Second Amendment Caucus, so who better to stop by for a celebratory drink this week than Killer Kyle Rittenhouse?  They asked Dylann Roof but this is his week in the prison library.

Despite the best efforts of the Opus Dei court to arm New Yorkers with guns, a man dropped in at the New York Times building yesterday equipped only with an axe and a sword.  No one was attacked.

Russia says it would like arms smuggler Victor Bout returned in a swap for Brittney Griner.  What if we sweeten the deal?  Throw in a couple of tanks and a really annoying Florida man? 

  

    

Herschel Walker, Vampire Hunter

I assumed that next month Herschel Walker would grab a plane back to Texas and his career as a chicken entrepreneur and make-pretend sheriff, but then I heard this and I'm not sure.  No one has parodied befuddlement so well since Professor Irwin Corey.  The problem is, it's not parody.   If you can't bear to listen, there is a transcript.  

Can werewolves kill vampires?  

Last week Nikki Haley told a different Walker rally that she disagrees with Senator Raphael Warnock's statements about immigration and concluded that he should be "deported," although he was born in Savannah.  Warnock Derangement Syndrome is surprisingly virulent and widespread for such a courteous and conciliatory man, but I did not expect it to pop up in one of Walker's vampire fantasies.  Is there a chance Trump could come and campaign for Walker?  Maybe bring Doug Mastriano or Kari Lake now that they aren't so busy?  Make it so!

Here's the would-be Senator two days ago (translation needed):  "He [Warnock] paid himself for child care, all that stuff -- why don't he keep his own kids?  Don't have nobody keep your kids.  I keep my own, even though he lied about me."  "To say that he lacks self-awareness is an understatement," the Senator replied.  "We have only learned about most of his children during this race."  As has he.

Wait, there's more.

"If we was ready for the green agenda I'd raise my hand right now.  But we're not ready right now.  What we need to do is keep having those gas-guzzling cars cause we got the good emissions under those cars...We're doing the best that we can.  We need help.  Those other people not helping us.  China not helping us.  India not helping us.  But yeah, we're gonna do it all 'cause they're spendin' your money."

I have not a clue.  Fortunately he did not reiterate the theory of the Good Air and the Bad Air.  Or remind the crowd why trees are unnecessary. 

"We got people in Washington that have gotten too weak.  All they wanna do is let people ride their bike.  That's what Senator Warnock is doing.  Let Joe Biden ride his bike."  (Baby you can ride my bike...sorry, I drifted off.)

With nearly three weeks of this to go, I keep reminding myself that we're having a runoff because many people who voted for Brian Kemp could not bring themselves to vote for Walker.  Everyone has limits.  I don't see why those people would make a special effort to get to the polls again in December, especially since control of the Senate has been decided.  The important thing will be to be sure of a strong turnout for Warnock.  Failure is unthinkable.

Eugene McCarthy (possibly quoting someone else) observed that politics is like football -- you have to be smart enough to understand the rules and dumb enough to think it's important.  I'm starting to think the rules of football are not that hard to understand.

Great and glorious again

 Liz Harrington is real.  I assumed she was another Trump invention like "John Barron," who used to call newspapers and tell them of his exploits, but here she is...

...reporting from "Mar-a-Largo" for Real America's Voice.  And she's pissed.

"They [unspecified] don't want the American people to hear directly from the biggest leader of the greatest political movement in our history.  So I do suspect they'll try to censor and cut away...We do not have the First Amendment.  It's under attack."

The Rightzis have a unique interpretation of the First Amendment which, just to recap, says Congress can't censor the press.  It doesn't say the press can't make editorial decisions which displease some people.  For example, the New York Post covered the big reveal on page 26, with a front-page direct "Florida Man Makes Announcement."  They needed Page One for a gang shooting.  Fox News (it started at nine so Hannity drew the duty) did indeed cut away, replacing Trump's burbling with fulsome praise from commentators while he was still burbling. Was that censorship or pity?  The papers Trump despises covered it, managing to work the dual impeachments, the attempted coup or both into their ledes.  The Guardian covered it extensively but he won't like any of the articles.  (Did he really mock Angela Merkel's accent?)  Even the Daily Mail, his kind of paper, led with "The great Trump defection:  Security BLOCKS crowd from leaving Mar-a-Lago ballroom."

Hitler worked on his oratory by hiring an actor to coach him.  Fortunately Trump already thinks he's the greatest speaker in the history of the world.

Ignoring its sexual subtext the Trump campaign is using "Hold On, I'm Coming" as he waddles onstage, and the estate of Isaac Hayes is threatening legal action.  Get in line.  Years ago campaigns commissioned their own songs (who could forget "Row Row Row With Roosevelt" by Joe Glazer and Howard DaSilva?).  With fans like Kid Rock and Kanye, Trump shouldn't need to steal from dead people.

Over at the Washington Post Glenn Kessler oiled up his fact-checker and took it for a spin last night.  He only came up with nineteen howlers but maybe his internet went down.  

Still talking about "Barack Hussein Obama" and still seems to think emails and classified documents are somehow equivalent.  Still doesn't know how tariffs work.  Not surprising people tried to tunnel their way out.  But it undermined the launch of Mike Pence's book called -- wait for it -- So Help Me God.  It sounds like an Elmore Leonard novel. 

Eppur si muove

Yesterday it was Theodor Herzl, founder of modern Zionism.  Today -- well, look at this.

"Crackpot ideas sometimes turn out to be true.  The earth does revolve around the sun, and it was Hunter Biden, not Russian disinformation agents, who dropped off a laptop full of incriminating evidence at a repair shop in Delaware."  

If that sounds incoherent, it's from a brief by Trump's lawyers trying to overturn the dismissal of his 2021 suit against Twitter.  (Apparently Musk has been too busy demolishing the company to reinstate him.)  They're comparing him to Galileo.  Deal with that, The Onion.

Twitter suspended Trump's account "due to the risk of further incitement of violence," not because he ran afoul of the Inquisition and not because he used it to lie grossly and incessantly about absolutely everyone and everything.  They have terms of use and he violated them.  But sure, reach for the stars, law geniuses.  Literally.

Kari Lake is still on Twitter because she has so far stopped short of calling for Arizona to be burned to the ground.  She used her account to tweet, "Arizonans know BS when they see it."  Indeed.  It's not exactly a concession to Governor-elect Katie Hobbs, but it's as close as she's likely to get.  I'm only surprised she hasn't moved to Ministry of Truth Social.  Probably waiting to see which one goes belly-up first.

This is "one of the most important days in the history of our country" -- Trump again -- because tonight his Hundred Days begin (hey, why not Napoleon, too?), his return from exile to start the long march to Waterloo (2024).  According to the Washington Post we can expect a quietly dignified speech from the Omelet Bar at Mar a Lago, right next to the Stolen Document Depository.  Look for Florida political consultant Susie Wiles, described as "a polite yet steely grandmother" who is the daughter of Pat Summerall.  Good grief, am I that old?  NFL on CBS, right?  Don't look for Jared and Ivanka, who have recused themselves. 

Also MIA is Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina weathervane.  Asked if he supported Trump for president Graham replied, "I'll tell you after Georgia."  He has so much invested in the Warnock-Walker runoff on December 6 it's as if Graham has a thing for the big, muscular, good-looking Texas businessman and Heisman Trophy winner.  

Speaking of Georgia, don't take off your irony pants just yet.  Early voting is being curtailed because the Saturday before the election is an official holiday:  Robert E. Lee's birthday.  Once we get all the statues down and take the names of traitors off the military bases, we have to do something about the calendar.

Ever have your flight cancelled and then have to go through hell for a refund?  Not anymore.  New rules by the Department of Transportation require prompt repayment, or else.  Give it up for Secretary Pete!

If the Biden administration keeps "bribing" voters with student loan forgiveness, lower prescription drug prices, courteous airline service and laws preserving reproductive choice, Ted Cruz is going to split in half like Rumpelstiltskin.  "Horrible left wing judges"?  How many and when?

Evidently there are now eight billion humans on this groaning planet (who counted?), with India poised to pass China as most populous nation.  

Paris has unveiled its mascot for the 2024 Olympics, a Phrygian cap meant to echo the headwear of the French Revolution.  It has already been described as "a giant clitoris in sneakers" and a refreshing change from the phallic Eiffel Tower.  I think it looks like a bird.  If you have to explain it, it's probably not a good mascot.  In other sports news, Rod Stewart says he turned down a million dollars to perform at the World Cup because of Qatar's record on human rights (it doesn't recognize any).  I'm sure they can get Elton John -- he sang at Trump's most recent wedding in 2005, so homophobia clearly is not a deal-breaker.

Pat Summerall a great-grandfather.  I can't get over it.

You decide what it means

 Did you know that Trump "in many ways" resembles Theodor Herzl?  That's what Miriam Adelson asserted as she awarded him the Theodor Herzl Medallion of the Zionist Organization of America.  Trump responded by attacking the seventy-five percent of American Jews who still refuse to support the party of Kevin Stitt, who celebrated his re-election as governor by dedicating "every square inch" of Oklahoma to his god "in the name of Jesus."  You know, the party of Doug Mastriano, who says government and Christianity "should be linked."  The party of Marjorie Taylor Greene and "Christian nationalism."  What's not to like?  Oh, yes, he remembered to add that despite "millions" of votes, the 2020 election was stolen.

In news of slightly less noisy Christians, three students were shot and killed last night at the University of Virginia.  Glenn Youngkin sends prayers.

While the "serious" Republicans figure out how to scrape him off, Lara Trump says there's "never been a better time" for Eric's daddy to come back.  Many people are coming up to her, with tears in their eyes, well, you know the rest.  Brace for the Big Announcement tomorrow.  Will be wild.

January 6 insurrectionist Mo Brooks, however, won't be there.  He's now calling Trump "dishonest, disloyal, incompetent, crude and a lot of other things that alienate so many independents and Republicans."  So Mo's no longer one of the 147 certification objectors?

Lost amid the excitement:  Proposition FF passed in Colorado, raising taxes on the wealthiest in order to provide free lunches to all public school students.  California already does this.

Stop me before I incriminate myself again...It seems that Trump ordered extensive IRS audits of James Comey, Andrew McCabe and possibly others he was peeved at that day, just as Barack Obama didn't.  I am -- nonplussed.  

The Wagner Group, Russia's equivalent of Blackwater, bailed out a prisoner named Yevgeny Nuzhin and "recruited" him for the war in Ukraine.  (Yes, the official Russian army is a bad joke.)  While there, Nuzhin gave a series of interviews denouncing the war and offering to defect to Ukraine.  Unfortunately Nuzhin was sent back to Russia in a recent prisoner exchange and now his family has watched video of him being killed with a sledgehammer to the head.  Not funny anymore, Republicans?

Study this photo of former Tory PMs on Remembrance Sunday and see if you can guess what's wrong with Britain.

The Majestic Princess cruise ship returned to Sydney from New Zealand with 4,000 passengers, 800 of whom tested positive for covid.  A veritable peach tree dish.

Today in "Let's You and Him Fight" Ted Cruz went after Mitch McConnell for failing to deliver a majority in the Senate.  ("I am so pissed off I can't even see straight!")  If he's thinking of challenging the Turtle for minority leadership, Ted should recall what Al Franken wrote about him in 2017:  "I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz.  And I hate Ted Cruz."

Arizona again.  Alternately praying and threatening, election deniers are demanding "the military" take over the (s)election of a governor and complaining that January 6 rioters are political prisoners who are being "tortured in cages."   It hasn't even been a week, people.  They're still counting.  Your rules, remember?  No votes counted before Electron Day?

In a recent focus group convened by Frank Luntz, Republican voters said they support Ron DeSantis because Trump is "way too old."  I hope someone showed it to Joe Biden.

  

                             

                                                               "No, a little lower."                                                    

Fallout

 

The Republicans are accepting last week's Red Mist with all the grace you would expect, led by the ultimate loser himself:  "They stole the Electron [sic] from Blake Masters!  Do Election over again!"  The "Voting Machines" were sabotaged in Republican districts -- very bad planning on Governor Ducey's part.  "People were forced to wait for hours, they got exhausted or had other things to do and left the voting lines by the thousands."  Of course Arizonans can vote by mail but choose to stand in the heat (it's a dry heat) because...I don't know.  Blame the system, blame the voters who are too lazy to stand in line, blame everyone but the repulsive Blake Masters and the even more appalling Kari Lake.

Yes, "they" stole the electron from her, too.  Lake called a small group who call themselves Patriots Rise Up to protest the continued counting of ballots in Maricopa County.  She wants them to quit while she's ahead (she currently isn't).  Same old thing.  Mark Finchem will not be secretary of state, either.  In fact election deniers who promised to finesse future elections for the Republicans lost in Nevada and Michigan where they ran for secretary of state, as did gubernatorial deniers Doug Mastriano and Tim Michels.  They aren't even yelling "Fraud!"  Too late, they realized that voters don't like it.

But the red whine continues to flow and the clueless remain without clue.  For instance, Ted Cruz:  "Why did the Democrats do better than expected?  Because for two years they have governed as liberals.  They've governed as whacked out lefty nut jobs...That excited a bunch of young voters."  Oh, Ted, you were so close but then you drifted off...these kids today with their reefer and their crazy hip-hop music, always wanting the abortions and the Medicare for all...listen to wise old Jesse Watters:

"Single women and voters under 40 have been captured by Democrats.  So we need these ladies to get married."  So near and yet so not, Jesse.  Married women always do as their husbands tell them, and married men vote Republican?  Start again.

Senator Catherine Cortez Masto has been re-elected in Nevada.  Did you hear that, Lindsey Graham?  "There is no mathematical way [Adam] Laxalt loses.  If he does, then it's a lie."  Your life may be a lie but the AP called it last night.  All those red spaces on the map of Nevada?  Sand doesn't vote.

"Literally everything in our society and culture is aligned against Republicans.  It's a miracle Republicans win anywhere.  Every television and media outlet in America is against us, all the celebrities, all the good movie actors, I mean you name it."  Well, Marco Rubio, probably not that miraculous in Florida, with the governissimo's election police perp-marching Black voters who later have to be released because they haven't done anything wrong; and with DeSantis's executive order post-Hurricane Ian making it easier to vote in Republican districts but not in Orange County.  But sure, blame Cher.

Judge Jeanine gets closest:  "So many people voted on issues that weren't the issues we thought they were voting on.  We thought it was about the economy, inflation, crime..."  Issues where you can blame Joe Biden and add more than a soupcon of racism.  No!  Turns out we don't want deniers who can make every election a foregone conclusion, and we don't want the Opus Dei court telling us when to procreate.  We're whacked out lefty nut jobs!  We want schools that teach real history, and libraries that stock all books and host Drag Queen Story Hour.  We want people who are happy with their gender.  We want non-Christians to know this is their country, too.  We don't want children's DNA on file against the inevitable day when they are shot to pieces in the classroom.  

We also don't want this guy:  "We need to take control of the government, take control of the media and force the people to believe what we believe or force them to play by our rules, and reshape the society..."  Even Paul Gosar is edging away from Nick Fuentes, saying, "Nick's got a problem with his mouth."  He probably doesn't mean an impacted wisdom tooth.  That's the choice you face, lady and gentlemen.  You can stay on the ice floe with Trump, Greene, Mastriano, Lake, Bannon, Bundy, Rhodes, Lindell, Giuliani and the rest, or you can clamber back on land and play by our rules.

Has anyone asked who Trump voted for?  I mean for governor.  Shield your eyes and ears. 

Armistice

On this day in 1918 the most appalling war to date ended in mutual exhaustion.  It seems like a good day to endure the unendurable, as the Japanese emperor said after an even more appalling war.  I hereby lay down my arms.  I will no longer correct, and will try not to wince at, people who say "nucular."  I have decided to accept it as a regionalism, as when people say "ax" for "ask."  (Southern US and northern England, in my limited experience.)  It's over.  Finished.

I will fight to my last breath, however, against "coronate."  It's not a word and it never was and we're going to be assailed with in the runup to King Charles's coronation.  The verb is "crown."  The act of crowning is "coronation."   The former derives from Anglo-Saxon (kroun), the latter from Latin via Anglo-Norman French (coruner).  The English language just is like that.  (The famous example is "sheep" and "mutton."  One you have to guard in a rain-soaked field because Harold lost at Hastings, the other is served to you on a platter because you're a big-deal Norman.)  Anybody who says "coronate" is getting this air horn right up his nose.  

So I was looking on Amazon for the plays of Arthur Schnitzler (see how I'm adjusting to people who start every sentence with "so"?) and the "Products related to this item" offered me Learn Welsh For Intermediates.  I know "bore da" is good day and "pliss" is police and "dim ysmygu" means no smoking, but I may not be ready for intermediate.

Why does Trump hate Glenn Youngkin?  Certainly not because he's pushing abortion restrictions.  Maybe because he made a tasteless joke about Nancy Pelosi and then apologized.  Probably because Youngkin got elected governor of Virginia by pretending he never heard of Trump.  Let's go with that, and also that silly lock of hair he drapes across his forehead.  How do you get from that to this:  "Young Kin (now that's an interesting take.  Sounds Chinese, doesn't it?)"  WTF?  Just another symptom of mental collapse from a level that was never that high.  By all accounts the election put him in a carpet-chewing rage not seen since Hitler heard Goering was trying to call Eisenhower, and the Adderall shortage pushed him beyond recovery.  If he does the reporters-getting-prison-raped gag at Tif's reception and follows up with an impression of John Fetterman having a stroke, we'll know more.

He incriminated himself some more today, boasting of how he sent the FBI to Florida in 2018 to make sure the vote-counting stopped and Ron DeSantis became governor.  If it's not another delusion (and it's pretty much what Jeb did for George in 2000), it's an egregious case of interference in a state election through misuse of the Justice Department.  I believe Jeff Sessions was attorney general at the time -- anyone seen him lately?  I know a committee that would like to talk to him and Director Wray.  Trump's lawyers are pretty useless but Clarence Darrow couldn't get him out of this one.

Today is the hundredth birthday of Kurt Vonnegut.  Be kind, damn it!

A fault in the system

 As the results trickle in, the hand-counting begins and the demands for recounts pile up, we turn to the rest of our sick sad world where nobody cares about the Texas Seventh.

"Commemorate Kristallnacht -- treat yourself to more soft cheese and crispy chicken.  Now at KFCheese."

I can make up a lot of hot noise, but I couldn't do that.  It's a "push notification" sent to German customers by KFC and now blamed on "a fault in our system."  According to the Guardian it was "computer generated, with the text...automatically connected to current anniversaries and events to stimulate sales."  I can't wait to see what they send out tomorrow to mark the end of World War I.  "At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, why not try the Colonel's eleven herbs and spices?"

I have to return to the Texas Seventh once, because that's where Republican Johnny Teague lost decisively to Democrat Lizzie Fletcher.  Why is this significant?  Because Teague is a published author who wrote a novel called The Lost Diary of Anne Frank.  In Pastor Teague's telling, Anne "found Jesus" before she died in Bergen-Belsen, probably of typhus.  Otherwise who cares about her life and death?  Evan Hurst puts this story in the context of a campaign riddled with antisemitism and you should read his essay.  This is Teague's second shot at the House -- he ran in the Texas Ninth two years ago -- and sooner or later you can bet he'll find a district full of believers and join the other loonies in Washington. 

On a foggy morning in Lake City, Florida, two sheriff's deputies arrested James Hodges,61, for crossing against the lights.  According to them, Hodges was carrying "a silver (chrome) pistol with a white grip in his back right pocket."  It was in fact a "navigational aid" -- a cane.  Mr. Hodges is legally blind.  The deputies were suspended and ordered to undergo "remedial training about civil rights."  Mr. Hodges is also Black!  Who could have guessed?

The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, banned one audience member "for life" because he booed and shouted "Rubbish!" during a performance of Handel's Alcina.  Martin Kettle was not sure whether he hated the production, the performance, the casting of a boy soprano as Oberto instead of an adult, or the fact that Malakai M. Bayoh is Black.  I suspect the lifetime ban was triggered by the last possibility.  In any case, it was a stupid thing to do to a child.  Shouting down adult singers is fine -- there are websites devoted to such nights at the opera.  Remember Carlo Bini at the Met in La Gioconda?

Normally I don't feature any publications from Planet Murdoch but this has to be driving the Orange One fuckbonkers:

...even if he doesn't recognize the Ukrainian flag at the top.

It's on!  Trump ignored the Palm Beach County evacuation order ("You're not the boss of me, Florida Division of Emergency Management!") so he could stay home in his underpants truthsocializing abuse at Ron DeSantis.  He wants it known that he got 1.1 million more votes in Florida in 2020 than DeSantis got this year.  (What part of "midterm" do you not understand?)  Then came the crime-boss threat:  "I could tell you things about him that won't be very flattering.  I know more about him than anybody other than perhaps his wife, who's really running his campaign."  If she is, she's doing all right.  How's your wife doing picking Senate candidates in, say, Pennsylvania?  Oh, I love this.  Maybe he'll spill when he gets up at Tiff's wedding to share the latest Paul Pelosi joke.  More, more!

Speaking of Trump and his kind, Russian forces have retreated from Kherson, the only regional capital they occupied, because they can no longer re-supply it.  General Surovikin is learning what Field Marshal Paulus experienced at Stalingrad.  His boss is just a little less insane.

Here's how they roll in the state that thinks J.D. Vance should be a senator:  In Okeana, Ohio, Anthony King was doing yard work with his wife Saturday when he was repeatedly shot and killed by his neighbor Austin Combs.  According to his wife, the reason was political -- Combs "thought he was a Democrat."  Coincidentally I just bought Malcolm Nance's book They Want to Kill Americans.  Maybe there are no coincidences.

Jesse Watters, who -- something Fox News something -- blames the Red Fizzle on the fact that "there's just not the hatred for Joe Biden the way there is for Obama and the Clintons."  Maybe portraying him as a befuddled old man who can't talk and doesn't know where he is elicits sympathy instead of hate.  If only he were Black or a woman!

Patrick Henry:  "Give me liberty or give me death."

Nathan Hale:  "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

Mike Pence:  "I'm not getting in the car."

If you want to read more of Pence's incredible bravery, integrity and indispensability on January 6, 2021, you'll have to wait until his book is published next week.  I know I will.