Flew by night

I went to bed as a weary clerk was preparing to call the roll for a fourteenth time and woke to find Bakersfield, California, the center of the universe.  Not only is it the proud home of the new Speaker of the House, but this happened:

"Two men set themselves on fire after dumping an accelerant on a California immigration services building and setting it ablaze."   Is there video of these two geniuses?  You bet!

They ran away screaming but thoughtfully dropped their phones.  The Kern County Fire Department put out the blaze at Servicio de Immigracion in ten minutes.  

It will take longer than that for Kevin McCarthy to regain a smidgen of self-respect.  We still don't have the details of the deal he made with Mephistopheles Gaetz in the wee small hours, but the gavel has a string attached and can be snatched away at any time.

I couldn't help thinking of the comparison between old and new Penn Stations:  "We used to arrive in the city like gods; now we sneak in like rats."  McCarthy crept in like vermin while we were asleep and I fully expect him to behave like it.

The both-siders will look grave and worry that the dictatorships will use this sorry week to show their people why democracy is no good -- inefficient, weak, chaotic and all that.  A more nuanced lesson is the folly of voting for far-right, nationalist, self-styled populists -- Alternative fur Deutschland, National Rally, UK Independence, Fidesz, Law and Justice, Brothers of Italy or whatever the fascists call themselves where you live.  Keep watching and you'll soon find out why. 

Here comes the first demand:  A subcommittee run by Gym Jordan to "investigate ongoing criminal investigations" (prevent the prosecution of Donald J. Trump and his co-conspirators).  They love to moan about the DoJ being "weaponized" and they don't mean the extensive tax audits of Andrew McCabe and James Comey.  And again, I'm borne back ceaselessly into the past...the Nazis' 1923 Putsch failed, so they went into the states and municipalities and began to fight elections, and ten years later they achieved their goal "peacefully."  The Republicans were already in the state legislatures and federal legislature, so it only took them two years.  Am I exaggerating?  I hope so.

I wish I could see what she's reading.  The brawlers at bottom right are the party that accused the Democrats of being drunk on the House floor. 

"My daughter's 25 but she doesn't look a day over 16."