Out of the past

 

Governor Bill Lee, the early years.  As he prepared to sign a bill criminalizing drag performances in Tennessee, Lee had to explain this photo of him in particularly tacky drag at some college event.  He graduated from Auburn in 1981, a low point in American fashion, which is no excuse for the boots.  

Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Deliverance) also had a bad day.  She went to Twitter to complain about it, employing an American flag icon even though she has called for the union to be dissolved again.

Those last three lines are so heartbreaking.  "People used to respect others even if they had different views."  People like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose mail slot she screamed through; Parkland survivor David Hogg, who she followed and yelled at in front of the Capitol; Marianna Pecora, whom she kicked and proudly posted video of herself kicking.  Whatever happened to class?

  She hasn't gone full Preston Brooks on anyone, but it's only her second term.

Greene, Brett Kavanaugh and Sarah Huckabee Sanders have all had trouble with restaurants, where the staff or the other patrons wanted to raise some issues with them.  Of course they all fled.  Clearly there's money to be made from a place that caters to Their Sort.  Like this spot in Mumbai.

Of course complaints forced them to change the name back in 2006 but I can't see why TRUMP TREATS wouldn't work.  CHEZ TRUMP?  MAKE (MY) LUNCH GREAT AGAIN?  

Speaking of Sanders, are you energized by her plans to revolutionize education in Arkansas by vouchering more kids into private (religious) schools and making it easier to fire teachers?  Slow down, Sarah -- first you need to find out who released your official portrait -- the one that identifies you as GOVENOR.  

In other education news, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) graduated from Middle Tennessee State University but is not sure what he studied.  (We've all been there.)  Ogles claimed to have a degree in International Relations but when he checked his diploma it said Liberal Studies.  I totally understand why he wouldn't want Tennessee voters to think he spent four years studying to be a liberal.  

Rep. Addison Graves "Joe" Wilson (R-SC), trying to prove he isn't a complete embarrassment, sponsored a resolution to "stand with the people of Turkiye and Syria against the brutal Assad regime following the devastating earthquakes."  It went on to condemn Assad's allies, "the war criminal Putin, the authoritarian ayatollah in Iran" for obstructing relief efforts, and praised "the work of aid and rescue workers."  No mention was made of material aid like money.  Who could object to that?  Thomas "Gun Club" Massie and Margie Greene, of course.  Nobody trashes Putin while they're around.

Perhaps the Great Divorce has begun.  State senator Stephen Goldfinch (R-FortSumter) wants South Carolina to charge new residents $500 for a license and car registration.  He calls it a "Yankee tax," even if the newbie has never been north of the Mason-Dixon line.  This should make the Palmetto State an irresistible destination, especially for corporations.

Jeb Bush has endorsed Ron DeSantis.  Game over.

Wheel of hypocrisy!

 Frank Pavone runs an outfit called "Priests for Life," which is ironic in that the Vatican defrocked him.  Before that he was head of "Catholics for Trump" and a major banker for the anti-abortion crowd.  With all that on his agenda he just didn't think the celibacy thing was important, according to at least four women who are accusing him of "unwanted sexual advances, non-consensual touching, grooming and lewd suggestions."  (He asked one woman if she liked roller coasters, which is a new one on me -- whatever happened to gladiator movies?)  None of this is surprising.

Nor is the news that Jessa Duggar of Arkansas's vast reality-TV family, has participated in what she once called "the Holocaust of our time."  She had an abortion.  She's calling it a miscarriage but in fact a "non-viable" pregnancy was terminated by a D&C, not spontaneously.  I'm sorry she lost her pregnancy, but not as sorry as I am for women who don't have any options because of terrible laws and the hypocrites who shout for them.

As must be explained, slowly, every time a cable company drops a right-wing channel or a newspaper decides to stop running the cartoons of a racist, the First Amendment restricts the government from interfering with free speech.  Here's how to tell the difference:  Trump was so angered by Jimmy Kimmel's jokes about him that he told underlings to tell Disney to tell ABC to gag him in 2018.  "Nobody thought it was going to change anything but he was focused on it so we had to do something," said one functionary.  How envious must Seth Meyers be?  (Maybe he's on too late for Donzo.)  Some were reminded of Nixon's hatred for the press and that time he tried to have Jack Anderson killed by -- wait for it -- rubbing LSD on the steering wheel of his car.  And Nixon had G. Gordon Liddy, who was just mad enough to do it.  Apparently the Trump courtier just called somebody at Disney and whined, "Aw, come onnnnnn..."  Anyway, Anderson died of natural causes in 2005 and Kimmel is still on the air.

On a related subject, it's not "cancelling" if you do it yourself for financial reasons.  The waters are roiled at the moment over the decision of the Roald Dahl estate to tweak a few words in his books for children.  (For example, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Augustus Gloop will be "enormous" rather than "enormously fat," truly a distinction without a difference.)  Puffin, the UK publisher, responded by promising to keep the unexpurgated books in print.  Ian Fleming Publications, Ltd  has gone further in excising some of the racism, sexism and homophobia from the James Bond books, which is going to anger the people who nearly burst into flames at the suggestion that 007 be played by Idris Elba.  The estate of Theodore Geisl tried to sidestep the editing problem by withdrawing six Dr. Seuss books altogether rather than try to make the texts and pictures less racist.  Similar problem with Hugh Lofting's Dr. Dolittle books.

None of this is A-list literature.  I wince at the casual stereotypes in Fitzgerald and Dreiser, but nobody is proposing their re-writing (that I know of).  I'm more troubled by That Word in Huckleberry Finn because it discourages people from reading a genuinely great book, especially for its time (1884).  But re-writing is not new.  A century after Shakespeare, actor-managers like Tate and Cibber were performing his plays in versions they thought audiences would accept, most infamously the happy-ending King Lear.  (Happy insofar as Lear and Cordelia are reunited -- Gloucester doesn't get his sight back.)  By 1807 there was Thomas Bowdler's The Family Shakespeare, tidying up the sex and mayhem long before Victoria ascended the throne.  Dickens himself rewrote the end of Great Expectations when Edward Bulwer-Lytton (who nobody now reads) said it was too downbeat.  Many writers have tried to conceal early work they later found embarrassing, which we hope will not apply to the cache of pseudonymous Terry Pratchett stories to be published in October.

Publishing is a business before it is anything else, and if readers are willing to buy more stories about Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe, Scarlett O'Hara et al., some writer will be hired to produce them.  Likewise if parents think the original books expose their children to racial stereotypes or body-shaming, the owners of the copyrights will do what's needed to keep them profitable.  I hate censorship when it imposes a political agenda on teachers and librarians; I happen to think most of them have more respect for books and readers than almost all politicians.  But there's a benefit to new, improved Dahl or Lofting -- future cultural historians (if we have a future and it has historians) will have a rich store of material for studies of what the early 21st century found disturbing and why, and the battles over how to fix it.

Postscript:  I happened to pick up Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and read the introduction by Anthony Arnove.  Back in 2010, when Ron DeSantis was still an assistant US attorney, Mitch Daniels, the awful governor of Indiana who preceded awful Mike Pence, sent an email celebrating Zinn's death and trying to ensure that no Indiana teacher would use his book.  He called it "a truly execrable anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American history on every page."*  By 2014 students and teachers in Colorado were picketing a local school board trying to ensure that AP history courses "promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights."  A year later the Common Education Committee voted to ban all AP history courses in Oklahoma because they focus on "what is bad about America."  Florida is just trying to catch up with the other monsters.

Trust the historians.    

*For this he was rewarded with the presidency of Purdue University.  I assume he is very good at raising money.

Slow news day

 According to some Tory tattletale, Boris Johnson uttered the words "Fuck the Americans" and the Independent was there.  That's it.  Sir Robert Buckland, one of many ex-chancellors, was trying to get Trump Lite to be reasonable about the bollocks he made of the Northern Ireland border arrangements and the ex-PM was exasperated.  He'll have to do better than that if he wants to upset Dark Brandon, who's coming off twin victories against the House Howler Monkeys and the Russians.  Maybe next month.  

As Biden well knows, it's easier when they step on themselves, preferably in writing.  Our next exhibit is the reliably stupid Margie Twelve-toes, tweeting, "6 Billion people illegally crossed our border since Biden took office, but Ukraine's border is the only one that matters to Washington."  That's a lot of people to bus to Martha's Vineyard.  Margie also believes a school in Illinois got $5.1 billion for a "diversity program."  Also, the world is six thousand years old.  As Barbie used to say, "Math class is hard!"

Before you order a ball-tanning machine from Carlson Industries, read this:  Chinese researchers have published a study in Acta Endicrinol which says high doses of Coke and Pepsi can increase testicular size in mice.  So far all they've got are mice with huge balls, but China being China I'm sure Uyghur volunteers are being recruited.  It certainly explains Trump's boundless virility and baggy trousers.

Canada seems like a nice place, eh?  America's upstairs neighbor who never complains about the noise?  Think again.  Canada gave us colorized movies, subtitled opera and William Shatner, and it's poised to cross the border with SUPER PIGS..  The result of liaisons between domestic pigs and wild boars, the super pig is described as "incredibly intelligent, highly elusive," and able to survive the cold by burrowing under snow.  They eat crops and animals, carry viruses, pollute water, and can weigh up to five hundred pounds.  Their nemesis, Ryan Brook of the University of Saskatchewan, says, "Wild pigs are easily the worst invasive large mammal on the planet."  And what is Joe Biden doing to protect our border?  Nothing!

The Guardian analyzed the numbers and determined that there is a chemical accident here every other day, on average.  The red dots are last year's events and the blue are from the last two months.  Congratulations, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico, you're doing something right.  The rest of y'all, I wouldn't worry about the pigs.

Shooters

 It's so preposterous that people are already checking with Snopes -- yes, Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) introduced a bill to make the AR-15 America's "official gun."  I would have gone with the Colt .45, a very handsome weapon with a deep history, but these Republicans today are only interested in how fast you can kill a bunch of people.  There's no artistry anymore.

 

Love the snake.

Naturally I was curious about Moore -- like, is he related to the pedophile judge Roy Moore -- but all I know is he grew up on a farm and owns a garbage company.   Your basic Trumpanzee -- hates Anthony Fauci and Mark Milley, goes to a Baptist church, Freedumb Caucus, 2020 election denier, beat a perjury rap in 2014.  This bill is his bid for attention and it's already gained the support of infamous freshman "George Santos," as well as Lauren Boebert (see below) and Andy "Bar the door!" Clyde. 

Moore hasn't announced his candidacy for president yet but he might as well.  At this stage of the perpetual election cycle the hopeless hopefuls are claiming their five minutes of fame.  (Attention spans have shrunk since Andy Warhol's fifteen-minute estimate.)  Chris Sununu, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy -- soon you'll see them vanishing from the far edge of the debate stage, one by one.

Yes, I said Vivek Ramaswamy, biotech entrepreneur. hedge funder and author of Woke, Inc., a jeremiad aimed at people who think society should try to clean up its capitalist act and stop abusing marginalized people, woke being the new pinko.  Despite his own success since immigrant parents arranged for him to be born in Ohio, Ramaswamy thinks Rightzis need "protected class" status as an embattled minority under constant attack from the deep state swamp or whatever they're calling it now.  With so many states legislating against everything from AP history to drag performers, it's surely a matter of time until some place like New York or California tries to outlaw armed insurrections or Fox News.  Well, not on President Ramaswamy's watch!  It's bad enough that Clinton Obama Biden grabbed everybody's gun.

It's all right to laugh at this popinjay.  Guy gets a little money, he thinks he should be in charge.  Remember Ross Perot?  Howard Shultz?  Andrew Yang?  During the last Gilded Age men like J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie knew real power didn't reside in the White House.  Where did that wisdom go?  Why do we have to be grateful that Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk were born elsewhere?  I blame Trump for proving that any asshole can do the job as long as he watches television, tweets and plays golf all day.

"______ will not replace us!" is the chant of proponents of (what else?) the Great Replacement Theory and it looks like they're right to be afraid.  Lauren Boebert's Ptomaine-a-rama in Rifle, Colorado, is being replaced by a Mexican restaurant!  Tapatios has applied for a liquor license and probably will not feature waitstaff armed with handguns.  Which does not mean you should dine and dash.

Yesterday was the first anniversary of Putin's invasion of Ukraine and some German activists had a present for him:  a rusted-out T-72 tank left in front of the Russian Embassy in Berlin.  Plenty more where that came from, Vlad.  (Don't bother to ticket it, German traffic wardens -- diplomats never pay those things.)

While Trump was bragging about the Florida tap water he sells in bottles and buying junk food for the residents (and probably confiscating the toys in the Happy Meals), Joe Biden was sending the CDC, EPA and FEMA door-to-door in East Palestine to check on the welfare of each resident.  This despite Governor DeWine's continued refusal to ask for a federal disaster declaration.  I'm sure Trump would have done that in Puerto Rico if it weren't full of brown people who speak Spanish.  Since it is, they didn't even rate a Filet-o-Fish.

There's a fascinating document in Floridastan rich with "whereases" from a bunch of Lee County Republicans who want covid vaccines not just discouraged but outlawed.  They call the vaccine a "bioweapon" and invoke the Nuremberg Code about "informed consent."  The professional hypnotist who composed it told a TV station, "If you got this shot you go home and hug your pregnant wife; she can have a miscarriage through skin contact."  (I hope no one tried this at home.  Everyone knows you have to fall down stairs like Scarlett O'Hara Butler.)  It would be fascinating to hear what former Senator Jim Inhofe has to say, now that he has admitted he quit the Senate because of long covid.  Before retiring, of course, he voted against every covid aid bill.  "Five or six others have long covid but I'm the only one who admits it," he told Tulsa World, forgetting about Tim Kaine. 

"The best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people.  Just get the fuck away.  Wherever you have to go, just get away.  There's no fixing this. You just have to escape."  So said cartoonist Scott Adams in a video you can watch on YouTube, unless it's been cancelled by the radical leftists who run it.  Already "Dilbert" has been dropped by countless newspapers, leaving Adams with more time to hit the CPAC/Fox News/Daily Stormer circuit.  Strange -- that's exactly what Malcolm X said to Black people half a century ago, before he made the hajj.  He was probably thinking about lynchings and race riots.  I don't know what Adams is thinking.  Did a Black driver grab a parking spot he wanted?

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

 

All your Bitcoins are belong to us!

 It's Thursday and that means all bets are off, all systems are off-line and anything goes.  Take a look.

We all know that Trump has been the victim of many WITCH HUNTS!!! but now there's proof:  Charlie Kirk has done the research by looking at Pinterest and he knows Emily Kohrs (of Fulton County grand jury fame) is a witch, or at least a Wiccan, therefore, witch hunt Russia hoax rigged election, take your pick.  Kirk has experience with witches -- three of them (classic Macbeth number) spoke to him in a church in New Mexico and he got "super sick" shortly after.  Don't worry, Jesus made it all better and he doesn't always need diapers anymore.  You might think Fani Willis was the one who danced with the devil but that's how they fool you.  Unless you're smart like Charlie Kirk.

Does anybody know who Alex Murdaugh is and why America is supposedly transfixed by his murder trial?  Because I've been ignoring it until I can't anymore, it's on CNN and MSNBC and probably The Weather Channel.  It's a family with impressively red hair but I still don't care.

Unsurprisingly the Florida justice system has gone full Marx Brothers.  A lawyer named William M. Norris wants his pregnant client Natalia Harrell released from jail on the grounds that her fetus, "a person under the Florida constitution," did not receive due process before being incarcerated.  A woman in Texas has demanded she be allowed to use the multi-passenger vehicle lane because her fetus is a person but this takes the crazy to a new level.  Habeas corpus!  Go, Norris!

Ukraine may lack fighter jets but it can still count on Sir Elton John.  He says so in a long essay in today's Guardian, recalling the concert he gave in Kyiv in 2007 to raise awareness of AIDS there.  Moral support is always welcome, but Sir Elton could bloody well buy them an F-16.

Yesterday in Milan Starbuck introduced its new line of oleato, coffee blended with olive oil.  CEO Howard Shultz says he invented it when taking a spoonful of oil with his morning coffee and then deciding to combine them.  He doesn't say whether this helped with his morning poo, but I bet it did.

Archeologists examining a Bronze Age grave in Tel Megiddo, Israel, found evidence of brain surgery on a skull from the 15th century BCE.  They even managed to determine through DNA that the two men in the grave were brothers.  Pre-history is so cool.

Speaking of brain injuries, who's this derelict in the baggy overcoat boasting about the yuge donation he's making to the fine people of [where the hell am I?] East Palestine, Ohio?  Guess.  

That's genuine Trump Water, one of his many failed enterprises.  It's been in a warehouse since the company went bust in 2010.  The people of EP would be better off drinking rainwater than the plastic in the bottles.  "You want to get those Trump bottles."  For the lawsuits your heirs will file.

Keep your eye on David Eastman, who represents Wasilla (Mother of Nearly Vice Presidents) in the Alaska legislature.  He asked Trevor Storrs of the Alaska Children's Trust if maybe it's not good for society as a whole if abused children die, "because there aren't needs for government services and whatnot over the whole course of that child's life."  He's crunched the numbers and says it will cost Alaska (which used to pay every resident a dividend on oil revenue) a ton of money to treat the survivors for PTSD and who knows "whatnot" and it's just fiscal irresponsibility.  (Did I mention that Eastman is also a paid-up Oath Keeper?)  For saying the quiet part out loud the whole rest of the legislature voted to censure him, which makes him an Official Victim of the Woke Mob.  Senator Eastman?  Governor Eastman?  "We'll get there, Pop."

We nearly made it out of Black History Month 2023 (not a leap year) without any further attacks from racists and morons, and then came Ben Stein, who is apparently still alive.  Ben can't enjoy his pancakes anymore because "the inherent racism of America's corporate culture" has cancelled Aunt Jemima from his syrup bottle.  "This used to show a large African American woman chef," he droned, "showing their incredible skill at making pancakes."  Why does Quaker Oats want to deny Black achievement?  They're probably racists like Barack Obama.  (Remember how he was constantly making Ben Stein feel bad by standing there being Black?)  Even Uncle Ben is gone, depriving Stein of his yummy rice.

 

  I hate woke rice.  Unless there's saffron.

If Tucker Carlson defends Don Lemon's dumb comments about Nikki Haley for all the wrong reasons and in grossly awful ways, but still defends him, should I be worried?  I didn't think Lemon should get Dan Rathered off the air for being a jerk, that's all.  Tuckoo invented a whole bucket of grievance in the course of pronouncing Haley "a liberal white lady" against whom "the Democratic Party" will always side, which I can't even figure out.  

Anyway, on to the next culture war:  Lego.  I know nothing about this toy, said to be world's most popular, except that it comes from socialist Denmark.  Apparently they have decided to be more inclusive (that trigger word!) with characters who have disabilities or Down syndrome, an outrage up with which Harris Faulkner will not put.  In discussion with another public philosopher named Jimmy Failla, Faulkner asked, "These are really important issues.  Do you want Lego in there?"  Failla did not.  "Republicans think it is insane that they are forcing identity politics into Legos.  Democrats are upset they didn't make a drag queen stripper."  I guess I missed another national debate/referendum.  Failla just knows Lego is pushing "a particular political agenda," as opposed to a perfectly natural desire to sell toys.  Even to kids who don't matter because they use a wheelchair or lack a limb, or to the parents who love them anyway.  Now that Jimmy Failla has polled the nation, maybe he should ask the on-air Fox people with disabilities.  None?  Really?

Alex Murdaugh is crying on the stand.  Now I know he's guilty.  And I'm not even sure what he's accused of.

Honestly evil

Don Lemon said a stupid, sexist thing about Nikki Haley last week.  (Haley, who is 51, is "not in her prime" as a woman, which according to Lemon is "in her twenties, thirties, and maybe her forties."  Perhaps he meant childbearing years.)  Instead of being allowed to apologize, Lemon was yanked off the air and sent to CNN re-education camp to receive "formal training."  As if that was the worst thing ever said about a woman who dares to engage in politics.  

Also on CNN Piers Morgan, dean of political journalists, sat down with George Santos and got him to confess, "I've been a terrible liar," which is like The Who acknowledging, "Sometimes we're a little loud."  Morgan spends most of his time trashing Meghan Markle and her husband the Duke of Sussex, but CNN has no problem with that.  Anyway, the New York Congressman whined that society's to blame, what with its unreasonable expectations that people tell the truth about their ethnicity, education, finances and other personal details.  He "absolutely would not" have run for office had he imagined all the attention he would face.  Yeah, you and Trump both.

Speaking of which, the Forever President is "donating" cleaning supplies and bottled water to East Palestine, Ohio, the town so cruelly chemical-bombed by Joe Biden.  That might distract the residents from the safety regulations his administration rolled back -- they seem to be white, right and easily distracted -- but it reminded everyone else of his racist response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.  

Being on a grand jury is no fun, especially when it meets for months.  That's no reason for Emily Kohrs, forewoman of the Fulton County grand jury that investigated Trump's election tampering in 2021, to embark on a media blitz for her own aggrandizement.  "I know something you don't know..." she seemed to be teasing.  As long as she doesn't name (redacted) names, it's probably all right, but even Trump's lawyers will be ready to pounce on "juror impropriety."  Meanwhile it's good to know that she found Brad Raffensperger "really geeky kind of funny," while Brian Kemp looked uncomfortable.  She probably didn't recognize them, having told the AP she didn't even vote in 2020 and has no party affiliation.  It may be easier to find a Trump jury in Atlanta than I thought.

I didn't think I could get any more cynical about mass shootings and the formulaic response to them, but Vanderbilt University left me at the post.  Their Peabody College of Education and Human Development used an AI (artificial intelligence) bot called ChatGPT to "console" students after the shootings at Michigan State last week.  "A culture of care...building strong relationships...beep beep..."  If only someone had deleted "Paraphrase from OpenAI's ChatGPT AI language model, personal communication."  They'll know better next time.

Brace yourself, wokeness haters:  Seattle has become the first US city to outlaw discrimination based on caste.  I didn't even know it was going on.  In fact, I'm not sure the city has any say about a 3,000 year old Hindu religious practice.  "So what, they'll end circumcision next?" some Foxnik will squawk, suddenly concerned about Muslims and Jews.  Religion has always had a giant legal loophole in this country -- look up Prohibition and the exception for "sacramental wine" -- but just a heads-up, it's coming to a culture war near you. 

There was another trail derailment, 31 cars full of coal in Gothenburg, Nebraska.  Not to worry, though, it's not excessive speed or poorly maintained track or any of that obvious stuff -- it's Russia!  They're retaliating because we blew up their gas pipeline.  Junior Trump says so.  "We've had derailment after train derailment, with environmental disasters, no one asking if it's Russia retaliating after the article came out about us possibly attacking the Nordstream 2 pipeline, and they don't care."  "They" are of course the Biden administration and "the article" is a Substack post by Seymour Hersh that basically says, "We have the capability so we did it."  Why all this sudden interest in environmentalism and the infrastructure, Junior?  And when did you start agreeing with Sy Hersh?  Political alignments slide around like that game where you have to get the BBs into the bear's eyes.

Take Kari Lake.  One day she sniffs Ron DeSantis over and declares him to have BDE (that's "big dick energy" for those who didn't take Poli Sci.  Then she pronounces him a tool of Satan's big brother, George Soros.  Who knows what went sour there?  "Governor" Lake is mulling a run for the Senate because if anyone can do both jobs at once while spinning plates, she can.

What short memories they have.  How do we know the Chinese are not derailing trains with their weirdly sophisticated balloons?  Why is Junior trying to drive a wedge between America and the peace-loving people of Russia?  Well?

On March 21, 1861, in beautiful Savannah by the sea, Alexander H. Stephens, soon to be vice-president of the Confederacy, delivered his "Cornerstone" speech proclaiming the inequality of "the negro" and  the need to preserve slavery forever.  (This, not "states' rights," is what the war was always about.  Accept no substitutes.)  On February 21, 2023, Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared on "Insanity With Hannity" to explain her very detailed and thoughtful proposal for a "national divorce" of red and blue states, which even the Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, had called "destructive and wrong and -- honestly -- evil."  The Reds -- I almost wrote Rebs -- would have prayers in their schools instead of "antifa communist training," a national anthem that is just for white people, and no dildos displayed near children's toothbrushes, a real obsession of hers.  Blues who move to God's Country would not be allowed to vote for five years, to prevent them infecting the air with their "bad politics."  Transgendered people would be required not to exist as, I suppose would swing states.  Choose a side or go be Canadian.

Thanks to Dominion Voting Systems and their very enterprising attorneys, we know that Hannity and the other Fox eminences don't believe the shit they swallow and obediently vomit up about Trump, his election grievances, his idiot lawyers and his toxic narcissism.  So when SpongeSean gravely responds, "I actually favor that idea," we have to admire his ability to keep his weirdly square face straight.  

That's show business!

Don't tell Margie.  She's not in on the joke.

                              ******

Hang on a second...didn't Junior share this last September?

How do you do, fellow pedophiles!

 

We're all pedophiles, we Wests.  Putin said so.  

Joe Biden made a speech in Warsaw ticking off Russia's crimes against humanity:  targeting civilians, using rape as a weapon of war, abducting Ukrainian children, targeting hospitals, train stations and schools.  "Autocrats only understand one word:  No."  Poland threw him a military parade.  The Duda government is fairly right-wing, but when it comes to Russia the Poles know who their friends are.

Putin's rebuttal didn't address any of the charges but spewed a recitation of grievance, complaint and lies that sounded like any Trump tweet of the past eight years.  He is a close student of Ivan Ilyin, the fascist mystic for whom Russia was always the pure and innocent victim of a sinful world.  "They were the ones who started the war," he said of Ukraine, without any evidence -- at least the Nazis dressed dead men in Polish uniforms and pretended they had crossed the German border in 1939.  As for the rest of the West, we "pervert" our own people, destroy the family, mock childen, "make PEDOPHILIA the norm" -- everything the Republiclowns say about Democrats every day and twice after the Oscars.  We also attack "Russian culture, the Russian Orthodox Church" (most people give barely a thought to either except to wonder at their fashion sense).

By the way, your coffee pot is on fire.

He's especially enraged that "The Anglican Church is planning...to look into the idea of a gender-neutral god."  Yikes.  The nadir is reached when the war criminal quotes the New Testament:  "Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do."  Even Hitler drew a line.  And by the end, drugged to the eyeballs and shaking with palsy, even Hitler looked better:

Jeez, Vlad, get a Twitter account.  You can sit in the banya and rage about adrenochrome, baby parts, chemtrails and George Soros while naked boys whack you with birch branches.  Let your stooges in the West take up the slack for a while.

Tucker Carlson:  "Zelenskyy himself is a very dark force.  That is obvious if you watch him.  It is unmistakable.  Who could not see that?  This man is a destroyer.  He banned a Christian faith in his country and arrested nuns and priests."  (I think he's hinting that Zelenskyy is a J-E-W but I could be wrong.)  "It's just true and maybe that's why Joe Biden is drawn to him."  

It's.  Just.  True.  QED.

Tulsi Gabbard:  "The warmongers are trying to drag us into WW3, which can only end in one way:  nuclear annihilation and the suffering and death of all our loved ones.  Zelenskyy, Biden, NATO, congressional and media neocons are insane."

Huh.  Tulsi has loved ones.

Trump:  "Putin never ever would have gone into Ukraine if I were president.  I actually had a very good relationship with him."  He then went on to restate that he valued Uncle Vlad over "Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Lisa Page"... the usual.  At least he's tacitly acknowledging that he's no longer president.  Psychiatrists call this a "breakthrough."

Random rally-goer in Washington yesterday:  "This idea that [Putin] had no business invading Ukraine -- what else could he do?  He was surrounded by NATO, and we were putting rockets into Poland and arming Ukraine -- and he was supposed to stand for that?"  Oh, Collette from Pittsburgh, we had missiles on the Soviet border for decades, mostly in Turkey.  Somehow Khruschev et al. never invaded a non-Warsaw Pact country.  But you keep watching that nice Carlson boy.  Did you know his father is a lobbyist for Viktor Orban?  Small world.

Marjorie Taylor Grift:  "Help me fund a national ad campaign to STOP WWIII!"  Give till it hurts to her Save America Stop Socialism PAC.  (Be advised:  Marge thinks companies that don't donate to the far right are guilty of CORPORATE COMMUNISM, this blog's Oxymoron of the Year unless she comes up with something even dumber.)  George Santos, Treasurer and CFO.

Elon Musk in his capacity as Tsar of All the Tweets shared a "statement" from something called Russian Market:  "Turkey newspaper reveal the terrible dimensions of Ukraine army losses:  Ukraine 157,000 soldiers dead.  234 dead NATO military trainers (US & UK).  2,458 dead NATO soldiers (Germany, Poland, Lithuania, etc.)."  Utter bullshit:  All of above.  What Turkey [sic] newspaper?  No NATO personnel in Ukraine.  No dead Americans except a handful of volunteers (six confirmed).  I wonder why Leon Skum had Twitter's algorithm re-written so people have to read his stuff, even if all they do is laugh.  I wonder how I can get into a poker game with Apartheid Slim.

Oh -- be sure is biggest-screen TV in Putin banya for enjoy very serious 60 Minutes (original Moscow version copied by CBS) discussion of Biden trip to Kyiv.  Could easily have "whacked" old man or just terrorized him but showed great wisdom and restraint.  Biden only invaded Mother Russia at insistence of demonic Kamala Harris.  If Biden dead she immediately launch World War III and probably IV.  All hail glorious Russian leader!  Pussy Riot to gulag!

The end.

        

Presidents Day

 

I have never been prouder of Joseph R. Biden, Jr.  It takes a lot of guts to visit a war zone in defiance of threats from Putin and his fifth column.  Take a good look, poison dwarf.  Then avoid high windows.

I expected the usual complaints about President Zelenskyy's failure to change into suit and tie for the occasion, especially from the troll who dressed like Huggy Bear for the State of the Union, and twelve-toes Marge did not disappoint.  She's just so done with woke America that she wants a divorce, like the one her husband filed for last September.  "We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government," she tweeted illogically.  I love the smell of secession in the morning, even if they never actually do it anymore.  Marge doesn't know much about anything, including the history of her own state.  Remember this guy?

 

New to the Treason Team is Governissimo and president-in-his-sweaty-dreams Ron DeSantis:  "I and many Americans are thinking to ourselves, OK, he's very concerned about those borders halfway around the world.  He's not done anything to secure our own borders here."  No, most of us understand that Ukraine was invaded by an army, not penniless refugees carrying children.  Try not to make everything about you, Ronnie.  And try not to treat asylum seekers the way the Russians treat Ukrainians, by kidnapping and abusing them.  OK?

Where should Biden be?  In East Palestine, Ohio, of course, listening to people discuss their fears of being poisoned.  Trump is making a state visit, or as the Philadelphia Inquirer put it, "returning to the scene of his crime," since his deregulation policy led to the derailment.  "Of course Joe Biden is in Ukraine and not in Ohio...because screw Americans," sniffed Junior Trump.  Not all Americans, powder face.  Maybe talk to Republican Governor DeWine, who refuses to ask for a federal disaster declaration even though FEMA is already on the scene.  Another freight train derailed yesterday in Delphos, Ohio, without toxic cargo -- it only knocked down utility poles and blocked roads.

Mass shooting at Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans.  One dead, four wounded.  Probably angry because Mel Gibson didn't get to lead the Krewe of Bacchus.  Heavy rain in Brazil caused Carnival to be cancelled while workers search the rubble for survivors and bodies.

Turkey experienced two more earthquakes in the southern province where people were taking refuge from the first earthquake.  These were felt as far away as Egypt.  

Cable news is heavily into the Carter death watch, but the WaPo has a story about the only US president ever called upon to repair a nuclear reactor (Chalk River Laboratories, Ontario, 1952).  That's him in the middle, age 28.  Worth a read.

Barely noticed in the Biden news, four Democratic representatives (Ro Khanna, Tony Gonzales, Jake Auchincloss and Jonathan Jackson) visited Taiwan, where they met President Tsai-Ingwen and business leaders and generally annoyed the Chinese.

Finally!  Some news about the "Rage Against the War Machine" extravaganza at the Lincoln Memorial (urg, threw up in my mouth there) yesterday.  It was organized by the Libertarian Party and the People's Party, and big-name speakers included Ron Paul, Jill Stein and Tulsi Gabbard.  I never heard of the little-name speakers.  They had ten demands ranging from "Not one more penny for war in Ukraine" to "Free Julian Assange."  Here's the multitude on what appears to be a nice day:

Rage Against the Machine on line one, Libertarians.

  

  

I hate long weekends

Richard Belzer is dead, Jimmy Carter is receiving hospice care at home and I'm not feeling too well myself.  

What exactly is this Presidents Day crap anyway?  Why do we need an equivalent of the Sovereign's Official Birthday?  Couldn't the Congress even agree on George Washington, First in War, etc. (but a slaveowner, I know)?  Why do we have to pretend to honor all the fumblers, bumblers, mediocrities and crooks who make up the majority of presidents?  Just another excuse for half-price mattresses and a Monday off when the weather is most oppressive.

I found out we'd lost the Belz when I went to the Washington Post to find out about the "antiwar" rally in DC (the hometown paper), but there's nothing at this hour.  They do cover a pro-Russia event at the gathering of world leaders in Munich yesterday, which was really more of an anti-America event with cries of "Ami go home!" and denunciations of Starbuck, Amazon and "fracking gas" (I believe the euphemism you want is "fricking").  They're wobbly about NATO, but I don't expect that to last more than thirty seconds after the first Russian tank crosses the border.  Ask Granny what happened the last time Russia liberated Germany.  

When the Russians were driven from Kherson, Ukraine, last summer they left behind a cache of radio propaganda and "humor" from Radio Tavriya which would have embarrassed Axis Sally.  Let's just say that truth is not their tovarisch.  As in Floridastan, books were burned:

 

"The propaganda has been poor," observed Timothy Snyder.  "They do not really know their audience anymore."  But we know them.  

This week's mass shooting took place in rural Mississippi -- three guns, six dead -- but we're so deathlagged that it came and went before most people figured out where Arkabutla is. (Forty-five miles from Memphis.) The killers are getting older.  Richard Crum, who also shot himself, was 51.

Also shot to death:  David O'Connell, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles.  This one will get more attention.  The bishop was known for his work with migrants, gang kids and the poor.

This gun story is more...amusing?  School superintendent Robby Stuteville was using a bathroom stall in an elementary school in Rising Star, Texas (I don't where that is in relation to Memphis) and left his gun behind.  A third grader came across it and notified a more responsible adult.  Stuteville says he and the principal routinely carry handguns on campus, and probably elsewhere.  What could go wrong?  Let me re-phrase:  What else could go wrong?

Farewell, John Munch.  We'll miss you.

  

Dead birds are real

 According to a study presented to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech 2023 Forum (deep breath) it is now possible to incorporate stuffed dead bird parts into drones for use in spying on other birds.  And humans.  Why go to all that trouble just to find out what birds are doing?

In other science news, Elon Musk, who made his fortune off electric cars that drive themselves off cliffs, says he is afraid artificial intelligence will kill us all.  Like Trump's wind turbines.  

The ever-classy Ann Coulter has emerged from her lair to inject some overt racism into the 2024 campaign, proposing that Nikki Haley "go back to your own country."  She's still seething because Haley pulled down the Confederate battle flag which flew over the South Carolina state house until the mass murder at Mother Emanuel Church.  An expert on India, Coulter asked, "Did you know they have a rat temple, where they worship rats?"  That would be Karni Mata, considered the reincarnation of the goddess Durga.  Haley, whatever else she is, is not a Hindu.  

What she is is a proudly anti-LGBTQ bigot.  She told some voters in New Hampshire that Floridastan's "don't say gay" law "doesn't go far enough," and when she's "a badass woman in the White House" there will be no sex education of any kind, ever, no way.  Take that, Governissimo RINO.

First in the alphabet and first in the hearts of state killing fans, Alabama is tinkering with a new way to execute people:  nitrogen hypoxia.  State senator Trip Pittman, winner of Redneck Name of the Week, says it's "a more humane option," no worse than passing out on a suddenly depressurized airplane.  As Barbara Graham asks in I Want To Live! "How would you know?"

Depression can follow any life-changing event:  childbirth, battle experience or a major stroke or heart attack.  This has been well known for years.  Senator John Fetterman checked himself into a hospital for treatment of severe depression.  In his case, the stress of a new job surrounded by idiots may have exacerbated other health issues.  As you might expect, responses follow party lines because this is the country we deserve.  

Want to hear what the stars of Fox "News" say when they're not frowning into the camera getting worked up about pronouns or gas stoves?  Dominion Voting Systems has the good stuff.  Their $1.6 billion defamation suit against Uncle Rupert's flagship yielded some fascinating quotes, all extracted under oath.

"Sidney Powell is lying.  Fucking bitch."  (Tucker Carlson, 11/16/20)

"Trump will concede eventually and we should concentrate on Georgia, helping any way we can.  We don't want to antagonize Trump further but Giuliani taken with a large grain of salt."  (Rupert Murdoch)

Rudy's "an insane person."  (Sean Hannity text message)

"Such an idiot."  (Laura Ingraham)

"What [Trump's] good at is destroying things.  He's the undisputed world champion of that.  He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong."  (Carlson)

It's all here, like Hunter Thompson and Bill Hicks sharing whiskey and 'shrooms in the beyond.  I haven't read it all but I really like the part about Antonin Scalia being killed in a "human hunting expedition" at Bohemian Grove.  How did that not make it to air?  (This is redacted, by the way -- imagine what they left out.)

As of last night Baby Tuckoo was still riding the election fraud hobbyhorse, wondering how "senile hermit" Joe Biden managed to get fifteen million more votes than "rock star crowd-surfer Barack Obama."  (I can answer that -- Obama never ran against Trump.)  Carlson knows his audience never read anything or listen to anything but Fox, so they'll never know what he and the other liars really think.  

In other redaction-related news, somebody was up late telling the functionally-illiterate Trump about the grand jury information released Wednesday by Judge Robert McBurney in Atlanta.  Since neither his name nor anyone else's was mentioned, Trump immediately hailed McBurney as "a Daniel come to judgment," a reference he and his court will never get.  "Thank you to the Special Grand Jury in the Great State of Georgia for your Patriotism & Courage.  Total exoneration.  The USA is very proud of you!!!"  Not so fast, fat man.  They also said they think at least some of the 75 witnesses should be charged with perjury and found "no evidence of widespread fraud" in the 2020 election.  Fani Willis is not done with you.

Neither is the Justice Department.  Five Proud Boys go on trial next month for seditious conspiracy and they want to call Trump as a witness.  He can moan about how being served with a subpoena is yet another tactic "like the KGB and Gestapo rolled into one!" and then get on the stand and invoke the Fifth Amendment like a badly dressed Frank Costello.  Fingers crossed.

Won't somebody think of the dogs?  Minnesota is moving toward legalizing recreational marijuana and state Senator John Jasinski (R-Ofcourse) wonders what future awaits all those drug-sniffing dogs.  They won't be put down, will they?  Perhaps they can be re-trained to identify idiots in, say, a certain building in St. Paul.

Now that a Christofascist majority has been installed on the Supreme Court, the Jesus crew are dreaming of federal laws outlawing every form of sexuality from romance novels to images of the female breast "below the top of the areola" (actual language in an actual Texas bill).  To protect minors, of course.  A comedian could be jailed for a "risque" joke half a century after Lenny Bruce, and art studios employing nude models could be closed in West Virginia.  Since most people find their wankbait on the internet now, they're very worried about how to censor everyone's computer.   Readers who want the next Fifty Shades installment would have to show ID (the first sold 35 million copies) and could probably be arrested if one of the kids got hold of it.  

I don't know what they'd do about underage golf fans who saw Tiger Woods hand a tampon to Justin Thomas at the Genesis Invitational, evidently a jokey way of saying "You drive like a girl."  I don't understand golf humor.  

  

Probably a beheadable offense in Saudi Arabia, which the US resembles more every day.

Also just as well Raquel Welch is not starting her career in this atmosphere.  I didn't know she was once married to Leonard Nimoy's ugly brother.

Joe Biden had a physical and was pronounced "a healthy, vigorous eighty-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency" despite a possibly cancerous skin lesion, non-valvular atrial fibrillation, occasional symptoms of gastroesophogeal reflux and stiffening of the spine.  But is he "the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency"?  Are his "physical strength and stamina extraordinary"?  And what exactly did Harold Bornstein die from, in the busy month of January 2021?

"Trump's annual physical shows him beating Biden by 100 pounds."  (Andy Borowitz)

In at least one respect Nikki Haley is already in the big league:  Frankie Sullivan has demanded she stop using his song "Eye of the Tiger" in campaign events.  You're not a Republican until you've violated some songwriter's copyright and wishes, as far back as Reagan's tone-deaf appropriation of "Born in the USA."  Next:  Why Ukraine has always been part of Mother Russia.

Republicans are so busy protecting children's minds from Mrs. Doubtfire and books about Roberto Clemente that they forget their bodies are also at risk.  Packers Sanitation Services, Inc., of Wisconsin, definitely not affiliated with the Green Bay football team, was found by Labor Department investigators to be employing at least a hundred kids between 13 and 17 cleaning slaughterhouses at night.  In at least two states Republicans have introduced bills to lower the work age because so many jobs are unfilled.  Strategies such as paying adults more or hiring recent immigrants are considered impractical, i.e., expensive.  Besides, the children get invaluable experience.  FDR signed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 but, like Social Security, everything is up for grabs.  Including children's lives.

We thought child labor ended in the 1930s.  We also thought Nazism ended in the 1940s.  Silly us.

"

Just asking questions

 Is it my television or is Nikki Haley lightening her skin?

A truck overturned on I-10 near Tucson, spilling nitric acid and causing evacuations.  How long before this is Pete Buttigieg's fault?

A trans girl named Brianna Ghey was murdered in Cheshire, England, and two teenagers have been charged.  Will Ron DeSantis step up his game by making such killings legal, like driving your vehicle at demonstrators you don't like?

All states require drivers to carry insurance, and insurors have raised their premiums by nearly fourteen percent.  How long before this is Joe Biden's fault?

If all is well in East Palestine, Ohio, why are residents being told to drink bottled water?

Who is Jesse Kelly and why is it his business if Chelsea Handler or any other woman chooses not to have children?  Has he ever heard of nuns?

Why can't the RCAF shoot down its own balloons?

When some Newsmax nitwit asked, "Is President Biden woke?" why didn't Karine Jean-Pierre demand that he define it?  I would love to have heard that.  And why are Russian propaganda hacks granted White House credentials anyway?

You know the anagram of "Elon Musk" is "Lone Skum," right?

Half staff again

 Michael McRae learned of America's latest mass shooting -- eight people at Michigan State University, three of them fatalities -- when his street filled with police cars and he was ordered to come out with his hands up.  This is the way police break news to Black people.  His son Anthony McRae, 48, was suspected of carrying out the shootings before killing himself.  Far from being a co-conspirator, Michael McRae says he didn't allow guns in his house.  But Anthony seems to have fallen into angry depression since the death  of his mother two years ago.  And so, another shrine, another candlelight vigil, more funerals, more denial from the murder industry.  Another Tuesday in the land of the free.

No doubt about it, crime is A Problem, as it has been for every society since Babylon.  (Have you actually read Hammurabi's Code?  Blood-chilling.)  But Trump, as always has the answer:  Capital punishment.  To be precise, he wants firing squads and he wants them televised, which even the Fearsome Foursome (South Carolina, Utah, Oklahoma and Mississippi) don't do.  He's even musing about the guillotine which, though French in origin, was a big hit with the Third Reich.  Not everyone, just murderers, drug dealers and those "FAKE NEWS!" reporters who annoy him.

(That's Hammurabi, of course, not Trump.)

The executions would be televised as a "deterrent."  If you want to deter crime, show the final minutes (hours?) of some poor bastard strapped to a gurney and being bloodlessly poisoned to death by an actual medical doctor.  Recently the states have had to give up because the drugs didn't work.  This happens a lot in Oklahoma, "every square inch" of which Governor Kevin Stitt has claimed for Jesus.  Maybe he should give crucifixion a try.

But Trump is nothing if not a multitasker.  In addition to criminal justice reform he's also working up a slate of fresh insults for his coming campaign.  No longer "DeSanctimonious," which makes no sense and is hard to spell, DeSantis is now "Meatball Ron," because you want to kick off by insulting Italians.  This should work as well as suggesting that Chris Christie needs to lose weight.  

Tomorrow the Director of National Intelligence will brief John Bolton on the various balloons recently popped by the Air Force.  I have no idea why.  

Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Bonkers) has a splendid theory about why the first balloon was not shot down in Montana but allowed to drift off the coast of South Carolina.  Basically Biden is in the pay of the Chinese and it wouldn't have damaged anything because it was no bigger than the plane that crashed in Shanksville on 9/11 and everybody is lying!  She said this in Idaho because the Coeur d'Alene Republicans had trouble booking a local idiot on Super Bowl Sunday.

Astronomers in Hawaii say this is a Chinese satellite using green lasers to measure pollutants over the observatory on Mauna Kea.  Expect another round of shit-losing.

In the speculation bowl, Baby Tuckoo has already roared past the China stage and is sure aliens are balloon-invading us.  "At some point they're gonna demand to be taken to our leader.  And what are we gonna say then?  'This is Kamala Harris.  She once dated Montel Williams but now she runs our country because her boss is senile.'"  He didn't look senile when he was bitch-slapping the Klown Kaukus one week ago.  Kevin McCarthy, on the other hand, looked like a shop teacher brought out of retirement to substitute for Mrs. Pelosi.  And since when is dating Montel Williams disqualifying for high office?  Junior Trump's coke-bunny "fiancee" was married to Gavin Newsom until he woke up one day and caught her watching Fox News.

Nikki Haley is officially running for president.  Whoopee.

Have you claimed Jewish (or "Jew-ish") ancestry yet?  It's the new right-wing craze.  Anna Paulina Luna had some loopy story about being "raised as a Messianic Jew" by her Catholic father (think "Jews for Jesus," who were always pamphleting in New York in the 1970s), but her family says her grandfather actually fought for Germany in the late unpleasantness (1939-1945).  She's also a tiny bit Ashkenazy; according to those send-in-your-DNA companies, most of us are.  Meanwhile, antisemitic violence continues to escalate.

Here's the Congresswoman dressed for a community theater production of "Madchen in Uniform."

Oh, she's Hispanic, too.  And she can be Roma if necessary.

What's this?  Mississippi might elect a Democratic governor.  Of course he's Elvis's cousin Brandon Presley, but how much worse than Tate Reeve can anyone be?  Let's go Brandon!

  

Is it over?

 A football game of surpassing importance and a historic level of security was played yesterday and someone won.  Good for them.  But life goes on.

Marco Goeke has been suspended as director of the Hanover State Opera ballet company and is under police investigation.  He didn't care for Wiebke Huster's review of his In the Dutch Mountain with a company in The Hague, so he abused her verbally and then rubbed dog shit on her face.  Allegedly.  The shit was said to be freshly produced by Gustav, his dachshund, who accompanies him everywhere.  

Trump and his running dog Ronny "Candy Man" Jackson are still spitting nails because Rihanna went down so well at the Big Game Half Time Show.  Shouldn't they be celebrating the fact that a woman is working through her pregnancy?  Of course they were pre-outraged when the NFL invited Sheryl Lee Ralph to sing "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" after Chris Stapleton's "Star-Spangled Banner."  "Do football, not wokeness," screeched Lauren Boebert, horrified that some BLM terrorists had evaded the guards and painted "END RACISM" in the Eagles endzone.  Fortunately the Kansas City fans are still performing the "tomahawk chop" for the team that refuses to find a less racist name.

Elon Musk, who spent the game snuggling with Rupert Murdoch because no one else wants to be seen with him, plans to end Ukraine's use of Starlink satellite internet service.  Former astronaut Scott Kelly protested and Musk responded by essentially blaming Ukraine for trying to start World War III with its continued resistance to Russian aggression.  At the Paris Olympics he'll be sitting with Putin.

Wanted:  A new Architect of the Capitol.  Both parties agree with Joe Biden's decision to fire J. Brett Blanton after the inspector general reported "ethical and administrative violations."  Blanton evidently used government vehicles for private trips and pretended to be a law enforcement officer, pretty small beer for a Trump appointee.  More to the point, what did he know about the coup and when did he know it?  

Speaking of corruption, the Washington Post has a long article about how Trump and Jared Kushner have benefited from Saudi investment in their companies since helping Prince Mohammed bin Salman gain control of the Saudi Arabian government.  How is soliciting bribes from foreign governments not a crime?  George Stephanopoulos was curious, too.  James "Laptop" Comer had no good answer.

Another day, yet another "TOP SECRET" folder found under the pillow at Mar a Lago, and you're going to love the explanation from yet another Trump lawyer, Timothy Parlatore:  "He has one of those landline telephones next to his bed and it has a blue light on it and it keeps him up at night.  So he took the manila folder and put it over so it would keep the light down so he could sleep at night."  Clear?