Grave robbing for beginners

 In law you cannot libel the dead, but in Congress you can lie about them.  That was the takeaway from last week's "Stop Censoring Poor Robert Kennedy, Hasn't He Suffered Enough?" meeting of Jim Jordan's Mad Tea Party.  Temporarily stepping away from the unconscionable suppression of a private citizen's computer, the Hatter bolstered his star witness by pulling out one of Junior's unfounded accusations from 2021, that Hank Aaron died as a result of the covid vaccine.  The Aaron family denied this at the time, but you may recall that everyone who died over a period of months was claimed as a vaccine victim by Kennedy and his fellow crackpots.  "Just pointing out facts," said the Mad Hatter, the standard rightwing locution for "repeating a lie that other liars believe." 

The Lying Disease, for which there is no vaccine, soon spread to the Senate Judiciary Committee.  "Yeah, well, what about...?" is the most popular defense of the indefensible.  Confronted with stolen classified documents, Trump invariably cites docs found in the possession of Joe Biden and Mike Pence, sometimes slipping in the perpetual insinuation about Hillary Clinton's notorious emails.  Jared Kushner's sleazy deal with the Saudis is immediately countered with "Hunter Biden!  Burisma!"  Last week Utah life-form Mike Lee decided it was time to justify the breathtaking corruption of Clarence Thomas by slandering Ruth Bader Ginsburg:  "Some very serious allegations...I've recently become aware of.  The fact [the allegations are now a fact] that she received a one million dollar reward [sic] that went unreported.  I am still reserving assessment as to exactly what to make of that."  Thanks for the exquisite fairness, Senator.  

Lee is apparently referring to the Berggruen Prize, which she received in 2019 and donated to charity.  It was in the New York Times, though the Deseret News may have missed it.  Hinting that it was a bribe is a disservice to the late Justice, the Berggruen Institute and everybody's intelligence.  

If Mike Lee were not an ignorant fool he might have cited the case of Justice Abe Fortas, appointed to the Court by Lyndon Johnson in 1965.  In 1969 he accepted a $20,000 retainer from the family foundation of a friend, financier Louis Wolfson, which was to be an annuity paid to Fortas (and later his widow) for the rest of his life.  Shortly thereafter he returned the money to avoid any suggestion of impropriety.  But the damage was done and his enemies pounced.  Fortas had to resign in 1969.  His real crime was being a Jew and a liberal, and Nixon hated both.  In fact, you could say he weaponized the Justice Department to bring him down.

Tony Bennett died this week, and if even one Republiclown tries to claim him I will become wrathful.  Testimonies from various bloggers have cited his friendship with a Black soldier during World War II and how it cost him a corporal's stripe and led to his re-assignment to Graves Registration, the outfit tasked with disinterring and identifying corpses.  Many celebrities took part in the 1963 March on Washington -- Bennett marched with Martin Luther King from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, a far more dangerous undertaking.  (He was driven to the airport by Viola Liuzzo, who was subsequently murdered by the Klan.)  So keep his name out of your mouths, MAGAts, 'kay?