Truth and no consequences

 Spit-take quote of the day:  "And friends of mine have said, you are the most honest person in the world."  Donald J. Trump, testifying under oath in the civil suit against the Trump Organization.  

In what even the New York Times calls "a series of meandering non sequiturs, political digressions and self-aggrandizing defenses" (is it really still so hard to write "lies"?) Trump told the court that he had nothing to do with the operations of the TO because he was too busy saving the world from nuclear holocaust by being alternately cuddly and stern with Kim Jong-un.  ("Don't get credit for it.  That's OK."  Modest, too.)  And who was hands-on every day as the Organization exaggerated its assets by over two billion dollars?  "My son Eric is much more involved with it than I am."  Tuck and roll, Eric, maybe the bus wheels will miss your head.

Luckily the rules are a lot stricter in criminal court, assuming his sub-Darrow attorneys are dumb enough to put him on the stand.  If he's asked about the toilet trove at Mar a Lago, we can expect the judge to strike a long peroration on the water pressure in the shower.

Or at least ask, "What were you thinking with that chandelier?"

But lying is becoming our national pastime.  Clarence Thomas finally handed in his late homework.  His financial disclosure for the past year lists three trips on Harlan Crow's private plane but says his security detail insisted on one of them to protect him from the mob of pro-choice women enraged by the Dobbs decision.  (Remember how they burned Cleveland to the ground?)  Samuel Alito, also tardy, at least didn't claim he had to hide out in an Alaska fishing camp.  He only grabbed that flight because of a little-known FAA requirement that every seat be filled.

Tucker Carlson continues to promote his story that Trump faces assassination, the logical outcome of so many indictments.  According to him, though not to polls, the orange guy's popularity increases with every fresh case, which means "official Washington" will have no choice but to kill him ("I mean, you know, graph it out, man!" he told Adam Carolla, probably concluding with that weird, whinnying laugh).  I'm starting to think Tuckoo really hates Trump, as he said in those inter-office texts.  After all, Trump cost him his beloved TV show and reduced him to Xitter.  There must be a long line of people who hate Trump -- disbarred lawyers, bankrupted investors, brutalized women, suckers who served time for his January 6 Putsch, sub-contractors and employees who never got paid, like a less glamorous Murder on the Orient Express.  Only instead of stabbing, they will testify against him.  Or, like most of us, vote against him.

Has Republican homophobia reached a crisis?  Today's Washington Post reveals the early life of George Santos in Brazil, when he (or should I say Kitara Ravache?) "shone" as the star of Niteroi's Pride Parade and performed in drag shows.  Now he stars on the "Don't say gay" circuit, having decided the Republican grift pays better.  Santos faces federal fraud charges and his future in Congress is doubtful.  Not so Tim Scott, the other South Carolina Senator, who qualified for the first presidential debate.  Big party donors are concerned about his seeming lack of a significant female other.  Scott told Axios in May that he has a girlfriend but he prefers to keep her identity private, and also that singleness gives him time, energy and "latitude" he would otherwise lack.  To be frank, Scott was never going to be the nominee anyway, but now his party can claim the reason isn't racism.

In other proof of not-racism, the Jacksonville shooter's manifesto has been released.  He calls for the murder of Eminem and Machine Gun Kelly and praises Anders Breivik, Timothy McVeigh and Seung-hui Cho (Virginia Tech 2007).  And he was a fan of Clarence Thomas, "the rare principled conservative, interprets laws based on the Constitution instead of doing f***y activist shit like the last half-century's worth of Supreme Court justices."  See?  Completely colorblind lunatic.  And this was before Eminem had to tell Vivek Ramaswamy to stop using "Lose Yourself," which left Iowa voters underwhelmed.  I know, Iowa, ground zero for hip-hop!  (I happen to know Meredith Willson was planning a hip-hop musical about Herbert Hoover when he died.  Lin-Manuel Miranda got there first with Hamilton.)

Speaking of Willson, Ramaswamy may want to learn the lyrics to "Trouble" now that the "glib, shallow, overbearing, smooth-talking biotech entrepreneur" has been compared to Professor Harold Hill by party elder Karl Rove in party publication the Wall Street Journal.  Only far worse, and devoid of the charm of Robert Preston.  Rove seems shaken by the possibility of this hustler becoming Trump's running mate.  I can't help it, I love these intergenerational smackdowns -- like Margie Greene declaring Mitch McConnell "not fit for office" along with Biden, Feinstein and Fetterman.  Tomorrow belongs to her!

YouTube -- is there anything it can't do?  It will carry Trump's Fulton County trial live.  With up to nineteen defendants, expect comparisons to the Nuremberg tribunal.

  

Where to begin?

 I'm sitting in the middle of a Category 1 hurricane which provided a metaphor for the DeSantis campaign by blowing a tree onto the governor's mansion in Tallahassee.  That's not even the weirdest thing to happen today.

How about radioactive wild boars (without friggin' lasers on their heads)?  The Daily Beast -- of course -- says they're running around southern Germany biting and butting people.  Researchers blame nuclear testing.  Not Chernobyl?

Mitch McConnell had another brain freeze when a reporter asked if he was running again in 2026.  It sounds like the correct answer is "no" but Republicans are never considered too old or too damaged.

Last July the former cardinal Theodore McCarrick was indicted for sexually molesting a sixteen-year-old boy in 1974, but a little more than a year later the judge has ruled that McCarrick, 93, cannot stand trial because of dementia.  It's obvious why Trump and other criminals try to delay as long as possible.

Speaking of Inmate P01135809 because we must, he continues to run amok inspiring chaos and violence in others.  Glenn Beck emerged from hiding for an interview and Trump assured him he will definitely "lock people up" if/when restored to power.  "You have no choice because they're doing it to us," he said, displaying his ignorance of the fine distinction between criminality and revenge.  Tucker Carlson has him half-convinced that "they" will assassinate him, so probably he'll have to kill them after he locks them up.  He already has a gushing endorsement from Hungarian fascist Viktor Orban, who told Carlson, "Trump is the man who can save the Western world and probably the human beings in the globe as well."  

Georgia state senator Colton Moore (R-Lobotomy) doesn't want to have to draw his rifle, but that's exactly what he'll do if he can't get the legislature to "defund" the office of the Fulton County district attorney.  'Cause there'll be civil war, with "our constituencies...fighting in the streets."  His colleague Clint Dixon (R-Inbred) wants an investigation of Fani Willis herself on the grounds of uppity-ness.  Sadly, they're getting no joy from their leadership, including the governor.  I guess civil war it is.  Can't wait to see how you "draw" a rifle.

More legal woes for Trump co-defendant Rudolph Giuliani (R-Delirium Tremens):  Since he failed to comply with discovery, Judge Beryl Howell ruled for the plaintiffs in their defamation suit and ordered him to pay $89,172.50 to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.  Don't rush that check to the bank, ladies, unless you want to guess how high it will bounce.  

Another Trump co-conspirator, John Eastman, used to clerk for Clarence Thomas and declares, "His integrity is unimpeachable."  As calls for Thomas's impeachment continue, he may need to seek a testimonial from someone not under criminal indictment.  Viktor Orban maybe.

Racist quote of the day:  "The mugshot has breathed new life into the Trump campaign and broadened his appeal with Black Americans."  A quiet hint, Jesse Watters:  In the Black community as in the white community, people who have mugshots taken are people who tend not to be voters.  But I admire your efforts to bring Fox's prime-time racism back to Tucker Carlson levels.  Halloween is coming -- have you considered doing your show in blackface?

Pandemonium

 

These four men were hunting an alligator in the Yazoo River in Mississippi.  This is what they brought back.  "It was pandemonium.  It was chaos," said one.  It was 14 feet three inches long and weighed 802.5 pounds.  It's dead.   

Meanwhile in Scotland, the Canadian research vessel Deepscan is using all the technological bells and whistles to locate the Loch Ness monster once and for all -- drones, scraping the bottom for DNA, the works.  Question:  How will they know if they strike Nessie DNA?  What is there to compare it with?

Speaking of monsters, Trump's Washington trial -- that's the one for election interference if you don't have your scorecard handy -- is scheduled to begin on March 4.  Naturally he's already, or still, blustering about "a biased, Trump Hating judge," the very thing Judge Tanya Chutkan told him to stop doing.

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher has died at 49.  The cause of death is given as pancreatic cancer, but we'll probably hear that he was murdered by George Soros.  Why not?  Everything else about him was as fake as Trump's weight.  As "Joe the Plumber" he tried to keep Barack Obama from being elected in 2008 by attacking his tax policies.  John McCain took him up eagerly, pledging, "Joe, I'll keep your taxes low."  Then it turned out he wasn't a licensed plumber and he owed $1,000 in back taxes.  Two years later he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Ohio.  Then he faded into obscurity, of no further value to the party that was always a tool of the American oligarchy.  

We all know Ron DeSantis hates schools, libraries, public health measures, Democratic district attorneys and Disney, but did you know about his war on historic buildings?  Last summer he ended the power of municipalities to preserve them and now the villa of Al Capone has been demolished by someone who paid $15 million for it.  (I smell Saudi money.)  I hope they let Geraldo Rivera check out the safe first.

I guess I have to start paying attention to Trump manifestations like the big Tucker Carlson sauna session last Wednesday.  According to Lee Papa (you may know him as the Rude Pundit), it's a hallucinatory experience.  Asked about Gavin Newsom, he began talking about how Kim Jong-un has "massive nuclear power" from which only Trump protected America.  Asked about South America, he launched into a long, confusing discussion of the Panama Canal, pronouncing it one of the nine wonders of the world, or possibly seven.  "In one day they lifted the fees, which are pretty big for these massive ships to go through rather than going around the cape and through all the tremendous storms.  Such beauty.  It's beautiful stuff but you didn't want to get caught in those storms.  Those were storms that wiped out the biggest ships."  "The election was rigged.  It was a rigged election.  And with Covid, they used Covid to cheat in a lot of different things.  We have so much on it.  It's like so easy.  But we had judges that didn't want to look.  We had people, didn't want to get involved."  Joe Biden?  "He can't walk through the sand.  You know, sand is not that easy to walk through.  But when he walks through it, he can't walk through the sand."  It's like listening to Lucky's monologue from Waiting for Godot.  

 

 

 

No red flags

 Sixty years ago today Martin Luther King, Jr., stood in front of a statue of Abraham Lincoln and said he hoped for a world free of racism, where his children would be judged by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin.  And of course yesterday a white man chose the eve of this anniversary to show that we have made no real progress.  Denied entrance to the historically Black Edward Waters University in Jacksonville, he drove to a store and murdered three Black people chosen at random, with an assault weapon and a handgun he had purchased legally.  (We are always assured of the legality of the purchase, as if it matters.)  At least one was decorated with a swastika.  

This being Florida, the governor pledged a million dollars for beefing up security at Edward Waters, although it seems as if their security is fine; it's Dollar Store that could use a SWAT team.  Yesterday he got an unfriendly reception at a prayer vigil from people who remember his efforts to make it easier to carry a concealed weapon with no permit; his administration's assault on AP African American studies; his suggestion that slavery was actually a sort of job training program; and because he's basically a creep, as audiences across the country have seen up close.  With his customary eloquence he described the killer as "a major-league scumbag" who didn't realize that Florida has no patience with racism.  Nobody laughed.  The county sheriff, T.K. Waters, said the killer, who wasn't born when King spoke, raised "no red flags" because he hadn't killed anyone before.  Sheriff Waters is a Black man.  That at least might have pleased King, if only as a symbol of change.

Jacksonville was preparing for a very different commemoration.  On August 27, 1960, a mob attacked students protesting segregation at a lunch counter.  At first police did nothing; then they joined in the assault.  Several Black people were arrested.  No whites were.  Axe Handle Saturday is not nationally celebrated like the March on Washington, but Jacksonville has not forgotten, and now there is another reason to remember.   

Of course the murderer left a manifesto, which he called "Diary of a Madman" because he couldn't be bothered with an original title.  Of course he killed himself, like his hero Hitler (I'm guessing from the swastika.)  His name doesn't matter.  His victims are Angela Michelle Carr, 52; A.J. Laguerre, 19; and Jerrald Gallion, 29.

 

  

Strawberry blond ambition

 

What the hell, Fulton County?  You don't get a profile shot (I've seen Raising Arizona, someone is supposed to say "Turn to the right"), you let the accused lie about his height and weight (6 feet 3 and 215 pounds sounds like a high school basketball player), did you even take prints?  How are we supposed to recognize this perp if we spot him trying to sneak through an airport like Ted Cruz headed for Cancun?  And "strawberry blond"?  

This is Miss Rita Hayworth in the title role of The Strawberry Blonde (1941).  I mean really.

Apparently we are headed for a civil war, according to former (temporary) Governor Sarah Palin.  It may have started.  Has anyone heard from Fort Sumter?  Sarah asked the troublemakers (via Newsmax), "What the heck?  Do you want us to be in civil war?...And Eric [Bolling], I like that you suggested that we need to get angry.  We do need to rise up and take our country back."

We need to get angry.  So the assaults on Michael Fanone, Brian Sicknick and other Capitol police had nothing to do with anger?  The death threats against Judge Chutkan, DAs Bragg and Willis, Attorney General James et al. were non-violent?  The mobs yelling at Speaker Bowers's house while his daughter was dying inside, just some peaceful Arizona citizens airing out the First Amendment?  That clown in Utah who wanted to kill Joe Biden?  That other clown who tried to storm the FBI office in Cincinnati?  The one Trump sent to the Obamas' house to look for "tunnels"?  How will we know when you people get "angry"?  Can we sign up for alerts?

It's not your country, nor was it even in 1790, when the very first Congress passed a law denying naturalization to non-white people.  In 1790 the real Americans still outnumbered the Europe-descended squatters by several million.  That would change, brutally, but it would never make this "your" country, because by then enslaved Africans and disenfranchised women and the first Asian immigrants would already be here.  It's our damn country, you silly entitled menopausal little girl.  Tell your allies.  

We're tired of you, your idiotic lies, your bottomless self-pity, your constant assaults on democracy, science and common sense.  We're tired of your semi-literate, pompous, ignorant orange cult leader and his gang who couldn't lie straight.  We laugh at your fake concerns, your unhinged exaggerations, your deranged projections and absurd threats of impeachment for anybody whose name you can pronounce.  We laugh as you lose and lose by duct-taping your so-called party to "woke" and anti-choice and climate change denial, by blaming Democrats for everything from Hawaiian wildfires to Prigozhin's plane crash.  You're funny and funny-looking and pathetic.  We're nauseated by your assault rifle pins and your contempt for grieving parents.  We're disgusted by your presence among us, but so far we've left you in peace.  

So far.

Get a sixth grader to tell you how the last civil war turned out, and then decide if you want to be burned out and stomped into the ground again.

 

    

An American tragedy 2023

 "Transgender Oath Keeper insurrectionist" is a phrase which has not featured in history so far.  Last May Jessica Watkins was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison for her part in the January 6 coup attempt, which went well beyond pooing in the Rotunda.  Watkins, an Army veteran, does not want to be sent to a men's prison and has appealed to three of the most transphobic members of Congress -- Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan -- for help.  As all insurrectionists are officially martyrs to the sacred cause of Trump, it will be interesting to see where they draw the hate line.  I hope she gets her wish, but I also wonder why she signed on with people who would kill her in a minute if they seized power.  

If these three do something decent in spite of their records, I assume they will be "primaried" by opponents even viler than themselves.  "Trans-lover Gaetz is probably one himself, or should I say herself?  Flies to Hollyweird to snack on aborted full-term fetuses with Soros and the other globalists!  Vote for me and save America!"  Oh, yes, there's always something worse.  

Of course I didn't watch the Big Debate but I hear it was...unsurprising.  Nikki Haley observed, "Trump is the most disliked politician in America.  We can't win a general election that way."  Then the contestants were asked if they would vote for him and all but Hutchinson took a knee.  Their strategy appears to be hoping he will fall into an open sewer and die.   

As of this writing he has not cooperated.  Trump is too preoccupied with staging his appearance at the Fulton County jail like a movie premiere out of Singin' in the Rain.  He fired Drew Findling and replaced him with Steve Sadow who, according to the New Republic, "has experience working on racketeering cases and defending reality television celebrities."  He sounds too good to be true.  

Of course, Trump is equally well matched with Tucker Carlson, another reject desperate for a return to relevance, so it was hardly surprising that they hooked up to siphon off viewers exhausted by the intellectual firepower in Milwaukee.  Richard Wolffe in the Guardian compared it to the worm frozen in Siberia 46,000 years ago and recently re-animated by scientists -- "a totally unnecessary and reckless exercise."  The two old pals ("I hate him passionately") agreed that television is dying, especially MSNBC, that Jeffrey Epstein probably killed himself and that rioters like Jessica Watkins were "peaceful and patriotic."  Baby Tuckoo tried to jolt the conversation awake by asking if Trump fears assassination by those he called "savage animals...sick, really sick," without success.  Carlson suggested that both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are senile and that Biden has "skinny legs" -- why would he have swollen legs? -- but he couldn't drag the "conversation" away from Trump's obsession with poll numbers.  They must be all he has left, as the fingerprinting and weighing loom.  Will his mug shot be as impressive as Giuliani's?

Where is the list of aliases?  Trump still won't pay what he owes, but failed gubernatorial candidate Andrew Giuliani persuaded him to show up at a fundraising dinner for Pop, providing it's held at Bedminster so he can overcharge for the food, and that anyone will pay $100,000 to watch Roodles cry and get progressively drunker and slobber into his pasta e fagioli.

It's 92F in Atlanta, but this gentleman is not deterred.  

He'll stand out there until the trial starts, which will be October if Fani Willis prevails.

Word salad chef Dan Bongino has been called the thinking man's Joe Rogin (no, he hasn't) and he has some advice for Trump:  Don't post bail, stay in jail.  That'll show "smartass tyrant little socialist communist" Fani Willis, because the Secret Service would invoke their "absolute federal authority supremacy clause" to shut down the whole entire total jail in honor of its most distinguished guest.  Then characters like Mr. Above would surround the place every day demanding something and then, you know, the Supreme Court would finally have to look at Mike Lindell's evidence.  9-0, Biden out!  This is even less likely than Margie Greene going to bat for a transgendered insurrectionist.  But funnier.

(The hate is so deep, the International Chess Federation will not allow transgender women to compete against cis women.  Chess.  I thought they had more sense than the swimmers and hurdlers.)

Tennessee -- need I say more?  All right, the legislature is holding a special session on gun reform and began by ejecting people silently holding signs in favor of it.  The officials get mad at printed material because they don't like to read.

Today is Independence Day in Ukraine.  May the next one be celebrated in peace and victory.

  

Coming to America

 Migrants at the southern border continues to represent an important distraction for the Party of No Ideas, with Ron DeSantis vowing to "shoot 'em stone cold dead" since the tough-guy act goes down well in Iowa.  Greg Abbott displayed his cojones by busing sixteen families (including a number of children) to Los Angeles last week as Tropical Storm Hilary pounded the area.  To be fair, Hilary was predicted to be a full-bore hurricane when the bus left Texas.  Better luck next time, Greg.  Have you looked into introducing piranhas to the Rio Grande?

Governor and probable richest man in North Dakota Greg Burgum famously "qualified" for the first Republican debate-o-rama by paying people to contribute to his campaign, but he may be a late scratch because of a basketball-related leg injury.  Apparently candidates must demonstrate their fitness for office by standing for two hours, Nikki Haley in high heels.  Burgum is your basic anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice Rightzi, but he has no position on mining or otherwise militarizing the border with Canada.  So far.

Judges who attract death threats may find it reassuring that they live in "the fast lane" where such things are commonplace.  So says Newsmax's Greg Kelly in urging Judge Tanya Chutkan to just get over it.  The FBI should instead investigate threats against Barron Trump.  Barron Trump?  He's done with high school so presumably the other kids have stopped stuffing him into his locker.  What is it now, atomic wedgies?  Are district attorneys like Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis also living the vidas locas of federal judges?  And precinct-level poll workers like Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman?  Judge Esther Salas, whose son was murdered by a man who came to her house looking for her, says you're full of shit, Greg.

All of the eighteen ne'er-do-wells indicted by the Fulton County grand jury were given two weeks to show up for booking at the jailhouse but Jeffrey Clark says he needs more time.  It's not the witches and their spirit animals this time, he just doesn't want to have to make "rushed travel arrangements" to Atlanta.  It costs a lot more to fly first-class at the last minute.  One word, Jeff:  AMTRAK.

In more aviation news, a plane presumed to be carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin of the Wagner Group has crashed north of Moscow with no survivors.  It may have been brought down by a missile.  Is Putin settling all family business?

Trump's spelling has abandoned him again as he plucks up the nerve to report to the Fulton County lockup to be put into the system:

Please take the phone away and give him a Zwieback, Ms. Harrington.

If you missed out on Fyre Festival 2017, where all the trust fund kiddies and "influencers" were rolled by experts on the Bahamian island of Exuma, there's good news -- another chance to be disappointed!  Billy McFarland is out of federal prison and he's doing it again.  Somewhere.  With some musical performers.  A nursing student named Victoria Medvedenko already has her ticket, proof that nursing pays better than I thought or that her daddy is a Russian oligarch.  She's relying on McFarland's desire not to go back to prison ("he's had a lot of time to think about it and prepare this time").  I'm reminded of the words attributed to Phineas T. Barnum about the birthrate of suckers, adjusted for the twenty-first century.

He'll fly away

 We can't treat him like any other criminal defendant in history because ELECTION INTERFERENCE, riots in the streets, free speech, unprecedented, logistical nightmare TRUMP-HATING PROSECUTOR DERANGED JACK SMITH...court orders don't apply to MEEEEEE!!

Trump may have given us a way out.  Two days ago, when DA Willis was granted a token bond request of $200,000 for his continued liberty, he let slip his real national preference:

"I assume, therefore, that she thought I was a 'flight' risk - I'd fly far away, maybe to Russia, Russia, Russia, share a gold domed suite with Vladimir, never to be seen or heard from again.  Would I be able to take my very 'understated' airplane with the gold TRUMP affixed for all to see.  Probably not, I'd be much better off flying commercial - I'm sure nobody would recognize me!"

Clearly a lot of "thought" went into this, though the style is ghostwriter Liz Harrington's (affixed?).  The gold domed suite suggests Coleridge's Kublai Khan, unless he's confusing it with the golden arches, source of most of his sustenance.  If his team has been in talks with Moscow, they may not have received a lot of encouragement -- a low-level ganef like Edward Snowden is one thing but Putin's not running a hostel for fugitives.  What value has Trump for him now?  Less than George W. Bush, who once looked into his eyes and "saw his soul."  Even the classified documents he stole are now out of date.  

  It's worth a try.  Trump Farce One is gassed up and ready to go, although the TRUMP is clearly not gold.

If he does decide to "fly commercial" I recommend Aeroflot.  (www.aeroflot.com)  There's just a tiny problem with the brakes.  Naturally it's Biden's fault.  

Euterpe, you got me

 

These are heady days for those of us with a humanistic education.  As previously noted, Ron "I never ate pudding with my hands" DeSantis has been tutored by one Brett O'Donnell, described as "William Shakespeare and Vince Lombardi rolled into one."  I was still trying to absorb that when I read that DeSantis called Trump's Congressional allies "listless vessels" because they adhere to one man instead of being "rooted in principle" like him.  That's pretty fancy for someone who has arranged for Bowdlerized Shakespeare only to be taught in Florida public schools (no "beast with two backs" or "country matters" lest the young be corrupted by thoughts of S-E-X).  Frankly I would have expected the governissimo to lean on the wisdom of Lombardi instead.  ("We didn't lose the game, we just ran out of time" will come in handy.)  

Republican "winged words" begins to look like a trend when you hear what Trump had to say on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, evidently a country music program on Fox Business:  "Putin would've never gotten into Ukraine, but that's just on my relationship with him.  My personality over his.  I was the apple of his eye and I would say, 'Don't ever do it.'  It was tough stuff there but he would have never done it."  Like Putin, Clay and Buck were too cowed to observe that when Russia occupied Crimea in 2014 there wasn't a murmur from Trump.  The apple of his eye?  Light of his life, fire of his loins?  Sorry, that's a different Vladimir.

When I heard that California's first tropical storm in 84 years was called Hilary I knew two things would be true:  We will hear about "devastation" at the homes of celebrities and Republicans will make jokes that would once have been called "sick."  Margie Greene checked in first with her Hilary/Hillary observation, but she was topped by Fox pundit Kennedy:  "The wrath of Tropical Storm Hilary.  Forty-two million desperate souls in the path of the storm, which made landfall in Mexico several hours ago.  But they let it right into the country because it's Biden's America."  (rimshot)  That's why she goes by one name, like Gallagher and Carrot-top.

Last week a couple of Federalist Society law professors, William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas, roiled the waters by positing that Trump's attempt to lead an insurrection disqualifies him from running for any public office under the Fourteenth Amendment.  (Trump once tried to repeal it by executive order because of the birthright citizenship clause and because he knows less about the Constitution than Biden's dogs.)  Now Asa Hutchinson has become the first participant in this week's Republican debate to agree with them out loud because he has nothing to lose -- most people think his first name is "Asia" or that he's a woman.  Or both.

If Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson gets elected to the top job -- and why not, he's a Republican? -- North Carolina will be in for a bumpy night four years.  He ticks all the usual nutty boxes -- climate change a hoax, David Hogg a "crisis actor," "New World Order" globalists -- and a few you don't see every day.  He's sure that Hillary Clinton, George Soros et al., mailed bombs to themselves in 2018 and poor Cesar Sayoc got the blame; that the music industry is run by Satan and the Illuminati (he has a special problem with Beyonce); and that Soros arranged for Boko Haram to kidnap Nigerian schoolgirls for some reason.  After that it gets weird.  Lizard people-fake moon landing-JFK assassination weird.  I blame Reagan and his repeal of mental health policy.

Also in fuckbonkers news, the Atlantic has an eye-opening article about Vivek Ramaswamy that makes Mr. Robinson look like Misterogers.  He's curious about 9/11 and "how many police, how many federal agents were on the planes," as if that signifies something profound.  As CEO, uh, president, he will abolish the FBI, CDC, ATF, IRS, you know, the usual suspects.  And sorry, Ukraine, you'll just have to give up some territory because he says so.  He's rich.  He knows stuff.

Lauri Carleton had nine children and owned a clothing store in Cedar Glen, California.  She was murdered for the crime of displaying a Pride flag in front of the store.  She was 66.

We already live in Ron DeSantis's America, even in the tranquil San Bernardino mountains.  I hope he's happy today.

Rudolph Giuliani has yet to surrender to Fulton County authorities but he says he has "scientific evidence" of 2020 election fraud which will exonerate him on all RICO charges.  (Really scientific or Pillow Mike scientific?  Algorithms and Chinese satellites?)  I hope it's more scientific than Sherri Tenpenny's claim that covid vaccine makes people magnetic.  Ohio has suspended her medical license.  Rejecting real science for the eye-of-newt variety is a Republican requirement now.

At a zoo in Tennessee (where else?) the world's only spotless giraffe has been born, a sure sign of the eschaton.  Pass me a snake.

  

 

 

  

  

A thousand words

 In a notable display of Protestant showmanship, Pastor Greg Locke of Mount Juliet, Tennessee, smashed a Barbie Dreamhouse to illustrate his opposition to pornography.  He has also made two films about exorcism, which is one more than Willliam Friedkin.

Meet Toco.  Toco is a Japanese man who spends his life in a custom-made collie suit.

Ron DeSantis is ready to DEBATE! after sessions with prep coach Brett O'Donnell, described as "William Shakespeare and Vince Lombardi rolled into one."  Yes, but could either of them do this?

Flat-earther/daredevil "Mad Mike" Hughes crashed his steam-powered rocket in the California desert three years ago.  There is no video of the Russian rocket that plowed into the moon, but I like to think it looked like this.

Hold all calls, we have a winner.  If you were wondering which big-brain Republican would use Tropical Storm Hilary, currently inundating southern California, to make a funny about Hillary Clinton, here she is:

Before Cuervo tequila would sponsor the Republican debate they asked for a few changes...

Summertime blues. No cure.

 

CNN reports that Rudolph Giuliani came as a supplicant to Mar a Lago to ask for help in paying his legal bills.  He has put his apartment up for sale, he's facing multiple lawsuits, and even his pinkie ring has not been seen lately.  From the Don he got less encouragement than Bonasera the undertaker.  Probably should have come last November on the day of Tiffany's wedding.  I have only one wish and that's to see him among the "squeegee men" his administration once abused.  He wouldn't last a day as a tin rancher (the people who retrieve deposit containers from the trash and turn them in at supermarkets).

The New York Times obtained a memo to Ron DeSantis full of advice ahead of the first debate next week in Milwaukee.  He is instructed to attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times, state his "positive vision" 2-3 times (slitting throats, isn't it?), "hammer" Vivek Ramaswamy and defend Trump when Chris Christie attacks him.  Also, he needs to come up with a nickname for the biotech guy, like "Vivek the Fake."  MAGAts love nicknames.  It's as I suspected -- these "debates" are scripted like professional wrestling.  DeSantis is trailing Christie in New Hampshire and Ramaswamy is gaining on him everywhere.  He needs a cape and some smoke effects, not advice like "invoke a personal anecdote story."  Get emotional?  What, cry more?

This was viewed some 274,000 times on TwitterX but fewer than a hundred people entered.  A free trip to Milwaukee!  Go see a Brewers game!  Unlike DeSantis, they're in first place!  Oh please! 

When Trump is booked at the Fulton County Jail (the Rikers Island of the South) next week, he can expect no special treatment, no court officers weeping and calling him "sir."  This is the place where Lashawn Thompson died last fall in a cell filled with bedbugs, so Trump will feel at home.  The authorities have promised to photograph and fingerprint him and reveal his actual height and weight, so at least we can look forward to a reduction in the "fat pig" Christie jokes.   

On second thought, he should continue to fat-shame Christie.  It's not as if there are a lot of overweight Americans who vote.

We know Trump doesn't pay his lawyers -- he probably still owes money to Michael Cohen -- so he's sure as hell not paying for printer cartridges.  His legal team now demands more time to prepare for the DC insurrection trial (that's Judge Chutkan if you're keeping track) because they have received "roughly 11.5 million pages of evidence" in discovery and they haven't finished downloading it, much less reading it.  By way of illustration they state that it equals reading "the entirety of Tolstoy's War and Peace cover to cover, 78 times a day every day from now until jury selection."  (Yes, but how many Prousts is that?)  It may be the first use of the "there's too much evidence against our client" argument in a criminal proceeding.  Judge Chutkan will rule August 28 on Trump's demand that the trial start in 2026.  Of course, if Jack Smith had withheld even one page, they'd be demanding a Congressional investigation.

Perhaps Hunter Biden's legal team would like his trial, if any, to begin in 2028.  

With so many other racist, authoritarian, unpleasant candidates to choose from, it's hard to see why the Republican Party clings to Trump.  His latest expression of contempt is to counter-program their first debate next Wednesday by giving an interview to Tucker Carlson.  Carlson can tell Trump to his face, "I hate you passionately," but won't because he's a sniveling, two-faced coward who needs to get back on television as much as Trump needs ratings he can fling at Fox.  A party with no ideas except "Stop Woke!" and no plan for governance but "Impeach!" has to take what it can get.  

 

Another noble mind o'erthrown

 Yesterday Jeffrey Clark, former high-ranking official in the Trump Justice Department, responded on Twitter or X or whatever it is this morning to his indictment in Fulton County, Georgia:

"Today witches, spiritists, mediums, those with spirit animals, and Ukrainian NPCs resumed their attacks on me."

I had to look up NPC -- it means "non-player character," a metaphor to describe someone perceived as lacking independent thought.  Listen, I just do what Pyewacket tells me.  We never discuss Ukraine.

I've read it a few times and I'm still confused.  If Clark is a victim of a WITCH HUNT!! why are witches and "spiritists" attacking him?  Why "resumed"?  Has he suffered a head injury?  Can that be the basis for a defense in Georgia?  Is he just calling Fani Willis a witch?  If so, it's the least of her worries.

Mark Meadows offers another defense just as intriguing as prefrontal trauma:  When he facilitated Trump's calls to strongarm Georgia election officials and twisted some arms himself, he was acting in his official capacity as White House Chief of Staff and therefore should have his case removed to federal court where, he fondly hopes, his eventual conviction will be cancelled by Trump's eventual election.  There's actually a hearing scheduled about this.  Since Meadows faced no consequences for registering to vote from a trailer in North Carolina, he might feel lucky again.

Abigail Jo Shry of Alvin, Texas, was first out of the gate, leaving a voicemail calling Judge Tanya Chutkan a "stupid slave" and adding, "If Trump doesn't get elected in 2024 we are coming to kill you."  Shry seems to believe the judge has control over the electoral process.  She was arrested for transmitting a threat via interstate commerce -- these last few years have been quite a legal education -- and because she has done this kind of thing before.  Meanwhile the Trumpanzees have begun threatening the grand jurors who indicted Clark, Trump and the rest because their names appear in the indictment.  That is, if you consider this threatening:  "we're about ready to go Turner Diaries on these treasonous n----- fucks."  Some would say they're just exercising their right of free speech.  They seem very curious about the ethnic and religious backgrounds of the grand jurors and what political contributions they have made.  

In general, those who threaten don't act.  They're basement-dwelling cowards who hope the threat will be enough.  Criminals from Manson to McVeigh didn't call to say they were coming.  

Unsave the date:  Trump's legal advisers are begging him not to reveal his "Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia."  (I've read eighteenth century novels with shorter titles.)  They seem to have persuaded him that he can only harm himself, the one argument likely to get his attention.  Besides, he has another problem.  Fox News -- yes, in spite of everything he just can't quit them -- keeps using a photo he considers unflattering.  "Especially the big 'orange' one with my chin pulled way back.  They think they are getting away with something, they're not.  And then they want me to debate!  The coloring, distortions, everything are just so bad.  They must sit and look at 100 different shots, and then take the 10 absolute worst.  My staff has even complained about it..." and so on.  He thinks the right photo makes him look like a young Robert Redford.  Only Jon McNaughton has captured the Real Trump.

Even McNaughton can't make Melania look life-like.

Hot enough for you?

 I would bet good money that nobody is greeting casual acquaintances and fellow elevator passengers with that tired phrase.  Not in 2023, the year the climate change deniers said would never come, when people who fall down in Phoenix suffer third-degree burns from the asphalt and parts of Hawaii have literally burst into flames.  

August is not just hot but boring.  If it was split between July and September no one would notice.  I think I once read that everybody in France goes on vacation in August, or possibly that was the premise for a Jacques Tati movie.  Still, this one has had its compensations for those of us who refuse to leave our air-conditioned survival pods.  Right now I'm enjoying the police body-cam footage of Representative Doctor Ronny Jackson at the rodeo trying to "help" a young woman having a seizure and getting his drunken ass wrestled to the ground.  Thank you, Texas 13th.  If not for you, he might still be practicing medicine.

Has Trump adopted the vanishing Cockney practice of rhyming slang?  That's the suggestion after he Socialized, "They never went after those that Rigged the Election.  They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!"  His followers certainly agree, and "riggers" has joined "Let's Go Brandon" in their lexicon of playground abuse directed at Fani Willis, Letitia James and Alvin Bragg and subtly illustrated with images of gallows and nooses.  Suggestions that Jack Smith is a secret "globalist" have circulated for months.  When in doubt, pull out the racism.

It's not clear why Bradley Cooper decided he needed a prosthetic nose to play Leonard Bernstein (top) in the Netflix film Maestro but he may be regretting it now.  It's not exactly Alec Guinness as Fagin but it's jarring enough that people are calling it "Jewface."  The British actor Tracy-Ann Obermann wrote, "Bradley Cooper managed to play the ELEPHANT MAN without a single prosthetic then he should be able to manage to play a Jewish man without one."  Well, it's always been customary to play John Merrick onstage with the actor suggesting his deformity through posture and movement alone; film requires more in the way of realism, hence the hours of makeup applied to John Hurt.  That said, I think Cooper could have done without.  

"Trump of the tropics" indeed:  Authorities in Brazil are looking into some expensive luxury goods presented to Jair Bolsonaro during his presidency which can't be accounted for, including gifts from the generous governments of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.  Most seem to involve portable bling like watches, earrings, cufflinks and an Arabic rosary, the sort of thing you could absently slip into a pocket and forget to declare.  No classified documents so far.  The police investigation was called Luke Chapter 12, Verse 2.  You remember:  "There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known." 

In an unrelated story, the British Museum fired a staff member and imposed new security protocols after objects from the collection were discovered to be missing or damaged.  These included gold and gems from the 15th to 19th centuries.  Shiny things have an irresistible pull for some people.

Save the date:  Next Monday, August 21, Trump promises to hold a press conference and unveil his "irrefutable proof" of electoral fraud.   His long-ago lawyer Ty Cobb says this can only result in another count of obstruction, as it's "solely for the purpose of contaminating the jury pool."  The betting is that neither will happen -- Trump does not hold press conferences and invite possibly hostile questions, he talks to Sean Hannity.  Of course, he could surprise us with the information that Democrats set the Hawaii fires to destroy evidence of Barack Obama's fake birth certificate.  Anyway, I'm not making other plans.  Only nine more felony counts and Trump will score his "century," as they say in cricket.

With a straight face, as far as I can determine, Margie Greene says DA Fani Willis should stop wasting time on frivolous indictments for trying to destroy American democracy and instead concentrate on "going after murderers, rapists, car theft."  (Donald Trump has never been credibly accused of stealing a car.)  She has also been heard musing aloud about her future:  "I have a lot of things to think about.  Am I going to be a part of President Trump's Cabinet if he wins?  Is it possible that I'll be VP?"  And pass up a chance to star on The Real Housewives of Rome, Georgia?

We finally have Ted Cruz's reaction to the latest installment of Trump:  The Reckoning.  "I'm pissed," he told Sean Hannity.  Princeton and Harvard, take a bow.  

  

The hour of his judgment is come

 

Defendant No. 1 thought he could sidestep Judge Chutkan's warnings about intimidation and threats by letting others do the heavy lifting.  So he went to Iowa and stood next to Matt Gaetz while the Big Giant Head demanded "force" to bring about change in Gomorrah on the Potomac.  Then he went back to his Jersey putt-putt club and re-tweeted Stephen Miller demanding "congressional inquiry" into Jack Smith.

He proceeded to threaten the "failed" former lieutenant governor of Georgia in pure mobster-speak:  "I am reading reports that [he] will be testifying before the Fulton County Grand Jury.  He shouldn't.  I barely know him but he was, right from the beginning of this Witch Hunt, a nasty disaster for those looking into the Election Fraud that took place in Georgia.  He refused having a Special Session to find out what went on...and fought the TRUTH all the way.  A loser, he went to FNCNN."  

  Then he pre-intimidated "Phoney Fani Willis," who as of this hour has not unsealed the grand jury's indictment.  "We'll have to take a look at the order," he told a reporter about the judge's order of three days ago, the one his lawyer promised he would obey.  Mr. Universe here obeys nobody.

So far Judge Chutkan has ignored calls to "lock him up," perhaps because of the credible threat of violence from the Craig Robertson "Ghille suit" cosplayers.  She has a better idea:  Every time Defendant No. 1 violates her order to shut up, she can advance the trial date he is desperate to postpone, at least until after the Republican convention in July.  Right now it's January 2024.  Want to try for December?  Jack Smith, a/k/a The Government, is ready to proceed now.

Normally Defendant No. 1 only re-tweets those who stroke and fellate him -- today it was racist-Islamophobe-handcuff fetishist Laura Loomer.  He called her "very special" when she showed up at Bedminster to praise him some more and pose for some creepy pictures.  Now that Ivanka has made herself scarce, he may be grooming Loomer as First Daughter.  But for "highly partisan," "VERY BIASED & UNFAIR" Judge Chutkan, there was the unique honor of sharing her words IN ALL CAPS describing the MAGAts who have traipsed through her courtroom on their way to prison:  "The people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man, not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant...It's a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day."  Is it possible that his drug-addled, barely functioning brain heard that as praise?  It's more than possible.

 

Today in outrage

Twelve-year-old Tashawn Bernard was taking garbage to a dumpster behind his family's apartment complex in Lansing, Michigan, when a police officer approached him with an unholstered gun and handcuffed him.  Apparently he was dressed similarly to a suspect in some unspecified crime.  After talking to him the officer released him and he joined his father, who had come outside to see what was taking so long.  The family's lawyer says Tashawn is "traumatized" and no longer wants to go outside, but that's probably an excuse to avoid taking out the garbage.  Or seeing his friends.  Did I mention that he is twelve?

The Marion County Record, a small Kansas newspaper, was raided by police seeking the source of a leak about a local restaurant owner, Kari Newell, apparently from her vengeful ex-husband.  The leaker told the paper she was driving with a suspended license after a DUI arrest.  Newell says the intent was to cripple her business by getting her liquor license cancelled.  Judge Laura Viar authorized a search warrant and the town's police, all five of them, also raided the home of the publisher, where they seized a computer and a phone and photographed his bank records.  The raid so upset his 98-year-old mother that she collapsed and died yesterday.  

Ghent University in Belgium will offer a course in English literature that includes the work of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Swift -- Taylor Swift.  Is that outrageous?

If you think fascist Florida distorts history, that's nothing compared to Russia.  The official textbook for 17-year-olds calls Ukraine "a neo-Nazi state," Russia "a country of heroes," and blames the United States for the war ("special military operation").  Apparently someone expects it to go on for years.

The Ohio Clean Fund is a fake charity dreamed up by Isaiah Wartman, Michael Peppel and Luke Mahoney to raise money for the people affected by the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.  As part of a settlement with the Ohio attorney general, the three must pay $25,000 apiece in penalties and restitution.  Why is this scam different from other scams?  Because Wartman managed Marjorie Taylor Greene's 2020 campaign; before that he worked for Elise Stefanik.  Outrageous.  Not surprising.

"Ionia County is a farming county, and I know a lot of people in this county view children working, sometimes around dangerous machinery, as part of growing up," said Judge Ray Voet about a 17-year-old who lost a hand to a meat grinder at US Guys Processing in Saranac, Michigan.  He decided this warranted $1,143 for the young man and no punishment for the man who hired him.  By the way, other countries don't have elected judges.  Just saying.

Last year Marsha Blackburn, Lindsey Graham, Chuck Grassley and fellow cultists were clamoring for US Attorney David Weiss to be named special prosecutor in the investigation of one-man crime-wave Hunter Biden.  Now that Merrick Garland has given them their wish they're outraged at the "new way to whitewash the Biden family corruption."  Sorry, guys, but Ken Starr is dead.

This is the grave of Ivana Trump.  It's hard to work up much outrage.  She knew what she was getting into.

Pennies from heaven

 Is there a website where billionaires can find out what right-wing justices want, so they don't duplicate their "largesse"?  Houses, RVs, vacations, cash, whatever -- like a bridal registry but for corruption?  I've searched "grift.com" and "supremecourt.gov.gimme" without success.  Thanks to Pro Publica and others we know who the generosos are and what they got by way of a thank-you letter, so there should be a way to keep them from tripping over one another.  Nobody wants to end up with a yacht or Gulfstream and nowhere to send it.  The gift-wrapping is a bitch.

Are we still supposed to pretend that the "conservatives" are not for sale?  How is the New York Times both-sidering this?  Sure, Clarence Thomas got 38 luxury vacations from his close personal billionaire friends, but didn't Sonia Sotomayor once accept a ride from a bodega owner when her car broke down?  Did she mention that on her annual financial filing?  Why not?  Tell Gym Jordan to call an emergency meeting of the Judiciary Committee, I smell impeachment.

More than half the country trusts this Supreme Court as far as they can drop-kick it and Joe Biden has shown no enthusiasm for the remedy of adding four seats to equal the thirteen appellate courts they supervise, so contempt for the law will probably continue to fester.  Sam Alito laughs out loud at the suggestion that "ethics" should apply to the Supremes, then packs for another private-jet trip to some Alaskan fishing "camp."  Back in what Charlie Pierce calls "the first Gilded Age" there were justices equally corrupt, but that's not much comfort now.  The sleaze and the hypocrisy are so discouraging that I gave up and went in search of foreign mishugas.  Now I feel a little better.

Mary Simon is Inuk and is the first indigenous Canadian to be appointed governor general, the largely ceremonial office which represents the British crown.  She speaks English and Inuktitut, but that's not good enough for a group of Quebecers who want her removed for lack of French.  I don't know what the governor general does when not presenting the Governor General's Awards for literature and the performing arts, but surely she has time to sit down with a French tutor or one of these programs like Rosetta Stone.  Or Quebecers could stop being dicks about this Francophone stuff.  The whole world speaks English.  Join us.

Fernando Villavicencio was running for president of Ecuador when he was assassinated after a campaign rally in Quito.  He was running on an anti-crime platform and not everyone appreciated it.  Up here we usually settle for character assassination, despite what Craig Robertson had in mind for "the Marxist Joe Biden."

If you think Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis hate asylum-seekers, you haven't paid enough attention to the Sunak government.  After dumping them onto barges and threatening them with Rwanda, the new plan is to ship them off to Ascension Island, a desolate rock in the south Atlantic that makes the Falklands look like central Manchester.   Eight hundred miles from Napoleon's last address on St. Helena and 1,400 miles from Brazil, it has a 1942-vintage airstrip and is popular with sea turtles and the telecommunications industry.  I guess that will teach desperate people not to flee violence and hunger when the Tories are fighting a grim general election.

Tragically, what Labour has in mind is not a hell of a lot better.  They'll go only as far as reducing the UK's reliance on foreign workers, a result of Brexit that nobody anticipated, apparently.  The phrase "small boats," once shorthand for The Miracle of Dunkirk, now refers to dark people nobody wants.  Britain only needs doctors, computer programmers and the like, and not many of them are risking death on the high seas in a leaky ferry to escape from Syria or Tunisia.

All right, now I'm depressed again.  It doesn't help that Robbie Robertson died yesterday.

My book report: The career that might have been

 John Stangeland, Aline MacMahon:  Hollywood, the Blacklist, and the Birth of Method Acting, University of Kentucky Press, 2022

I read Martin Filler's enthusiastic review of this book in the New York Review of Books and knew I had to read it.  A fan of early 1930s movies, I could only remember seeing Aline MacMahon in two Warner Brothers classics, Five Star Final (her film debut as Edward G. Robinson's cynical secretary) and Golddiggers of 1933 where she plays Trixie Lorraine, out-of-work comedienne.  But she was far from just another WB contract player, as this book makes clear.  Born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, of largely Russian-Jewish ancestry, she was a Barnard graduate and an early student of the Stanislavski method under the tutelage of Richard Boleslavsky, with a considerable New York stage presence before Hollywood ever heard of her.  Given halfway-decent material, her acting always drew praise from critics but she never became a movie star.  Partly it was her un-glamorous looks, partly a lack of commitment to the movies. 

MacMahon's contract with Warner Brothers stipulated that she would spend half of every year at home in New York, to work in the theater but perhaps more importantly to be with her husband Clarence Stein, architect, city planner and (though the author barely mentions it) a brother of Gertrude Stein.  Stangeland's book draws heavily on the letters they exchanged every day, beginning in the era when the trip from Los Angeles to New York took several days by train.  The movie money was generous enough to support their comfortable life through the worst of the Depression (when MacMahon insisted on payment in gold, anticipating the collapse of all banking) and the periods when stage work was scarce.  She was fond of Guy Kibbee but bored with the minor comedies they appeared in and longed for the stimulation of serious drama.  It didn't help that the publicity department had no clue about how to put her over, with her serious ideas and unconventional beauty (she was photographed by Cecil Beaton and sculpted by Isamu Noguchi).

Then there was her political stance somewhere to the left of liberal.  She never joined the Communist Party but associated with many organizations which turned out to be fronts.  Like many Americans in the interwar years she naively believed in the ideals of the Soviet Union, which led to subsequent blacklisting during the heyday of HUAC.  To make matters worse, Clarence Stein suffered recurring bouts of bipolarism, in and out of institutions and subjected to electroconvulsive therapy.  He died in 1975, by which time he also suffered from Alzheimer's.  The Steins had no children.  Aline MacMahon used her estate to establish the Clarence Stein Institute for Architecture with Cornell University.

There was fulfilling work at the end of her life, such as playing the Nurse to Judith Anderson's Medea in Jose Quintero's production, repeated for television in 1959.  She finally played the classics with the first Lincoln Center repertory company.  She was offered a recurring role on All in the Family, as Archie Bunker's foil, but it didn't interest her and seems to have been reworked for Beatrice Arthur.  

This is probably the only biography of Aline MacMahon we will have, and I wish it were better.  The writing, described by the reviewer as "graceful," could better be described as "serviceable."  Evidently nobody proofreads manuscripts anymore, even at university presses on books that sell for forty dollars.  People share a yoke, not a yolk.  Coriolanus's mother is Volumnia, not Volumina.  As for the punctuation, well, it's a disappearing art.  I see Mr. Stangeland has also written a life of Warren William.  Maybe I'll borrow it from the library.