Strange things are happening

 

Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) was indicted again, together with his wife Nadine and others, in a corruption scandal involving cash, a nice car, a "job" for Nadine and gold bars.  That's old school.  Clarence Thomas has to attend Koch events and even make speeches for swag like that.  Menendez faced similar charges in 2017 but was acquitted.  If there is a Hunter Biden connection, or even if there isn't, we'll hear about it in good time.

As it does for all men, death did not come for Rupert Murdoch, but you'd be forgiven for thinking it had.  The Lizard of Oz has received so much praise for growing rich by undermining democratic institutions and employing shitstains like Hannity, O'Reilly and Carlson, the MSM seems to think we should weep at the end of an era.  

By astonishing coincidence Michael Wolff has a gossipy book out next week called The Fall:  The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty, which seems overly optimistic.  (Lachlan lives and reigns;   Gutfeld! is master of the revels still.)  Suspicious, I checked to see if Henry Holt & Company is a Murdoch satellite, and it seems to be part of a German conglomerate called Holtzbrinck.  Sometimes synchronism is just synchronism.  Anyway, it contains this quote from Tucker Carlson:  "I am not antisemitic and I am not anti-Black; that's a complete misunderstanding of what I am.  I am anti-Catholic."  He hid it so well all these years.  Along with Freemason panic, anti-popery is the bedrock of American hates, dating to the early 19th century.  Maybe he's just anti-modernity, which would give him common ground with patrician papist William Buckley.  If you go back far enough, there's a place we can all hold hands and sing -- 

  

No!  I am not touching that hand, or the one he appears to have slipped a ring onto.  I won't.

(Say...could that be why Tuckoo hates Biden even more than he hated Obama?)

There's still no budget or even a continuing resolution, and the Kongressional Klown Kaucus have been sent home for the weekend because Kevin McCarthy is very bad at his job, which he may not have much longer.  A "motion to vacate" was left in the men's room (what better place?) and speculation about a successor continues to spread.  (Is that mold on the skirting board?) 

Speaker Gaetz?  Speaker Jordan?  Second-termer Margie Greene is setting her sights a little higher.  She thinks she is already president and has drafted a "Declaration of War against the Mexican cartels."  That's nice, dear, why don't you relax and get your boyfriend to take you out?  Maybe a musical.

Meanwhile the real President just keeps working away.  Today he announced the creation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, to be overseen by the Vice-President.  Yesterday they launched the American Climate Corps, an updated version of 1933's Civilian Conservation Corps with an emphasis on climate change.  (Keep comparing him to FDR, idiots, and see what you get next.  How about a New Federal Theater Project?)  The White House has instructed federal agencies to brace for a shutdown if the weaklings in the House obey Trump's yelps for the government to go dark.  (Law enforcement would go on, including his prosecutions.  Someone should tell him.)  Biden addressed the UN this week and nobody laughed, another nice change since Trump.  But he's so old...

And in "Heidi and I" news, Ted Cruz has opinions.  "Heidi and I are incredibly heated over Joe Biden's rising gas prices."  (Hey, get a room.)  "In August of 2024 the Democrat kingmakers jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama.  I view this as a very serious danger."  Mrs. Obama would agree -- she didn't even want her husband to run for president.  Or did you mean a danger to Trump?  Or to America, which would never survive having two Black women at the head of the executive branch?  Especially if the Speaker of the House is --- Hakeem Jeffries!

Oh, the humanity.  Heidi and you should emigrate now.

  

  

Nasty women and others

 People have been all over Kristen Welker's inability to act as anything but Trump's stenographer during the outrageous "interview" that inaugurated her Meet the Press tenure (more like Press His Meat, am I right?), but maybe she was under orders to get something on video that could fill up an hour without him ripping off the mic and waddling away.  Don't forget what she was up against.

Megyn Kelly sat down with the twice-impeached loser on Sirius XM and brought up his possession of the Bathroom Papers.  Or as he interpreted it, "Boy, she became nastier all of a sudden.  She was pretty nasty, didn't you think, anyone that watched it."  And Kelly is white, emphatically so, even with "blood coming out of her wherever."  She thinks she asked "tough questions."  

As if freed from an evil spell by the retirement of Rupert Murdoch, the Wall Street Journal demands to know why Trump is "afraid" to debate the other losers.  "Is he worried he'd look his age at 77 next to younger candidates?"  Before you throw your hat in the air, recall that the WSJ thinks almost anyone has a better chance of defeating Joe Biden than the strawberry blond.  They went on to mock his murky anti-choice policy as well as his physical fitness ("[not] exactly in shape to set records at the YMCA senior triathlon"), which must have stung as Deranged Jack Smith is a triathlon competitor and not in the senior division.  "What is he afraid of?"

Even Charles Koch is desperately seeking a Trump alternative for 2024, for which he received the customary abuse on Ministry of Truth Social:  "Very stupid, awkward, and highly overrated Globalist Charles Koch of the Koch Network doesn't have a clue."  Maybe not, but he has eleventy-billion dollars and doesn't owe a dime to a Chinese bank.  Globalist?  Funny, he doesn't look Globalist.

According to Rolling Stone, what "your favorite president (me)" fears is the clink.  Trump is asking his lawyers if he'd be sent to a comfortable Club Fed establishment and whether he'd be forced to wear a jumpsuit that might clash with his orange skin.  One of his remaining lawyers, Alina Habba, says he's so confident that he isn't even preparing for the trial(s) because "You don't have to prep much when you've done nothing wrong."  Or when you're monstrously lazy and have the attention span of a sand gnat.

Ever hear of Victoria Spartz?  Nor I, but she represents some subsection of Indianaians in Congress and yesterday was her day to grab the spotlight.  She really stuck it to Merrick Garland by demanding to know why he didn't do a better job of policing the January 6th coup at which "families with strollers" were inconvenienced by smoke bombs.  Garland, a judge on the DC Court of Appeals at the time, was unaware that he was supposed to.  (It's an article of faith among Congressional insurrectionists that the coup was a peaceful tourist event that went south because Democrats prevented the National Guard from providing security, but they usually blame Nancy Pelosi.)  Also, he sent the FBI to her district to harass people in their homes.  Garland must have destroyed all the video of families with toddlers  because I've never seen any.  Perhaps only Spartz saw them.  Have you seen Tim Scott's girlfriend, by any chance?  Is she here now, Victoria?

Despite the best efforts of Tommy Tuberville and Vladdy Putin, the Senate confirmed Air Force General Charles Q. Brown, Jr., to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Chuck Schumer should cancel all recesses until the rest of the list has been worked through.  And no sneaking out to the cloakroom to watch football.  If General Brown's video statement on the murder of George Floyd is anything to go by, he's just as woke as Mark Milley.  Suck on it, racists.

  

A creeping sense of dread

 A lot of people felt apprehension on January 6, 2021, as the mob began to march on the Capitol.  According to her new book, however, Cassidy Hutchinson had more to fear than most:  "I find Rudy in the back of the tent...the corners of his mouth split into a Cheshire cat smile.  Waving a stack of documents, he moves towards me, like a wolf closing in on its prey..."  A bit of a mixed metaphor there, but she doesn't claim to be a professional writer.  "Rudy wraps one arm around my body, closing the space that was separating us.  I feel his stack of documents press into the small of my back.  I lower my eyes and watch his free hand reach for the hem of my blazer.  'By the way,' he says, 'I'm loving this leather jacket on you.'  His hand slips under my blazer, then my skirt.  I feel his frozen fingers trail up my thigh.  He tilts his chin up.  The whites of his eyes look jaundiced.  My eyes dart to John Eastman, who flashes a leering grin."  My god, a threesome?  

As present-tense first-person coup erotica goes, this is pretty good.  It's from Enough, Hutchinson's account of her disillusionment with the Trump court, in fine bookshops everywhere on September 26.    Besides the sex scenes she also explains that Trump's dislike of face masks during the height of covid stemmed from his reliance on orange makeup:  "The press would criticize him for not wearing a mask, not knowing that the depth of his vanity had caused him to reject masks -- and then millions of his fans followed suit."  What did Rudy do to her with his stack of documents? 

Literary sex of another kind is in the news from Texas, where a teacher was fired for exposing her eighth-graders to a graphic novelization of The Diary of Anne Frank.  That was roughly the age when I read the book and I don't remember any pornographic passages, but these days in places like Texas it's porn if it acknowledges that men and women are different.  Now jobless, the teacher is ordered by the Hamshire-Fannett school district to "communicate her apologies" to parents, bigots and anyone else whose corsets are a-twist; if I were she, I'd tell them to take a flying jump in the direction of Yucatan.  The problem seems to be that Anne was a normal adolescent living in a horrific time.  She did not obsess about Nazis every minute but thought about her body and its changes and whether she would ever fall in love and have a life.  If you can get past her shocking descriptions of her own breasts, it makes the Diary even more poignant.  Thousands of other girls met the same fate.

Fallout from the change in the Senate dress code continues, with the Republicans writing Chuck Schumer a heartrending letter begging him to think of "the sanctity" of the chamber.  You know, the one where Joe McCarthy ran amok and a dirt-dumb football coach currently sabotages the US military.  The man at the center of the hurricane, John Fetterman, is ready to compromise:  "If those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week."

No response yet from the jagoffs but they've been busy.  Gym Jordan's committee spent six hours demanding to know why Merrick Garland has not announced an execution date for Hunter Biden and why his prosecution is in the hands of Trump-appointed US Attorney David Weiss instead of Attila the Hun.  Also, Matt Gaetz had advice for the President -- quit treating Hunter as a son he loves and inviting him to state dinners and such.  Why can't he be more like Trump, who barely remembers the names of his sons?  Next week Jamie Comer and the Comettes will kick off their impeachment inquiry under the legal theory of Lewis Carroll (impeachment first, evidence second).  Would it not be excellent if they had to fund the government just to keep their bullshit alive? 

Is Alabama the most lawless place in the nation (and now I'm not talking about Coach Numbnuts)?  The Supreme Court -- yes, the one in Washington -- ordered them to create a second majority-Black Congressional district and they defied it.  They're using a condemned prisoner as a guinea pig to test an untried form of killing, nitrogen hypoxia.  Now they're going after musicians.  A high school band director in Birmingham was conducting the players after a football game and ignored orders from police to stop, whereupon he was tased and arrested before hundreds of traumatized students.  "They came for the musicians and I did not protest, for I was not a musician..."

  

  

Grabbing the hog

 Somewhere between the golden elevator and the golden toilet, I lost an important reflex -- the capacity to be surprised by Trump.  I can fake it but I can't make my knee joint respond to the rubber hammer anymore.  The avalanche of criminality, stupidity, avarice and moral insufficiency was too much.  An occasional whimper of outrage is all I can manage now.

Like most people I had never heard of Molly Michael.  When I hit the google she wasn't even the first Molly who came up on this, the noisiest day of her life (I'm guessing), although it says she's a "well-known media figure."  (Who isn't?)  It says she was Trump's executive assistant and I think I can guess why he hired her.

I'm not saying backrubs were part of her assignment, but I'm not saying they weren't.  Whatever she did -- McDonald's run, order Titleists, fire Fauci -- her instructions were apparently scrawled on the backs of some of those stolen classified documents that caused Jack Smith to become deranged.  Upon hearing that the FBI wanted to talk to Michael about this, Trump told her, "You don't know anything about the boxes."  She talked to them anyway.  I guess she's not his type anymore.

Like Jesus, Tim Ballard has been portrayed on film by Jim Caviezel.  Unlike Jesus, Ballard has been accused of sexually harassing colleagues at Operation Underground Railroad, an organization  supposedly dedicated to taking down child traffickers.  According to Vice he was forced out last June for skeevy behavior toward female employees during overseas trips.  The QAnon conspiracist was an adviser to the Trump administration, so draw your own conclusions.

No doubt Ballard will find at least one Democrat to blame for his sleaziness.  Lauren Boebert has.  She was shocked -- shocked -- to discover that her Beetlejuice date is a Democrat and owns a bar which hosted drag shows.  Like the talking serpent in that book he led her to destruction and has now been D-U-M-P-E-D.  Of course, she is still a punch line.  Not surprisingly, the best line came from John Fetterman:  "If I take up vaping and grabbing the hog during a live musical, they'll make me a folk hero."  You already are, Senator.

Five Americans have returned from captivity in Iran in a complicated four-country deal.  Qatar brokered the arrangement which saw the five exchanged for five Iranians held in the US, while $6 billion in Iranian funds was unfrozen by South Korea with restrictions (humanitarian uses only).  Three of the Iranians decided not to go home.  Already the Republicans are complaining that this diplomatic triumph will only encourage Iran to take more hostages.  And what about the Americans in Russia, huh?

Another thing that will piss off the party of decorum and good taste was Volodymyr Zelenskiy's speech to the UN General Assembly today.  Not only did he accuse their favorite dictator of genocide for abducting thousands of Ukrainian children, as the Nazis once stole "Aryan-looking" Polish children and gave them to Germans to raise.  (Most never found their birth parents again.)  He did it without a suit and a tie.  How is this guy even a president?  

Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day but perhaps it would better be called Talk Like Robert Newton Day.  The actor's portrayal of Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1950) is primarily responsible for the impression that all pirates spoke in the accent of the west country (he was born in Dorset).  Actually they sounded more like Michael Caine.  I don't know, I'm guessing.  Anyway, let's see what's going on across the sea.

Keir Starmer is not prime minister yet but he seems to be talking to the leaders of Germany and France about the UK rejoining the European Union as an "associate member."  Nobody knows what that means as it has never happened before.  But even a senior Tory like Lord Heseltine says it needs to be studied.

SUNAK TO BIRMINGHAM:  DROP DEAD has not yet been a tabloid headline but it could be.  The city is bankrupt and may have to sell off assets including the Central Library and the airport.  Who buys an airport?  Please, not Richard Branson.  He had enough trouble running a railroad.

The Brits love their dogs, not wisely but maybe too well.  Three people have been diagnosed with brucella canis, a disease which causes lameness and infertility in dogs and can cause septicemia and meningitis in humans.  This may be of interest to the doing-my-own-research folks who refuse to have their dogs vaccinated because they think it will make them autistic.  (Not really.)

Russell Brand is a sleazebag.  Listen if you care, and there's no reason you should.  He's getting support from lots of other sleazebags but YouTube has de-monetized his channel.  (YT is severe about rape, maybe overly so.  I recently watched a doc about World War II and they bleeped the title of Iris Chang's book The Rape of Nanking.)

Not British but too bizarre to omit:  Kais Saied, the president of Tunisia, was talking about Storm Daniel, which caused catastrophic flooding in Libya:  "Didn't anyone wonder why the name Daniel was chosen?  Because the Zionist movement has infiltrated minds and thinking, we've fallen into a cognitive coma."  Yes, they control the weather with their space lasers.

Happy new year to disloyal liberal Jews

 At this point it's not news that Trump is an antisemite who adores Israel.  They named a rest stop or something after him because he moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, making him the best friend Israel has ever had.  American Jews who are skeptical of his motives or indifferent to Israel, or even critical of its increasingly right-wing government, they're the problem.  So he found a screed from something called JEXIT, whose mission is to lead Jews away from the Democratic Party and into the arms of those "very fine people" who marched in Charlottesville, and shared it with his basement-dwellers on Ministry of Truth Social.  The only holidays Trump doesn't trash are the ones he doesn't know about.  Over at Wonkette Liz Dye dissolves this toxic sludge better than I could.  

I'm not sure the classic terms of racism even apply to Trump.  He's just a praise whore.  He will share praise of himself even if it comes from Jews, or African Americans, or undocumented trans Muslims, because he is an empty sack that can never be filled.  His empty existence, devoid of love, ideas, hobbies, requires constant replenishment to fill the hole left by his inattentive parents.  Money, nursery food, the cheering of mobs, female bodies, he gobbles them and will never be satisfied.  And now he's our problem.  He wants a kingdom, and that won't fill him up either.  He won't shut up and go away no matter how many elections he loses.  We have to rely on the creaky machinery of the law.  But law relies heavily on precedent, and there is no precedent for imprisoning an ex-president, even Jefferson Davis.  Even good judges hesitate to treat this criminal like any other.  I don't know where it ends.

In his weirdly timely new book about Mitt Romney, McKay Coppins describes how Congressional Republicans said they wanted to support Trump's impeachment but feared for their lives and those of their families.  Romney himself says he spends $5,000 a week for private security (his life was saved on January 6 by the quick thinking of Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman).  Jack Smith has repeatedly asked Judge Tanya Chutkan to stop Trump from intimidating witnesses and polluting the DC jury pool, or as he calls it "TAKE AWAY MY FREE SPEECH."  So far, nobody with the power to do so has been willing to bell the cat.  But it's a golden age for bodyguards.  I'm sure Ken Buck has some.

Yesterday the President -- the real one, Kristen Welker -- was in Delaware as usual and a protester who appeared to be armed was spotted walking near his house carrying a sign festooned with the usual lies and talking points.  It's not clear if he was arrested -- reporters were busy following the Bidens to church and yelling intelligent questions like "Are you going to pardon Hunter?" outside the cemetery where members of his family are buried.

Kristen Welker is being credited in some quarters with Pulitzer-level journalism for inducing Trump to admit that he ignored the advice of his lawyers when they said the election was not stolen, undercutting his own legal defense.  Any junior high school reporter for the Weekly Intramural could have done the same just by smiling and calling him "Mr. President" and letting him babble.  Asked if he likes democracy -- a question you can't imagine any president even devoting time to -- he said, "I do.  I do.  But it has to be a democracy that's fair."  Did Welker ask what the hell he was talking about?  ("You mean a democracy where you win?")  I guess she forgot.  Chuck Todd's legacy is in good, well- manicured hands.  If he swerved to a discussion of the Panama Canal or windmill cancer, it didn't make the final edit.  When Monica Lewinsky performed this service for Bill Clinton, it got him impeached.  Remind me:  Did the Democrats then impeach George W. Bush to get even?

The dignity of the Congress is under siege, and certainly not because of Margie Greene's dick pics or John Kennedy's dramatic readings of sex acts.  No, it's the dress code.  Chuck Schumer announced a loosening of Senate requirements, and the Republicans consider it as outrageous as January 6 wasn't.  It's all so John Fetterman can come to the floor and vote in his signature hoodie and shorts.  No mention of Gym Jordan and his apparent ignorance of how to put on a jacket.  

And in other news of the stylish, Melania Trump has a new venture.  Having failed to interest buyers in her used hats, NFTs of her used hats or something to do with laptops for foster kids, she is peddling -- wait for it -- fooking Christmas ornaments.  A patriotic red, white and blue star and other must-haves in the $35-$45 range.  Notice that she's selling them on Xitter, not her husband's collapsing platform.

As he prepares to end his term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley had to tell Fareed Zakaria that "woke" is not the problem with the military.  Zacaria forgot to ask how he feels about having no immediate replacement thanks to the Kooky Koach from Alabama.  Maybe these TV "journalists" need someone to remind them of important questions so the rest of us won't have to scream at the television and frighten the dog.

It's Fashion Week in London and not only the clothes are ugly.  Models wearing them have been made up to simulate bruises, cuts and black eyes.  (I hope it's makeup.)  I wonder if this would "work" with male models.

Joshua Norton, a/k/a Emperor Norton I of the United States, was a beloved figure in 19th century San Francisco.  His response to business setbacks was to take on imperial trappings and promote patently absurd notions like building a bridge across the Golden Gate.  He was colorful and harmless, and thousands attended his funeral.  The same can't be said of Romana Didulo, Queen of Canada, etc., who got a frosty reception when she arrived in Kamsack, Saskatchewan, to make war on covid vaccines and those who administer them.  (What is it with the mentally unbalanced and vaccines?)  HRH threatened to "shoot to kill" anyone vaccinating a person under 19 and "clean up" Kamsack, where many First Nations people reside.  The Kamsack hospital had to put on extra security because her subjects are as screwy as MAGAts.  The queen has been proclaiming that mortgages and utility bills need not be paid (sounds like our Sovereign Citizens), resulting in people losing their lights and then their homes.  Read their Telegram posts if you dare.  Say it with me:  "Oh there's brain damage in the east, and brain damage in the west..."  

               

Into the weekend

 We've all enjoyed Trump's rage- and mis-spelling-filled tweets or whatever they're called this week.  Imagine what his text messages are like.  Jack Smith doesn't have to -- Xitter turned them over to him last month, at least thirty-two of the juiciest, probably of the Leader directing his troops on January 6.  He's still issuing orders, acknowledging to Megyn Kelly that he told the pathetic Kevin McCarthy to cobble together an impeachment of Joe Biden without the requisite House vote because "they did it to me."  

As Pathetic Kevin struggles to hold onto his job he can expect the support of the CrossFit Cracker, maybe.  "I'm not a member of the burn-it-all-down caucus anymore," Margie Greene told anyone who would listen.  As long as she gets everything she wants, she's all in for the Squeaker.  But will she vote to shut down the government if it interferes with the very serious impeachment?

Who will lead the impeachment?  Well, who could lead an impeachment based on revenge and sawdust better than a broken-down, disbarred, criminally indicted, bankrupt, flatulent drunk?  Yes, Rudolph Giuliani has volunteered (not really, he'd need to get paid) to display the prosecutorial skills he showed long ago while his drinking was under control.  

Florida has a new law which prohibits individuals displaying images on a building, structure or property without permission, clearly aimed at Rainbow flags and unflattering pictures of Ron DeSantis.  It's amusing that the first individual arrested under it is Jason Brown, for hanging swastikas and "other antisemitic images" on an overpass near Disney World in Orlando.  Brown claims to be a member of a local hate group called the Order of the Black Sun ("the cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter," said Samuel Spade).  State law enforcement was careful to praise the Governissimo for "working to rid this state of intimidation, vitriol and hate directed toward people of faith," which is a whole other level of funny-weird.

What have we learned about Lauren Boebert?  When she goes to the theater with her boyfriend she leaves her Sarah Palin glasses* at home and climbs into a dress two sizes too small.  Then she vapes, sings along, fondles her friend and gets thrown out at the request of people who paid for their tickets and want to enjoy the show.  The pregnant woman behind her objected to the vaping and Boebert called her "a sad and miserable person."  She's a grandmother!  And a Christian.  God told her to impeach Joe Biden.  Your lawmakers, America.  Thank you.

Today is the sixtieth anniversary of the bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church.  Remember Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Cynthia Dianne Wesley.

"We have to own even the darkest parts of our past, understand them, and vow never to repeat them."  (Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson)

*Non-prescription glasses which give the impression that the wearer can read.

  

"I am ready, Chuck"

 I never watch the Sunday morning "news" shows but I'm told they have a lot of influence among people who want to be well-informed without all the trouble of reading a newspaper.  Apparently the flagship is Meet the Press, running since 1947.  There was much rejoicing when Chuck "Both Sides" Todd quit last week, and people thought his replacement, Kristen Welker, would have to be an improvement.  People are often wrong.

Welker and NBC decided her debut this week should make a splash by featuring a pre-taped, carefully staged interview with none other than Donald Trump.  Such a scoop.  Rather than risk enraging the non-demented, completely competent Putsch-plotter, she will ask polite, anodyne questions and the network's army of "fact-checkers" will refute some of his lies afterward, on the website.  Evidently the ground rules were set by Trump, including Welker's trip to Bedminster like any other supplicant.  "I am ready, Chuck, and I just want to say I am so thankful and grateful to you...for entrusting me with this monumental, important role."  So don't expect "both sides."  Viewers will get only one.  Having begun as she presumably means to go on, Welker (or whoever tells her what to do) can score many more interviews with very important Republicans who don't like to be challenged by uppity women.  Or by Chuck Todd, who suddenly looks like I.F. Stone by comparison.

If Meet the Press still involves a panel of reporters -- as I said, I haven't seen it since Lawrence Spivak -- I nominate the anonymous guy who showed up at a press conference in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, yesterday.  The state police commander was talking about the hunt for a murderer named Cavalcante, who had escaped from prison and been re-captured after two breathlessly reported weeks.  He is quite short, and Jimmy Olson wanted to know, "Was there any concern he would team up with another small man to step inside of a trench coat, 'Little Rascals'-style?"  "No," said Lt. Col. George Bivens, probably thinking "You asshole."  I'm thinking, why isn't this guy reporting from the White House?

It looks like we won't have Romney to kick around anymore.  The junior senator from Utah with the Paul Mitchell-ad hair is disappointed:  "It's pretty clear that the party is inclined to a populist demagogue message," he said sadly, announcing that he won't run again next year.  Oh, Willard, so near and yet so not.  Can't you recognize full-on fascism when you see it?  Have you been standing up too close or back too far?  OK, enjoy retirement and don't tie the dog to the car roof, so long and best wishes from one of the 47 percent.

Investigative journalism?  Isn't that redundant?  No, it's not.  According to the Washington Post Ron DeSantis took "undisclosed" freebies from rich people in 2018, including hotels, eats, private jet travel and the inevitable round of golf at Augusta.  They even know the names of his sugar daddies, real estate developer Mori Hosseini and John Cwik.  Hosseini got $92 million in federal pandemic funding at the governor's discretion.  Believe it or not, Google lists several John Cwiks, so I can't tell which one bribed Puddin' Paws.  Let's act shocked.

I don't know the Italian for "coglioni in a vise" but thanks to Nancy Pelosi, I know the hand gesture.

The former Speaker was explaining the predicament of the present one to Anderson Cooper, who may have winced and crossed his legs a little.  If someone will reproduce this on a shirt, I'll take a dozen.

Hunter Biden got indicted, Joe Biden may be impeached by six o'clock, and Aaron Rodgers hurt his ankle.  Don't expect the network "news" to cover the earthquake in Morocco, the flooding in Libya or Ukraine's successful drone attack on Russia's air defense system in Crimea.  Up yours, Musk.

-30-

  

 

Pact of iron pyrite

 At this point only Trump continues to insist (and possibly even believe) that Vladimir Putin did not ratfuck the last two presidential elections on his behalf.  But like Hitler rescuing a deposed Mussolini from Italian partisans, Putin continues to stand by his man, once again praising the twice-impeached loser and proclaiming that his "persecution" shows "the rottenness of the American political system."  Talk, however, is cheap, and a ruble won't buy what it did in 2020.  What will the world's leading fascist do to help?  Campaign with Trump?  Oh, please.

Putin's remarks came after his return from their "summit," where he begged Kim for some of the artillery shells the USSR gave his father forty years ago.  Ordnance is not brandy -- it doesn't get better with age.  All Russian conscripts serving in the artillery should be aware of this.  Maybe let the Wagner Groupies risk life and limb.  They're getting paid more.  The two dictators, who resemble an evil Laurel and Hardy, had to meet at a remote "cosmodrome" 900 miles from Vladivostok because Putin, like Stalin before him, is afraid to fly.  There Kim got a tour of the space facility that built the rocket which crashed into the moon last month.  He probably wants one of his own.

In other Republican news, Lauren Boebert was thrown out of a performance of the musical Beetlejuice at the Buell Theater in Denver after she refused to stop vaping and singing.  She tried that "Do you know who I am?" stuff.  They did know and they evicted her anyway.  Don't take my word, enjoy:

"I am on the board!" she asserted.  Probably got in free.

Bobby Junior is not the only fake-populist Kennedy.  There's also Louisiana John, the Oxford graduate who pretends to be a character from Hee-Haw.  Impressed by the giant blow-up of Hunter Biden's penis which Margie Greene showed off to the Comer committee (none of that wordplay is meant to be nasty, I promise), Kennedy decided the ol' Congressional Record needed some descriptions of anal sex read into it and volunteered.  Just to show why books need bannin', you know, not because it reminded him of his days at Magdalen College, that's a damn lie.  Thank you, C-SPAN, America needed this.  The Clinton BJ impeachment was so long ago.

Speaking of impeachment, Squeaker McCarthy held out for several minutes before caving to Matt Gaetz's demand that he personally IMPEACH JOE BIDEN for high crimes so heinous that evidence of them evaporates when anyone tries to view it.  (Biden can control the weather!  It was on Facebook!)  The Squeaker thought he could sell shares in himself and what he blandly calls his "soul" to become head boy of the Angry Children's Caucus -- thank you, Charlie Pierce -- and never receive an IOU.  He is very stupid.

The lawsuits are coming from inside the corporation!  Fox News is being sued by two shareholders for costing them dividends by promoting Trump's lies about the 2020 election, to wit, the $787.5 million Fox has already paid to settle the Dominion Voting Machine defamation suit.  (Smartmatic is still warming up in the bullpen.)  The real head-scratcher is why New York City pension funds and the Oregon Public Employee Retirement Fund invested with the Murdochs to begin with.  

Sometimes a doctor is just a person who needed eight years to finish college, which brings us to Roger Marshall, a reminder that American doctors get rich enough to go into politics.  No socialistic "universal health care" for us, cash on the barrelhead!  In one of his infrequent interjections in the public discourse, Doc Marshall was critical of Joe Biden's remarks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, on the twenty-second anniversary of 9/11 (or "nine one one," as the doc calls it).  "I think a short fuel stop on the way home from a very unsuccessful, embarrassing trip abroad is not the way to celebrate nine one one," he complained on Fox Business.  It's not clear why he was embarrassed by the G20 meeting in New Delhi or the stopover in Hanoi to talk trade and maybe undercut the influence of China.  No doubt Trump would have done it better, especially the visit to the John McCain Memorial.  He could tell them how he likes Navy fliers who weren't captured, OK?  Shut up, Roger.  Go back to sleep.

  

Clown around, find out

 Politics has come a long, sad way from even last month's Republican "debate" (actually a modified version of "Family Feud").  Trump is trying to distract, and distract himself, from his legal problems by issuing lunatic challenges.  First he wanted to debate Megan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, in his role as self-appointed defender of the British royal family.  Now he wants a brain-off against two men even older than he is, Joe Biden and Rupert Murdoch.  His stupendous ability to memorize and regurgitate five words, and to remember them five years later, demonstrates that he is completely ready to Save America.  But just in case there is any doubt, he wants to cheat play golf with them, too.

Why Murdoch?  Because he owns the Wall Street Journal, which published a poll Trump didn't like.  (Polls and television ratings are the borders of his moral universe.)  Why golf?  Because it requires "mental toughness."  Do Murdoch and Biden even play golf?  Would he like to play Barack Obama on a neutral course, with an LPGA official keeping score?  Hey, anybody got Megan Markle's number?

The cerebral event will take place right after the big Musk-Zuckerberg match and just before the House expunges both his impeachments and builds him a replica of the Taj Mahal.  (The one in Acra, not his busted flush of a casino.)  If you have any doubts about Trump's mental functioning, I refer you to the campaign event that was sidetracked by a rant about water pressure in his shower.  And the deposition about the Trump Organization that meandered off into a description of his triumphs over Kim Jong-un.  And his evident belief that he is taller and fitter than the physical evidence proves.  Or just read this:

"In a phony and probably rigged Wall Street Journal poll, coming out of nowhere to softened [sic] the mental incompetence blow that is so obvious with Crooked Joe Biden, they ask about my age and mentality...Now that the Globalists at Fox News & the WSJ have failed to push their 3rd tier candidate to success, they do this.  Well, I hereby challenge..." blah blah blah.  By the way, he got booed at a football game in Iowa, so it's time to go on the offensive. 

Of course, there's a whole party of blithering idiots backing him up.  Ron Johnson went on Globalist Fox News to proclaim that in addition to the cancer attributed to them by Trump, windmills also kill whales.  Vivek Ramaswamy has joined the crowd piling on the Fourteenth Amendment, promising to deport the children of undocumented immigrants -- hell, the whole "family unit."  Based on a "legal theory" he recently pulled out of his ass while searching for his phone.  Tim Scott's search is over -- he reported to Fox News the existence of "a wonderful girlfriend" and that "God has blessed me with a smart, Christian woman."  Nice work, Christian Mingle!  Scott preaches abstinence before marriage, so at 57 he is the oldest virgin in the Senate.  Tommy Tuberville continues to hamstring the military but has found a defender in Nikki Haley, who says the Defense Department left him no option with its pro-choice policy.  (She didn't mention the poems on the carriers.)  I haven't even gotten to the House but I'm pretty sure "person, woman, man, camera, TV" would defeat them.  (Jordan is still working his way through Fani Willis's letter and has almost reached the ketchup-flinging stage.)  

If nobody wants to play golf or remember five words, there's always the spicy chip challenge.  You first, Donald.

 

Where are they now?

 Has anyone heard from Robert F. Kennedy the Younger?  The political media have a shiny new toy to distract them called Ramaswamy, and Cheryl Hines's husband is lost in the weeds.  After a search I found this today on Xitter:  "The DNC has rigged the process, just like the elites have rigged our economy..." and then something about how "unstoppable" he is.  You're the grandson of a millionaire ambassador, the son of a US attorney general and senator, the nephew of a president.  You never had to calculate how to live off a paycheck in your life.  But tell us about these elites blocking your path to victory.

Remember David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler?  No reason you should, as these undistinguished Trumpers were displaced from the Senate by Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff back in 2020.  But the special grand jury in Fulton County remembered, and recommended that they be indicted in the RICO case against Trump, et al., along with Boris Epshteyn, Michael Flynn, Lin Wood and -- wait for it -- Lindsey Graham.  District Attorney Willis decided not to follow the recommendation as there are only so many seats in the courtroom, and also it would unnecessarily complicate the state's case.  She can always mop them up afterward, unless they have fled the country.  Oh, please, flee the country!

The formidable Ms. Willis has also Had It with Gym Jordan's clumsy attempts to derail the prosecutions.  She sent him a nine-page letter telling him exactly where to get off and concluding with "Suggestions for Productive Activity by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee."  The research is deep and full of Supreme Court citations Rep. No Jacket Required will not understand.  The icy contempt is delicious. 

"Trump escalates false attacks on Biden as some Republicans push toward impeachment" says the headline in today's Washington Post.  The real story is that Trump has exhausted his limited vocabulary of abusive adjectives and begun to recycle.  Back in 2016 it was "Crooked Hillary" day after day, but the Worst Criminal in American History has decided, "There's never been anyone in the history of American politics so crooked or dishonest as Joe Biden."  In fact, he said out loud that he would "retire" the use of "crooked" when discussing Clinton, because repeating the same word like a five-year-old ("Deranged Jack Smith" "Low-IQ Maxine Waters") is his version of rhetorical point-scoring.   As with Clinton, no evidence of dishonesty is proffered -- the description is enough.  And he can't understand why those wonderful people in the House are dragging their feet on impeachment.  ("Right now, I'm not convinced that that evidence exists," said Rep. Ken Buck, RINO of Colorado.)  So, another campaign to make us proud to be the heirs of Lincoln and FDR.

Although he rarely gives interviews, Samuel Alito was twice interviewed for the Wall Street Journal by Washington attorney David B. Rivkin, Jr.  He doesn't see why he should recuse himself from a tax case where Rivkin will appear before the Supreme Court.  Rivkin co-wrote the articles "as a journalist, not an advocate," and besides, it's not as if he owns a deluxe fishing camp or a private plane.  And what if he did?  Ethics is in the eye of the beholder, especially on this Boss Tweed court.  Maybe he'll rule against Rivkin's client just to show how honest he is.  Maybe unicorns will fly out of my ears.

Part of the Court's problem is that they've apparently selected Brett "I Like Beer" Kavanaugh as their spokesman for ethics concerns.  Sexual assault and perjury will probably not be addressed.

Yesterday a court ruled that Texas must remove its Rio Grande barriers, but today a federal appeals court says they can stay.  The state says it needs to repel an "invasion" by immigrants.  Now that Mexico's Supreme Court has decriminalized abortion, however, it looks like they're needed to keep Texas women from escaping.

In the FIBA World Cup tournament, the US basketball team will not be in the finals.  Expect many sneering complaints about wokeness.

Laugh, damn it!

 

These folks were meditating during a yoga class in Chapel St. Leonards, Lincolnshire, when police burst in.  Someone saw them and reported that a mass killing had taken place.  Such is our world.

And such is our Senate:  The Secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force had to drive over to CNN and blast Tommy Tuberville for blocking hundreds of military promotions and "aiding communist and autocratic regimes."  Other senators have so far failed to drag this cretin into the cloakroom and feed him a knuckle sandwich because he makes so much sense:  "Secretary Del Toro, he needs to get wokeness out of our Navy.  We got people doing poems on aircraft carriers over a loudspeaker."  Sure we do, coach.  This has nothing to do with your anti-choice fanaticism.

It's not just the hair and makeup people at Fox News that Tucker Carlson misses -- he also needs a producer and maybe some researchers.  He's recycling a fifteen-year-old story about an ex-con who claims he had sex and smoked crack with Barack Obama in 1999.  Not even Hunter Biden.  And this is who he wants us to believe the classiest president in half a century hooked up with:

Of all the men who have fantasized about sex with Obama, this is the best he could do?

Speaking of fantasies, Trump is still convinced that Queen Elizabeth II was his biggest fan because she didn't speak her mind when he showed up late, and got in her way while they reviewed troops, and  brought his whole family to a state dinner as if the invitation said "plus five."  Not speaking her mind to nuisances was her superpower for seventy years.  Trump won't deign to debate any other contender for the Republican nomination, but he says he'd "love to debate" Meghan Markle.  "I didn't like the way she dealt with the queen...they treated her with great disrespect and I didn't like it."  He urged Hugh Hewitt to "set it up.  Let's go do something."  Anything to distract from the unpleasant news that his IT guy Yuscil Taveras has decided to cooperate with Jack Smith instead of going to prison for Trump like Peter Navarro, convicted of contempt of Congress.  The dominos are falling.  

The author of 2016's In Trump We Trust:  E Pluribus Awesome! is having second thoughts.  "Trump is done," declares Ann Coulter.  "After January 6 normal people...stopped paying attention to politics, it's just a drag."  "I haven't changed -- he has," she goes on, because he failed to destroy the government or lock up a single opponent, and only cares what "Manhattan elites" think about him.  As if the chump from Queens with the inferiority complex ever cared about anything else.  He called her "unbearably crazy."  She called him "a gigantic pussy."  Please, you're both right!  Hiss and make up.

 

 

Did ya hear the one about...

 Tucker Carlson continues to predict the Trump will be assassinated because there's just no other way for the Deep State/woke mob/Marxist fascists to slow his unstoppable return to power.  Apparently this was garbled in translation, because his other platform Russia Tonight is telling slack-jawed viewers that it's Carlson who should be afraid -- because he predicts war between the US and Russia.  Vladimir Solovyov suggests a car or plane accident (a little too close to Prigozhin, nyet?), or "he might eat something he shouldn't, maybe his heart will suddenly stop!"  He calls Baby Tuckoo "a dead man walking."  I like the sound of that, demented though it is.

You may feel you're a victim of dementia, or McConnell brain freeze, when you hear Roger Stone and Rudolph Giuliani turning their wrath on ever-Trumper Brian Kemp.  Stone is sure Kemp stole the 2018 election from Stacey Abrams, while Giuliani calls him "one of the biggest lawbreakers in Georgia history."  (You do know there were nearly five hundred lynchings in Georgia, don't you, Roodles?)  Kemp wouldn't help Brad Raffensperger "find" 11,780 votes for Trump, and he won't call a special session of the legislature to impede Fani Willis's prosecution of Trump, and that's all it takes to paint a MAGA target on him.  There's no pleasing everyone.

Vivek Ramaswamy is marching around New Hampshire demanding "truth!" about Hunter Biden, UFOs, the Lindbergh kidnapping, whatever.  And today Truth finally had enough.

Found guilty of sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, Trump has now been convicted of defaming her.  Keep an eye on Ministry of Truth Social if you want to know how soon he defames her again -- and probably Judge Lewis Kaplan, too.

We may have to revive our Dummy of the Day feature just for Margie Greene.  Get this:  "People are not affecting climate change.  You're going to tell me that back in the Ice Age, how much taxes did people pay, and how many changes did governments make to melt the ice?  The climate is going to continue to change."  Well, there was the discovery of how to make fire.  Y'all doin' that in the Georgia Fourteenth yet?

Do I care that James O'Keefe may have spent money rich bastards donated to Project Veritas to live the high life?  Instead of serious political work like buying the stolen diary of Ashley Biden?  Actually, I'm fine with that.  Party on, Keefe-meister!

The Republiclowns' notions about governance run to "hearings," proposals for procedures that don't exist (e.g. expunging impeachments), threats to impeach Biden for being a Democrat and fighting among themselves.  To the last they can now add arguing about Mitch McConnell's health and fitness.  Rand Paul, the ophthalmologist who board-certified himself, says the Senate doctor, Brian Monahan (a gerontologist, I assume), was wrong to say McConnell is fine, just a little dehydrated.  There are several other doctors in the Senate and I suppose they'll be coming forward with opinions based on talking to him in the corridor for a minute.  Remember when Bill Frist declared Terri Schiavo just fine based on a videotape?  It's like that.  

A study in August's Journal of the American Geriatrics Society reports that regular, moderate internet usage may have a beneficial effect in preventing dementia.  As a blogger of 72, I can confirm that this is perfectly cumulonimbus.

And in sports...the Mexico City Marathon disqualified 11,000 runners for taking shortcuts, using cars and bicycles, etc.  How many people were entered in this thing?

Human folly

 

If you search "Life Imitates 'The Simpsons' you will find a variety of examples.  We may have another:  Harris Wolobah of Worcester, Massachusetts, may have died as a result of eating a spicy tortilla chip.  The fourteen-year-old was taking part in some Tik-Tok "challenge" idiocy when he collapsed at school.  I'm reminded of a chili contest where Homer Simpson eats a pepper "grown by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum" and soon hallucinates about a talking coyote who sounds like Johnny Cash.  That was funny.  This is awful.  There is a GoFundMe should you wish to assist his family.

Covid lockdowns are over (for now) and the gender reveal party is back in all its extravagant stupidity.  Shortly after emitting pink smoke over San Pedro, Mexico, a small plane crashed into a field, killing the pilot.  But at least everyone knows it's a muchacha.

Sports heckling takes many forms, from the basic "REGGIE SUCKS!" that once echoed through Fenway Park when the Yankees came to Boston to the anthem of the UK-Germany football rivalry, "Two World Wars and One World Cup."  The U.S. Open raised the stakes (in keeping with a game that still insists players wear white), when a spectator was ejected for singing "Deutschland uber alles" at Alexander Zverev, who considers it "the anthem of Hitler."  His feelings were hurt and he complained to the ref, but he won his match anyway.  It would be a shame if he was greeted with the "Horst Wessel-Lied" when he plays Carlos Alcaraz.  A real shame.

I can't even get a handle on what's happening in Spain after Luis Rubiales, the head of the Spanish Football Federation, kissed player Jenni Hermoso and grabbed his crotch by way of celebrating the women's World Cup victory over England.  Rubiales expressed remorse for the uninvited kiss but lost his job anyway, as did coach Jorge Vilda, who had supported him.  Rubiales's mother is on a hunger strike to protest her son's treatment.  This has preoccupied the country for two weeks and could still bring down the government.   It's probably better to obsess about football than to declare war, but only a little.

Xitter is losing ad revenue and Elon Musk knows why:  the Anti-Defamation League is driving advertisers away by accusing him of being antisemitic.  To prove his commitment to free speech, including the antisemitic kind, he says he will sue them ("Oh, the irony!").  Alleging the undue influence that Jews have on media should bring those advertisers running back.  Jump into this M.C. Escher drawing at any point.

Did you know that "wokism, communism, whatever you want to call it" is a bigger threat than World War II or 9/11?  Then you haven't been listening to California Republican Scott Baugh and fair play to you.  Evidently being aware of historical wrongs and sensitive to the concerns of others constitute "a threat to religious freedom."  He should do splendidly in his quest for Katie Porter's House seat.  

Back in the days of radio, which was TV without pictures, Jack Benny and Fred Allen had a long-running "feud" which helped both comedians remain high in the ratings.  The technique worked so well, it's been adopted by third-rate politicians of our own time.  If you haven't read anything recently about how much Margie Greene and Lauren Boebert hate each other, it's probably because the Crossfit Cracker has taken on a new feud partner:  Kari Lake.  Lake, Empress of the Southwest and candidate for the Senate from Arizona, wants to be Trump's running mate and Marge isn't having it.  A Trump courtier has described their rivalry as a "death race," which is fine with me.  "Hunger games" would also do nicely.  Defendant No. 1 is apparently delighted to have two women fighting over him, although some have told Rolling Stone that Trump is "not stupid enough" to pick either one.  People have gone broke underestimating his stupidity.

And in "How's that two-week special operation going, Mr. Putin?" news, authorities in Cuba say they have broken up a human trafficking operation coercing Cuban citizens into fighting for Russia in Ukraine.  Additionally, Russia is seeking help from North Korea in topping up its supplies of antitank missiles and artillery shells.  In return, the Hermit Kingdom would get foreign currency to spend on ICBMs, if not food.  (Probably not rubles, which have lost almost half their value in the past year.)  Truly war is the idiots' delight.

 

   

Congress shall make no law

 Happy Labor Day.  How are we doing with our freedoms right now?

Mount Dora, Florida, encourages business owners to display a Rainbow decal on their doors to indicate that LGBTQ customers will find a welcome within.  The program is purely voluntary and sounds like it would be good for the economy.  Not surprisingly, four Republican "lawmakers" are considering "all legislative, legal and executive options" to stop it.  They say they're afraid the haters will boycott businesses and maybe shoot the owners, like Lauri Carleton in Cedar Glen, California.  Florida has your back, haters!  All you have to do is threaten the right people.

First grade teacher Abigail Zwerner was shot by one of her six-year-old students and is suing the Newport News, Virginia, school district for $40 million alleging they knew about the boy's violent proclivities but did nothing to stop him.  The district says she's entitled only to workmen's comp, because when you teach elementary school, the possibility of being shot is just part of the job, like black lung for coal miners.  Even six-year-olds are covered by the Second Amendment, it seems.

Nancy Mace (R-SC) is anti-choice, but she is also a rape survivor and has urged exceptions to anti-choice laws in a few cases.  "I have a fantastic pro-life voting record but I also understand that we cannot be assholes to women," she told CNN.  Soon she will be denounced for her filthy language by the no-exceptions crowd.  It must be hard to be a female Republican.

Speaking of which, Nikki Haley says, "The American people are not going to vote for a convicted felon," a week after saying she would do just that.  Alice was less confused after she followed the rabbit down the hole.

What did Faulkner say about the past?  You may have thought there was general agreement about the subject of eugenics after the "race science" of the Nazis and the forced sterilization of 64,000 Americans.  Didn't Planned Parenthood remove Margaret Sanger's name from its headquarters over her views on the subject?  "A high-end hotel in the liberal Texan enclave of Austin is playing host to a conference whose theme is boosting global birth rates, but which will in fact feature racist and eugenicist internet personalities and far-right media figures," says the Guardian.  The Natal conference -- I assume that's not the South African province, but who knows? -- features a lineup guaranteed to make your flesh creep, including Malcolm and Simone Collins, who warn of the catastrophic drop in (white) birth rates.  It's the Great Replacement garbage in scientific gift wrap.

Wet weather and music festivals are an uneasy mix, which is probably why Wagner insisted that Bayreuth build him an opera house.  Woodstock '94 was nearly washed out.  (It rained during Woodstock '69, too, but it was the Sixties and people were too groovy to care.)  Glastonbury is usually ankle deep in mud.  This year the heavy weather came to the Nevada desert and disrupted Burning Man, which traditionally climaxes with burning an effigy of a man, possibly a tribute to the 1973 movie The Wicker Man.  (Avoid the remake.)  One person has died, rumors of Ebola are not true and thousands are trapped by flooded roads.  High-ticket paganism takes its toll.  For example, the former acting Solicitor General:

 We conclude with a labor-related story.  Last year CPAC staff were quitting because of low pay, so Matt Schlapp brought in a Catholic priest to perform an exorcism of the office.  According to the Daily Beast he threw some holy water around and stuck a medallion over the door to ward off evil spirits.  Now Schlapp and his wife are angry that the story was reported, calling the Beast "Satan's publication to persecute Christians and their families."  Schlapp, whose name is what MAD Magazine used to call "a ferschlugginer sound," ran through the litany of right-wing grievances (Fentanyl, violent crime, etc.) more worthy of reporting, but failed to mention the staffer on the Herschel Walker campaign who accused Schlapp of grabbing his genitals without consent.  The priest was unsuccessful in making his lawsuit go away, even for a "six-figure settlement offer."  Maybe next time just give the employees a raise.

Soreheads

 Joe Biden made the traditional visit to Florida to inspect the damage caused by Hurricane Idalia and Ron DeSantis refused to meet him.  Incapable of even the ceremonial duties of a governor, this gumboil of a man wants to be president so he can insult dignitaries from all parts of the world.  

The Witness, a propaganda film about the invasion of Ukraine, sounds considerably less subtle (and less skillful) than Triumph des Willens, which might explain why it plays to empty theaters in Moscow.  A Belgian violinist named Cohen arrives in Kyiv to play a concert and encounters people heiling Hitler and carrying copies of Mein Kampf, so he decides he must tell the world, etc.  Russian filmmakers need to spend more time studying the work of Eisenstein.  Or Barbie.  I'll know more when it's shown on Fox News.

Ted Cruz is mad!  Last week the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism said his outfit might recommend that Americans limit themselves to two drinks a week.  In Ted's opportunistic little brain this sounded exactly like "STOP DRINKING!" so he made a video about how liberals want to control you just like Ukrainian Nazis, concluding with this unappetizing challenge:  "If they want us to drink two beers a week, frankly they can kiss my ass."  Nobody wants to kiss any part of Ted's flabby self, not even those of us who dislike beer anyway.  Was this in response to a tearful call from Bret Kavanaugh? you ask.  No, it was that idiot Doocy, still a credentialed White House reporter for some reason, bothering Karine Jean-Pierre while she was talking about important stuff.  So Ted got his name out there again and hardly anyone is laughing at him.

Alabama is in the news, too, and that's never good.  Last year they tried to execute Kenneth Smith by lethal injection and succeeded only in torturing him for hours.  Now they think they've come up with something foolproof -- nitrogen hypoxia.  If it works, Alabama will be the first state to suffocate with nitrogen.  If not, they could always try putting heavy rocks on his chest -- it worked with Giles Corey, the only man executed for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.  

In other news of the Yellowhammer State (I think it's a bird), attorney general Steve Marshall is still waiting impatiently for the legislature to make abortion punishable as murder.  Meanwhile he says he can prosecute those who help women travel out of the state to obtain medical care for "criminal conspiracy."  That's right, he wants to prosecute something that isn't a crime elsewhere.  We take one step closer to a federal law based on the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, requiring free states to return pregnant women to their masters.

Can a federal judge force lawyers to undergo religious indoctrination?  You damn bet he can, in Texas.  Southwest Airlines fired a flight attendant for sending obnoxious anti-abortion screeds to a colleague, and of course she sued.  A judge named Brantley Starr found for the flight attendant, ruling that the airline's lawyers had not adequately informed employees about its anti-jerk policy.  Further, the Trump appointee ordered three lawyers to endure eight hours of "religious liberty" training from a group of fanatics who go by Alliance Defending Freedom.  If this gets as far as Amy Copious Breeder and her five friends, the lawyers may as well resign themselves to having pictures of fetuses shoved in their faces all day.  These are the eyes of a cultist.

Wisconsin Republicans have been setting off smoke detectors with their hair on fire since voters elected Janet Protasiewicz to the state Supreme Court.  She has yet to hear a case but they want to impeach her based on comments she made during the campaign about flagrant gerrymandering in the state.  Could someone please tell these people what "impeach" means?  Before Squeaker McCarthy gives in to the back-bench squawk for Biden to be impeached?

Can you stand more Alabama news?  I'm sorry.  Remember how the Bidens were kept waiting at the door of the White House because the former tenants had given the butlers the day off before skulking out the back?  In 2020 Patrick Braxton was elected mayor of Newbern, Alabama (population 133), but again there was to be no peaceful transfer of power.  The former mayor dodged his calls and finally gave him the key to city hall.  When the new mayor arrived he found the place stripped.  Then his predecessor had the locks changed.  He's still being denied funding and even mail.  That Braxton is Black may have something to do with it.  It's kind of a passive-aggressive version of Wilmington, North Carolina 1898.