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.