"She’s spent the last couple of weeks on her knees in prayer to the Lord. And, um, she’s a little worn out."
Aren't we all?
Civilization, in fact, grows more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. Wars are no longer waged by the will of superior men, capable of judging dispassionately and intelligently the causes behind them and the effects flowing out of them. The are now begun by first throwing a mob into a panic; they are ended only when it has spent its ferine fury.
H.L. Mencken, In Defense of Women
I know, I know…you’re as dumbfounded as I am, right? Is Mike Pence still running for President? Didn’t he flame out in a supernova of corndogs and overcooked onion rings in Iowa months ago?
The former Vice God-King is still at it, though the crowds he’s drawing can be counted in handfuls of the nearly dead and the barely lucid. In the above photo, it looks like he’s talking to mourners in the waiting room of a funeral home in Des Moines…or at a bowling alley in Iowa City. It’s so hard to tell anymore.
Can’t you feel the…uh, what are the wags calling it now…Pencementum? Except that sounds like the sort of thing you’d have to have a colonoscopy for- to rule out something like colon cancer…or being a real asshole.
Pence’s problem is that he possesses all the charm and charisma of a medical school cadaver. He makes newly crowned House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) look like Liberace by comparison.
Then again, things could be worse. At least Pence hasn’t run into these folks on the campaign trail. Yet.
Of course, the one thing that the former VP and the new Speaker have in common is their Holier-than-Thou American Taliban Christianity and their willingness to channel Republican Jesus.
And don’t be thinking that freeloading kids will be getting a pass on Halloween. No, if they want candy, they’ll have to earn it. There are no freebies in Republican World.
Ah…remember when The Former Guy (TFG) seemed like he would be such a normal ex-President? You know…Presidential Library, speaking tours, playing some golf, maybe getting a Nobel Peace Prize?
If you don’t remember, don’t worry; I don’t, either. TFG appears to have lost his f*****g mind (and his ability to spell and construct social media rants in complete sentences). He flings insults like ketchup bottles, and when things don’t go his way, which these days is pretty much all the time, he throws a tantrum. Perhaps his diapers are too tight?
Thankfully, it appears that, at least for now, he’s given up eating small children.
You may have heard that there’s a new sheriff in town…or, in this case, a new Speaker in the House of Representatives. Having gone through a veritable “Who’s Who” of villains and freaks- Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, Tom Emmer, Conan the Barbarian, Cthulhu, and Casper the Friendly Ghost, Republicans were desperate. All of their candidates were either shot down by the Freedumb Caucus or by TFG because they didn’t support the January 6th insurrection and/or displayed insufficient deference to the wannabe God-King.
As the artist herself says, with great power comes…great handjobs.
Hey, it’s the worst job in Washington; if you can’t take advantage of the perks, what’s the point of doing it?
In other news, the denizens of Mar-a-Lago were almost treated to the spectacle of Melania Trump roaming the grounds in a bikini at the behest of her husband. He wanted to show her off like a trophy so the other mere mortals could see what they were missing.
Because, of course, this is precisely what life at Mar-a-Lunatic looks like, and TFG is a f*****g wackjob and class act.
Fortunately, Melania Trump was of sound enough mind that she turned her husband down (and, with any luck, laughed heartily in his flaccid orange face). She may be an ignorant racist in her own right, but she’s not stupid enough to agree to be objectified by a husband who cares about her only for her utility as a trophy wife.
Then TFG went to New Hampshire and had an epiphany of sorts. It involved spelling if you can believe that.
There was no confirmation to reports that TFG had suddenly remembered how to speak in complete, grammatically correct sentences.
And then there was this from Jeff Tiedrich:
You know, given his crack team of parking garage lawyers, it’s a wonder TFG isn’t already behind bars. They forgot to ask for a jury trial before the deadline for his civil trial in Manhattan, which, for lawyers who probably aren’t even going to get paid, is about the best you can expect.
Then, having allowed their client to use the time-honored legal doctrine of “this trial is bullshit, and we don’t want to do it anymore,” Judge Engoron declined to enter a directed verdict in TFG’s favor. Not that one should have been expected by anyone save for TFG, who appeared to have been expecting precisely that.
I’m not qualified to diagnose the man’s problems, but I’d wager whatever it is has a very long name that’s as difficult to pronounce as it is to spell.
When your wife is out of commission because she spent the past couple of weeks on her knees praying to the Lord (or something like that), and she’s a bit worn out.
And I’ll bet her jaw hurts….
The worst part of the entire Speaker-less Republican farce was the revelation that having voted to certify the 2020 Presidential election DISQUALIFIED one from being accepted as a viable speaker candidate. WTactualF is going on here? One of our two major political parties is firmly grounded in not-reality, and no one- not the media or the GOP itself, seems to give a damn.
And so this is how we ended up with a bona fide religious zealot winning every single Republican vote as the new Speaker of the House.
Johnson looks and acts the part—he’s a bespectacled, suit-jacketed, quiet, and respectful back-bencher who, according to The New York Times, has a “gentle style.” As David Kurtz, at Talking Points Memo, pointed out this morning, though, because of the intense scrutiny Johnson is now under, his days of flying below the radar are over.
And suddenly having a Speaker of the House feels infinitely worse and more dangerous than not having one.
Why? Because the man who is now second in line to the presidency and holds, arguably, the second most powerful political position in America is, among other things (and we’ll get to those), a religious extremist. Please let us dispense with the term “conservative” when trying to describe people like Johnson and his ilk—in the context of this country’s right-wing politics, the word has no meaning.
In his acceptance speech, Johnson sounded more like a Christian revivalist. (I half-expected to hear Neil Diamond’s “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show” in the background.) He explained his ascension (irony intended) as having been “ordained by god.”
So much for the separation of Church and State.
Mike Johnson is not an exception. This is who the GOP is. At its core, the Republican Party is a hypocritical traveling salvation show concerned only with saving its members’ jobs and cash flow.
If you want to see American democracy die, watch what happens if Republicans take back the White House and both houses of Congress next year.
Enjoy it while you can because if it disappears, it will be virtually impossible to restore.
This is what happens when you stop paying attention, America.
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