President Biden thanks Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell “for being my friend” during National Prayer Breakfast.
“You’ve always done exactly what you’ve said. You’re a man of your word. And you’re a man of honor.” pic.twitter.com/10wWgXzBl5
— The Recount (@therecount) February 3, 2022
Translation: … You want someone who’ll knife his constituents and half the country just to be a racist gobshite, look no further than our old friend Mitch the Mucker. He’s loyal to his country, which just happens to be Putin’s, bless them both with every consequence they’ve earned. At least you can predict how he’ll vote, unlike some Democrats I could mention, except the nuns and the Jesuits taught me never to use the kind of language you’d need to describe Manchinema…
In case anyone needed a reminder of the danger of prematurely pronouncing Biden a failure, take a look at the events of this week.https://t.co/oCqcXR4vT1
— Jennifer 'pro-voting' Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) February 3, 2022
Never underestimate the genial old pol with a big smile on his mug…
… It was not preordained that Biden would knit together a resolute position, send troops to reinforce our Eastern European allies (while encouraging allies to do the same), and smoke out Putin’s efforts to create a pretext for war. The Post reports: “U.S. officials say they have evidence that Russia has developed a plan, approved at high levels in Moscow, to create a pretext for invading Ukraine by falsely pinning an attack on Ukrainian forces that could involve alleged casualties not only in eastern Ukraine but also in Russia.”
The United States’ willingness to present evidence of Russia’s plan signals a proper appreciation for Putin’s weakness. He has lost justification for saber-rattling and now is properly seen as the aggressor on the international stage.
The Middle East remains a hotbed of Islamist terrorism. Russia may still invade Ukraine. But Biden has defied critics who pronounced his foreign policy a failure. Put differently, he has made good on his promise to show “America is back.”
When Lunar New Year and the first day of Black History Month fall on the same day pic.twitter.com/hFz8KkS3zN
— Wanda Sykes (@iamwandasykes) February 1, 2022
Speaking of Black History Month…
siri, show me the entire history of the united states in one tweet https://t.co/zFE1gIfvdM
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) February 4, 2022
People in Alabama are calling the superintendent of schools and complaining that Black History Month is Critical Race Theory pic.twitter.com/46q7RGP324
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 3, 2022
I learned this from Twitter. Big thanks for the Agitated Moms Against Facts for putting Ruby Bridges back in the news so I could learn it.https://t.co/pLoyPvwInu
— AllenChargeHat (@Popehat) February 3, 2022
In Tennessee, a right-wing activist group is using the state's new anti-CRT law to argue that 2nd Graders shouldn't read a book about MLK Jr. https://t.co/7j51LDwxmg
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 3, 2022
Baud
Wait til they find out about Alabama’s football team.
Matt McIrvin
I remember Virginia’s Lee-Jackson-King Day.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Both sides!
OzarkHillbilly
Hey Judd? You can say it. “WHITE people in Alabama….”
SFAW
If those pesky Negroes weren’t so intent on being counted an extra two-thirds, things would be a lot smoother in the country.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
You realize that YOU are the racist, for pointing that out.
Kathleen
Good Morning! Perfect Friday kickoff. Irish sarcasm (I’m fluent), James Brown and a killer dance routine which I wish I could do. Well played Anne Laurie!
Baud
@SFAW:
OH hates white people.
Baud
@Kathleen:
Good morning.
different-church-lady
@Baud: I’m just surprised they can operate a phone.
Kathleen
@Baud: Good Morning!
satby
me too
Kathleen
@SFAW: if only Abraham Lincoln hadn’t canceled Roger Taney!
Baud
@satby:
Why does OH hate you? You’re great!
SFAW
@Kathleen:
It would have been tolerable if he had only cancelled Taney, but he insisted on doing the same to Jeff Davis, Bobby Lee, and the rest of those good ol’ southern “patriots.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I hate everybody, but I have a special reserve of disgust for whiny ass titty baby white people.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I hear you. People suck.
different-church-lady
Well, isn’t this morning wonderful.
(Is that how it’s done?)
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m betting there are a few persons here you DON’T hate, you old softie.
SFAW
@Baud:
You’re just upset because some of us insist on wearing pants.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I once complained that sometimes it was embarrassing to be an old, white person, and Mr DAW shut me up by saying I should try being an old, white man.
different-church-lady
@SFAW: well, I hope I’m not one of them.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: STFU. I have a reputation to uphold you know.
different-church-lady
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Well, have you?
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oops.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
There’s no collective guilt. Be proud of being one of the good ones.
Most people don’t have the courage to stand up to their tribe.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@different-church-lady: He had me on that one!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
For they are all honorable men.
satby
So, how many people without power today in TX? Last I saw it was 70k.
germy
Baud
@satby:
Doesn’t look to be as bad as last time.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: Your tribe can still be embarrassing though.
We first went to Europe when Nixon was president. Every Canadian we ran into had a Canadian flag decal on their luggage so no one would mistake them for Yanks.
Irrelevant, but that was a memorable trip. We went with no reservations, clutching student Eurail passes and a copy of Europe of $5 a Day. Our charter flight was delayed, so we slept on the airport floor and then wound up landing in Amsterday in the middle of the night, wandering around trying to figure out where the street signs were. Ah youth!
Geminid
That’s one less crab in the bucket. Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno has dropped out of the race, following a meeting with Trump where they both agreed that there were too many Trumpers in the field. Remaining Trumpers include Josh Mandel, Jane Timken, and J.D. Vance. State Senator Matt Dolan has the moderate-conservative lane to himself, and plenty of money, but he is getting little traction in polling.
Gin & Tonic
The Olympic Games have begun, so I award a gold medal for stupidest and most patronizing Tweet of the month to Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI)
Um, Elissa, it’s Europe in 2022 – Ukrainians carry their cell phones everywhere as a matter of course, like normal people. And this is war, not Instagram – 14,000 Ukrainians have been killed in the last 8 years. Taking pictures doesn’t change that.
This person was a CIA analyst? Really?
SFAW
@Gin & Tonic:
Maybe it’s a typo? [Omitted the “c”?]
germy
OzarkHillbilly
Somebody should tell Republicans.
Josie
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Wow, that sounds familiar. We might have passed you on the square in Amsterdam.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
They won’t listen. They need to feel persecuted.
OzarkHillbilly
Heh, I’ve done that.
sdhays
@Gin & Tonic: What a silly thing to tweet.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Josie: I’d never do that now. I’m way too sissy.
I’m heading out. I have a Zumba class later this morning and I want to get some writing time in first. Be good, everybody. Or actually, be outraged. It’s a time for that.
zhena gogolia
@sdhays: She is an utterly despicable human being.
Gin & Tonic
@sdhays: Ukrainian Twitter is justifiably roasting her.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Too true. They are the center of the universe after all.
sdhays
@Gin & Tonic: If you’re tweeting out instructions to “the X people”, no matter what you say, you’re being stupid.
Steeplejack
It’s a pleasantly gray morning here in Threadkill Lane. Rain is pecking at the windows, and the temp is 52°, although it is supposed to drop precipitously later—low 20s tonight, only up to about 32° tomorrow. A nice day to stay inside and contemplate the rich tapestry that is the American experiment. Oops, I mean rage against the unraveling of the social fabric.
Time for a dose of Perry Mason to restore my faith in justice. “Lurid exposé upsets bucolic Seaside Heights.” Perry spearheads the invasion-of-privacy suit and handles the inevitable murder case.
Interesting note on last night’s episode (from 1960): John A. Alonzo had a bit part as a Latino ranch hand. Who’s that, you say? The Oscar-nominated cinematographer of Chinatown (1974), as well as Harold and Maude, Sounder, Lady Sings the Blues, Norma Rae, Scarface, Star Trek: Generations and many others. Interesting career arc.
SiubhanDuinne
Breaking, breaking: The Great Cats-Vitamix Carton Hostage Crisis in BC has ended.
https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/b-c-cat-standoff-concludes-with-delivery-of-new-blender-after-47-days-1.5766490
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: Do you think someone might break down on the stand and tearily confess as Burger looks on agape?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s why social media has been such a boon to them. They do outrageous things and gets lots of attention for it. As the man said, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne: They had better be careful. Those cats know where they sleep.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Geminid:
I don’t like that Trump is exerting this much control over the primary process and he’s apparently not completely insane/incompetent or at least seems to be listening to people who aren’t. I suppose every major party leader since forever has done this, but we need the GOP primaries to be as chaotic as possible everywhere
Ohio Mom
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve never heard of Slotkin before, not trying to defend her but maybe her intended audience is Americans — to build sympathy for Ukrainians?
On the most basic level, to teach them Russia is threatening Ukraine with out-and-out war? I mean, remediation for people who couldn’t find Ukraine on a map.
She’s tweeting in English after all, so who is she addressing? (Yes, I’m sure there are Ukrainians who read English, what’s that old joke, “If someone speaks three languages, they are trilingual, two, they are bilingual but if they only speak one, what are they? Americans.”)
Or, maybe Slotkin is that clueless.
On another note, we are snowed in here in the Cincinnati suburbs. Probably only four inches of snow mixed with ice but the plows have not been through my subdivision. It’s supposed to get up to almost 40 on Sunday, that’s something to look forward to.
lowtechcyclist
Yeah, there really isn’t a ‘not insane’ wing of the GOP anymore.
Gin & Tonic
@sdhays: Very true.
zhena gogolia
@Ohio Mom: She had a great chance to help Ukraine by prosecuting the corrupt president who tried to shake them down. Instead she did everything she could to hamstring Schiff’s prosecution.
Kathleen
@SFAW: Why did he hate white people?
lowtechcyclist
@SiubhanDuinne:
Definitely the right way to celebrate.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It’s still a good primary. For us. Ryan needs absolutely everything to go his way to have a shot and so far it has. Josh Mandel is a horrible and unappealing person and he’s already lost once, far Right politics aside. Root for him. Take Trump’s stepping in as a measure of how well it’s going- if they thought it was going great he never would have done it.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
JD Vance is a phony and the GOP base know he’s a phony. They’re apparently not as stupid as the fancy people who backed Vance, who, incredibly, did not know he was a phony.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Well, that’s the cliché, but it happens less than people think. Although it does happen often enough to be the cliché. Can’t remembe where this one is going to end up. I’ve seen every episode multiple times, of course.
Last night’s episode was funny, because Hamilton Burger asked Perry to defend the caretaker at Burger’s hunting lodge. During the trial there were reaction shots of Burger sitting in the gallery gleefully grinning as Perry did all the things to the prosecutor that normally make Burger apoplectic.
Baud
@Kay:
It’s rare for me to agree with the GOP base on anything, but they are absolutely right about JD Vance.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: We were making our way methodically through the first season, but we hit a very violent and noir-ish one that made my husband balk. We really need to just skip that one and move on. Some of the 1960s ones are hilarious.
Kathleen
@Ohio Mom: I’m snowed in in the city. Last I heard 3 of the hills leading to my place are closed.
zhena gogolia
Does anyone here watch the British sitcom Friday Night Dinner? It’s hilarious. (Ended in 2020, when unfortunately the brilliant star Paul Ritter died.)
Kay
@Baud:
I think we got kind of a reprieve on the gun nut vote in 2020 because the NRA collapsed in a heap of corruption, but gun-nuttery politics will be back and Ryan will have that against him. I think the role of the NRA/gun nuts in electing Trump is underrated as a factor. No one gun nuts hate worse than Hillary Clinton, well, “women in power”. Ryan is a man so it may be less of an issue. But it’ll be a big deal in Ohio. They’re much more radical than they were even 5 years ago.
Jinchi
There is no such thing as good news in Biden’s America, apparently.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: No collective guilt, lots of collective responsibility. That’s a distinction that can be very subtle sometimes.
zhena gogolia
@Jinchi: It’s Orwellian!!!!
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: JD Vance’s appeal was to moderates and liberals of the early Trump era who were trying to study MAGA people as if they were some mystery species dredged from the bottom of the sea. I guess trying to appeal to the genuine article isn’t working for him.
Baud
@Kay: It’ll be tough for him. Too bad the good OH economy may not be enough.
Matt McIrvin
@Jinchi: “Buy on rumor, sell on news” is a thing. The stock market has lots of weird phenomena where bad news gets priced in in advance, which leads to paradoxical reactions if it doesn’t match expectations in some way.
Baud
@Jinchi:
Porky Pine
@zhena gogolia: Not to excuse Slotkin’s stupid and condescending tweet, but she’s D-MI, and as such was not hindering either impeachment effort. I wonder if you have confused her with the odious Elise Stefanik (R-NY)?
James E Powell
@Geminid:
Did Portman ever respond to the Plain Dealer’s pathetic plea for him to change his mind and run for re-election?
zhena gogolia
@Porky Pine: Oh, you’re right!!! Stupid me. I was thinking of Stefanik.
zhena gogolia
@Ohio Mom: Sorry I mixed up Slotkin with Stefanik.
Kalakal
@zhena gogolia: Yes, It’s great. The entire cast is excellent but Paul Ritter is sadly missed. Mark Heap has me in stiches
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Yeah, it’s worth going on with. All the mid-century pop culture, even distorted by the funhouse mirror of TV drama. And the guest stars and bit players.
Speaking of: Bill Bixby, office-supplies store owner, turned out to be the murderer. Turns out he was worried about being exposé-ed. No ranting confession. Perry tripped him up on a point of fact, and when Bixby corrected him he gave himself away. Oops. Then, of course, he did confess in full. As one would.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: A lot of people confuse weather with climate. “It’s snowing. How can temps be rising?”
zhena gogolia
@Kalakal: “Shit on it!”
SiubhanDuinne
A Canadian friend just sent me this. Sorry, no source listed.
oldgold
Norman Rockwell is noted for painting idyllic paintings of American life in the middle of the 20th century.
On several occasions his paintings veered away from the idyllic. His painting ‘The Problem we All Live With’ of Ruby Bridges attending school under the protection of Federal Marshalls is one example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_We_All_Live_With
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: I love young Bill Bixby.
Jinchi
True. I just think it’s absurd that the media spends months telling us that Biden’s job numbers are falling short, then reacts badly when Biden’s job numbers exceed expectations.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: Exactly.
p.a.
BlahBlahBlah “when we gonna have white ‘Murican History Month?”
“What, every fucking month from 1619 to 2000 isn’t enough?”
Steeplejack
@Kay:
This reminds me that I wonder what is the current state of the NRA. Last I read they were trying to flee to Texas and regroup, but the New York authorities were preventing that. Are they functionally defunct?
I would still like to see some shit come out about the probability that they were funneling dark money (including Russian) to GOP politicians.
Soprano2
So I made it to work this morning because we got my husband’s Blazer out last night. It’s rear-wheel drive, so not a big help on the ice and snow, but if I can get to the road I’m OK. We got around 9″ of snow here, so it was a significant event. It was nice to have a day off, but I was ready to go to work today. Also, I hate the feeling that we can’t get out and do anything, so I insisted that we dig the Blazer out yesterday. I would not do well living in the country.
Steeplejack
@Jinchi:
Another reminder that the stock-market casino does not equal the economy. Wall Street ≠ Main Street.
Soprano2
@Jinchi: Yep, I asked on the 1A Facebook topic how the reporters will make the good employment news “bad for Biden”, because they always do. Last week they actually read my comment that investors are freaking out because the Fed is proposing to move things toward what is the normal situation with interest rates, and the reporter who responded to it said it was a good insight! To me it’s just so freaking obvious that they thought the almost 0% Federal funds rate would last forever, and it’s freaking their shit out that it’s finally going to move up a little bit.
Baud
@Jinchi:
The media can never portray Dems as good on the economy or national security because those are the only two advantages the GOP has over us in public polling.
zhena gogolia
I’m sitting here on Zoom office hour (freezing rain today) waiting for somebody to show up. But we just started the semester so no one’s coming. But monitoring the Zoom means I can’t concentrate on anything else. So I’m on BJ mixing up despicable Repugs with slightly misguided Dems.
zhena gogolia
Does everyone really think Biden is being sarcastic on the top video? I think he’s sincere. He’s such a good man he even sees something good in McConnell. (While not being NAIVE about him, that’s not what I mean. He’s a true Christian.)
Jeffro
Re: the U.S. revealing Russia’s extensive plans to create a pretext for war
WHAT a GREAT effin’ JOB
Seriously! Instead of ignoring it, or making counter-threats, or hastily sending troops to Ukraine…just pants ’em like that, show the world who the real aggressor is, and keep working with our allies to neutralize Putin’s strategy here.
Experience matters. Ignoring the RWNJs and the media matters. Go Biden & Co!
Leto
Well, they’re burning books in Tennessee. Not really sure what to say about this, other than I hate them all. They’re assholes.
Here’s the main picture in black and white, in case you want to get your Germany vibes on.
germy
RobertB
@Geminid: Don’t forget Mike Gibbons. He’s been polluting my daily Jeopardy viewing for about four months now. Uncut Trumpism.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Oops, my mix-up. The killer was not young Bill Bixby but Bill Bixby clone Frank Aletter, a ubiquitous but nameless fixture of ’60s-’80s TV.
oldgold
@Baud: Despite the economic messes the GOP Bush, Jr. and The Short-fingered Vulgarian left us with in 1992, 2008 and 2020. In contrast to the good economies Clinton and Obama left the country with in 2000 and 2016.
Jinchi
This looks like it. It reads like a parody.
https://dailybonnet.com/mennonite-truckers-are-on-their-way-to-ottawa/
Elsewhere on the same site is an article titled:
Sunday School Kids Hold Freedom Convoy from Nursery All the Way to the Pastor’s Office
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I don’t think he’s being sarcastic or sincere. Something else entirely, but I don’t know what.
germy
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: Love him too! It’s About Time! Where’s NotMax when you need him?
Baud
@oldgold:
We shouldn’t be so surprised that so many people have rejected scientific truths. They have a history rejecting truths in other disciplines.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Reminding McConnell that he used to be a better man?
germy
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: We got about the same here. 1 1/2″ of sleet with 8″ or so of powdery snow on top of it. A lot of drifting so it’s hard to say for certain.
We aren’t going anywhere for at least another day. My wife goes back to work tomorrow but only if I take her in the truck. There’s no way her car can make it up the drive.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Maybe just filling an empty moment with some political boilerplate.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men
Baud
@Steeplejack:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Both work for me.
Tony Jay
A SHORT NOTE FROM BREXITANIA
“Desperately Seeking Steiner”
Like a deeply troubled yo-yo partner who is always pathetically willing to forgive the odd broken nose or rib because “our love knows no bourgeois boundaries” and their domineering Daddy thinks Punchy McSlapslap would make a fine addition to the family business, the UK News Media is back to making excuses for Flobalob Johnson and his tattered Cirque d’Cringe. While his entire world of lies is slumping around him faster than a conga-line of deflating Real Girls, it’s always Credulous Friday for the lads and lassies of our 4th Estate. John McCain might be long dead and resting in the Tomb of the Unfisked Maverick, but come hell or high water, Britain’s limerencian political journalists are going to keep wiping their big baby’s dribble and telling the world that, while his shit might stink, that honking pile of unmistakable do-do right there could theoretically be a nugget of purest, priceless Brown.
Yesterday was a good day for people looking for that last, incremental push towards going online and finding an intense German guy who’d very much like to dress up as Elvis and eat their brain. So much shit circling the drain and not a single professional shitstirrer willing to call it what it was. For a start, Johnson had already chucked a dead cat on the table last week by accusing the current Leader of the Opposition of having something to do with the failure to prosecute celebrity rapist and all-around obvious nightmare creature (Sir) Jimmy Saville back when said Leader of the Opposition was Britain’s Director of Public Prosecutions. Now, I’m far from a fan of the 2D hand-puppet currently hollowing out the Labour Party, but the simple truth of the matter is that Sir Keir Starmer had 0% to do with the Establishment’s long-running campaign to keep Thatcher’s favourite cigar-smoking sex-offender out of the justice system. Saville (who you can best envisage as a cross between Bill Cosby, Kasey Kasem and Mars from ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ dressed in a glam-rock tracksuit and parking a fully kitted-out rape-van in his reserved BBC Centre space for over forty years) had been a well-known pervert since his earliest days as a pirate DJ (eager to shag anything “from the womb to the tomb” – no hyperbole, the morgue was his Tinder) but was so well-in with the Tory Party elite, because of his well-publicised Charity work, that he was a frequent houseguest of Thatcher’s (who wanted to make him a Peer of the Realm), used to host his own ‘wind-down parties’ in Leeds which were religiously attended by many of the area’s top Policemen, and was mysteriously handed a set of gold-plated master-keys to every single locked door in Broadmoor High Security Psychiatric Hospital so that he could more easily rape and abuse the prisoners. The fact is that Saville was allowed to get away with his crimes by an entire network of back-scratching muckity-mucks, many of whom would be rewarded for their discretion with honours and promotions, and Johnson accusing Starmer of orchestrating his immunity from investigation is a bit like Margarine Traitor Green accusing Joe Biden of blocking Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination.
Anyway, the accusation was tossed out there during Prime Minister’s Questions as a deliberate squirrel for the Media to chase and kindly slap my behind and call me Millicent, did they go for it. Hardly surprising. The same scripted outburst also accused Starmer of preferring to prosecute journalists and the entire Labour frontbench of being drug-users, but digging into those nut-caches would require a modicum of actual work, and there’s nothing more guaranteed to send a modern political journalist scurrying off towards the nearest anonymous spokespeep than the prospect of accidentally turning over the wrong stone and embarrassing the wrong VIPs. Also, the Saville accusation was easy to handle in the paradigm our Court Scribblers follow. Not, was it an easily verified lie that demanded an immediate apology and possibly sterner action on behalf of the Speaker of the House (Nagganappen, Treaty of – Ed) but how would Johnson’s below the belt smear play with his own MPs, and what in turn would that mean for his status within the Conservative Party?
The answer was, not great. It’s a testament to how nailed-on Johnson’s eventual eviction from office is that you can actually see each failed attempt at pushback bleed-out and die in real time. Ministers squirming in front of the camera trying to reinvent the smear as “just the normal cut and thrust of Parliament” (Raab of the Peanut Head), “perfectly fair and reasonable points of political debate” (Rees-Mogg of the Great Undead) turned into an actual media line that, far from being an attack on Starmer’s record, Johnson had actually been complimenting him for taking responsibility for the failure of his underlings to prosecute Saville, just as Johnson himself had ‘taken responsibility’ for the failure of his underlings to… uh… stop him from regularly breaking Lockdown rules at Downing St, with the unspoken conclusion being that since Starmer didn’t have to resign, neither should Johnson. The sheer audacity of the bullshit gave the News Media all of the guilty pleasures they crave, even as their interviewers clearly struggled to restrain the urge to laugh in Tory faces. Not a single Minister would actually repeat Johnson’s attack line outside of Parliament, because that would be slander and definitely prosecutable, but it looked at first like the Self-Protection Society would be sticking to their golden rule and denying there was any problem until the Media got bored of asking, even as a handful of backbench MPs took this opportunity to opportunistically dispose of their ‘2019 All-England Bullshit & Lies Tournament Champions’ commemorative mugs and suddenly develop vertebrative attributes where this single smear was concerned.
But then one of Johnson’s own close-knit inner circle jumped ship and it all went ker-splat against the wall again. Munira Mirza had been the Head of Johnson’s Policy Unit and one of his closest humanoid abominations since he was a two-term failure as Mayor of London. A former member of the Revolutionary Communist Party she long ago did the traditional fascist flip to Hard-Right true-believer, being invisibly loyal to her man through thick and thin less thick times, she was reportedly the ‘intellectual’ driver of the push for Johnson’s Tories to follow the GOP handbook with a ‘War on Woke’ to keep the loonies onside, and was in the room throughout the formation of every single fucked-up, mendacious, dishonest splat of a ‘policy’ Johnson has crapped out for over a decade, including in 2019 when Johnson told the Press that money spent on investigating historical allegation of child-abuse by Establishment figures had been “spaffed up the wall”, ie, a mixture of pissed and ejaculated. It is, therefore, with a great deal of artificial sadness that I must regretfully doubt the veracity of her claim that it was Johnson’s refusal to apologise for his Saville comments that forced her to write a very scathing, very public resignation letter on her way out of the Bunker. To quote another alcohol-soaked party boy, “This is not the worst thing you’ve seen me do”, and that’s the undeniable truth. For an absolute venom-sack like Mirza to be taking this particular off-ramp at this particular point in time it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that nobody close to him thinks he’s going to be in any position to help their careers sooner rather than later, and the smarter ones (or maybe the ones with long-forged connections to the international Wingnut Welfare network) are getting out of dodge rapido maximus.
And another thing on this specific topic. Mizra wasn’t the only one of Johnson’s close aides to resign yesterday. Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary (the guy who was going to run the ‘Partygate’ inquiry until it turned out he was a principal offender), and Dan Rosenfield, his chief of staff (the guy with direct responsibility for choosing and running the team who spent much of 2020 apparently pissed and tag-fucking their way through the Downing St complex) had their resignations accepted very soon afterwards. Now, during one of his teary faux apologies to his backbench MPs (when he didn’t so much apologise as say he was pretending to apologise because it was all a media-driven plot) Johnson had promised a clear out of his Downing St staff, laying down the “Everyone’s fault but mine” card while also offering many MPs who had spent at least two years being relentlessly bullied by those with the Chief Poombah’s ear a few scalps to chew on, and I’m sure two of the guys most tainted with Partygate ickies would have been on that list, but announcing them (and, we’re hearing, a few others) straight after Mirza’s kick to the Prime Ministerial plums smacks of a desperate attempt to dilute the coverage of Mirza’s resignation by pretending it was a minor part of a larger restructuring or/and a last, malicious ‘playing to the secret galley’ cutting of all ties by Mirza who had to know the other resignations were planned and wanted to pre-bigfoot them to cost Johnson yet more credibility. Which it has. They’re trying to style it out, but this really does have the look of “The last lifeboats will be launching presently” moment.
It’s not like Flobalob’s extended fucking-off is even the main event this week. We’ve had Paul Givan, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, resign from his appointed post in an attempt to blow up the whole Northern Ireland Protocol. A fervent Democratic Unionist (so a nutty creationist with eliminationist fantasies and a predisposition to see peace on the island of Ireland as a personal affront to his angry stormcloud of a God) Givan had been threatening to do this for a while because of his Party’s opposition to Northern Ireland remaining in the EU’s Customs Union and Single Market while the rest of the UK is outside it. You see, Northern Ireland is doing really, really well out of its ‘Out But In’ status, and the nutters of the DUP fear that if the people of Ulster get comfortable being closer to the EU than the UK (and richer for it) that will speed reunion and destroy the DUP at the ballot box, so screw the obvious benefits, they want all of Ulster to suffer the pain of Brexit just like the rest of the UK. Alongside Givan’s resignation, the DUP’s Agriculture Minister, Edwin Poots (also a nutty creationist with eliminationist fantasies and a predisposition to see peace on the island of Ireland as a personal affront to his angry stormcloud of a God) declared that Northern Ireland would unilaterally stop carrying out checks on food and farm products moving from the UK to Northern Irish ports, which would be in direct violation of the Northern Ireland Protocol of the wider Brexit Withdrawal Agreement that Flobalob negotiated and signed with the EU with much fanfare and triumphalism, and so would be a violation of international law.
Are you following this? Basically Northern Ireland’s ‘Freedom Caucus’ want to blow up the whole Northern Ireland Protocol and with it the stability of the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Ulster because they’re afraid that the majority of Northern Ireland’s voters will like not being poor and desperate and frightened of being blown up so much that they’ll vote to keep things that way, while the minority who would prefer to go back to the Troubles rather than tolerate living within shouting distance of Papists might reject the DUP as insufficiently radical and vote for their fellow Hard Right Godbotherers (the Ulster Unionists) instead. There’s an election due in May anyway that most forecasters see Sinn Fein (the IRA-affiliated Catholic political party) doing very well in, so the DUP’s big-brains have decided to roll the dice and see how badly they can fuck up everyone’s lives in the hope that they’ll emerge from the rubble still in charge of something. The nutty bastards. And while this is going on the Tories are looking the other way and pretending that the devolved administrations of the UK are perfectly within their rights to handle their own trade-issues with the EU, which I’m sure would be very welcome news to the Scottish National Party (back in the Customs Union and Single Market? Don’t mind if we do). They’re also claiming that the Westminster Government had no idea this was going to happen, which is also bullshit, since the incredibly dense Thatcher-wannabee Liz Truss (our latest in a long line of really rubbish Foreign Secretaries) met with the DUP last week and was reported to have signed off on the kamikaze scheme.
What fun, eh? Brexit never stops giving.
There’s also the small matter of tens of millions of British citizens facing the prospect of being hammered into extreme poverty by a combination of enormous hikes in energy bills (up to 50% higher), wage stagnation, interest rate hikes, Unemployment Benefit cuts, an increase in the National Insurance rate and just basically everything you’d expect to flow from being a small country ruled by greedy Tory bastards who have just taken an axe and blowtorch to our trade links with our closet neighbours after decades of brutal, society-shredding cuts in everything that makes living worthwhile. The genius answer coming out of the piehole of squeaky teak marionette and part-time Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is for everyone in the UK to receive a generous rebate paltry sum in the form of a loan that will be handed to the greedy energy companies and paid for by later tax rises. It says everything about the unimaginative banality of our political journalists that they are seeing this as Sunak masterfully winning the hearts and minds of a grateful public prior to his inevitable ascension to the Premiership, when in reality it’s another tone-deaf display of billionaire boy’s distain for anyone ‘earning’ less than six figures and his absolute devotion to shovelling as much public money as possible into the feeding-sacks of those few entities he deigns to consider worthy of his interest. The almost £5billion in fraudulently claimed furlough payments Simple Sunak just wrote off (I’m sure it went to a number of good homes in the Cayman Islands and, eventually, the London property market) plus the something around £8billion to £14billion jazzed away on buying useless PPE from hastily set-up companies owned by Tory Party donors as part of the illegal VIP Lane contracting scheme might have helped here, but heaven forefend that any of our ‘journalists’ ask the manicured one to put two and two together. Numbers just aren’t their thing, or his.
Oh, and alongside this looming disaster for the country, Government Ministers were instructed to go out earlier this week and tout the roll-out of their Levelling-Up program, which is basically the Tories finally admitting that their policies over the last two generations have totally moonscaped wide swathes of the country while demanding plaudits for offering a bag of grass seeds and a leaky watering can as compensation. It’s been pretty thoroughly debunked as a fraud ever since Tories started pruning back on expectations for it right after it (and the appeal to good old fashioned racism) won them a swathe of formerly Labour seats in the 2019 Election, but Flobalob needed a good news story to distract from his travails so out went the dermatologically frictionless energy-vampire and fully owned subsidiary of the Murdoch media empire Michael ‘What is this truth you speak of?’ Gove to do what he does best, lie frequently, shamelessly and with no concern for mundane foibles about ‘honesty’ or ‘credibility’. There are, scattered around the world’s hardest-grinding kinky underworlds, a collection of otherwise unremarkable dildoes, star-clamps and dental slug-runs that Gove has turned into Horcruxes, except instead of killing to rend his soul he merely stabbed a series of political rivals in the back, which limits his Horcruxes to providing him with endless Governmental sinecures rather than the usual immortality and means he keeps on turning up on my TV to spew ridiculous lies that fly in the face of every verifiable fact.
His interview on BBC Morning Nonsense was a tour de force. Asked if there was actually anything new in this Levelling-Up announcement he was making, or if it was just the warmed over regurgitation of past announcements and spending ambitions going back to the last Labour Government, Gove just sat there, wearing the expression of a moderately annoyed customer who has already been put on hold three times by his mobile phone provider when all he wants is to be put through to the person in sales who was supposed to arrange his Upgrade and instead has been connected to a bored engineer who insists on calling him ‘Mister Grumpy’ and asking him to turn his phone off and on then call back (so a bit pissed off then? – Ed) and repeatedly told the BBC interviewer that yes, there totally was new money involved, even though he also repeatedly admitted that the ‘new money’ was in fact ‘old money’ that had been promised as funding but never delivered. He also responded to the question “Was the Prime Minister wrong to say what he did about Keir Starmer and Jimmy Saville?” with a sharp “No”, and then didn’t even blink as the BBC interviewer let the silence where “…because …” followed by an explanation of why it wasn’t wrong should have been, but wasn’t, build and build and build. I’ll give Gove one thing, the contempt he has for the UK’s news Media is genuine and proof positive that he knows them only too well. He obviously didn’t want to be out there flim-flamming for Johnson so he made it crystal clear via his unruffled disinterest in being in any way convincing or engaged that yes, this was all just bullshit and make-work that any genuine journalist should be more than capable of ripping apart in seconds… but he wasn’t taking to anyone like that, was he?
Anyway, that’s were we’re up to, more or less. Something else has probably blown up while I’ve been writing this but that’s just what happens when you have Government by gaslighting drama-llamas. Johnson hasn’t gone yet, but he will, and everything is just melting down because it’s not about Johnson, it’s about decades of greed and cynicism reaching their apotheosis and us not having a single influential institution or organisation left standing that’s willing to call it out for what it is. It’s all one big old circle-jerk and nobody outside of the splash radius gets to so much as look at a microphone.
Still, could be worse, we could be… uh… I’ll get back to you on that.
JMG
One of my Perry Mason pastimes is seeing which character actors win a Triple Crown, appearing as a defendant, real killer and victim in separate episodes. James Coburn played the victim in two episodes, as he was great as a heel giving 12 people a good reason to kill him.
BTW, I prefer the earliest Perrys, when Raymond Burr was at his thinnest. First because Mason breaks about six laws every episode, and second because the plots were so complex as to be incomprehensible. One hinged on not one, not two, but three handguns introduced as evidence!
Jeffro
I see in today’s NYT that an expedition has launched to find the wreck of the Endurance. Wishing them all the best! Even today, the story of the Endurance, Ernest Shackleton, and his crew just blows me away.
germy
germy
@JMG:
The Rifleman is like that. There’s one character actor (I can’t remember his name) who appeared in one episode as a remorseless killer, and another episode as a sad and humble field hand.
zhena gogolia
I have no idea what this means but it’s cracking me up
ETA: Should be reply to TonyJay
Ladyracterinok
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Oh the glorious days of Europe on $5 a Day!!!! Europe on $10 a Day wasn’t too bad either!!!!
zhena gogolia
@germy: Wow, that sounds like a job for John Carradine.
frosty
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I Railpassed through Europe in ‘77. I got annoyed at the Canadians so I sewed a US flag onto my pack. No negative consequences even though I was hanging out with Aussies and Kiwis most of the time.
ETA My trip was similar. No reservations. Landed in Luxembourg, took the ferry to England, wound up in Victoria Station in the early AM after no sleep for two nights. Dazed and confused, somebody shoved a flyer for a hostel into my hands and that’s where I ended up for a couple of days.
Great trip! Tons of stories. I kept a journal.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: Ha ha!
Hoodie
@Baud: Wonder when we reach the point where young black QBs will decide to stay in CA or, alternatively, go to TX, GA or FL and at least get better NIL deals from bigger media markets to offset the racism. Nick Saban might be retiring sooner than they think. His big vacation home is in North GA, not AL.
Ladyracterinok
@Steeplejack:
A few days ago the Perry Mason episode hinged on a 50 or so acre beachfront property at Cape Canaveral.
They had a shot of it totally bare!!!
One of my brothers watches Perry Mason reruns for the cars.
He really likes Drake’s cars.
Miss Bianca
@Jeffro: The Endurance or the Endeavour? I’ve seen stories cropping up again about the wreck of HMS Endeavour.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s because they confuse a couple of data points with a trend and a trend with an immutable law of nature.
And pronounce it as received wisdom, repeatedly.
Case in point. The party in charge of the WH loses seats in the Congress.
Most people are numerically and mathematically illiterate. Especially the political class and the media.
Steeplejack
@JMG:
Plus in the first couple of seasons Perry yells at his clients a lot. Increased composure came with increased girth, apparently.
The show also laboriously explains a lot of things for the audience that we take for granted now after watching 60 years of courtroom dramas.
Miss Bianca
@JMG:
@germy: If you really want to see character actor recycling, try the old 1955 Adventures of Robin Hood series, which I’ve been binging lately. They had a small stable of actors in their ensemble who would shuttle back and forth playing peasants, lords, soldiers, and everything in-between. It’s become a sport to pick them out every episode. They’re starting to feel like old friends. : )
zhena gogolia
@Ladyracterinok: We like Drake’s sports jackets.
Steeplejack
@Ladyracterinok:
I love the real estate references. Paul Drake talks about driving out to Malibu like he might have to pack a sack lunch or might not make it back before nightfall. Big trip!
There’s one episode where a character is holed up in “a shack in the canyon”—Laurel Canyon, presumably—and you realize you saw it recently as a $2 million reno project in Architectural Digest.
Geminid
@James E Powell: As far as I know Portman has stayed quiet. He’s probably glad to be getting out.
The Plain Dealer seemed to assume that Portman would win the primary, and that would not have been a certainty. As Renacci’s challenge to DeWine shows, Ohio Republicans are on a RINO hunt. Also, Trump is stupidly targeting the Congressional Republicans who voted for the Infrastructure bill, and Portman played a key role in it’s passage.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: I like the one where Perry and Paul enter a living room and the closet door slowly opens and a corpse falls out face first, like an ironing board.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: I don’t think it’s sarcasm either, but I sincerely hope I’m wrong about that. Honestly, seeing that clip yesterday kinda knocked me for a loop, and I thought I was pretty cynical about American politics.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: It’s performative nonsense. No one is expected to believe a word of it.
oatler
Biden used the old “and Brutus is an honorable man” bit. Tell Mitch to send a page for some Unguentine…
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Biden could be trying to appeal to the better angels of McConnell’s nature despite knowing that it is futile. I don’t think Biden is naïve. He is being presidential. The problem is that many people even on our side prefer theatrics to accomplishments.
Katie Porter is more popular for her white board theatrics than Lauren Underwood is for writing legislation.
JanieM
@Tony Jay:
Priceless. :-)
Just One More Canuck
@satby: Did Ted make it to Cancun?
laura
@Steeplejack: Emptywheel is still covering the NRA implosion and it’s probable use as a foreign cash funnel. Emptywheel.net or @emptywheel.
Josie
@Omnes Omnibus: Bingo!
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
? Yeah, that was a little over the top. Like, how was that corpse standing up in there?
Steeplejack
@laura:
Thanks.
Jeffro
@Miss Bianca: Endurance.
Miss Bianca
@Leto: last night I told Citizen Alan that Redneckistan with mountains was better than Redneckistan without.
But it’s Tennessee, not Colorado. So, fuck ’em. CA, I take back what I said. Don’t go there!
BC in Illinois
@Tony Jay:
Here’s a video perspective on Boris Johnson, Parties, lies, Eton, and Scotch eggs, from Jonathon Pie.
[Here’s his earlier perspective on Trump losing . . .]
Tazj
Yesterday many liberals and progressives were understandably upset when they heard Biden saying complimentary things about McConnell. Connie Schultz, wife of senator Sherrod Brown replied to an outraged Twitter thread by saying something like “keep the strategy in mind.” She didn’t elaborate as to what the strategy is, but whether it works or not, she believes Biden is well aware of who he’s dealing with.
kindness
Remember when the media portrayed the Tea Party folk during Obama’s administration as ‘concerned’ Americans? Those Americans were just scared racists and the media completely ignored the dog whistle. Well since that playbook is being used by the same people wrt CRT in the schools, our same media initially took the same stance, ignoring what we have learned in the 10 years since then and tried acting like these were just ‘concerned’ citizens. Then those concerned citizens started ignoring dog whistles all together and just started shouting from the rooftops of how they are racists and the media is having a little harder time ignoring that they are just dumb asshole racists.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tazj: The idea that every statement by a politician must be taken at face value is stunning to me.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t prefer theatrics to accomplishments, but I do prefer reality to fantasy. Are we engaged in a struggle to save American democracy from people who are using every lever to destroy it, one of whom — prominently — is Mitch McConnell or are we not?
As for being presidential, there’s a middle ground between denouncing McConnell as a rancid, thieving, authoritarian-ass-kissing ghoul who’s trying to effect minority rule by theft (true) and calling him a friend who’s a “man of his word” and “honorable” (lie).
If it was sarcasm or eleventy-dimensional chess as some are claiming, it was ill-advised, IMO. If it was sincere, that’s even more demoralizing.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: I wouldn’t have said what Biden said but I am not Biden. BTW, do you insult your Trumpist relatives to their face every time you see them. I don’t think he is operating in a fantasy world just because he said a few good words about McConnell. YMMV.
mrmoshpotato
Insert Obama shrugging WTF gif.
Also, 50-pound bags, bursting at the seams with unseasoned dicks, suck ’em Confederate trash.
smedley the uncertain
@different-church-lady: Just turn the crank (on the phone).
prostratedragon
@Jeffro: Comedy gold, I loved it. Let 100 trumpets flourish.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat:
No, but I don’t tell them their political views are harmless and worthy of respect. That would be a lie, and it would also signal to anyone who heard me say it that I wasn’t serious when I previously denounced their views as horrible and dangerous.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Did Biden say that McConnell’s views deserve respect?
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: No. He said McConnell is a “man of honor” and a “man of his word.” I mentioned views because you asked me a specific question about my reaction to my relatives’ horrible political views. If instead of knowing my relatives are Trumpists due to my past comments, you had heard me say my relatives are lying, dishonorable skunks and you asked me if I called them dishonorable liars to their faces, I would have replied no, but I don’t call them people of their word or people of honor either.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Biden has good political instincts. I judge him more by what he does than what he says.
And I am happy with what he has been able to achieve in a year despite both right and the left flanks of his party not to speak of intransigent Republicans. This includes the mess that the Orange Clown left him and the open hostility and non-cooperation during the transition
Oh and lets add the Republican enabling Beltway media to his antagonists while we are at it.
stinger
@germy: That’s probably John Anderson. He appears in dozens of Rifleman episodes, usually as a baddie but once as as man with a badly burned face and a backstory. Lots of other actors show up in multiple roles, perhaps most notably Lee Van Cleef.
stinger
@Miss Bianca: Oh, I’ll have to try that!
stinger
@zhena gogolia: I saw a YouTube video of Bill Hopper’s (eventually cast as Paul Drake) screen test for the Perry Mason role. Fascinating!
See if I can find it again…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLjFgSLw2QE
zhena gogolia
@stinger: It was John Anderson I was trying to think of when I said John Carradine. I always mix them up even though I know perfectly well who they are.
zhena gogolia
@stinger: Thanks — I think you (or maybe somebody else) posted that before. Fascinating!