(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To The Last Post Of The Week From The Blog’s Favourite Living Canadian)
It is now the second day, and I think I have had my fill of the Apotheosis Of The Cheneys. It is nice that Liz Cheney is working so hard for the Democratic ticket. But it is goddamn weird that a retired war criminal like Dick Cheney is shouted out at a Democratic rally. As I believe I’ve said a number of times, this is indeed an all-hands-on-deck moment. However, all-hands-on-deck does not mean all hands on the bridge. The Cheneys get a laurel and hardy handshake from me, and then I’ll move along to appreciate the contributions of the people who have spent decades fighting the politics that a) made Trump not only possible, but inevitable, and b) that the Cheneys have represented for their entire public careers.
(Thursday’s Nicolle Wallace show on MSNBC was an exaltation ceremony with Liz Cheney cast in a role somewhere between Joan of Arc and Wonder Woman. I lasted about 10 minutes.)
If Liz Cheney had gotten up at the rally in Wisconsin and denounced Project 2025, or rejected the Unitary Executive doctrine, which has been her Daddy’s chew-toy since he was covering for Iran-Contra, I’d have been truly impressed. If she had voted for, and not against, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, while she was still in Congress, that would have been another gold star on her resume. If she had voted for, and not against, the Equality Act, that would have been another. As is, as the old Bartles and Jaymes dudes used to say, thank you for your support. Now go help Daddy pack for The Hague,
And speaking of undying conservative desires, the old independent state legislature theory, which we all thought was dead when even this Supreme Court threw out North Carolina’s attempt at it, is back now in Montana. It’s all about ratfcking elections at the state level. As is its wont, SCOTUS left just enough room in its North Carolina decision for another state to give it a whirl, and Montana Republicans are doing just that, From the Daily Montanan:
The State of Montana wants the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal of the Montana Supreme Court’s March decision striking down four voting laws passed by the 2021 Legislature, and a filing last week shows the state plans to advance portions of the controversial “independent state legislature theory” that has mostly already been rejected by the nation’s high court. Last week, an attorney with the Montana Department of Justice wrote to the Supreme Court that utilizing the four election laws in another challenge would be “an ideal vehicle” for the court to address what the administration believes are holes in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision from last summer that could allow for the mostly right-wing theory to take hold in the U.S. court system.
“Because the Montana Supreme Court has assumed a de facto new role as the final arbiter of all election legislation in Montana, this court’s review is urgently needed,” Montana Department of Justice Counsel of Record Peter Tortensen wrote in the filing.
Thus does the Roberts Court dedicate itself to finding loopholes in its own rulings.
Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: “Blue Prairie” (Dan Sartain): Yeah, I still pretty much love New Orleans.
Weekly Visit To The Pathe Archives: Here, from 1927, are some riots in Vienna. At the time, right-wing paramilitary militia groups were popping up all over Austria, many of them backed by wealthy business types and members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. There were a series of clashes between these units and members of the Social Democratic Party. In January of 1927, one of these confrontations led to the shooting death of an eight-year old boy by one of the militias. Three militia men were put on trial, pleaded self-defense, and, after nine days, they were acquitted. This led to a general strike, which led to these riots, during which the Palace of Justice got burned down, as we see in the film. History is so cool.
I was never a real Pete Rose fan. I thought a lot of that Charlie Hustle bullshit was white hype. Did he really play harder for those great Reds team than Tony Perez or Dave Concepcion? Did he work harder with the Phillies than Garry Maddox or Bake McBride? Was he more of a star than Mike Schmidt, the greatest third baseman of all time? Please.
But there is one undeniable fact about his career. He hit the baseball safely more than anyone else in the history of major-league baseball—4256 times, as a matter of fact. His absence from the Hall of Fame is self-evidently absurd. It’s also the least of my concerns about him. The Hall of Fame is a museum. It’s for dead people and old things. It has been sanctified far beyond what is logical for any institution that has “enshrined” the likes of Ty Cobb, Cap Anson, and Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Put his damn plaque on the wall. What does it matter any more? The Hall voters inexcusably waited until Marvin Miller was nine years dead before inducting him, and Miller was baseball’s most influential off-field figure of the past 100 years. In my mind, the Hall of Fame exists only to provide fodder for pointless barroom arguments. So put his plaque on the wall so we can fight about it some more.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is back to entertain us from the Michael Bay wing of the Republican party. From The New Republic:
“Yes they can control the weather,” Greene wrote in a post on X. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done. Many online were disturbed by Greene’s vague use of “they,” because outlandish accusations about controlling the climate are typically antisemitic conspiracy theories—to which Greene is no stranger. Earlier that evening, Greene posted a photograph in an attempt to further push conspiracy theories about the area impacted by the deadly Category 4 storm…It seems that Greene believes that Democrats somehow created the storm to try and harm Republican voters. This is a significant, and grotesque escalation from Trump’s already wild theory that the Biden administration purposefully neglected Republican areas in its federal response to the storm.
In this, of course, she is doing little more than following the leader, who once again took to the stump and said something quite insane. Except what MTG said was relatively harmless. What he said was distinctly not.
They stole the FEMA money like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.
Friday afternoon, he doubled down on this latest slander.
A billion dollars was stolen from FEMA to use it for illegal migrants.. Total mismanagement. FEMA has not done the job.. One billion missing. It’s supposed to be used for hurricanes.
And, of course, the robot army in the Senate chimed right in.
They just can’t quit him.
Discovery Corner: Hey, look what we found! From NPR:
The team mapped a 1.9-mile tall seamount, which is part of the Nazca Ridge, an underwater mountain range in the southeast Pacific Ocean. The potentially new species, which have yet to be officially confirmed, include a sea urchin, starfish and a squat lobster. The findings will be submitted to the Ocean Census, which promotes the discovery of new marine species. Full species identification can take several years.
Outside of it being a follow-up hit for the B-52s, I’d like to know more about this “squat lobster.” And if somebody doesn’t market a stuffed toy based on that cute little blue octopus, I’m going to be very disappointed.
Hey, BBC. Is it a good day for dinosaur news? It’s always a good day for dinosaur news!
The huge asteroid that hit Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was not alone, scientists have confirmed. A second, smaller space rock smashed into the sea off the coast of West Africa creating a large crater during the same era…The asteroid that created the Nadir crater measured around 450-500m wide, and scientists think it hit Earth at about 72,000km/h. The nearest humans have come to this scale of event was the Tunguska event in 1908 when a 50-metre asteroid exploded in the skies above Siberia. The Nadir asteroid was about the size of Bennu, which is currently the most hazardous object orbiting near Earth.
Well, that’s a statistic I didn’t need to know, thanks. Poor dinos. They never had a chance in God’s own shooting gallery. I’m just glad they lived long enough then to make us happy now.
I’ll be back on Monday for whatever fresh hell awaits. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line and wear the damn masks, and take the damn shots, especially the boosters and The New One. In your spare time, spare a thought for all the folks visited by Helene last week. And those people in Japan coming out from under Typhoon Shanshan, and those living through the aftermath of Hurricane Ernesto, and in Morocco, and Colombia, and in the flood zones in India and Bangla Desh, Libya, and the flood zones all across the Ohio Valley, and on the Horn of Africa, and in Tanzania and Kenya, and Sudan. and in the English midlands, and in Virginia, and in Texas and Louisiana, and in California, and the flood zones of Indonesia, and in the storm-battered south of Georgia, and in Kenya, and in the flood areas in Dubai (!) and in Pakistan, and Brazil, and in the flood zones in Russia and Kazakhstan, and in the flood zones in Iran, where loose crocodiles are becoming a problem, and in the flood zones on Oahu, and in the fire zones in and around Los Angeles, and in Wyoming, Oregon, and western Canada, and Australia, and in north Texas, and in Lahaina, where they’re still trying to recover their lives, and under the volcano in Iceland, and for the gun-traumatized folks in Austin and at UNLV, and in Philadelphia, and in Perry, Iowa, and for the good Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, who didn’t deserve this, and especially for our fellow citizens in the LGBTQ+ community, who deserve so much better from their country than they’ve been getting.
