Friday June 26, 2020
128 Days until the election on November 3rd
208 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
Hey, how are you holding up? What are you doing to cope? Me? Oh, well, glad you asked. I realized about a week ago that I need art in my life. I typically go for what I call “a museum fix,” Or as a painter friend of mine put it, “I need to get close to the paint.” I haven’t been able to do that so I decided to look through the giant art and archaeology books I’ve been collecting. The other day I saw this facebook promo entitled “Swans for Relief.” Misty Copeland, prima ballerina at American Ballet put together a fund raiser for all the ballet companies around the world. She and 31 other ballerinas danced one of the most gorgeous passages from Swan Lake. It took my breath away. It is a work of singular beauty. We need more beauty in our lives, more art, more elegance, more civility, more je sais quoi. But first …
Nicolle Wallace interviewed John Bolton yesterday. They worked together so the interview was amiable. I especially liked that Ms. Wallace began nearly every question with his first name. It was disarming and pleasant, even when his answers were outrageous, which they were much of the time.
Bolton’s outrageousness isn’t obvious at first. You have to think about what he’s saying. Then it starts to hit you. There’s a “Wait a minute” moment. That quickly blends into, “That’s not what I recall,” or something similar.
Take for instance, his lead off statements about the impeachment. These were his most unsubtle comments. He said the Democrats were grossly incompetent in how they went about the impeachment. Then he just piled onto that. I had heard earlier that his criticism had been that there was much more the Dems should have charged Trump with. In this interview he took the tact of saying they didn’t really do an impeachment. What they did was some sort of show trial for their base. What they should have done he argued was to have gotten together with the Republicans to forge a real impeachment. This is typical Bolton. It is phony crap from beginning to end, because, like most conservative arguments, when you break it down, like the Corona virus, it falls apart.
But let’s play the game. “Okay John, what specifically do you suggest? With whom of the Republicans in Congress do you suggest the Dems could have reached across the aisle to find common ground?”
“Would you suggest some of the same Republicans that led Obama on and on for a year on health care demanding changes to the bill which he by and large acceded to only to have them vote against the final bill and then attack that plan for the very things they insisted be put in?”
“Would you suggest they reach over and ask shoe banging Louie or jacket less Jim? How about ‘my proudest moment was denying Barack Obama a supreme Court Justice’ McConnell?”
“Nancy Pelosi kept a very tightly confined set of charges so that it was simple and obvious that the president had committed high crimes and misdemeanors. The Republicans in the Senate said from the get go they weren’t going to go along with anything. They didn’t even call witnesses. So tell me John, where and what exactly was the gross incompetence?”
“Yeah, I hear you John. You write that there was a lot more that Trump could have been charged with. Too bad you didn’t do your duty as the patriot you claim to be in the moment when it would have counted and spoken up.”
“Oh that’s right, you bathed yourself in excuses.”
To quote John Oliver, “Fuck You.”
(And Tennesse Williams.)
Let us move on to William Barr. Oh boy. He’s fat. He’s slimy. He’s repugnant. He’s all those things and more. But hey, anyone who was paying attention knew that. What you may not have known was just how slimy and repugnant. I’ll give you fat. Why would you know this? Because that’s been his career. I find it funny that Bolton in his interview yesterday and lawyers who have known Barr say, “Oh Bill Barr is a fine upstanding guy who knows the law.” Or some such nonsense. No he’s not. He’s the same odious, deceiving, deceitful guy he’s always been.
Trump has a favorite parable. I’d call it a joke but he doesn’t understand humor. The parable is the one about the snake that is high up on the mountain bathing in the sunlight. The snake convinces someone to carry him to lower ground because the sun is going down and it’s getting cold. As the person puts the snake down, the snake bites the person. As the person lays dying he asks, “Why snake did you do that?” The snake replies, “You knew what I was before you picked me up.”
(The variant is a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a lake.)
With Trump and Barr, we knew who they were and what they were before we picked them up. I’m not shocked by their behavior. It’s more like stroke counting the playing form. The most incredible thing is how low they can go. It’s not original, but it is amazing that they can find new ways to go even lower.
But before we get to that a shout out to the other enablers. Lindsey Graham take a bow. Here’s a guy who used to tell the truth. Now? He’s like a kid hanging out next to the school yard bully, liking to watch other get beat up, and hoping he doesn’t. In the meantime telling others that he got to play golf with the president. “Hey, Lindsey did you wash his balls?” Cool.
What has Billy Barr done now? Oh boy. New reporting reveals that when it comes to washing balls no one is better than Bill. Actually, he doesn’t wash balls as much as lick them. I hope that when Donald is in jail Donald can give a master class on how he does it. How does he get people to be so subservient? With Bill Barr it wasn’t hard. It’s the only thing he knows. Besides, Barr looks like a big sad faced bulldog, don’t ya think? Happy to please, he’ll grovel up and lick away.
What has he done now? Like many police action cam footage released well after the incident it turns out Bill’s ball licking has been going on a long time. I know, I know, you knew about it back in past administrations with the Bushes but did you know he started interfering with prosecutorial cases from the very first days he took office? New reporting in the only paper Trump has a subscription to, what does he call it? “The failing New York Times” has reported that Barr was in there trying to get Cohen out of jail.
We now know why the case against others in the Cohen case got dropped. Bill got it done. “Good Boy Bill! Who’s a good boy? Yes you are. Lick this one. Good boy.”
Roger Stone? Michael Flynn? Done and done. Washington DC Fed Prosecutors – knee capped. Southern District of New York – reining in. “Good Boy Bill.”
Igor and Giuliani and what’s his name? Oh yeah.
In fact, there isn’t a case that the Federal prosecutors have worked on that if it comes close to Trump, Barr hasn’t interfered with. “Hey Dad! Ew, is that Mr. Barr licking your balls again? Ewww.” “Don’t worry Princess, he’s almost done. And he knows if he doesn’t get the job done he’ll be thrown out with the trash, just like all the others.”
Hey, guess what? Do you have any idea how many deaths Hawaii has had from Corona Virus? 17.
Yeah, one seven. That’s it. Why? It’s an island? Well duh. That helps. Obviously. But they have an electrical engineer as governor. He looks at data and acts on it. Low on charisma, good on getting the job done. Hum. Maybe there’s something to that science stuff? If you went to Hawaii you were quarantined in your hotel room for fourteen days. Your key worked once to let you into your room. If you left you got arrested. Some got out and boasted on social media that they got out. They got arrested. No fuss, no muss.
How come all those get tough, gun toting, states are such pussies? This guy is an engineer. An electrical engineer! I guess they come geekier than that, but not much. Hey Texas, why don’t you get your bad ass self up and tough? Oh, pussy. Okay. Like Bolton? No different. Okay.
Meanwhile. Florida’s two Senators. The “I take the fifth seventy times” Rick Scott or the “I can drink water from a bottle” Mark Rubio are slightly wavering from the no mask policy that the president has laid out. Seems that they must be getting disturbed by the bodies piling up in the corner.
But hey, don’t worry boys, you got company. I’m waiting to see what the southwest does when it runs out of capacity, which it, like southern Florida, is scheduled to do soon. Like in a few days, maybe two weeks. Some of the governors in those area are even giving press conferences where they wimpley say, “Oh gee, gosh, maybe you ought to, you know, wear a mask.” Or at least hang it off of one ear, put it around your neck, I don’t know. Somewhere near your face.
Let me say this because I keep forgetting to mention it. If Hillary had won we wouldn’t be having this crisis. Why? Because she reads. She’s smart. She’s prepared. She would have stopped this thing in China. Compare this to Donald. He doesn’t read. He’s stupid. He’s ill-prepared and he didn’t stop it in China (like Joe Biden said in January that we should have done – and could have done.)
There’s more. I want to thank all of you who send me little tidbits.
Here’s one – Europe, the Eu specifically, is planning to ban American travelers when they reopen on July 1.
Wonder why?
I’d like to see New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut’s governors team up with the governor of Maine and get the rest of the New England states on board to root out the virus. Maybe set up checkpoints on the interstates. Then march across the country doing the same thing: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and westward ho! Then redo Sherman’s march through the south. Let’s not forget our history! Am I right? Yeah.
128 Days until the election on November 3rd
208 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
PS Who doesn’t love a puppy? Katie, Rickie and Alex – Bannockburn Pool 1999. Katie the ballerina.
Leave a Reply