Branded: Barr-None

White House and Justice Dept. Officials Discussed Mueller Report Before Release
 New York Times

—  WASHINGTON — Robert S. Mueller III’s findings will be public on Thursday, but some of them will not be news to President Trump.  —  Justice Department officials have had numerous conversations …

These facts are indisputable:

William Barr had prejudged the Mueller investigation — his letter delineating that prejudice got him his job interview, and, subsequently, his job.

The ethics lawyers at Justice had, for that reason, advised that he recuse himself from that investigation.

Barr overruled them.

Trump and the Smallpox Blankets

UPDATED BELOW

Trump wants to drop off southern border detainees in “Sanctuary Cities.” And no one even blinks. Just another crazy news story in another crazy news cycle.  beg to differ. This is one of the most horrific and consequential acts of an already horrific and consequential presi-dfunce-y thus far. And we would do well to cultivate our outrage.

Trump’s plan to send migrant detainees to sanctuary cities draws concerns about cost, legality
Maria Sacchetti / Washington Post

—  Should President Trump follow through on a proposal to release migrants in U.S. “sanctuary cities,” it would be a major departure from the way federal agencies are handling detainees.

THERE’s some outrage, eh?

Law With No Rules

Trump’s bewildering national emergency press conference, annotated
Washington Post

—  President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border on Friday — but not without making a scene full of false claims, offbeat comments and tense exchanges…

We are about to plunge into Constitutional crisis as I write this, and none of the talking heads seems to think that it’s much of a big deal. [UPDATE: Crisis now enacted.] Oh sure, some claim that the federal courts (so freshly packed with Mitch McConnell/Federalist Society hanging judges) will protect us.  Yeah.

Some believe that Congress will protect us. Right.

And some even believe that the Republic will endure. Sure.

Make no mistake: this is a Caesar moment: the “president” declares himself First Citizen and rules by fiat (no: not the Italian car).

The Dog and Pony Show; Trump’s SOTU

Trump’s Address to Congress Unlikely to Bring Harmony

Peter Baker / New York Times  —  WASHINGTON — President Trump was set to deliver what aides called a message of bipartisan unity on Tuesday night in his first address to Congress in the new era of divided government, but any hope of harmony was dispelled long before he left the White House.

The true State of the Union? Parlous.

There IS no middle of the road position in America today

It begins, as our Toddler-In-Chief enters the House chamber.

Vanity, Vanity, all is Vanity

[ Vanity, vanity … etc.: Ecclesiastes 1:2]

Hannity, Hannity, fatter than a Manatee…
       ~ John Cleese, from a poem by

Yes, Virginia, this IS a fisking, but a needed and almost never seen in my writings, fisking of a Lonesome Rhodes sort of display in the mass media that ought to shock us, both as an absurdist but dangerous defense of the Madness of Donald Trump, and as a flagrant example of the deterioration — even rotting — of academic standards once held in highest regard by an educated society that considered education the KEY to rising in that society. Just ask Abraham Lincoln, who is peripherally involved in all of this, as we shall see.

I have just had a sort of epiphany of sophistry. This is not hyperbolic, nor is what I have to say controversial, save that it might offend some of those from whom the epiphanic state was engendered. Now, bearing in mind that this sophistry — the tree that produces no fruit whatsoever — is only explainable by laying it out in reverse, I will, withholding certain information until the denouement, begin thusly:

Let us go down, and there confound their language

Happy New Year!

Here’s a fun true story about NOT hiring a bilingual proof reader:

Many years ago, I got a job typesetting for a company that specialized in supermarket flyers. Several of our accounts were for flyers in Spanish. But, like good Orange County, Cali. gringos, they couldn’t be bothered to hire a bilingual proofreader. Came the new year, in giant HEADLINE type:

Our Fourteenth Annual Christmas Radio Show!

Jan. 1 2019 UPDATE: The show has been taken down. Link no longer works.

Welcome to his vorpal sword‘s  Fourteenth Annual Presentation of “The Saint Nick Case,” a Christmas radio play of approximately one-half hour.

The Saint Nick Case for radio was written by Hart Williams in 1986, and performed on KOPT AM radio for Christmas 2005.

Click for the radio play

For a special treat,  The KOPT Radio Theater Players in the 2005 production of “The St. Nick Case,” in wide-spectrum, full color stereo. The radio play was broadcast live on Eugene’s Air America affiliate KOPT-AM 1600 on December 23, 2005.