(Permanent Musical Accompaniment to the Last Post of the Week from the Blog’s Favourite Living Canadian)
The Cult has decided to bring its latest tantrum to the big room. From Politico:
“We are unwilling to aid and abet this White House in its project to tear this country apart,” the senators wrote. Signatories of the letter include Lee and fellow Republicans J.D. Vance (Ohio), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), Eric Schmitt (Mo.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Roger Marshall (Kan.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.). Both Vance and Rubio are thought to be on Trump’s running mate short-list. Many of these Republicans oppose most Biden-led priorities. However, in a chamber that frequently relies on unanimous consent to move with haste, the promised move could hinder quick Senate action.
The transformation of the Republican Senate caucus into a better-dressed version of the wild kingdom over in the House is now complete. It’s helpful to remember that Lee owes his entire reputation as a konztitooshunal skolar to his passionate embrace of the Tenth Amendment, which, in Lee’s perfervid imagination, pretty much demands that the federal government take the next couple centuries off in favor of allowing the states to run things. Now Lee and his cabal of cultists are angry about a verdict in a state court so they’re going to jam the gears of said federal government in retaliation. This lack of respect for the wisdom of the Articles of Confederation is truly distressing.
At the other end of the Hall, Speaker Mike Johnson has lit the signal fires calling for more corruption from the carefully manufactured 6–3 conservative majority that works across the street.
“I do believe the Supreme Court should step in,” Johnson said on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” on Friday. “I think they’ll set this straight but it’s going to take a while.” Johnson added of the Supreme Court justices: “I know many of them personally, I think they’re deeply concerned about” faith in the U.S. justice system.
Dance, monkeys, dance.
Meanwhile, Fulton County (Ga.) Inmate No. P01135809 held a press availability on Friday afternoon. I hesitate to call it a “press conference” because that implies a certain level of coherent, sentient thought. And this? Well, not so much. It was forty-five minutes of spittle-flecked sentence fragments and great gouts of projectile-vomited lies. Here’s the video, if you can stand it, from the AP. It’s quite demented. My favorite part is how he perseverates on the phrase “falsified business records.” Keep saying that, convict. I think it’s a winner.
Weekly WWOZ Pick to Click: “Blues for My Landlady” (Oscar Peterson): Yeah, I still pretty much still love New Orleans.
Weekly Visit to the Pathe Archives: Here, from 1962, is the arrest of former Venezuelan president Marcos Perez Jiminez in Miami on charges of his being a king thief. Marcos is filmed looking like the lead in a Caracas production of The Quiet Man. He ended up in Spain, under the protection of Francisco Franco, who is still dead. History is so cool.
I am a complete agnostic on the ongoing religious war among baseball savants between the old-school types and the modern figure filberts. As long as I can still sit in Fenway on a cool summer evening with a dog and a cold one, even though I now have to apply for federal matching funds to afford it, I couldn’t care less what some rookie shortstops WAR is. Tell me that it’s significant in evaluating him and I’ll accept it, but you can’t make me give a damn. I’m still busy being furious that current management squandered Mookie Betts. Anyway, Major League Baseball did a good thing this week. It allowed the incorporation of the statistics from the Negro Leagues into the formal MLB record book. This has necessitated some adjustments in the historical record. From MLB.com:
Take the legendary slugger Josh Gibson, whose Hall of Fame plaque mentions a total of “almost 800 home runs.” While it’s possible that total is accurate if one were to count all of Gibson’s games, including exhibitions and other non-league contests, his verifiable total being added to the official record is only 174. Rate stats are another matter, though, and as you will see below, those of many Negro League greats stack up quite favorably....Case in point: Gibson, with a .372 average in the official stats, is now the all-time Major League batting champion. That distinction had long belonged to the great Ty Cobb, who batted .367 from 1905–28.
Oh, how that must stick in the craw of that vicious old Confederate. Gibson also knocked Babe Ruth out of the top spot in career slugging percentage.
I hope baseball takes the logical next step and applies an asterisk to every record set between 1883, when Cap Anson threatened to pull his Chicago team out of scheduled games if any Black player were allowed to take the field, and April 15, 1947, when Jackie Robinson took his first swings in a major-league ballpark. Sorry, Hack Wilson. Fair is fair.
Discovery Corner: Hey, look what we found! From LiveScience:
The artifacts are thought to have been made at the time of the Kangju state, a little-known entity that ruled the region between the fifth century B.C. and the fourth century A.D. According to a translated statement by officials at Turkistan’s regional government, the finds show the highly developed craftsmanship of the region when the Kangju state traded with ancient Rome, ancient China, and the Kushan Empire farther south. From its style—circular, with an eight-sided arched design on the back and a hole in the center for a thread—the bronze mirror seems to have originated in China during the Han dynasty, which ruled from 206 B.C. until A.D. 220. Such items were highly prized throughout Eurasia—similar mirrors have been found in Afghanistan and the southern Ural region—and it was a sign the woman it was buried beside had been wealthy and influential, according to the statement. In addition to the bronze mirror, the artifacts included a Roman-style brooch called a fibula; large and small beads; a pottery jug; a shoe; a belt buckle; an arrowhead designed for hunting birds; and two gold earrings that are thought to date from the first century B.C.
That’s some high-quality work right there. Nicely done, ancient Kazakh lady. You had great taste.
Hey, ABC, is it a good day for dinosaur news? It’s always a good day for dinosaur news!
The fossilized remains of the species’ single hind leg, including its thigh, shin, and ankle bones were discovered embedded into a rock in the lake’s shoreline, according to a study published in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica on Thursday.Researchers say the remains date back to the Late Triassic period, approximately 210 million years ago....
After analyzing Musankwa Sanyatiensis, researchers note the new species is among the Sauropodomorpha, a clade of long-necked dinosaurs that lived during the Late Triassic. “Despite the limited fossil material, these bones possess unique features that distinguish them from those of other dinosaurs living at the same time,” Dr. Kimberley “Kimi” Chapelle, assistant professor at Stony Brook University and an honorary associate at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits said in a press release for the study Thursday.
Sauropodomorpha me, baby, like my back ain’t got no bone. Congrats to the crew in Zimbabwe, and to our newest dino, who lived then to make the crew in Zimbabwe 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. Wear the damn mask. Take the damn shots, especially the boosters, and especially the most recent boosters. Watch out for the damn bird flu. And spare a moment for the good people in Iowa and across the Plains states who have been living under the gun of all the tornadoes, especially the folks in Texas, who are staring down the barrel again this weekend. And for the people of Baltimore, and for the people of Israel and of Gaza, the people of Ukraine, of Lewiston, Maine, and for the victims of monkeypox in the Republic of the Congo, and of the earthquake zones in Taiwan, Iraq, Turkey, Morocco, and Colombia, and in the flood zone in Libya, and the flood zones all across the Ohio Valley, and on the Horn of Africa, and in Tanzania and Kenya, 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 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 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 especially for our fellow citizens in the LGBTQ+ community, who deserve so much better from their country than they’ve been getting.
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.
