They're Everywhere ... Part Deux

It wasn’t hard, but I have found some more stupid to start the week …

TENNESSEE

The McMinn County School Board has voted to remove the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel “Maus” from an eighth-grade language arts curriculum due to concerns about profanity and an image of female nudity in its depiction of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust.

Art Spiegelman, the author of “Maus,” told CNBC:

“I’m kind of baffled by this. It’s leaving me with my jaw open, like, ‘What?’ I’ve met so many young people who ... have learned things from my book. … I also understand that Tennessee is obviously demented.”

Spiegelman suspects the school board members were motivated less  about some mild curse words—there are eight in the entire book—or the nudity—the nude woman in the book is Spiegelman’s mother, and the photo showcases the degrading way women were treated in the camps—and more by the subject of the book, which tells the story of his Jewish parents’ time in Nazi concentration camps, the mass murder of other Jews by Nazis, his mother’s suicide when he was just 20, and his relationship with his father.

What to do? Write letters? Protest? Cast a GODDAMNED vote? Yes, to all of that, but also do as Stephen King suggested on Twitter … find out which library has this book, and indeed all books banned by so-called conservatives, and check the book out and read it; or find a bookstore that sells it, buy it online, and read it.

Knowledge is power and if you read Spiegelman’s book you’ll see that the authorities in Tennessee are trying to erase the Holocaust from history.

And I know of at least 11 million reasons why that should never happen.

WASHINGTON

Robert LaMay, a State trooper was forced to step down from his job because he refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and after being let go, he told the state’s Democrat Governor Jay Inslee to “kiss my ass.”

Y’all know where this is going … this week LaMay died from COVID.

Sorry, not sorry.

NEW YORK CITY

Last weekend SNL made fun of Candace Owens in a skit, after which Owens ran to Fox to complain about the idea of a Black woman portraying another Black woman as stupid for laughs. Oh Candace, have you never seen SNL?

But then, minutes later on the same show, Owens showed how stupid she is when she went after … wait for it … Minnie Mouse, for wearing a pantsuit:

“It goes back to, like when they did this to the M&M’s and now they’re making [Minnie] more masculine … They’re taking all of these things that nobody was offended by and feel like they have to get rid of them and destroy them because they’re bored. You know, they’re absolutely bored. They’re trying to destroy fabrics of our society, pretending that there’s issues. So everybody looks over here, look at Minnie Mouse. Don’t look at inflation … look at Minnie Mouse. The world is going forward because we’ve got her in a pantsuit. Never mind, that you can’t get anything at the grocery store and you can’t buy a piece of bacon unless you’ve got $30 in your pocket. At least, we’re addressing the real problem, which is Minnie Mouse.”

Yes, there is no food at the grocery stores, and bacon costs $30.

Methinks Candace is too dumb to see that there are other places to shop, and she’s too dumb to note that even she wears pantsuits but a cartoon mouse doing so is taking it too far.

PS She’s been a leader in the conservative push to kill as many fellow conservatives as possible based on the theory that it will drive Joe Biden’s approval ratings down among the surviving Americans who were smart enough not to listen to people like Candace Owens in the first place.

And now she says the Moon landing was faked.

WISCONSIN

GOP Senator Ron Johnson is against government efforts to make childcare cheaper for parents:

“People decide to have families and become parents. That’s something they need to consider when they make that choice. I’ve never really felt it was society’s responsibility to take care of other people’s children.”

Johnson says slashing unemployment benefits to get more people back to work and alleviate the ongoing labor shortage would be a better alternative.

So, not only does Ron Johnson want to cut unemployment benefits, but he wants to make it harder for working people to get childcare so they can work.

ITALY

Pope Francis says parents of LGBTQIA children should not condemn them but offer them support.

But the Catholic Church will do nothing to help those same children, much less LGBTQ+ adults, and the church will never accept same-sex marriage.

How does a parent who is Catholic support an LGBTQIA child and also support a church that denies that child the right to marry when they are grown?

WASHINGTON DC

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch works right alongside of Justice Sonia Sotomayor who has diabetes, a condition that puts her at elevated risk for serious illness, or even death, from COVID-19. She has been the only justice to wear a mask on the bench since last fall when the justices resumed in-person arguments for the first time since the onset of the pandemic.

Sotomayor did not feel safe in close proximity to people who were unmasked so Chief Justice John Roberts, understanding that, asked the other justices to mask up except Gorsuch, who refused. His continued refusal means Sotomayor has not attended the justices’ weekly conference in person, joining instead by telephone.

Get educated. Save yourself from The Stupids.

 

The Funny Papers

Jack Ohman, Kevin Siers, Adam Zyglis, Darrin Bell, Bill Day, John Darkow, JD Crowe, Ed Hall, Nick Anderson, Michael de Adder, Chris Britt, Steve Benson, RJ Matson, Steve Sack, Clay Bennett

Bobservations

Carlos has a serious issue with time, being late almost, almost, always. On the other hand, I was raised to almost, almost, always be early.

The other day, though, I got stuck at work chatting with co-workers and was late picking him up; he was annoyed. And we had a small spat about it, where I apologized—I should have called—but also reminded him that he has no sense of time and he is almost, almost, always late and has no issue with making people wait.

Cut to this morning; we had to leave early because Ozzo had a surgery and a dental cleaning planned and we had to have him at the vet’s office between seven and seven-thirty. We usually have breakfast at 7:30 so I suggested Carlos, who gets up first, have his breakfast first, and I’d eat after we dropped the dog off because I don’t need to go in as early.

I awoke at 6:45. We had fifteen minutes to leave, so I jumped out of bed and brushed my teeth, got dressed, threw on a ball cap and went out to the kitchen where Carlos … was preparing to make a couple of Café con Leches! I said:

“We have to go! We have to get Ozzo to the vet before 7:30.”

Carlos was stunned:

“Well, when can I have breakfast!”

“You’re right, call the vet and tell them we’ll be there at eight or so … after you have breakfast because they’ll wait on surgery for your breakfast!”

This is the same man who, when we lived in Miami, had a forty-five-minute commute to work each morning, and one morning, as we ate breakfast, he noticed he had just twenty minutes to get to work.

“Oh my god! I’m gonna be so late …”

I started to get up from the table.

“…so, I’ll have one more piece of toast.”

Seriously.

In Perhaps He Shouldn’t Speak news … Kanye West is back and under fire for Tweeting his support for Candace Owens, a pro-Trump, anti-Black Lives Matter conservative:

“I love the way Candace Owens thinks … only free thinkers.”

Kanye failed to notice that Owens is the conservative communications director for Turning Point USA, a nonprofit that spreads right-leaning values on college campuses and is thisclose to the _____ White House. Owens oversees the group’s “urban engagement” which means she attempts to dismantle arguments about white privilege put forward by black activists and the Democratic Party and defends the NRA because “they helped to train black Americans to use guns to defend themselves against the Ku Klux Klan, a Democrat terrorist group.”

Again, Kanye, take a seat and let the grownups talk.

When Sean Hannity was named in court this week as a client of _____’s fixer Michael Cohen, he insisted their discussions were limited to the subject of buying property:

“I’ve said many times on my radio show: I hate the stock market, I prefer real estate. Michael knows real estate.”

Apparently so; Hannity’s chosen investment strategy is confirmed by thousands of pages of public records detailing a real estate portfolio of remarkable scale. The records link Hannity to a group of shell companies that spent at least $90 million on more than 870 homes in seven states over the past decade. Hannity is the hidden owner behind some of the shell companies and his attorney did not dispute that he owns all of them. But, for some of the mortgages, Hannity obtained funding from HUD, Secretary Ben Carson’s department.

Hannity did not disclose his cooperation with HUD when he had Carson on his show last June, but, during that segment, he railed against the state of public housing.

Naturally, Hannity, Carson and Fox aren’t talking because … criminals.

I’ve shared this story before but, years ago Carlos and I went to Disneyworld in Orlando. After a fabulous day we stayed for the fireworks and then began walking toward the exit; we held hands as we walked and noticed a lesbian couple walking ahead of us also holding hands.

A voice behind us shouted, “What is this? Gay Days?”

And one of the lesbian shouted back, “For us, every day is gay day.”

And now, all these years later, Disney is going even more gay by paying homage to the LGBTQ community with a red cap featuring rainbow-colored ears and a pair of Mickey Mouse hands forming a rainbow heart on the front.

Every day is gay day at Disney!

In This Is High-Larious news, remember when _____ used to boast about his appointment of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch as one of his big accomplishments?

Now, maybe not so much. It seems Gorsuch recently sided with left-leaning Justices Ginsburg, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer in a case dealing with an immigrant who was facing deportation.

And now _____ is said to be fuming.

Liberal and pro-immigrant? I call it well-deserved bad karma for _____, Mitch McTurtle and the entire GOP for stealing that SCOTUS seat. They should've done the right thing and put Merrick Garland on the bench.

Oops. After 11 hours of political pushing and shoving at the Utah Republican Convention delegates forced Mittsy Romney into a primary election against state Representative Mike Kennedy for that U.S. Senate race.

Kennedy finished in first place, with 51% of the vote to Romney’s 49% percent, but neither reached the magic 60% number the get the nod.

Still, it’ll be nice to see Mittsy, who used to blast _____ but now kisses his fat ass, have to actually work for this.

Hopefully the people of Utah will just say ‘No.’

More Oops? As the Pee Tape saga continues to unfold, _____ claims he told James Comey that, well, he didn’t need to hire hookers—when he hires porn stars—and that he was only in Russia for one day when the ALLEGED golden showers took place.

But, it turns out that was another _____ lie as flight records prove he was in Moscow during the “Rainy” season for 45 hours … clearly overnight. Plus, _____’s own bodyguard had contradicted the story.

Now, I’m not saying he was peed on in Russia, but he’s clearly lying about a lot of that trip so… maybe?

As I said to _____ on Twitter:

“Urine trouble!”

I’m’a just say this … I don’t like Beyoncé. I don’t find her talented, unless talent these days is a wig machine, a weave, and an ass shaking.

There. Sue me.

Don Blankenship, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate in West Virginia suggested that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell faced conflicts of interests because his wife, Elaine Chao’s, father is a “wealthy Chinaperson.”

Blankenship is running for the Senate as a proud West Virginian with Appalachian roots, but his primary residence is a $2.4 million villa with palm trees and an infinity pool near Las Vegas.

Yup, he’s clearly a Republican who says one thing while living the other.

Oh, and even better, Blankenship is married to a Chinese immigrant, but maybe her father isn’t a rich “Chinaperson.”

Okay, so now Amazon has announced that they can deliver your packages to your car, rather than your home because they will be able to access the trunk of your car, open it, and put your packages inside; in addition, if the trunk is full, they will also be able to unlock your car and put your order inside the vehicle.

We just learned about our privacy being invaded, and personal information stolen, corrupted on Facebook and now people are going to let Amazon be able to open your car and leave something inside for you.

I cannot wait for the first Amazon customer to sue the company because their car was stolen by someone who hacked into Amazon’s system.

Dear Starbucks,

‘After you get done closing all your stores and giving your employees a racial-bias education, could you close America and offer it to the entire country.

Asking for a country.

Did you see the photo of _____ and French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House when _____ wiped the “dandruff” off Macron’s shoulder and then said:

"They're all saying what a great relationship we have, and they're actually correct. We do have a very special relationship. In fact, I'll get that little piece of dandruff off–we have to make him perfect. He is perfect."

I kinda hoped Macron would have reached out to _____’s shoulder, tried to wipe it off, and the said:

‘Huh. Ignorant, unqualified, racist, rapist, blowhard doesn’t come off as easy.”

That would’a been fun.

In Hot Men News … a new show on BBC America, Killing Eve, features a couple of rugged looking older men who may, or may not, tickle my, um, ivories … Edward Akrout and Owen McDonnell.

On the other end of the age spectrum, we have Garrett Hodges, a high school football player and singer who, until this week, was a contestant on American idol. I love a jock with perfectly manicured brows.

Just sayin’.

My Two Cents: Neil Gorsuch, Arkansas, The Death Penalty and Ledell Lee

I am against the Death Penalty in every single instance; sue me.

I used to attend protests at San Quentin whenever there was a murder scheduled. I have my reasons, and I have my arguments, but let me spell them out plainly:

If murder is illegal, than state-sanctioned murder should be illegal.

From a monetary standpoint, it’s actually cheaper—costing taxpayers, you and me less money—to sentence a murderer to life without parole, than to sentence someone to death, which give them years of appeals that are costly to the state.

What if we put someone to death but then find out later they were innocent? We murdered an innocent person; I don’t want that blood on my hands, do you?

If you argue that, what if someone murdered someone I love, wouldn’t I want that person dead? No; I mean, unless it could bring my dead loved one back, but it wouldn’t and so I won’t sink to the level of advocating death.

That’s me; sue me. But this isn’t about me; last Thursday night Arkansas executed Ledell Lee—the state’s first execution in 12 years.

Lee was one of eight men Arkansas had planned to kill—like some kind of celebration of executions—over 11 days before one of the drugs used in the 3-drug lethal injection cocktail expired.

Oh, so it was cost effective to have a Lethal Injection Spree!

Four of the men received stays of execution, but Ledell Lee’s final plea to the Supreme Court was rejected by a 5–4 vote with _____’s appointee, Justice Neil Gorsuch casting the deciding vote to put Ledell Lee to death.

Lee had insisted upon his innocence from the day of his arrest through the night of his execution, and, before you say it, I know most murderers do. But Ledell Lee also begged the state to let him take a simple DNA test and compare it to results collected at the scene of the murder he allegedly committed; Arkansas refused.

Seriously? A chance for definitive proof that you are right about the man you are sentencing to death and you’re like, “Nah, why bother”?

Ledell Lee also presented evidence that the judge in his case was not impartial because the judge was having an affair with the assistant prosecutor at the time, but Arkansas, and Neil Gorsuch, didn’t care.

Lee claimed his trial attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel because the man actually appeared in court drunk and slurring his words, but, hey, why stop the trial for that; why start over and make sure Lee had every option available to him?

When Lee’s requests for a new trial, requests for a DNA test, were denied, he then claimed that Arkansas’ use of the drug midazolam to render him unconscious before stopping his heart was cruel and unusual—in violation of the Eighth Amendment—because the drug might not actually induce unconsciousness and, in fact, because it hadn’t, had already caused other executions to go awry.

But, again, the Supreme Court split 4-4 and Gorsuch opted for death in his first decision. He ordered a man murdered who may have been innocent; he ordered a man murdered after a trial where the judge had a severe conflict; he ordered a man murdered who’d been represented by a drunk.

But, you know, Arkansas wanted to save some coins and use their lethal injection drugs before they were deemed ineffective, so let’s have a Lethal Injection Party supported by the Supreme Court ... who voted the way they did because of _____ appointee Neil Gorsuch.

First vote; first blood.

Ledell Lee was declared dead shortly before midnight last Thursday and there’s a chance, slim or otherwise, that he might have been innocent; and there’s a chance, slim or otherwise, that he unduly suffered because the drug administered to render him unconscious didn’t work.

It was a great day in America.

And it makes me sick.

Slate

The Funny Papers

Nick Anderson, Drew Sheneman, JD Crowe, Clay Bennett, RJ Matson, David Fitzsimmons, Trevor Irwin, David Horsey, Adam Zyglis, Mike Luckovich

Random Musings

Last Sunday, I was in the kitchen getting ready to make some soup when Carlos, who had been on the computer for a while, sauntered in and asked this question:

“Who is this Tom Brady and why is everyone talking about him?”

Bless his heart. Later on, as he practiced his trumpet, I was channel-surfing—well, waiting for Gaga to come on—so I had the TV tuned to the Super Bowl. Carlos again entered the room, squinted at the screen and when I asked what he was doing he said:

“I just want to see what’s happening so tomorrow at work if anyone asks I can say I watched the game.”

I replied:

“Oh honey. No one at your office is gonna believe you watched football!”

Bless his heart.

Neo-Nazi, white supremacist, racist alt-right leader Richard “May I call you ‘Dick” Spencer, who made headlines last November when his speech to white supremacist _____ supporters ended with Nazi salutes and Heil _____, is back and as racist as ever  ... over a football game.

Dick Spencer Tweeted:

“I was born in Boston, Mass. I'm proud of the NFL's Whitest team! #superbowl”

“Rooting for the Pats!1/ Belichick & Brady support Trump2/ Three White widereceivers3/ Consistently NFL's whitest team4/ ATL is dreadful”

Earlier in the game, when the Patriots were down by twenty points, he replied to this Tweet from a man named Chase Mitchell:

“@RichardBSpencer how does it feel to be losing to America's blackest gayest city you nazi piece of f**king garbage”

... with this ...

“Your tweet aged like a fine wine.”

Then this ...

“Happy birthday Trayvon Martin! #Patriots #SuperBowl”

Then this ...

“And to think #kek allowed the #Patriots to win in Black History Month! #Superbowl”

Then this...

“For the White race, it's never over. #SuperBowl”

And finally this ...

“Will Atlanta riot after #superbowl loss? And more importantly how can they tell?”

Again, may I call you Dick ... because you are a dick. A racist Nazi-saluting, goose-stepping, _____-supporting, Hitler loving, race-baiting, piece of excrement, dick.

I post this because this racist openly supports _____, and _____ has never once condemned the filth that spews forth from Dick Spencer's mouth.

Remember that. Resist.

I was a huge Downton Abbey fan and distraught when Matthew Crawley was killed because actor Dan Stevens, above, wanted to do other things. I missed his sweet smile and his baby blues every Sunday night. But now Stevens is back playing a maybe-crazy-maybe-not man on FX’s Legion, so I am getting my fix.

And then, whilst watching The Real O’Neal’s I noticed that Little Gay Kenny’s new boyfriend is awfully cute. He’s a high school student and I was feeling a little like a pervert thinking this high school boy was cute, but then I learned that the actor, Sean Grandillo, above, is 24 ... so I feel less like a pervert and more like a lech.

And there is a difference.

This is what a White House Press Secretary does ... Spicer demanded an apology from The New York Times for publishing an article about President _____ and saying that Hair Furor wears a bathrobe.

“That report was so riddled with inaccuracies and lies that they owe the president an apology.  ... I don’t think the president owns a bathrobe; he definitely doesn’t wear one.”

Yup, let’s talk _____ in a bathrobe. It's ugly, right?

And speaking of _____ and Spicer, what did they think of Melissa McCarthy’s brilliant portrayal of Spicer on SNL? Well, Spicer said he thought the impersonation was “cute” but Hair Furor, though he didn’t Tweet about it, was less than amused.

A "top _____ donor” says McCarthy’s performance did the one thing that no one has been able to do: shut _____ up. The source says McCarthy’s Spicer “rattled” Hair Furor and he thought that having a woman play Spicer made his team look weak.

I hope SNL runs with this and turns all of _____’s men into women and all his women into men. High-larious.

Ouch. Hair Furor’s SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch met with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal this week and told him that _____’s Tweets about “so-called’ judges were “demoralizing” and “disheartening”:

“He said very specifically that they were demoralizing and disheartening and he characterized them very specifically that way. I said they were more than disheartening and I said to him that he has an obligation to make his views clear to the American people, so they understand how abhorrent or unacceptable President _____’s attacks on the judiciary are.”— Richard Blumenthal

And before _____ could spin this whole story into a lie, Ron Bonjean, communications leader for Gorsuch during the confirmation process, admitted that Gorsuch had said it.

Poor _____, even his own appointee is rattling his cage.

This week, as Senator Elizabeth Warren read a letter from Coretta Scott King about racist Attorney General nominee Jess Sessions, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stopped her from speaking, saying she had violated Senate rule No. 19, which says senators cannot “directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”

So, let me get this queer: the GOP leadership in Congress silenced a woman for reading a letter from another woman because of some archaic rule about denigrating a fellow member of Congress--in this case racist asshat Jeff Sessions--yet another member of Congress, yet Orrin Hatch can call Democrats idiots and Ted Cruz can call them liars and that's just fine?
And then these MEN, who silenced a WOMAN, allow other men to read that very same letter? Is that because they’re as afraid of Warren as they are of Hillary Clinton? or is it because the GOP doesn't care what women think?

Well then ... #Warren2020

So the Patriots won the Super Bowl and lotsa folks are feeling the upset is a little like the _____ win in November, especially given that Tom Brady—one of the dimmest bulbs in the sport ... seriously, listen to him speak. I’ve heard third graders speak more eloquently—and Patriots coach Bill Belichick are _____ supporters. But not everyone on the team is so keen on Hair Furor.

But, Devin McCourty, left, and Martellus Bennett, right, two of Tom Brady’s teammates, won’t be making the traditional ceremonial trip to the White House that most Super Bowl winning teams make every year:

“I’m not going to the White House. Basic reason for me is I don’t feel accepted in the White House. With the president having so many strong opinions and prejudices I believe certain people might feel accepted there while others won’t.”— Devin McCourty

For his part, Martellus Bennett said:

“It is what it is. People know how I feel about it. I don’t support the guy in the [White House].”

Good for them, and if they’d like to stop by my little house in Smallville and say Hello, I wouldn’t mind that at all. I mean, a couple of beefy hot guys who don't like _____? I would love it.

This week I was at the DMV and a woman and her little bowl were sitting behind me waiting for their number to be called and this is what I heard the mother say:

“Baby, this is the fourth car Mama has had to register in six months. I gotta stop wreckin’ cars. That’s my New Years Revolution.”

It must be a revolution if she’s wrecked that many cars!

Looking for a way to Resist? Here’s a simple one ... all it takes is a stamp ... or a hundred, depending on how many you mail

Do.It. Resist. Imagine the _____ White Getting millions and millions of these!