Fear & loathing in Las Vegas

As some of you may be aware, there’s a sporting event taking place on Sunday. It’s driving MAGAts crazy because they consider that American football, in which teams of large male millionaires padded to the max crash into one another and millions of people bet their beer money on which one will leave the field with higher numbers on the scoreboard—“that’s mah game, man!”

But this year they’re conflicted, because of Traylor.

That’s to say, in case you’ve been in an ashram for the past year—Travis Kelce, a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs (I don’t know what a tight end does, and I’m not sure why they don’t also have loose ends) is dating Taylor Swift.

If I have to explain to you who Taylor Swift is, we have no reason to be here. But she is everything MAGAts fear and loathe: smart, talented, powerful, successful, happy and richer than any hundred of them will be in their entire collective lives. And female.

They've also managed to cobble together conspiracy theories about how the Traylor thing is either a Pentagon psyop, an NFL hoax or a Biden manipulation. I am not making those up.

Well, not that any of them will be reading this, but today’s earworm is Swift’s “Shake It Off”.

Volume up.

 

 

 

Catering

If you wonder what you’re looking at here, it’s fat I trimmed from some meat I bought at Costco. It came off in strips, but—as I was giving it to Foxy—I cut them up into little pieces so he wouldn’t choke on the bigger chunks.

(I do the same thing with rinds of cheese.)

Which was probably a good thing, because not 15 minutes after I scattered them on the patio, they disappeared.

 

 

The front page

I made a Costco run yesterday—I was getting low on Greek yoghurt and down to eight pounds of butter, so it was time. I was gone about an hour (I do not dawdle in a shopping situation), and when I returned home, this is what the home page of The Washington Post looked like:

A few Thoughts:

The Kleptocrat will obviously appeal the D.C. Circuit Court panel’s (unanimous) decision. (The judges did not buy his lawyer’s argument that the Founding Fathers intended that a president have the freedom to order members of the military to assassinate a political opponent without worrying about criminal prosecution.) That will be two rounds of court appearances—before the full Circuit Court and then SCOTUS—and will no doubt effectively delay the federal prosecution for his attempts to obstruct Congress until after November’s election.

So it’s a win for him.

But I bet the ketchup is flying at Mar-a-Lago.

Also—I have no doubt that he’s added the names of the panel who ruled against him to his “retribution” list. That story is all about how the guy who once held the most powerful office in the world is waving his willie in the direction of anyone who hasn’t shown him sufficient adulation and obeisance. (In the end, no one will be kept off that list, because there’s never enough.) But he’s actually gearing up to use the power of that office to stomp every person on that list in the most humiliating way possible.

And there are millions of dumbasses who are happy to vote him into office for that purpose.

Third—“trust issues” in the GOP? Whatever next?

 

 

 

Sidewalk declaration

 Spotted on the path around the cluster tot lot: the alphabet person has found love.

Gratitude Monday: Partners

I spent a good deal of last week trying to deal with various aspects of getting healthcare coverage. In one case, it was the insurer wanting to charge me premiums based on my income from…two years ago. (I filled out the required form, attached proof of being laid off last may and now wait…six months for them to adjust.) In the other, it was the insurer claiming that I need to pay higher premiums for prescription coverage because I didn’t meet the prior coverage requirement. (I do, but CVS Caremark is playing silly buggers with Anthem about who needs to provide proof.)

So it was a welcome change to reconnect with a former colleague, who was laid off a year ago, to start an accountability partnership with him.

For one thing, I really like him—he’s a terrific product manager (how he won the layoff lottery when some others were left standing, I do not know), very smart and really funny. For another, he brings a different perspective to my job search from my two other partners.

Third—he’s been searching on his own for more than 12 months, and I know that having someone to check in with regularly will help reduce the sense of isolation and anxiety you feel when you’re in this cycle. And I’m grateful for his help, and for the help I can provide him.

That's not nothing these days, I assure you.

 

 

Gay with laughter, happy as can be

It being Groundhog Day today, what better earworm than Frankie Yankovic playing “The Pennsylvania Polka”? Because if you’ve ever seen Groundhog Day, you’ll immediately associate the music with Bill Murray’s karmic transformation over (and over) the eponymous day in Punxsutawney, Penn.

Here’s a bonus: the chase sequence from the film. This never grows old.

 

 

Last week's fish

You may be aware that a federal jury in Manhattan last week took all of less than three hours to award writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3M in damages (of which $65M was punitive) in her defamation suit against the Kleptocrat.

A couple of things—the award in her previous lawsuit (for sexual assault and defamation) was $5M, of which $300K was punitive. That jury, in May 2023, found that Cadet Bonespurs did assault Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman’s dressing room in the 90s and then he defamed her by calling her a liar. In that trial, the primary attorney for the defendant was Joseph Tacopina, an experienced litigator, who was crass and pretty bolshie on behalf of his client. But he did not piss off the judge and jury by disrespecting them and he kept Bonespurs out of the courtroom because he understood that his client’s worst enemy was the client’s inability to STFU.

This time around, the Kleptocrat fired Joey Tacos just before the trial opened and went with Alina Habba, whose pre-Klepto experience was largely limited to representing a parking lot owned by her husband. (Her experience with Bonespurs has been less than stellar: she and her client were sanctioned a year ago to the tune of nearly $1M for filing a frivolous RICO lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, James Comey and half of Washington, D.C.) It showed in her performance throughout the trial—the woman doesn’t have the most elementary understanding of even how to enter evidence into the record. The kind of thing you could pick up from watching reruns of Perry Mason episodes on TBS. This was in addition to Bonespurs’ antics in the courtroom—muttering audibly his objections to various things, shaking his head, even swanning out of the courtroom during plaintiff’s counsel’s closing argument. Every orange pore oozed contempt for the judge, the jury, the process and even the notion of justice. Evidently juries notice this kind of thing.

(Also, I’m guessing it was very uncomfortable having to sit on that wooden chair in a full diaper and girdle.)

So the Find Out part of this life experience cost him $83.3. Habba swore on Friday they’ll appeal the outrageous judgment (although there appear to be no legal grounds for an appeal; Judge Lewis Kaplan was careful to ensure that). "We are just getting started," she said; actually, she was just getting finished. If he carries through, he’ll have to post a bond of about $92M with the court (award plus interest) and that will have to be either his money or through a bonding company (if he can find one that will take the risk of fronting a notorious no-pay guy), which would also cost him fees in addition to the $92M.

Either way, Habba found out Tuesday what every human on the face of the planet could have predicted: the Kleptocrat is dumping her for a yet-to-be-named legal draft pick. She found out via a post on his lame-ass social network:

Now we see if there are any law firms willing to take him on.

And if there are any non-spousal parking lots willing to take her on.

 

Gearing up

I was looking up on my walk yesterday—clouds not as interesting as on Monday, but I noticed that the trees look as though they’re thinking very seriously about coming into bud.

In January.

Well, we'll have to see what Punxsutawny Phil has to say about things on Friday.

Castles in the air

Joni Mitchell was right—clouds are fascinating. You don’t even need the fire of a sunset or sunrise to find beauty in them.

Viz: yesterday morning’s walk.

Gratitude Monday: recovering

Last Thursday was the first day in a week and a half that I could take my morning walk. (The People’s Republic don’t have no truck with clearing snow from sidewalks, so I had to wait until it melted.) It was also warm enough that not even halfway into my circuit I had to peel off my hoodie.

Friday it was 64F when I went out; I didn’t even bother with the hoodie. It made it to 72F and I had my patio door open all day. In January.

Well, I’m grateful to be able to get back into the walks. I do not do well if I can’t get out and get the muscles moving.

But also, on Thursday, I noticed these little guys starting their annual visit.

By yesterday they were spreading, and making me so happy.

If they can pop up and thrive, so can I.