Friday Finger

Disgraceful Ex-President Edition

Shasta County Strikes Again

Every day for three months, Jessica Long’s young daughter walked and fed her goat, bonding with the brown and white floppy-eared animal named Cedar. But when it was time for Cedar to be sold and slaughtered at the Shasta District Fair last year, the 9-year-old just couldn’t go through with it.

“My daughter sobbed in her pen with her goat,” Long wrote to the Shasta County fair’s manager on June 27, 2022. “The barn was mostly empty and at the last minute I decided to break the rules and take the goat that night and deal with the consequences later.”

Long purchased the goat for her daughter to enter into the 4-H program with the Shasta District Fair. Children are taught how to care for farm animals. The animals are then entered in an auction to be sold and then slaughtered for meat in hopes of teaching children about the work and care needed to raise livestock and provide food, as farmers and ranchers do.

In her letter, Long pleaded for the fair to make an exception and let her and her daughter take Cedar back. Aware that Cedar had already been sold in auction, she also offered to “pay you back for the goat and any other expenses I caused,” according to the letter obtained by The Times.

Instead, officials reached out to the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office. Armed with a search warrant, detectives drove more than 500 miles across Northern California in search of the goat.

According to the search warrant, deputies believed Cedar was staying at Bleating Hearts Farm and Sanctuary in Napa County, based on the fact that the sanctuary had posted on Instagram its support for Long and urging people to call the Shasta District Fair to convince them to spare Cedar. But long had taken Cedar to a farm in Sonoma County because she and her family live in a residential area in Shasta County and are unable to keep farm animals there.

Echoing language used when law enforcement search a home for drugs, the warrant allowed deputies to “utilize breaching equipment to force open doorway(s), entry doors, exit doors, and locked containers” and to search all rooms, garages and “storage rooms, and outbuildings of any kind large enough to accommodate a small goat.”

Cedar was taken and slaughtered.

Long has since filed a federal lawsuit against Shasta District Fair officials and the county, arguing it committed an “egregious waste of police resources” and violated her and her daughter’s 4th Amendment and 14th Amendment rights protecting them from unreasonable searches and seizures, and due process. Long and her attorneys allege the dispute was a civil matter she was willing to resolve.

Letters, text messages, a search warrant and other court documents reviewed by The Times show how a dispute over a 9-year-old girl’s pet goat quickly escalated, and that Shasta District Fair officials resorted to using police resources after noting that their handling of the dispute over Cedar had become “a negative experience for the fairgrounds as this has been all over Facebook and Instagram.”

“It was never about money,” said Vanessa Shakib, an attorney for Advancing Law for Animals who represents Long. “County officials were clear that they wanted to teach this little girl a lesson.”

Shasta District Fair and county officials did not respond to requests for comment.

“This matter is in active litigation, and as such neither the County nor its legal counsel can provide a comment,” Christopher Pisano, an attorney representing Shasta County, said in an email.

Shakib argues that county and fair officials abused their power in what should have been a simple breach of contract.

Attorneys for Long also argue the county’s response to use law enforcement personnel and resources was disproportionate, considering they were dealing with a family who was trying to keep a goat from being slaughtered.

“It’s shocking,” said Ryan Gordon, an attorney with Advancing Law for Animals. “It’s a little girl’s goat, not Pablo Escobar.”

Gordon and Shakib argue that Long tried to resolve the issue from the outset, writing an email to fair officials the day after.

In it, Long pleaded her case, pointing out that the last year had been a particularly difficult one for her young daughter.

“Our daughter lost three grandparents within the last year, and our family has had so much heartbreak and sadness that I couldn’t bear the thought of the following weeks of sadness after the slaughter of her first livestock animal,” she wrote to Shasta District Fair Chief Executive Melanie Silva.

But Shasta District Fair officials threatened to call police the next day and rebuffed Long’s attempt to find another outcome for Cedar other than it being returned, slaughtered and donated for a barbecue.

“Making an exception for you will only teach [our] youth that they do not have to abide by the rules,” Silva wrote back to Long in an email reviewed by The Times dated June 28, 2022. “Also, in this era of social media this has been a negative experience for the fairgrounds as this has been all over Facebook and Instagram.”

That same day, B.J. Macfarlane, livestock manager for the Shasta Fair Assn., sent Long a text message.

“We need to make arrangements to get goat back today,” the text read. “If not law enforcement is going to be brought in on this.”

Long also offered to repay the fair district and the bidder whatever costs had been incurred. That included the winning bid of $902 made by state Sen. Brian Dahle (R-Bieber) and the 7% cut that the fair was entitled to of $63.14.

In her June 27, 2022, letter to Silva, Long also pointed out that she had already been in contact with Dahle’s office about his bid, and that a representative told her the lawmaker was “okay with the alternative solution of the goat getting to be donated to a farm that does weed abatement.”

A spokesperson for Dahle’s office confirmed the account.

Gordon and Shakib also argue that although fair officials were trying to hold Long’s daughter to her agreement that the goat would be slaughtered when entered into the fair, California law allows a minor to withdraw from a contract “within a reasonable amount of time.”

“A child can’t be held to the same standard as an adult can,” Gordon said. “When she wanted out, she had an absolute right.”

The county was also legally required to keep and care for Cedar, Gordon argues, knowing there was a dispute over ownership. Instead a third party slaughtered him when he was returned by deputies.

Attorneys argue the county used the warrant “for the sole purpose of circumventing the civil process” and killed the goat as a way to end Long and her daughter’s fight for Cedar.

“The government was seeking to silence our client's viewpoint,” Shakib said. “Our lawsuit seeks to hold public officials accountable for violating the law and enacting a personal vendetta against a little girl simply because she loved her goat.”

Astoundingly petty assholes. What the Limeys would call "Little Hitlers".

[L.A. Times]

Sorry Shit From Some Sad Sacks

"Send money! Did I mention the website? Well, send more money!"The right-wing/fake news hysteria level has been turned to 11.

(Next) Tuesday ... Afternoon

LOCK. HIM. UP!

Murderer George W. Bush & walking corpse Dick Cheney too.

The Telly Sez The NYT Sez Trump Is About To Be Indicted

Whaddya know? Lock. Him. Up!!! And get Bush for his war crimes too. Also, when do the riots start?

To Pee, Or Not To Pee ... That Is Lauren Boebert's Question

Andres Serrano's Piss Christ, 1987

Martin Pengelly / The Guardian:

Wee the people: Republican Boebert presses DC witness on public urination

Ed Mazza / HuffPost:   ‘Public Humiliation’: Lauren Boebert Makes A Splash With Weird Rant On Pee Laws

Nikki McCann Ramirez / Rolling Stone:   Lauren Boebert Obsesses Over Public Urination at Crime Hearing

Matt Wilstein / The Daily Beast:   Jimmy Kimmel Mocks Lauren Boebert's ‘Dumbest’ D.C Moment

Mikael Thalen / The Daily Dot:   Lauren Boebert demands someone explain to her why peeing in public is legal in D.C.—it isn't

David Edwards / Raw Story:   Lauren Boebert shot down by witness as she obsesses over ‘public urination’ in Washington, D.C.

Mark Frauenfelder / Boing Boing:   Lauren Boebert supports public urination criminalization despite husband's indecent exposure conviction

Ivanka Made Her Money & Got Out

Ivanka Trump Is 'No Longer' Talking Dad Out of Hard Situations, Source Says: 'She Can't Help Him Now'

"Even though Ivanka loves her dad" — and reportedly has no strain in their relationship — "she knows how impossible he can be," a social source tells PEOPLE

If you're out of politics, make Jared give that US$2.5 billion in Saudi blood money to charity.

Makes one wonder if the typical PEOPLE reader was a Trump voter, doesn't it?

Pre-rhinoplasty.

It's Not The N.R.A. Money, It's The Pin-Dicked Gun-Humping Voters

If we can't buy our way out of this, we'll have to shoot our way out.

Identity, not money, drives gun worship

The small size of the NRA’s donations makes it unlikely they’re meaningfully bribing politicians. Nor do GOP politicians behave as if they’ve been bribed. When politicians vote their donors over their constituents, they don’t tend to boast about it.

Former Georgia GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler never held a press conference to proudly announce to voters that she’d made millions on stock trades that sure looked like they were related to inside, early knowledge of the Covid pandemic. Independent Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has been fairly open about her cozy relationship with private equity, and has raked in cash from that sector with aplomb. But she also avoids public events in which constituents can question her, and her approval in her home state is dismal.

GOP politicians don’t treat guns like dirty stock trades, and don’t try to hide from constituents after gun votes. On the contrary, they tout their pro-gun credentials every chance they get. Rep. Andy Ogles, who represents the district where the Nashville shooting took place, sent out a Christmas card showing himself with his wife and children standing in front of a tree. They’re all grinning and holding assault weapons.

Especially in light of the horrific recent shooting, the card is ghoulish. But Ogles doesn’t see it as ghoulish, and he didn’t make it for donors. He took the image, and sent it out, because he believes his constituents will see it and identify with him. The way you show you’re a real, red-blooded, Christofascist Republican is to take pictures of yourself with a bunch of guns.

As communications professor Ryan Neville-Shepard explains at the Milwaukee Independent, guns on the right have increasingly become a symbol of white masculinity — and I’d argue of white Christian masculinity. Guns stand for defending home and family against “criminals” — a term which, in the dogwhistle rich environment of the right, means “non-white people.” In addition, Neville-Shepard notes, guns in right-wing political ads during the Obama administration became a symbol of (violent) opposition to Democratic government. Marjorie Taylor Greene ran an ad touting a gun giveaway in 2021 in which she promised to “blow away the Democrats’ socialist agenda.”

Noah Berlatsky and Aaron Rupar at Public Notice. Worth reading it all.

Same Doody, Different Decade: 50 Yrs. Of Continuing Republican Bullshit

The GOP’s 2020s Culture War Is A Throwback To The 1970s

Conservatives are lifting their culture-war playbook straight from the '70s in pursuit of a new national majority.

This reporter was laboring under the impression that Republicans were opposed to recycling, but when the party hasn't had a new (or good) idea since, I dunno, Theodore Roosevelt, what can it do?

[Puffington Host]

State Of The Nation Exemplified By Idiotic Dipshit Asshole Of The Day

Speaking of "Why bother?"

Prem Thakker / New Republic:
“We're Not Gonna Fix” School Shootings Says GOP Tennessee Congressman

Candy Woodall / USA Today:   Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett responds to school shooting: 'We're not gonna fix it'

Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters:   Congressman called out in embarrassing comparison of his remarks about drag shows versus school shootings

Bess Levin / Vanity Fair:   Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett Wins Award for Most Fucked-Up Response to Covenant School Shooting

Dessi Gomez / The Wrap:   Ben Stiller Shuts Down U.S. Rep Claiming Congress ‘Not Gonna Fix’ Mass Shootings: ‘No, You Can’

David Moye / HuffPost:   GOP Rep Tim Burchett Admits 'We're Not Going To Fix' School Shootings

Susan Rinkunas / Jezebel:   Republican Congressman on How He Protects His Own Kid from School Shootings: ‘We Homeschool Her’

Paul Campos / Lawyers, Guns & Money:   Nothing we can do to prevent this, says Congressman from only country in the world where things like this happen regularly

Carla Sinclair / Boing Boing:   When GOP Congressman asked what to do about shootings, he shrugs: “We're not going to fix it”

Emily Singer / The American Independent:   Tennessee Republican says Congress shouldn't address gun violence

Brett Wilkins / Common Dreams:   'We're Not Gonna Fix It,' Says GOP Congressman After Nashville Mass Shooting

Julia Shapero / The Hill:   Tennessee Republican responds to school shooting: 'We're not gonna fix it'

Candice Ortiz / Mediaite:   Tennessee Rep. Gives Baffling Answer On How To Protect Kids in School Following Nashville Shooting: ‘We Homeschool’

Fox News:   Nashville school shooting: Tennessee Rep. Burchett calls for release of trans shooter's manifesto

At least he's stopped pretending. I suppose the ignernt crackers in his district will reëlect him w/ 80% of the vote, because he obviously has his priorities straight.

Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett on drag queens vs mass shootings. This demonstrates perfectly the complete moral rot of Tennessee politicians.

Drag: "We're not going to put up with it.

Mass shootings: "We're not gonna fix it."pic.twitter.com/e6lCpEE5YK

— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) March 28, 2023

White People Invoking Trump For Their "Economic Anxiety"

Life's Losers

President Donald Trump has repeatedly distanced himself from acts of violence in communities across America, dismissing critics who point to his rhetoric as a potential source of inspiration or comfort for anyone acting on even long-held beliefs of bigotry and hate.

"I think my rhetoric brings people together," he said last year, four days after a 21-year-old allegedly posted an anti-immigrant screed online and then allegedly opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 and injuring dozens of others.

But a nationwide review conducted by ABC News has identified at least 54 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault.

After a Latino gas station attendant in Gainesville, Florida, was suddenly punched in the head by a white man, the victim could be heard on surveillance camera recounting the attacker’s own words: “He said, ‘This is for Trump.'" Charges were filed but the victim stopped pursuing them.

When police questioned a Washington state man about his threats to kill a local Syrian-born man, the suspect told police he wanted the victim to "get out of my country," adding, "That’s why I like Trump."

[...]

Oct. 10, 2016: Police in Albany, New York, arrested 55-year-old Todd Warnken for threatening an African-American woman at a local grocery store “because of her race,” according to a police report. Warnken allegedly told the victim, “Trump is going to win, and if you don’t like it I’m gonna beat your ass you n----r,” the police report said. He ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in the case and completed a local “restorative justice program,” allowing the charges against him to be dismissed, according to the district attorney’s office.

[ABC News]

The Birds Released

They will pluck the unseeing eyeballs from your rotting skulls.

Technicolor® version.

60 yrs. ago today.

Monday Lunacy

Not Enough Gawd At Xian School?

Fucking Presbyterians. Where's your non-existent gawd now?

Chanting “The Country Is On Fire ...”

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s Airports Authority says departing flights from the country’s main international airport have been grounded following a strike called in protest against the government’s planned judicial overhaul.

The strike was called on Monday by the country’s largest trade union grouping and could paralyze large swaths of Israel’s economy. Tens of thousands are expected to be affected by the flight changes.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul has sparked unprecedented opposition from across Israeli society.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s largest trade union group launched a strike across a broad swath of sectors Monday, joining a surging protest movement against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul the judiciary — a plan that is facing unprecedented opposition.

The strike by the Histadrut umbrella group, which represents more than 700,000 workers in health, transit and banking, among many other fields, could paralyze large parts of Israel’s economy, which is already on shaky ground, ratcheting up the pressure on Netanyahu to suspend the overhaul.

The growing resistance to the plan came hours after tens of thousands of people burst into the streets around the country in a spontaneous show of anger at Netanyahu’s decision to fire his defense minister after he called for a pause to the overhaul. Chanting “the country is on fire,” they lit bonfires on Tel Aviv’s main highway, closing the throughway and many others throughout the country for hours.

Almost a shame no one in these United Snakes will learn anything positive from this flaming mess.

Oh look, Krauts too:

Nationwide German transport strike begins, major disruptions

Public sector strikes focused mainly on public transport will halt the vast majority of buses, trains and planes in Germany on Monday. The 24-hour action began at midnight; it's part of a long-running pay dispute.

Almost all planes, trains and buses in Germany were at a standstill on Monday after nationwide 24-hour strike began at midnight.

Preparations for the strike had already caused major weekend travel disruptions.

Two major unions are deadlocked in negotiations with public sector employers in several transport sectors — including rail, local public transport, and airport ground staff — and organized the strike to coincide with the start of a third round of talks.

Frank Werneke, head of the Verdi union that represents around 2.5 million public sector employees, spoke of the biggest strike in decades.

The Week Ahead

A new feature in which we advise our readers what to watch for in the next seven days to guide their investment strategies.

• MON: Everything will suck.
• TUE: It will get even worse.
• WED: Full of woe.
• THU: Some fucking idiot will say or type something very stupid.
• FRI: Contemplation of the sweet release of death will be at a new high.
• SAT & SUN: Irksome, tedious & banal, then the wheel of shit turns again & you're back on your heads.

Nation, State & Corporation

Produce, consume, die.

Sunday Summer Of Love Suckfest

Raw footage:I was so wasted I was a hippie I was a burnout I was a dropout I was out of my head I was a surfer I had a skateboard I was so heavy man I lived on The Strand I was so wasted I was so fucked up I was so screwed up I was so messed up I was out of my brain I was so jacked up I was so drunked up I was so screwed up, I was out of my head I was so wasted wasted still am

Saturday In Samoa

Iron Sheep Saturday

"She's A Little Snowflake, Short & Stout ..."

Who "Assaulted" Whom W/ Noise, Now?

Zachary Petrizzo / The Daily Beast:

Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls Cops on Heckler With Whistle  —  Greene later said that her team attempted to have the protester arrested after he “assaulted everyone” with the noise.  —  Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) says her office called 911 on a protester blowing a whistle during her Friday evening press conference after the heckler “assaulted everyone” with the noise.

Jared Gans / The Hill:   Person with whistle disrupts GOP-led trip to see jailed Jan. 6 suspects

Gideon Rubin / Raw Story:   ‘This man assaulted everyone’: Marjorie Taylor Greene staffer tries to get a protester arrested for whistling

Jason Easley / PoliticusUSA:   Marjorie Taylor Greene Flipped Out And Called The Cops On A Guy With A Whistle

Please arrest this monstrosity for giving aid & comfort to the imprisoned enemies of our nation, as well as for assaulting all of us w/ her hideous braying cracker accent & inane droning stupidities. 

If you must hear the 2001 remastering of our illustrative tune, it's here. Unless you'd prefer the Steven Wilson Stereo Remix, whatever that might be.

This Country Is A Living Hell

Austin Jailer Breaks Elderly Deaf Woman’s Arm After Misunderstanding at Airport

After three days in jail with only Aleve as treatment, she has received surgery

And not just the pigs, mind you. Here's a hell of a business model; a customer needs help & you call the fucking cops:

Karen McGee, a deaf, 71-year-old Florida resident, is considering a lawsuit against the city of Austin after what was supposed to be a three-hour layover at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport turned into an arrest, a weekend in the Travis County Jail, and an arm broken by a jailer and left untreated for three days.

McGee's ordeal began on the afternoon of Sept. 13, 2022, as she waited for a connecting flight from Austin to Seattle. She was flying alone for the first time in her life and nervous because her hearing aids weren't working well, so she sat within sight of the ticket desk to see when her plane would begin boarding. After noticing that it hadn't boarded on time she spoke with a ticket agent and was distressed to learn that she had missed an announcement that her gate had changed. With her plane already gone, she was issued a ticket for a flight leaving that evening.

While McGee waited for this flight, she texted with her cousin and learned there was another plane parked at the same gate, going to the same destination. She approached the ticket agent and asked if she could switch her ticket to this flight. She had trouble hearing the agent's response but understood the answer was no. She then made the same request to a different agent. Unbeknownst to McGee, this second agent called the police.

[...]

At the jail, McGee said, she was shoved against a wall as officers stripped off her clothes, and she screamed, "Not my ring!" when officers began to remove it. She said an officer then told her something she did not understand, she asked, "What?" and in response a different officer twisted her handcuffs with enough force to break her arm.

No one in this sad excuse of a nation is safe if they dare disturb the wheels of commerce. Not even elderly white women. 

Fuck the airlines, fuck the police, fuck the thug jailers.

[The Austin Chronicle]

Friday Finger Failure From The Top Of The World

 This article is more than 5 months old

Thumbs down to ‘middle finger’ health campaign in New Zealand

This article is more than 5 months old

Hepatitis C awareness ads that feature smiling actors raising their middle fingers are deemed too offensive to be aired

[The Guardian, more than five months ago.]

Frogs Tear It Up

Not one chickenshit American will do anything when their Medicare & Social Security is threatened. Fucking sheep.Good to see that the Communist trade union, La CGT, is still at it.

Climate News Continues

More Of This, Please

Should get worse as things heat up.

You Are All Soulless Automatons

The idea of the soul is obviously a nonsense, yet its immaterial mysterious nature has deep hooks in the human psyche

The sooner your species wises up & realizes it's nothing but a sad bunch of jacked-up animals the better. You'll all be dead in the blink of an eye, & 100 yrs. from your death no one will remember you as anything more than one of the anonymous billions of consuming sheep who made the planet unlivable. Proud of yourselves?

I reiterate, you inane drones: You haven't even a little bit of soul.As in, nothin', y'hear, nothin'![aeon]

Local Tornado Action

Furrin Tornados Action

Administrators, Leave Those Kids Alone

What's this bullshit where the student is such a threat he must be searched every day?

This brainiac suggests if we can't get the gun control that a majority of Americans claim to want, we should turn the schools into even more heavily-armed camps. Here's one fucking clue: If the little bastard's parents aren't in jail right now, they should be. Lock up a few parental units when their offspring pull crap like this & more of them may start paying attention to their children.

How To Excite The Right

Fake News Gets A Boner

Ian Mohr / Page Six:

Fan poops in aisle near Hillary and Chelsea Clinton at Broadway show  —  Some like it... steaming hot.  —  Page Six hears that a serial pooper has been stalking the halls of the legendary Schubert Theater — and the last time they struck, a turd appeared in the aisle near Hillary and Chelsea Clinton.

Brodigan / Louder With Crowder:   Mystery pooper drops deuce right by Hillary Clinton as she attempts to enjoy a Broadway Play

Paul Bois / Breitbart:   Alleged Serial Pooper Defecates in Aisle Near Chelsea and Hillary Clinton at New York Theater

Jim Hoft / The Gateway Pundit:   New Yorker Sh*ts in Theater Aisle Near Hillary and Chelsea Clinton at Broadway Show

Sam Janney / Twitchy:   So ... shit hit the FAN? HA! Fan POOPS in aisle near Hillary and Chelsea Clinton at Broadway show

Taylor Berman / Insider:   Hillary and Chelsea Clinton took in a Broadway show — and then someone pooped near them, per report

Kay Smythe / The Daily Caller:   Someone Took A Dump In The Aisle While Hillary And Chelsea Clinton Watched Broadway Show, Apparently

Tom Tillison / BizPac Review:   Poop in the aisle near Hillary and Chelsea Clinton at Broadway show writes its own jokes

TMZ.com:   Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Broadway Outing Marred by Poop in Aisle

Of course, in any other context, public poop is a clear indication of the failure of the cities, & to be loudly condemned.

Great American Comedy Relief

Donald Trump, First President of Florida

Project Deep State needs to remember that it’s not going to be as easy to destroy Trump or to enslave America as it seems to think.

Not worth much effort, but short (& very stupid). In conclusion:

As Judge Andrew Napolitano recently pointed out, secession does not need to lead to war—unless the greed of the federal government insists on it. In a peaceful secession scenario, states would reassert an original anti-federalist interpretation of the Constitution, which leaves them just as free to leave the union as they were to join it.

Florida under President Trump, after proving its viability, could be joined by other Republican states—and then by the rural parts of Democrat states, ultimately leaving nothing in the Old United States but New York, San Francisco, and Chicago, who will look silly without all that federal tax income to support their lavish spending habits. The leftist cities would have to petition to rejoin the New United States, and would be readmitted only after agreeing to a new constitution that would be the same as the old one, but with a new clause after the Bill of Rights, stating: “By the way, this actually means exactly what it says.”

So remember, Project Deep State, that it’s not going to be as easy to destroy Trump or to enslave America as you seem to think. Courage, imagination, and a relentless desire to be free may lead to all sorts of unexpected things. Donald Trump, president of Florida. It has kind of a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

That "ring" is probably sound waves bouncing around in this fool's head.

War In Ah Babylon Update: One Lied, All The Others Swore To It

George W. Bush misrepresented our work at CIA to sell the Iraq invasion. It's time to call him what he is: 'A liar.'

George W(orst). Bush, American aristocrat. Lock him up, shoot him in his cell & let the rats eat him. Not to forget prick mother-fucker Dick Cheney, who probably was the mastermind, Bush being a cretinous fucking aristocrat trying to maintain sobriety.

By the way:

Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, and John McLaughlin did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Northern Hemisphere Vernal Equinox

Flood Plain

Cry Me An (Atmospheric) River

Approximately 0600 today.

Musical Obits

Remembering SPʘT, Who Shaped and Chronicled L.A.’s Early Punk Scene

Artists are honoring the producer and engineer of many seminal punk albums following his death in early March.

Didn't know/remember the murder part, & might not have bothered otherwise.

Jim Gordon, rock drummer who killed mother, dies at 77

He died at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville after almost 40 yrs. at the state's expense.

[Los Angeles/AP]

Hello, Judgie!

Stuart Kyle Duncan / Wall Street Journal:

My Struggle Session at Stanford Law School  —  A dean voices pride that students are being taught to stage tantrums rather than make a reasoned case.  —  Stanford Law School's website touts its “collegial culture” in which “collaboration and the open exchange of ideas are essential to life and learning.”

John Sexton / HotAir:   Judge Duncan describes his ‘struggle session’ at Stanford Law

Sarah Schutte / National Review:   Stanford Law Disgraces Itself

Who's disgracing what now?

The Federalist Society Isn’t Quite Sure About Democracy Anymore

After recent Supreme Court wins, the society’s youth arm debates the next stage for the conservative legal movement.

Whence three-named schmucks like Stuart Kyle Duncan? The Federalist Society, of course. Nonetheless, don't arse yourselves w/ more than a skim: The headline's the best part; it's formulaic "Magazine The Friday Read" from there.

Tonight's Menu

Up the Irish!