Buttermilk Sky

Middletown Township, Pennsylvania, can "rest easy," according to  Joe Bartorilla,  chief of police.  A suspect has been arrested in the decapitation of a man in his sixties, discovered in his bathroom.  The suspect is his 33-year-old son Justin Mohn.  Police interest was piqued by a YouTube video in which the son displayed the severed head and ranted about Joe Biden, "far-left woke mobs" and LGBTQ people, describing his father as "now in hell for eternity as a traitor to his country."  The video has been deleted, but the psychosis behind it continues to stalk the nation. As witness after witness declines to testify to a single action by Joe Biden that could be called an ordinary misdemeanor, much less a high crime,  Comer and the Comettes  grow daily more frustrated.  The best they've come up with so far is  Eric Schwerin,  family friend and business partner of Hunter Biden, who did some bookkeeping for Joe Biden and maybe picked up...

  Everyone knows Joe Biden can control the weather.  But the Superbowl?  Before you get into the office pool, read this carefully argued Xitter post by  Vivek Ramaswamy  hinting that the endorsement of Taylor Swift rests on a Kansas City victory over San Francisco next month.  No Democrat has ever won a second term without Swift's OK.  It's just political science.  (Swift herself is controlled by  George Soros,  the hidden master of the universe.)  You can tell from her songs.  Soros forces Ted Cruz to attend all games involving Texas teams so they won't make the final.  I could tell you how Cruz does this but I'd have to kill you. The presidential race got more complicated over the weekend as Trump won the coveted  Snoop Dogg  endorsement.  He pardoned Michael Harris, Mr. Dogg's partner in Death Row Records, so all the rape and racism are wiped off the slate, like Harris's convictions for attempted murder a...

  When you sue someone for $24 million and the jury awards you $83.3 million, I believe that's what the experts call a "FUCK YOU AND YOUR IDIOT LAWYER" verdict. Roberta Kaplan and her colleagues did superior work, but they had help.  Recall how Adam Kinzinger described the Trumpian bouquet:  "armpits, ketchup, a butt and makeup."  He was sitting close enough for the jury to hear his commentary during E. Jean Carroll's testimony, so they had to be able to smell him, too.  Fifty dollars a day just doesn't cover it.  I don't know what instructions the judge gave about avoiding television and social media but it's no secret that Alina Habba jerked them around, claiming she was too sick to work and then heading to New Hampshire to celebrate Trump's lackluster victory.  Do not mess with New York juries. Next week Judge Engoron will tell Trump how much he owes New York State in taxes and penalties.  No jury in that case, just a judge who got a bomb ...

 ...and he had a really bad time on the road. Nikki Fried , chair of the Florida Democratic Party, warned, "He's gonna come home with a vengeance.  He's going to try to reclaim the mantle that he had after November 2022.  And he's going to try to bring everybody back together and continue on this anti-woke, anti-democratic, anti-freedom platform." Yes, Ron DeSantis's road trip did not end well, and she thinks he'll take it out on the people of Florida.  And while many are fine with this, many are not.  The governissimo's final term is not going to be pretty for immigrants, the LGBTQ community, people of color and anyone who still cares about free speech, public health or even the existence of libraries.  "The most expensive presidential primary bid in American history" blew up in his face and if you think Trump can't handle losing, find a place to shelter from Hurricane Puddin' Paws. This week the Florida House passed a  bill  that wo...

 Remember the  cocaine  that was discovered last summer near the White House entrance used by visiting tourists?  You don't?  It was mentioned every ten minutes or so for weeks, investigated by the FBI, the Secret Service and possibly the Space Command, who concluded that they could not determine how the bag (less than a gram) got there.  (Hunter Biden!  Had to be Hunter Biden dumping his stash!) On Tuesday night  Trump  paused his verbal assault on Nikki Haley long enough to slander Governor Chris Sununu, who had endorsed her:  "This guy, he's gotta be on something.  I've never seen anybody with energy.  He's like hopscotch."  As always it was impossible to decipher his authentic Queens gibberish.  Nobody seems to be familiar with the term "hopscotch," but given Trump's history of Adderall abuse (allegedly!) he could probably recognize someone who is "on something," though Sununu is not known for constant sniffing....

  Joe Biden , whose unpopularity is stressed by every political expert every time the camera is turned on, easily defeated 21 contenders to win the New Hampshire Democratic primary, despite not being on the ballot.  He got 55.8 percent of the votes, all write-ins.  Vermin Supreme got 729 votes, but that's just name recognition. Johnny Marr of  The Smiths  became the latest musician to recoil in horror when one of his songs was played at a Trump rally.  Upon hearing "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" Marr said, "Consider this shit shut right down right now," which is an excellent title for his next song. Trump got what he wanted and celebrated with a series of snarling tweets in which he repeatedly called Nikki Haley "BIRDBRAIN!" and (amusingly) "DELUSIONAL!!" and the mysterious "WE JUST WON NEVADA!!!"  Maybe a better rally song would be "They're Coming To Take Me Away." Thousands of people filled the stree...

  Sheku Kanneh-Mason was just nineteen when he won the gig of a lifetime, playing at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.  The cellist became an instant celebrity, with a best-selling album called Elgar, including the concerto long regarded as the property of Jacqueline Du Pre.  Then he went on Desert Island Discs, the BBC's venerable (1942) radio program, and suggested that the last night of the Proms concerts might end with something besides the audience joining in a bombastic "Rule, Britannia."  The internet lost its mind, overflowing with the kind of racist abuse that explains why Harry and Meghan chose to live in California.  (Even Trump doesn't call for "deportation, flogging, sending him 'back to Africa'" most of the time.)  The BBC addressed it with a bland statement essentially blaming Sir Henry Wood, who founded the Proms in 1895, and totally missing the point.  Here is Kanneh-Mason playing beautifully in Westminster Abbey.  Y...

 As Arctic permafrost melts for some reason that has nothing to do with climate change,  scientists  warn of new pandemics caused by "zombie viruses," a/k/a "Methuselah microbes."  I find this oddly comforting.  No living organism will have any natural immunity to these long-dormant bugs, vaccines will be developed, stupid humans will refuse to get them and a golden age will be ushered in.  Or else we'll all die and no longer have to endure the steady drip of events.  I don't have a preference. For instance, 2024 will kick off with synchronized cicadas.  For the first time since 1803, two cicada broods will emerge at the same time in the vicinity of  Springfield, Illinois.   One bunch hatches every thirteen years and the other every seventeen, and this year -- bingo!  If you live in Springfield, maybe plan a vacation in June.  Anyplace but the Arctic. Ron DeSantis "suspended" his presidential campaign yesterday because campaign...

 Like Moby Dick, Trump is still out there, bristling with harpoons but ready to ram and sink our fragile republic.  Trying not to think about him is like trying not to think about death or diarrhea.  Sooner or later it's unavoidable. Last week he hit CAP LOCK and produced the closest thing to Augustine's Confessions we can ever expect.  Read closely and you may find something approaching an admission of guilt. "A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES MUST HAVE FULL IMMUNITY, WITHOUT WHICH IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM/HER TO PROPERLY FUNCTION.  ANY MISTAKE, EVEN IF WELL INTENDED, WOULD BE MET WITH ALMOST CERTAIN INDICTMENT BY THE OPPOSING PARTY AT TERM END.  EVEN EVENTS THAT 'CROSS THE LINE' MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY, OR IT WILL BE YEARS OF TRAUMA TRYING TO DETERMINE GOOD FROM BAD.  THERE MUST BE CERTAINTY." Forty-four presidents, some of them shockingly bad, never worried about "almost certain indictment" upon leaving office.  The radical Republic...

  "Survivor" contestant-turned-Kentucky state rep  Nick Wilson  has introduced a bill to make first-cousin sex legal.  Henceforth the Bluegrass State shall be known as Kinfucky. The richest country in history remains unable to fund its government for more than a couple of weeks because of reasons.  Its Congress passed another continuing resolution which should keep the lights on and the national parks open until  March 1,  while dooming its Speaker of the House, who declined to join his Freedom Caucus in aiding and comforting the nation's enemies.  Meanwhile the President was heard to say, "Didn't I just sign this?  Maybe I am getting forgetful." Matthew Brackley,  a Republican candidate for the Maine legislature, has pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer on January 6, 2021.  On May 14 he will learn how long he has to be a hostage. Congressional Republicans cancelled proxy voting last year because it was introduced by Speake...

 ...asked Hillary Clinton.  It's a question that occurs to many of us on an hourly basis, but she was referring to the fifteen Republican governors who turned down a  federal food assistance  program to see poor kids through the summer.  They have all kinds of reasons, the dumbest being Kim Reynolds's (Iowa) assertion that it would contribute to the problem of childhood obesity.  Making the little freeloaders go hungry in the hot weather will definitely melt off the pounds. Or they can go to work and buy their own food.  That's the plan in Indiana, where state Rep.  Joanna King  introduced a bill to allow 14-year-olds to leave school after the eighth grade and find work on corporate farms.  (She wants to "protect" kids from gender-affirming care as well as high school.  This King person is a multi-tasking monster.)  Child labor laws have already been rolled back in Iowa, Florida and Arkansas, coincidentally states with large ag...

 In the slow arc of history it hasn't taken long for Martin Luther King's birthday to go from federal holiday (1986) to King Festivus, an airing of grievances and complaints about the man who changed the course of America.  This year the tone was set by Rep.  Lauren Boebert  (R-GED), who tweeted what she must have considered a Deep Thought:  "Martin Luther King, Jr., had a dream that we would all be equal in America.  Equity had no part of that dream.  It was about equality.  Let's end the woke movement in America in honor of MLK, Jr."  Equity?  The value of one's home or the actors' union?  The dictionary offers fairness and impartiality as synonyms, and as a Trumper she has to oppose stuff like that.  It helps that even the authors of books condemning "woke" are unable to define it.  Does anyone else see Handy-dandy as a Trump Secretary of Education? From incoherence to utter disdain:   Charlie Kirk  came ...

As predicted, Trump lawyer  Alina Habba  wrote to Judge Lewis Kaplan requesting a delay in the second E. Jean Carroll trial because he wants to attend both the trial and his mother-in-law's funeral on Thursday.  For some reason Habba thinks a two-week delay is necessary, although to my knowledge the Knavs family does not plan to sit shiva.  Aware that Trump never appeared at the first trial, Judge Kaplan responded, "Mr. Trump is free to attend the trial, the funeral, or all or parts of both."  He may have been more inclined to sympathy before learning that Trump has a  rally scheduled in New Hampshire on the day of the funeral.  Carroll II starts bright and early tomorrow. Lest we forget, Trump is also being criminally prosecuted in Manhattan in connection with the Stormy Daniels payment.  Lawyer  Joe Tacopina  has now withdrawn from that one, which will doubtless lead to more demands for delay and possibly for a public defender.  ...

  Bill O'Reilly  is not pleased to find himself in distinguished company.  The author of Killing Kennedy, Killing the Witches and about a dozen other books about killing is on the Escambia County list of censored books along with The Diary of Anne Frank, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Wuthering Heights and several encyclopedias and dictionaries, and he's furious.   "Preposterous!"  he growled to Newsweek on learning that Killing Jesus and Killing Reagan have been challenged under Florida's HB 1069.  "We'll find out exactly who made the decisions and put their pictures on television..." along with their addresses, presumably.  He had no problem with the law when it was used to punish "far-left progressive people trying to impose an agenda on children," but now it clearly needs to be tightened up to make it clear that only lefty books are unacceptable.  Like And Tango Makes Three, the true story of the male penguins in the Central Park Zoo w...

 If you paid to have yourself buried on the moon, you must be fuming right now.   Peregrine  was launched this week but the software went blooey and now the remains of Gene Roddenberry, Arthur C. Clarke and others are "careening through the black, cold vacuum of space."    I know how they feel.  Like Europeans in the fourteenth century I sometimes think the Trumplague will never end.  I can't turn on the computer or the television without seeing the Orange Death, swollen, engorged with hate, but somehow more sinister than a skull.  Make it stop. Every day, every day  it sifts down upon us like the millions of plastic beads that fell on  Lake Tahoe,  like the effluent of a thousand coal-fired engines.  Why do the people who could intervene fail to do so?  Yesterday Judge Arthur Engoron told Trump he could not deliver a "closing argument," so today he did it anyway.  "Mr. Kise, please control your client," the judg...