Jimmy Kimmel and the Illuminati

 I haven't watched the Oscars in years but when I realized I had seen a couple of the nominees online I decided to give it a go.  First of all, I apparently need a larger TV with drive-in size screen.  The graphics were too small to read and the sound from the ironically named Dolby Theater was awful.  I see the show has been streamlined with the omission of awards they assume nobody cares about, so I couldn't tell you who went home with the coveted Jean Herscholt Humanitarian Award or the Irving Thalberg prize.  (The target audience has no clue who they were anyway.)  Same for the special Oscar to Mel Brooks.  I assume these are given at a Waffle House in Encino on Tuesday between breakfast and lunch.  (Special Oscars are the Academy's way of saying "Sorry we missed out on your career, have one of these things now."  Previous recipients include Laurence Olivier and some guy named Hitchcock.)

Little did I know I was observing a satanic initiation ceremony.  That seems to be the consensus among our fringe-y-even-for-the-right Xitter users today.  As an old, I well remember the night David Niven was upstaged by a streaker, which is what we called people who ran across baseball fields and onto stages buck-nekkid back in the last century.  Given the Academy's delight in its own history, I was not surprised they commemorated it by having actor/wrestler John Cena present the Best Costume award with only an envelope concealing his naughty bits.  He is quite comely.  Would not have worked with Al Pacino.  In fact, we're told, this is a "shaming ritual" necessary for admission to the Illuminati. The fully-clothed Jimmy Kimmel is obviously a member in good standing.  Thank Baphomet we have experts like Liz Crokin and Andrew Tate to clarify these things.

Apparently there is an even more shocking scandal roiling the world today:  Royal photograph-gate.  The Princess of Wales is out of hospital and released a photograph of her with her three children which only Graham Smith could dislike.  People who examine every royal picture through a magnifying glass found something not quite right in details no sane person would notice and the picture was un-published by serious photo agencies.  The Princess had to acknowledge that she had done a little editing, which the super-serious Guardian is calling a "debacle threatening to overshadow the king's Commonwealth Day message."  What about Catherine's Mother's Day?  Where is the scandal?  Are the kids less than perfect, in fact hideous?  Do they even exist?  Why aren't we being told the details of her surgery?  Is this the end of the House of Windsor?  Lighten up, chaps.  As Gary Younge writes in the March 21 New York Review of Books, you have more urgent things to deal with.  

Back to the Oscars:  Selection of the thank-you speeches here.   Hugs to all the winners.  I hope to learn your names one day.  Of course Trump had to put in his oar but Kimmel handled him deftly ("I'm surprised you're still up -- isn't it past your jail time?").  If he regains power this will probably be the last Oscar show.  Oh, his friend Elon Mush didn't care for it either:  "Winning an Oscar now means you were the best Quisling," he wrote.  (Not a clue.)  He edited that to "Winning an Oscar means you won the woke contest" and decided that was more incisive.  Listen, Mr. Apartheid, people like you have been complaining about Hollywood's pretensions to social conscience at least since Marlon Brando sent a Native American woman to collect his statue in 1973, and probably since Hattie McDaniel broke the color line in 1940.  2,000 Mules was never going to win Best Documentary.  Go to bed.

Since this year's In Memoriam opened with Alexei Navalny and that quote about Good Men Doing Nothing usually attributed to Edmund Burke, pop culture and world events are officially entangled.  Outside the Dolby Theater history moved on.  The Association of Legal Aid Attorneys overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and has been subpoenaed by Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, for being "divisive" and "antisemitic."  A large segment of the union's membership is Jewish, but that cuts no ice with Foxx, who shares Trump's belief that all American Jews must support Israel unconditionally.  Foxx is giving up the chair at the end of this session and wants to get in her last licks at social workers and union members generally, I suppose.

America was deeply moved last Thursday when Katie Britt sat in her kitchen and breathlessly told the story of Karla Jacinto Romero, who was trafficked by drug gangs from the age of twelve, and how this was Joe Biden's fault.  Various sources, including Jacinto Romero herself, have since pointed out that this happened in Mexico between 2004 and 2008, and that her rapist was a pimp, not a narcotrafficante.  In 2015 she testified before Congress.  Jacinto Romero says she rarely talks to politicians because she doesn't want her story "distorted for political purposes."  Britt is sticking to it.  She has the common Republican difficulty with dates, like the Trumpanzees who are sure the 9/11 attacks occurred while Obama was president.  Or the old man who still thinks he's running against Obama in 2024.

And who has now taken to mocking Joe Biden's stutter.  I predict that by next month he'll be accusing Biden of raping a woman in a department store dressing room.  There's nothing else left after "he's a threat to democracy."  If you wondered why Trump chose last night to unveil his witty nickname for "George Slopanopoulos," it's because he gave Nancy Mace some pushback yesterday.  Mace, who says she was raped at age 16, said, "If you want to defend a woman who made a mockery out of rape, then you go ahead and do that."  Stephanopoulos replied, "What you're doing is defending a man who has been found liable for rape.  I don't understand how you can do that."  Mace accused Stephanopoulos of trying to "shame" her, to which he responded, "Women don't come forward because they're defamed by those who perpetrate rape."

Yes, they are.  A couple of hours later Trump was in Rome, Georgia, whining about the $91 million bond he managed to post in the Carroll case with the help of the Chubb insurance group.  "...false accusations made about me by a woman I knew nothing about, didn't know, never heard of, I know nothing about her."  It looks like he has a shot at being the first person impeached twice and successfully sued for defamation three times, unless E. Jean Carroll is tired of spending time in courtrooms.  

Trump courtier Peter Navarro has been ordered to report to a Miami prison on March 19 for ignoring a subpoena from the House Select Committee on Trump's insurrection.  Careful, Peter, lot of contagious diseases on the rampage in Florida.

"Words no good!" Ezra Pound told the New York Times near the end of his life.  Kansas Republicans are way ahead of the old poet/fascist.   They held a fundraiser in Johnson County featuring Ted Nugent and offering donors a chance to kick and beat an effigy of Joe Biden.  Bats were provided.  Presumably beer was, too.  Can you spell I-M-P-O-T-E-N-T R-A-G-E?  You win the door prize.