Juneteenth and other matters

 You will see it on every news broadcast and you will be amazed all over again.  The Catch, Willie Mays's over-the-shoulder-at-full-speed catch of Vic Wertz's long fly ball in the 1954 World Series, and his even more astonishing throw to the infield to keep Larry Doby from scoring.  Mays was one of the greatest, possibly the greatest baseball player of the twentieth century and he has died at age 93.  He lived long enough to see Major League Baseball acknowledge the importance of the Negro Leagues, where his career began, with the records of its players incorporated into baseball's formal history.  He never made a million dollars a year; nobody of his era did.  He was drafted into the Army for no particular reason (we were not at war) and the time he served was time he did not add to his lifetime 660 home runs.  Fans will argue forever about whether military service kept him from surpassing Babe Ruth before Hank Aaron did.  Maybe he was content in his long retirement to let Aaron get the death threats instead.  He stayed out of the public eye; alone of living legends he was not interviewed for Ken Burns's Baseball series.  "When I played ball, I tried to make sure everybody enjoyed what I was doing," he said in 2010.  There was a time when militant young Black people dismissed him as a "Tom," a smiling, accommodating entertainer.  They said the same thing about Louis Armstrong, the genius who more or less invented jazz.  The prophet is without honor and all that.  The "Say Hey" Kid is gone.  There are no others.

Juneteenth, the one holiday that specifically marks the end of slavery, has already been the subject of much ignorant abuse.  Yesterday Valentina Gomez, Trump's candidate for Missouri secretary of state -- she's the charmer who calls things she hates "weak and gay" -- declared it a "wretched holiday" (her tweet actually says "ratchet") and called on Black Americans to forget all this nonsense about reparations.  "These ungrateful people should be celebrating because they were born in the greatest nation to ever exist.  Here's a tip; if you don't like America, kindly, get the fuck out."  Gomez was born in Colombia and likes to pose in military-style clothes, despite having served exactly as long as Trump.

Today it was Greg Kelly at Newsmax who decided to get noticed by comparing Trump to Emmett Till.  Because Till's murderers were acquitted, that proves to Kelly that juries get things wrong.  He's skimpy on the facts of the Till case and he omits all the details about Jim Crow justice in Mississippi, but otherwise it's a solid piece of journalism.  Donald Trump, another victim of lynching.  (Hunter Biden?  And now a word from our sponsor.)

Jesse Watters was also visiting Upside Down World with special guest Lindsey Graham.  Did you know it's actually Joe Biden who is the felon?  "What he's doing to the country is criminal.  His border policies are allowing people to be raped and murdered on the street."  Apart from the stupidity of it, what does Graham hope to gain?  He's not one of the "beautiful like Tom Cruise only taller" SS specimens that Trump admires and would like to run with.  He's not quite depraved enough for a Trump cabinet.  He's exactly what commenters called him, sad and pathetic.  And if closing the borders ended rape and murder, I would be all for it.  Stupidity.

The nail-biting is at an end:  Trump will stay in Milwaukee during Hate Week after all.  Last night we were told it was so horrible, he preferred a hotel he owns in Chicago ("hell on earth," "worse than Afghanistan") and would commute, possibly by walking across Lake Michigan.  The cult/party must have panicked at the "optics" and persuaded him to get a room in Milwaukee, despite Trump's fixation on generating business for his properties.  Congratulations, Chicago.

It looks like Robert Kennedy and his brainworm Biff -- the little guy needs a name -- won't be taking part in the CNN debate next week because he hasn't qualified for enough state ballots.  Of course he's claiming that CNN is colluding with Trump and "Joe Bride," as Trump called him yesterday, to silence him.  (Classic witticism:  Some Guy:  "There is a conspiracy of silence against me.  What should I do?"  Oscar Wilde:  "Join it.")

Where in the world is Tucker Carlson? I never wonder.  If you said "Moscow," good guess but no.  A rightwing politician named Clive Palmer booked him and Dinesh D'Souza on a tour of Australia but widespread indifference has brought ticket prices down from $200-$290 to a quite reasonable $50.  Yet the "Australian Freedom Conference" will probably kick off this weekend to a lot of empty seats.  Part of the problem may be the Junior Trump tour which has yet to happen and for which many people are still awaiting their refunds (sounds like a classic Trump grift).  Fool me twice, won't get fooled again, as George Bush might say.  At least Tucker got to enjoy the "musky odor" of a koala.  This guy is just weird.  

We turn to the daycare center for crack babies formerly known as the House of Representatives, where Republicans have abandoned all pretense of legislating to concentrate on Trump idolatry.  They haven't figured out how to enact a bill that would make thirty-four state felony convictions magically disappear, possibly because the Constitution specifically prohibits ex post facto laws.  So they pass the days trying to name things for him, print his face on dormant currency, and award him a Congressional Gold Medal for attempting to overthrow the government.  It's all good fun and the Senate will step in when the tantrums spill onto the playground.  To further pleasure Trump, Florida's Anna Paulina Luna Livia Plurabelle wants the sergeant-at-arms to arrest Merrick Garland because he won't give them the tape of Robert Hur interviewing Joe Biden.  The kids already voted to hold Garland in contempt, but he's ignoring it the way Jim Jordan ignored the January 6 committee.  It's the Mayorkas impeachment but less filling.  (By the way, Jordan wants to subpoena New York AG Letitia James and make her tell him why Matthew Colangelo is such a good prosecutor.) 

Trump doesn't make it easier for those so desperate to help him.  In not-horrible Racine yesterday he actually described the process of creating those "deep fake" videos that make it look as if Biden is wandering around lost.  In case anyone in the crowd was unfamiliar with AI or deceptive editing.  The people who show up for these things probably think he's making sense, they're just not smart enough to understand him.  Trump now denies he wants to bring back the draft, but there's video of him denouncing debt forgiveness as "vile" and promising to reinstate student debt for millions of Americans.  Which doesn't mean he won't deny that, too.  (According to Mr. Setoodeh, author of Apprentice in Wonderland, during one interview in Trump Tower "he told me he needed to go upstairs to deal with Afghanistan.")

This is a group of Congressmen on January 6, 2021, barricading the House chamber door against a mob of insurrectionists.  The one whose face is visible is Andrew Clyde (R-GA).  He subsequently claimed that the attempted coup was "a normal tourist visit."  He was back this week, attempting to shit on Juneteenth with an amendment requiring that the seditious Confederate monument be restored to Arlington National Cemetery.  You know the one, with a loyal slave following "Massa" into battle while "Mammy" holds up a white baby.  It lost by 230-192 (all Republicans).  For now, Arlington remains a place to honor people who fought for the United States.  Maybe Harlan Crow will acquire it for his sculpture garden, in a spot between Stalin and Hitler.

It's after four o'clock and we still don't have Trump's Juneteenth greeting.  It's not like him to let a holiday go by without a display of Tourette's-laden abuse.  So I'll close with a president who didn't make me want to pretend to be Canadian.