Small brushfires

 "Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, a novel set in a totalitarian society, has shot to the top of Amazon's bestselling books list following Donald Trump's reelection.  It saw a whopping 6,866 percent surge in sales, according to Amazon figures early Thursday, skyrocketing in just one day to third place from its previous ranking at 209."  (CNN)

A few thoughts:

1. That Bezos boycott didn't last long, did it?  It's just too easy to buy a book with a couple of clicks, without putting your shoes on and leaving the house. 

2. It's good to know there are still some Americans who can read, but you're supposed to study before the exam.  Handmaid was published in 1985.

3. It's not just "a totalitarian society."  There are plenty of those.  It's a specific kind of society where women have no rights except to breed.  

The MAGAts are not much on books but there's a Netflix series, which explains the explosion of "Your body my choice" posts women on Xitter are getting.  One of their philosophers explains, "This is what needs to happen to the middle-aged white women in order to achieve any kind of course correction with them."  Is that the bottom?  There is no bottom.  Black people in half the states are getting a different sort of threat:  "You have been selected to be a house slave at the plantation.  Be ready on Saturday November 9, 11 a.m. sharp."  Gayle King says these are being investigated by "federal authorities" because they may constitute a hate crime, unlike the promises of rape.  People are disturbed that these scum were able to obtain their names and phone numbers, but that's not hard if you know the right South African billionaire.  

Anonymous threats are the valentines of the impotent.  Those who threaten don't act.

Children are getting this garbage.  That's how courageous the MAGAts are.  

We're about to find out how sincere the "leave it up to the states" rhetoric was.  States controlled by Democrats are already taking steps to preserve the rights and freedoms of their residents, kind of like 1860 in reverse.  J.B. Pritzker of Illinois proclaimed, "You come for my people, you come through me," while Kathy Hochul of New York said, "If you try to harm New Yorkers or roll back their rights, I will fight you every step of the way."  In California, Gavin Newsom promises to "Trump-proof" state laws and has called for a special session of the legislature.  Maura Healey of Massachusetts says that she won't let state police participate in the mass roundups and deportations Trump promised his mobs.  I expect we'll soon hear similar sentiments from Josh Shapiro and Tim Walz.  Phil Murphy of New Jersey sounds a little conciliatory, but his attorney general Matt Platkin promises, "If President Trump uses his position to unlawfully attack the rights of New Jersey residents, I will see him in court."

Speaking of court, where Trump spent a significant portion of the year, the thinking is that Judge Juan Merchan has no chance of imposing the kind of sentence that Joe Doakes would get for thirty-four felony convictions when they meet on November 26.  Nobody really believes "equal under the law" has any more validity now than "Fifty-four forty or fight."  Probably Merchan will just pile more fines onto the money he already owes E. Jean Carroll and others.  Maybe Elon will pay it in crypto, or cowrie shells.  

Although the Biden economy is "the envy of the world" according to The Economist, where they spend all their time thinking about this stuff, Trump was able to convince millions of idiots that it's practically Herbert Hoover on steroids.  To make it look good he now threatens to fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell.  Powell is unimpressed.

Reporter:  "If he asked you to leave, would you go?"

Powell:  "No."

Reporter:  "Can you follow up on that?"

Powell:  "No."

Reporter:  "Doesn't he have the power to fire you?"

Powell:  "Not permitted under the law."

Then he went back to work.

This just in:  Bob Woodward thinks Putin is blackmailing Trump.  Also, he heard a rumor that a burglary at the Watergate Hotel might be a bigger story than it looks like.