Pin heads

 "They rolled the dice that a Democrat could replace them, and now that he [sic] won't, they're changing their plans to keep a Republican from doing it...the incoming administration would be wise to explore all available recusal options with these judges, because it's clear now that they have a political finger on the scale.  This sort of partisan behavior undermines the integrity of the judiciary."

That was Mitch McConnell yesterday having a green hemorrhage on the floor of the Senate because US District Judge Max Cogburn, appointed by President Obama, and US District Judge Algenon Marbley, appointed by President Clinton, reversed their decisions to retire.  Mitch McConnell, who refused to let the Senate consider Obama's appointment of Merrick Garland to the US Supreme Court because of some rule he pulled out of his ass about presidents in their final year, and who had vowed seven years earlier to make Obama a one-term president and obstruct every aspect of his agenda, is now a champion of non-partisan judicial integrity.  If you live long enough, you see everything.  And the Leader was all set to replace them with Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell.

As the drunks, rapists and thieves assume their roles in Trumputin 2:  The Retribution, I don't hear enough talk about how radically this country is about to change.   Plans call for the military, local police and assorted Freikorps to round up everyone who looks foreign, even those proffering American birth certificates, and escort them to facilities to await deportation to anyplace -- Venezuela keeps being mentioned -- as soon as air carriers have submitted their bids and arranged to show their gratitude to the Leader.  Governors and mayors who protest the flagrant illegality of this are threatened with arrest.  A couple of tech bro dipshits with no known qualifications, much less legal authority, are running amok vowing to demolish entire government departments in the name of efficiency and economy.  (Dipshit No. 1 brought along his mother.)  Countries which once were allies are edging away, considering their options and probably wishing they could move to a safer neighborhood.  Financiers are wondering how long it will take for tariffmania to collapse the global economy.  Scientists and medical professionals are struggling to believe what they see looming.  And Democrats have either gone quiet or started quisling up to the brutes.  (It's a noun, it should be a verb.)  Of all things, they choose to wring their hands about the Hunter Biden pardon.

Lately I've been thinking about the philosophical conundrum posed by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century:  How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  (Why dance, why not sit, stand or march?  Who the hell knows?)  Since the Reformation it has been mocked as the sort of stupid thing Scholastics used to debate instead of doing the laundry or planting beans.  It more or less has come to mean arguing about something that can't be done by beings that don't exist, i.e., wasting time, often in a dormitory room late at night, often while stoned.  I feel like we're deep in such an argument.  

The Leader is under the impression that he can do anything that occurs to him -- amend the Constitution by executive order, impose tariffs with a tweet, order the courts martial of generals who displease him, run for a third term, attack random countries with no repercussions, turn the media into full-on propagandists and cheerleaders, issue his own pseudocurrency, promote if not directly impose Christofascism, declare martial law "On Day One" and stamp out the last embers of the New Deal.  Who's going to stop him?  The spineless Congress?  The corrupt Supreme Court?  The "All the News That's Fit to Eat" New York Times?  Maybe Joy, Sunny, Whoopi and the other cheerfully named hosts on The View?

We are all assuming that some norms will still apply, like honoring the pardons granted by one's predecessors.  There is no reason to think this is the case.  Hunter Biden is no safer from persecution than he was last week.  No one is.  The rule of law ends on January 20, 2025.  The People have spoken, or grunted.  Further discussion is irrelevant, especially about pardons.  Even Peach and Blossom, the fortunate turkeys, could wind up on platters.  It has been suggested that the OSS's Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) holds the best course of action, unless you're leaning toward violence.  (I can't condone, but I can sympathize.) 

Let's all stop fixating on Hunter Biden and find ways to drag our feet.  WORK SLOWLY sounds very appealing.  And don't forget to laugh at them.