This is us

 

We have lived in amity for two hundred years, sharing the longest unguarded border in the world, and this is what Canadians are wearing now.  The general sentiment Up There seems to be summed up by a retired teacher from Halifax who said, "I love America and Americans, but I don't want to be one."  I doubt if her feelings are shared by Greenlanders, Palestinians or residents of the Panama Canal Zone -- probably more anger than sorrow there.  Like the teacher, I don't want to be one either.

I'm not alone:  Ireland's Foreign Births Registry allows descendants of Irish emigrants to claim Irish citizenship and the number of Americans doing so has increased steadily over the past two years, 7,726 in 2023 and 11,601 in 2024.  The last big jump was among Britons who wanted to continue enjoying membership in the European Union.  My great-grandfather arrived at Ellis Island in 1900 (I've seen the registration) but I don't have any way of proving it.  Not an option.  It's thought that hundreds of visa overstayers from Ireland live and work in New York City alone, but they're white and English-speaking so nobody asks to see their papers.

Desperate asylum seekers from Venezuela were recently intercepted trying to cross into Alberta in frigid conditions, dragging suitcases in the snow.  A previous group from Jordan, Sudan, Chad and Mauritius was discovered in the forest.  The Leader doesn't care if children freeze -- he's obsessed with the phantom thousands only he can see coming in the other direction, toting fentanyl instead of ragged backpacks.  If you've never experienced winter you may well think it's a better option than Guantanamo.

The Leader watched Pushing Tin and now he knows all about the qualifications of an air traffic controller, a job that requires the sang-froid of a tightrope walker and the three-dimensional thinking of a surgeon.  These people are responsible for thousands of lives every day and they very seldom make a mistake, despite understaffing and computers that in many cases haven't been updated since the Vietnam War.  It must have been a morale booster to hear The Leader tell Peter Doocy, "We should use some of [the Muskrats] in the control towers, where we were putting people that were actually intellectually deficient.  No, we need smart people.  Some are not young...maybe I'll do it tomorrow."  Are you a frequent flier?  The intellectually deficient Leader, who is 78, wants to put a bunch of script kiddies in charge of American airspace because he admires the way they have shredded every government department they get near.  He thinks you can fly between San Francisco and Los Angeles for two dollars.  This is madness.  

He was still pontificating, appropriately enough, at the "prayer breakfast" about the Washington crash:  "I guess the helicopter was high.  But the odds, even if you had nothing, if you had nobody, the odds of that happening, extremely small.   It's like, did you ever see, you go to a driving range and you're hitting balls, hundreds of balls, thousands of hours.  I never see a ball hit another ball.  Balls going up all over the place.  You never see 'em hit.  It was amazing that that could happen."  Aah, I see.  That's why crashes are rare.  All the planes are going in the same direction.  Thanks. 

When it comes to pandemics The Leader has an established procedure:  Ignore it, lie about how it will go away "like magic," promote quack cures, vilify experts, take credit for ending it while blaming some conspiracy to make him look bad.  So we know what to expect when the next pandemic, avian flu, gets revved up.  (It has already jumped species from birds to dairy cows to cats; humans are probably next, not just the unpasteurized milk cult.)  Which makes it alarming that the CDC's weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report has not mentioned bird flu since January 21, apparently obeying in advance an EO from The Leader.  Also missing is any news of mpox, formerly known as monkey pox.  And Roadkill Bob has yet to be confirmed.  This is madness.  

According to the New York Times the CIA sent the White House an "unclassified email listing all employees hired by the spy agency over the last two years."  In a completely unrelated story, Newsweek reports that two Russian colonels have "fallen out of windows in the space of two days."  Make of it what you will.  Here's what I make of it:  Those who impugn the patriotism of people on the left don't give a midnight shit about this country or about those who risk their lives to spy for it.  Ask Valerie Plame.

Pam Bondi was sworn in yesterday by The Most Corrupt Justice in Supreme Court History and she is already breaking the law.  Not content with rooting out all the non-white, non-male, non-LGBTQ people in government, she is launching an investigation into non-profits, private companies and universities that receive federal funding.  History teaches that the next step is a government-organized boycott of non-compliant businesses (April 1, 1933):

The Leader is facing competition from an unexpected quarter:  There's a bill kicking around the North Dakota legislature that would "acknowledge the kingship of Jesus Christ."  It was introduced by state representative Nick Rios (R-Whatelse?) who attracted attention last week for a social media post:  "Wonder if the CIA would help overthrow and kick this Jew out of power in Mexico?" a reference to President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo.  Last year Nick went full-Mel Gibson on a state trooper who arrested him for DUI.  He has a bright MAGA future.

Alert ATC at Reagan National -- "Prophetess" Donna Rigney is opening "a portal tonight over the White House...to get rid of all that's wicked, that all the presidents before Donald Trump invited by their actions and let evil into the White House."  All the presidents?  You know it was burned by British troops in 1814 and rebuilt in 1817, so is everyone before Monroe off the hook?  Has the Prophetess met Nick Rios?  

Continuing with racist tweets, Elon Musk is demanding that the Wall Street Journal fire Katherine Long for revealing the inner ugliness of his bro Marko Elez.  Elez resigned from DOGE, where he was playing with the Treasury Department's central-payments system, after Long reported messages like "Normalize Indian hate" and "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity" (no evidence that anyone of any ethnicity wants to marry him).  "She's a disgusting and cruel person," Elon pouted.  "She pushed for wokeness and diversity in video games."  The horror.  But The Leader ordered the little prick reinstated after J.D. Vance galloped to his rescue:  "I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life [the kid is 25].  We shouldn't reward journalists who try to destroy people."  I doubt Long gets a bonus for every racist shit she outs.  She should, but Murdoch doesn't roll that way.

In other free speech news, FCC chair Brendan Carr is opening an investigation of KCBS radio in San Francisco because The Leader didn't like their coverage of ICE raids in the Bay Area.  KCBS joins other stations as targets of revenge and threats of de-licensing.  Where would we be if The Leader hadn't promised to bring back free speech for Nazis, eugenicists and religious lunatics?

For "dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done," Rep. Al Green (D-TX) is the first Congressman to file articles of impeachment against The Leader.  Sure it's hopeless.  So was the White Rose, but Hans and Sophie Scholl did it anyway.  Someone has to.  "I'm not going to lobby a single person," said Green, for whom the proposed takeover of Gaza was the last straw.  From the "leadership" -- crickets.

This is madness.