Making history

I had a feeling that Harriet Tubman would be cheated of becoming the first woman to appear on our currency.  It never occurred to me that she would also be denied her role in the Underground Railroad.  Even now I'm unable to grasp the extent of America's new fascist depravity.

Turns out it was "Black/White cooperation" that conducted many of slavery's victims to freedom in the years before the Civil War, if it's still called that.  The disturbingly dumb Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who was just about competent to govern North Dakota, oversees the National Park Service, which is busily sanitizing history into "history" that won't rub against the sensitivities of white people.  

Even John Brown has been edited out of the website for the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.  Maybe someone thought he was a black man.

The Leader was too busy soft-drinking and dining his Saudi golf partners to spend half an hour witnessing the return of four American soldiers to Dover, but Roadkill Bob has some residual hereditary sense of decency.  As the wholly preventable measles epidemic centered in Texas claims a second child's life, he attended the funeral.  The secretary should clear his calendar, because 481 cases have been confirmed by the Texas Department of State Health Services.  Other cases are reported from Vermont to Washington state.

Roberto Clemente was a great baseball player, perhaps the first great Latino player if you don't count Ted Williams, who was advised to conceal the fact that his mother was Mexican when he joined the Red Sox in 1939.  Clemente was also a humanitarian who didn't just write checks but put his life on the line, and lost it while flying to Nicaragua to deliver emergency supplies after the 1972 earthquake.  When fans noticed that his number 21 was no longer displayed at the Pirates' PNC Park, a ruckus was raised.  The team had to insist that this was not another case of panic at the accusation of DEI, they simply needed the space to advertise a beverage called Surfside.  Which is somehow better.  The Pirates have now apologized to the Clemente family and promised to restore the logo to the right field wall.  A major league baseball team is usually valued in the billions of dollars, so they can probably meet payroll without one stadium ad.

But there's a bigger sports story than Pittsburgh dishonoring its past:  Entire men's teams are turning trans.  This comes from the Senate's leading authority on sportsball, Tommy Tuberville.  "These woke globalists are pushing these kids to say, if you can't compete in men's sports, let's just transition and say you're a woman and participate in women's sports."  It's diabolical!  It also disparages the talent needed to play women's sports and completely fails to understand the reasons people transition -- for a lifetime, coach, not a couple of seasons of lacrosse.  It's Tuberville, so it's diabolically stupid.  

Pay no attention to the daily collapse of the markets.  The Leader has advice, now that golf weekend number nine is over:   "Don't be Weak!  Don't be Stupid!  Don't be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!).  Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!"  Stop checking your retirement account every ten minutes, it won't do any good.  Don't worry, be happy.  Like Howard Lutnick and Michael Bessant and Linda McMahon and all the other rich people guiding your future.  

But not this guy:  "The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine," said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in a turnaround that left his fellow anti-vaxers reeling.   A Trumper who can learn from his mistakes?  Who will the next HHR secretary be?

There may be an opening for attorney general, too, after Pam Bondi was asked how she could possibly justify a third term for the elderly felon.  She must hope he stopped listening after "I wish we could have him for twenty years," when she admitted violating the 22nd Amendment would be "a heavy lift" ("I think he's going to be finished, probably, after this term").  She's not young enough or blonde enough to get away with that.

Speaking of aging blondes, Margie Greene continues to represent everything wrong with inbreeding.  Her son Derek turned 22 and she sent out a call to her social media followers to "buy him a beer!" with a link to his Venmo account.  Since he has been of legal drinking age for a year, the correct response would be "Tell him to get a job!"  Even MAGA had sharp words at a time of economic catastrophe, so she removed the post.  

The Panican Party will have no trouble finding Stupid members.  I nominate this clod for chairman:

Homan is also enraged to hear "Para continuar en espanol..." when he calls for movie times, and ATM prompts in Chinese bring him close to syncope.  Keep it up.

Calling it "The Ice Queen" versus "The Hot Mess," Daily Beast is relishing the White House power struggle between chief of staff Susie Wiles and loyalty pitbull Laura Loomer.  Wiles is old-school and described as "moderate," meaning she's not down with deporting US citizens to El Salvador, while Loomer is the funny one (she calls Bill Maher a "leftist," which is hilarious).  Foxy boxing?  Jell-o wrestling?  I wish popcorn didn't stick in my teeth.

The "internal investigation" into Whiskeyleaks (how an actual journalist came to be included in a far-from-secure chat about bombing Yemen) is complete and far too Rube Goldberg-convoluted to summarize.  Readers of my generation will be reminded of Rose Mary Woods, Nixon's loyal secretary, and her description of how she accidentally erased eight-and-a-half minutes from the tape she was transcribing.  Fond memories.  Anyway, nobody is being pushed out because of this spectacular fuckup, mostly because The Leader didn't want The Atlantic to gloat about his incompetence.

Besides, he was busy planning his Big Beautiful Birthday Parade.  Pre-MAGA America used to hold parades on national holidays and to honor live heroes with tickertape parades, usually in lower Manhattan after someone flew solo to Paris or orbited the earth, and even once for winning a piano competition in Moscow (Van Cliburn 1958).  But Diaper Donny is no ordinary president, is he?  June 14 is the 250th anniversary of the US Army and also Flag Day, and there will be no shortage of military hardware and flags to celebrate his 79th birthday as if it weren't a tragedy.  Four miles long, from the Pentagon to the White House, followed by road crews patching up the tank damage.  Be there, or else.