Five star final

 I was going to write about the financial lifeline the US is throwing to Trump's favorite South American loony Javier Milei, whose "shock therapy" policies have been as much use to Argentina as his cloned dog, but what's the point?  Tomorrow the world is ending again. 

For the Christian elect anyway.  Sorry, not you, Pope Woke.  Tonight at sunset the year 5786 begins with Rosh Hashanah ("Head of the Year"), and this year the evangelicals have hijacked it as the date for the Rapture, when they fully expect to be catapulted into the arms of Jesus.  People are leaving instructions for the care of their pets, giving away their cars, and all the other activities their predecessors engaged in for centuries, only to be disappointed.  This time, it's on.  For real.  

A South African preacher named Joshua Mhlakela is leading the festivities this time, with a YouTube video reporting on his divine vision and Jesus's promise to return during something called "the Feast of Trumpets."  This appears to refer to the blowing of the shofar, a word Jesus would surely be familiar with, but sure, whatever.  You can believe him because Charlie Kirk was shot at 12:23 local time.  September 23, get it?  This is why God gave us daylight saving time -- wouldn't work otherwise.  It's eerie.  Throw in the autumnal equinox, due in about ten minutes, and there you go.

And we were worried about the death of free speech.  People who kept quiet about Stephen Colbert and the installation of a Trump censor at CBS "News" have decided that Jimmy Kimmel is a hill to die on.  Several hundred show business people signed an open letter of support circulated by the ACLU and so many subscribers tried to cancel Hulu-Disney+ that the website page crashed.  If thousands of parents are willing to explain to angry children why they can't watch their favorite cartoons, it feels like an important moment has arrived.

Additionally, Zohran Mamdani cancelled a town hall scheduled for Thursday on the local ABC channel.  Delightfully he did so on Roosevelt Island at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park.  The man has a sense of history.

Trouble in paradICE?  New York magazine is reporting on a vicious feud between Tsar of All the Borders Tom Homan and his nominal boss Kristi Noem over who should get more television time.  Apparently it has nothing to do with the $50,000 bribe Homan accepted from a couple of FBI agents posing as businessmen who wanted to do contracts with the Trump crime family -- in a grocery bag.  (Spiro Agnew shout-out!)  According to Karolyin' Leavitt he never accepted the money and if he did, he was entrapped at the order of machiavellian Joe Biden.  Anyway, he doesn't have to return the dosh.

It would be wrong for a president to order his Justice Department to kneecap a political opponent that way.  Like this DM to Pam Bondi which was briefly made public because Grandpa thought he was posting a rant on Ministry of Truth Social:

Computer illiteracy may save us yet.

It looks like the "War" Department has just been calibrating the missiles by picking off boatloads of helpless fishermen.  Trump was happy to share his threat of an "INCALCULABLE PRICE" to be paid if Venezuela does not somehow remove from the US its "people from mental institutions which includes the Worst in the World Insane Asylums" (he still can't grasp the distinction between "insane asylums" and "political asylum").  I'm surprised -- I thought his next move would be a commando raid on Brazil to break Bolsonaro out of prison, like Hitler's rescue of Mussolini.  But wouldn't an attack on Venezuela end his Nobel dreams?  Not when the Norwegians hear how he ended the war between Cambodia and Armenia.

Last week he was demanding the return of Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan ("We want it back and we want it back right away," he said, pounding his spoon on the highchair tray.)  Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid calmly suggested a policy of "realism and rationality."  Yes, the Taliban, famous for both.  

It seems the Kirk assassination has produced its own "umbrella man."  Kirkites intent on conjuring up a conspiracy reported a man near Kirk making "hand gestures," presumably to direct the shooter.  K$H Patel, still sore from the pounding he took last week at the hands of Congressional Democrats, has vowed to investigate this and all other QAnon theories which have come to his attention or may later be created.  Because it can't be the work of a "lone nut" with a personal grievance.  What's the value of that?  "Hand man" was described as signing like a baseball coach, so that's a place to start.  How many third base coaches do you think there are in North America?  I admit I might have made hand gestures at Kirk, too, of the sort that get you ejected by the umpire.

No, I didn't watch the memorial service but it sounds like Erika Kirk was the only participant who didn't dishonor the proceedings in spite of being greeted with pyrotechnics like a wrestling star.  She forgave the shooter and refused to demand his death and that's a lot.  Trump spewed hate as usual and then Stephen Miller read a translation of Goebbels's "Total War" speech at the Berlin Sportpalast in 1943.  It sounds like a lovely day, very MAGA.

Late news:  Variety says the Jimmy Kimmel show will resume tomorrow night -- if there is a tomorrow night.  See what can happen when we say with Captain Picard, "The line must be drawn here!"? 

Happy New Year to those who celebrate, happy Rapture to those who don't.