Chroniclers

 To the surprise of no one, Trump is raging about "looking into" the license of NBC after Saturday Night Live presented an unflattering skit about Greasy Pete this weekend. They spelled it out by having James Austin Johnson impersonate Trump and break in, threatening to sic his FCC on the network.  He disappears for days at a time but never misses a television show, because we live in the world envisioned by Neil Postman, Paddy Chayefsky and others, where non-stop entertainment dominates our lives and many people get their news from "Weekend Update."  It's the world that created Trump.  Hamlet called actors "the abstract and brief chronicles of the time" four centuries ago.  Today he'd say it about comedians.

We have just had an extraordinary two weeks in which a late-night comedy show was cancelled and then un-cancelled because people who normally didn't watch it voted with their money and the network panicked.  Millions didn't care for the idea of the government having power over television shows.  The only thing close to this affair was the Smothers Brothers show in the late 1960s.  Lyndon Johnson, a seasoned politician, never responded to Pete Seeger singing "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" (a transparent reference to the Vietnam War), and when the show was abruptly cancelled in 1969 Richard Nixon had no comment.  Times have changed.  I'm surprised the whole cult hasn't been ordered to blame Jimmy Kimmel for the government shutdown.  

If you think this is a purely American phenomenon I direct attention to Saudi Arabia, which is courting the outside world in all sorts of ways, especially sports.  Right now and until October 9 it is sponsoring the first Riyadh Comedy Festival, with prominent British and American comedians earning fees of $1.6 million and up.  The only stipulation is that they not mention the royal family or religion.  Or slavery, also a feature of life in the kingdom.  Or the increase in executions for non-lethal and drug-related crimes.  Other than that, go nuts, guys.  (Yes, they're all guys.  Surprised?)  Dave Chappelle told his audience that it's "easier to talk here than it is in America," where he's always getting grief for slagging off LGBTQ people.  I see a Kennedy/Trump Center booking (and perhaps award) in his future.  Others happy to take the money included Pete Davidson, louis CK, Kevin Hart and Jimmy Carr.  Hey, women drivers, am I right?  What's the deal with airline food?  Kim Jong-un, call their agents.

Licensed fools like King Lear's were permitted to speak truth to power, but it's not a job for everyone.  Sometimes punching down pays better than punching up and in many places it's a lot safer.  Getting your show cancelled is still better than getting your life ended.  A million six for one night?  That's more than Elton John got to entertain at Trump's most recent wedding.  I hope he's proud of himself.

It's a notably unfunny world we find ourselves in.  South Carolina circuit court Judge Diane Goodstein blocked the state's election commission from handing over its files to the Bondi Department.  She was reversed by the state Supreme Court but that wasn't good enough for MAGA.  Judge Goodstein received the customary death threats and yesterday her house was burned down, resulting in the hospitalization of her husband and son.  (Stephen Miller's online abuse had nothing to do with it.)

Trump doesn't bother with his FCC, he programs Fox News himself.  Now he's demanding that they stop interviewing Democrats, whom he has pronounced "Satanic."  Leftist firebrand Mark Kelly (sarcasm) was on the Peter Doocy show talking about "Healthcare," if you please, and nobody cut him off or screamed at him.  "It will be very unfair, in the future, when they don't have 'TRUMP' to fight for them," he raved, giving some observers the sense that his 'HEALTH' is even worse than we hope.  No wonder he's so manic -- his legacy of hate and fascism is in danger of slipping away.  So many lies to promulgate, so many judges to terrorize.

Like district court Judge Karin Immergut, who blocked the invasion of Oregon by federal troops.  Doesn't she know that "Portland was burning to the ground"?  "I appointed the judge and he goes like that," he lamented (Judge Immergut's pronouns are her and she, Donnie).  Of course it's the fault of the people who tell him who to appoint.  Trump ha sempre ragione.  

Like the people who never give him enough credit.  "In the book, whatever the hell the title is, I can't tell ya, there's a page in there devoted to the fact that I saw somebody named Osama Bin Laden and I didn't like it," he told sailors in Norfolk.  But nobody listened to him and now there's no World Trade Center.  Since he re-tweeted it, I assume he also wants credit for the myth that Bin Laden is still alive (Barack HUSSEIN Obama killed a body double, of course) and that the Benghazi attack was a cover-up for the "blood sacrifice" of Navy SEALs.  How could you not believe this guy?

Like Police Chief Thomas Mills of Broadview, Illinois, where Kaptain Kristi and her troops were denied access to toilets in the municipal building.  He said MAGA are endangering lives and wasting police time by making phony 911 calls, because that's now protected free speech.  Not like burning a flag, which gets you a year in prison by presidential decree.  I'd hate to be the first ADA who has to try that case.  A paralegal would get it dismissed in just under two minutes.

Like Stephen Miller flunky Anthony Salisbury, who was nailed by the Minnesota Star Tribune texting about deploying the 82nd Airborne to Portland from "a crowded public space."  Yes, they're still using Signal.  Although I can't completely dislike anyone who calls K$H Patel "a giant douche canoe."

It's the first Monday in October and you know what's coming -- lock up your Constitutional rights!  SCOTUS is back in town.  First, however, the minor business:  Trump's women are not doing well.  They rejected Laura Loomer's claim that being banned by Twitter in 2018 and Facebook in 2019 is the reason she failed to be elected to Congress in 2020 and 2022.  They also denied Ghislaine Maxwell's appeal of her twenty-year sentence for sex trafficking.  She'll have to settle in to life at the Houston Federal Spa until the pardon comes through.

Little Mike the Speaker-in-Tongues is also having a tough day.  He wimped out on a challenge from Hakeem Jeffries to debate the shutdown "any day this week in prime time, broadcast live."  Then he learned that Thomas Wideman was arrested in August in a child-sex sting.  Who's Thomas Wideman?  He's the stepson of Ron DeHaas, founder of Covenant Eyes, the antiporn app that he and Johnson and millions of others use to protect their kids from evil online pornography.  It works so well that Wideman, 38, went looking for the real thing, an undercover officer posing as a 14-year-old girl.  Allegedly.  (Covenant Eyes is the name of my Sleater-Kinney tribute band.)

Speaking of porn, when Ryan Walters quit as superintendent of education, reports the Oklahoman, so did his "aide" Matt langston.  Described as a "ghost employee" because he never lived in the state and rarely appeared in the office, langston pulled down a six-figure salary for the three years he assisted Walter in turning Oklahoma public schools toward Christian indoctrination.  I'm sure it's purely a business relationship.