Buttermilk Sky

  January 20, 2021:  The President and First Lady wait for someone to open the White House door.  Somebody sent the butlers home and left them on the stoop like a couple of Jehovah Witnesses.  In light of the unconscionable (but unsurprising) surliness of the previous tenants, could we stop obsessing about Michelle Obama's decision to avoid next Monday's hatefest?  Let's just see if the Leader can climb the steps without help, and without toilet paper stuck to his shoe. Exchange of the day: Senator Mazie Hirono:  Would you carry out an order from President Trump to seize Greenland, a territory of our ally Denmark, by force? Hegseth:  President Trump received 77 million votes. So...if a tree falls in the forest, how many eggs can a sturgeon lay? Thomas Jefferson called for "a wall of separation between Church and State" in a famous letter to a congregation in Danbury, Connecticut, in 1802.  Nevertheless Church insinuates itself into every aspect of...

 "The fires are still raging in L.A.  The incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out.  Thousands of magnificent houses are gone, and many more will soon be lost.  There is death all over the place.  This is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our Country.  They just can't put out the fires.  What's wrong with them?" I can feel the Leader-elect's frustration.  Why don't the "pols" just put out the fires?  Why are they wasting so much time?  His anguish over the "magnificent houses" comes right through the screen, not so much for the twenty-four dead people or the tens of thousands evacuated and homeless.  Nothing for the exhausted firefighters except abuse and accusation -- too much DEI, probably.   Alabama's dumbest  life form  pities the "Republicans, a lot of good people" in California who are "just overwhelmed by these inner city woke policies" (translations:  The Blacks).  He's wi...

 Does it seem as if the rotation of the earth is accelerating, and stuff is flying off into space?  Or is it me? The long-predicted Second Civil War has begun but appears to be pitting MAGA against MAGA.  Readers of Corriere della Sera must have been bemused to read that  Steve Bannon  thinks Elon Musk is a racist and that he considers this a bad thing.  "Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Elon Musk are all white South Africans...Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth...making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?"  We don't need a bunch of foreigners teaching us racism.  Slavery was well established here before the Boers even set out on their Great Trek.  Trump doesn't need any help on that score -- didn't Fred teach him to march with the Klan when he was in short pants?  Musk wants to expel all of our beloved Hispanic migrants while providing H-1B visas to the "geniuses" he hires for his rocket and ca...

 Felon A (34 counts of falsifying business records) faces no punishment at all.  Felon B (16 counts of bribery extortion and obstruction of justice) is looking at fifteen years.  They're not even pretending with this "equal justice under law" jazz anymore, are they? The Leader called his boy Alito and tried to get the verdict tossed out because UNFAIR!! and it looked like a done deal but then they voted and it went against him 5-4, the five being the liberal ladies, the mercurial John Roberts and -- wait for it --  Amy Coney Barrett.   How sharper than a serpent's tooth, etc.  You can imagine the flak she's catching from MAGA today; good thing she has her religious faith, however creepy, to sustain her.  Suddenly she's "Amy Commie Barrett."  (No equivalent abuse for Roberts because It's Always the Woman's Fault.)  The Leader will probably order the creation of a Super-Duper Supreme Court to overturn decisions from the regular one and appoint ...

 For reasons best known to themselves, Senate Democrats have again chosen Chuck Schumer to lead them and the results are predictable.  Schumer says he's fine with the Leader's dumb and pointless plan to re-name the Gulf of Mexico on one condition:  The Leader must "work with us on an actual  plan  to lower costs for Americans." Really, Chuck?  That's your big demand/plea/polite request?  First of all, he doesn't do "actual plans," not even the concept of an idea of a plan, and if he did, it would be something like "make [insert country here] provide free [natural gas/computer chips/cheese] because we do so much for them at a level never seen before."  And second, Chuck, as democracy dies, the cost of cheese will be the least of our problems. Here are a few things a minority leader with gumption might demand: 1.  Make it clear that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are off the table and out of reach of the two clowns you unlawfully put ...

 In Germanic mythology Valkyries are fierce women who collect fallen warriors and convey them to Valhalla for an eternity of partying.  The name means "wish maiden" because they obey the wishes of Wotan, the chief god.  In Wagner's opera Die Walkure  his favorite Brunnhilde gets in trouble because she tries to intervene on behalf of his son Siegmund after Wotan has ordered her not to.  She knew what he really wanted without being told, when his will was contrary to the requirements of his duty.  It's complicated. Trump has yet to claim divinity for himself but it's a matter of time, as he sinks ever deeper into dementia.  He is already surrounded by a crew of wish maidens eager to carry out his most risible blurps.  No sooner had he disclosed that the Gulf of Mexico would henceforth be called the Gulf of America ("What a beautiful name.  And it's appropriate.  It's appropriate") than  Margie Greene  introduced a bill to do just...

  Take a look at these two emblems.   King Frederik  X of Denmark has changed the royal coat of arms to the one on the right.  The polar bear and the ram, representing Greenland and the Faroe Islands, are more prominent and the two cavemen look younger and more determined.  In a speech last week the king spelled it out:  "We are all united and each of us committed to the kingdom of Denmark.  From the Danish minority in south Schleswig -- which is even situated outside the kingdom -- and all the way to Greenland.  We belong together." A measured response to American aggression.  "Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation.  We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside World.  MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!"   Do I have to identify the Prose Style?  The Leader-elect has sent Crown Prince Junior and  Charlie Kirk ...