Everybody needs a Neil Young tune,
everybody needs a little more room,
everybody needs their own deep hole,
everybody needs a stone to roll.
A little road and a stone to roll,
A little road and a stone to roll.
John Stewart - Neon Beach, Live 1990
I have no idea how that brief verse from a much longer jam will play into today’s screed, but somehow it fit my mood and I figured it would probably have some kind of connection if I started rolling my ‘stone’. (Thank you alert ass reader, Charley McCabe for sending that along.)
I woke up today to learn that Rupert Murdoch was vaccinated for COVID 19 in England. A multi-billionaire who is 89 years old and who is single-handedly responsible for millions of people around the world believing the virus is a hoax, a scam, a mere nuisance, a way for the medical community to make another buck got vaccinated by Britain’s National Health Service.
He is a U.S. citizen by the way.
He owns Fox News among, possibly, hundreds of other scurrilous news rags and, so-called, news outlets.
He is part of the scourge that not just afflicts America, but the entire world.
I woke up today to learn that it is looking more and more like Jared Kushner is laundering more money in broad daylight. Using his dubious security clearance and his dubious ties to the Middle East, he’s busily feathering the nest for our very own despot.
The mainstream media may or may not be ‘all over it’. I don’t know. I don’t watch the mainstream media. I watch tiny snippets and portions via social media. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing will come of it.
We have the mechanism to punish these sorts of white collar, gold plated crimes but, like many things, we do not have the political will or the stomach to punish people like Jared Kushner. And the rest of the complicit family.
Or, if we do find the cojones, the fabulously wealthy will bankrupt whoever tries to bring them to justice. Or keep kicking the can down the road into infinity.
They don’t mind getting caught. They mind being punished. - Sarah Kendzior
I woke up today to hear the weaselly senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, was blocking the COVID relief package for some minor reason and saying something about the virus being an act of the almighty or nature or Beelzebub.
As a reminder, Joe McCarthy, senator of the Salem witch trials fame - oh, my mistake! - of the a-communist-behind-every-bush fame, was, also, from Wisconsin. I guess I should see it as a reminder that every state has a batch of crazies, as well as a batch of vegan tree huggers.
Mr. Johnson is part of a phalanx of senators whose affiliation with Russia should be unsettling at best and terrifying at worst. Senator Such-and-Such (R- Moscow) ought to be how their LinkedIn profiles read.
I woke up today being reminded that the deposed, defeated, dethroned gasbag in the White House has said nothing in regards to the recent hacking of the entire government - more importantly branches of the military and the nuclear system - by Russian operatives. Some arm of the Russian intelligence community that goes by the acronym, SVR. I’d only heard of the GRU and FancyBear, so this must be one level more serious. I’m going to type a “Yikes!” in here, but it is more serious than that snarky reaction.
He’s never raised his voice to Putin or Russia. Not once.
He’s never followed through with any kind of sanctions.
He’s denigrated every branch of the government, every politician - ass-kissers and opponents alike, Gold Star families, U.S. service members, ambassadors, citizens of other countries, other countries’ leaders and U.S. citizens - sometimes just your random Jane or John Doe, but never Vladimir Putin.
He’s never commented on the bounties that were placed on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. By Russia.
It’s too bad John le Carré died.
But, wait. He DID have something to say on the matter. (For the record, I am not a reader of John le Carré; however, he was a spy for Britain. He does have a clue as to what he is talking about.)
In one of his recent books, Agent Running in the Field, set in the present day, his protagonist watches the Helsinki interaction between Putin and the insufferable boor:
Tr*mp, speaking as if to order, is disowning the findings of his own intelligence services, which have come up with the inconvenient truth that Russia interfered in the 2016 American presidential election. Putin smiles his proud jailer’s smile.
(As a reminder, part of our traitorous president’s remarks in Helsinki included, “I don’t know why Russia WOULD have attacked our election.” It’s not just me. These raised eyebrows with everybody who is anybody.)
Later on in le Carré’s book, there is this “observation” between the protagonist and another character.
You know what Tr*mp is?
Tell me.
He’s Putin’s shithouse cleaner. He does everything for little Vladi that little Vladi can’t do for himself: pisses on European unity, pisses on human rights, pisses on NATO. Assures us that Crimea and Ukraine belong to the Holy Russian Empire, the Middle East belongs to the Jews and the Saudis, and to hell with the world order. And you Brits, what do you do? You suck his dick and invite him to tea with your Queen.
In an interview with the New York Times, le Carré said:
For Putin, it’s a kind of little piece of background music to keep things going. The smoking gun might or might not be the documents exchanged about the Tr*mp Tower in Moscow [which Tr*mp is said to have been planning to build]. Then there’s the really seedy stuff in the Caucasus. There are bits of scandal which, if added up, might suggest he went to Russia for money. And that would then fit in with the fact that he isn’t half as, a tenth, as rich as he pretends to be.
I hope - somewhere in the bowels of our government, somewhere that has not been corrupted or compromised, somewhere good people still toil anonymously - all of this is being collected as evidence. Not for a trial because I know a trial will never happen. Just for an exposé. Just so - eventually - we can learn the truth.
So, none of us will have been rolling that stone in vain.
###
Joke of the Day
Amal and Juan are identical twins.
Their mom only carries one baby photo in her wallet.
Because if you've seen Juan you've seen Amal.
Also, a pangram sentence is a sentence that contains every letter of the alphabet in it.
Like: "jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward."
Or: "the five boxing wizards jump quickly."
Can you think of one? Here’s mine.
The herd of grazing zebras quieted themselves immensely just before the patient ax throwers came forward and took aim.
Just because. . . is anybody as big of a Schitt’s Creek fan as this guy?
