Am I supposed to care?

The FBI raided Trump’s house in Florida.

Former president Donald Trump said Monday that the FBI had raided his Mar-a-Lago Club and searched his safe — activity related to an investigation into the potential mishandling of classified documents, according to two people familiar with the probe.

This trivial act seems to have thrown the MAGAts into hysterical fits.

I’m sorry, but if you weren’t outraged at the killing of Breonna Taylor, you should sit this one out. This “raid” was practically deferential — they got a formal warrant, guys in suits walked in and searched for some papers, and they walked out. That’s what the justice system ought to do, getting a warrant to respect privacy concerns, and using it to undramatically gather information. Do the right-wingers think Trump had something to hide?

Of course, the media is also in a tizzy.

Searching a former president’s property to look for possible evidence of a crime is highly unusual and would require approval at the top levels of the Justice Department. It represents a historic moment in Trump’s tortured relationship with the Justice Department, both in and out of the White House.

Why is it unusual? Why does it require unusually high levels of approval? The guy is a private citizen. The process should require no greater care than searching my home or your home or anyone’s home. An ex-president should have no greater rights than anyone else. I thought this country was supposed to be founded on a principle that there is no aristocracy? (As with most myths about the founding, that one’s a lie.)

Meanwhile, you know that Trump was sloppy and heedless of confidentiality issues. His entire gang is. Would you believe that part of the fallout from Alex Jones phone data is that he had a naked photo of his wife that he sent to Roger Stone? I’m more dismayed by that than that the FBI served a lawful warrant and gathered documents that might (emphasis on “might”, they might exonerate him. Ha.) be embarrassing to a shameless ex-president.

It takes courage to visit CPAC

Wanna see a toothy asshole being obnoxious? No? Too bad, here it is.

The obnoxious one actually posted this clip to his website as if he was proud of his behavior, or thought he was funny or clever. He was neither.

On top of his smug harassment, though, what I found most telling is that his complaints were all false. She’s the only one wearing a mask — but she was in the right, and all the smirking jerks in the crowd were wrong. He pesters about her vaccination status, and she rightly tells him it’s none of his business, but he goes on to babble about how she’s “viral shedding”. No, she’s not. That’s a right wing fiction.

So that’s what right-wing criticism is like.

I hope the Vice reporter got hazard pay.

Honest campaign strategy: Republicans want to kill you

Hey, you all remember that spectacularly effective bit of political theater coined by Sarah Palin that updating our health care system slightly would lead to death panels, where lawyers would sit in judgment over you to decide whether you were worthy of receiving health care? It was total lie, but it fired up the right-wing media and was a potent meme on the right. There was a good reason for that: American citizens are terrified by medical concerns, because we can’t afford any kind of health crisis and know that we’re one little disease away from losing our savings, our home, any kind of financial security. Republicans knew that, and saw it as a way to frighten voters into voting for them.

If only we could have known…

There’s your death panel. Republican lawyers enforcing Republican laws to make women suffer and die. The primary criterion these lawyers and politicians of death are using to determine whether you are worthy of living seems to be your sex. And they aren’t done! They’ve announced their intent to kill gay marriage, ban contraceptives, and of course, they hate trans folk to death.

Already they’re taking steps to expand their oppression. Indiana has enacted a total ban on abortion.

The Indiana ban, which goes into effect Sept. 15, allows abortion only in cases of rape, incest, lethal fetal abnormality, or when the procedure is necessary to prevent severe health risks or death. Indiana joins nine other states that have abortion bans starting at conception.

There is no shortage of Republicans who resent those exemptions.

This destructive hatefulness ought to be the focus of the Democratic party. They need to recognize Sarah Palin’s one good idea, dishonest as it was, and point out honestly that Republicans want to replace doctors with lawyers and pharmaceutical salespeople. It isn’t just women who should fear their policies: we’re on a long slow path to doom. This is what American exceptionalism looks like.

Great. I might have to retire to Italy or South Korea to get away from Republican parasites. The food would be better, too.

There’s more horror on the way! I wouldn’t want to be trans in this country if the Republicans get their way.

So get out there and vote! That’s the first step to save your life. Then once you get Democrats in office, don’t stop — they’re taking money from lawyers, health care companies, and insurance companies too, and we need to clean up that dirty money as well.

Minnesotans! Vote!

Maybe later we can vote on changing that hideous seal?

I only realized this weekend that we have an election this Tuesday. I’m so used to thinking of elections happening in November that I almost overlooked it.

At least deciding who to vote for is easy: if they are a Republican, there’s no way any sane individual could support them. Democrats, as usual, are an undisciplined mess, and somehow, multiple candidates are running as Democrats. Who to vote for? I propose a simple rule: vote for the incumbent Democrats. Normally, that would be a way to perpetuate lackluster leadership, but right now, with Evil in the opposing slot, we need as simple and clear a rubric as possible. So, yeah, I’m going to vote for boring, uninspiring Walz for governor.

Other obvious answers you already know for winnowing down the field: don’t vote for amusing weirdos, so no, we don’t want Captain Jack Sparrow for lieutenant governor. Don’t be seduced by tangential issues: I’m entirely in favor of legalizing marijuana, but do we really need two new parties, the Legalize Marijuana Now party and the Grassroots Legalize Cannabis Party, to advocate for a single issue? No, we do not, they’re just splitting the liberal vote.

This year, we should be all about holding the line presenting a solid front, and less about revolutionary actions. We can get radical when fewer people’s lives are on the line, and believe me, when Republicans get elected, people will die.

All cops are agents of chaos

Every line of this story is a horror.

A mob of cops
   [always a bad sign]
gathered at a library
   [on duty cops? please stay away from the public]
during working hours
   [so when, like, other people were there]
to get trained in
   [don’t they have isolated places for training?]
whacking civilians with a baton.
   [oh. so appropriate. our tax dollars at work]
He showed off his quickdraw
   [cowboy. rugged individualism. frontier justice]
with a loaded pistol
   [wait, what? what about safety?]
and accidentally shot
   [oops. should be passive voice. coptalk. “a gun was discharged”]
a fellow cop, killing her.
   [could have been worse.]

The actual news story, so you don’t think I’m exaggerating.

A woman shot Thursday afternoon during a Special Police training session at a Washington, D.C. library has succumbed to her injuries, police said.

First responders were were called to the Anacostia Neighborhood Library at 1800 Good Hope Road SE shortly before 3:45 p.m. for the report of a shooting.

Police say the special officer who was shot was “unconscious and not breathing” when first responders arrived.

The D.C. Public Library system confirmed the woman was shot in a downstairs meeting room during a Special Police training session. A retired D.C. police lieutenant conducted the training on how to use an extended baton, Chief Robert Contee said.

Sources familiar with the investigation told News4 that when the trainer drew a pistol to illustrate how quickly it could be done, he fired one shot, striking an officer in the chest.

Homicide detectives were called to the scene to investigate. They are looking into why the trainer had live ammunition.

Arming cops is like giving a troop of baboons access to an armory.

Alex Jones is in bigger trouble now

Whoa. If this were on a cop show, I wouldn’t believe this twist in the Alex Jones case. Jones’ lawyers apparently screwed up and sent the complete text contents on Jones’ phone to the opposition lawyers “by mistake” (?), and sprung them on Jones right there in court.

They’re also catching him in calling the judge a pedophile on InfoWars.

I get the impression that lawyers dream about moments like this.

So he perjured himself, grossly insulted the judge, and a whole bunch of incriminating data is going to be passed on to law enforcement. I almost feel pity for Alex Jones.

Nah, not a bit of it. A villain is getting the comeuppance he deserves.

I am kind of wondering what happens to Jones’ lawyers after all this, though.

Also…I’m wishing Ed Brayton would rise from the dead to join me in laughing our asses off at this debacle.

More like this

This country is going down an insane path, led by an ugly minority of racists and misogynists and theocrats and billionaires. It’s time to fight back!

The red states have declared war not only on abortion rights and women’s equality, but also on the bedrock principles that allow states to co-exist in a functional federal union. They have set us on a course of rancor and division, of escalating provocation and reprisal. Blue states have no choice but to act decisively to protect our rights and our people. Red states want a culture war? Let’s give ’em one.

Returning abortion to the states means calling the question at every level of society and in every center of power. From the biggest U.S. state to the scrappiest union local, from the tiny abortion fund to the massive hospital system. Every kind of power must be brought to bear: legal, economic, and cultural.

Blue states have already started to overhaul their abortion infrastructure to accommodate an influx of new patients from red states. Eliminating unnecessary restrictions on abortion care in blue states is a first step to ramping up capacity. For example, some states still have outdated laws that restrict abortion care to doctors, despite years of clinical experience that have shown that other health professionals—like nurse practitioners, nurses, and midwives—can safely manage many abortions. Eliminating those regulations would increase capacity.

There are lots of good ideas — and changes in the works — in that article. One thing I’d like to see is the criminalization of these crisis pregnancy centers that are a blot on the landscape. I so despise these things, and they’ll be promoting their fake ‘services’ at the Stevens County Fair next week.

Time to move to…Russia?

Boy, Russian propaganda isn’t subtle at all. Move to Russia because they have Christianity, beautiful women, fertile soil, no cancel culture, and vodka.

I approve of this message. All right-wingers who love Putin — move to Russia now. You won’t regret it, and neither will we.

Meanwhile, back in reality, Russia has been successful in taking the Eastern parts of Ukraine, but the steamroller seems to have stalled out and is facing renewed combat from Western-supplied forces.

It’s the perfect time to move to Russia and help replenish their invasion forces! Their propaganda seems to be targeted explicitly at stupid young men, you know. Winter is coming.

Is Cody spying on me?

OK, this is creepy. Just the other day I posted about the Morris police being disbanded, and now this video comes out.

One particularly good point he made: who is our sheriff? I didn’t know! So I looked him up. It’s Jason Dingman. I don’t know if he’s a good guy, I don’t know whether I voted for him or not, but for sure I’ll scrutinize the candidate(s) in the next election.

Now Cody: get the camera or keylogger out of my office.