Welcome Back to Pottersville: June 2022

Thursday, June 30, 2022

Interview with Patrick Whitehurst

“Not every hero lives in a mansion or works from a smoky, hard-boiled office. Enter Barker, a mysterious man with no memory of his past. Ferociously handsome and acutely observant, Barker makes his home under the soggy planks of Old Fisherman's Wharf along California's foggy Central Coast. His closest friends are an assortment of stray dogs, ranging from a large Rottweiler to a tiny Shih-Tzu, who live with him. Adventure and intrigue have an uncanny knack for crossing Barker's path.” –Synopsis for Monterey Noir.

This month, we profile western fiction and non-fiction author, Patrick Whitehurst, who’s the author of the fascinating Barker series. Proving the adage of writing what you know, the Barker series takes place on Patrick’s original stomping grounds, the famous and famously beautiful California coast. Nowadays he hangs his hat in Tucson, AZ.

15) Patrick, what occasioned your move from California to Arizona and how has it changed your focus in your writing?

California is a great state, but the idea of retiring there seemed a bit out of reach, so it was decided to move before retirement. I’d lived in Arizona in the past, but never in Tucson, so it was both a return to familiar terrain but with a new slant. Tucson has been hot, and dusty, but it’s also vibrant and alive with literary charm, which proved to a draw for me.

14) Let’s start with Barker, your series character. No one, least of all himself, knows where he came from or anything about his past. Yet he has a strong moral compass as well as a genius for criminal detection. Will we ever find out about his past in the third installment?

The third installment will spill a few beans about Barker’s past, but not the whole can. For me, the reveal is often disappointing compared to the mystery itself and wondering about a character’s past can be quite juicy. I’m undecided as to whether I’ll reveal all.

13) Barker seems to be a pre-ordained name considering his posse- a pack of wild but loyal dogs. How do they help Barker in solving his mysteries and are any of them based on dogs you own or have owned?

The dogs that accompany Barker each have their own superpower in a way, from Dangler’s muscle to Connor’s uncanny nose, and he utilizes them when needed. In some cases, they introduce him to the mystery as well. All of Barker’s dogs have been pets in my household at one time or another throughout my life and I love having them all together, happy, and busy, in the Barker world. In the third installment, coming soon, I introduce a new addition to the pack.

12) I know you’re a working writer but is there any such thing as a typical writing day for you? Do you draft in a notebook, laptop, or both? Do you set word goals and, if so, what are they?

I will occasionally jot notes in a notepad for a story if I’m out, but lately I simply open Gmail on my phone and type them up as an email to myself. Often, ideas will simmer in my head until I’m home. For me, if I get one page written a day, sometimes one a week, I count myself lucky. The day job, particularly lately, has prevented a writing hurricane. I’ve never set word goals, though I have worked on deadline for numerous books and that can also light a fire.

11) From having read the first book in the Barker series, Monterey Noir, I see that you seem to have written the book not in chapters but in virtually self-contained short stories. How and why did you come to write the Barker series like this?

I love the short story format and grew up reading Sherlock Holmes. Many of his exploits were told in that fashion but put together they tell a tale all their own. Originally, I wanted a series character akin to Holmes and Tarzan. If you can picture the two in modern times, and having a baby together, Barker would be that baby. It wasn’t until later I realized his tales go well in the novella format.

10) With the demands of a new job and a family, how do you juggle those things while still finding time for writing?

Writing is my passion, so I make time, just not with ease. There are days and weeks I am too exhausted to type. If possible, I edit at those times or simply read over something I’ve drafted. Other times I watch my favorite shows, read my favorite authors, and hope they’ll inspire me. They always do. When fully inspired, or on deadline, I make the demands of writing as important as the others.

9) When you were a boy growing up, who were some of your favorite authors and had any of them gone on to inspire or inform your work?

Encyclopedia Brown got me interested in detective fiction, which led to Sherlock Holmes. The latter is still an inspiration. Into my teen years I fell into the darker stuff like Clive Barker, Anne Rice, and James Herbert. They fed my love of horror, and the fusion of crime and horror that resulted.

8) You’d recently mentioned a horror novel you’d written in your 20s that Digital Parchment Press, your Barker publisher, is bringing out. Can you tell us about that?

I’m excited about that one. Berge Manor is a horror story written in first-person format by each member of the Berge family. They all live in a weird, huge house out in the woods and they’re all a bit whacked. It’s an odd, gory, weird-ass novel. After writing an initial draft in my 20s, I put it aside for a few years, then dusted it off and did rewrites, then put it away again. Now it’s hitting the world for better or worse. I am thrilled to see it. Should be out in kindle any day and in print format soon.

7) Plotter, pantser or plantser?

Formerly a pantser. A full tilt plotter now, though I do allow for creativity in the moment. But I like to know where I want to be at the end when I start at the beginning. I also tend to write out of order.

6) You’ve written a true crime book, Murder and Mayhem in Tucson, as well as a paranormal book, Haunted Monterey County. Who were some of the notable crime figures that had visited Tucson and what were some of the more chilling tales out of Monterey County?

Depression era gangster John Dillinger tops the list when it comes to Tucson, as does Joe Bananas. The latter is part of the inspiration for the character of Michael Corleone in Mario Puzo’s book The Godfather. As luck would have it, Joe retired to the Tucson area. There are oodles of scary spots in Haunted Monterey County. For me, the haunted beaches were some of the more chilling locales. Imaging a wispy form on edge of the sea, shrouded in foggy mist, gives me the creeps.

5) Both of the Barker books are novellas told through short stories. Are there any plans to write a feature-length Barker novel?

I’m currently wrapping up the third Barker book, which will be a standalone story with no short stories. This one, as I’ve said, reveals a bit about Barker’s past and takes him out of his familiar surroundings of Monterey and into the heat of Sedona, Arizona. I’ve had fun playing with the two locales and the various characters found in both. I began the story years ago, then pushed it aside for other nonfiction and fiction projects. But now it’s his time. It feels awesome to get back into his head.

4) Your California fiction often references or is placed in locales made famous by past authors like John Steinbeck’s Salinas and Cannery Row and Robinson Jeffers’ Carmel. Do you ever refer to them for guidance or do you make use of your own native impressions?

I mention them in my writing here and there and love the west coast territory upon which these personalities walked. Jack Kerouac, for instance, is another author who spent time in the area. My character Sam the Thug is a huge Kerouac nerd. He’s often mentioned in my Sam tales. It adds a sense of literary history to any story and often connects with readers who, like the characters and like me, are hulking fans.

3) What are Barker’s strengths and weaknesses as a detective and what makes him such a compelling one?

Barker’s strengths would be his love of animals and his concern for the safety of others. He feels a need to involve himself in the well-being of his fellow man. Weaknesses might be that he’s often driven by a need for solitude, so much so that he isn’t terribly interested in finding out about his own past, which is a mystery to him as much as it is to the readers.

2) Why do you think California provides such fertile ground for crime fiction, especially murder mysteries?

California is its own country and offers inspiration for all sorts of inspiration, from surf noir, tech companies in the Bay Area, to Hollywood and Bigfoot; there’s something for everyone in that state. The possibilities are endless for crime fiction storytellers. Hollywood alone is a crime genre in and of itself.

1) What’s next for Patrick Whitehurst?

When Barker 3 is finished I plan to start a full-length crime/horror novel about the vampire subculture in Phoenix featuring my San Francisco-based character Sam the Thug. I’ve been outlining, plotting, and researching since last year so it’s damn near time I write something.

If you wish to know more about Mr. Whitehurst and his work, follow the handy links below:

FICTION Monterey Noir

https://www.amazon.com/MONTEREY-BARKER-MYSTERY-PATRICK-WHITEHURST/dp/B084DG7PG2/ref=sr_1_4?qid=1648515848&refinements=p_27%3APATRICK+WHITEHURST&s=books&sr=1-4&text=PATRICK+WHITEHURST

FICTION Monterey Pulp

https://www.amazon.com/Monterey-Pulp-A-Barker-Mystery/dp/B09VLDWB5S/ref=sr_1_9?qid=1648515829&refinements=p_27%3APATRICK+WHITEHURST&s=books&sr=1-9&text=PATRICK+WHITEHURST

NONFICTION Murder &Mayhem in Tucson

https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Mayhem-Tucson-Patrick-Whitehurst/dp/1467146285/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1648515889&refinements=p_27%3APATRICK+WHITEHURST&s=books&sr=1-1&text=PATRICK+WHITEHURST

NONFICTION Haunted Monterey County

https://www.amazon.com/Haunted-Monterey-County-America/dp/1467142352/ref=sr_1_3?qid=1648515848&refinements=p_27%3APATRICK+WHITEHURST&s=books&sr=1-3&text=PATRICK+WHITEHURST

He’s written three in the Images of America series too:

Williams
The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History
Tusayan's Grand Canyon Village

Author's page on Amazon, where you can see everything including short stories in anthologies:

https://www.amazon.com/Patrick-Whitehurst/e/B001V8P45Q/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1

Sam the Thug short stories on free sites

Uranus Jokes free on Pulp Modern Flash my newest one is here: http://www.pulpmodernflash.com/2022/03/09/uranus-jokes-by-patrick-whitehurst/

Damn Santas free on Punk Noir here: https://punknoirmagazine.wordpress.com/2021/12/16/damn-santas-by-patrick-whitehurst/

The Other Sam on Guilty Crime Fiction Flash free here: https://www.guiltycrimemag.com/flash/the-other-sam-by-patrick-whitehurst

Write on me, Sam free on Shotgun Honey here: https://www.shotgunhoney.com/fiction/write-on-me-sam-by-patrick-whitehurst/#more-20113

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

We Are Now Barrow, Alaska

We liberals already knew the Fourth Reich was coming. We knew it almost from the moment Trump came down that escalator over seven years ago. Right wingers said we were just hair-on-fire alarmists. Establishment Democrats said the same thing. The media said the same thing. That's why you hardly ever see liberals on news show panels, anymore, because when bad news comes out, it tends to be about Republicans so of course they have to put them on because of course the liberals are going to be biased against Republicans and we can't trust a single thing they say.

This, despite the fact that liberals knew what the news would be even before it would be news. The one thing we underestimated was that the hurricane winds from this scaled-down Butterfly Effect would bring the worst after we vanquished Trump and sent him packing back to Mar a Lago.

We're seeing this on fronts both politically and judicially. Let's talk about this fascist mission creep on the judicial front.

By now we all know that last Thursday the Supreme Court put a concealed carry firearm in the hands of theoretically every American citizen that wants one. When the SCOTUS last ruled on the Second Amendment, the late Justice Antonin Scalia even said in his majority opinion that the 2nd amendment wasn't absolute and that Americans were entitled to keep a firearm in their homes for personal defense. Last Thursday's ruling essentially held down that opinion and engorged it with steroids. So, what would've happened if the Supreme Court had been able to rule on this, say, a year and a half ago?

Well, a year and a half ago was right before the January 6th riots. As Amanda Marcotte had warned us in an article last week, Clarence Thomas' vote to gut virtually all gun laws in all 50 states, plus Washington, DC, threatens to make the next January 6th much bloodier than the original. Let's think about why Stewart Rhodes' Oath Keepers set up "Quick Reaction Forces" in Virginia area hotels.

Rhodes, a trained lawyer, was all too well aware that Washington had some of the strictest gun control laws in the country and warned his people not to bring guns to the Capitol (until Trump invoked the Insurrection Act). But the weapons caches and ammo dumps in those Virginia hotels, surrounding the Capitol, were kept well away from the Capitol building because of those gun laws that likely will no longer exist.

We know this because Rhodes' text messages, acquired by federal investigators, to his own people explicitly forbade his subordinates to bring weapons to the Capitol for the simple reason that, as Marcotte points out, "They didn't bring guns because they were afraid of being arrested before they had a chance to riot." The Proud Boys and Three Percenters followed suit.

So, a lot of guns just got put in the hands of a lot of crazy males. Now, let's look at Friday's ruling:

That was, of course, the day the SCOTUS coat-hangered Roe v Wade. Unlike the gun control ruling, Roe v Wade's rescission doesn't involve all 50 states but saying that makes it sound less horrible than it really is. Over half our states, 26, either have now or will surely have, some antiabortion laws on the books, with a full half of them having trigger laws that will ban abortion anytime between last week and the end of July.

Since Roe was gutted, we've been hearing some pretty alarming eliminationist rhetoric from the "pro-life" crowd that the real violence in the debate over abortion access comes from the pro-choice crowd, not them. Forget the fact that virtually all the violence and murder comes from the "pro-life" bunch that visit violence, arson, harassment and even the murder of abortion providers.

So, the SCOTUS just put guns in the hands of "pro-life" fetishists who are now free to completely terrorize those few abortion clinics that will be open in those states that still marginally have abortion access.

Let's also talk about another wonderful SCOTUS ruling that says, for completely inane reasons and completely insane rationales, that no one living within 100 miles of a border has Fourth Amendment protections. The Fourth Amendment, in case your Constitutional law's a little rusty, is the one that prevents the government from illegally searching and seizing your person or private effects.

It ought to be mentioned right now this affects at least 60% of Americans, and up to two thirds, including the entire states of Florida and Hawaii.

This means the fascist Border Patrol, which was recently seen literally whipping Haitian migrants then making a commemorative "challenge" coin so they could keep reliving that glory, which is why serial killers take trophies, by the way, CAN ARREST AND BEAT YOU WITHOUT A WARRANT.

Ergo, about two thirds of us don't have the protection of the Fourth Amendment, any more. Say bye bye, habeas corpus.

So, let's take stock- Women have been denied agency and control over their own body and health choices, especially if it involves their uterus. Only Midwesterners, about a third of the nation, will have protection against illegal search, arrest and seizure. And if anyone has a problem with you, they'll have a gun without a conceal carry permit on their side to settle arguments.

And then, there's January 6th, 2025 to worry about.

As the saying goes, history doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes. This isn't exactly the way fascism arrived in Nazi Germany 90 years ago but it's disturbingly close enough. We saw the subsumption of the media, the judiciary, of education as well as the government so that there was little else but Nazis and Nazi sympathizers.

On the political front, thanks to Trump burying the bar that used to separate qualified from non-qualified candidates, during this primary cycle, about 100 to 120 election-deniers, Qanon high priests and priestesses and sundry and assorted right wing lunatics have won their primaries. These offices range from county clerks and elections officials to Secretary of State, state representative and senate offices and even the US House and Senate and gubernatorial races.

And, long before this time, right wing legislatures in places like Texas, Georgia, Iowa and Missouri have passed voter restriction laws that severely curtail early voting, drive-in voting, ballot harvesting, poll availability and other measures obviously meant to keep "the wrong people" from voting. And then there's the vicious gerrymandering that Republicans were largely allowed to make after the 2020 census designed to make certain districts a lot less competitive.

Politically and judicially, we're like Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost town in America that sees 40 days of nothing but night every winter. But then spring comes and the sun eventually gets higher and higher on the horizon.

This political and judicial winter solstice is guaranteed to last a lot longer than 40 days. And no one can see a way out.

But we liberals did warn you this endless night was coming.

Pottersville Digest: Expanded edition

It couldn't have happened to a nicer traitor.

It was never about states' rights. That was a myth. States' rights was a euphemism for the right to own slaves.

Shorter Ron Johnson: "My chief of staff contacted Pence's people about taking the body of that dead hooker and they wouldn't take it. It's a nothing burger."

This is the result of speaking out against guns and right wing corruption.

Who the fuck in their right mind names their kid "Hatchet"?

Mo Brooks sent this to CBS News. Never underestimate the power of sour grapes.

Jamie Raskin recently had some fun with MTG.

Portnoy's complaint.

Tragedy in Oslo.

Cartoon intermission.

More right wing thuggery from the Nazis.

Sure he was, Bobo. Then four years later, we realized our mistake and prayed him back out.

Assault? For a tap on the back? Fuck that snowflake bullshit.

"George Will, whose mind is decaying with hatred and envy before our very eyes." Oh, the projection of this man is on anabolic steroids.

I guess ole JD is going to blame "liberal and worldly influences" for his alcoholism and horrible lifestyle choices.

Like I keep saying: We are the stupidest fucking nation on the planet.

It couldn't have happened to a nicer asshole.

If you're like me and are both a Carol Burnett and Better Call Saul fan, then this is a match made in heaven.

Just think: This asshole has a podcast called Common Sense.

Why do we keep suffering these glassy-eyed lunatics and why aren't we throwing them in prison?

One more time- I'll believe it when I see it.

Boy, yesterday was a real red letter day for the Fourth Reich, eh? And finally...

Yeah, the DOJ may want to revisit that decision not to charge Mark Meadows with contempt of Congress.

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Dude, Where's My Coup?

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

In probably the best line ever written by Australian thriller novelist Michael Robotham, he made a passing reference to George W. Bush in The Suspect, one of his Joe O'Loughlin novels. Robotham brilliantly observed that the sight of George W. Bush in front of the White House was an unnatural one, "like seeing Bill Gates in board shorts. It just didn't look right."

I'm sure many of us got that déjà vu feeling after 2016 when, after some serious electoral buttfuckery, Donald John Trump was shoehorned into the White House. It just didn't look right. Manifestly unqualified for the highest, most demanding office in the land, showing complete disdain for most presidential traditions, lacking in even the most rudimentary social graces (Hanging up on the Australian Prime Minister, walking in front of the Queen of England, trying to extort the president of Ukraine, et al), I think I speak for tens of millions of us when I say I had a queasy but still-comfortable feeling Trump would only be squatting in the West Wing for four years.

Then the Select Committee announced yesterday afternoon that there would be one more hearing in June, not July as Chairman Bennie Thompson had predicted. Just like with Anonymous (who turned out to be Miles Taylor), the Washington press corp and Beltway insiders had a field day trying to guess and discover who the witness was. Last night, we'd learned it was Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

We knew that Hutchinson had delivered about 20 hours of testimony to the January 6 Committee but few if any of us knew she'd be the witness to deliver testimony that had made all the committee members race back from their home districts just days before the July 4th recess. It was quite odd. Why was this information so time-sensitive? Was the witness about to go to prison, was it a health issue? No and no. Ms. Hutchinson is a young, healthy woman in her 20s who did nothing illegal.

The simple reason Chairman Thompson felt the need to hold this hearing so abruptly is because it was so shocking and that the American people needed to know that their Commander in Chief on January 6, 2021 was a raving, foaming at the mouth psychopath to the point where he'd actually assaulted one of his own Secret Service bodyguards. Do I exaggerate?

Hardly. Play the video if you haven't already seen the testimony.

After the speech at the Ellipse, Trump really did want to go to the Capitol and egg the rioters on. Disregard what Mark Meadows said in his Tell-Nothing book in which Trump told him that he was only speaking metaphorically (One doubts Trump even knows how to pronounce the word much less what it means). No, Trump wanted to march to the Capitol or at least be driven there in the Beast. The Secret Service actually tried to hastily arrange a route for Trump before deciding it would be too risky.

According to the second-hand account told to Hutchinson by Rob Engle, the head of Trump's Secret Service protective detail, Trump didn't know until after he'd gotten in the car that they were heading to the West Wing. As Engle told it to Hutchinson, Trump became enraged and actually lunged for the steering wheel, essentially trying to carjack his own limousine. Fearing an accident, Engle put his hand on Trump's arm and told him to let go then Trump used his free arm to try to choke Engle.

That was just one of the revelations that proved or should have proved to the American people that their leader, their Commander in Chief, the guy with the nuclear codes, was having a tantrum and had all the impulse control of a spoiled three year-old who was denied that trip to Chuck E. Cheese. And that was just the beginning.

"She is bad news!"

In keeping with his sociopathy, Trump couldn't wait to squirt sewage at Ms. Hutchinson and paint her as a disgruntled ex employee. In calling her a "leaker" (An ironic charge for Trump to make at anyone considering he gave away Israeli intelligence secrets to the Russians and gave a British documentarian access to the First Family on and around January 6th), he'd made a tacit confession. By calling Hutchinson "a leaker", he's not denying a single word she'd said to the Select Committee either today or in prior testimony.

He's also continuing to propagate the belief that anyone he doesn't personally know isn't worth listening to, especially if they say highly damaging things about him.

Yeah, Cassidy Hutchinson is bad news, alright, for Trump, Meadows, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry and others. She essentially threw the entire administration under the wheels of the Beast regardless of whose hands were on the wheel. But the revelation of Trump trying to carjack his own car then assaulting the head of his security detail wasn't all she'd divulged.

She recalled getting summoned to the dining room on December 1st and seeing someone resetting the tablecloth. She looked at the wall where the TV was mounted and noted ketchup dripping down and broken crockery beneath it. She asked what happened and was told that when Trump heard Bill Barr say to the AP that there was no widespread fraud in the election, Trump threw his lunch at the wall. Hutchinson went on to add that it wasn't the first time she'd heard of Trump breaking crockery by yanking on the tablecloth.

Nearly four weeks later, she was in the tent with Trump, his family and several top aides behind the stage at the Ellipse. Trump was, of course, aggrieved that his crowd wasn't big enough and asked why. The Secret Service told him about all the people, presumably armed, who refused to pass through the metal detectors. Trump said, "They're not here to hurt me," and demanded the metal detectors be removed.

So, who were they there to hurt? Nobody Trump cared about, which is anyone and everyone not named Donald Trump. No wonder Officer Daniel Hodges, the cop infamously crushed in the doorway, said that Trump set them up. That also would go for his own Secret Service detail, whose own chief he'd soon assault.

And this was all just in the first hour.

He knew, or assumed, he'd have Secret Service protection at the Capitol and then tried to, to quote Alexander Hamilton, "ride the storm and direct the whirlwind." In fact, according to Hutchinson, Trump's grand idea was not just to walk to the Capitol, he wanted to walk into the House chamber and scream God only knows what. In other words, he wanted to become one of the rioters.

Alternative Facts

Now, even though it would read like something out of a dystopian alternate reality science fiction novel, let's extrapolate from today's testimony what likely would've happened if Trump had gotten his way on January 6th:

Trump grabs the steering wheel of the Beast and somehow wrestles control from the Secret Service driver. The heavily-armored vehicle then hits and kills any number of Trump's supporters (later written off as "collateral damage" and disingenuously eulogized, thereby creating martyrs). The armored limousine then careens in front of the Capitol and Trump exits.

That sacred building has already been breached and Trump marches up the steps, his terrified Secret Service detail frantically scrambling to protect him from the howling mob. As red-toothed and enraged as they were in reality, seeing Trump would have the effect of pouring buckets of blood on a Great White in a chum line.

He invokes the Insurrection Act from Twitter while still in the car then marches up the steps. Stewart Rhodes and his Oath Keepers, quivering to hear that, race back to their Virginia hotels where they've set up ammo dumps and weapons caches then they race back to the Capitol. The Proud Boys and Three Percenters do something similar.

Trump now has not a mob but an army at his back as he walks up the Capitol steps and marches straight to the House of Representatives' main chamber. The counting of the Electors' votes is continuing. He looks up at his vice president, who's astonished to see his boss there. Trump does nothing while his spittle-flecked supporters race toward Mike Pence and overwhelm his protective detail.

He still does nothing as the mob drags Pence outside and hangs him on the gallows that somebody had set up. We know he'd do nothing because in real life, according to Hutchinson and others, Trump said Pence should be hung and that the mob had "the right idea". The police are quickly overwhelmed, the Secret Service swept aside, shots are fired, people are killed and that further enrages the mob. Mass executions follow in reprisal. Cops are killed en masse.

Pence is now dead, Pelosi is dead, Schumer is dead. Most if not the entire Cabinet resigns in greater numbers than in reality and, with no Cabinet and no vice president, there is no one left alive to pull the trigger on the 25th amendment. There is no legal mechanism to remove Trump from power. Joe Biden's win never gets certified. Pence is dead and cannot call out the National Guard as he actually had.

January 6th would've been that bad and worse. We would have officially turned into a banana republic. Trump would still likely be in office and Jeffrey Clark would be the Attorney General. With so much chaos at the US Capitol, state Republican lawmakers would've felt pressured or emboldened to empanel their slates of fake electors. Our once sacred electoral system is now compromised beyond repair and the "winners", just as in Russia and other dictatorships, get to control the results.

This is how close we'd come to losing our democracy. This is not fear-mongering, this is not hyperbole. This is the truth as closely as we can extrapolate it. This is what Trump wanted. It's what a frighteningly large number of Republicans still want. Only the rioters' failure drove them back into the shadows and to ask for pardons and to lie and distance themselves from their own actions.

This is the party to whom, as far as the press is concerned, we're about to hand back control of Congress? Think, people. For God's sake, think of what you're about to do. Because if we had a Reichstag, it would already be in flames.

Saturday, June 25, 2022

Gutting Roe Was Not Just Trump's Fault

On Halloween 2005, appropriately, George W. Bush nominated Sam Alito to the Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Bush being Bush, we all knew he was going to nominate someone who wasn't so much a legitimate jurist but a shambling fever dream right out of the Federalist Society. That we got with Alito, who was confirmed by the Senate exactly three months later to the day by a 58-42 vote.

Some time during those three months, the Young Turks did a live radio show where they fielded calls from listeners and I was one of them. I told Cenk Uygur that what people were forgetting is that Alito at the time was only 50, meaning he would almost surely remain on the court for decades and could do untold amounts of damage. Cenk said I'd brought up a good point.

Shit like we all saw yesterday and the day before was what I was talking about. I was a new blogger, one of many that had jumped into the fray in 2005, but I was 46, going on 47 and knew what the stakes were. Then when Rehnquist did his last hospital hallway sprint in a detox rage and it came time to replace him, he nominated John Roberts, a dim-witted boob who had all of two years on the federal bench, to be Chief Justice.

Alito had proven to be over the last 16 years a radical bomb thrower and Roberts the clueless organ donor who has let the more radical elements of his court run amok. The SCOTUS' decisions over the last two days are proof that he's lost control, indeed, that he never had control, over the High Court. In several ways, he's jurisprudence's answer to Kevin McCarthy, a shameless meat puppet who so desperately wants to be Speaker that to this day, he's still sucking up to the Sedition Caucus for their votes even though they have proudly said he's not going to get them.

And, yes, in the mercifully brief time he pretended to he president, Trump installed on the High Court three of the lunatics who wound up axing Roe v Wade as well as ruling that all Americans everywhere can conceal-carry guns in all 50 states. Both rulings are guaranteed to get people killed. But Bush is also largely to blame for these rulings. And as for the one that was nominated by neither Bush II or Trump? Well, that's Clarence Thomas, the pornography-obsessed Uncle Tom who was nominated by Bush's Daddy, HW.

During Clarence Thomas' circus of a confirmation, three women wanted to testify after Professor Anita Hill against Thomas and the then-Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Coimmittee wouldn't let them. And who was that chairman? Well, just to show that I'm not slamming only Republicans over this SCOTUS clusterfuck, I'll simply say it was Joe fucking Biden. So, yeah, Joe owns a piece of this, too.

It's impossible to see how the so-called pro-life zealots on the court can square either decision with their pious pro-life bromides when both rulings when one essentially paints a target on the backs of anyone, especially minorities, without a gun who is interpreted as being threatening to someone who does have a gun and the other on any woman in a redneck state who wishes to exercise some biological agency over her health choices.

Now, thanks to the Supreme Court, which is looking more and more like the judiciary cobbled together by Hitler in the 1930s, all a gun owner has to say when asked by a cop or a judge why they need a gun is, "I feel my life is endangered."

Perhaps not so oddly, considering the never-ending hypocrisy of the right wing, it never seriously occurred to the court that a woman who is carrying a non-viable fetus through an ectopic pregnancy or preeclampsia may need an abortion because she feels her life is endangered.

Most nauseatingly, the High Court and those doing victory laps over Roe's demise are saying that the pro-life faction is all about love (Like these two idiots out of Florida) and that Roe's coathangering actually gives choices to women.

AOC had the last word when she simply stated, "This is going to get people killed."

I'm afraid the lady from NY-14 may prove to be right again.

Friday, June 24, 2022

OfSam

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Pottersville Digest

They know rioting, or the hard coup, doesn't work, so fascist Republicans are doubling down on the soft coup approach.

What I found hilarious about the ad is that, after announcing they were going RINO hunting, they wound up busting into an empty home.

Twitter has about as much spine as an earthworm.

Is there a violin on Earth tiny enough for this assclown?

Keep in mind, this is the same racist douchebag who'd led that racist cop riot in front of City Hall in 1993. And there's Junior, standing to his right just like the day his father was inaugurated.

He doesn't have Devin Nunes to lean on for intel, any more.

I just got accepted for early access to this right wing sewer. After they launch their dating app this summer, I'm going to have so much fun with these fools. My handle will be John Barron.

Crazy finally gets a filibuster in the House.

Ron Johnson really is a towering pile o' shit, isn't he?

Murderer thrown out of elected office.

What the fuck is the matter with these people?!

Does Chicago seem windier than usual today? Oh, that's 5,000 fat Chicago cops breathing a sigh of relief.

Cheese breath RoJo: A real profile in courage.

Of course it was a crime. A journalist once wrote of Trump way back in 1976 that he was incapable of doing anything "unless there was some moral larceny attached to it."

That's why your network should cover the hearings, Martha.

Chairman Thompson is putting a hold on hearings after this Thursday on account of the flood of evidence they're getting of late. And finally...

Why? Because she likes older men like Mick Jagger?