Not So Silent But Deadly

To be completely honest, we're writing this before Tuesday night's Democrat debate (the first of a two night series) so we have no way of knowing the specifics of what the candidates will say. But we still feel fairly safe in our assumption that the cartoon above has captured the essence of the event.

Still, even from our viewpoint here in the past, we think there are a number of things we can predict about Tuesday's debate. Let's see how many of these we get right...

• Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, finally on the same stage, will shout themselves hoarse while trying to offer more free stuff than the other candidate is offering. Their combined offerings will total more money than there's ever been, or will ever be, but both will claim that the cash will magically materialize if a massive tax is levied on the evil rich.

• Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg will each try to eliminate the other, so as to be the surviving "young, alternative" candidate. O'Rourke hopes to accomplish this by inviting as guests several black high school football players who kneel during the playing of the national anthem. In this way, O'Rourke can make the important political point that it isn't only women soccer players who are assholes. Buttigieg, on the other hand, may respond that he is far, far more experienced in matters related to kneeling.

And our predictions for tonight's debate...

• Joe Biden, after promising to be "not so nice" to his political attackers, will challenge Kamala "Biden and his Klan buddies threw garbage while Norman Rockwell painted me walking into elementary school" Harris to meet him behind the gym to duke it out.

• Cory Booker, after gaining no ground by claiming that his testosterone levels make him want to punch Trump in the face, will walk back his statement by claiming that he actually has so much estrogen that he only threatened to attack the President because he was feeling cranky during his period.

The big topics of both nights will be racism and healthcare, followed closely by student debt forgiveness and the absolutely critical need to impeach Donald Trump for being Donald Trump. Little will be said about Russia or Mueller, (except, perhaps, in the context of discussing long term healthcare for the senile) and even less will be mentioned about the way Democrats routinely turn cities into soul-destroying slums.

There is, however, one bright spot in all of this. Which is that, after being on meds for diverticulitis for a month, we have now been cleared to start drinking liquor again. Whew - that was a close one!

Tweet Screams Are Made of These

There's Noh business like show business.

As surely and inflexibly ritualistic as its Japanese antecedent, yet another Kabuki performance is on display in our media. As koto music is plucked in the background, we see Donald Trump astride the stage, boldly making an "insensitive" tweet. His antagonist, in this case Elijah "Bowling Ball Head" Cummings, then dramatically declares that Trump is a racist for calling his largely black congressional district a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess" and a "very dangerous & filthy place." Offstage, kodo drums beat loudly to indicate that a storm is gathering or, perhaps, just to wake up an audience that has seen this drama way too often.

Unavoidably, anything we could say about this idiocy would pretty much be Kabuki commentary at this point, so we'll just say that it's pretty odd for a President of the United States to be called a white racist because he says that poor black Americans should be able to live in communities which aren't filled with rats, poverty, and crime.

Elijah Cummings is, of course, against that notion...

"No justice, no cheese!"

How to Become Uncomfortably Dumb

After six brutal days of having no access to telephone, television, or internet services, we're back up and running and completely unsurprised to discover that the news is just as stupid as before we were (not suspiciously at all) disconnected for no reason by Frontier Effing Communications.

In trying to catch up, it seems like one of the big stories has been the continuing foam-flecked frenzy of those on the Left to label Donald Trump the most horrible racist ever born based on his tweets which didn't actually mention race at all. Not that this matters to CNN, who had numerous outraged talking heads hyperventilating about race, above an on-screen lower-third graphic declaring "DONALD TRUMP SAYS RACIST TWEETS WEREN'T RACIST." Nice impartiality, CNN.

The other big story, of course, was Robert Mueller's long awaited congressional testimony (at the insistence of Democrats) regarding his 400+ page nothing-burger report on Trump and the Russians. Although there was nothing particularly damning in the report itself, the Dems hoped that Mueller would say something - anything - that might be twisted to support a possible Presidential impeachment.

Sadly, the only mystery Mueller was able to clear up is why he has to have labels with his name and address stitched to all of his clothing in case he wanders away from home. Mueller was halting, confused, self-contradictory, and seemed so unaware of the contents of his report that many are now wondering if he didn't write the report at all, but simply slapped his name on it - which is why he hasn't wanted to answer any questions until now, and why he was unwilling or unable to answer questions when he was forced to.

Mueller looked so bad that even Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, "just bury that poor old SOB already." And we defy anyone to prove that our quote is inaccurate without contacting Ruth via Ouija board.