Blush to Judgment (Weds Nov 13, 2019)

(Note: this post went "live" a bit early and says Tuesday, but it is the Wednesday post!)

Today sees the kickoff of the Adam Schiff Show, which we're deeply looking forward to not watching. Ever. For any reason.

Schiff is expected to open each installment with a comedic "parody" opening monologue, followed by telling the TV audience about the exciting roster of guests who will be grilled on the show, after which he'll mime a golf swing and signal the band to play jazzily into the first commercial break.

In this inquiry, which the press is happily and erroneously calling actual "impeachment hearings," all legal standards of what constitutes legitimate evidence have been thrown into a woodchipper, and neither President Trump nor the Republicans are allowed to offer any defense whatsoever. Apparently Mr. Schiff is using the legal playbook from the Salem witch trials, which is ironic considering that his googly eyes alone would have been enough for him to get torched back then ("He looked at my cows and they dried up, my crops withered and died, and my wife gave birth to a changeling with beady peepers!")

We're sure that the Adam Schiff Show will get plenty of press and news coverage, which will be handy for anyone who wants to hear more about it. Because we'll be damned if we're going to say any more about it unless we absolutely have to.

BONUS: SAN FRANSHITSCO

As another reminder of how screwed up liberals are, San Francisco has just elected a new district attorney whose pedigree and platform are flat out astounding.

Chesa Boudin (sadly not heir to a cajun sausage fortune) is the son of two members of the infamous Weather Underground domestic terror group. When Boudin was still only a toddler terrorist, his parents were packed off to prison for using bombs to murder policemen - which may well be the precipitating incident which made young Chesa dedicate his life to screwing up law enforcement.

Boudin was then raised in Chicago by the violently antisocial ringleaders of the Weather Underground - Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. For anyone who doesn't remember, it was in the living room of Bill Ayers that a young man with a dream (well, the dreams of his father and ghostwriter), Barack Obama, kicked off his ambitious and eventually successful attempt to screw up America and get policemen killed.

Fast forward to the present, and the festering stinkhole that is San Francisco, where candidate Chesa Boudin promised voters that if he was made District Attorney, he would make sure that no one was prosecuted for pooping or peeing on the sidewalks, that no one would be hassled for offering or soliciting sex, and that there would be no enforcement attempts to keep people from setting up tents or cardboard box hovels wherever they like. And the other candidates were so bad that this second generation terrorist/scatologist actually won on that platform.

He'll soon be starting his important job of law non-enforcement and hobbling the work of street cops, but we'd first like to ask him about an apparent inconsistency in his plans. He's making sure that San Francisco's sidewalks will be contaminated with even more pee and poop...but also encouraging the homeless to sleep on those sidewalks. If Donald Trump is responsible for the comfort and hygiene of illegal immigrants at the border, shouldn't D.A. Boudin be encouraging people not to take huge steaming craps on the beds of the homeless?

Frankly, this D.A.'s agenda sounds D.O.A to us.

Veterans Day 2019

Today is Veterans Day - a day of tribute, contemplation, and gratitude for the service and sacrifice of those who have served our nation in uniform. 

It is our ongoing duty to protect the freedoms that these men and women have won for us at high personal cost. And our very great privilege to say "thank you for your service."

Heard Mentality

If this is what passes for "news" these days - and it is - we have better things to do with our time than fretting about what "reporters" are hearing from their imaginary friends. Seriously, the news gathering process now reminds us of a clueless Frankenstein's monster trying to pluck music notes out of the air before going on a mindless rampage.

Not that we'd recommend torches and pitchforks as a remedy. Although it's said to be a good idea by unnamed sources speaking on behalf of an anonymous insider.

JUST A LITTLE FILLING...

Considering the fact that nothing in the news actually looks like "news," we're at something of an impasse when it comes to padding today's post to a reasonable length. To that end, here are random bits of flotsam related to what's going on around stately Jarlsberg Manor.

• MUNCHIES - While preparing our home for a social soiree, we discovered some odd "rippling" of the paint on one section of a wall. Giving it a gentle poke, our finger more or less disappeared out of view. Uh-oh. Yes, it was an active termite infestation (we personally saw the little bastards) which necessitated injecting powerful, Earth-destroying toxins around the entire periphery of our home. Which, at $1200, would be really painful if it weren't for the facts that A) Greta Thunberg would hate our use of toxins and B) based on their behavior, we're pretty sure the termites were socialists.

• FUNGUS AMONG US - A couple of weeks ago, a faint scent of mildew wafted through the bathroom closest to the editorial offices of Stilton's Place. Our strategy of "hoping it will just go away" fared no better than our identical hope for Barack Obama's administration, and following the same pattern the stench soon grew to unacceptable levels. Acrid fumes of mold burned our throat, and we couldn't find any signs of mold or moisture leaks - though it seemed likely that the problem was inside a wall which contains plumbing pipes.

Unable to track the problem further, we hired a plumber who had a specialized tool which allows one to actually look inside walls. That tool, it turns out, is a saw.

Four "windows" were cut into the wall, and moisture was discovered on some of the pipes - but there was no smoking gun discovered. So now we have mold smell (which we're allergic to), holes in the walls, and a renewed dedication to "hoping it will just go away."

• US TREACHERY DEPARTMENT - Many months ago, we reported to you that we'd accidentally failed to file a financial statement with the IRS on time, and so had sent it in four months late along with a letter of apology. The form, a 5500-EZ (ha!), simply states how much money is in your personal self-employed retirement account. This is an information form only - no taxes had been missed and no payments were due. Essentially, we were just sending beans to keep the beancounters from getting bored.

To thank us for our honesty, the IRS sent back a letter saying that we were being fined $5000 for a late filing. There is an appeal process, which we unsurprisingly jumped on. But here's the punchline: after nearly 6 months, we just got a letter from the IRS saying "Sorry, we're really, really busy so we haven't been able to get back to you in a timely way. Just keep waiting, and we'll add the accruing interest to your fine."  Bottom line: we're being fined $5000 for being four months late, but the IRS is much later than that...and suffers no consequences. And this is why we drink.

• STILTON'S PALSY - You may recall our mentioning that we'd developed a mild case of demonic possession which caused us to wake up each night kicking, flailing, and occasionally punching ourself in the face with a hostile and uncontrollable ninja fist. We showed video footage to a neurologist who helpfully observed that it looked like "violent seizures." We did not, however, have the sound turned up on the video because we'd added the song "Shakin' All Over" from The Who's "Live at Leeds" album. Because that's how we roll.

Fast forward to today and, after having the condition for roughly a year without any successful medical diagnosis, we're claiming naming privileges: the condition is now "Stilton's Palsy."

It's gotten significantly better over time. We're not performing Broadway musicals every night, but still have a lot of weird, lower-grade shakes, head bops, and twirling limbs (all completely painless, though annoying as all get out). Also, the condition now manifests itself during daylight hours in periods of high stress, much to the delight of anyone in our immediate proximity. Happily, the condition is apparently harmless and, two weeks from now, may get us out of jury duty if we make the judge nervous.