The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter….
General Scumbaggery
The Wages of Pandering

The most egregious recent graduate of the Republican Weasel Academy gets what’s coming to him.
Ron DeSantis And Donald Trump In the Same Room: a Twofer For the Ages
Watching Republicans in situations where they aren’t sure whether bullying or bootlicking is the safer path to glory is always good for a laugh. What the Nazis perfected in less than twenty years has taken them forty, and they still can’t manage it with any grace.
Mens Rea

Lone Star Bumper Sticker
Your Abbott Needs a Costello
Freudian Slipperiness In the House
From CNN, Updated 1:38 PM EST February 10, 2022:
White House records obtained so far by January 6 committee show no record of calls to and from Trump during riot
“Whether it is the absence of data or phone logs or willing testimony, inevitably, we have different sources to get that information because these are conversations that require more than one participant,” committee member Rep. Stephanie Murphy said.
“So even if there is one node that isn’t forthcoming, there are inevitably other points of information that we can use to build a more fulsome picture of what happened on January 6,” the Florida Democrat said.
Ful⋅some /fulsəm/
adjective
1a — characterized by abundance
1b — generous in amount, extent, or spirit
2 — unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech
syn: buttery, oily, oleaginous, smarmy, soapy, unctuous
21st Century Institutions: The U.S. Democratic Party
The discrete charm of the bourgeoisie.
Madness
Twenty years of ill-advised and often vicious U.S. meddling in Vietnamese affairs ended with TV images of overloaded Hueys lifting off the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, of Vietnamese who worked for us stumbling down the runway after the C-130s taking off from Tan Son Nhut airbase without them, leaving them behind to face whatever suffering the North Vietnamese government intended to inflict on them.
Twenty years of ill-advised and often vicious U.S. meddling in Afghan affairs are now ending with Internet images of overloaded Chinooks and Blackhawks lifting off the roof of the U.S. embassy in Kabul, of Afghanis who worked for us clawing at the sealed doors of a C-17 taking off from Kabul airport without them, leaving them behind to face whatever suffering the Taliban intends to inflict on them.
Have our earnest media news and analysis teams really not understood the pattern at work here? Have the self-appointed custodians of our shriveled Pax Americana really learned nothing since 1975?
Bet on it.
Missed Opportunities
Had the Mexican government been blessed with clairvoyance, it could have built a wall around Cancún to keep Ted Cruz out. Perhaps Austin, with the benefit of hindsight, can build one to keep him from getting back in.