Bite Me, Tony

Between my last blog entry and today, there have been two mass shootings in the USA, leaving a total of 31 people dead--32 if you count Joe Garcia, who died of a broken heart a couple of days after his wife's murder in the Uvalde school slaughter--and 20 others injured. The vast majority of victims in these tragedies were either Mexican-American grade school students or elderly African-American shoppers. As usual, the thoughts-and-prayers crowd, the self-proclaimed pro-lifers, are wringing their hands over the madness but disinclined to entertain any meaningful ideas concerning gun regulation. On my side of the fence, we react with our customary outrage and anger but, for all that, we are fully aware that our words will ultimately fall on deaf ears. Well, really, if the sight of dead children in Newtown, CT, didn't bring the GOP to their knees (and I don't mean in prayer) 10 years ago, why would we think they'd react differently now? A lot has happened since 2012, much ...

Since my last post, somebody, either on the Supreme Court or closely connected to them, leaked a draft of a very important decision that appears to be forthcoming: according to the draft's author, Justice Samuel Alito, Roe v. Wade is going down . Alito specifically cites the writings of 1600's jurist, Sir Matthew Hale, as being influential on his decision (although no mention is made of Hale's enthusiasm for burning suspected witches), and notes the Constitution's failure to include abortion as a protected right. Well, duh . What a maroon! One wonders how we got to the point where a 21st Century Supreme Court Justice channels a 17th Century Witchfinder-General to determine what a woman can and cannot do with her own body.  And yet....here we are.  Thank Donald Trump for Amy Coney-Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, all of whom prevaricated under oath when they were being questioned by Congress during their appointment hearings. In days of yore, Big Daddy Bush was...