Life Begins At Conception!! No Wait!!

The Alabama Supreme Court, with law degrees from the Dukes of Hazzard School of Law, has thrown the Republicans into a scrambled egg bowl with the ruling that embryos are human beings every bit as much as the 20 some kids murdered in Uvalde. For 50 years the GOP was screeching about "life begins at conception" and introducing bills in every red state to ban abortion with draconian measures knowing full well these bills wouldn't pass and if they did, no court would find it constitutional thus freeing the GOP up to never having to pay a price. 

Then came the US Supreme Court and its new justices appointed by a rapist fraud deciding to overturn Roe V Wade and throw the abortion issue back to the states. Red states started banning abortion, banning leaving the state to have an abortion where its legal, forcing women with fetuses that will not live to give "birth" cuz ya know there's them there "miracles" that the Guy in the Sky performs. 

Alabama, whose Chief Justice is actually named Colonel  Tom Parker, wrote an opinion that since embryos have the "face of God" that they are people with rights. I assume also a frozen embryo can now legally carry a gun around the lab. 

What this has done given the GOP a real problem. The whacko fetus lovers, the base of the Republican Party, has a real problem. The Alabama decision has caused IVF clinics to suspend operations because when IVF occurs, some of the lil eggs are disposed of which in Alabama is now first-degree murder. Hey, Tommy Boy said its so. 

Republicans have caught the car and now have no idea what to do with it. The GOP blastocyst believers already have pissed off women all over with the support for Dobbs, and NOW its IVF that's in deep shit. IVF is how a lot of children, including some children of Republicans, are hatched. Thus, the scramble to spin this by the GOP is hilarious to watch. There are 136 GOP sponsors of a life begins at conception bill in the House with no exceptions for IVF. The race to be more MAGA than anybody has backfired even if phonies like Nancy Mace (Harpy-SC) and Elise Stefanik (Soulless-NY) express support for IVF which is clearly untrue. The Defendant, who caused this shitstorm with his appointments to the Supremes of fully owned subsidiaries of Harlan Crow and the Kochs, shuffled about expressing his support for IVF because hey, while the wifey is knocked up anything goes. 

This is a major problem for the Party of Life. Once again, the bullshitters who make up most of MAGA, have let unforeseen circumstances bite them in the ass. Women shall let them know in November how much it hurts.

You broke the eggs, now you own them.

Bye Jack McCoy!

 So long to one of TV's best characters. Jack McCoy left Law & Order because he had the sense to know at age 83 it was time to go. Hold on I mean Sam Waterston, who IS Jack McCoy. 

I love Law & Order and I make no apologies for it. It's an old school procedural in which 99% of the time, by the end of the 60 minutes, it's all wrapped up. For some of us, that's just fine. I never really needed to know if Jack was screwing ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennesey) or Defense Attorney Danielle Melnick (Tovah Feldshuh) though he at least bent the law to save them both at one point. 

Jack McCoy could be infuriating to old school liberals like me as he refused often to see that what he was doing to convict someone was not justice but stubbornness. But Jack could also stand up to the weird casting of Fred Thompson as the conservative cynical DA Arthur Branch , who seemed to just be an extension of Thompson himself and there to argue conservative politics.

Law & Order has gone on for 30 some years and once the morally superior Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty) left for personal reasons, McCoy jumped right in. With Jack's comradery with Adam Schiff (Steven Hill) who played the DA with such reality (Make this go away Jack) and his fellow DA's , the doomed Claire Kincaid (why just why did they kill her?), the professional Texan, Abby Carmichael (Angie Harmon), the crusader Connie Rubirosa (Alana De La Garza)and the voice of reason, Serena Southerlyn (Elizabeth Rohm, wow what an exit!) Jack got along with all. 

405 episodes as one character is unheard of. Waterston pulled it off week after week. The great S Epatha Merkerson pulled off 391 episodes as Lt Anita Van Buren (dont ask me her character's name in Chicago Med cuz she's just Lt Van Buren to me forever) and of course, the legend himself, Lenny Briscoe played by the consummate New Yorker, Jerry Orbach.

I can and do watch the L&O reruns religiously because I can't remember what happened 80% of the time and it's all new to me. Actors who are now famous both in film, TV and Broadway all appeared on this show (remember the great Tony Awards bit where they showed all the L&O actors, some in more than one episode) .

Farewell Jack McCoy, you Irish bastard. But you'll never leave me alone, not with reruns on 24/7 somewhere.

Cash & Chicago!!!

 A couple of events this past week need to be commented on. No politics, no rants, nuthin...except praise for The Johnny Cash Concert Experience and Brass Transit.

First, Johnny Cash. Now I dont care who you are, and I'm a rocker, but Johnny Cash was the man. He was cooler than 99% of his fellow artists, he had something to say, and he was a champion of the downtrodden. I never had the pleasure of seeing Johnny Cash live, I thought about it once when he and his band were at some high school in Council Bluffs but I had no idea where that high school was so I missed my opportunities. 

The Johnny Cash Concert Experience features a live band of great musicians, including the "only woman who ever played lead guitar for Johnny Cash", Debbie Horton. What you get is the live band and a giant video of Johnny singing songs from his TV show. So, you get it all, Ring of Fire, Walk the Line, Boy Named Sue, Folsom Prison Blues. all from the horse's mouth. The band takes over on some songs that no video exists for and it's still great. The thump thump train like guitar is there, the solos are there and also video of Johnny's son, John Carter Cash, telling stories of his father and mother. 

If you love Johnny Cash as much as I do, it's well worth the money and effort to see.

Now Brass Transit, a Chicago tribute band. They consist of 3 horn players, a bassist and a guitar and a lead singer who sounds exactly like Peter Cetera. Now Terry Kath cannot possibly be replaced, and his songs are sung by a guy doing the best he can and it's still great.

Being a believer that Chicago from 1968-1978 is one of the greatest runs any band had in the 1970's and after that was pure unadulterated crap from a classic band going all Air Supply in an attempt to appeal to whom exactly, I worried that post 1978 Chicago and its lousy "hits" would dominate. But it did not. It was heavily concentrated on the early greatness. Oh yeah a couple of the wimpy stinkeroos got in there, but the concert was spot on musically. The horns were a carbon copy, the guitar solos were Kath-like and the vocals from Ian Jutsun, were Cetera-like. Though they left out my favorite Chicago tune, Dialogue Parts 1 and 2 (the contrast of Kath and Cetera's voices is unreal), the rest of the early hits were all there. It ended with a rocking 25 or 6 to 4 that had gray haired old ladies up and dancing like the teenaged dancing queens they were back in 1972.

Brass Transit is younger than the current version of Chicago, who I've seen twice in the last 5 years, and I hate to say but they are just as good. It's a good time if you get a chance to see them. 

Is a symphony orchestra necessary to play with this band? Absolutely not. In fact, the symphony often got in the way. But it was a small price to pay. The opening notes of I'm a Man and Make Me Smile made me forget there actually was a symphony orchestra also playing (don't get me wrong, I love the Omaha Symphony when it stays in its own lane).

If you love Chicago, you'll love Brass Transit.

Spare Change?

Anybody have an extra $400 or so million laying around? On Friday afternoon Judge Arthur Engoron slapped The Defendant with a $364 million judgement for being a fraud and a liar about his business, a business with so many unpaid creditors it could fill Yankee Stadium. The MAGA crowd of yes men and just plain dumb screeched how there was no "victim" here from The Donald lying about his worth, lying about his real estate, his apartment size, his cash on hand and mushroom size to get banks to lend him more money than they would have had they known the truth about the phony billionaires actual worth. 

Not only the massive fine but the 3 years suspension forbidding this real estate mob boss from conducting business in New York. Not only that but also forbids his sons, Zeppo and Shemp, from conducting business for 2 years. This is so sweet. 

The reaction from the 3 miscreants was predictable as hell. Eric Shemp called the judge "cruel" because he dragged poor Eric thru the mud just to get his crooked father, in effect saying no no HE did it not me.Junior was upset he had to pay $4 million in fines and dip into his coke money. Trump came out front of Moldy a Lago and ranted about everything. The standard rally speech. Witch hunt, Bidens old, America is done, racist AG, corrupt judge, blah blah blah..

This guy is getting his ass kicked by so many women you'd think he'd just stop. E Jean Carroll, Letitia James, Fani Willis, Stormy Daniels have all beat him in court. Perhaps one of them will lend him some dough?

Meanwhile over in the GOP paradise, Russia, Tucker Carlson, Russian useful idiot (heavy on the idiot) found a Moscow grocery store where prices are lower than in America thus Tuckums has become even more pro-Russia and is "radicalized" against the American government. He left out that the average Russian spends 50-65% of their income on groceries because he's a rich prick with a trust fund who lies regularly about everything. He interviews Putin, throwing softball questions and letting Putin throw around "history" lessons that really impress airheads who watch Fox and Newsmax. 

Putin the war criminal had his opponent murdered Friday. Alexei Navalny, braver than any GOP addict ever thought of being, took a walk and dropped dead. Well at least he wasnt near a window. Or playing with a live grenade on a plane. Putin is a butcher, a murderer and the darling of the Republicans who not so secretly wish for a Putin type (gee I wonder who) to really own the libs with mass arrests, camps for brown folks, and sharks with freakin laser beams in the Rio Grande. We already have Putin apologists in this country comparing Navalny's murder with Trump being charged with doing crimes like rape, fraud, subversion, stealing elections, and inciting an insurrection. The devotion to thugs is something that needs to be explained with hast by a psychiatric experts. I think we all know the answer. Mommy and daddy issues, misogyny, radical Christianity, racism, and owning the libs because they make fun of how goddamned dumb they are. Not that the libs aren't correct but still, stop pointing it out you elitist Ivory Tower smart people. 

In the meantime, explain this. Proof of MAGA denseness.

Merrick Garland!

 Ok I've hung around long enough. As others I know have been sour on this guy for years, I hung with Merrick Garland, figuring he was patient and knew what he was doing. Yeah, he waited and waited to do anything about the thug Trump and wasted years letting the guy get away with whatever he wanted. It emboldened the cult leader from Florida. It emboldened his whackadoodle MAGAts and here we are. Meanwhile, there are numerous Congresspeople running around screeching and throwing shit at the walls knowing they may never be charged for helping the Jan 6 scum rip the Capitol apart. Why? 

Well, its Attorney General Merrick Garland and his DOJ that are slow tracking this threat to democracy. I don't get it any longer. Patient? No, it's just an unwillingness to do anything at all. Pass the buck to Jack Smith two years too late. Pass the buck to Robert Hur instead of having the guts to just dismiss the whole classified docs in a garage bullshit.

Garland is bending over backwards to appear fair. This is the Democratic Party playbook. Try and please the very people who hate you and would gladly hang you from the nearest tree if given the word from Bedbug A Lago. Same as the mainstream media, bending over to appear fair while the other side just lies and lies and keeps Gramps in a constant tizzy. Just fucking stop. Say what you will about the previous regime, but Bill Barr got out front of the Mueller Report and castrated Mueller on behalf of the Defendant. Garland just lets a hack like Robert Hur say that no charges are warranted, BUT Biden is an old man with a shitty memory and needs to be sent to a home to eat pudding. Barr would never have allowed an irrelevancy like that come out publicly had it called out Trump for being a lazy asshole who cared only about hearing his name on TV and eating fast food and Diet Coke and throwing ketchup against the wall. Never. But Garland either didn't read the report or read it and bent over yet again to let the bullshit fly. It makes me wonder what kind of Supreme Court Justice he'd have been had Mitch McConnell not made up a new "rule" and killed the nomination.

I have had it. Allowing Hur to not only declare Bidens innocence and then spend hundreds of pages catering to the GOP shit throwing monkeys and the Mar A Moldo Don in his hammering Biden's mental capacity and thus "normalizing" more talking points is unforgivable. At some point this quest for "fairness" by the Democrats will bite the entire country in the ass. The other side doesn't give a damn about "fairness". Why should old school boomers like Garland? When they go low, we go lower. Thats my advice.

Thanks for your service, Merrick Garland. Don't let the door cause you any trouble as you limbo out of the DOJ. Get lost.

Ballots and Biden!

 The total semantics that permeated the Supreme Court yesterday in the case of keeping Trump off the Colorado ballot because he's a fucking insurrectionist was unlistenable. It was like the high school debate class where a guy who knows he drew the short straw and has to argue that the Holocaust never happened. Trumps lawyers were playing that game of "officer under the United States" as opposed to "office of the United States" and if the 14th Amendment applies to the President or Vice President because it doesn't actually say those words. Well Holocaust is such a vague word and perhaps it's more of a genocide so therefore the Holocaust really didn't happen. Look, the 14th Amendment was meant to keep the slavery enthusiasts and defeated Confederates from holding office because the voters would probably put them into office because of northern aggression or some such shit. Is Trump a defeated Confederate? Of course he is. No different than Jeff Davis.

But to be honest here, I don't give a damn if that Florida scumbucket is n the ballot or not. I would actually prefer he is on the ballot in Colorado because if he isn't then Nebraska and South Dakota and Iowa and every other red state with gerrymandered legislatures will move to ban Biden from the ballot for being old or something. Hell, they may do that anyway because Republicans have thrown the rule book in the dumpster long ago. The Supreme Court will overturn Colorado 9-0 because they don't want the death threats and Swatting and the Trump goons gathering outside their houses. Probably just as well. 

Now to the 388 page special report on NOT charging Joe Biden for keeping classified documents in his garage and then turning them over to the Archives and the FBI. 388 pages that BEGIN with "we conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter". Yet 387 pages then go into irrelevant Comey like sabotage of a presidential campaign. Special Counsel Robert Hur, a Trump hack, decided to say no jury in the country would convict Biden of anything since he turned over all documents when asked and had his lawyers scrounge around to find even more. As opposed to Mar A Dumpo where we had special rooms full of documents, destruction of evidence by the Defendant, refusal to turn over said documents when asked, and a bathroom used as a doc dump room, not to mention Saint Reagan did the exact same thing Biden did and was never prosecuted. So, no charges. The End.

But nooooooooooo, it's not the end because Robert Hur cannot possibly serve his Orange God without talking about Joe Biden being a doddering old man, nice guy, but with a failing memory and would probably offer a mint or two to the jury and talk about an onion on his belt. Hur goes on and on about how Joe forgot when he was Veep and when his son croaked from burn pit cancer and how he had a mental state not fit for conviction. Well, well, Robert Hur can go fuck himself. This report is more for the Fox News crazies and the shit flinging baboons in the Congress who of course, jumped on the memory stuff like flies on shit. Did Robert Hur get pats on the head? Oh yeah. Who's a good boy? You are that's who! 

Joe Biden has no more memory lapses than the guy from Bedbug A Lago who told Robert Mueller he couldn't remember more than 30 times and that was 5 years ago. No more memory lapses than the cro- magnon Rep from Northwest Georgia, cross fit nitwit MTG,  who said she "couldn't recall" over and over on her questioning on her 14th amendment hearing. No more memory lapses than Jesse Waters, the sexually harassing Bill O'Reilly bitch, who thinks Kristi Noem is Governor of South Carolina. No more memory lapses than closet case, Mike Johnson, who confused Iran with Israel. And certainly, no more memory lapses than Senator Marsha "Bag O Hair' Blackburn who has no idea where she is due to her brain being rotted out by excess Aqua Net fumes.

Joe Biden is old. Yeah, big whoop. Is he my favorite candidate? Nope. But he is the candidate, and I will vote for him to save democracy from that rabble of Trump trash that thinks the 2020 election was "stollen" cuz of Italian spy satellites and dead Venezuelans changing votes. Mental illness is far worse than being old. Give me the "doddering old man' over the "syphilis brained maniac" who scares the entire Senate, House and Supreme Court into kowtowing to his insanity because they don't want death threats and ridiculously obscene voice mails from the Trump BrainTrust.

Meanwhile, Joe took to a news conference to show us how fucking old he is. And like the bad ass he is, the Scranton Scrapper murdered Fox News Peter Doocy.

Boom!

Border Bill!

Republican Senator James Lankford (R-Ok) apparently is naive enough to think his party actually wants to fic the border, which of course is 180 degrees from the truth. After Lankford wasted his time negotiating with "Democraps" about finding a compromise on the border, the powers that be, and by that it means The Indicted One in Chief put a big machete in the bills back. Why? Make America Great Again? Because with the news the economy is kicking ass, the stock market has hit record highs, unemployment is at an all-time low, inflation has subsided, and Harriet Tubman is still not on the $20 bill, the GOP has nuthin. Nothing but the border. Misleading tape of hordes of furriners walking around in various countries scares the white people more so than if the mayo has expired. It's all they have.

The border bill sucks. It sucks for the exact opposite reasons the water carriers for Orange Mussolini say it does. It virtually gives the GOP what they wanted. Well, most everything except their desire to station machine gun nests on the border and holding a lottery to let white supremacist gun humpers shoot all them furriners as they cross the river. The bill contains another $60 billion to aid Ukraine in repelling the Russian butchers, actual invaders of a sovereign nation. But since the GOP is loyal only to two people, The Defendant and his boss Vlad the Impaler Putin, thats gonna be dead also. 

The Republicans NEED this issue to not go away. It's an issue that the GOP has used ever since the black Kenyan guy took the oath of office on the Book of Satan or something. Furriners are bad. Especially the ones of a darker shade of pale. The GOP Senate held a meeting where an aide to Senator Mike Lee, an absolute kook, began screaming about "betrayal" and stormed out of the room to much laughter. And then, Mitch McConnell got scared by something, a giant Florida parasite perhaps, and withdrew his support of the bill he helped negotiate.

This is course madness, not only because of the bending of the knee to the 91 times charged felon and his death threatening base of goons, but because they fucking negotiated it. Yeah yeah, in the House where the brain rotted nutters live, the Coward of the House, Mikey Johnson, has dropped to his knees and declared the bill DOA. Why? Because the lunatics will string him up from the gallery if he even allows a vote and takes away Der Fuhrer's lies about the border. Johnson is a nutter himself, but because he was elected Speaker, I assume there's some sort of sense of duty there but guess not. There is no honor or duty among vandals and shit throwers. 

What Joe Biden needs to do is address the nation and spell it out. I'd sign this shitty border bill in a second, but you GOP clowns won't let me. Americans, contact your Senators and House people and demand this issue be solved. It aint my fault, its them and the future felon to blame for this. period. The bill is right fucking there, and that fucking sick fuck is ordering the GOP around like an undocumented worker at Bedbug A Lago.

Return the volley, Joe. Ignoring it and thinking Americans understand is dangerous. It's insane. Americans are getting dumber by the minute, thinking the Orange Rapist had a secure border just because he says so and Fox News backs him up. Attack Joe!

Or it may be Hasta La Vista.

Jesus Christ Superstar!

 I've seen Jesus Christ Superstar at least 8 times, from community theaters to Broadway touring shows , the movie from 1973 and even that horrid version they showed live on NBC years ago. I will never miss it if its close because it is my favorite musical of all time, and I don't apologize for it. The first time I heard the album I was fascinated as it challenged the years and years of Catholic propaganda that I found not only boring but also reeked of bullshit. I often say I learned more about the New Testament in 90 minutes listening to that album than all the years of antisemitic Catholic dogma blaming the "Jews" for killing Christ. 

I've seen the legendary Ted Neeley as Jesus many times and the late OG Carl Anderson as Judas. I've seen In Living Color lead singer Corey Glover as Judas. I've seen understudies, community theater actors and singers all of whom knock it out of the park. Last night at the Lied Center in Lincoln, a non-union touring company began a 4-night run. No idea what to expect. On one hand the non-union cast is hungry and scrappy to get a SAG card, yet they are basically still amateurs. What to expect?

Greatness is what we got. A minimal stage taking no attention away from the music. A band onstage in the rafters. Dancers onstage making moves I didn't think possible. And a cast with a classic musical in their hands. They did not disappoint.

I won't go over the plot as everyone knows it. The last few violent days of Jesus' life. You may think of Jesus as the Messiah, the Lord, your savior, good for you. To me he's one of the most radical political figures of all time. A man of the people taking on the establishment for the common good. And of course, they killed him for it.

The musical shows Jesus' doubts, his struggle with being human, his willingness to stare the oppressors in the grill and not back down. As Caiphas says "one thing I'll say for him Jesus is cool". The coolest.

The cast is brilliant. Jack Hopewell as Jesus has a voice range that has to be seen to be believed. He's a mini Neeley. Elvie Ellis as Judas has that same range and the emotional chops to make his rage believable. Jaden Dominique as Mary Magdalene can also do her thing and crushes I Don't Know How To Love Him to wild applause. Alex Stone as Pilate, Alec Diehm as the flamboyant Herod, Sherrod Brown as Simon the Zealot all shine in their moments to solo. But the 4 priests, led by Grant Hodges as Caiaphas and Mekhi Holloway as Annas, are phenomenal. When they march down the ramp onto the stage you know something special is about to happen. And it does.

Go see this if you can. The violence of the 39 lashes, the actual crucifixion and the betrayal of Jesus by Judas and Peter are hard to watch. But watch you must. 

These kids are fantastic. It's as good as it can possibly be.

Just give them their SAG cards.