Germany's Ex-Royals Want their Riches Back, 
but Past Ties to Hitler Stand in the Way

Oh good.

And?

Sing it.

Tis of a thieving highwayman this story I will tell
His name is Steven Bannon and on superyachts he dwells
Twas as an avid Trumper he commenced his wild career
And many a fellow countryman before him shook with fear

And it’s Bannon on the Wall, Bannon on the Wall
Bold, brave and bail-bonded is Steve Bannon on the Wall

One day in Mar-A-Lago as Stevie he went down
He met the biggest grifter, the one of world renown
The grifter knew his features and he said, Young Steve, said he
Your name is Steven Bannon, come get rich along with me

And it’s Bannon on the Wall, Bannon on the Wall
Bold, brave and bail-bonded is Steve Bannon on the Wall

When Bannon got a Fund Me page his dollars rose and rose
They all poured in from suckers who demand the borders close
He said, Hand me your tenpenny, I swear I’ll keep them out
Then stood aside and marveled as he watched the money spout

And it’s Bannon on the Wall, Bannon on the Wall
Bold, brave and bail-bonded is Steve Bannon on the Wall

But now this loaded blunderbuss – the truth I will unfold –
Has blundered into Audrey Strauss, who robbed him of his gold
The Coast Guard and the fed’rals they seized him on the seas
To grant us yet another garish spectacle of sleaze

And it’s Bannon on the Wall, Bannon on the Wall
Bold, brave and bail-bonded is Steve Bannon on the Wall

The Kansas Secretary of State, famous for scaring the shit out of the kiddies by mounting a huge gun in the Shawnee Memorial Day Parade, just lost his Senate primary.

On the bright side: He and BFF Donald Trump will both soon be free to go on a camping and fishing trip together at Yo! Semite! National Park.

… which is so unDershlike; but maybe he – in the face of newly-released documents accusing him of sex with an underage trafficked girl – has decided to take Elizabeth Dye’s advice and shut up.

A strange man, Harvard’s Dersh. No one in public life brings more passion to the defense of genital mutilation (male and female); and few in public life stand so starkly accused of repeated sex with a minor on a privately owned island reportedly given over to orgies. A strange melange of real and alleged enthusiasms. A strange person to represent more prominently than anyone else Harvard Law School.

Off-world vehicles not made on this earth

No longer provoke the skeptic to mirth.

Unlikely? Well, sure. Since any new birth

Will have to prove its empirical worth.

Quote of the day.

A country with a soaring suicide rate sees the mayor of Seoul – under investigation for sexual harassment – kill himself.

MARY TRUMP SOMEHOW MANAGES TO MAKE PRESIDENT TRUMP LOOK EVEN WORSE

… head off to jail (er, I mean to appeal their sentences). Same fakery, but this being Europe they stole public funds (a million euros!) rather being decent enough (yay, USA!) to use their own resources.

… Markus Braun sat on the Deutsche Bank (bank of presidents!) advisory board. Had a very close relationship with Deutsche Bank.

… Kinda sweetly reminiscent of Madoff, no? Madoff up to the moment of his arrest advised important financial and educational institutions; oversight agencies utterly failed to notice that he was stealing billions of dollars…

Seattle Mayor Tells Trump to ‘Go Back to Your Bunker’ After He Criticizes Her Handling of Protests

Headline of the day.

As in I did an amycooper/I amycoopered, when we perform such extensive wrongness in the course of one brief continuous action that we actually manage to ruin our lives. This New York City business executive decided she was entitled to be (in the precisely correct word of her victim) an obnoxious “scofflaw.” Why should she leash her dog in a part of Central Park where leashing is the law? Let lesser people obey rules. And here comes this nobody to ask her to leash her dog. Begone, nowhere man!

This man, in fact a rather famous birder, wanted to bird-watch unimpeded by a loose animal, and he did not back down.

Mr. Cooper, 57, [no relation to Amy Cooper,] a Harvard graduate who works in communications, has long been a prominent birder in the city, and is on the board of the New York City Audubon Society.

Words were exchanged, and rather than demonstrating the simple civic understanding that would entail her apologizing and leashing her dog, Cooper became hysterical, called the police, and said a black man was threatening her. Although she is intelligent enough to have graduated from the University of Chicago, she behaved in this way knowing full well that her adversary was filming her.

“I am pretty adamant about not being a participant in my own dehumanization,” [he later explained in an interview].

His film attracted more than 40 million views in fewer than 48 hours.

*************

There’s an interesting footnote. Christian Cooper, clearly a deeply decent person, is unhappy that the woman’s life has been destroyed.

“It’s a little bit of a frenzy, and I am uncomfortable with that,” he said. “If our goal is to change the underlying factors, I am not sure that this young woman having her life completely torn apart serves that goal.”

He is absolutely right; and though it’s hokey as hell, one way out of her total destruction would be for the two of them to meet again and shake hands. For him to accept her personal apology.

From Richard Burr, On Going Away

Tell me not, citizens, I am corrupt
         That from the Committee
Of the Senate I all abrupt
         (To spend more time with family) fly.

True, more golf balls now I chase,
         More leisure time I yield;
And with a stronger faith embrace
         Insider trades afield.

Yet this self-dealing is such
         As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, dears, so much,
         Lov’d I not stock dumps more.