It is a scary time right now. Sarah Sanders has been run out of restaurants. I mean, there’s a list of things going on. Now you’ve got witches that are placing a hex on Brett Kavanaugh!

Did I mention I’m an atheist? I’ve often thought that should I run for public office I’d elide that by mentioning I’m a Buddhist (I am, but it’s a Philosophy not a Religion) or join a Unitarian Universalist congregation (I’m told they’re cool with worshipping the hub caps on a ’57 Chevy and while ’57 Chevys are bad ass I don’t worship anything) because atheists are the most hated and despised minority in the world (not that I wear my martyrdom/victimhood on my sleeve like Bill Maher because the subject rarely comes up and I can always lie. I tell the truth out of respect for the beliefs of others.). I’d have a better chance of getting elected if I were a Wahhabist leaning member of the Nation of Islam.

Most “Christians” have given up on me (the Jehovah’s Witnesses still ring the bell because Richard encourages them to torment me. He’s Methodist.) but I meet a lot of Wiccans and they’re like- “ek, you’re so spiritual. You should be a Wiccan.” Hubcaps.

But there are worse things to believe than that the Universe is permeated by a Life Force which manifests spontaneously in Nature and that with proper concentration you can channel it. Chants and Incantations are exactly the same as Hymns and Mantras, they put one in the proper frame of mind. A Wiccan expects the same results from a Spell a Fundamentalist Evangelical expects from a Prayer, not much unless you are using a Potion which is basically a Drug. Those work quite reliably.

Now because of the Manichean aspects of Christianity (stolen from Zoroastrianism) any manifestation of successful wishful thinking outside the rituals of the Church is ipso facto (Latin for “by the fact itself”) Magic, and a particularly pernicious and evil form of Magic- Witchcraft!

That’s right, direct from Satan himself (or one of his fellow Fallen Angels/Demons) and it pollutes the soul not only of the caster, but the target. Thus compromised even the most righteous and faithful can only expect to be consigned to the Lake of Fire to burn for eternity rather than sit at the right hand of The Lord! Or in a milder interpretation suffer separation from Yahweh and his Choirs of Angels which I personally think, not that I believe in an Afterlife, would be a relief.

So, if you are a believing Christian, Witchcraft is about the most horrible thing there is. No wonder they’re scared. What’s irrational is not their fear, it’s their World View.

Cursed: witches are planning a public hexing of Brett Kavanaugh
by Sam Wolfson, The Guardian
Tue 16 Oct 2018

A coven of witches will gather in an occult bookstore in Brooklyn, New York, on Saturday to place a hex on the supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh. Tickets to the event, which cost $10, with half the proceeds going to women’s and LGBT charities, have already sold out.

The event is not out of the ordinary for Catland Books, which describes itself as “Brooklyn’s premier metaphysical boutique and event space”. They have previously held ceremonies to hex Donald Trump as well as a “hex your ex” ceremony on Valentine’s Day.

Dakota Bracciale, co-owner of the store, told the Guardian the event will be an important act of protest and community outreach, even if some attendees are skeptical.

“The whole thing is going to be really cathartic, whether you believe it or not. The right has churches but the left is scattershot. The left is where you’re going to find atheists, secularists, humanists, people who follow non-traditional religions. So how are you going to get all of us together in times of trouble? That’s what we’ve been doing.”

The ceremony has become a talking point for some rightwing commentators, who see it as part of a pattern of leftwing attacks on leading Trump allies. On Fox News last Friday, Tucker Carlson discussed the coven’s plans, taking particular umbrage with their idea to donate 25% of proceeds to Planned Parenthood, which he said would “help them continue to fund their human sacrifice rituals”.

Let me stop right there. This accusation, that other religions drink the blood of Christian babies or use them in ritual Magic is called Blood Libel. While most frequently anti-Semitic it has been applied pretty indiscriminately to slander persecuted groups including the Order of Solomon’s Temple (who’s real sin was that Philip IV owed them a lot of money any didn’t want to pay it).

Amy Kremer, the co-founder of the Women Vote Trump Pac, brought the event up in a roundtable on MSNBC, describing it as an escalation of attempts to publicly shame Republicans. “It is a scary time right now. Sarah Sanders has been run out of restaurants. I mean, there’s a list of things going on. Now you’ve got witches that are placing a hex on Brett Kavanaugh.”

The event’s Facebook page has also been flooded with comments opposing the event, many of them proclaiming it an affront to Christianity. “Kavanaugh is a Christian. True Christians have the protection of our heavenly father against others that desire a demon attack against them,” wrote one commenter.

Bracciale says that the store also organises more traditional protests and voter registration drives, but using the language of occult has been more effective in riling up their opponents. “It strikes fear into the heart of Christian fundamentalists. That’s one of the reasons that we do it. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. We don’t subscribe to this bullshit, pacifist, love and light, everybody just get along thing. If you want to hijack the country, if you want to steal the election, if you want to overturn Roe v Wade, if you want to harm people who are queer, well guess what, we’re not doing civility. If you’re going to be these awful bullies, you have to understand someone is going to punch you back and it might as well be a bunch of witches from Brooklyn.”

The actual event will involve two rituals. The first will be putting a hex on Kavanaugh. Everyone in the room will focus on an image of the judge while passages are recited and candles burned. Graveyard dirt, coffin nails and effigies will also feature.

The second is the rite of the scorned one, created by Bracciale, which is about welcoming rage. “It’s saying that constant, absolute pacifism only leads to you getting harmed more. Sometimes there has to be an allowance for rage as your ally.”

Confront bigoted, racist, misogynistic assholes wherever you find them to show that the community disapproves of their behavior?

Yes. More of that please.

Nothing political about Cracked at all.

Well, that was what they called it before the Pro Slavery Insurrection when they defied the General Assembly’s Declaration of Secession and were rewarded with their own State in compensation. It was a proud moment and a high water mark for a region that has become progressively less…

Umm… progressive?

I hate that term as applied to politics because it’s simply a dodge by Institutional Liberals to co-op the Left into meaningless “Moderation” and disguise the taint Radical Conservatives placed on the word “Liberal”, an endeavor aided and abbetted by their own fecklessness and inaction.

Anyway, they’ve attempted to fire their entire Supreme Court for thwarting or delaying the Republican agenda because like, Laws duh. They tried beating them at the polls (I don’t know what the best system is for picking Judges but electing them is the worst). So the Legislature has accused the entire Bench of corruption (in some cases true, others not so much) and is going to impeach them all and pack the Court with compliant toadies.

In Constitutional terms the Article I branch is staging a coup against the Article III branch.

Fun times. Bring popcorn.

West Virginia botches impeachment of chief justice. Faces constitutional crisis. Stay tuned.
By Meagan Flynn, Washington Post
October 15, 2018

Now this is what you call a “constitutional crisis.”

On Monday morning, West Virginia’s chief justice was scheduled to go on trial before the state Senate for “lavish spending” on elaborate office renovations, among other ethics complaints. She faced removal from office by impeachment in the House.

But there will be no impeachment trial in the Senate for Margaret Workman on Monday — because her own Supreme Court of Appeals said it would be unconstitutional.

To be fair, it wasn’t the regular Supreme Court of Appeals, but a bunch of stand-ins, acting justices.

They ruled last week that despite the state constitution giving the power to impeach justices to the legislature, this particular impeachment was unconstitutional, a violation of separation of powers.

As a result, the justice who was to preside over the impeachment Monday got cold feet. He was a no-show.

So there will be no show Monday.

Instead, the legislators who wanted to impeach her and all the rest of the justices are scratching their heads, trying to figure out what to do next.
…
When this story last made national headlines, that headline was “The entire W.Va. Supreme Court faces impeachment for alleged corruption: Gas money, restaurant lunches, an antique desk.”

Workman was one of four sitting justices — the entire state Supreme Court — the House of Delegates voted to impeach in August. The fifth justice had resigned earlier, later pleading guilty to wire fraud.

The rest were each accused of “wasteful spending” with virtually no oversight. There was the notorious $32,000 blue-suede couch that Justice Allen Loughry bought with taxpayer money, and the $8,000 office chair that Justice Robin Davis needed for her back. There were the pricey lunches and seemingly unbridled travel budget and, in Loughry’s case, lies about his fraudulent mileage and gas reimbursements.

In Workman’s case, state auditors found that she spent $112,780 on her office spruce-up, including nearly $12,000 on cabinetry and $17,000 on fabrics and furniture reupholstery. Plus an $8,892 sofa, as WCHS reported in a 2017 investigation. Taken all together, her new office cost more than the average house in her state, as an editorial in the Intelligencer pointed out. She was also accused of authorizing excessive payments to senior status judges.

But in its ruling released Friday, the West Virginia Supreme Court halted the impeachment proceedings against Workman on various grounds, finding that, actually, the West Virginia Supreme Court could discipline a sitting judge only for violations of judicial ethics under the Code of Judicial Conduct, as opposed to actual crimes, high or low.
…
In addition to the separation of powers piece, the court said the House had forgotten one little thing: It didn’t include “findings of fact” with the articles of impeachment.

In an apparent dig at House leadership, Acting Chief Justice James A. Matish wrote that “our forefathers . . . had the forethought” to establish specific procedures in the constitution, but “what our forefathers did not envision is the fact that subsequent leaders would not have the ability or willingness to read, understand, or to follow those guidelines.

“The problem we have today is that people do not bother to read the rules,” Matish wrote, “or if they read them, they decide the rules do not apply to them.”
…
Flustered by the ruling by the acting Supreme Court justices, the Senate had initially said it would move forward with Workman’s impeachment proceedings anyway.

But the Senate changed its mind, said a spokeswoman for the Senate. The main problem: That justice who was scheduled to preside over the impeachment trial said the court order prohibited him from doing so.

In its brief to the Supreme Court, the Senate had argued that “to hold that the Legislature cannot consider the Code of Judicial Conduct in its deliberation of impeachment proceedings against a judicial officer would have the absurd result of prohibiting removal from office for any violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct.”

But that argument “misses the point,” Matish wrote. The problem, he wrote, was that the House had based its impeachment articles for “wasteful spending” solely on the Code of Judicial Conduct, which only the West Virginia Supreme Court has the authority to impose. The Legislature, however, could have used findings from a Code of Judicial Conduct investigation as supporting evidence to bolster the articles of impeachment.

I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when I find a thing. It’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?- A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale

Usually in my writing MBS stands for Mortgage Backed Security (kind of a bad thing that ought to be closely regulated) but in this case ‘it’ stands for Mohammad bin Salman of the House of Saud. The history of the United States’ relationship with them is a dark and tangled one that didn’t start with Trump and Kushner and the temptation to dive deeper is strong.

Now I could do it, but that could take weeks and be thousands of words long. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part!

Fortunately John Oliver has volunteered.

Some News

Last week is still a bit painful. This week Seth Meyers returns and he’s one of “ours”.

Now, if they could just get Sam and Trevor and Stephen, heck, even Jordan Klepper. You know, he was derivative (mashup of Stephen on steriods and Jon) but he was funny. How about Larry Wilmore? Haven’t forgotten about you, but in a good way.

Or Michelle Wolf! She needs a gig.

Black Trump

Our Buddy Seth

Weekend Update

You know you want it.

Group W

Halloween

A Scary Story

More About Movies

The Creative Process

Vacation Dropping

Cajun Cooking

Thirsty Cops

On Steroids

I’m not really spoiling anything if I tell you that the Republican Party is withdrawing funding from many candidates who’s chances of winning are marginal. It is, of course, a sign of desperation and a recognition that Democratic candidates are outraising their opponents, sometimes by margins of 2 to 1 or more.

No, what’s interesting about this story is who is getting cut and where they are.

Top GOP funding group snubs incumbents Rohrabacher and Walters 3 weeks before midterm election
By Michael Finnegan and Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times
Oct 12, 2018

In a worrisome sign for two endangered Orange County lawmakers, a major Republican Party funding group has passed over the pair in its opening round of broadcast television advertising across Southern California.

The omission of Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and Mimi Walters by the Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee closely aligned with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), comes at a crucial inflection point in the midterm election when the two parties begin assessing their likely winners and losers.
…
“Republicans are taking a cold-blooded look at races to decide where to put resources and where to withdraw resources to put somewhere else,” said Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan election analyst who has spent decades sizing up campaigns.

The GOP has already cut loose several incumbents, including Reps. Mike Coffman in the Denver suburbs and Mike Bishop in southern Michigan.
…
The Congressional Leadership Fund, which collects multi-million-dollar checks from the Republican Party’s biggest donors, says it is spending nearly $12 million on cable television ads in four House contests in Southern California

On Friday, the super PAC launched an additional $5-million ad campaign on the main broadcast stations in Los Angeles, the nation’s second most expensive media market after New York.

But the fund’s opening broadcast ads support only two of the four Republican candidates in the Southland’s hardest-fought races: Rep. Steve Knight of Palmdale and Young Kim of Fullerton, relegating its Rohrabacher and Walters ads to cable channels with fewer viewers.
…
Californians have already received their ballots by mail, so immediate advertising is crucial to the fate of the two lawmakers, who are each facing their most serious challenges ever.

Rohrabacher has served 15 terms in Congress and Walters is bidding to win her third term.

Their Democratic challengers are already spending heavily on broadcast television ads. Walters has aired some broadcast commercials too, but Rohrabacher has not.

Dana is probably saving his campaign fund so that when he loses he can just steal it before he goes off to enjoy Wingnut Welfare. Cadillacs and caviar indeed you Thief on the Taxpayer Tit.

I mean, the fact that it’s Dana Rohrabacher who’s probably a Russian spy getting the axe is interesting- good riddance traitor. What’s really noteworthy is that both these candidates represent Orange County (not actually in the Los Angeles media market though the article would have you believe so) that unassailable redoubt of Repubicanism populated by active duty and retired military, their families, and people and families that owe their jobs to the DoD economy which drives the area.

Hmm…