Anchor Struck

With the Peach State’s contentious run-off election over and the Balance of Nature restored, I can return to the other Big Issues in the world, like climate change and why Aaron Judge didn’t sign with my beloved San Francisco Giants. Herschel Walker squandered precious campaign time and money pontificating about trans athletes and the ever important werewolf-vampire kerfuffle, yet ended his political career with a surprisingly thoughtful concession speech. He can now return to his home in Texas.

I like Georgia. I was stationed there in 1966-7 with a Marine detachment north of Atlanta, then at a supply centre near Albany in ’68-9. Atlanta was a hoppin’ place even then. Aretha Franklin was in town often, as were civil rights icons Dr. Martin Luther King and Stokely Carmichael. The gunnery sergeant I shared an office with once got yelled at by Carmichael.

Just before I got out of the Marines, I drove from Albany to Atlanta to visit another Leatherneck who had just been released from active duty. He introduced me to the burgeoning hippie scene there. I discovered weed, acid and the Kooper/Bloomfield/Stills album Super Session that weekend. To this day, I cannot hear any version of “Season of the Witch” without thinking of that time.

I truly believe the Walker loss will be looked back on as the closing of a chapter, if not book. Any aspiring, astute Republican politician will now have to oh-so-carefully weigh the value of a Trump endorsement. Aging Orange did hold a tele-rally for Herschel just before the run-off, but, alas . . .

Granted, 45 has been busier than usual, what with the fallout and continuing radiation due to his Dinner with two Non-Andres: the unhinged and hingeless Ye and Nick Fuentes, the quintessential Hitler Youth. And then there are those pesky investigations du jour.

Trump has no bottom. He can call for suspending the Constitution without fear of repercussions from top GOPers, thanks largely to their stellar cowardice. But they may be feeling some heat. As Georgians voted in Raphael Warnock yesterday, top congressional officials gathered in D.C. to honour law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on January 6th. The parents and brother of Brian Sicknick, who died from a stroke and other complications of the struggle, refused to shake the hands of Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy right after they shook hands with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Sicknick’s mother, Gladys, even kissed Schumer on his cheek.

“They’re two-faced,” Gladys said, “I’m just tired of them standing there and saying how wonderful the Capitol police is, and then they turn around and go down to Mar-a-Lago and kiss his ring and come back.”

Officer Sicknick’s brother Ken, a lifelong Republican, said that his party’s leaders “have no idea what integrity is.” He called out House GOP member Louis Gohmert from Texas for awarding a flag flown over the Capitol to Simone Gold and telling her she was a patriot for being at the January 6th doings.

Doctor Gold was the primary signatory on a letter signed by 600+ other physicians that was presented to Trump in May 2020 to urge him to stop the “national shutdown” (COVID-19 lockdowns) because it was a “mass casualty incident”. She also opposed wearing masks and Pfizer’s vaccine, calling it “experimental”. She did, however, advocate for hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID, an idea so bad that Trump considered it — as he did shooting up bleach.

Gold pleaded guilty to a Class A misdemeanour for entering a restricted area, serving 60 days and paying a $9500 fine. Gohmert figured that qualified her as a “political prisoner”. Gold, who is also an attorney, should have known better. Gohmert, who is merely an idiot, probably doesn’t.