True Crime and Punishment

At last, we’ve learned of the Great Orange Tyrant’s comeuppance in the form of 37 indictments over his disregard of document security protocols. Not sexy, but it has teeth. All the names you’ve heard of people convicted of playing fast and loose national security secrets went to jail.

I still don’t think TFG will ever see a day behind bars; I’m positive that if convicted, there will be some kind of sweetheart deal worked out, like home confinement. He only ever wants to stay in his own properties anyway, so I don’t see that as much of a punishment.

I’d like to see the justice system come up with some kind of creative approach so that the punishment for these convictions at least stings a little bit.

For example, maybe they can ban him from using a golf cart, or only allow him a one-iron and a wedge in his golf bags. And he has to hit from the “lady’s tee.”

They could replace all his gold fixtures with aluminum or tin.

Or they can remove all the ketchup from his house detention and only serve chuck steak, cooked rare.

They can put every TV channel on MSNBC and take away his cell phone.

Or even better, tune the channel to some network that will never mention him, like BBC or something. Maybe Al Jazeera.

OR, eliminate all the news stations and limit his viewing BET.

If they actually want him to grow and learn while away, they could limit his TV watching to Sesame Street, in hopes he might pick up a more grown-up vocabulary.

They should eliminate all newspapers and magazines, but fill every room with books. Big ones, with no pictures.

Or if they really want to screw with him, they can take the last 15 minutes of the season finale of Celebrity Apprentice was pre-empted for Obama’s announcement that we killed Bin Laden, and run it on a loop.

No spray tanning, makeup, or hair products.

They can limit his visitors to Don Jr. only.

They can make him stay on his property in Scotland… Not only will the time zone put him out of kilter with the US, but he’ll also be surrounded by pissed-off Scotsmen, which is no place to be. Although I’m sure he’d learn a whole new assortment of slurs and obscene terminology. (And I mean that with the utmost respect and admiration for the Scots. They can string together the most profane stream of filth and vulgarity imaginable and make it sound roguish and charming.)

What I’m saying is that, if for the first time in history, they’re going to convict the first former president, it needs to at least hurt a little. There absolutely must be a deterrent to obtaining the highest office in the land and then prostituting it out for one’s own financial reward, or else that will become the new normal. We’ll be electing people based on how hard we think they’re going to grift. There has to be a better way forward and it starts with some meaningful convictions for the most noxious white-collar criminal ever to hold office.

I am concerned about Judge Cannon presiding over the procedures. She's already shown that she's willing to ignore the law and put her thumb on the scale to obtain a free pass for TFG. And I don't think she'll recuse herself of anything... This is the reason she was put there. They may remove her, or neuter her rulings, (if we're lucky) but she won't step down.

Having a Stroke

I almost wish I was a golfer, just so I could quit out of outrage over the Saudis' hostile takeover of the professional game.

From today’s Baltimore Sun

I can swear up and down that I’ll never watch golf again but it would only be the hollowest of gestures. I haven’t watched a minute of golf since Tiger was a rookie and I wanted to see him shake up Augusta.

I consider golf one of those things that’s fun to do sometimes, like bowling or darts, but painfully dull to watch others do on TV. And as George Carlin used to say, it takes up entirely too much room in our country; land which could be put to better use to house the homeless. It’s expensive, it’s a huge time waste, and it takes a lot of time and money to become any good at it.

I have a set of clubs my (ex) wife got me back in the early 90s… I used to golf with her dad. It would be funny to watch us stride up to the tee box… Me, a tall, athletic-looking 30-something and a stooped-over, silver-haired 70-something. Then he’d whack the ball 170 yards down the middle of the fairway and I’d smash a worm-burner into the left-side trees. I used to say my “golf game” was more like “gardening” for all the soil I’d displace.

Anyway, I can’t even sell my old clubs because the state of the art has surpassed them. Everyone now has a driver with a head the size of a softball, made out of metal that sounds like it was stolen from a nuclear reactor core. Geezanium or something…

I read today that the Senate is going to investigate the takeover and look into revoking the PGA’s tax-free status.

I’m not sure that’s going to be as painful as it sounds. I’m no expert on the golfing administration and hierarchy, but I’m not sure they have any earnings or holdings to tax.

It reminds me of when Congress was talking about revoking the NFL’s tax-free status, back when kneeling down was a big controversy, but they overlooked the fact that the NFL had no monetary worth of note, to begin with. The money was with the 32 individual teams, not an overall entity. But let’em check it out. Anything that upsets this apple cart is fine with me.

But it’s a testament to the concept that Money Talks, to see that this bloody regime can just throw their blood-soaked oil money in the right direction and walk away with an entire international sport.

Maybe they just needed a sure-fire market for sand.