April 19 and 20 Just Went By. And Nothing Happened.

I wonder if anyone else noticed. Maybe it's better that nobody makes a big deal out of it. Excuse me then.

But I couldn't help but notice that April 19 and 20 have gone past, and no right-wing militia and no crazed idiots have taken advantage of those pseudo-sacred dates and gone out and attacked someone, somewhere, guns blazing. At least I've seen no reports to that effect.

April 19 is the date of the showdowns between the colonists and British at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, the first time such battles took place in what would be known as the American Revolution. That's also the date of the 1995 sabotage of the federal building in Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh's revenge for the deaths of his fellow radicals at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and the abuse-rampant fortress in Waco, Texas.

April 20 is the date of Adolf Hitler's birthday. It is also the date of the rifled ambush perpetrated at Columbine High School outside of Denver in 1999, in which more than a dozen students and a teacher were murdered, out of sheer meanness and nihilism. It would be the first of many copycat school shootings to follow, including the incredibly disgusting slaughter of some 20 first-graders and five adults working at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.

What the hell? With the recent proliferation of fascists and gun-toting libertarians roaming so many of our states, with the blown-up kidnapping hopes of the governor of Michigan by some of these knuckleheads, you'd think that they'd have their attention squarely on these dates as an excuse to start, or re-start as it were, some kind of organized rebellion against Democrats, gays, trans-people, Biden, or critical race theory--take your pick.

Certainly, they weren't all in on the insurrection of 1/6/21, which has resulted in some of the most- and some of the least-known reactionary dolts being tried and jailed for breaching and damaging the Capitol building. There have to be a bunch of them out there, dragging their knuckles, waiting for the next opportunity to lurch at enormously imagined dangers.

Maybe, heaven forbid, they consider themselves sufficiently established as an entity in American life that they don't have to use those dates to celebrate their status as "real" Americans any longer. They're already being noticed, already have grown to numbers too big to ignore. I wonder.

Their real impact will have to wait for the upcoming Congressional elections, in which the rampant gerrymandering and legislative subversion of the voting processes of several states will officially take hold. I fear that if the Republicans, some might say miraculously, fail to take control of at least one house of Congress, there will be what will become a typical round of weeping and gnashing of teeth amidst claims of more electoral sabotage by bogus machines or plots to hide ballots or plots to create ballots. Or something.

Then they will pick up their guns and start brandishing them again, much like Michigan, where such bozos thought they could intimidate people. This time, though, some of them may start shooting.

Then we will see the effects to which this insidious, extra-Constitutional cadre has penetrated the ranks of those who are supposed to be defending the rest of us more rational creatures against those who would skirt the law to de facto become it--the police, state troopers, and National Guard. That it is happening cannot be doubted. That it is pervasive remains to be seen.

Carol Leonnig's recent book Zero Fail, in which she writes that some Secret Service members went cockeyed and substituted their oaths to defend the Constitution with blind fealty to ex-, incredibly scary as that is, cannot possibly be the limit to which this cultish behavior has permeated law enforcement. Indeed, the concept of "constitutional sheriffs." in which the county sheriff believes him- or herself to be the representative of the Constitution as they see it within their jurisdiction, has been well-established pre-ex-, if contrary to what their definitions of "lawful" are supposed to be. You can guess where their loyalties lie.

So no: with surreptitious as this subversive establishment is, there's no longer any need to focus upon one day or another on the calendar as a jumping-off point for some sort of additional sedition. The time for that will come soon enough. They will certainly be ready. Will we?

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

So Now What Kind of Genius Is Putin? Never Mind. Kick Russia Out of the U.N.

Okay, now tell us, right-wing smartasses, why Vladimir Putin is such an excellent role model. Really. We're listening.

Or did you already forget the praise you heaped upon him when his murderous troops began their invasion of Ukraine in February? Are you trying to find a place to hide?

That would include ex-, who referred to Putin as a "genius." What kind of genius does it take to tell your troops to kill people indiscriminately? To torture them? What kind of strategist would do that? Someone who didn't care about any human form, because if I were a Russian soldier, I'd be pretty scared of being captured by Ukrainians about now.

That would also include Tucker Carlson, whose rantings on Fox News are beyond rational. I want to hear him rationalize them now. I want to hear him double down on his support for this monster.

Ukrainian President Zelensky is right: The Russians will continue to try to hide the traces of their atrocities. They will utilize misinformation to confuse and fog the airwaves. They will try to make Ukraine look like the barbarians that the Russians are.

There is one, and only one way to make a sufficient statement against this: To kick Russia out of the United Nations. It's not enough to sanction it. It's not enough to subject it to ridicule. It's not enough to censure Putin and his band of thugs. Based on its propaganda, the whole country's in denial anyhow.

What's that you say--that throwing Russia out of the U.N. would allow it to become an international rogue nation, operating with no rules except coercion? And this isn't happening already?

Put another way: What possible good does it do to have Russia in the U.N.? It's not interested in world peace anymore. It's certainly not interested in someone, anyone, else's rights. It's not trying to clarify anything like that. It's marking time. I don't think it will threaten NATO. It has plenty of other former territory in Asia--Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the like--to invade. If that happens, will the West care about them as much? Will this become a protracted half-war all over the place?

At least throw Russia out of the Security Council, made up of the five original members--the U.S., Russia, China (used to be Taiwan, but the big China, the one with 1.4 billion people, has that title now), the United Kingdom, and France--and ten other members on a rotating basis. That group is the core of deciding, for instance, whether or not to send peacekeeping troops. And the five original members have a permanent veto, meaning that a 14-1 vote against any of them cannot be overridden.

The former Soviet Union, now Russia, would have blocked U.N. intervention in Korea in 1950, except its representative was boycotting the meetings because of the U.S.'s opposition to the above mentioned China, conquered by the Communists under Mao Zedong just the year before. Without that veto, the U.S. could take the lead in stopping the invasion of the peninsula and turning it into a stalemate. That created the Republic of South Korea. We still have troops there. That buildup may still have disastrous consequences, with Kim Jong Il launching nuclear weapons tests here and there. Should that come to a head, will it do any good at all to have Russia in the U.N., gumming up the works with its veto?

Belonging to the Security Council implies an ultimate responsibility. Russia no longer deserves to be given any responsibility. Its goal seems to be to upset the apple cart of world peace, destroy a neighboring country and, if necessary, all of its people, and return its size to the empire that it once had before 1991.

What advantages does the U.N. have to keep Russia within it, especially while Vladimir Putin rules it with his iron fist? I can't see any.

Please send suggestions.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark