Bi-partisan support? Senator Murkowski has expressed a hope that the President will nominate for the Supreme Court someone who will gain “a level of bipartisan support.” I don’t know what bipartisan support the Senator could have mind. “Bipartisan support” is now as passé as “honesty,” “truthfulness,” and the “common good.” Every day the Republicans in Congress make it clear that they have no interest in any bipartisan cooperation. The very concept of “bipartisan” is heretical, both in the Trump-toadying Republican establishment and among the berserk MAGA rank and file. They remind me of the Nazis who refused to cooperate with other political parties because they were waiting for the day when they could seize the government for themselves. 

Book burning in TN! I read about Pastor Greg Locke and his Global Vision Bible Church in Juliet TN. Pastor Locke and his church have taken to burning books that are Satanic, Masonic, or whatever they like. The Pastor and his zealots are fanatically devoted to the idea of Biblical Inerrancy, and so books that in any way disagree with “The Book” or question its utter inerrancy have to go. I’m reminded of a tale told about another zealot, the Caliph who conquered Alexandria. This Caliph ordered the destruction of the books in the great Library of Alexandria because any book that disagrees with the Quran is impious and any book that agrees with the Quran is superfluous.

Need a new definition of freedom.America has a knack of exporting all that is worst in its culture. So I’m not surprised to learn that the ranks of the Canadian truckers who are demonstrating (rioting) against COVID restrictions have been swollen by “freedom-loving” Americans from over the border. When I saw photographs of these demonstrators, I was struck, though not surprised, by how closely they resemble in costume and demeanor the seditious mob of Jan 6. Both crowds were motivated by a monstrous resentment and a desire to “protect” their “right” to an infantile idea of freedom.