Marco Rubio's Department of State has Zoomed Right Past McCarthyism to Something Resembling East Germany

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To The Last Post Of The Week From The Blog's Favourite Living Canadian)

He walked up the steps, steadily, one at a time, making a loud noise. He kicked the swing door open with his foot without taking his hands out of his pockets. In the hallway, a constable in a black, cone-shaped, night helmet stood facing him, pulling on his gloves. Gypo halted and stared at the constable. “I have come to claim the twenty pounds reward offered by the Farmers’ Union for information concerning Francis Joseph McPhillip,” he said in a deep, low voice. —The Informer, Liam O'Flaherty, 1925.

It finally has happened. Under the red-hot glare of the Eye Of MAGA, Marco Rubio has shrunk to invisibility. Under his leadership, the Department of State has zoomed right past McCarthyism to something resembling East Germany under Walter Ulbricht. Welcome to the new golden age of the informer. From Politico:

The department, according to a copy of an internal cable obtained by Politico, will work with an administration-wide task force to collect information “involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration” and will collect examples of anti-Christian bias through anonymous employee report forms.

The cable was sent out to embassies around the world under Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s name. The instructions also were released in a department-wide notice. The department, according to a copy of an internal cable obtained by Politico, will work with an administration-wide task force to collect information “involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration” and will collect examples of anti-Christian bias through anonymous employee report forms.

Jesus H. Christ on a warrantless wiretap, what the hell is Rubio running, a diplomatic institution or the Roman Curia? I am loath even to speculate what Rubio will consider "anti-Christian bias," much less what his battalions of faceless moles will pass along. I have a deep ethnic loathing for informers. In any case, I have no desire to be subject to a government made up of Gypo Nolans.

Elsewhere, the new American golden age will include some fine beachfront property in eastern Kentucky. Also from Politico:

The Trump administration wants to effectively break up NOAA and end its climate work by abolishing its primary research office and forcing the agency to help boost U.S. fossil fuel production, budget documents show. The move, outlined in a memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget, carries forward President Donald Trump’s broader goals of slashing federal spending, gutting climate research and unleashing U.S. energy production . . . NOAA would get about $4.5 billion in its next budget, down from roughly $6.1 billion in its 2025 enacted budget. Key to the cutback is the elimination of NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which facilitates studies of the planet’s oceans, atmosphere, climate, weather patterns and other Earth systems.

And, as expected, it's all about Da Woke.

“Reaching balance requires: resetting the proper balance between Federal and State responsibilities with a renewed emphasis on federalism; eliminating the Federal Government’s support of woke ideology; protecting the American people by deconstructing a wasteful and weaponized bureaucracy; and identifying and eliminating wasteful spending,” the memo says.

Abandoning "woke ideology" apparently will release us all from the tyranny of climate science, and it'll show those rising oceans and melting glaciers a thing or two as well, by god.

On Thursday, when the Supreme Court handed a dodgy victory to Kilmar Abrego Garcia by allowing the judge hearing the case, Paula Xinis, to determine how quickly the government will be forced to move to get him released, she set a deadline of this morning for the Justice Department to respond to three questions. The DOJ’s Drew Ensign refused even to answer the judge's questions, pleading that it hasn't been given enough time. The hearing on Friday afternoon was farcical. (h/t Anna Bowers from Lawfare.com),

Xinis: So the government is going on record saying no info on his whereabouts?

Ensign: I'm saying I don't have that info as an officer of the court, clients have not provided that info to me as of today...

Xinis: It's quite basic information. I'm asking a very simple question: Where is he?

Xinis: Ok, so they've done nothing? This is a yes or no question. This is a direct question that is yes or no. I'm not asking what yet...just WAS THERE anything done to facilitate return?

Ensign: I'm unable to answer, don't have knowledge of that.

This is obvious stonewalling. I think it may be time to be holding some folks in contempt.

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: "Zydeco's Got Soul" (Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots): Yeah, I still pretty much love New Orleans.

Weekly Visit To The Pathé Archives: Here, from 1949, is Slammin' Sam Snead winning the Masters. Possessed of a near-perfect swing, Snead also is the patron saint of all of us duffers who are driven to acts of public madness on the course. History is so cool.

This week, on the day after tanking the national economy, the president allowed cameras into a meeting of his doormats....er...Cabinet and, as expected, it reached a level of sycophancy that would have embarrassed a Borgia pope, or at least Kim Jong-un. The televised portion of the proceedings consisted of his hirelings praising his greatness while he sat there like a big old sponge, soaking in all the self-abnegation of the shameless and inept. Attorney General Pam Bondi praised him for winning "overwhelmingly...by the biggest majority," which was two lies for the price of one.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins cleared even the high bar for low groveling set by Bondi: “I think that what you have assembled in your vision is a turning point and an inflection point in American history. And so just being a part of that is the greatest honor.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick put some real elbow grease into shining up the battered sneaker of the president's surrender on his beloved tariffs: “They have come with offers that they never, ever, ever would have come with but for the moves that the President has made, demanding that people treat the United States with respect. We're getting the respect we deserve now.”

Meanwhile, the president lied to their faces and they gobbled it all down like starving carp. Jesus, these people...

Discovery Corner: Hey, look what we found! From The Independent (via MSN):

Archaeologists have unearthed an ancient altar believed to have been used for child sacrifices in Guatemala's Tikal National Park. The Teotihuacan altar was discovered within the ancient city of Tikal, considered the centre of Mayan civilisation, along with the remains of three children... Archaeologist Lorena Paiz, who led the discovery, said the altar was believed to have been used for sacrifices, "especially of children". "The remains of three children not older than four years were found on three sides of the altar," Paiz revealed.

I realize that archaeology isn't all golden idols and lost cities but, boy howdy, this must be the grimmest entry in the brief history of this feature.

Hey, Colorado State, is it a good day for dinosaur news? It's always a good day for dinosaur news!

The new dinosaur was identified and named by Colorado State University affiliate faculty member Joseph Sertich and University of Utah Professor Mark Loewen. The dinosaur’s name, announced today in the scientific journal PeerJ, translates roughly to “Loki’s horned face that looks like a caribou.” Loewen and Sertich, co-lead authors of the PeerJ study, dubbed the new species Lokiceratops (lo-Kee-sare-a-tops) rangiformis (ran-ɡi-FOHR-mees) because of the unusual, curving blade-like horns on the back of its frill–the shield of bone at the back of the skull – and the asymmetrical horns at the peak of the frill, reminiscent of uneven caribou antlers. “The dinosaur now has a permanent home in Denmark, so we went with a Norse god, and in the end, doesn’t it just really look like Loki with the curving blades?” Loewen said, referring to the trickster god’s horned helmet.

“This new dinosaur pushes the envelope on bizarre ceratopsian headgear, sporting the largest frill horns ever seen in a ceratopsian,” Sertich said in a press release announcing the dinosaur’s unveiling at the Natural History Museum of Utah, where a replica is displayed. “These skull ornaments are one of the keys to unlocking horned dinosaur diversity and demonstrate that evolutionary selection for showy displays contributed to the dizzying richness of Cretaceous ecosystems.”

Personally, I think it looks like a guy at a Vikings game. Tell me that they didn't cut a deal with God or evolution to live then to make us happy now.

I'll be back on Monday, for whatever fresh hell awaits. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line and wear the damn masks, and take the damn shots, especially the boosters and The New One. In your spare time, spare a thought for everyone touched by the earthquakes in Myanmar and Thailand, and by the tornadoes throughout the southeast, and for everyone touched by floods in Kentucky and in West Virginia, and by the crash in Washington, and by the measles outbreak in the Southwest, and in the wildfire zone around Dallas, and in the fire zones in Los Angeles, and for all the folks in Ukraine, who stubbornly fight on, and all the folks in Gaza, and all the people in New Orleans, Las Vegas, Nashville, and Queens, who were visited by The Crazy before the year had hardly begun. And the people in drought-stricken north Alabama. And the folks in LA, now fighting floods and mudslides exacerbated by the recent wildfires. And the folks in Lahaina, who are still rebuilding. And the victims of the nightclub collapse in the Dominican Republic. (Hang in there, Pedro) And all the folks we regularly cited here in the year gone by, and especially for our fellow citizens in the LGBTQ+ community, who deserve so much better from their country than they’ve been getting. And for all of us, who will be getting exactly what we deserve.