A Very Special Blogpost

Sitcoms in the 1980's would occasionally do a "very special episode" which was code for "serious," like when Father Mulcahey did a tracheotomy, or when Tom Hanks played Alex P. Keaton's alcoholic uncle, or when Jessie Spano was so excited.

This post is along those lines.  My apologies in advance.

Almost eight years ago I opined that "we stand at the precipice of what's shaping up to be the most transparently corrupt four year stretch of our federal government's history."  We're now at a newer precipice that is simultaneously more transparent and more corrupt.  I could write at length about how crooked it will be when a major government contractor decides how the government will spend money but I have bigger concerns.

One of the key concepts that makes the oldest democracy in the world so great (despite some people saying it needs to be made great again, I think it's great and always has been) is the separation of powers.  Click on that link to the Library of Congress website, they have a nice short summary of the doctrine.  I'll wait for you.

You're back!  You now know that the Founders separated government powers to avoid a monarchy and preserve individual liberty.  You also now know that one of the key separated powers is the appointment of federal officers--the president picks them but the Senate approves them.  This prevents the president from putting unqualified cronies and lickspittles in positions of power.

President-elect Trump recently twat from his fugazi Twitter platform that he wants to avoid Senate approval for his cabinet picks, and that the next Senate majority leader must agree.  Predictably, the three clowns senators vying to be the Senate leader practically tripped over themselves in a rush to acquiesce to Trump's demand.

This is really bad.  It's so bad that National Review's Ed Whelan says it's bad.  We are watching Trump aggregate a separated power of the Senate unto the Presidency before he's even sworn in, and no one plans to stop him.  It's only going to get worse once he's back in the Oval Office.

The worst way it gets worse is Trump's pick of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General.  All of Trump's picks so far are stars of the MAGA extended cinematic universe.  I don't know if this is because Trump's Diet-Coke-and-Big-Mac addled brain can only come up with people he sees on Fox News, or if it's red meat for his cult base, or both.  They're all bad in their own unique ways but Gaetz terrifies me.

Gaetz was not selected for his legal experience or acumen.  He apparently practiced for nine or ten years, and six of those years coincided with his time in the Florida House so I doubt he was billing 2000 hours a year.  Wikipedia says that after graduating from Marshall-Wythe he was at AnchorsGordon, a nine person shop in northwestern Florida.  I am not being an elitist when I say this is not the right resume for the person tasked with leading 10,000 lawyers, the FBI, DEA, OIG, ATF, INTERPOL, and lots of other important stuff.

Gaetz got this job because he'll do whatever Trump wants--he's one of the aforementioned unqualified cronies and lickspittles.  And what Trump wants is to use the police power of the federal government to harass and maybe even imprison people who opposed him.  Once that becomes the new norm there will be no opposition because all dissenters will be gagged or too scared to say anything.  Can you think of any reason why Gaetz wouldn't do this?  Why he wouldn't do this gleefully?  You don't think that if all the AUSAs of good conscience resign when asked to corruptly investigate or indict Trump's enemies, a glut of mini-Gaetzes won't rise up to take those jobs?

I can deal with the head of hair at DoD, the doge assassin at DHS and Pat Summerall's kid as CoS.  But I fear that Gaetz as AG is the beginning of the end of the world's oldest democracy.

And now back to your regularly scheduled dipshittery.

BREAKING NEWS: It's Alright...

...because we're (about to be) Saved by the Bell.

On November 25, NBC's streaming service, Peacock, launches the next generation of television that's so bad it's good. Friends, I give you the trailer for Saved by the Bell 2020.

Zack Morris is now the Governor of California (and married to Kellie Kapowski), and he's implemented a new education reform program that brings underprivileged kids into overprivileged schools to create new opportunities. A.C. Slater returns as a Bayside physical education teacher (the first words of the trailer? His "Hey, Mama" to Elizabeth Berkley's Jesse Spano). Belding is gone, but in his place, the genius comedic stylings of John Michael Higgins, slumming it far from his superb work partnering with Christopher Guest, et al. 

Alas, Dustin Diamond didn't make the cut. I expect him to crash the party at The Max at some point.

I'll be live-tweeting right along with you guys over the Thanksgiving Break.

It's All Right

I've watched waaaaay too much "Saved By the Bell" in my life.  I quickly went from mocking my little sister for watching such a dumb program to going to a college and joining a fraternity that had no cable television.  So we watched TPIR, we watched "Small Wonder," and we watched SBTB.

As such, we drank our college days away to the Zack Attack, watched Jessie get hooked on pills, and stared at Kelly Kapowski doing pretty much anything onscreen.  Age of consent be damned.  We knew what MVEMJSNUP means, we know that AC stands for Albert Clifford, and we know that Tori Spelling was pretty lousy in any role she ever played.  And then we went to see Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls on Opening Night.  Of course we did.

This is pretty much what our fratres talk about when they speak of hideously wasting an amazing resource that was the College's education.  Eh.

The other night Jimmy Fallon did this:

Screech is in the pokey and Lisa is somewhere doing something less cool than this, I guess.

Worth a chuckle for the sadly initiated.  Belding's appearance might just scare me into getting in shape.  And Kelly's still got it.  This definitely makes me think we ought to post some of our old undergrad feature films.  (At another university they would be sex tapes, but nope, not at our old school.)

Enjoy.

Calendar, Marked

Labor Day traditionally signals the end of summer, and the date on which conscientious Americans put away their white bucks and seersucker. Most of us spend it nursing the hangover we earned by celebrating a bonus socially acceptable drinking evening.

This year, though, we'll want to make sure all of our faculties are intact and our schedules are cleared. On September 1, 2014, Lifetime is set to air a tell-all film about what happened behind the scenes on "Saved by the Bell".

"The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story" takes up where Dustin Diamond's autobiography left off, dishing dirt on the sex, drugs, and more sex and drugs enjoyed by the young cast members. (Let's, for a moment, pause to consider the 'unauthorized' portion of the title. Is there any actor in that original cast, with the possible exception of Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who wouldn't kill for the publicity this tell-all will bring him or her? They may not have signed a contract giving permission, but they're damned sure sitting at The Max waiting for the new job offers to come in.)

Clarence and I, for two, will be hunkered down in front of our televisions, popcorn at the ready. We saw "Showgirls" in a theatre. "Unauthorized" has a high bar to clear to surpass Elizabeth Berkley's star turn. But we're willing to give it a chance.

As long as Belding keeps his clothes on.