We ate a lot of food and had a pretty good time. But once they left, Mrs. Fungus and I just collapsed in bed.
...woke up a couple hours later, wanting a snack, but still feeling too full to eat one. Those burgers were pretty big, and I had a hot dog on top of it. Erg.
Probably the last really hot weather of the year today, too.
* * *
So, Arizona Senator John McCain died.
I don't have anything good to say about him, not really. I'm not celebrating his death; I reserve that for really bad people, like Yassir Arafat or Fidel Castro. I have extended one prayer for his soul, as a lifetime of being an uncooperative jerk does not merit going to Hell. But I do not mourn McCain's passing.
He relished his role as a "maverick". When you're a maverick you buck the mainstream and do things your own way--but the mainstream that John McCain bucked was his own political party's, and he was frequently a roadblock to the GOP fixing things that needed fixing. He was a bastion of the country club Republicans, the rich not-quite-liberal folks like those who--in the last election--declared they'd vote for Hillary because Trump was so awful.
His presidential campaign in 2008 was inept, and he lost the race because he refused to fight for the job.
And we see all kinds of evidence that he had involvement in stifling right-wing voices in the GOP, from the tea parties to Trump himself.
I'm not dancing over this but the paragraph after "PS" is an apt description of John McCain's political career--which is why a lot of people on the right refer to him as "McStain".
* * *
So, Cohen's guilty plea is not the bombshell it appeared to be this past Friday. The fact that Cohen's lawyer has made this 180° turn means that whatever case the Democrats thought they had for impeachment has evaporated.
Short form is this: Cohen claimed he had evidence Trump knew about meeting with Russians at Trump Tower that Trump Jr. held. (This meeting, by the way, was a huge nothingburger.)
Cohen's lawyer went on TV and talked to reporters and said, "Yes, my client will testify that X happened...."
Now Cohen's lawyer is saying, "Well, we can't independently confirm that X happened, and in fact my client doesn't even know if X happened." (Where X is Trump knowing there was going to be a meeting with Russians at Trump Tower with regards to the Hillary campaign.)
The important part of all this, though, is that the news networks got to run this story for several days, making sure to hammer it into all the people who still listen to them at all.
...but which also means that more people will wise up and realize that the press is the propaganda wing of the Democrat party.
* * *
The complete and utter f-ing disaster that is the Illinois state budget. Blaming Bruce Rauner for Illinois' budget woes is Democrats' favorite thing, but Rauner isn't the one who spent all that money.
The Illinois Governor pretty much serves at the pleasure of Mike Madigan, who runs the legislature and has for several decades. If the Governor cannot deal with Madigan, nothing happens.
The deadlock of last year was the result of Rauner pushing for reforms, and Madigan standing in the way of them. Because those reforms would have meant less power for him.
Illinois' response to not having enough money is typical for Democrat-run states: raise taxes and borrow. But there's only so high you can raise taxes before they choke the economic lifeblood right out of the state, and Illinois is perilously close to that threshold now. That leaves borrowing--and with Illinois' debt being rated one step above "junk" status, the state must pay a premium on borrowed money.
* * *
Well, this is to be expected. James Gunn was the director for Guardians of the Galaxy, both 1 and 2. Of course, some years ago he tweeted a bunch of really not-funny and kind-of-creepy pedophile jokes, in an attempt to be "edgy", and those are what got him fired.
Kurt Schlichter said it best:
...and so of course I knew that there would be problems for further GotG movies, considering that the director of the first two had been fired. I don't know if it's happening, but I've got a fiver that says at least some of the cast members will refuse to work for another director.
But it needed to happen. It needed to happen for the reason Schlichter outlines above: the left is not above using old quotes to get people fired, and so they must be made to live by the same rules. It used to be that a person's livelihood was off the table, but if the left wants to destroy people for saying things it doesn't like, then leftists must also be destroyed when they say bad things.
Don't complain to us. These are your rules, leftists.
The other problem is that Hollywood has a history of giving a pass to reprehensible behavior just because the misbehaving person makes a lot of money. Convicted rapist Roman Polanski was defended by all kinds of Hollywood celebrities (and if you type "rapist director" into Googe, his is the first name that pops up) because he was a big name there. That kind of thing has to end.
* * *
It was extremely nice to have people over, and to grill food and eat on the patio.