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

Quiz time.

What's the only thing worse than being the target of a grand jury called by Robert Mueller?

Being the target of two grand juries called by Robert Mueller!

From NBC News:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has tapped multiple grand juries, including juries in Washington and Virginia, in an effort to gather evidence in the ongoing federal investigation into Russia's meddling in the U.S. presidential election, three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursdaythat Mueller had impanelled a separate grand jury in Washington, but sources familiar with the matter say that Mueller is using existing grand juries in both Washington and Virginia.

It appears that Mueller's after it all—the alleged financial shenanigans that pre-date last November's election, the slow-dancing with Russian oligarchs, the infusions of cash from the banks of the Volga that kept the Trump Organization in business, the overpayment by Russians for condos owned by the Trump Organization—everything, as the great Lennie Briscoe once said to a Russian mob kingpin, right down to the rubber in your wallet. He is not afraid and he is not going away.

There is no possible way that this White House is D'd up for the Category Five shitstorm that's coming over the next six months to a year. Right now, there's no indication that anyone there has any grasp at all about how anything in Washington works, let alone how to handle the magnitude of what's rolling up the driveway of the West Wing. This is why we should join Eugene Robinson in being alarmed about what the president* told his fans in West Virginia on Thursday night:

"They can't beat us at the voting booths so they're trying to cheat you out of the future and the future that you want…"They're trying to cheat you out of the leadership you want with a fake story that is demeaning to all of us. And most importantly, demeaning to our country."

Chris Matthews was correct in seeing a little Huey Long in what the president* fed to the base on Thursday night, even though, truth be told, the Kingfish would have eaten the likes of Donald Trump on toast. ("Who took on the Standard Oil men and whipped they ass?") This president* will pull the temple down on his own head if it means another twenty bucks or if it means keeping the dark side of his business dark.

Getty Images

Already, the house organ is playing a tune called, "Grand Juries. Why Do We Need 'em?" And then there was this hilarious moment on CNN this morning when bed-sniffing yahoo Kenneth Starr, who needed to know what Bill Clinton did with a cigar but couldn't be bothered to investigate rapes at the college over which he had been chosen to preside, managed to smack Chris Cuomo's gob into next Thursday. Starr said:

"I do think it is a, certainly a serious matter when a special counsel is accused—and I was accused of that—of exceeding his or her authority. That's a serious matter because we do not want investigators and prosecutors out on a fishing expedition."

Ken Starr said that, and this whole business is nowhere near as weird as it's going to get.

Hey, if you're planning your late September getaway, why not come down to the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin in Austin? If you hang around all three days, you can even see this:

SUNDAY | 10:30 AM

KEYNOTE

Hogg Memorial Auditorium

Closing Session: The New Abnormal

Our much-anticipated annual roundtable: Five of the nation's best political commentators try to make sense of 2017 and look ahead to 2018 and beyond. Chris Cillizza /Ben Domenech /Virginia Heffernan /Indira Lakshmanan /Charles P. Pierce / Evan Smith (mod.)

Fun for the whole family!

Please, god, let this happen quickly. From The Orlando Weekly:

As of today, a recently created Change.org petition urging Manatee County legislators to go forward with the Snooty statue movement has garnered more than 4,000 signatures. "Snooty the Manatee has been a symbol of Bradenton ... for almost 70 years," writes Anthony Pusateri, the petition's author. "To honor Snooty's legacy as a positive icon in Bradenton, I propose that the negative symbol of racism and oppression that is the Confederate monument be relocated and replaced with a statue of Snooty the Manatee."

If every monument to Treason In Defense Of Slavery—h/t LGM—were replaced by one of Snooty the Manatee, this would be a much better country. Sign the petition. Do it now.

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: "My Man's Gone Now" (Nina Simone): Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.

In other musical notes—I see what I did there—the great and powerful Oz, the Blog's Official Musical Archivist, sends along something new from his roost in Kansas City. As we all know, the list of the best cover versions of Bob Dylan songs begins with Jimi Hendrix's transfigurative "All Along The Watchtower," and every other one is fighting for second place. Well, "Not Dark Yet" is probably my favorite of The Master's later work. The original is deep and dark, and even Daniel Lanois's sweet-tooth for ju-ju production doesn't capsize it. Here are Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer trying it on and, Lord Above, this is glorious.

Weekly Visit To The Pathe Archives: Here's a look at the Senate committee investigating organized crime in 1954. A brief colloquy ensues:

Q: 'Well, you're looking back over the years now to that time when you became a citizen and we're now standing 20 odd years after that. You must have in your mind some things you've done that you can speak of as an American citizen, if so, what are they'?

A: 'Paid my tax!

Can't imagine why I fastened on this one. History is so cool.

If there hasn't been enough schadenfreude in your life this week—and can there ever really be enough?—here's another bucketful. Can't we reopen Alcatraz just this once? Or Devil's Island?

Is it a good day for dinosaur news, Atlantic? It's always a good day for dinosaur news!

When we look at dinosaurs in museums, it takes imagination to plaster flesh and skin on top of the bones. But for the dinosaur that Funk unearthed—a 110-million-year-old creature named Borealopelta—imagination isn't necessary. It looks like a sculpture. And based on pigments that still lurk within the skin, scientists think they know what colors the animal had. "If someone wants to come face to face with a dinosaur, and see what it actually looked like, this is the one for that," says Caleb Brown from the Royal Tyrrell Museum, who has studied the animal.

Borealopelta was one of the ankylosaurs—a group of heavy-set, low-slung, tank-like dinosaurs. It lacked the shin-thwacking tail clubs that some of its relatives wielded, but its back was covered in heavy, armored scales, and a pair of 20-inch-long spikes jutted from its shoulders. It weighed 1.5 tons and was 20 feet from foot to tail. And it probably couldn't swim very well.

And, as we know, eventually, these creatures evolved into…Raiders fans! But they lived then to make us happy now.

The Committee knew that our post about the members of the Dail Eireann and their outstanding bar tabs was going to bring out our Top Commenters Top Comments. But little did The Committee know that the post would produce the first tie ever for Top Commenter of the Week. It is shared by repeat winner J. S. Hedegard and Erich Russell, both of whom repurposed brilliantly our Founding Documents. First, Hedegard:

"Congress shall make no law preventing an establishment of drinking, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of the tap, or of the grape press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble therein, and to petition the government for a redress of their bar tabs."

Now, Russell:

We hold these Poofs to be Malevolent." Draft One while Jefferson had not paid his bar tab.

I imagined these two in knee breeches, typing with quill pens and swilling Madeira. In any case, you both can split 180 Beckhams.

I'll be in Lincoln, Nebraska, next week, checking out the public hearings into our old friend, the Keystone XL pipeline, the continent-spanning death funnel and current conservative fetish object. I will also be covering whatever happens outside the hearing room. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line, and try to avoid being the target of multiple grand juries. This is no fun at all.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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