January 30

January 30. Facebook friends, I’m afraid that this week it’s back to politics and confrontation — armed and otherwise. With Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Roger Ailes and Ammon Bundy running around loose (oops, scratch Ammon Bundy), The Jourmudgeon must go where events take him:
1. In the final major poll before the Iowa caucuses, CNN/ORC found that 68 percent of likely Republican voters think both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz “look like a baby with gas.” Elections experts said it explained why both candidates whine all the time. The same poll found that 86 percent of registered Democratic voters responded “Whoa! There’s a Democratic caucus, too? When? Who’s running? No shit?”
2. Meanwhile, in a confrontation that evoked the title of the e.e. cummings poem “When Serpents Bargain for the Right to Squirm,” Trump pulled out of the final Republican debate before the caucuses after Fox News refused his demand to remove Megyn Kelly as a debate moderator. Two weeks ago, veteran campaign observers were stunned by what had previously seemed impossible: Trump seizing the moral high ground by dint of Cruz’s insulting remarks about New Yorkers. Now, the impossible has happened again: Fox News and its CEO, Roger Ailes, have seized the moral high ground courtesy of Trump.
3. Meanwhile, meanwhile, an appeals court overturned a fine and suspension that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had levied against Cruz for trying to deflate Trump’s ego. The appeals court cited testimony from scientists that deflating Trump’s ego was impossible because it defied the laws of physics. Meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. and Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona joined the Cavalcade of Lunatics endorsing Trump.
4. A grand jury appointed by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to indict Planned Parenthood on something – anything – instead indicted two people who directed a botched attempt to discredit the organization with undercover videos. At a news conference punctuated by the sound of repeated backfires, Patrick vowed to continue stacking the deck until he got dealt the hand he wanted. “So far, this has been a real abortion,” a frustrated Patrick said.
5. Law enforcement officials arrested Ammon Bundy and several of his Band of Bothers at a roadblock outside the Oregon bird sanctuary where they had holed up to stage an armed protest against anybody besides them getting to use federal land. The group’s de facto spokesman, LaVoy Finicum, died during the confrontation after he attempted to run the roadblock and then apparently reached for a gun in his jacket. Supporters of Finicum and Bundy slammed law enforcement personnel for killing Finicum just because he was going to shoot at them. Police shootings should be limited to unarmed black teenagers, like God intended, was their apparent argument.
6. In football news, Florida State University agreed to pay nearly $1 million to a woman who had accused then-FSU quarterback Jameis Winston of rape and the university of botching its investigation of her complaint. FSU President John Thrasher said he was giving the woman all that money because the school did not do anything wrong.
7. In the wake of the East Coast’s most recent Storm of the Century, legislators in eight states introduced bills to regulate weather porn. The American Civil Liberties Union responded that it would sue to defend the right of TV weather forecasters to show their meteorologically explicit fantasies on the air. Snow shovel and battery manufacturers called the legislation government overreach and an attempt to cut into their profits. “Next thing you know, they’ll be trying to regulate campaign spending,” one warned.