Mommy's Little Monsters, Plus
Christofascist party house, and this time he's toast for sure, and music
Mommy’s Little Monster
Social Distortion’s Dennis Danell expired 25 years ago today; for those of you not familiar, “Mommy’s Little Monster” was the iconic punk band’s first hit, to the extent punk bands ever had hits in the wider musical universe.
The tune is laudatory, but it inspired me to think of all the little monsters running the current regime.
We got Whisky Pete Hegseth, whose mother actually called him a little monster regarding his treatment of women, although she later retracted her completely accurate assessment;
We got Elon Musk, the mothers of whose children—he has 13 children by six women—routinely have to beg him on social media to attend his kids’ needs because he won’t respond to them privately, and who anonymous souls at regime central refer to as an unruly preteen child, and whose trans daughter has filleted his performance as a father;
We got Stephen Miller, who is such an odious person in every respect that we cannot but believe his mother regrets spawning him, and whose neuropsychologist uncle has repeatedly denounced him in public;
We got Donald Trump, serial adulterer, narcissist, misogynist, racist, bully, fraud, and rapist, whose mother may have loved him but would have been afraid to say if she didn’t;
We got Russell Vought, whose career goals include terrorizing federal workers and impoverished people, and reducing anyone who might benefit from diversity, equity and inclusion programs to subhuman status;
We got RFK Junior, one of at least two regime figures who has to be considered as a possible serial killer, who doesn’t give a fuck about you and what you have to say, and will without a doubt step away from his time in office as a mass murderer;
We got Kristi Noem, the pet murdering homeland security secretary and dentistry spokesmodel who also could be considered for the serial filler list;
and so many more. One can always find despicable characters in high government positions—like ones offering blanket support for genocide in the previous administration—but to find a regime stocked with so many completely irredeemable ones at every level is, I think, unusual. Monsters for real. Apologies to Social Distortion.
Christofascist party house
So House speaker Mike Johnson is living in the basement of a different house owned by a Christian fascist billionaire and run by Christian Nationalist pastor and certifiable horrible person Steve Berger.
Washington pieds-à-terre can prove a significant expense for members of Congress as they split time between the capital and their home districts. Johnson is less wealthy than many other lawmakers. He worked at conservative nonprofits before he entered public service, and on his most recent financial disclosure form he did not declare a single asset. When Johnson was elevated to the speakership in 2023, news reports indicated that rather than renting an apartment, he might be sleeping in his office. (Lawmakers must report debts, income and many financial holdings on disclosure forms but aren’t required to list living expenses like rent.)
The Berger home is in an upscale D.C. neighborhood full of lobbyists and corporate attorneys. Though it’s not clear what the home’s basement would fetch on the open market, it’s not unusual for two-bedrooms in the area to rent for as much as $7,000 a month. Discounts on rent are generally prohibited by House ethics rules as improper gifts, experts said.
Let’s say Johnson spends a mere $5000/month on his apartment, drawn from his $223,000 pre-tax salary as speaker of the house. If he’s paying about 40% of his salary in various taxes, then he’s paying a little less than half his after-tax income in rent. That still leaves him with $70,000 or so, more than the average household income in the U.S., but it’s nevertheless a significant hit.
The sickening irony in the situation is that, according to ProPublica, the home was once owned by Frederick Douglass and later hosted the Smithsonian Museum of African Art.
Johnson isn’t the only major GOP figure to enjoy Berger’s hospitality.
In addition to Johnson, who is an evangelical conservative, the pastor has built close relationships with several other influential conservative politicians. Dan Bishop, now nominated for a powerful post in the Trump White House, seems to have also lived in the home last year while he was still a congressman, according to three people.
. . .
Evidence suggests that Bishop also recently lived at the Capitol Hill townhouse. Three neighbors told ProPublica that the FBI visited them this month asking about Bishop, seemingly as part of the background check for his White House job. “They said that address,” said one neighbor, adding that the agent showed a photo of Bishop. “They said: ‘He lived there up to a couple months ago. Do you know him?’”Trump has nominated Bishop to be deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, the powerful White House office that recently moved to freeze funding streams across the federal government. Berger celebrated the nomination on Instagram: “I want to congratulate my dear friend and brother, Congressman Dan Bishop, for accepting this incredible opportunity.”
Incredible opportunity for thee, throat-slitting spree against me and mine.
This time he's toast for sure
There’s simply no way Trump can avoid consequences for embracing Putin and crippling Medicaid. Right? Right? You can’t just turn the U.S. into a Russian ally overnight, or screw millions of people out of their healthcare, any more than you can brag around about grabbing women by the pussy, any more than you can get elected president with multiple felony convictions, any more than you can skate on charges of inciting an insurrection or hoarding a pallet of classified documents in your bathroom, any more than you can entrust the gears of the federal government to a severely disturbed, drug-addled billionaire and etc.
Can’t happen.
Music
Social Distortion, Mommy’s Little Monster, “Mommy’s Little Monster” live;
Sneaker Pimps, Becoming X, “Tesko Suicide” live;
New York Dolls co-counder David Johansen—Buster Poindexter, for you mid-tier SNL fans—passed away yesterday, so here’s to him and them, performing in front of a somewhat baffled Midnight Special audience: New York Dolls, New York Dolls, “Personality Crisis” live;
PJ Harvey, Uh Huh Her, “Who the Fuck?” live.
That’s all I got
today. If you’re liking what I do, please let me know and share it around. If you like it enough for a more or less daily dose, consider subscribing if you’ve not already. Free is free, which is its own treat, but paid subscribers get the additional frisson of keeping me in the occasional forbidden sugary confection.
Take care; be well.
Nice paragraph on 'Can't happen".