Will Rogers takes the folksy view of a $600,000 pardon deal gone bad, a five-million-dollar going rate for clemency, and a Pardon Office whose chief got himself unofficially pardoned right out of the job.
Well, Sir, I See We’re Sellin’ Pardons Now
The Presidential Pardon Economy: Additional Facts, and a Commentary in the Style of H.L. Mencken
New reporting on the Boosie Badazz pardon deal, the sidelining of pardon attorney Ed Martin, and the Jan. 6 recidivism numbers — followed by H.L. Mencken on a clemency power that has, at last, been priced and put out to market.
The Correspondence of Two Gentlemen, Neither of Whom Was One
Ambrose Bierce reads a decade of correspondence between a journalist and a financier and renders it as a handful of new dictionary entries — Reverse Journalism, Gullible Press, and a bullet left standing on the table.
On the Late Mr. Wolff, and the Trade of Whispering to Kings
H.L. Mencken examines the newly surfaced Wolff-Epstein emails and finds, at last, a courtier who put his trade in writing — proof that the press's oldest function is not to watch power, but to dress it.
On th’ Prisidint’s Grand Birthday Festivities
Mr. Dooley holds forth from behind his bar on the President's eightieth birthday celebration, the Octagon built on the South Lawn, and what it says about a republic that pays for its own spectacle.
The Sage of Baltimore Surveys the Octagon
H.L. Mencken surveys the President's eightieth-birthday festivities — cage fights on the South Lawn included — from what he insists is a safe distance.
The Begatting of the President
A mock-scriptural chronicle of the President's eightieth natal celebration, narrated with the solemn authority of a 1969 concept album and considerably less dignity than the occasion deserved.
Mr. Dooley on th’ Rededication iv th’ Republic
Mr. Dooley considers the movement to 'rededicate' the United States to God, and wonders aloud whether the Almighty knew His lease was up for renewal.
The Divine Proxy: A Review of the National Rededication
H.L. Mencken assesses the spectacle of politicians rededicating a secular republic to the Almighty, and admires, against his better judgment, the sheer nerve of it.
Mr. Dooley on the Impror iv Chiny
Mr. Dooley reviews the President's state visit to China from behind his bar, and finds two emperors getting along famously.