I spoke too soon, last week, fingering gubernatorial candidate John James as the sole Republican to lash out at Canada for daring to have forest fires with border-crossing smoke. I wrote that early in the day on Thursday (because that’s when I had time), and by the end of the day and into Friday, any number of Michigan Republicans, and one Ohio senator, also a Republican, had issued statements of their towering outrage over the smoky-air situation.

It was eerie, how alike they all were, almost as if someone had sent a memo around, y’know?

They all mentioned “Canada’s failure to manage its forests,” thereby leading to these wildfires. Pretty cheeky, considering how many fires start on this side of the border, and rage with minimal containment. (Some of the dumber posts on the subject claimed uncontrolled U.S. fires only happen in the leftist hellscape of California.) And the Canadians lecture us about climate change! Yes they do, because they accept reality, whereas here we just pretend otherwise.

Anyway, it’s good to see all the self-taught epidemiologists who gained their knowledge during Covid have found new employment as forestry experts.

Also anyway, on Saturday the wind picked up and the air was clean again — or at least down in the low part of the Moderate range, which is about all I expect in an urban area — before climbing back a bit on Sunday. We’re currently at Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups, which I can live with. But we’re keeping the a/c on.

All plans for this weekend fell through at the last-ish minute, which ended up being a gift. I finished one book (Lifeguard: A Love Story, by Janet Fash), started another (Outside Looking In, T.C. Boyle) and otherwise enjoyed having a clean-enough-for-company house and a stocked pantry. We did check out the Concert of Colors in hopes of catching the Don Was set, saw the line to get in was about an hour long, and noped out.

I did get to the market to re-up on eggs and blueberries, was thrilled to find the first corn of the season, and drove home in time to hear a fragment of an interview with Hunter Biden. It was…impressive. So much so that I looked up the whole interview online and read the transcript. (Bonus: Reading the transcript spares you having to listen to Scott Simon’s smarminess.) It’s worth a few minutes of your time:

SIMON: Did that open the door for President Trump to pardon some of his supporters, including the January 6 gang?

BIDEN: I think that that is an insane argument. Do I think that pardoning me opened the door for Donald Trump to pardon people that engaged in an insurrection, beat police officers, and then, since they’re pardoned, many of them have gone back to commit crimes, including sexually abusing children. I don’t think that the two are the same thing.

If my dad had won, he would have kept his word. He would not have pardoned me. And the reason that he would not have pardoned me is because I would have told him I have complete and utter faith in the fact that, No. 1, I think that I will win some of this on appeal. But, No. 2, as a first-time offender for a nonviolent crime without a victim, I’m not going to spend any time in jail. And I know that between the Department of Justice, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Probation, I have absolute faith in our system that I would be treated fairly like any other person that had been convicted.

When my dad woke up after Thanksgiving, after the election occurred, and he read that Donald Trump had just appointed Matt Gaetz to be the attorney general, I think that he made a decision then that Donald Trump had made a decision not to actually adhere to the Constitution, the rule of law, and that he intended to take out and mete justice through his own Department of Justice, in his Department of Corrections, in his department of probation.

Duh. Good for the Bidens, father and son.

With that, I’m back to my book, as well as pizza for dinner. Happy Monday, all.