If you’re wondering why the featured image is of John Cassavetes in The Fury, it’s director Brian De Palma’s birthday. He was born on this day in 1940 in Newark, NJ. That makes him the *other* Newark Flash. Wayne Shorter was the original Newark Flash but y’all should know that after this weekend.

If you’re alert as opposed to inert, you surely noticed that I didn’t mention 9/11/2001. I’m leaving that for the big rock star ending with The Boss.

Let’s begin this exercise in vexatious venting about irksome things.

I’m irked every time a poll is treated as a news story. They’re a snapshot in time, not predictive of the next election. Many pundits use them for dramatic effect, especially when the polls are bad for Joe Biden. The DC media’s pro-Republican bias continues despite the madness that has infected the GOP in the 21st Century.

Horse race polls taken 14-15 months before the next general election are meaningless. If they were accurate, Presidents Reagan, Clinton, and Obama would have been defeated for reelection. They all won. If the polls were accurate in September of 1991, Poppy Bush would have been reelected. He lost.

Repeat after me: I hate horse race coverage.

Our first musical interlude is a Richard Thompson tune with racehorse in the title:

I’m irked that Jonathan Chait, by no means a dumbass, wrote a such a dumb column with such a dumb title: Why Isn’t A Mainstream Democrat Challenging Biden?

Here’s why. If there’s a serious intra-party challenge to an incumbent president, that party loses the general election. It happened to Republicans in 1976 and Democrats in 1968 and 1980. No sane “mainstream Democrat” wants to risk helping the Indicted Impeached Insult Comedian win the 2024 election.

That’s why, Jonathan. This song is dedicated to you:

I’m irked by some of the weird laws they have in Georgia. In other jurisdictions, grand jury reports are usually private. I cringed when the special grand jury report was released with detailed information as to who was not indicted. I like dunking on Lindsey Graham and Mike Flynn as much as the next guy, but this isn’t fair to those who weren’t charged. In our legal system, everyone is entitled to fair treatment including Trumper toadies.

I am NOT irked that the Georgia RICO case won’t have 40 defendants, which is how many the first grand jury wanted to indict. They proved the veracity of the venerable adage about grand juries indicting a ham sandwich if that’s what prosecutors wanted.

It makes me wanna slap my head and say, Oh, Atlanta:

I was irked when Nicolle Wallace had Nancy Pelosi on her show last week and grilled her about crime in San Francisco. Pelosi was there to talk national politics, not local crime. Nicolle is from the Bay Area, so I wonder if her parents wanted the crime report. Pelosi handled it well, but urban crime isn’t in her lane.

The crime question is a reminder that Nicolle Wallace is a recovering Republican. GOPers love their crime porn. The whole thing gave me the San Francisco Blues.

Finally, I’m irked that I have nothing original to say about the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I was on jury duty when the planes hit the towers. Trials in New Orleans were cancelled for the rest of the month as were flights everywhere. It was a grim time made worse by the Bush-Cheney administration’s rush to war. That’s all I got.

The last word goes to Bruce Springsteen: