That's Not Entertainment!

By Meta-Content Generator A.J. Liebling with Florida Correspondent Jenny Herk

This week in the wilds of Florida the Republican candidate for President, who staged a violent coup to perpetuate himself in power in 2021 and said he would be a dictator for a day if elected made another promise to his usual audience of hard-right self-proclaimed Christian bigots:

Trump: You have to get out and vote. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four years, it will be fixed, it will be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.. In four years, you won’t have to vote again. pic.twitter.com/DBGcBr3Wht

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 27, 2024

You won't have to vote again, because he'll install a Christian extremist theocracy. That's what he meant, right? 

In its early editions, the paper of record assured its readers that he just meant that Christian extremists would get everything they ever wanted from his administration so they wouldn't need to vote any more. 

At the end of his speech, Mr. Trump urged the religious crowd to vote in November, suggesting that if elected he would address their concerns sufficiently enough that they would no longer need to be politically active. 

Somehow by 11 a.m., the paper of record saw fit to revise the record:

Some argued that it was a threat that the 2024 election could be the nation’s last if he were to win and claimed it was further evidence of an authoritarian, anti-democratic bent he has displayed throughout his political candidacy.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment to clarify Mr. Trump’s intent. 

Why would they? It was clear. Let's remind ourselves about the Tangerine-Faced Felon's commitment to ending democracy:

That's gotta be right, because the New York Times told us so, last Sunday.

With the stakes this high, you'd think that all campaign coverage would focus on the ongoing threat to America and democracy posed by the Tangerine-Faced Felon.

Not so much.

Instead, the Times, and its supposed competitors, can't resist the temptation to cover the campaign not as the last chance for democracy but as riveting reality entertainment, except that this time the prize isn't a fake marriage: 

It's not a residency at Caesar's Palace, ffs.  Why is his assault on democracy and America treated as a review of a nightclub act or even worse as notes for the entertainer's handlers?

Really, we don't know. We know it's been a through-line of Times coverage of the Tangerine-Faced Rapist since 2015.  This trivialization of fascism as a carnival act helps normalize it and blunts the force of the threat.  

Here''s what the Times wrote about the appalling lie-filled post-convention performance of the newly-minted Republican ticket:

In his 12-minute solo set, Mr. Vance showed he understood the arrangement. While he flicked at his rags-to-riches story, he talked most effusively about Mr. Trump and how he has the most splendid judgment of any politician ever. In a pale imitation of the master, he trash-talked the press, and the crowd booed on cue.

When it was time to bring out the headliner, Mr. Vance, who at 39 is younger than most of Mr. Trump’s children, said: “Come on out, sir!”

Being Mr. Trump’s running mate is dangerous business. The last one, Mike Pence, ended up the target of death threats and mockery, and ultimately landed in political exile. The trick to lasting affection in Mr. Trump’s orbit is unwavering deference. The former president doesn’t share the spotlight. 

It's not just the political hacks who cover Trump as an entertainer rather than as a corrupt disloyal threat to America.  It's also the extremely witty columnists who interrupt their profiles of real celebrities to write stuff like this:

Entertainment reporter Maureen Dowd

Here's why the Trump campaign is wicked fun:

I watched Donald Trump in New York for decades, as a bachelor swanning, a party fixture mingling, a master of bling and bluster....

So I can assure you of two things. No one is more shocked at how far, how fast, Trump has come than Trump.

Watching him morph into a pol in real time and wriggle away from the junior-varsity G.O.P. chuckleheads trying to tackle him is hypnotic. He’s like the blond alien in the 1995 movie “Species,” who mutates from ova to adult in months, regenerating and reconfiguring at warp speed to escape the establishment, kill everyone in sight and eliminate the human race. 

Despite years of drivel like this, punctuated with attacks on Hillary as too political and Obama as too uppity, she still has her op-ed sinecure, where she slays irony with gems like telling Joe Biden he should realize he's too old and tired to go on.

Nor are the Times's competitors doing much better. The Washington Post finds Trump's performances to be non-stop laff riots.  His insane lies about being electrocuted by a battery-powered boat (not possible) while sharks circled is retold not as evidence of his cognitive decline and unfitness for office but as a crowd-pleasing act, like Abbott & Costello's “Who's on First?”

The riff has all the hallmarks of a classic Trumpian yarn — full of fabrication, riddled with illogic, defying the laws of physics and, by turns, rambling and hyperbolic, humorous and head-scratching.

It is a whale of a tale, and listeners could be forgiven for thinking they’re going to need a bigger boat to handle all of the exaggerations and flights of fancy. 

Why does the media cover the twilight of democracy as entertainment?  Perhaps it's because that's how reporters perceive it, according to this too-candid piece in Washington Post Style:

If the public’s interest in the race was low at the outset, correspondents said, it was because Americans had already made up their minds about Trump and Biden. Now that dynamic has changed.

“I do think Americans are engaged in a different kind of way,” Bruce said, citing the energy level at a Harris rally she attended in Milwaukee.

“To those of us who are political junkies and love covering campaigns, this is really fun.”

Fun.  

The focus on the campaign as entertainment did in Hillary Clinton's campaign, in what we now realize was the most fateful election of our lifetime.  At the third debate, she raised the important issue of whether the Tangerine-Faced Felon was in cahoots with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, as suggested by the torrent of Russian disinformation and Trump's solicitation of more of the same.

When she accused Trump, correctly, of being “Putin's puppet,” Trump with the fourth-grader's instinct for the brilliant riposte came back with I'm-rubber-you're-glue:  “You're the puppet.”

Instead of looking into the issue of Trump's collusion with Russian election interference, the media covered it as if it were all wrestling trash talk:

She mocked him. After Mr. Trump said President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had “no respect” for her, Mrs. Clinton slyly posited why Mr. Putin seemingly preferred Mr. Trump: “He’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States,” she said.

In the third and final presidential debate, Mrs. Clinton outmaneuvered Mr. Trump with a surprising new approach: his.

As long as it's entertaining, who cares if it's fixed?

....When Mrs. Clinton called him a puppet of Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump offered a limp interruption.

“No puppet. No puppet,” he said. “You’re the puppet,” he added, emptily. He never explained what he might have meant.

Too bad the Times didn't bother to explain what she meant either and why it might be important, as indeed it was and is.

The irony is that while supposedly serious reporters cover the fight for our country as entertainment, entertainers are supplying the trenchant observations that elude our media hacks.  We now rely on Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers for sounding the alarm loud and clear, while our media geniuses tell tales of horse-races and circuses.

Those wits are funny in the sense that they make us laugh (and cry).  The media's preoccupation with the entertainment value of this election isn't funny at all.  It's sad and weird and scary.

It's great that the media is having fun, fun, fun.  But unlike the girl with Daddy's T-bird, their fun will be over if the Tangerine-Faced Felon is elected and Trump's Supreme Court, as threatened by Long Dong Thomas, overrules New York Times v. Sullivan, thus permitting any state in this online era to outlaw a free press.

Our media bloviators may be oblivious, but the end of freedom of speech in America would be no fun for anyone.

Unity Republican style: One land, one people, one Leader

By Political Editor David Bloviator with Spy Archivist Aula Minerva

The message of last week's Republican National Convention was summed up in one word by them and their faithful media stenographers:

Unity.

At least that's what you read in the papers:

The press fell for the 'new Trump' narrative again at the RNC. My latest examines how this recurring 'pivot' fantasy distorts political coverage and undermines journalism. We've seen this show before; it's time for the media to learn from history. https://t.co/dfNSFgpaVG

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) July 19, 2024

Ms. Malloy was among a small minority of sentient beings who wasn't buying it:

Trump's RNC speech, far from being the dramatic pivot many in the media anticipated, largely adhered to his established rhetorical patterns. While the speech opened with calls for unity and healing, it quickly devolved into familiar territory of divisive language, attacks on political opponents, and controversial policy positions.

What's Parker complaining about?

He promised “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country,” he railed against “crazy Nancy Pelosi,” took swipes at transgender athletes, referenced fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter, and falsely claimed that the 2020 election was stolen. This was not a speech built on “unity,” but on vengeance. This was a Donald Trump production, through and through. 

Oh.

Meanwhile, over at the weekly gasbag hootenanny known as Washington Week, conventional-wisdom dispenser McKay Coppins expressed amazement over how the Tangerine-Faced Grifter and his party of angry white supremacists promised unity but delivered the same old s***. To her credit, Laura Barrón-López expressed amazement that anyone could be amazed. Coppins tried to interrupt her, but she got her point across.

The surprise to us is that fossils like Coppins and other old white men are surprised by the age-old Republican combination of proclaiming unity while stoking hate and division.

In 1972, with the country torn to pieces by the Vietnam War, prolonged pointlessly by Republican Dick Nixon, not to mention the unfinished business of civil and women's rights, the Republicans, gathering in Miami Beach proclaimed Unity:

The great Republican unifier, 1972

MIAMI BEACH, Aug. 19 —.., Republicans moved sedately through the heat here today toward their tamest national convention in years.

The delegates gathered, partied and worked without any doubt about the harmonious renomination of President Nixon and Vice President Agnew at the 30th quadrennial Republican convention next week. Moreover, they found it Impossible to entertain even a doubt about their re‐election next November. 

....some conservatives....accept the dominant White House strategy for this convention: to portray the President as the spokesman for the vast majority of Americans in contrast to the “radical clique” that “captured” the Democratic party and nominated Senator George McGovern to oppose the President.

 Ah, yes, that radical clique that sought to end the pointless slaughter in Vietnam (proven right by history), show mercy to those who resisted the draft (accomplished by Jimmy Carter five years later), and secure reproductive freedom for women (enjoyed for 50 years until unraveled by a bent Republican Supreme Court).  

In his acceptance speech, Nixon, who had already committed numerous crimes to grease his re-election, called on all Americans to  join him, and then went on to attack George McGovern for supposedly advocating surrender in Vietnam.  (Nixon had already tabled a proposal in Paris to withdraw all American troops in exchange for POW's and a cease-fire, allowing massive North Vietnamese armed forces to remain armed in South Vietnam.  It was in effect surrender on the installment plan).

His own speech went on to decry the supposed evils of quotas and court-ordered desegregation, both intended to remedy 350 years of white supremacy, whose continuation he had embraced to flip Southern white racist voters.  It worked.

Twenty-four months later, Nixon, his criminality evident and the Supreme Court unwilling to pervert the law to benefit him (so unlike today!), he resigned in disgrace.

Twelve years later, Republican Ronald Reagan presided over a similar unity-fest at his convention.  He had perfected the Republican unity one-two.

First, shiny if kitschy verbiage designed to hide his divisive efforts to foster racism, and bust the deficit by financing tax cuts for the rich with borrowed money:

Recalling how he cast his 1980 campaign as a ''national crusade to make America great again,'' [Sound familiar? – Ed.] Mr. Reagan recounted the progress of what had once seemed a long-shot political agenda of reshaping national economic policies and initiating a huge military buildup in conjunction with a more muscular foreign policy.

Unity tastes smooth and mild, Reagan said

Mr. Reagan asserted: ''Now it's all coming together. With our beloved nation at peace, we are in the midst of a springtime of hope for America. Greatness lies ahead of us.''

(That muscular foreign policy led to the pointless sacrifice of 241 US troops blown to bits in Lebanon, a debacle that the Great Unifier managed to flush down the memory hole along with the brutal inflation and recession of his first two years in office.)

After the requisite paean to unity came the raw meat (including referring to the specter of an especially terrifying Democrat named Jesse Jackson) from his supposedly patrician moderate mainstream Establishment VP, some guy named George Bush (that name will come back later):

He affirmed the Administration's commitment to conservative issues such as school prayer. ''President Reagan and I think,'' he added, ''that it's time that we worried less about the criminals and more about the victims of crime.''

The Vice President continued as the party's challenger to issues raised by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader who sought the Democratic Presidential nomination.

''I heard that speaker in San Francisco last month exhorting his fellow Democrats with the cry: 'Our time has come. Our time has come,' '' Mr. Bush said. ''The American people have a message for the tax raisers, the free spenders, the excess regulators, the Government-knows-best handwringers, those who would promise every special interest group everything, and that message is this: 'Your time has passed. Your time has passed.'

Of course, had government squarely taken on pressing threats like global warming in 1984, when we could have done something about it, the Earth would not be boiling today.

Finally, to 2004, with the disastrous Iraq War collapsing into bloody pointless stalemate, great unifying Republican President George W. Bush brought the nation together by pretending to be a heroic wartime leader  and not the weak clueless fraud who had blundered the nation into war and failed to protect it from 9/11, while smearing his opponent, who bravely opposed the Vietnam War after returning from combat, was somehow a traitor and a coward:

Republicans ended their convention yesterday on a confident note, optimistic that they had framed the debate for the fall campaign around President Bush's strengths as a wartime president -- and that they had succeeded in raising significant doubts about Senator John Kerry with slashing attacks on the Democrat as too indecisive and liberal to lead. ...

Mission: unity.  Accomplished?  Not so much

But Republican strategists have succeeded, at the moment, in setting the terms of the debate, forcing Mr. Kerry not only into defending his security credentials but also into undertaking a tough and possibly risky attack on Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney even before the Republicans had left New York.

The Republicans clearly believed that their decision to hold their convention just four miles from ground zero, to hold it unusually late in the campaign year and to use it to cast Mr. Bush as a tested commander in chief for perilous times, opposed by an untrustworthy alternative, had paid off. 

 Meanwhile, on the convention floor, the Republican delegates, then as now fond of prop bandages, wore tiny Band-Aids with purple hearts on them, mocking the Purple Hearts John Kerry earned for his service in Vietnam (while their boy George earned his rails flying around Texas in his no-combat National Guard post). 

With precedents like this, why should anyone have been surprised when Republicans throw away the unity script and seek to divide the country along its traditional racial, ethnic, class, and religious fault lines?

There's nothing wrong with pointing out the differences between you and your opponents, although it would be nice if some of it were true.  But Republicans shouldn't be allowed to piss on our legs and then proclaim themselves as the party of the morning dew.

Indeed this whole unity bushwa seems like a crock when there are fundamental issues on the line.  As usual, you won't find our great pundits pointing out this obvious truth.  You have to go to the best source for rational political commentary in this time: comedians.

This is such a good point. "Division" is such a silly thing to complain about. Like, okay, if you think "being divided" is its own massive problem (rather than WHAT people are divided over), you're welcome to adopt my point of view. Polarization solved! https://t.co/yOVcKUeMFQ

— Josh Gondelman (@joshgondelman) July 21, 2024

They're here for another 107 days. Try the democracy, one last time.

Good and dead: Climate change denying Trump backer, lousy pilot, and mainstream Republican dead at 89

The obituary page of The Massachusetts Spy

By Obituary Editor Luke Reschuss with Plains Correspondent Jacy Farrow

By the time he died at 89, Sen. Jim Inhofe had faded into well-deserved obscurity.  His life was utterly without redeeming value, entertainment or otherwise, but we pause to mark his final crash landing to remind our readers that the Republican Party didn't fly into the ground in 2016.  

It was a wreck long before.

The normally staid New York Times summed up Inhofe's 40-year career:

Sometimes called Capitol Hill’s most conservative politician, Mr. Inhofe opposed abortion, L.G.B.T.Q. rights, health care legislation and campaign-finance reforms while supporting the death penalty, gun rights, counterterrorism powers, offshore oil drilling and constitutional amendments to require balanced budgets and ban flag desecration. 

All causes he furthered immensely in his 29 years in the US Senate, which began in 1994 and the seven prior years, when he served as a Congressman.

For all those decades he swam in the toxic mainstream of the Republican Party, ending his career as Chairman or Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Service Committee.  In an era in which forceful action could have avoided the current climate catastrophe now consuming the Earth, Sen. Inhofe claimed, falsely of course, that it was a liberal fraud:

 His efforts, financed by his funders in the fossil fuel industry, paralyzed most efforts to limit the damage of global warming.  He's dead now, but we're still broiling.

Of course, in addition to his loathsome political views, he was, like any Republican, a cheap hypocrite:

He was criticized for voting against federal disaster-relief funding after hurricanes hit the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts, but he voted for federal relief for victims of tornadoes and other disasters in his home state.  

Ya don't say.

Like his fellow hard-right corrupt white male plutocrats, he believed that law was something that bound only the poor and powerless.  As a private pilot, he presumably was aware of his legal responsibility to comply with all federal regulations, including the one about making sure the pilot has all relevant information before firing up his plane.

The reason for the regulation is to prevent accidents, possibly fatal, like this one:

The FAA has confirmed it is investigating the Oct 21 incident in which Inhofe landed a Cessna 340 on an occupied closed runway at Port Isabel-Cameron County Airport, Texas, He was reportedly carrying three others in the light twin when he made the landing on a runway bearing oversized painted Xs, a large red truck, other vehicles, and construction workers. The workers were using loud equipment at the time and didn’t hear the plane’s approach, so one person ran to warn them. A supervisor immediately reported the incident to the FAA and told TulsaWorld.com he was “still shaking” when he reached the hangar to confront the pilot. For his part, Inhofe said he didn’t see the Xs until late on final and was concerned he might not be able to abort safely. He said he landed “well off to the side” of the workers.  

Had he complied with his legal responsibility to review relevant notices to airmen (NOTAM's), readily available at that time through a simple DUATS computer-based briefing, he would have learned that the runway was in fact closed.  But doing ten minutes of work to avoid risking the lives of his passengers and those on the ground is for peons, not Republican Senators:

A long-time pilot, Inhofe's disregard for safety rules was legendary

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) says he won’t guarantee he’ll be more vigilant about checking NOTAMs after he landed on a closed runway occupied by maintenance workers ten days ago in Texas. “People who fly a lot just don’t do it,” Inhofe told the Tulsa World. “I won’t make any commitments.” Inhofe added that while “technically” pilots should “probably” check NOTAMs, it would be impractical for him to do so on the many flights he makes to small airports in Oklahoma each year.

By the way, this is horse****.  Pilots who fly for a living read the NOTAM's before every takeoff.  So do private pilots.  

When the FAA had the temerity to do its federally-mandated job of investigating life-threatening unlawful acts, Inhofe decided to retaliate:

Senator James Inhofe, who last October landed on a closed runway that had vehicles and people on it for which he received a remedial training order from the FAA, Wednesday introduced a bill to protect pilots from “agency overreach.” 

By the way, the only sanction he received from the deep state was an order to take some remedial training, presumably so he could recognize the letter ‘X.’

Had this blatant violation of law occurred now, of course, rich white men like Inhofe could appeal any adverse action to his fellow bent Republicans on the Supreme Court who would apply their their own (or Harlan Crow's or Leonard Leo's) judgment about pilot training and aeronautics without any requirement to defer to what the expert agency thinks.

Inhofe was ultimately an insignificant if sh****y individual whose inglorious life would deserve to be forgotten.  But what is remarkable about Inhofe is how unremarkable he is.

He is representative of the last two generations of reactionary Republican grandees who never let law or science get in the way of their exercise of power to advance themselves and their rich corporate financiers.  The corruption and arrogance he represented was inherited by the Tangerine-Faced Felon who today complains about electrocution from sinking electric boats instead of trying to rescue what remains of the Earth.

Inhofe thought he was entitled to land on a closed runway occupied by construction workers because he was a rich white man.  The Tangerine-Faced Felon believes he has the right to rape his companions, steal government secrets, and overthrow the US government for the same reason.

There's no difference, despite what our 12 newly-minted Wonderful Republican Allies say. 

And if you want to see and feel Inhofe's legacy, and that of his fellow Republicans, step outside and look around.  But maybe not in the midday sun, or in Las Vegas, where it was a tad toasty this week:

 

And if you're repaving a closed runway in the merciless summer heat, better keep an eye peeled.

From the Archives: When Law and Democracy Failed

Editors' Note: The news over the last few weeks has been, to put it mildly, not great, at least for anyone interested in the survival of democracy and the rule of law.  The bent Republican Supreme Court installed itself as the arbiter of all Executive Branch action.  Then it declared that the Constitution, despite explicit provision to the contrary, put the President above the criminal law.  Then it began to appear as if the election would be delivered to the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who proposes mobilizing heavily-armed troops to round up, incarcerate, and deport undocumented men, women, and children.  Finally, while no one was looking, the Tangerine-Faced Felon's brain trust, to use the term loosely, proposed a national abortion ban, including criminalizing the use or interstate shipment of safe, effective abortion medication.  At this rate we may find ourselves in 2025 facing the collapse of both the rule of law and democratic government.  What then?

Amazingly enough, it's happened before in the 254-year history of the Spy.   How did we respond?  Sometimes, pretty well, as recounted in this issue from 1854.

Adv. - Lecture Tonight: “The Papist Threat” at Durgin-Park Market Dining Rooms.  Free coffee-flavored gelatin with purchase of six draft ales. ⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻             June 3, 1854                  The Voice of Liberty Since 1770                       One Cent ⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻ By a Concerned Son of Liberty The infernal claws of the Slave Power once again reached their blood-drenched talons into the Cradle of Liberty with the arrest of a free and peaceable Negro man, one Anthony Burns, for the crime of seeking to engage in the rights of all men to live freely and peaceably in these United States. THE KIDNAPPERS ARE IN OUR MIDST! In this odious work the Slave Power was aided immeasurably by the Federal Government under the dithering “leadership” of New Hampshire's shame, Franklin Pierce. In violation of every dictate of natural and God's law, Pierce's minions carried out the cruel instructions of Mr. Burns's slavemaster, who had learned that Mr. Burns had escaped his bondage and had found gainful employment in the free City of Boston. The outrage transpired thusly: on the 24th one U.S. Commissioner Edward G. Loring issued a warrant purportedly authorizing the arrest of Anthony Burns on the claim of Charles F. Suttle of Alexandria, Va. alleging that Mr. Burns was a fugitive from his “service” (by which Mr. Suttle meant enslavement). On the evening of that day, deputies of the United States Marshal apprehended Mr. Burns at the corner of Brattle and Court Streets, not on suspicion of commission of a crime, but solely due to Mr. Burns's supposed status as a “chattel property” of the eminent Virginian. The next morning at a hearing held for the sole purposes of establishing Mr. Suttle's claim to his “property” (by which was meant the sentient human Anthony Burns),  and not for any purpose related to the administration of justice, Mr. Burns requested an adjournment of one day so that he could procure counsel, as his life and liberty were at stake in the instant proceedings, and was granted an adjournment of one day and held in custody. That evening (Friday) an immense meeting of concerned citizens was held at Faneuil Hall and spilled out into the Quincy Market and adjoining public spaces.  Among the many distinguished Bostonians addressing the assemblage were Theodore Parker and Wendell Phillips. Whilst Mr. Phillips was holding forth, magnificently in the view of his audience, a voice from the gallery cried out that a large body of Negroes were storming the Court House to rescue Mr. Burns and spirit him to a place of refuge. The Reverend Phillips' exhortations to avoid violence even in a cause as worthy as Mr. Burns's fell on some deaf ears, the owners of which adjourned to Court Square to support the efforts of liberation.   The guards had locked and fortified the Court House, and from a third floor window a pistol shot rang out.  This excited the crowd, which procured a large joist with which to break down the door.  The accomplices of the kidnapper, all armed to the teeth, resisted the crowd. At this juncture a posse of constabulary from the Center Watch House arrived and arrested several in the crowd.  Further pistol shots were heard, once of which reportedly found its mark and mortally struck one of the kidnappers named James Batchelder.  It was not clear whether he had been felled by fire from the crowd or from one of his own accomplices, which would be a fitting end for such as he.  (Later examination by medical officers determined that he had been stabbed by persons unknown.) The next morning at 11, the hearing resumed before Commissioner Loring.  Mr. Burns appeared well, although he carries upon his person the marks and scars inflicting by his brutal master, whom has been reliably reported to be among the most inhuman slavers in the Alexandria area, which must be indeed a hotly-contested laurel.  Mr. Burns appeared at the hearing in hand cuffs and closely guarded by five rough-looking deputies.  His counsel sought and received a further adjournment to Monday morning, despite the protestations of the kidnappers' counsel, who noted that these proceedings were intended to be “summary,” or in other words, that if the law were applied as intended, the proceedings would not be sullied by even the appearance of justice. THE UNFORTUNATE MAN WHO SOUGHT LIBERTY Also that Saturday in the Police Court, nine alleged rioters were arraigned, although no witnesses appeared against them.  The nine were remanded into custody to await the production of evidence, if any, against them. On Monday, a contingent of lovers of liberty from Worcester arrived in Court Square and there paraded peacefully.  While Mayor Smith urged Bostonians to cooperate in the maintenance of peace and good order, even if such good order entailed the return of Mr. Burns to bondage, Alderman Williams tabled a resolution calling on the Mayor to instruct U.S. Judge Sprague to release Mr. Burns and for the contingent of Marines aiding and abetting the kidnappers to stand down.  By a vote of six to five, the resolution was defeated. In court that day, it transpired that a group of worthy men of business had subscribed for a total of $1,200 to purchase Mr. Burns's freedom from his enslaver.  The kidnappers however, desolated by the potential loss of their ransom, refused to release Mr. Burns at any price.  Without remedy from an unjust law, and with the city occupied by heavily armed Federal troops, the proceedings soon reached their dismal conclusion:  Mr. Burns was turned over to the tender mercies of his slaver and marched in manacles through the silent streets of Boston to a waiting Federal revenue cutter, which had been detailed from its ordinary and valuable public services to enable the re-enslavement of Mr. Burns. How much longer the citizens of this Commonwealth will be willing to permits such outrages to be perpetrated within its boundaries by vicious, greedy men aided by specimens such as Franklin Pierce, willing to prostrate himself before the Slave Power, is anyone's guess. What your correspondent knows for sure though is that this status quo is intolerable to all men who treasure liberty over the operation of a monstrous and unjust law. Information from Rev. Phillips's Liberator was used in the preparation of this dispatch. ************************************************************************************************ ADVT: Comely Irish lasses sought for interesting work at gentlemen's club.  Friendly, open disposition a requirement.  Free room and board for the right girls.   Apply in person at Somerset Club, Beacon St.  Ask for Mr. Apley.