18 April—Good Friday, dear readers. Connecticut was unconstitutionally dilatory in finally disestablishing the Congregational Church in 1818 and remains a distinctly Christian state (like all the others, as if you didn’t know). The state is officially closed to celebrate [sic, because death is a necessary precursor to resurrection] Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. But it’s only since the early 1970s that you can legally buy booze at retail establishments (commonly known as package stores only in New England) on Good Friday. So, l’chaim.

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It was at about 11 o’clock 250 years ago tonight, somewhere around the Old North Church in Boston, that Paul Revere commanded his faithful palfrey, “Hi-Yo, Silver!” gave him lots of leg, and set off to alert residents and militiamen in the Massachusetts Bay Province towns of Lexington and Concord that the Brits were on the way. Neither history nor Longfellow records the name of Revere’s horse. but since Revere was a silversmith . . .

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Among the high crimes and misdemeanors being perpetrated by the very worst and most corrupt president ever to have embarrassed America, Donald Trump wants to force the Internal Revenue Service to remove the tax exemption of Harvard University and other totally legitimate nonprofits that he has problems with. That’s what dictators do. One hopes he won’t get away with it. Or any of his other abuses of power.

So Trump, who has boasted about not paying taxes—“That makes me smart!”—and has actually been convicted of tax fraud wants to make others do what he hasn’t been doing. And that’s the scumbag a very small majority of voters chose as President. Doesn’t speak at all well of the American electorate. Or of his opponents,

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Connecticut Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas, a Democrat (of course), has been taken to task by Republicans for off-handedly, at a registrars’ convention, referring to the Trump administration’s tactics as similar to the “Nazi SS.” Shame on her.

Because Mme. Secretary meant the Nazi Gestapo. Technically, Steph wasn’t wrong, mind you, since the Gestapo was in fact a part of the SS. But the SS (Schutzstaffel—protection squad) was a wide-ranging paramilitary organization that did everything from intelligence gathering to running concentration camps.

The Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei—secret state police), on the other hand, was primarily responsible for political repression and persecution, specifically targeting political opponents of Hitler and the things he espoused. Sound familiar?