21 July—We welcome Penny Mudgett to her new job as Litchfield’s assessor and wish her the best of luck in the toxic workplace town hall has become in recent years. (And it ain’t getting any better.) Chris Kelsey, Middlebury’s permanent assessor and Litchfield’s interim assessor for the four years since the previous permanent assessor left because of the unbearable toxicity, was mercifully fired to make way for Penny, who comes to Litchfield from Oxford, where she’s been assessing for five years. Out of the frying pan?

Coincidentally, just as Litchfield called on Chris Kelsey as a temp while looking for a permanent assessor, Oxford has called on him as a temp while that town looks for a permanent assessor to replace Penny Mudgett.

Among coincidences, both Penny and Chris live in Woodbury. But not together.

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Fifty-six years ago today, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left the moon to return to Earth. One wonders if they’d have elected to stay on the moon had Donald Trump been president in 1969.

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On the subject of Donald Trump, then, there’s a crowd-funding effort afoot to raise $40 million in order to have him assassinated. No kidding. It seems that a week after Midnight Hammer bombed Iranian nuclear facilities (for whatever it may have been worth), Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi on 29 June issued a fatwa against Trump, whom the big Shia kahuna accused—with some justification—of being an “enemy of Allah.”

The fatwa called upon “Muslims of the world” to kill Trump, promising them rewards befitting “warriors of Allah.”

This is the full text of the fatwa. Translated, of course:

“In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

“Anyone—whether an individual or a regime—who threatens the Islamic Ummah [Muslims in general], its head of state, leadership, or marja [supreme religious authority], or attempts violence against them, is classified as a muharib [infidel combatant]. Any form of cooperation or support for such individuals or regimes is strictly haram [forbidden] for Muslims and Islamic governments.

“It is incumbent upon all Muslims across the world to cause the perpetrators to regret their words and deeds. Those who endure hardship or loss in doing so shall, God willing, be rewarded as befitting their efforts towards following the path of God.

“May Allah protect the Islamic community from harm inflicted by its enemies and hasten the reappearance of Imam Mahdi, may peace be upon him.

“I wish you success in every endeavor.“

Other cleric kahunas joined the fatwa frenzy. So a group called “Blood Covenant,” connected with a former kahuna in Iran’s state media but likely fully sanctioned by the government, pledged “to award the prize to whoever can bring the militants and those who threaten the life of the Deputy of Imam Mahdi (may our souls be sacrificed for him) to justice for their actions.”

The “call to jihad” and promise of profit or paradise (but presumably not both) evidently has religious legitimacy as it invites believers to donate their cash and sacrifice their lives to assassinate Trump. How many virgins await the late hero?

But don’t get your hopes up. The bad news is that should anything happen to Trump, the first in line to the Oval Office is Vance . . .