As of today, the much-anticipated sale of the Twitter social media platform to Elon Musk is a done deal.

Twitter joins SpaceX and Tesla in Musk’s stable of wholly-owned subsidiaries. Heads have already rolled as Musk has already relieved top Twitter execs Parag Agrawal, Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde of their jobs, and given to the door name painter some additional work, as corporate takeovers usually do.

But uppermost in the mind of Tweeters and non-tweeters alike is when will TFG get reinstated on the platform as promised by Musk? When can we expect the Twitinsanity to resume? TFG himself has already claimed that he will be “back” on Halloween.

Surprisingly apt timing to say the least.

Me? I am an occasional tweeter but it is not central to my core being. So I have vowed to cancel my Twitter account the minute I hear of TFG’s account being reinstated.

Mainly what I’ll miss is the occasional missives by Mr. Sulu (aka George Takei).

Sorry, Mr. Sulu. I have standards.

Here in The Other Washington’s 3rd CD, the race gets curiouser and curiouser. The local newpaper is on the story. MAGA Candidate Joe Kent, who ousted incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler because she had the decency to vote to impeach TFG, has run into a wee bit of trouble. It certainly won’t stop his big backers from spending ridiculous amounts of money to elect him, but people are taking note. It seems the tech company he claims to work for, American Enterprise Solutions, couldn’t be verified. Now, Joe is a former Green Beret and CIA employee, so maybe it’s a top secret operation.

The Daily Beast put its staffers on the trail after an anti-Kent website posed the questions. They couldn’t find American Enterprise Solutions in filings for patents, trademarks, licenses, websites or online presence or any government or private wireless contracts. Of course, Joe first blamed the messenger when confronted, claiming the story was “fraudulent” but later reversed course. The tech company changed its name to Advanced Enterprise Solutions. Just a typo. A little mistake. His W-2s for 2020 and 2021, shown as proof, didn’t clear things up as well as he thought they would. Two different names, Advanced Enterprise Solutions of Milford, DE and Advanced Enterprise Solutions LLC of Herndon, VA. Just a little discrepancy in names. But wait, there’s more: The company Federal Employee ID was on one form, but redacted on the second, so who can compare? And neither name matches a registration document filed with the VA State Corporation Commission. That one is Advanced Enterprise Solutions Group LLC, a Delaware Company operating in Virginia.

Oh yeah, in true Trumpian style, that company’s annual registration fee was past due and listed as “pending inactive”…until today, when it was changed to “active”. Just a coincidence, I’m sure. And for a last bit of curious, a DC law firm stated that Kent is “employed by a US company that wishes not to be identified”. Maybe because they don’t know what the heck to call themselves?

Most of you are familiar with Texas Republican Congressfool Dan Crenshaw. He is also know as The Pirate of Rejected Marvel Characters.

Crenshaw is a particular brand of weird, picturing himself as the Jack Ryan of cartoon characters.  He cuts commercials where he’s a rambunctious threatener of all things progressive.

Okay, so knowing how much Dan thinks of himself, I stumbled on this and found it to be … uh, not a whole bunch odd.

Knowing how much guys like Dan want to return to their glory days instead of being stuck as a “I get no serious respect” congressman seems attractive.

And being as how Republicans dream of the sublime days of Herbert Hoover, wanting a time machine is certainly frisky inducing.

But here’s my problem. If you rent it, how do you get back? It seems to me that you’d want to take it with you just in case a slight miscalculation ends you up in Pompeii on volcano day. Or in Hitler’s bunker? I mean, it would be no problem socially for Republicans but if I recall correctly and I think I do, things do not end well.

Anyway, I looked it up and Dan spent also $2,500 to rent a DeLorean, which certainly seems like a legitimate campaign expense.  I kinda feel certain that we’ll see it in one of his commercials pretty soon.

I think our best hope is that Dan will calculate his trip back in time with all the efficiency of a MAGA administration. We can always hope he’ll end up fighting Grant at the Battle of Shiloh, which oh dear god, would be just ever so fitting.

So Justice Sam Alito is playing the world’s smallest violin and threatening to cry me a river.

Justice Samuel Alito said that the leak of his draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade made his colleagues in the majority on the U.S. Supreme Court “targets for assassination.”

Gee, Sam, for a man who supported loosening gun laws you sound a little whiny. Thanks to you and your conservative buddies, we have first graders who are targets of assassination.

First, let me tell you that he expressed his appalling paranoia in a speech at The Heritage Society, which shows he has even less moral courage than he does judicial character.

His second whine was about Elena Kagan saying that the court’s “legitimacy is threatened when long-standing precedence is discarded.” Oh Honey, Alito quivered like jello over that. He just got himself all twisted every which way and starts talking about crossing lines.

“Someone also crosses an important line when they say that the court is acting in a way that is illegitimate. I don’t think anybody in a position of authority should make that claim lightly,” Alito said. “That’s not just ordinary criticism. That’s something very different.”

I know. I know, sweet reader, you’re rolling your eyes. Alito and Trump’s Dump of Justices have absolutely no place to criticize someone crossing a line. The line is about fifty yards behind them.

I’m just gonna stop for minute right here and take a breath. It’s as good a time as any to show Alito shaking his head no during a state of the union address when President Barack Obama called out the Citizens United decision.

And then the icing on the cake:

Alito has deep concerns over expanding the size of the court.

“If Congress were to change the size of the court and the public perceived that the reason for changing the size of the court was to influence decisions in future cases,” Alito asked. “What would that do to the public perception of our independence and our legitimacy?”

Whoa there, cowboy. You think holding up Obama’s nominee for a year until after Obama leaves office and then approving Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination overnight to replace Ginsberg didn’t reflect poorly on the makeup of the court?

I know Alito ain’t that stupid so it’s gotta be insanity. That, or he’s taken up beer drinking with Kavanaugh.

The Heritage Society. Give me a damn break, you stinkin’ coward.

(I’m sorry this was so long but I didn’t have time for a short one.)

A friend asked me who I thought would win the governor’s race in Texas. We know who is going to win the governor’s race in Texas. We knew before Beto even entered the race. We knew it was Greg Abbott no matter what was said in any debate, any ad, or anything that might happen between then and election day.

Abbott has been governor for eight years. Ignore the thousands of deaths during COVID. Ignore the dozens of deaths during the great freeze. Ignore the numerous children killed in school shootings. Think back to any of the Abbott ads on the radio or television. Have any of them touted anything he has actually done as governor? How sad is it for a guy to basically run on the platform of “my opponent is too extreme” when he’s been governor for eight years?

One particular ad had a woman who lost her son to murder. The murderer had been let out on bail by the judge. The Abbott campaign is using this as a reason not to vote for Beto. Huh? The governor doesn’t set bail and Beto hasn’t held elective office since running for Senate in 2018. By any reasonable measure, Abbott has been a horrible governor and he is going to win re-election. Many around the state have given him the nickname Governor Death and he is going to win re-election. Dan Patrick has been a horrible lieutenant governor and he is going to win.

If you want any further proof then consider the case of Hershel Walker in Georgia. He is within the margin of error and he can’t find a coherent thought with a flashlight and road map. He actually flashed a toy badge on stage during the debate and said he was a cop. He paid off a girlfriend to get an abortion and tried to do it a second time and somehow claims to be pro-life. Yet, he could still win the Senate seat there.

It’s easy to blame gerrymandering and restrictive voter laws in these situations and that’s true to a certain extent. I’m sure that peels off five to ten percentage points and that can be enough in a number of races. However, we have to ask ourselves why that is enough when considering candidates like this. We have to ask why an attorney general that has been under indictment for his entire term will get another one.

Somewhere along the line we have to look inside and ask ourselves why a party that continually puts up smarter candidates with smarter policy ideas seem to lose to these dullards. These are policy ideas that a majority of the population support. There must be something else. I personally think it is a combination of things. I think it’s a combination of really bad branding like “defund the police” and other catch phrases that just backfire. It’s also the relative ease of taking things like “wokeness” and weaponizing it against the left. Most people don’t honestly care about gay marriage, transsexuals, or other issues one way or another. They are just tired of being told they aren’t sensitive enough.

Cohesive communication isn’t easy, but the Republicans have managed to do it for decades. Break it all down and it’s incredibly simple but it is darn effective. You find something that resonates and you keep repeating it. That’s what we don’t do. We are everywhere. We talk about climate change, the wealth gap, equality issues, saving democracy, and helping out kids with college, health care, and gun control. I know I’m leaving stuff out. It’s time to find a cohesive message that works and stick to it.

Okay, so here’s how this works.

Pop-Up Super PACs register with the FEC so late in the election cycle that they won’t disclose their donors until after the election.

This one just registered with the FEC using the most generic name possible: ABC PAC

Oops, no points for creativity.

See that email address?   Datwyler’s FEC accounting firm was acquired by Republican political consultant Jeff Roe’s Axiom Strategies in September.

Kansas City-based Axiom Strategies LLC, the largest U.S. Republican consulting firm, wrapped up its second acquisition within about a week.

Axiom announced Wednesday that it acquired 9Seven Consulting, a political compliance firm specializing in federal and state reporting, compliance, accounting and treasury services, according to a release.

“Tom Datwyler and 9Seven provide the highest level of campaign finance services, and their skillset and expertise will play an integral role in Axiom’s growth. We look forward to the entire 9Seven staff joining our company,” Axiom founder and CEO Jeff Roe said in the release.

When the Super PAC starts running ads saying that Candidate X is a pedophile the disclaimers on the ads will simply say “Paid for by ABC PAC.  Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.”

Candidate X won’t know who paid to destroy his political career until the Super PAC files its Post-Election Report . . . in December.

That right there is how Republican shenanigans work. So, for this election we know they’re coming but we don’t know when or where.  Makes your head spin, don’t it?