Poor misunderstood Ted Cruz can’t catch a break. Capitol watchdogs keep attacking Teddy’s own grift gathering media presence on his iHeartMedia-sponsored podcast by saying such unfair things like “This is not an arrangement we’ve seen before, and it seems like Senator Cruz is trying to find a way to walk the line between not falling into an ethics violation and not falling into a campaign finance violation.” 

But TFG must be fuming. What must The Don think about all of this grift not flowing his way? Not even getting to wet his beak a little?

Cruz’s latest reporting to the FEC, thanks to Alfredo at the Dairy Queen, had a whopping $156,185.72 in digital revenue sent to his Truth and Courage PAC. That plus the last reporting period gives an aggregate sum of $370,938.70.

Not bad for a podcast.

And not that a cool 370 large is chicken feed, but wait until The Convicted Felon hears about what Sheldon Adelson’s widow, Dr. Miriam Adelson did for Cruz’s PAC.

Yep. Seven figures. A cool million from The Las Vegas Sands…er…a successful medical practice…that did NOT go to TFG, even after The Former Guy decorated Dr. Adelson with a Medal of Freedom.

What’s a corrupt grifting former President to do? You hand out these hunks of metal and they repay you by donating to one of your former opponents whose dad helped kill JFK?

And that is the best thing I can say about Ted Cruz’s grift: at least TFG didn’t get it.

In times past, we Americans liked to find out how many college football players we could stuff in a phone booth. Or a VW Bug. Or any old cramped space.

But call me naive, others have, I just don’t get why you have to stuff mail from three separate political entities, all with the same address, in the same rented mail box.

Or why you would want to.

OK. One thing I can come up with is cost cutting. That’s a no-brainer. People who raise money for political causes need to trim their outgo so their income is maximized.

At this one mailing address, we have three political organizations getting mail:

1305 W. 11th St. #217 Houston, TX.

Here is an FEC record for the 1st (click to make bigly):

Here is an FEC record for the 2nd (same deal):
Here is the website for the 3rd (as above):

All three groups receive mail at one single rented mailbox at Post and Mail 4U

The addressee for the first group we know. He is Les Williamson. Williamson is a former finance director for the NRSC. I have no idea who Katie Reid is, whose name appears on the second FEC record. But apparently Les and Katie both bank at Chain Bridge Bank, NA 1445-A Laughlin Ave., McLean, Virginia 22101.
 
The 3rd group Stand for America is a PAC founded by former Ambassador Nikki Haley. They will also gladly take your money to fight socialism and stuff.

So why does it seem so slimy to me?

CNN is hosting the first live presidential debate between President Biden and TFG next week, and I already have my DVR set and my popcorn bought.

Next week.

Not September.

Not after even one nominating convention officially nominates a single presidential candidate. And no 3rd, 4th, or 5th party candidates will be invited to debate. It’s just Biden and The Convicted Felon.

There are lots of new features to the debate that Americans are unused to. There will be two commercial breaks in 90 minutes, but no conferences with campaign staff can occur during them. There will be no opening statements and 2 minute closing statements. Microphones will be muted except for the one candidate who has the floor. Debaters will have no prepared notes. And there will be no live audience.

My only question: Will He Show Up?

All through his criminal trial, TFG was adamant that he wanted to testify:

“Yeah, I would testify, absolutely,” 

“I’m testifying. I tell the truth, I mean, all I can do is tell the truth. And the truth is that there is no case. They have no case.”

And then later, TFG hedged, saying that his 1st Amendment rights were being denied him because of his gag order, prompting Judge Merchan to state that his gag order did not cover TFG’s testifying on his own behalf.

Then, after the jury returned 34 felony convictions, TFG explained: “I would have liked to have testified, but you would have said something out of whack like ‘it was a beautiful sunny day,’ and it was actually raining out.”

It is that progression of argument, plus the fact that the rules of the CNN debate are so stacked against The Former Guy’s preferred method of outburst and obfuscation, that I just don’t think that, in the end, there will be a debate next week.

Am I wrong?

Sometimes I feel sorry for Marjorie Taylor Greene. Well, not really, but sometimes I like to say so because I consider myself a fair-minded person. But MTG makes it just too damned hard.

So I was mildly amused to find out that this past January, the Georgia Congressman found herself in Kissimmee, Florida with nowhere to go.

Her event that Saturday was canceled because the venue, The Westgate Resort, figured out that the Republican Party of Osceola County was going to mark the 3rd anniversary of the January 6 Insurrection at their property, and that just wouldn’t do.

So she found herself in the middle of Florida with nowhere to go, and her car’s trunk full of boxes of copies of her book, “MTG”, published by Winning Team Publishing, a company co-founded by Donald, Jr., one of a constellation of publications of a similar ilk. She was going to sign them for her adoring fans at the resort.

But alas.

Not to worry, though. A mere 83 miles down the highway was Ormond Beach, Florida, and there an event was featured that she was welcomed to attend, as well as set up a table to plug her book and take in lucre.

The event was a fundraiser for RD Club 40, a nonprofit group that partnered with Bikers Against Trafficking.

MTG. At a Biker Bar. In Ormond Beach.

This was months before Jasmine Crockett (D TX-30) dutifully dubbed the demonic diva her well-deserved 6B appellation.

But it is still worth noting that this event certainly was an example of a Bleached Blonde Bad Built Butch Body at a Beach Biker Bar.

Oooh. That’s a lot of alliteration.

Justice Clarence Thomas has found that an AR style rifle that is equipped with a bump stock, allowing it to spray 1000 rounds of rifle bullets in 11 minutes, is not a machine gun.

He used one word to differentiate what was used to kill 58 people in Las Vegas in October 2017 from, say, an M60 machine gun.

Function.

A “function” of a trigger is not the same as a “pull” of a trigger. When you pull the trigger of an M60 machine gun with a trigger finger, it fires a spray of bullets until you take your finger off the trigger. If you pull a trigger of an AR style rifle equipped with a bump stock, it fires a spray of bullets, but it is the bump stock that maintains the spraying.

Defining a weapon’s functionality based on its trigger, and not based on how many bullets the weapon fires per minute – or per second – is no sane way to define a weapon’s functionality.

But it is the way that 6 Supreme Court Justices define it.

So since the Vegas mass murderer pulled the trigger of his AR only once, that means he’s not – technically – a mass murderer, right?