Today, TFG gave a new meaning to the term “Political Campaign Staff” when he blew up his interview at the NABJ24 Convention.
Starting late, as usual, The Orange One, managed to alienate the entire room with every racist remark. So much so that his staff ended the interview suddenly and early.
Someone finally gave one of his staffers a staff, also known as “the hook,” and got the bilious babbling blowhard off the stage.
He isn’t even trying anymore.
We all know the truth about TFG and his enablers – cruel, hateful, criminal, liars, threat to democracy, and more. But no real descriptor has stuck, at least until now. The term that stuck? Weird. That’s right, weird and it’s derivative, weirdo, is sticking like glue and it’s pissing them off. Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, got the party kicked off last week on MSNBC calling TFG and Fauxbilly “weird people.” Hillary picked it up on Twitter X with this little jewel: 
Let’s go through the weird list: People without children restricted from voting; people with children get an extra vote per child; government control of women’s menstrual cycle information; a nationwide abortion ban; short of a nationwide ban, pregnant women’s out of state travel should be monitored; jail sentences for doctors who provide reproductive care; jail sentences for women who get abortions; privatize schools; ban and burn “unacceptable books”; end marriage equality; ban medical treatment of transexual individuals; repeal Obamacare; impose Christianity on all Americans; ban Muslims from the country; mass deportations of immigrants; organize a private militia for the president; fire half of the federal employees, put loyalists in charge of all departments; politicize and weaponize the DOJ. It goes on and on, but this is a representative sample.
Republicans have weaponized language for decades, from “you hate the troops” to “death panels”, “death tax”, “pro life”, and many others. It’s nice that Dems have finally been able to turn at least a little of that back on them. The great thing about calling them weird? It’s because they are.
All of this hand-wringing over how many votes that TFG can get in swing states (where all American elections are truly decided) begs the question: Is Captain Shitzenpantz going to be able to vote for anyone?
He is, after all, a convicted felon.
After perusing this decision tree for Florida elections, it is clear that The One who depends on Depends cannot vote at all.
(click to make bigly)
See? It’s cut and dried, right?
If you believe that I have a golf club in New Jersey with no liquor license to sell to you.
You see, New Jersey can’t strip TFG of his liquor licenses permanently until he is sentenced in New York.
From The Brennan Center: “Since he was convicted in a New York state court, his eligibility to vote in Florida is governed by New York’s law, which allows everyone who’s not currently serving a sentence in prison to vote.“
So yes. TFG will be able to vote in Florida this November if he is not spending all of his time in Rikers. And, based on the past performance of our judicial system, the safe bet is that he will not be.
Now go and tell that to the 1 million convicted (non-voting) felons in Florida. I bet they’ll be thrilled.
So now we’re into the Olympics, and it’s being held in an even-numbered year for the first time in a while. I like to watch the swimming events because we humans are built for the land, not the water.
We have no fins. We have no tails.
And I like to watch the “exposition sports” that many present-day Olympic events started as. So the discussions that I have read on the internet, on what would make a good exposition event in the Olympics, gave me the giggles so much that I guess I have to share a few here.
Top Ten Suggestions For 2028 Exposition Olympic Events
1. Grocery bagging
2. Cat bathing
3. One-handed diaper changing
4. Parallel parking
5. Fitted sheet folding
6. IKEA furniture assembling
7. Driveway pressure washing
8. Blister pack opening
9. Sock skating
10. Hamberder eating (illustrated below).
Please excuse the iconoclastic use of Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” as a backdrop. It gives the event a certain je ne sais quoi.
In a oped piece in the Washington Post this morning, Joe Biden proposed common sense reforms to the SCOTUS. It would have been really nice had he proposed those 3 1/2 years ago rather than as a lame duck president, but it’s a badly needed proposal. In those years of dawdling, an obviously corrupted court has taken a hatchet to the Constitution and almost 250 years of settled law. The radical majority has been rapidly disassembling longstanding administrative law, voting rights, women’s rights to choose their own reproductive healthcare, gun safety laws, bribery laws, and longstanding understanding of Constitutional principles such as immunity. They’ve also actually invited parties to bring lawsuits to the court to speed up their destruction (see US v. Trump).
The problem with the court, though, is not just the last few years. The current crisis has been building since Reagan nominated Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia and GHWB nominated Clarence Thomas. Bork was the original originalist, believing the Constitution should only be interpreted through the Founders’ eyes, ignoring what happened between 1789 and current day. It’s idiotic. The concept is radical and has brought us some of the worst SCOTUS decisions since the disastrous Dred Scott decision in 1857 that ruled that the Constitution did not protect enslaved Americans.
Chief Justice John Roberts has presided over this abortion (pun intended) and has inexplicably defended not only the court’s decisions, but has steadfastly resisted oversite from the Legislative branch and reforming itself. He has allowed Thomas to flout both the law and common sense, ignoring the fact that he (as well as Alito) have been bought and paid for by partisan and corporate interests.
Even while acknowledging the crisis at the SCOTUS, Biden has been reluctant to step in. He started a commission to study the court and make recommendations, but three years later, he’s done nothing. Only now, after he became a lame duck, is he proposing long needed change. Beyond waiting WAY too long to propose changes to the court, there’s no chance that they’ll get a fair hearing in the legislature. The Insurrectionist Party, which clings to a tiny majority in the House, has no interest in doing anything beyond putting its collective nose up TFG’s diapered ass, so reform bills will no nowhere for now. They LOVE the Court as it is, and only a change in November will make reform of the Court possible.
What can we do? Vote. Every single incumbent and candidate who supports TFG or this court must be defeated. That, of course, is not going to happen in one election, but it’s a start. And that’s the only chance we have of pulling us back from the brink.
People are strange. When you’re a stranger, faces seem ugly when you’re alone. Okay, okay, I was getting into some Jim Morrison there for a second. Far be it for me to judge anyone or any particular kinks and quirks. We all have them. Some might label them as a sin or a vice. Others might label them as what gives each of us our unique personality.
I’m not sure if the J.D. Vance story even qualifies as a fetish. I suppose you do have the “particular object” portion of the definition, so we will go with that for now. In his book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” there is a ton of shall we say fiction in there, Like one might have said about the Holy Roman Empire or the 1980s band the Thompson Twins, none of the words in those titles was true. Of course, you are free to discuss that on your own.
In this particular book, Vance describes what we might call “an erotic experience” with a rubber glove in a couch. People of my generation saw “American Pie”. We are not completely unaware of activity with strange things. So, the bizarre nature of the story only came in the desire to admit it openly or even brag about it. It wasn’t completely dissimilar to Kristi Noem bragging about killing a dog.
Having an intimate moment with a rubber glove certainly is strange, but not particularly wrong per se. The same could be true of killing an animal depending on the circumstances. It is the bragging that is so unnerving. What’s even more unnerving is that the story isn’t true. Vance isn’t the one who really protested all that much. So, he apparently isn’t all that bothered by the story getting out there.
We know a few things about Vance. We know he was raised in a white upper middle class household with two parents that were college educated and worked white collar jobs. We know he attended Yale law school and became Peter Thiel’s boy. Thiel got him nearly every job he had as a venture capitalists and dumped 15 million dollars into his Senate campaign.
That’s why Donald Trump and Vance are so desperate to get you to focus on the so-called “DEI hires” like Kamala Harris. Racist? Sexist? Xenophobic? Yup, it’s all of those things and more. What they don’t want you to focus on is the fact that they are two rather average guys in terms of intelligence and experience (or worse) that got ahead because others picked up the tab. It was daddy in the case of Trump. It was Thiel in the case of Vance.
Vance desperately needs you to believe he was disadvantaged somehow and got ahead based on gumption, sweat, and tears. He desperately wants to identify with people that never had it good and don’t get ahead in spite of their whiteness. He needs their support. The truth is that he has no idea what that life is like. He has never had to worry about how the next meal is going to be paid for.
In fairness, both of Kamala Harris’ parents were professional too. Of course, she is not the one pretending to be poor. She is the one that also made her way through law school, worked as a prosecutor, attorney general, and then senator before becoming vice president. She never had a billionaire paving the way for her. When you have nothing that distinguishes you in terms of talent or accomplishments you make it up. Apparently, that includes the fetishes too.