David Frum is one sour-faced talking head/political columnist who hates The Felonious Guy as much as the next “Never Trump” Republican. Absent that, I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with anything he’s ever written or said on the flat screen. But as Shakespeare wrote: “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows”.

So with that, I will reproduce for you a theoretical conversation that Frum wrote on social media. A conversation between a theoretical Democratic partisan and an archetypal professional journalist. The partisan’s comments are italicized.

Donald Trump tried to overthrow an election by violence.

That’s old news, we already reported that.

As president, Donald Trump directed tens of millions of tax dollars to his own pocket.

Old news.

Russian intelligence helped elect Trump by illegal means. Trump welcomed the help.

Russia Russia.

He was proven in court to have raped a woman.

Civil proceeding, not criminal – and sexual assault, not rape. Besides, old news.

Two dozen women say Trump attacked them. There’s literally a recording of him boasting about it.

Old news, we litigated all that in 2016.

There’s new news just unsealed about Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.

Salacious gossip. Beneath our editorial standards.

You don’t have to focus on the sex stuff. There’s more evidence that Trump gave a seat in cabinet to a man for no good reason other than to thank him for the Epstein cover-up.

Arrant speculation. Also old news.

It’s not arrant speculation that Trump’s family falsified receipts to cheat the government out of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.

Old news.

It’ll feel like new news because you ignored it all the time.

We gave it a day.

Trump used the same trick – false records – in all his many civil frauds, and also in the hush-money case that got him convicted of 34 felonies by a jury!

Complicated technicalities. You’re boring me.

You want simple? Someone bravely defied a non-disclosure agreement to go on the record that Trump used the most vicious racial slurs on the set of The Apprentice.

Doubtful source.

The ‘suckers and losers’ quote comes from an impeccable source.

Old news.

But Trump denied the ‘suckers and losers’ quote only last week during the nationally televised presidential debate. He lied to the whole country.

Not our job to fact-check every word he says.

But you personally know it to be a lie.

Maybe we do, maybe we don’t.

OK, look. Let’s do it your way. What does interest you?

Indications of cognitive decline.

We’ve got millions of examples of Trump obviously off his rocker.

Right. He says crazy things all the time. Not news.

Are you telling me that the more often a candidate for president says addled, senile, crazy things – the less news it is?

Not exactly. We also need a lot of background quotes about how his party is worried. If the party is cool with his dementia, we’re cool with it.

These rules don’t seem on the level.

We’re not the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court isn’t on the level.

Oh, now you’re undermining confidence in our most sacred institutions. How is that different from Trump.

Oh, for God’s sake, the wives of two Justices supported – and one conspired in – Trump’s Big Lie. I don’t understand why you sat on this story for two years.

Leave families out of it.

Biden’s family, too?

We have to cover that. Trump’s made a campaign issue of it.

I give up. Talk to me like I’m eight years old. How the hell do you explain what you’re doing?

We have to report equal numbers of bad things about each side.

But what if they aren’t equal numbers?

That’s our job, to make sure that there are.

Wanna hear a great story to ease those “I Got The MAGA Blues” blues? Got one here.

TFG’s fourth White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, has a wife, Debbie. Or Debra for short. Debra started a political action committee called “Right Women”. Clever, huh? As in “hmmm, do they mean exactitude or a place on the political spectrum?

Or both?

Mark’s wife, along with another political wife, that of Theodore “Ted” Budd, the Republican junior senator from North Carolina, formed a Super PAC in order to fund MAGA-prone Republican candidates in primary and “winnable” general elections. Such congressional divas like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren “Beetlejuice” Boebert have benefitted from the PAC’s largesse.

It seems that the PAC made “an administrative error” in 2022 when it funneled $191,871 in campaign cash to the campaign of former Rep. Stella Yvette Herrell of New Mexico in her failed attempt to retain her seat against Democratic challenger Gabe Vasquez (D NM-02). The error entailed not reporting the donation to the FEC within the prescribed time period.

The FEC has a thing about reporting donations of more than $10,000 cash to a campaign within 20 days of an election. That’s probably to keep cheating cheaters who cheat from dropping a potload of money on a campaign without telling anyone so as to give them hidden advantage as Election Day nears.

It’s a pretty good law, but somehow the PAC forgot to mention to the FEC their donation until after the election.

After the election (that Vasquez won by 1300 votes), the PAC filed their report, the error was flagged, and the matter finally landed in the Alternative Dispute Resolution Office.

There, we are told, the PAC agreed to pay a $9,500 fine, and from what we are given to understand, the PAC agreed to fold their tent.

After paying their fine and various debts, the PAC cashed out by sending $45,000 to each of three charities that we can all agree are highly deserving entities: St. Jude Hospital, Toys For Tots, and the USO.

And that is $135,000 that does not go to make door hangers, campaign signs, and bumper stickers for some MAGA candidate.

Sometimes we win one.

[Hat tip to Alfredo at the Dairy Queen.]

I am captivated by this song by Bob Dylan. Here’s the chorus:

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

It was released in May of 2000, and Dylan actually got an Oscar for it for “Best Original Song”.

Readers here can well imagine why this song, now almost a quarter century old, rings true today.

There are better examples than my current focus that exemplify what Dylan was saying, like the whole SCOTUS/POTUS thing, but bear with me.

On June 19th, Louisiana Republican governor Jeff Landry signed into law Louisiana House Bill 71, making it mandatory that The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) be displayed in every K-12 classroom in the state.

That was news enough, but tomorrow, July 4th, marks another day in Louisiana state history: Conceal-carry is legal in the State of Louisiana. 

Isn’t that strange? A state that perceives itself as a land of law abiding Christian faithful also needs a law that allows firearms to be carried in concealment?

Never mind that it forbids convicted felons from carrying concealed weapons (so sorry, TFG), and never mind that they’re still trying to keep the law unenforced in The French Quarter, what is up with this?

Can things get any stranger in this country?

Don’t answer that.

When does a Supreme Court decision on the issue of Presidential Immunity for official acts cover paying off a porn star for having absolutely no sex with you at all?

Right now, it seems.

Judge Merchan has decided that since TFG was president when he signed checks, in the Oval Office no less, to compensate Michael Cohen for his services in paying “hush money” to Stormy Daniels, we have to figure out if The Felonious Grifter had immunity to do so.

Never mind all of the other stuff that TFG is immune from, now that SCOTUS has blessed his ability to lie, cheat, and steal his way through life. This one, this checking whether the former President can write Cohen these checks and then report the checks as business expenses (that bought him his Presidency, some would say), really takes “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen”.

September 18 is the next available date that Judge Merchan has to sentence the former President of the United States for his 34 felonies.

Or will it be 33 felonies? Or 3?

Only time will tell. 78 days of it to be exact.

It was December 11th of last year when Special Prosecutor Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to pre-emptorily rule on whether a President has absolute immunity from prosecution.

This old ABC piece reminds us all that “hours after Smith filed his request Monday, the court said it would consider the request on an expedited basis”.

That article was printed 203 days ago.

And now we have the answer. The President is immune for their presidential acts, and is not immune from their non-presidential acts.

Oh, holy cannolli. A thousand lawyer jokes just flashed before my eyes.

The Truman Library lists what things a president can do and what things they can not do. Go look, we’ll wait.

See that?

Any surprises?

I had one. Where does it say that a President is not allowed to mow the carpet? I don’t see it listed anywhere.

So now we have to make a list of things that The Felonious Grifter did on January 6, 2021 and in the days leading up to it, and add two columns of check boxes next to them indicating whether they are “Presidential” or “Not Presidential”.

The Truman Library listed five things that a president can not do. Along with adding “no mowing of carpets, anywhere or anytime,” I hope to see that list expanded upon by thorough court review that should conclude sometime during President Newsom’s 2nd term.