As well as you, I didn’t spend one nanosecond listening to the TFG/Musk livestream on Monday.

I’d rather watch grass grow.

I’d rather listen to gravel in my car’s hubcap.

But what we all missed got the attention of every late-night host or writing staff the following day: The Former Guy sounded like
Sylvester on steroids. No, not Stallone, the Looney Toons cartoon character, Sylvester the Cat, who craves the sweet taste of Tweetie Bird.

It is a speech impediment known as a “sloppy lisp.” You can hear it on this audio clip.

Was TFG having a “Polident moment”?

As explained by audio engineers, the lisp was an effect of audio compression for the livestream, as the Orange Buffoon sounded “just fine” from where he was videoed at home. Or, as TFG’s advisor, Steven Cheung helpfully observed: “Must be your sh**ty hearing. Get your ears checked out.”

Maybe so. But maybe Elon ought to look into who was in charge of Twitter’s (now X’s) audio compression programs, and why did he fire them.

It seems that TFG’s former White House Physician, Captain Ronny Jackson (Ret.), wrote a book. I had no idea that he could write a book, but then, maybe he can’t.

I mean, anyone could write a book. I could write a book. I just don’t think anyone would buy it. And that’s what I mean about being able to write a book. One of the requirements is that someone else reads the book, and that means that they have bought the book.

People don’t buy Ronny’s book.

How do I know this? This is Captain Ron’s annual FEC income report. It lists all of his sources of income, alphabetically by asset.

Look between NVIDIA and Roth. There is nothing listed there that even approximates “Post Hill Press”. That’s the poor and unfortunate publisher of Ronny’s book Holding the Line. Alas, Ronny has listed no royalties received from his publisher.

Small wonder. When you look online for that title, you get an ad for Thriftbooks.com and a list price of $4.99 (a savings of $23.01 off the list price).

Do you know what you get as well? Every other book entitled “Holding the Line”.

I guess in the book-writing world, there is a lot of line holding.

I recently read a Washington Post article (subscription) that evokes the familiar refrain: “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” It seems that there have been unwelcome aliens that have invaded the shores of Italy, in particular, Venice, Italy: Atlantic Blue Crabs.

It is postulated that they skillfully ensconced themselves “in the ballast water of barge ships” and invaded the Italian coastal waters, particularly in hyposaline estuaries, where they thrive (ask anyone from Delaware or Maryland).

It seems that the Mediterranean seawater temperature has risen sufficiently in recent years that since at least 2012, the invading species has found a true haven in the Venetian waters: warmth, lots of delicious freshly dead sea life and detritus to eat, and no natural predators.

At first, Italians were repelled by their appearance and taste. They were used to the local granseola (spider crabs) and moeche (soft shell crabs), but these invaders? Insipido!

But the younger generation of Italian chefs in the area are adapting, viewing the invaders “not as pests, but as ingredients.” And a remarkable thing has happened: the local detritus has confirmed the old adage that “you are what you eat”: crabs have been feeding locally for a few years now, so what was previously a bland-tasting meat has transformed into something much more pleasing to the local palate:

Delizioso Piatto di Granchio Blu!

Lesson? When presented with unpalatable invaders with foreign tastes, let them marinate in the area for a while. They may end up adding their distinctiveness to your own culture.

Poor Joe Rogan. Joe, you know, is a right-wing podcaster with a huge ultra conservative following. TFG liked Joe up to the minute that he said some very positive things about independent presidential candidate RFK, Jr. It was kind of like he was endorsing him, but I don’t know, you tell me:

“They gaslight you, they manipulate you, they promote narratives, and the only one who is not doing that is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [Kennedy is] the only one that makes sense to me.”

The Orange Buffoon took great umbrage at this, and I can understand why – it certainly seems like an endorsement to me, and I thought TFG had Rogan in the bag. He must have thought so, too.

But maybe we should take a step back and recall that it was TFG surrogates who were pushing the Kennedy alternative. But that was to draw voters away from Joe Biden. Who better to vote for president if you won’t vote for Von Shitzenpantz and can’t vote for an aging but benevolent patrician? Vote for the guy with a dead worm in his brain because gaslighting isn’t in his playbook.

Makes sense to me.

Except the whole thing falls apart now after Democrats pulled the old switcheroo on the Teflon Don and nominated a completely new set of people to run against him.

TFG was not amused and, in a “truth” posted on his social network, decided that Rogan’s sentence should be to be “loudly…booed the next time he enters the UFC ring.”

I imagine Rogan is shaking in his boots.

Last time the MAGA Republicans tried to win an election in court, it was because all of their prior attempts to turn the votes in their favor – from precincts to counties to state election boards to Electors – in order to disparage the election results, all failed miserably.

They truly were “The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”

This time, we are all watching as the MAGA campaign, through The Former Guy, its Constitutional Scholar, floats litigation angle after litigation angle.

The Felonious Grifter has told his followers that he doesn’t need votes. No, really. He said that:

“We got more votes than anybody’s ever had. We need to watch the vote. We need to guard the vote. We need to stop the steal. We don’t need votes. We have to stop — focus, don’t worry about votes. We’ve got all the votes. I was in Florida yesterday — every house has a Trump sign. Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. We have to guard the vote.”

Get it? The man says he doesn’t need any more votes, he’s got plenty and more to spare. It’s just that the gosh darn Democrat Party can’t hold an election without cheating. So watch out for Round Two of multiple challenges in the courts to make last times’ 61 court challenges look like child’s play.

Or maybe not.

Maybe instead, TFG will go after the whole enchilada and get Vice President Harris’s candidacy nullified in court. Yeaaaah, that’s the ticket.

Said the Orange One:

“The fact that you can get no votes, lose in the primary system – in other words you had 14 or 15 people, she was the first one out – and then you can then be picked to run for president. It seems to me actually unconstitutional. Perhaps it’s not.“

Translation: Harris performed a coup, and Biden was “unconstitutionally replaced” on the ballot. The Democrats lost because their candidate(s) were illegal. This one, I think, was borrowed from Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro, who banned his opposition from running.

Or maybe not.

We have previously explored new methods of getting campaign cash by members of the new (TFG Era) Republican Party. Ted “Cancun” Cruz heads the list, but there is also the constellation of kid lit authors corraled by Brave Books. But here on the Left Coast, that new-fangled stuff hasn’t caught on yet. Republicans here are still engaged in what can now be called old-fashioned grift.

Case in point, my own elected representative to Congress, Ken Calvert (R CA-41). Calvert has been into real estate since he gave up managing his parents’ restaurant in the sleepy inland town of Corona, California, in the 1970s. In 1979, he founded Ken Calvert Real Properties, Inc. which is now run by his brother, Quint. Nevertheless, Ken still keeps his hand in the business, frequently in partnerships.

Like the one identified by the DC Watchdog group End Citizens United, as reported here.

End Citizens United filed a complaint at the Office of Congressional Ethics, citing Calvert’s partnership in his real estate acquisitions where he “failed to disclose information about various rental properties that he owns in Riverside County”.

Calvert, they say, made “use of the legislative process known as earmarking to secure more than $100 million in taxpayer funds for his district, including more than $16 million for transportation projects within a few miles of his own rental properties.”

Calvert’s office claims that this is all stuff and nonsense: “This is a meritless complaint from a far-left super PAC that’s endorsed Ken’s opponent.”

Well, that last part makes so much sense that it probably is true enough.

This couldn’t come at a worse time for Calvert, who is involved in one of the most competitive congressional races in the country. Current polls show Calvert trailing his Democratic opponent by a point. His opponent is Will Rollins, who is back in the saddle again: he nearly defeated Calvert in the 2022 mid-term election.

I can’t think of a worse, more ill-timed thing to occur to Calvert as we ramp up to the general election now that we are inside the 90-day mark. Well, there may be one.

He could accept Will’s challenge to a 3-debate format on a local TV station formerly owned by Gene Autry.

But he won’t.