Just another day in the life of our Sleepy Emperor. (I will say that during Graham's funeral I was beyond amused that Marco Rubio was extolling Trump as "the president that never sleeps" as Trump was clearly fast asleep in his seat.)
"Mr. President, my friend and I have a bet that I can get you to say less than a thousand words."
"You lose" [followed by TWO thousand words about the dangers of electric boats and that one time when there was no TV because the wind wasn't blowing, also Dylan Mulvaney]
Nicely done, Roy. I honestly don't know why Kash Patel still has a job. Trump hates a drunk/drug addict, and Patel isn't white. It's a mystery.
And I think whatever the prevailing theory is, it's pretty obvious to everyone that Trump is in failing health. I keep thinking about how a wounded animal is often more dangerous than a healthy one.
My partial theory is, after Cartoonishly Loyal, Tubby prizes Incompetent and Unqualified above all else in his cabinet and top officials, the more egregiously so the better. Kash checks those boxes above and beyond. Doesn’t really explain Noem’s and Bondi’s ousters, I know. Maybe because Kristi “lost” Minneapolis and Pam too many court cases. Trump is a score keeper.
Also, Noem was banging Corey Lewandowski and Trump kinda has it in for that guy because Lewandowski got to bang all the hot babes in Trump's first term.
Bondi, of course, spent much of her time shooting her own feet and wounding Trump in the process. Whether it was her resurrecting the Epstein Files ("I have the Epstein client list on my desk!!") when it had finally faded from the headlines, or her appointing a real estate attorney as a federal prosecutor who then had the two major Trump political prosecutions tossed out of court, Bondi just kept being the major incompetent she'd always been, but on a national stage and in a way that even Trump found embarassing.
I rise in defense of Pamela Bondi. She was asked to do multiple impossible conflicting tasks while holding together the ragged shreds of institutional process. The latter is what got her fired. Her replacment is unbound by earthly concerns of rationality or deference. Ka$h is holding on to his job by ignoring those ragged shreds in his baliwick. This is a war on Reality itself and there are no rational atheists in those foxholes.
I'd say things like trying to look like complying with court orders, following rules for grand jury presentations, things like that. I'd argue that the recent grand jury train wrecks are evidence that she wasn't up for lying to a grand jury, but Blanche has no such issues. The whole Epstein thing where she kept trying to put something out to satisfy the court orders while holding back damaging evidence, satisfying nobody.
And in trump world girls (or women if they're old--Kristi and Pam are pretty old) are either sex objects or attack dogs. K and P pretty much failed at both. How much longer will Linda McMahon be around?
To own the libs! The more the incompetence is highlighted, the more he can say "So what are you gonna do about it?" He doesn't care about the mission of the FBI, he cares about pissing his "enemies" off.
And his campaign of retribution against a country that didn’t love him enough to elect him in 2020. What better fuck you than to surround himself with vile nincompoops in positions of power.
One of these past Sundays my father told me very enthusiastically how El Caudillo says something and "us liberals" go into conniptions. He was very disappointed when I told him that, no, mostly we just laugh.
first impression: *I am the walrus* quietly in the background would be perfect.
if i make it to 85, and have a day like Fauci did yesterday, i would probably feel like my life was much more successful than i ever dreamed. to get to be nailed to a cross -- despite the theological controversies -- as our boy working class Johnny once told us, "is something to be."
reminds me of Arendt in "the origins of totalitarianism" about how the elite and the mob fuse together and flush the whole gig right down the shitter. (cf, p. 333)
Please, I have a question. When you're thinking about what Mr Wonderful would say, do you try to imitate him aloud, or is it more remote, like studying a bug?
You know how sparrows swarm a crow and crows swarm a hawk? That’s Paul and company swarming Fauci. Pathetic worthless consumers of oxygen with no purpose but to distract from the horror of Trump’s fascism. The sparrows and crows have more value than the entire Republican political establishment. Reality in the guise of Fauci is an existential threat to these assholes, so they’ll waste time and money attacking him. At the end of the day, we need a statue to Rand Paul’s neighbor, cast in bronze and sitting on the Capitol steps.
But the thing is, in this political context Fauci is a trophy the fascists want for the history rewrite team. The Senate committee's abuse is giving joy to all their media, but beyond such media frenzy, ordinary people are hardly going unnoticed. The DOJ is singling out anyone they can use for their test cases of silencing dissent. There's a new round of arrests of obscure "antifa" academics and various protestors. A jury was willing to convict Hannah Dugan for trying to maintain order in her courtroom. And the DOJ is getting grand juries to indict people on charges as absurd as Pool Guy's.
The DOJ's own witness said there was already damage to the pool and couldn't say the guy had done any additional damage, couldn't say he had done more than a thousand dollars in damages, the threshold to make the case a felony, and STILL the grand jury voted to indict. Sandwich guy walks, Pool guy don't. Go figure, American jurors are as hard to understand as American voters.
They're lying to grand juries to get indictments in the first place. So there's no knowing why anyone fell for the pool charges until after the guy's had to endure the torment longer.
My sister found a deep dive into his background, including the fact that he had some professional interest in the condition of the "repair" job. And not only does he have the history with Olympics canoeing and torchbearing, but before touching water became a Federal offense, he had this experience:
"The summer after the country celebrated its 200th birthday, David Hearn paddled a canoe nicknamed the Queen Mary around the Reflecting Pool as part of an event intended to draw attention to a sport that would later lead him to Olympic glory." https://archive.ph/b8oa1
Me too. The Poetry of Sensibility is one of my least favorite genres, and has been out of favor with readers for quite a while, but Gray's poem is pretty good.
Guessing that the American public, dumb and short-sighted and selfish as we are, has largely put COVID and "face diapers" behind us, and is more concerned with the cost of living. This MAGA jerkoff just shows how little they care. Seems like another own-goal for the GOP.
"Putting Covid behind us" seems to be the MO here in Japan as well. I've had it twice and am not PERSONALLY concerned with it (2nd time no fever or anything, just felt tired but tested positive). Nobody's getting tested for anything, but there are a lot of "summer colds." Lots of Japanese still wearing masks (at least where I live).
Partly due to their strategy of regularly dangling a new shiny object for their supporters to swarm after, they run out of fresh ideas every now and then. Like fashion designers who can't come up with something new every season, they dig up something and call it "retro" or "vintage". cf Communism for that matter.
So John Cornyn and Tom Tillis are now saying they want a "written guarantee" that the $1.8 billion Slush Fund For Rioters is dead before they'll agree to vote for Todd Blanche for A.G. Like Susan Collins demanding Kavanaugh mumble some words about his "respect for precedent." Jesus, what does it take to get a hard "no" outta these useless fucks?
If you distrust someone so much that you think you need a written promise from him not to break the law, then maybe just don't vote for him at all? But I suppose it's like with Collins, all theater, a show of "independence" where everybody's in on the joke.
I was mildly irritated by her protestations as Tubby was walking out of that interview in Chippewa Falls (if you're not from here, it's pronounced "Chip-Wa", you can handle "Falls" yourself). "But Mr. President, WE CAME ALL THE WAY TO WISCONSIN for this interview!" Jesus, it's the Midwest, not the freakin' moon.
These blackout sketches always makes me think about what will be left behind in the Republican party once Trump no longer struts and frets on this mortal stage. They are so committed to the bit, but Trump is the only engine capable of keeping it going. A giant power vacuum rivaling the death of Stalin, with a cast of lunatics and hustlers vying for position, led by the black hole that is JD Vance. Or Rubio, same diff. Be there, will be Wild!
"Committed to the bit" is right, literally everything must be remade in his image. College Republicans, who were always an assortment of the most obnoxious, privileged assholes on campus, have take his cues to get even worse:
But does this shit work for anybody but Trump? Tubby's coalition is loyal Republican voters combined with the Lazy, Uninterested & Confused. The LU&C contingent went for him because he's a rich TV star who will "something something economy." And, because they are so LU&C, they could easily overlook everything else, weren't even AWARE of everything else.
Now you try that "Bitches, amirite?" shit and you're NOT a rich TV star who might "something something economy"? Congrats on getting the votes of every Andrew Tate fan and nobody else.
Thugs who may have the advantage of social media and advanced means of befuddling minds. But are they really that big a change from the fine old campus traditions of Roger Stone and Lee Atwater?
The LU&C has been the Republican margin of victory for a while, as their focus contracts to their base, then the most easily riled up part of their base. Just as Democrats take their progressive base for granted, so do Republicans with their LU&C dentists, beer distributors, and car dealership owners. Celebrity Trump is the glue holding the Republican voter base together. Absent Trump, the Nazis, theocrats, conspiracy theorists, billionaires, and grifters are going to have one hell of a power struggle.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if "Nazis, theocrats, conspiracy theorists, billionaires, and grifters" turned out to be less than a majority of the voters? Ah, but I might be giving America too much credit.
"TRUMP: There’s no tape recorders. Nixon, they set him up, made it look like he taped himself. Disgusting. But I had guys go through the place. Russians. That’s who you get for that."
DISEMBODIED CHEESY RUSSIAN ACCENT: Would Mr. President kindly move closer to innocent gift gold lamp, sound not so good.
BARRASSO: What the hell was THAT?
TRUMP: I have no idea, I think it's my conscience. *moves closer to lamp*
Take one bug out, put one in.
"You guys know who bugs me?!"
"Yes, sir, we do..."
When I say "He's got a bug up his ass about some stupid reflecting pool nonsense" I could mean that literally.
it's a little tragic to say, but I am thankful for the few laughs I get here over today's political news.
Me too! And thanks
Just another day in the life of our Sleepy Emperor. (I will say that during Graham's funeral I was beyond amused that Marco Rubio was extolling Trump as "the president that never sleeps" as Trump was clearly fast asleep in his seat.)
Little Marco doing a Big Lie.
Combining the political instincts of Andrew Johnson with the work ethic of Calvin Coolidge.
"Mr. President, my friend and I have a bet that I can get you to say less than a thousand words."
"You lose" [followed by TWO thousand words about the dangers of electric boats and that one time when there was no TV because the wind wasn't blowing, also Dylan Mulvaney]
I think there was a similar situation with Rubio fluffing napping Donald who was just a few feet away at one of his videoed fake Cabinet meetings.
I have no trouble believing that's exactly how Dump imitates Ka$h behind his back -- hell, probably right to his face.
Oh for sure to his face. It's no fun if you can't insult them to their faces and they have to take it.
Take it and LAUGH. "Ha ha, sir, you're so funny!"
"Oh my goodness me"
Nicely done, Roy. I honestly don't know why Kash Patel still has a job. Trump hates a drunk/drug addict, and Patel isn't white. It's a mystery.
And I think whatever the prevailing theory is, it's pretty obvious to everyone that Trump is in failing health. I keep thinking about how a wounded animal is often more dangerous than a healthy one.
My partial theory is, after Cartoonishly Loyal, Tubby prizes Incompetent and Unqualified above all else in his cabinet and top officials, the more egregiously so the better. Kash checks those boxes above and beyond. Doesn’t really explain Noem’s and Bondi’s ousters, I know. Maybe because Kristi “lost” Minneapolis and Pam too many court cases. Trump is a score keeper.
Pam and Kristi were girls.
There IS that.
Also, Noem was banging Corey Lewandowski and Trump kinda has it in for that guy because Lewandowski got to bang all the hot babes in Trump's first term.
Bondi, of course, spent much of her time shooting her own feet and wounding Trump in the process. Whether it was her resurrecting the Epstein Files ("I have the Epstein client list on my desk!!") when it had finally faded from the headlines, or her appointing a real estate attorney as a federal prosecutor who then had the two major Trump political prosecutions tossed out of court, Bondi just kept being the major incompetent she'd always been, but on a national stage and in a way that even Trump found embarassing.
Coupla DEI hires
It's time for Michelle Obama to record that PSA warning people not to drink bleach. For the good of AMERICA.
I rise in defense of Pamela Bondi. She was asked to do multiple impossible conflicting tasks while holding together the ragged shreds of institutional process. The latter is what got her fired. Her replacment is unbound by earthly concerns of rationality or deference. Ka$h is holding on to his job by ignoring those ragged shreds in his baliwick. This is a war on Reality itself and there are no rational atheists in those foxholes.
How did Bondi defend "institutional process"? (I realize she will argue this at her trial.)
I'd say things like trying to look like complying with court orders, following rules for grand jury presentations, things like that. I'd argue that the recent grand jury train wrecks are evidence that she wasn't up for lying to a grand jury, but Blanche has no such issues. The whole Epstein thing where she kept trying to put something out to satisfy the court orders while holding back damaging evidence, satisfying nobody.
And in trump world girls (or women if they're old--Kristi and Pam are pretty old) are either sex objects or attack dogs. K and P pretty much failed at both. How much longer will Linda McMahon be around?
To own the libs! The more the incompetence is highlighted, the more he can say "So what are you gonna do about it?" He doesn't care about the mission of the FBI, he cares about pissing his "enemies" off.
I'm coming around the idea that it's all just "owning the libs."
Well it sure-as-shit isn't about running the country in any capacity.
Yeah, I get that. I'd just expand it to include that the entire world is kinda experiencing the same thing, more or less
As I've pointed out more than once they'd like to *literally* do so. Especially the Black ones.
AKA Cleek’s Law
Thanks for that! (Don't think I'd heard of it before.) Useful shorthand!
Woof!
And his campaign of retribution against a country that didn’t love him enough to elect him in 2020. What better fuck you than to surround himself with vile nincompoops in positions of power.
One of these past Sundays my father told me very enthusiastically how El Caudillo says something and "us liberals" go into conniptions. He was very disappointed when I told him that, no, mostly we just laugh.
first impression: *I am the walrus* quietly in the background would be perfect.
if i make it to 85, and have a day like Fauci did yesterday, i would probably feel like my life was much more successful than i ever dreamed. to get to be nailed to a cross -- despite the theological controversies -- as our boy working class Johnny once told us, "is something to be."
so he didn't die yet, huh…
Senator Paul has at least one sane constituent. https://bsky.app/profile/nothoodlum.bsky.social/post/3mrt3xwhqfc27
Just love that pregnant pause after "get fucked."
And then the long-suffering staffer says "All right..." which I think counts as agreement.
All righty, then!
after yesterday, one might even desire that the senator "have another talk" with his good neighbor friend.
This all reminds me of Dante's Inferno. The very bottom level was "people who betrayed their benefactors."
reminds me of Arendt in "the origins of totalitarianism" about how the elite and the mob fuse together and flush the whole gig right down the shitter. (cf, p. 333)
Traitors to their benefactors, if you don't count the guys the Devil is snacking on for all eternity who were traitors to God.
Please, I have a question. When you're thinking about what Mr Wonderful would say, do you try to imitate him aloud, or is it more remote, like studying a bug?
It's a mix.
This is, to be sure, imperfect (also my Trump is at death's door) but it's fun to try (TW: AI) https://tryparrotai.com/video?id=w_a6225040
I think it would be great to watch as Satan drags his filthy soul to hell.
Satan in a hazmat suit? And all the other souls of the damned emitting a collective sigh: “There goes the neighborhood.”
We used to have STANDARDS, says the Marquis de Sade.
Mozart's "Don Giovanni," directed by John Waters.
Your people...my people...git 'er done!
"Dweezil Zappa... get that fuck... Molly Ring-waaaaaaaa...."
I'm mildly puzzled by my inability to stop laughing at this line.
My only note to the (per usual) pitch-perfectness is: would Tubby have ever heard of Dweezil Zappa?
As they say, the line "came out of left field" for me!
Yeah, because his cultural knowledge ended in the '90s, back when he was big and strong and everywhere.
He musta heard Valley Girl, because everybody did.
Like, omigod!
What Evaaar!
I could use that one about five times a day.
You know how sparrows swarm a crow and crows swarm a hawk? That’s Paul and company swarming Fauci. Pathetic worthless consumers of oxygen with no purpose but to distract from the horror of Trump’s fascism. The sparrows and crows have more value than the entire Republican political establishment. Reality in the guise of Fauci is an existential threat to these assholes, so they’ll waste time and money attacking him. At the end of the day, we need a statue to Rand Paul’s neighbor, cast in bronze and sitting on the Capitol steps.
The guy's had an amazing life and a career any scientist would be proud of. But I think he knows that, and he also knows Rand Paul can get fucked.
But the thing is, in this political context Fauci is a trophy the fascists want for the history rewrite team. The Senate committee's abuse is giving joy to all their media, but beyond such media frenzy, ordinary people are hardly going unnoticed. The DOJ is singling out anyone they can use for their test cases of silencing dissent. There's a new round of arrests of obscure "antifa" academics and various protestors. A jury was willing to convict Hannah Dugan for trying to maintain order in her courtroom. And the DOJ is getting grand juries to indict people on charges as absurd as Pool Guy's.
The DOJ's own witness said there was already damage to the pool and couldn't say the guy had done any additional damage, couldn't say he had done more than a thousand dollars in damages, the threshold to make the case a felony, and STILL the grand jury voted to indict. Sandwich guy walks, Pool guy don't. Go figure, American jurors are as hard to understand as American voters.
They're lying to grand juries to get indictments in the first place. So there's no knowing why anyone fell for the pool charges until after the guy's had to endure the torment longer.
My sister found a deep dive into his background, including the fact that he had some professional interest in the condition of the "repair" job. And not only does he have the history with Olympics canoeing and torchbearing, but before touching water became a Federal offense, he had this experience:
"The summer after the country celebrated its 200th birthday, David Hearn paddled a canoe nicknamed the Queen Mary around the Reflecting Pool as part of an event intended to draw attention to a sport that would later lead him to Olympic glory." https://archive.ph/b8oa1
"Ordinary people go unnoticed, bad or good."
Now I need to go read some John Clare poetry.
Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" too.
Me too. The Poetry of Sensibility is one of my least favorite genres, and has been out of favor with readers for quite a while, but Gray's poem is pretty good.
Oh, the kids get it--but generally not until somewhere in their 30's. Really sweet when it happens!
Guessing that the American public, dumb and short-sighted and selfish as we are, has largely put COVID and "face diapers" behind us, and is more concerned with the cost of living. This MAGA jerkoff just shows how little they care. Seems like another own-goal for the GOP.
I'm sure it was a big hit with the 30%, the only people who matter.
"Putting Covid behind us" seems to be the MO here in Japan as well. I've had it twice and am not PERSONALLY concerned with it (2nd time no fever or anything, just felt tired but tested positive). Nobody's getting tested for anything, but there are a lot of "summer colds." Lots of Japanese still wearing masks (at least where I live).
Partly due to their strategy of regularly dangling a new shiny object for their supporters to swarm after, they run out of fresh ideas every now and then. Like fashion designers who can't come up with something new every season, they dig up something and call it "retro" or "vintage". cf Communism for that matter.
Molly Ringwald?
Sure, Tubby wanted to fuck her. When she was hot, you know, at 14.
!!!!!
That was my thought, too.
And he will NEVER forgive her for not still being 14.
So John Cornyn and Tom Tillis are now saying they want a "written guarantee" that the $1.8 billion Slush Fund For Rioters is dead before they'll agree to vote for Todd Blanche for A.G. Like Susan Collins demanding Kavanaugh mumble some words about his "respect for precedent." Jesus, what does it take to get a hard "no" outta these useless fucks?
As lawyers say, an oral contract isn’t the paper it’s written on, but the same would go for this written contract.
If you distrust someone so much that you think you need a written promise from him not to break the law, then maybe just don't vote for him at all? But I suppose it's like with Collins, all theater, a show of "independence" where everybody's in on the joke.
Prepping their post-Senate new gigs, as Sunday show Brave Republican™ perma-guests.
Imagine being so desperate for attention that you'd go through all this just for the privilege of being questioned by Kristen Welker.
They'll be tanned, rested, and ready to face the tough questioning she is so well-known for.
I was mildly irritated by her protestations as Tubby was walking out of that interview in Chippewa Falls (if you're not from here, it's pronounced "Chip-Wa", you can handle "Falls" yourself). "But Mr. President, WE CAME ALL THE WAY TO WISCONSIN for this interview!" Jesus, it's the Midwest, not the freakin' moon.
$1.776 billion. I am not going to stop pointing it out.
These blackout sketches always makes me think about what will be left behind in the Republican party once Trump no longer struts and frets on this mortal stage. They are so committed to the bit, but Trump is the only engine capable of keeping it going. A giant power vacuum rivaling the death of Stalin, with a cast of lunatics and hustlers vying for position, led by the black hole that is JD Vance. Or Rubio, same diff. Be there, will be Wild!
I'm hoping they'll go the way of the Whigs that preceded them. Is that so much to ask?
"Committed to the bit" is right, literally everything must be remade in his image. College Republicans, who were always an assortment of the most obnoxious, privileged assholes on campus, have take his cues to get even worse:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/30/far-right-college-republicans-america-cra
But does this shit work for anybody but Trump? Tubby's coalition is loyal Republican voters combined with the Lazy, Uninterested & Confused. The LU&C contingent went for him because he's a rich TV star who will "something something economy." And, because they are so LU&C, they could easily overlook everything else, weren't even AWARE of everything else.
Now you try that "Bitches, amirite?" shit and you're NOT a rich TV star who might "something something economy"? Congrats on getting the votes of every Andrew Tate fan and nobody else.
Thugs who may have the advantage of social media and advanced means of befuddling minds. But are they really that big a change from the fine old campus traditions of Roger Stone and Lee Atwater?
There is a difference in sensibilities, like whether it's appropriate to do your Hitler salutes in public.
It is now.
Nothin' triggers the libs like the Hitler salute, unless maybe it's the N-word. Hell, just to be sure, do both. At the same time.
Exactly their intention. Any objection proves Woke.
The LU&C has been the Republican margin of victory for a while, as their focus contracts to their base, then the most easily riled up part of their base. Just as Democrats take their progressive base for granted, so do Republicans with their LU&C dentists, beer distributors, and car dealership owners. Celebrity Trump is the glue holding the Republican voter base together. Absent Trump, the Nazis, theocrats, conspiracy theorists, billionaires, and grifters are going to have one hell of a power struggle.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if "Nazis, theocrats, conspiracy theorists, billionaires, and grifters" turned out to be less than a majority of the voters? Ah, but I might be giving America too much credit.
For good and ill, America is full of suprises.
A land of contrasts, one might say.
"TRUMP: There’s no tape recorders. Nixon, they set him up, made it look like he taped himself. Disgusting. But I had guys go through the place. Russians. That’s who you get for that."
DISEMBODIED CHEESY RUSSIAN ACCENT: Would Mr. President kindly move closer to innocent gift gold lamp, sound not so good.
BARRASSO: What the hell was THAT?
TRUMP: I have no idea, I think it's my conscience. *moves closer to lamp*
That thing actually making reference to "my conscience"...??!!!
OTOH, I'd believe he picked up/responded to the word "gold"...
He's heard the phrase before but really isn't sure how it's supposed to work.
We all know his conscience, it's the little guy with the pitchfork sitting on his shoulder who says, "Yeah, there's one you should definitely rape."
I wholly support the arrest and deportation of Molly Ringwald. For Pretty In Pink especially.