TWGB: Von Shitzinpantz

 

Trump: I’m not allowed to testify. I’m under a gag order pic.twitter.com/4qeH81ERWo

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 2, 2024

It's hard not to view Trump's latest lie--that being under a gag order means he can't testify in his hush money trial--as living down to Michael Cohen's charming nickname for him: "Von Shitzinpanz". One could very well assume he's chickening out, knowing full well that nothing he says will actually help him. But does his reluctance to testify mean he is, literally or figuratively, shitting his pants over it?

Although it's desperately unethical, I can imagine a world where exhausted lawyers just give Trump the impression that the gag order does so mean he can't testify because it's simpler than telling him he's a great big dotard and no competent lawyer would put him on the stand. Maybe his lack of campaign events (other than the two on Wednesday, where he navigated sentences in his mother tongue as if said tongue had come to a shocking fork) is also a tricky bit of advice--sure. The gag order. Because having most of one's campaign fundraising money go to legal fees means not holding as many events and certainly not for the purpose of screwing himself harder by yapping freely about why having suspected Democrats on the jury is jamming him up. 

It's a dangling dagger, a sword of Damocles, a sharp set of scissors for a toddler to be running with--today, he gets fines, but it really could be jail if he keeps it up. 

Vance Walked into This So Hard

 

KAITLAN COLLINS: So you agree that people who break in and vandalize a building should be prosecuted?

JD VANCE: Yes

COLLINS: Ok, I'm just checking, because you helped raise money for people who did so on January 6 pic.twitter.com/nEztSPrQlC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 2, 2024

It's almost like he somehow did not even see it coming. How is that possible?

I almost titled this "Do you want to see a dead body?" but 1) it's cliched, 2) I'm not sure how much authentic life animates the craven and ambitious husk of J.D. Vance, and 3) regardless, he'll endure, zombie-like and signifying, for some time to come; the rare example of a horror-movie undead ghoul THAT EATS ITS OWN BRAAAAIIIINNN!!!

I get carried away with myself--but not as much as Vance does when he insists Mike Pence was never in danger that day, which really makes me wonder who he's trying to convince. I mean, is he whitewashing the insurrection because it's the MAGA thing to do--or is he trying to convince himself that auditioning to be Trump's running mate has no potential, fatal downside? 

A wise person might very well give that a more serious think than Vance seems to be able to, but I do not actually view him as either wise or serious. This is what, I think, makes him as good a contender as any for Trump's #2.

TWGB: And the Portions are Too Small!

 

The downtrodden billionaire schlump, Donald Trump, has laid bare his soul to move us to pity and fear (first as tragedy, then as farts) by laying out the paradoxes of his current fate: they are rushing his trial, and he is spending too much time in court; and he is being kept away from all the campaigning he wants to do that he is absolutely not doing on the days he does not have court. 

It is a pity--he is too mad and hurt to fundraise (Trump not ready to take money: UNPOSSIBLE!) but of course, by email his campaign will fundraise off of his legal misfortunes. And they really, really have to, because lawyers are expensive. And he's mad at his lawyers for not being aggressive enough and for delays in the case, even while the aggressiveness he WANTS is causing delays and might not even be the best strategy for him. 

No wonder the bottomlessly energetic Trump (according to the unbiased ramblings of #2 son, Eric) can't stay awake at trial. He's trying to take all the options in the "Choose Your Own Adventure" his life has become. This is why his recent rant sounds like the Woody Allen joke: "The food is terrible and the portions are too small." 

What the hell does he want or expect, really? 

I Love the Smell of Discovery in the Morning

 

Comer’s new talking point is that the reason his impeachment investigation is stalled is because there’s *too much evidence* 😆 pic.twitter.com/MOi09SmVka

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 30, 2024

It smells like burning whatever Comer's fucked-up old "evidence" is. And yes, I am saying "fucked up old evidence. " And Comer should know by now, it doesn't actually go anywhere. If there was too much evidence, why haven't we seen an orderly, not-debunked, probative trail of information that connects the dots from Hunter Biden doing....aw Jesus, any damn thing....and his dad somehow benefitting and quid pro quoing the fuck out of it? 

Hunter Biden, despite being depicted as unqualified for various positions he's worked in by Republicans as if he's a nepo-baby, is a lawyer. He's a good lawyer with really good lawyers. He's suing Fox News for defaming him over exactly the bullshit that the House GOP has being trying to impeach his father over. And I say "Bravo!" because here's the fun thing--Fox News seems to do the same thing for Trump the National Enquirer did--bury negative shit about Trump, and fluff absolute bullshit to denigrate his opponents. That's what happened with their Dominion and Smartmatic voter fraud lies--and until the Biden story became obvious toxic waste, that's what they were peddling to an audience well-conditioned (by them!) to believe in Democrat fuckery and excuse any obvious GOP lies. 

How shitty, busted and past its sell-by date is the Biden impeachment story? Um, Rudy Giuliani, who needs an intervention and seems to have no one in his life who is considerate enough to make it happen, is making it very clear SOMEONE should just "lean on" Zelenskyy again.  

The Elephant at the Protest

 

I am completely opposed to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza, I genuinely think the Rafah operation will be a bloodbath and should be reconsidered, and I am highly skeptical that the eradication of Hamas is fully possible without what already are proving to be unacceptable human casualties. I want to believe that in a different political situation, Gazans might want something more like Fatah (which Hamas exterminated in that region) leading them in an autonomous state. I support the free speech rights of the protesters at various colleges, even to the extent that I am dubious of the effect of the protests and don't truly believe they are as well-informed as they need to be.

I do not want a recap of National Guard breaking heads at Berkeley, or Kent State. Reactionaries are looking for the opportunity to have hardhat riots and so on, and some people are openly fantasizing about the Democratic National Convention being another 1968. 

Given my feelings about all of the above, let me be that wet-blanket Gen X asshat who wants to tell the children, ever so delicately--the hell you are doing the same thing my parents' generation did. When pro-Palestinians all say "Genocide Joe", maybe they think they are just echoing their grandparents' asking LBJ how many kids he killed that day. But Joe isn't dropping the bombs, and Israel is getting incoming missiles all the time from Hamas, Hezbollah, and there is a threat of war from Iran.

Which leads me to point out that young man in the picture above with the Hezbollah flag--with a machine gun on it. Almost a gentle hippie, just repping something that is by no means a peace movement, but terrorism. 

When 1968 begat Nixon, he prolonged the Vietnam War. No, really. My dad's generation was drafted. He (Nixon) on the advice of Kissinger, prolonged the war. 

Kristi Noem, Dog Assassin

 

SD Gov. Kristi Noem is getting a roasting over her depiction of killing a backwards "untrainable" puppy as well as a smelly goat that came from her political memoir No Going Back: Descriptive Stuff After the Colon. A lot of people on social media are posting pictures of their own good doggos--and that's great. But to give her her due, sometimes a dog just is either traumatized or dimwitted, or for some other reason has misplaced aggression issues, and they aren't fit to their environment. You could try rehoming them with a family--hopefully in a "single pet, no small children" situation, but once they have demonstrated they will kill livestock, like a neighbor's chickens, there's a real chance they aren't "fixable". She may have simply made a pragmatic choice with the dog because she didn't want to see it turn and attack a human--especially not a little one. 

There's more humane ways to put down an animal, though--we aren't living in Little House on the Prairie times. And also killing (poorly) a goat because it is smelly and misbehaved just feels gratuitous, because what do you expect from adult goat? And wasn't she responsible for how the dog was trained and controlled (crated or fenced?) Feels like she might have set that pup up by not preparing it for success.

TWGB: This Situation is not Hypothetical

 

In today's SCOTUS hearing, Samuel Alito argued that immunity for former presidents is good, actually, because without it, ex-presidents might refuse to leave office peacefully if they lose reelection...

Make it make sense. https://t.co/HepJVcgN2Q

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) April 25, 2024

If I were to take Justice Alito as a good-faith interrogator adhering to the actual facts of the Trump presidency--the actual president this case is about, and not some future generic president we're just having a classroom thought-experiment about, are we supposed to play along and imagine a path where 1/6 does not happen because Trump can rest safe in his bed at Mar-a-Lago certain that no ill shall befall him, because he had immunity. So, he just gracefully turns over the keys to the established firm:

And maybe that even means he is just fine keeping those documents from the White House that he doubtless acquired during his presidency--several boxes of, in fact--and selling them, because we are just going to assume a president does official things officially, and not shady-ass criminal stuff because one has always been a shady-ass criminal? 

On a day where Justice Brown-Jackson noted that immunity (or should we rather call it, impunity?) would turn the Oval Office into a center of criminal activity, we received testimony that Hope Hicks and Sarah Huckabee Sanders were in contact--via their White House offices, with David Pecker regarding the election interference/hush money cover-up scheme.