Justice Alito Should Pack it In

 

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is facing calls to recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 presidential election after reports emerged of an inverted American flag flown outside his home days after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. pic.twitter.com/BumAk9E8y1

— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) May 17, 2024

If ultra-conservative SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito (and family) feels so thin-skinned about the burden of the public commenting on the job he's doing (which affects all Americans, and no shit people are rightly concerned) , so much so that the US flag, inverted, was flown on his lawn like a cry for help or a signal that it was time for a revolution (or insurrection), if his bias has become so apparent that people deem it fit that he recuse himself from the most important cases relating to the preservation of our republic and the continued relevance of the Constitution as well as the court on which he sits (what the whole hell else is the "presidential immunity" question?), then he can really do us a favor and retire. 

Before the election, thanks. Because apparently, elections make him just too emotional, and as a nation, we've already had two long national nightmares over that sort of thing. 

Deep in the Dark Heart of Texas

 

BREAKING: Texas Governor Greg Abbott pardons Daniel Perry for killing BLM protester Garrett Foster pic.twitter.com/lSn3WafPE4

— BNO News (@BNONews) May 16, 2024

I could just blog about how TX Gov.  Greg Abbott is a signifying sociopathic fascist who is pardoning a racist and pedophile murderer to send a chilling message to his state about his values, but I need to point out that he is not just following through on a political promise, but that the Texas Pardon and Parole Board recommended it. 

Let me repeat that: this was not without the consent of other people who sit in judgment over who gets pardons or parole, but with their express approval. Greg Abbott isn't a brand-new baby governor trying to feel out the ethos of his state--he is a monster who has figured out that many people will clap for a particular kind of monster. 

In Texas, anyway. 

Lara Trump Has Caveats

 

Color me skeptical these will actually happen.

“Lara Trump Insists the Debates Her Father-in-Law Agreed to Are Fixed” https://t.co/aQTJeya5R8

— S.E. Cupp (@secupp) May 16, 2024

Very much agree--Trump will back out, and no sooner did he agree to debates than TrumpWorld is trying to plan an "out" for him. First, he tries to manufacture a Fox debate that Biden "has" to agree to:

And then right-wing commentators run with the idea that for some reason, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper are basically the Symbionese Liberation Army. But anyway, I do have to agree with Lara Trump (whose face is starting to become wildly distracting, like a funeral announcement in comic sans) that things are rigged politically against her father-in-law (who installed a family member as the head of his party so he could hork up maximum legal bill payments) because he is so wildly inappropriate and unfit for any office. 

TWGB: The Back-up Singers

 

Yesterday, when we saw J.D Vance and them come out to the courthouse to defame the judge and his daughter, I wrote a thing and deleted it and don't even recall what I said because I realized in the morning it was incomplete.  Look at these "pick me pygmies". Look on these little men. Look at these ants peeping round the legs of a great colossus who hath bestrided their world. 

Look on today's brood of vipers in matching suits looking for all the world like a pack of back-up singers for the main event, Donald Trump. Did they sing "Da woo, doodly do?" 

No, they helped Trump violate his gag order and tried to make us feel bad for poor old thin skinned and very chilly Trump, same as Tuberville and Vance and them the day before. Maybe Mr. Trump (not, "former president Trump" because fuck giving honorifics to rapists, racists, and traitors--which is this withered old full diaper of a man) can't violate a gag order himself, but what of his little friends?

He can't tell them to do that, and maybe he did:

Tommy Tuberville admits on Newsmax that "one of the reasons he went" to NYC yesterday was to "overcome this gag order" pic.twitter.com/cGCK5iAcsZ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 14, 2024

Trump is not supposed to be violating the gag order by proxy. I don't think the court is supposed to be stupid about this--do you? And I don't think harassing the Judge's family members is in regular order--it's just bullying--obstruction of justice. See, I do say Tuberville isn't very smart, but maybe is dumb, but he isn't just as dumb as you might imagine but is very possibly dumber. He was on Trump's fat-finger speed-dial on 1/6 after all.  

Maybe they don't know Micael Cohen used to be this man's back-up singer. Maybe they don't understand where this road leads. 

Maybe they think they can loan their souls to Trump and haven't sold them. Maybe they think they can get their dignity back after whatever this is.

Trump doesn't pay back loans. He inflates his value of course and then?  Hopes banks are willing to negotiate for pennies on the dollar. This is what Michael Cohen was talking about--negotiating invoices of all kinds. These political wannabees are auditioning to play Celebrity Political Apprentice, but don't realize what portion of their credibility as a political figure or just a human being they are ceding to a racist, rapist, fraudulent, highly suspect and damaged fuck of a human. 

Michael Johnson played this game, and I sort of wish MTG would put another MTV up for debate just for the real fuckery of it, so Dems can agree that this man is utter trash serving no one but himself. 

Family Values

 

Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen testified that Melania Trump was the one who suggested that the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape be spun as “locker-room talk.” https://t.co/HFjiQhYgDO

— New York Magazine (@NYMag) May 14, 2024

Some folks might have wondered what effect this trial would have on Trump's marriage, but I don't really care, do you? 

And as for Trump himself:

But during his testimony, Cohen suggested that his former boss didn’t particularly care about protecting his family. He said he asked Trump what Melania would think about the scandal. “He goes, ‘How long do you think I’ll be on the market for? Not long,’” Cohen said. “He wasn’t thinking about Melania. This was all about the campaign.”

Some might say that's just Cohen's testimony--but given what we know about Trump's serial philandering, doesn't that ring true?  He just sheds people when they become a hassle and finds someone else who can do the job.  "Wife" is a job. 

TWGB: Wheels Within Wheels

 

I joke from time to time that we aren't ever leaving the 2016 election, and it's not actually that funny--we're in 2024, but the Trump hush money trial feels like old home week, what with characters from earlier in the Trump Saga popping back up. This week, we will hear from former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who plead guilty to a campaign finance violation regarding Stormy Daniels, Last week, in a story that was overshadowed by the trial, former 2016 Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort decided to step back from his involvement with the 2024 Republican National Convention--for which he was going to work for free, as he did for Trump's campaign. 

"Free" for a value of "access to our political infrastructure" which actually does have value. 

We are never leaving 2016. The Russian disinfo op that tried to blame Ukraine for the DNC hack that profoundly affected the 2016 election (in Trump's favor?) still has echoes in the Trump impeachment and the current-day GOP House still trying to impeach Joe Biden. The story of what happened to Stormy Daniels, now a little bit better understood as coerced sex--a situation not much different from the "casting couch" or the cartoonish image of a boss chasing a secretary (just imagine it in the White House) reminds us of all the stories we just barely heard in 2016 in the wake of the Access Hollywood video, which were drowned out by Wikileaks.

Heeeeere's Donny!

 

Trump: “Silence of the lamb! The late great Hannibal Lecter. It is a wonderful man.”
pic.twitter.com/59eH6Wd6vQ

— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) May 12, 2024

Sometimes, I wonder if I try to diagnose Trump from afar just a little too much, you know? What do we make of a segue to praise a (deceased?) fictional serial killer? Is it an awkward joke--or are we just being softened up to find out Trump has eaten a man? (Suddenly the last puzzle piece of the "Q" op slides into place as the uttermost human taboo has been broken.)

Is it really any better that this is probably more evidence that his brain has finally rendered into burger fat and sleaze? Not that Trump's fans in Wildwood or anywhere else seem to care, as of yet. Actually, they seem to be devolving right along with Trump.

(Uh, yes--this is real.  Diapers today, and there will probably be lobotomy stalls coming to Trump rallies in the near future.)

Do you want to know what's sad? My next damn post I'm working on involves this Trump clown, too. He should have been laughed out of political life over birtherism back in 2011--permanently. And yet, here we are.