Obnoxious Manchildren

 

Anyway, the South African-born acting president of the United States changed his name on the site formerly and mostly currently known as "X" to the delightfully childish "Harry Bōlz" which is a call-back from 2023 and seems less like the act of a 53-year-old with an important government job and more like the stunt of a 13-year-old with 40 years' experience with "Big Balls" envy.  (Very young, and already a special little piece of work.)

You know, you could be tempted to believe that maybe, Elon Musk isn't really a person you can treat as particularly responsible. He seems to be "eccentric", which is the culturally acceptable term for very wealthy people we suspect of being a bit batshit. (I think it's wild that he carries his frankly adorable toddler son about in a way that in my darkest imagination looks like "ready-made Greg Stillson event horizon.") 

Generational Wingnut Welfare Cases

 

Rep. Brandon Gill: "Listen, I think that the people of Panama, I think that the people of Greenland, I think that the people of Canada for that matter should be honored that President Trump wants to bring these territories under the American fold." pic.twitter.com/T6IJzunB0c

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 8, 2025

This obnoxious weird and wrong little man is married to Dinesh D'Souza's daughter.  D'Souza had to apologize for being very badly wrong about the 2020 election. His little son-in-law is just being part of the family--pay him little mind, because little mind is all they have 

Post-script: A lot of the GOP have adopted the "should be flattered" talking point, but to get at why this stupidity makes me furious--it's not a serious opinion. Telling a country "We will economically or militarily threaten you because we want something you have" is,a war of choice--and it amounts to saying "If someone threatens to rape you, you should be flattered." 

TWGB: A Certain Persuasion

 

Trump: You have to really play the hand that your dealt. And then you had a jury that's from a certain persuasion, would have been hard to do no matter what. pic.twitter.com/K8sxVuvErw

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 2, 2024

Consider what that sounds like--roll it around in your mind. It really sounds like he's moving past saying the trial was "rigged" because Soros funded Bragg or because Joe Biden ordered a lawfare hit on him, down to saying the jury was biased against him: from a "certain persuasion." 

Dog whistle?  Air raid siren?

TrumpWorld has being saying this disturbing thing out loud for a minute: Russia and China aren't the real danger, people who oppose Trump are. MTG has endorsed the execution of prominent Democrats, for example. But take a look at who else gets burned?

Republicans like former Governor and current US Senate candidate Larry Hogan, who made what once would have been viewed as a completely reasonable statement:

The Steaming Manure of 2000 Mules

 

Pardoned felonious dirtbag Dinesh D'Souza wrote a genuinely fraudulent book stating that the 2020 election was stolen, and absolutely everything was wrong with it. Now Salem Media Group wants nothing to do with it or the film made from it because they do not want their whole ass sued off of them. 

This is a very clear stance largely based in the very real situation that what D'Souza posits is indefensible and that he used bad false data to defame real people. You know, the same way Rudy Giuliani defamed real election workers with his false claims, and for which he is now being disbarred and bankrupt because he decided to use fraud to do treason.

(Look, you can say I'm over the top to call this "treason", but when Russian active measures support Trump, I don't equivocate about that--why? Why do they want this senile indebted corrupt and easily blackmailable asshole for president? Because he is the entire handbook of "people you would never give top secret clearance to" and there he nonetheless was. Scooping up boxes to take to Mar-a-Lago and by some accounts, having scooped some off to Bedminster while he was at it. Given his Oval office performance with Lavrov and his little gimp act at Helsinki, you want to bet he never sold assets out to his lil' friend Putin? Therefore, if I were a patriot, I would simply not accept their witch hunt intel about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, because how in the hell is that the American Way? And I would view his Mar-a-Lago docs case way differently from how blindfolded hostage judge Aileen Cannon seems to have . Are you okay Aileen? Blink or something!) 

Sometimes Mules Kick

After the trouble that Regnery went to to try and sue-proof Dinesh D'Souza's stupid Trump-fluffing conspiracy-wank over the 2020 elections, it turns out that he is going to get sued for the stupidity of naming names in his dumb movie. There's a lot of fraud to confront in the old conservative movement (slaps hood of conservative movement-mobile); you can fit so much malign intent in here. I kind of figured this might happen.

D'Souza is operating in an alternative fact reality disconnected from the idea that "the libs" that he means to own are actual people with agency, livelihoods, families, etc. He struggles to be a relevant meme-producer now that actual relevance (having peaked in his youth as a Reagan employee forty years ago) has mostly passed him by, and he dropped all credibility in the Obama years when a POC of color in office broke his brain and he thought he had to defend colonialism. 

It has to hurt when your grip on utility is owning libs and you don't even have the credit to rent libs by the day. When your multiple Twitter threads always cast doubt on your anti-socialist bona fides with the caveat that you enjoy being publicly owned. Does it hurt to be a formerly philandering felon falling while fellating Trump by fomenting fraudulence for funds, also feloniously? 

I myself could not say, because I could never imagine trying to pin a case of voter fraud on people who cast mail-in ballots at a box near to them because they just happened to be near that site when it was probably near a school or strip mall or other place they regularly habituated because it was in their neighborhood and they live and shop and do errands and take their kids places around there. That people are generally around and about a spot they live near isn't a case of fraud. It's how living in a neighborhood works. The cell phone geolocation thing is dumb and bad and D'Souza should feel bad.

But he won't until he is sued for a lot of money, and I hope other people join in, because, hey--this is America. And while I don't think the defamation suit will fix the little red wagons of the people who believe the Big Lie about voter fraud (any more than a suit against True the Vote and the obvious federal case needed there would), maybe it would discourage the next Big Liar. 

And sometime that much itself feels like a win. 

It's Just Top to Bottom Fraud

 

There's something about the entire right wing that I wish the solid, earnest folks who support it with their donations knew--it's a goddamn scheme. Take Donald Trump's post-presidency fund-raising vehicle--Save America PAC. It's currently under investigation because of course it should be--Trump is saving American from what, now? He promoted dangerous lies about voter fraud and teases he's fixing to do something about it, but there wasn't any voter fraud and there isn't anything he wants to do more than have money is his legal fund to defend against his sedition (planned insurrection) and I guess also his treasonous (why does he have these top secret documents?) activities. 

Trump raised a lot of money under "Save America" but nothing went to voter fraud litigation because there was no provable voter fraud to litigate. So like, how do I know there's none?

Take the recall of Dinesh D'Souza's dumb book, 2,000 Mules, as an example of the problem.  It's a grift.  You see the movie, you buy the book, you paid to believe in the thing. But there's a problem--the book is recalled and I already know from the movie why--he didn't name groups he thought were responsible for the imaginary "mules" he posits based on cell phone data of people revisiting city blocks that happen to be in their own neighborhoods (which is just extra dumb) in the movie, but he decided to go ahead and do that in his book, because why not?