Pure and Simple Disgust

 

RAMAPHOSA: I am sorry I don't have a plane to give you

TRUMP: I wish you did. I'd take it. If your country offered the US Air Force a plane, I would take it

RAMAPHOSA: Okay pic.twitter.com/TgvODTok9P

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 21, 2025

I took a bit of a vacation from political blogging because every time I look at Trump and company, all I can feel is pure and simple disgust. I can barely scrape it together to rhetorically fluff the corruption and assholery into something mildly amusing, anymore. In the clip above, the president of South Africa has been subjected to an ambush of white genocide claptrap by a senile racist lunatic, and levels Trump with a quip about his obvious corruption--and Trump, unknowingly sells it: of course he would take a plane from anyone. He's a taker, a crook. 

And everyone knows it. 

Of course, this is about the "free plane" from Qatar, which has now been accepted by the Department of Defense. There is no such thing as a free plane. It will need to be hardened for use as a base f operations for the US C-i-C, and it should be inspected minutely for any surveillance devices.  And the funny old thing is--Trump asked for it. 

The Human Backdrop/ UPDATED

 

Kristi Noem, who has approached her job as head of DHS with what one might call "theatrical flair", made a video in an El Salvador prison. Keeping in mind that we are sending people into conditions like those behind her without due process--for reasons which the Trump Administration now alleges is a state secret. 

MAGA probably see the use of the human backdrop behind Noem a bit differently than I do. There is a gulf between seeing people being dehumanized and seeing them as not human. Someone like Noem does not grasp that difference. I wish more people in this country did. 

I like to point out that these MAGA airheads are inept, but they are also, nonetheless, fairly horrific. 

UPDATE: Just as a small clarification, if you go to her video on Twitter, the app formerly known as X, you can see this backdrop is actually a green screen with a looped video. The optics of dehumanization are very deliberate. 

UPDATE: That's a nice bit of hardware our girl has on her wrist--allegedly a $60K Rollie. I don't know what she paid for it or even that she DID pay for it (or how), but I just want to personally say I wouldn't wear my very nicest watch to the prison tour, so I'm guessing she must have nicer ones at home. 

Trans de Agua

 

Pam Bondi calls Tren de Aragua "trans de agua" pic.twitter.com/2wLfuhKPHq

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 20, 2025

February 20, 2025

So, a funny/not funny thing happened in Colorado, where conservatives made up a thing where Venezuelan gangs were taking up whole blocks of apartments. Which meant of course, if that were true, the first place ICE would have to raid would be those occupied dangerous gang apartment scary no-go zones, right?

Right?

Well, they did! And SOMEHOW, everyone and their mother found out about it, and the op was even delayed for a bit? (Even though ICE raids are basically, just like, Tuesday, even during the Biden Administration.) But then they did the thing, with hundreds of guys. Like, a whole multi-agency thing. 

Anyway, I guess everything was very disappointing for the Trump Administration, because maybe there weren't as many arrests as they hoped? So they sacked the experienced acting head of ICE. People figuring out there would be a stepped-up ICE presence out there was definitely the result of "leaks". And Kristi Noem is ready to get out the polygraph tests to sniff out the real problem in why deportation preparations have broken down, promising to get you and your little dog too if you were a DHS employee responsible for leaking. (I may have made that last bit up.)

Cowgirl Kristi Rounds Up the "Dirt Bags"

 

Cosplay Kristi is at it again on Meet the Press pic.twitter.com/y8PcxHbk7y

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 2, 2025

This is just a little throwaway post on my part, but I've totally got why secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem has to cosplay being a border security worker when she's on tv--

Trump really only seems to know what's going on from tv. If he sees her in a uniform--she's working. It's a reality show mentality from someone who does not entirely exist in reality. She gets it. Give her her props because she figured it out. And even uses appropriately menacing language. "Dirtbag!"

Welcome to the TrumpWorld Kakistocracy

 

Did you know that being a deer in the headlights "Me and My Shadow" fig leaf for El Cofeve might get you a berth as head of Homeland Security? Yep. Kristi "We Also Kill Dogs" Noem has gotten a little promise from the ship of state she chose to barnacle on. I guess it is something she promises beyond supporting Trump in his momentary "Swaycation" from a rally where he momentarily found himself beyond words. I'm trying not to think it's because she put a half roll of quarters in his front pockets and offered to make change. 

You know, if right wing fuck for brains want to pretend Kamala Harris slept her way to the top, there is no end to the fucktacular permutations amongst RW personalities permissible--especially if they have already demonstrated being down like a clown. I presume Marco Rubio's exceptional capacity for supine boneless nuggetry has enhanced his likelihood for being chosen for Secretary of State. I can also foresee his being eventually "You're Fired'd" after giving up a guaranteed lifetime Senate seat. Compared to the other Sec of State possibilities he seems like the least worst--so there has to be a catch. 

Liar's Polka

 

Host: At the end of the book you say, the very first thing you would do if you got to the WH that was different from Biden, is you would make sure Biden's dog was nowhere on the grounds. Commander say hello to cricket. Are you trying to look tough? pic.twitter.com/oAlQBHDCmd

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 5, 2024

"Liar's Polka", not "Liar's Poker" because this woman is moving her feet all over the place but doesn't have a lick of an idea how to play a game. She doesn't just kill her own dogs, but wants to kill Biden's dog? (Hint: A potential Trump VP candidate?)

That is not a Biden problem, that is very much a Kristi Noem problem. She is very tough on livestock and her imagined conversations with world leaders, but she is as dumb as her foot and a half of natural hair extensions and her prime-time makeover. 

So here is how dumb Noem wants to be--she supposedly read the galleys of her ghostwritten political memoir, and even voiced the audio book, but is only just now realizing she never met Kim Jong Un and that's a problem. Somehow someone else's problem. She says she met other world leaders, but she isn't talking about that because...I dunno. 

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.

The Celebrity Apprentice, But For VP

 

Fit My Feet does amazing work to make custom insoles. Just wait… I’m gonna be so fast! 👟 pic.twitter.com/RujfkjWPrc

— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) March 14, 2024

First it was an ad for cosmetic dentistry, and now she's touting custom insoles--just what, you may ask, is up with South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem? 

My personal best guess is, she's angling to raise her profile for VP by doing Celebrity Apprentice challenges because she can't count on Corey Lewandowski to put in a good word for her.  I mean, what is one supposed to do--stay in South Dakota? It's the Indiana of just a scootch over to the west. And as with Mike Pence, there's only so much right wing signifying you can do as a governor before you sort of wonder how it will pay off. Or not pay off, as the case may be. 

Does it feel like she's using her office a little bit for commercial purposes in a conflict of interest? Like, is she expecting something in return (or has she received something in return we don't know about)? Who knows? Maybe she only went into politics because she wanted to be a spokesmodel someday, and never got that Star Search contract. But as I've said before, the GOP secret to conflicts of interest is, if you always work in your own self- interest, there's never a conflict!