TWGB: It's the Great Bumpkin, Charlie Brown!

 

Trump apparently can't stop touching his nose and mouth and has fucked up his make-up, but clearly he is being some kind of nightmare squash for Halloween. It's a nice touch that his campaign decided he should be wearing a reflective work vest in case he goes wandering off.

So, yes, the actual response of his campaign to the furor of Puerto Rico being called a floating garbage island and his lately referring to the whole country as a garbage can is to play dress-up as a sanitation worker and literally be seen in a garbage truck labelled "Trump/Vance". 

I’m sorry, everyone else saw him straight up miss the door handle and nearly fall over, right? pic.twitter.com/Au2mmulLcD

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) October 30, 2024

In addition to looking absurd and infirm, this working-class drag stuff really has to stop. I mean, we just recently watched him trying to serve McDonald's while smelling like a flame-boiled Whopper, and this, too, stinks. (Of course, they are trying to make it about the thing Biden never did say, because they want to be martyrs thrown to lions except, we all know who bites.) 

How is Vance Worse at Groceries Than Dr. Oz?

 

JD Vance: “Yes, buddy. Want some eggs? Let's talk about eggs. Because these guys [pointing to his kids] actually eat about 14 eggs every single morning."

So weird pic.twitter.com/hHc4BP23Qs

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) September 22, 2024

He doesn't trust his kid to act normal in public. He accuses his kids of eating 14 eggs every morning. He is clearly not in a supermarket, but like a bodega. He holds up a two-dozen pack of eggs while talking about the price of a dozen eggs and gets it wrong by a dollar.  Because the signage says so. 

There used to be a phrase about the "natural aristocrat". People who just rose to the top because in a meritocratic society, their little light would shine. 

I do not believe Senator Vance represents this thought. He's actually a pathologically lying dickhead. He will look dead ass into the face of the facts and lie about shit anyway even if you see the proof right behind him. 

Just like he's still lying about the dogs and cats in Springfield even when Schoedinger's snack was found alive and well in a basement. Let's not talk too much about this chicken and egg him on, but seriously, were we supposed to not notice?

Of course we weren't, but he thinks most people are dumber than him because look where he is now!! 

Can't wait to find out what Peter Theil has next in store for him. Maybe even cashier. 

TWGB: It's a Holy Perfect Angel You Guys!

 

This is mind-blowing: An American flag tangled into the shape of an angel before the #Trump rally yesterday. pic.twitter.com/81btUcr8Lp

— America Strong (@itsthereelthing) August 31, 2024

I don't know if you were ready to believe in God yet, but did you see the perfect holy angel Trump was talking about? Because OMG, the guy who was saying he was just being martyred like Jesus when he was starting to sell Trump Bibles has now been rescued by Jesus so he can save the country you guys, Merry Eargrazemas to you!  

Because how the hell can you ever say "Merry Christmas" again without acknowledging who has made it all possible by being made a little bit dead--but then totally saved to unfuck this apparently fucked-up country? You know who--the guy who was more indicted than Jesus, Abraham Lincoln and Al Capone--not to mention Hannibal Lector! You might not have believed in Jesus before you guys, but since he saved Trump. you kind of have to, right? 

I'm an agnostic and this sort of thing offends the heck out of me, so I don't even know how it sits with my actually Christian brethren. He believes in God to the extent he can see God on his side. God exists to magnify Trump--not the other way around. .Donald Trump is to faith what Lara Trump is to music. 

This is the credibly accused serial adulterer and harasser/rapist of women. And he's trying to tell you divine intervention saved him from anything.

TWGB: The Detroit Deceit

 

Once again, Trump is in the news because we have tapes--a story in The Detroit News from Craig Mauger uncovers that a phone call between Wayne County election canvassers, Donald Trump and Ronna McDaniel reveals a little offering for their service in not certifying the election for Biden, which is a kind of back-handed bribe: we'll get you attorneys!

I mean, I love this for the obvious reason: they knew it was shady, they knew that the canvassers knew it was shady. Sure, it's probably illegal! But we will get you lawyers. You'll be fucked if you do this but we'll make sure it's with lube!

Is that just me? 

So of course, I go back through the TWGB archives, and huh. When one of the recipients of this phone call got asked about it back when, she just said Trump was concerned about her wellbeing. Well, yeah. Hence the lawyers. The other canvasser isn't available at the moment for further comment. He doesn't need lawyers at this time.  It's also pretty interesting to me that this call was followed up by an invite to the White House for certain Michigan officials. (I wonder if a similar call to PA officials occurred...wait, I don't!) I think this reinforces the Georgia RICO case by establishing a pattern of leaning on election officials. 

I can talk about the violence of 1/6 and the way Trump encouraged it then and still encourages violence, but the subversion of others' sense of duty and fidelity to their oaths of office is the key to the damage that Trump offers. Through coaxing and threatening, he undermines the idea that government isn't about duty or a higher purpose, it just become gross transactionalism. 

I like to think this opens up Trump for a new set of indictments in Michigan. And some for Ronna McDaniel too. (The Michigan GOP has its own terrible troubles right now.) 

A Good Election Night for Our Rights

 

This was a Democratic ad calling out Daniel Cameron, the Trump-endorsed GOP nominee for Kentucky Governor.

He just lost. pic.twitter.com/5svhTxuKai

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) November 8, 2023

The big news out of Ohio was that voters came out to support a bill enshrining the right to abortion in the state constitution, but the evening's results showed more than that: the above ad shows that voters understood their rights were on the line in Kentucky, and in Virginia, the Democrats held the state senate and flipped the house, denying bland but super-conservative Gov. Youngkin the opportunity to ban abortion there. 

It was a good night for reproductive rights. 

It was also a good night for Yusef Salaam who won a New York City council seat--he was one of the Exonerated Five. He got sort of an "endorsement" from Donald Trump once--he endorsed that innocent man be executed. 

Anyway, there were good signs for Democrats. Democrat Dan McCaffrey won a Supreme Court seat in Pennsylvania against an anti-abortion candidate, but this win is also big for what is sure to be a meaningful year ahead regarding voting rights and election law. 

I guess Republicans can point to their success in keeping very corrupt Tate Reeves in as governor in Mississippi...but well. It's Mississippi.

TWGB: The Truth Has a Way

 

A funny old thing just happened--Mike Lindell lost in arbitration a stupid claim that he would pay $5 million to someone who proved his stolen election data wrong. Of course it was proven to be bullshit. Trump lost. He just did. He didn't win the popular vote the first time around, and in 2020 he massively lost the popular vote and didn't win the electoral either. He lost it by too much to plausibly even steal it. His whole ass got kicked in by Joe Biden. 

I get that people like Pete Navarro think that Trump had a path to victory via state legislatures doing the most. This is of course stealing and a fraud. It's funny he cops to that in order to slag "The Kraken"--Sidney Powell. She was operating at the time as a whole soldier though--she was probably instrumental in acquiring the breached data that TrumpWorld was going to use to challenge Georgia's vote--you know, the vote interference that Fani Willis and Special Counsel Jack Smith are both looking into. 

Powell's stupid conspiracy theories were bad and looked bad. The line Navarro wants to use is--why screw about with theories as to why the vote totals don't work out in Trump's favor when state legislatures can just overrule them anyway? 

The theories are dumb--the steal is smart. 

DeSantis and the Debts

 

In Pennsylvania, where Dr. Oz and Doug Mastriano are contending for US Senate and the governorship, respectively, former president Donald Trump has a nickname for a certain governor of his party up for election in Trump's own current state of residence: he calls him "Ron DeSanctimonious." And why not? Trump is spoiling to run for president in 2024 himself and wants to kneecap other contenders who have forgotten who he is. 

Now, the reason why Trump wants to run for president in 2024 might understandably be construed to be in part his belief that being a political contender will wash away some of his legal woes.  We've known that for more than a minute. He doesn't need to run to prove himself--he has been in the White House. Even if he lost. And was impeached twice....What he does need is to manufacture the kind of pre-emptive immunity he once had when he was in office.

But what he doesn't want is some upstart who came to office on his presumed coattails (today, what should have been an unraveled bolero, if the media and Democratic messaging could get on the same page about his fall from grace) to supplant him. 

And Ron Desantis, who toadied with croaking and sticky-tongued fidelity to win in Florida, has decided to trip the light Olympic and set his cap among the stars, declaring that he's God's gift to politics. 

I love you, Ron.

On behalf of millions of people, never stop fighting for freedom. pic.twitter.com/5wcopo041U

— Casey DeSantis (@CaseyDeSantis) November 4, 2022

(Casey DeSantis--brainwashed tradwife or religiously-literate brains behind the rattan throne? Also too, don't care.) 

On the nth day, the creator endowed me with an amazing gag-reflex, but I sputtered a little over this one. Sure, it's serving "God created a farmer" energy and also, those various t-shirts from the kind of twee probably mostly foreign labels that appeal to millennial wine moms who decorate their houses with wooden signs with inspirational calligraphy and are advertised on Facebook. 

As far as Trump can see--DeSantis owes him. All the young Republicans do. Which leads me to once again ask--What is the play? Because you can't suck up to Trump if you want to topple him. And you need to finish him to get over him, and no Republican seems to have the taste for it. 

Does DeSanctimonious have the stones? He's ambitious, wants to be liked, and loves to retcon history. He's already earned dictator cred. He's earned the support of bigots and punched down at LGBT people every chance he can get and smeared their allies as "groomers".  He's thumbed his nose at science and history alike. (He's done a lot to reinforce my personal prejudice that the Ivies socially promote unfit conservative students because they would rather not deal with the stink they would raise if flunked for just poor all-around scholarship.)

I think DeSantis might not have the stones. I know Trump thinks he doesn't. But I'd like DeSantis to try it because I am not too sophisticated to watch a little bloodsport. 

The Supersessionists' Answer to Anti-Semitism

 

Doug Mastriano asked by an Israeli reporter (@nathanguttman of @kann_news) to respond to antisemitic attack on Josh Shapiro and association with Gab.

His wife Rebbie steps in and says: “I'm gonna say we probably love Israel more than a lot of Jews do.” #PAGov pic.twitter.com/Pczpz2IYgJ

— Jacob Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) October 30, 2022

When asked about the anti-Semitic attack on Josh Shapiro (who Mastriano has derided as being a "secular Jew" which is just not even his place to say anything about) and his association with Andrew Torba who is rabidly anti-Semitic, Rebbie Mastriano steps in to offer the worst of philosemitic bullshit: she and her husband love Israel so much--even more than the "fake Jews" do. I mean, no other country has Megiddo in it, she did not add. Which is mentioned in the Book of Joshua which she and her spouse are ridiculously influenced by--which is just a crazy-ass pile of smiting of heathens by people backed by God, which is totally their thing. 

But in their world, people who don't back them are the real heathens, whoever they are. So. Are they reeeaaaalllly anti-Semites? Or just all-purpose haters? Um. Why do I fucking care? These chucklefucks believe dangerous nonsense that has no place in any government whatsoever. But yes, if Jewish people are among the many people they think are part of a "problem" then yes. I would call it that.

So, the thing she said? Totally the kind of rambling we've been hearing from Trump, lately. But also a troubling aspect of the rise in people talking about Christian Nationalism. She loves Jewish people--mostly elsewhere. 

And when we see signs like this in Florida:

Anti-Semitic banners were hung over an overpass on I-10 in Jacksonville, Florida on Friday. Mayor @lennycurry and Governor @RonDeSantisFL have not yet condemned the actions of Nazis in Duval County. There are an estimated 14,000 Jews in the city.

Photo: @MelissainJax pic.twitter.com/lPlYICJT1w

— Travis Akers (@travisakers) October 29, 2022

The way they were hung just recently in LA, are we holding our breath to see how Ron DeSantis, who Doug Mastriano wants to emulate, he says, responds? When an area arena scoreboard sign is hacked with anti-Jewish messages as well? 

You cannot expect any people who have become friendly with hate to protect anyone; you cannot expect them to recognize people who they have already demonstrated they will exclude. And if seeing is believing, then what I am seeing tells me we are seeing a party taking a very dark turn. 

Dr. Oz Didn't Stumble When He Said This

 

Holy shit: Oz says his abortion position: should be between "a woman, her doctor, and local political leaders" #PASenDebate pic.twitter.com/UDiJvDYHYo

— Pat Dennis (@patdennis) October 26, 2022

I personally do not think my uterus is any place for a city council meeting, thanks! This wasn't a case of being inarticulate, this candidate is not in any way impaired, but he said this. Out loud where we all could hear.

Local political leaders, Dr. Oz says, belong in your personal business. Playing chicken with the reaper, with your mental or physical health on the line, with your future fertility and economic security on the line, your ability to take care of the children you may already have on the line, having a debate about something as personal to you as your own body and its future. Grandstanding for political points over your well-being. Appealing to local church leaders for future political support over your well-being. Appealing to right-wing donors, or even basic misogyny, over your well-being.

The Joy of Fucking Off and Eating Pizza

 

I haven't had a proper review of just fucking off time since the early days of my blog, so I hope I will be indulged for a moment in talking about the weird thing when I was for somewhat over an hour not plugged into Twitter and ate about an entire pizza and also cider (Ploughman's--they make a very dry cider without adding yeast, just natural fermentation--it is low-calorie and really good if you like dry, more wine-y ciders I will have to figure out what distributors have them) and beer. 

I took a day off work to go and get lunch at one of the local haunts in Bristol. 

I spend so much time with wrath and drunkenness that I hardly know what to do when I have great gluttony opportunities. I usually get the carbonara pizza which boasts eggs and bacon and I add mushrooms, so I am basically having a classic breakfast on a pizza. There was also a special with mortadella and ricotta drizzled with balsamic, which was amazing. I am now considering whether balsamic-drizzled ricotta is just something I regularly need in my life, anyway.  For my general well-being. It seems like such a natural dip for breadsticks, apples, crudites (more so than salsa, anyway).  It is a thing for which, at the moment, I am entirely about. 

I tried, during my unplugged from all media moment, to think about TrumpWorld and whether I wanted to talk about his special master, the example it sets, and whether it seems likely that Trump is already in the midst of being about to perjure himself over the documents that are still missing, and I decided--

Yeah, fuck that. I went to a nearby vintage store, and I bought a strand of fake black pearls, a set of onyx dangles with marcasite that fit with a necklace I already have that I absolutely love b/c so gothic, a $4 set of gold-tone clip-on earrings that are amazingly 50's housewife realness, some also cheap gold-tone with fake orange coral dangle earrings, and a dyed howlite faux turquoise set that is a stunning green that deeply pleases me. It made for the kind of grab-bag different from the ones I write about. Instead of dwelling on things I find ugly, I used a little mad money (under $100) to invest in dress-up. 

Look, I don't know if this qualifies as self-care, because my obsessions are still here. I trimmed my bangs and ends this week, got a Vitamin-C facial and started to watch the latest Cobra Kai.  I harvested my self-grown decorative gourds and deposited them on my front steps and am ready for fall. Sometimes I rage against the machine, sometimes I eat pizza and plan wardrobes with amazing costume jewelry. 

I contain multitudes. I actually still feel like I contain a lot of pizza. But it was absolutely delicious. 

The Confederate and the Commonwealth

 

This is gubernatorial hopeful Doug Mastriano, an actual insurrectionist, whose thesis was about a left-wing insurrection (that never happened) and who participated in an attempted right-wing coup. He's wearing a Confederate uniform. That's quite a choice for a person who is already understood to be an anti-Semite who wanted to throw out the votes of black voters in the Commonwealth. 

Sometimes people are exactly who they represent themselves to be. This is that guy. He isn't covering up one damn thing, but is reveling in his White Christian Nationalist identification. 

He really wore a Confederate uniform and wants to represent the Commonwealth where the Gettysburg dead lay hallowed?  Maybe this chuckleheaded culture war signifier needs to wake up and realize that if he wants to represent some "Florida of the North", he might get his wishes more immediately by just making like a New Jersey snowbird and winging his ass to Florida--for good and being a part of the South that he wanted to represent. 

Screw him and his rebel ass. 

Ron DeSantis and the "Florida of the North"

 

FL Gov. Ron DeSantis, running for his second term, came to Pittsburgh yesterday to help out another GOP gubernatorial hopeful, the insurrectionist, theocrat and anti-Semite, Doug Mastriano. Now, some people might think damn, why does DeSantis want to do that? Isn't he concerned some of Mastriano's bad political karma is going to rub off on him? After all, this is someone who clearly is intending to run nationally, but local faith leaders in PA. are out condemning this. He might not even be helping himself in Florida, right?

I genuinely don't think that's it though. He didn't come to Pennsylvania, one of the contested states in the 2020 election, to hang out with an insurrectionist theocrat in spite of the optics. He's doing it because of the optics. Remember, when there were Nazis running around Orlando, this is the man who was absolutely not going to baited into trash-talking them. 

The Way Conspiracists Roll

 

Pretty sure when Steve Bannon calls you ‘satanic’ that means you are winning. pic.twitter.com/NHhGnNV32Y

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) August 17, 2022

Has Steve Bannon seen Steve Bannon ever? Talk about having the face one deserves after all this time! I'm not cute, but this is amazing to me--just demonize someone for being tall and Shrekish.  Steve Bannon looks like he rolls bums for new clothes. He looks like his skincare regime is to powder his face with fresh bread mold in the hopes he looks at least partially alive. He looks like he doesn't so much change shirts as lets them molder into his gelatinous form and then acquires new ones. From corpses. He is an international provocateur. 

Obviously, Steve Bannon is not the guy you want to get your opinions from.  He's a guy who doesn't think our present government is good enough and wants to have a New Federal State thing because if it's good enough for his Chinese benefactors, why not the US? And he has so many plans. So many. Stupid. Plans. 

Fetterman looks like me, and my generation. We aren't cute and we are tattooed, and we serve dreams we don't even know if we will accomplish. We believe in people, not cults, not ideologies. We are trying. We are sometimes failing. But we are not here to be your demon just because we ain't cute. 

Bannon and Trump look like syphilis and herpes made a baby and they both are dreadfully afflicted by their poxy-ass son. 

I know what the polls say, but you know what? Until my man Fetterman literally wins I feel restless. I know he will. But I want PA GOP wreck'd. They deserve it. 

Is this the "Finding Out", Yet? (UPDATED)

 

Breaking: Federal investigators have subpoenaed Georgia GOP chairman for information related to fake elector scheme there, as DOJ has issued fresh round of subpoenas to people from several states who acted as rogue electors after 2020 presidential election https://t.co/2c35eZBXXO

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) June 23, 2022

Because I was kind of waiting for this part.

UPDATE: Jeffrey Clark's home was searched.  I know, I know. But this is moving in the right direction (concentric circles towards the Trump White House.)

UPDATE: After all Kelli Ward's mean girl stuff over Rusty Bowers. (who still would support Trump as a 2024 GOP nominee for president after all this) I just find her and her husband's grand jury subpoenas funny as hell, because of the fake electors but also how she was behind the Cyber Ninja stupid recount and is now on a whole other grift. And I really feel she is not going to have good answers for herself because this is what you get when political posturing takes over from any sense of reality or accountability.

UPDATE: You know, I would not be surprised in Ronna McDaniel is going to have to go through a few things, because the RNC was on this. Just a feeling. But we're up to fake elector plots in seven states (I think) getting looked at hard, and this is fraud. If they purported to be presenting official documents that were no such thing on the basis of the fraudulent voter fraud claims, then the people who knew very well what they were may have been perpetrating a multistate fraud. Grand theft election?

What I'm saying is--it looks bad. 

UPDATE: Wait what? They got John Eastman's phone and he's so mad he wants it back RIGHT NOW you guys. Based Eastman's two work email accounts and busy behind shopping conspiracy theories and how to overthrow elections advice, i really does feel like shit is getting real. He went on Tucker Carlson tonight so you know what? He has a problem. 

TWGB: *Whom* the Law Binds, Now?*

 

Peter Navarro was tremblingly aggrieved today to find that the act of dodging a lawfully issued subpoena caused him to be treated like a common criminal. Who in the world did they, the Department of Justice, think they were dealing with? It's not like in the time he was working diligently for the public that anyone who mattered thought he was the unethical toady of a vicious moneyed would-be tyrant. (I mean, except for the people who did. But did they matter?) They intercepted him at the airport for crying out loud! As if they were watching him! (Do you think!?)

It's getting so conservatives can't even lie to Congress or the Feds, noted legal mind Louie Gohmert opined. If you're a conservative, of course. He's thinking of how Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman was acquitted of lying to the FBI because it wasn't actually proven, and how Michael Flynn, who plead guilty to lying to the FBI (and apparently, was unmasked quite innocently in a scandal that wasn't, thank you so much), was absolutely railroaded by having his sentence shortened by Trump AG Bill Barr before being pardoned by Trump himself. It's the damnedest thing when Republicans can nearly be held accountable for stuff they did and you can hardly hold Democrats responsible for stuff you want them to be punished for. 

Amusingly, or not, Navarro was just telling the world how when Trump was back in power all the people would pay. That's a lot of moxie for a guy who was pretty open about how he and Steve Bannon were staging the Green Bay Sweep. Next, they are going to be saying trying to steal an election is a bad thing--even if you're a Republican. It's a god-damned upside-down world. 

Now, about that stealing elections thing--I know I'm going to come across as some kind of stickler, but with each bit of material gleaned from the Trumpers (especially Mark Meadows, MVP, whose texts are a source of abundant context), it sure does look that it was they, not anyone else, who were fixing to steal an election, and apparently detailed what they were going to do in assorted memoranda. (Insert jokes regarding taking notes on a criminal conspiracy here. I'm too tired.)  It didn't even entirely occur to them that subverting the will of millions of voters would even matter in the end so why not be a little aggressive about it? (I mean, better to ask forgiveness than gain permission and all that? Or even coerce forgiveness in the form of compliance by way of martial law. You know. Strongman shit.) 

And did the 81 million Biden voters really matter? Particularly the ones whose votes could just be thrown away?  Probably ones in dodgy areas like the Philly metro area--I wonder if that was something Mark Meadows discussed with Scott Perry before those notes went up in smoke. Why Republicans think heavily Democratic-voting areas are rife with fraud is certainly a puzzlement is it not?  (Looking at which voters the Republicans will choose to intimidate in the future and insert it in the very real context of who has gotten to vote in this country historically, it certainly is not.) 

In order for democracy to work, it is necessary that even Republicans be bound by the law. But upon hearing they might be so bound, they sure are fit to be tied. 

UPDATE: AS an entire afterthought--isn't the least bit problematic that the former president wanted a mob to kill the former VP? Because I know the former VP is all like, "bygones", but in the real world, that kind of depraved indifference is basically murderous. (Sorry, l wasn't paying much more attention than the former VP seems to be feeling about that. But he totally could have died and Trump would have been okay with it. ) 

*We acknowledge the valuable contribution of our internet sages at Strangely Blogged.

Shit. The Theocrat Won

 

New from our news team: Mastriano, winning the GOP nomination for governor, vows to 'reignite torch of liberty' in Pa. https://t.co/XtZTHoRqUi

— LNP | LancasterOnline (@LancasterOnline) May 18, 2022

I don't trust this guy even more than I don't trust most (ok, any other) Republicans. There is a sense some people have about Republicans electing crazies during their primaries that really insists on us assuming that the crazies can't win a general election. I am not a person who is going to make that assumption. He is a threat to democracy in my state, but also a harbinger of the increasingly Dominionist turn the GOP seems to be making. 

UPDATE: Oh.

Oops! https://t.co/wnorfEKa9K pic.twitter.com/Py3wyxbtL5

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) May 18, 2022

Like I said--I don't assume that the most radical candidate is going to lose.

TWGB: "Actual Fraud is Irrelevant"

 

Politico dropped a story about John Eastman's emails that show that he was working with state legislatures regarding strategies to overturn the election, vis getting the alternate elector slates approved in the states where the vote totals demonstrated Trump lost. The plan? Basically, throw out the number of votes you don't like the look of, and just count the ones you actually want. Easy peasy! 

PA State Rep. Russ Diamond understood the assignment pretty well, I think:

(click to embiggen)

He basically said, welp, the Trump attorneys didn't prove their case and at least once totally lied, but why prove actual fraud if you don't agree with the election.  Apparently "there oughta be a law!" against people voting against Trump.  And yes, I hate it, because that's my vote they were talking about throwing out so casually. I didn't even give my ballot to a Soros-funded mule. I mailed the SOB by mailbox. Russ Diamond voted for Act 77  (he was for it before he was against it) that made voting this way possible.

See why I don't trust Republicans? I was born in the election year of the Watergate break in. They have been like this my whole life. 

But anyway, the bigger message is--the Trump side hasn't ever actually proved fraud--they basically have been throwing spaghetti against the wall this whole time. When you list the claims, they get ridiculous:  the Venezuelan software, the Italian satellites, the German servers, the Chinese thermostats, the Chinese ballots (with bamboo in the fibers, even!), and the South Korean jet planes, etc.

The claims never had to make sense. Time was of the essence and all they wanted to do was get everything finagled into place by 1/6th. Here in Pennsylvania, in Georgia, in Arizona, etc. All the "audits" and stuff after the fact are more about 2024. I mean, they worked so hard to find fraud--it would be silly to think states forked over a bunch of money to prove something that never really existed at all right?

HAHAHAHAHA! Yeah. but this is TrumpWorld. It's funny that way.

TWGB: Senator Lee Is a Wrong Number

 

I have long thought to myself that Republicans like Senator Lee are simply folks with whom someone like myself can not speak--we share a country and a generation and a common language, but our cultural references are still wholly out of tune. And as for the 1/6 insurrection attempt. it didn't actually surprise me that both Trump and Giuliani wrong-dialed Lee in the hopes of reaching some other senator--because of course Lee was still on their speed-dial and I never thought that, given the participation of thirsty wannabes like Cruz and Hawley, that Lee would be far behind in joining whatever fuckery the certification-opposition had in mind. 

Did I think he was an instigator though, and actually tried to promote Powell's bullshit and Eastman's well before 1/6? Like, as of November 2020? Wow. Ok. That was something else. Take the idea that he was texting Meadows that Powell was a straight shooter. Now, I would not have thought Lee was one of the people urging on a meeting of the minds between Powell and Trump's various campaign lawyers and the White House lawyers who saw little problem with putting on their campaign hats. I was sure the braingenius who invited the Kraken in was Giuliani himself.

But there Lee was. And it wasn't until the press conference where she introduced the stupidest Dominion conspiracy theories ever that were obviously going to get everybody sued that Lee apparently recognized that Powell was all crackers and no soup? 

It seems extraordinary, but wow--the conservative folks sure exist in a whole other informational ecosystem, so, maybe? I mean, how else does Eastman's alternate elector slate scheme seem like a likely successful thing--except in a peculiar microcosm where democracy isn't supposed to be an American ideal? Would it somehow make more sense to him that state legislators in say, Pennsylvania, for some reason, could decide that people voted wrong because the state legislators themselves passed a dumb voting law and invalidated all the votes of that state? And so the state legislature would throw out those insane stupid bad presumed legal but apparently not votes, 

Dr. Oz Got Endorsed By Donald Trump

 

I used to enjoy the Dr. Oz show a little bit, whenever I was off during a weekday to see it--because Dr. Oz isn't 100% horseshit as a doctor, or at least, he wasn't always. Sure, the hydroxychloroquine/ivermectin/anti-Fauci shit is obviously a political cry for help, and he's always been at least a little bit pop-science-y and "one weird trick" prone--but his show sometimes did relate useful health information. And then he decided to run for US Senate in my state as a Republican.

And that was when he fucked up. This North Jersey ass jumped up tv bullshit promoting should have had his tv syndicated thing and left a good thing be.

But see, he didn't do that, and for some reason, Trump is endorsing him for this actually important political role. 

And MAGAs are agape and aghast. Why, how? This is an OprahWorld op! He's a Hollywoodian liberal! How are we being betrayed by Trump and can we still "trust the plan"?

So, to work these things backwards, there never was a plan. Trump is not a planner. He hasn't got the bandwidth for one and thinking he's part of some white hat brigade is wishful thinking gone mad. Trump endorses Dr. Oz because he knows who Oz is because he is a Hollywoodian liberal.  He saw him on tv. Probably Fox News. Trump only knows people are any good because he saw them on tv. KT McFarland--was on tv, brilliant. Fiona Hill, not on tv until Trump made her infamous, has an accent, doesn't know what she's talking about. (She literally wrote the book on Putin. She knows what she's talking about.) 

Trump endorsements are a very mixed bag. 

TWGB: One Insurrection, Many Fronts

 

Forgive me for returning to Senator Cruz, groveller, for a minute, because he revealed a dynamic that is both faintly hilarious and deeply disturbing in that he knows that the FBI didn't fucking instigate the melee on 1/6, and he was one of the fuckfaces who gave a speech to rile up the crowd on 1/6 and also had been spewing nonsense about wanting to argue extremely dodgy Texas AG Ken Paxton's lawsuit against the states who voted the wrong way. One of the reasons he gave credence to the whole Epps thing is because he would love something else to be at fault other than literally everything he aided and abetted. And I had thought at the time that Cruz, like Josh Hawley and others, was simply playing a very cynically game and performing stupid tricks for the camera--but these tricks were at least treason-adjacent. But maybe he was an actual believer,

I mean, the insurrectionists thought he was. "What a tangled web we weave...." as the Bard might have put it. 

But the recent arrest of Oath Keepers' founder Stewart Rhodes and 10 others for seditious conspiracy changes things a bit because it looks there was an organized effort to take the Capitol and hold it and bring in more firepower in order to enact more violence for a specific end. (Getting the election decided for Trump, obvs.)  Now, hacks like Byron York or Brit Hume might be dismissive of the "attempted" insurrection in rather the way they scoffed at Trump's attempted extortion of the president of Ukraine, but facts are stubborn things, and when there is violence attached to them, they become harder to ignore. So obviously, if Rhodes and the Oath Keepers were planning before 1/6, they weren't riled up in the few days before-but were...waiting for this and dead certain Trump called them up for this--so says their lawyer!   And their readiness was exploited by cynical political machinations. 

How cynical?  I noted back in December 2020 that Trump supporters were already fomenting violence in contested states and that false electors were trying to put forward their own pro-Trump slates. I thought that was a kind of weird futile stunt then, but obviously unhealthy. But in the paradigm of the Trump Eastman memo and all that, these alternate slates existed in case Pence went ahead and rejected the confirmed states Trump wanted him to. Seven states put in alternate slates of electoral votes for Trump. The likelihood of them being accepted was remote and the process of submitting them was fraudulent, but it also looks coordinated because it wasn't just all these folks in these states having the same bright idea, right? No! That looks like a group effort. I'd love to know is Meadows has a story about that.