TWGB: It's Raining Shoes!

 

It certainly has been a minute, hasn't it? So, what brings me out of self-imposed blogging exile, if not something very relevant to my obsessions? Is it that the POTUS's favorite she-pimp seems to be getting favorable treatment, with the expectation of more of the same? Well sure, that's pretty heinous, given what she has done, and you would certainly be right to wonder why, but there's of course more, because this is TrumpWorld--and of course, there are emails, lots of them, indicating Trump knew about the girls. 

I don't think any mature rational person, knowing what we know about Trump and women (and girls) who isn't pretty sure how well he knew either--it was not a well-kept secret.

But if you know me by now, you know all roads go back to Moscow. Or really, anywhere kompromat on this scuzzy, flabby-brained bag of crapulence can damage this country's national security. Because fine, MAGA does not give a tiny, constipated shit for women and girls--understood. From "Moses Mike" Johnson to the lowest Q-creep, they can pretend to moralize all they want, but at the end of the day, they can, will and do compromise their morality for the sake of politics. 

But Epstein was letting the Russians know what of course they already knew--how to handle Trump. Epstein was talking with the Russians and people in Trump's circle at a period of time that is MIGHTY inconvenient. 

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? I don't want to wonder, though--we need to see what else in in these Epstein files, and not whatever version has been redacted to death (so we have heard). The American people deserve the truth. 

(As for me, I'm still writing--I'm doing my usual November poetry challenge. )

This is Not a Great Sign

 

Trump: "When you go to a voting booth, and you do it the right way, and you go to a state that runs it properly, you go in -- they even asked me, they asked me for my license plate. I said, 'I don't know if I have it.' They said, 'Sir, you have to have it.' I was very impressed… pic.twitter.com/SVP1xAsdH0

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 18, 2025

I guess there are other things (many!) I could have to say about yesterday's events, but I'm just singling this out here: Trump's brain was trying to grope after the term "driver's license", but it came up with the entirely different "license plate." It's just a word substitution in one sense, a misspeaking, but it feels like a sign of senility, 

Well, to me anyway. It's like when he seems to have wires crossed regarding "political asylum" and "mental asylums". Or when he insists he has to show his ID to buy groceries. He may be losing his mind or, and this is also really quite terrible--he never had much of a mind to lose. 

He thinks solar energy doesn't work at night. He thinks magnets won't work when wet. You can look those things up. Trump has never looked up anything, ever and it shows.

Now MAGA being MAGA, they might just insist this is the strength of Trump: he so muscular he can just wrench his license plate off the car and fold it up in his wallet. Ignoring that Trump says batshit things in all seriousness is worrying as hell.

That's how we got here, and literally millions of lives at any time could depend on Trump not being full-blown delusional. Yet here he is, doing "peace negotiations" with a mental deficit and a florid personality disorder. 

A Red Carpet for a War Criminal

 

Trump rolled out the red carpet for a war criminal. He did not make a deal. And Putin, formerly of the KGB, apparently amplified the echoes in Trump's nearly empty noggin, because that's what you do when your job isn't to make peace, but to make war by any means at hand. And Trump keeps making himself so handy. Does he really think this is how he gets a Nobel Prize? (Which, being a thirsty little bitch, Trump definitely is politicking for.)

The sad, simple answer is, yes. Trump is a narcissist, and even a failure gives him a supply of attention, which is his oxygen. And all the little toadies he has carefully cultivated to sit around him and applaud him for nearly hitting the potty will continue to applaud Trump even if they are up to their ankles in old man pee. 

As for Russia, they continue to show disrespect to our country, which Trump and his retinue appear to be too stupid to comprehend. (Or if they are capable of comprehending, are too immiserated in Trump's company to still be capable of shame.) 

It was a shambles, and I truly believe we have not heard all of the shambolics involved just yet. 

TWGB: Pimping the White House

 

One man's idea of luxury is another man's idea of flypaper tacky; in rather the same way one man's idea of a distinctive hairstyle is another man's notion of a molded drain clog fastened to a moldering skull, but if I squint a bit, I can see what the tastemaker at the White House is going for with his gilded style complete with dance hall:

It's an homage to the Gold Rush brothel keeper who founded the family fortune. You know, a little something of l'esprit de bordel. You or I might cringe at it, but Trump is not one to turn his nose up at wherever his money has come from and has always had a soft spot for pimps. Professional courtesy? Or perhaps what passes for respect.

Some people of course simply note that this glitz is reminiscent of Mar-a-Lago, where former friend Jeffrey Epstein poached pubescents. People do say all kinds of things. For example, when I saw that Trump had the Rose Garden paved over, I might have wondered if there was anyone under the cement, in rather the way a troublesome witness might be deposited underground at one's golf course, but with less fanfare.

I also say all kinds of things, though. 

But then I saw the umbrellas and really understood:

The entrepreneurial vision of the man.

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. 

It's Literally His Job (Updates)

 

WELKER: Your secretary of state says everyone who's here, citizens and non-citizens, deserve due process. Do you agree?

TRUMP: I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. I don't know.

WELKER: Don't you need to uphold the Constitution?

TRUMP: I don't know pic.twitter.com/xRwDh8sm0X

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 4, 2025

I wonder where Trump could have learned this very important job-related question from? Oh! That's right! His oath of office, which he has taken twice:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Pope Donald the Worst?

 

 Just when I thought I was inured to the fly-paper tackiness of TrumpWorld, they succeed in flabbering the brutal hell out of my gaster. The above AI portrait of the prick as a pontiff honestly did get posted by the White House account on the Truth Social site, and despite the usual formulation of "disappointed but not surprised", I think I'll actually chuck this one into the "surprised but not disappointed" bin.

You see, the knob-glazers surrounding the president have run off with a passion after "buy Greenland" and "make Canada the 51st state", so why not humor yet another megalomaniac delusion of the slowly rotting Turnip-in-Chief? 

I should have expected as much when Sen. Graham spoke as if Trump as Pope was a real possibility:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suggested that the more than 230 Catholic Cardinals in the conclave “keep an open mind” about considering President Donald Trump for the papacy.

“I was excited to hear that President Trump is open to the idea of being the next Pope,” Graham posted Tuesday on X. “This would truly be a dark horse candidate, but I would ask the papal conclave and Catholic faithful to keep an open mind about this possibility! The first Pope-U.S. President combination has many upsides. Watching for white smoke…. Trump MMXXVIII!”

Graham showed support for the idea after President Trump was asked by a reporter if “he had anyone in mind” to succeed Pope Francis after he died at the age of 88.

People assumed he was joking. Nay, nay. He was planting seeds. 

Waltz Gets a Signal

 

When anything happens in TrumpWorld that sort of comports with reality, like the Signal chat-loving NSA Mike Waltz getting the boot, I want to do a blogpost about what the heck seems to be going on, but am always tempered by it being TrumpWorld, and the facts probably being muddier and dumber than what we initially hear. Of course, the fellow who initiated the notorious SignalGate chat is out, and so is his deputy, Alex Wong. 

Of course. A proper Administration might have done that weeks ago, and sent SecDef Hegseth packing as well. 

But this is TrumpWorld. It probably isn't the chat itself so much as Waltz having a perceived "unfriendly" journo in his saved phone contacts that did him in. And the contributions of MAGA influencer Laura Loomer. 

Marco Rubio is, like Elon Musk in the other day's cabinet meeting, wearing multiple hats, now. All I know is, Waltz shouldn't be replaced with Witlesskopf because that would be horrible--so that's what will probably happen. 

Declaration of Incoherence

 

This guy just shut down the Department of Education. pic.twitter.com/SSwsrw7oll

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) May 1, 2025

I fully intend to add to this, but my word, it is made of stupid. The man literally seems to have no idea what the Declaration of Independence is. And he just says random things. 

 UPDATE: I do not know where his brain short-circuited, but Harvard went in one ear and Harlem came out of his mouth:

Smith asked Trump what he would say to those who view his attacks against the Ivy League school as “an attack on academic freedom, rather than a defense of fairness.”

“Well, I say this. We had riots in Harlem, in Harlem, and frankly if you look at what’s gone on—and people from Harlem went up and they protested, Stephen, and they protested very strongly against Harvard. They happened to be on my side,” Trump said.

“You know I got a very high Black vote. You know that? Very, very high Black vote. It was a very great compliment to me,” Trump continued.

You know what never happened? That. That never happened.  

MS Paint-13 and our Dumbass President

 

TRUMP: He had MS-13 on his knuckles, tattooed!

MORAN: That was photoshopped

TRUMP: Terry, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime. I picked you. But you're not being very nice. pic.twitter.com/NgCpEB8o1S

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 30, 2025

I was certain that Trump was cynically using visual propaganda in a way that took advantage of the utter dupes and dopes that are his people, but the above interview snippet sure does look like someone showed Trump the picture of the knuckle tattoos, helpfully Photoshopped so that he would understand the interpretation of them, and took it to be, uh, part of the picture.  

People around him are offering cynical visual propaganda to use, but he's such a Fox News pilled dopey old grandpa, he believes what he's being told to say.

We saw this just earlier in his Time Magazine interview as well:

"That's not what my people told me--they didn't say it was, they said it was--the nine to nothing was something entirely different."

Yeah. Sometimes his people don't tell him anything, and sometimes they completely lie to his big stupid face, apparently. 

A Vision in Blue

 

Laid out in repose at the Pope's funeral whilst resplendent in blue was President Trump, kept somewhat upright by virtue of his belt. Alongside him as she occasionally is, was First Lady Melania, we are fairly certain, in the more usual black, or as she likes to put it, "Widow Practice." 

Despite at least being some kind of dressed up, funeral observers are questioning whether he should actually be taken anywhere, but a variety of more interesting locations have been suggested. 

He's Basically Useless

 

Trump posted the above impotent whinge on his dreadful Truth Social account, and I suppose someone may have let Putin know about it and if they did, I am sure of one thing. 

Putin would have laughed his ass off.  It's pathetic. It reeks of frustration:

The exchange shined a light on a rising sense of exasperation among the president and his advisers at his inability to mount a successful pressure campaign against Putin to end the war. Trump bristled at a reporter’s suggestion that he had not applied pressure to the Russian leader.

“You don’t know what pressure I’m putting on Russia,” Trump snapped. “We’re putting a lot of pressure on Russia, and Russia knows that.”

Trump then argued that “it takes two to tango, and you have to have Ukraine want to make a deal, too.”

Moscow, he said, has already made a substantial concession by not “taking the whole country.”

“Stopping the war,” he said, is a “pretty big concession.”

Part of Trump's frustration may well be not knowing exactly what a "concession" is. It's possible he only recently abandoned that idea that it meant someone was selling hot dogs and sodas during the negotiations. When Trump says "You don't know what pressure I'm putting on Russia," though, I believe that part--it's just that Russia doesn't seem to be aware of it either. That's why THIS IS NOT WORKING.

So, This Happened Yesterday

 

Trump who gets invited to the BEST FUNERALS, showed kids at the White House Easter Egg Hunt his post-assassination attempt collector's card while the stock market was tanking.

That's it. That's the picture. That sentence is the whole blog post. I've been doing this a minute and how do you even add to that? 

"Hey kids, do you know who ELSE was almost killed and rose again? Your favorite president, who got so many eggs you can't even find them all." 

Alarming Signals

 

I don't know how long Pete Hegseth is planning on sticking around at Defense but maybe he shouldn't make it long?

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to four people with knowledge of the chat.

Some of those people said that the information Mr. Hegseth shared on the Signal chat included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen — essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic.

Mr. Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, is not a Defense Department employee, but she has traveled with him overseas and drawn criticism for accompanying her husband to sensitive meetings with foreign leaders.

Really. It's like there is some kind of huge problem in the Trump Administration where people have no sense whatsoever regarding how business should even be conducted. Starting right at the top, of course.

Dictators Sure Do Love Their Propaganda

 

All the world is a stage, including social media (maybe especially there):

There was the pool furniture in the background. There were the tropical drinks, which looked to be margaritas garnished with cherries. And then there were the deported prisoner and the American senator, sitting and chatting.

That senator, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, accused El Salvador’s government on Friday of aiming to paint the picture of a leisurely respite for the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia by staging their meeting with drinks appearing to be alcohol, and angling to set the meeting by a hotel pool.

Van Hollen referred to the stagecraft with a term that had ricocheted around social media for much of the day: “Margaritagate.”

“Nobody drank any margaritas or sugar water or whatever it is,” the Democratic senator said, calling the whole situation “a lesson” in “the lengths that President Bukele will do to deceive people about what’s going on.”

Dictators dare you to ignore the context and accept their frames. Are their images improbable or too good/convenient to be true?

Well: 

The Homegrowns are Next

 

Trump to Bukele: "Home-growns are next. The home-growns. You gotta build about five more places. It's not big enough." pic.twitter.com/o20thGNK9e

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 14, 2025

Trump is serious, He wants to deport US citizens to an El Salvador hellhole. Don't kid yourself it will be for "good reasons".  Accept and believe the evidence of your eyes and ears: this man genuinely believes that people who criticize him or those who help him should be labelled criminals. The threat of being "disappeared" is how Trump means to manage dissent in this country.

But it's not just the first amendment that is in danger. It's the whole bill of rights. 

 He doesn't believe in due process or the Constitution, and neither does his attorney general. His White House is full of people who will simply lie regarding this one man--but they will also lie about anyone Trump deems an enemy of the people, because that is how the lies of weak people work. 

They don't suddenly develop a conscience somewhere down the line. The weakness corrodes every scruple, and soon the rule of law is gone.

This should be front page, five-alarm, screaming bloody murder news. It's time to call it fascism, and it's time to seriously talk about impeachment and removal. It's past time, even. But it might not be too late.

Some Mistake

 

He never misses an opportunity to not criticize Russia — even when they murder 35 people on Palm Sunday pic.twitter.com/G7zy6i22At

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) April 14, 2025

The Palm Sunday murder of civilian people in Ukraine was no accident, no mistake. It was purposeful, as has been every horrific step in the course of Russia's invasion. The vicious lie that the deaths are some mistake gives Russia an unearned grace, enables Putin, gives Trump and his bootlicker Witkoff space to pretend they are accomplishing anything by their idiotic path of continued appeasement. Trump refuses to learn and his emissary can't be taught.

And the little Trump fanclub is full of the weak and the bought and the braindead--I don't know what to make of this:

Except to say Russian influence is, as Ukrainian President Zelenskyy said in his 60 Minutes interview, everywhere in the US. But as for me, I can see clearly. This is Russia, once again for the umpteenth time, telling the world they aren't interested in peace. 

And Witlesskopf and Trump can't hear that.  If they could make peace happen, why, wouldn't they be heroes?

That Answers That Question

 

I had wondered in the previous post about the following:

Also, and this is important: the way Kennedy speaks about eliminating exposure to a "cause" of autism makes me very concerned about what he thinks about autistic people, that the people expressing aspects of the autism spectrum are broken or less-than.

Well as to that, say no more:

Visiting the FDA on Friday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had several “off -the-cuff” remarks which stunned many staffers present, according to a POLITICO report.

            ****

The most insulting comment, however, came when he used an ableist slur when discussing mental health.

“Because of my family’s commitment to these issues, I spent 200 hours ... with the r------d when I was in high school,” Kennedy said at one point. “So I was seeing people with intellectual disabilities all the time. I never saw anybody with autism.”

Okay, scratch that, because maybe I do have a bit more to say about that.

He's Still Crazy, Though

 

The market performed extremely well after Trump announced by way of social media that things would be somewhat less stupid, but make no mistake, they are still fairly stupid. We still have the potential for a recession. We still have a trade war with China, and 10% reciprocal tariffs, and it's a 90-day pause, not an admission that the whole tariff scheme is stupid, and we might not even be in for 90 days of an actual pause since Trump is, in fact. nuts. 

Basically, Trump reacted to the reaction. He admitted himself that the pause was because people were "yippy." Are we looking at a case of masterful strategery on his part?  Let's just say it caught some advisers by surprise (mid-defense of Trump's policy, no less), but we're pretty sure not everyone.

I'm not sure too many people would be shocked to find there has been gambling in this establishment. 

The Future's So Dark, I Gotta Wear Shades

 

Look, I have to retire some time, eventually, and I'm in my 50's, so I'm not grave-dancing over here about what tomorrow is going to bring. The whole election, despite what people were saying about Trump being a felon and a sex-pest and a danger to democracy had also an undercurrent of "This is a whole damn pudding-brained sociopath who will set the country on fire for giggles," but you what? Bygones. Let's just say some people out there chalked all of that up to Trump Derangement Syndrome and didn't want to believe the motherfucker was crazy.

But here's the SOB now:

Trump: "I spoke to a lot of leaders -- European, Asian, from all over the world. They are dying to make a deal, but I said 'we're not gonna have deficits with your country' ... to me a deficit is a loss. We're gonna have surpluses or at worst we're gonna be breaking even." pic.twitter.com/xnW7jb0u3R

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 6, 2025

Is everyone starting to get it? 

The financial deficits he's talking about is just a trade deficit.  We have a trade deficit with Madagascar. They sell basically vanilla. We have bakeries and ice cream factories and whatnot. They have people who are too poor to buy US goods. That's a trade deficit. Botswana sells diamonds. Same deal--we have jewelers and people buy engagement rings and so forth. They don't have the kind of incomes to be buying a lot of US goods. 

It just is what it is. Not everyone is going to be giving us a trade surplus--to think it can be so is just crazy and what you get when you don't know geography, or how anything but particularly trade works--you trade for shit you can't make or get easily. If I'm a pumpkin farmer, I don't want someone else's pumpkins--I want something I don't have. How is this hard to get?