Saying her name

 CNN anchor Jim Sciutto's book The Return of Great Powers is out today and recounts an interview with General John Kelly, one of Trump's numerous chiefs of staff.  The subject of Hitler came up one day -- perfectly normal White House conversation -- and Kelly says he tried to stop Trump from praising him by basically offering Mussolini as an alternative role model.  ("Mussolini was a great guy in comparison.")  According to Kelly, Trump "missed the Holocaust" in his assessment of Hitler along with "the 400,000 American GIs" who were killed in Europe.  Did he?  We know what he thinks of veterans in general -- Kelly himself told us.  I don't think he "missed" two-thirds of European Jews.  

Kelly thinks it's "the tough guy thing."  Trump admires strongmen like Putin, Xi and Kim because he wants to emulate them.  That's not exactly breaking news.  He promises to be a dictator "on day one."  He couldn't say enough about houseguest Viktor Orban, Putin's Mussolini:  "He's fantastic, he's a non-controversial figure because he says 'This is the way it's going to be,' and that's the end of it.  Right?  He's the boss.  No, he's a great leader."  It sounds like another of Trump's heroes, "the late, great Alphonse Capone."  Looks a little like him, too.

Dictatorship enablers like James Comer continue to rifle through Hunter Biden's life in a quest for anything they can call "impeachable" as the Gang of Putin's war on Joe Biden continues.  We found out today he sent a "secret subpoena" to AT&T for fifteen years of Hunter Biden's phone records on the off-chance he called his father to wish him a happy birthday, clearly a coded request for influence of some kind.  I have to give it to Comer, he doesn't know when he's beaten.  Five informants, five exploding cigars and he just keeps lighting up.  Hunter Biden's high school should probably start getting his records together now.  It's a matter of time.

"This is not a witch hunt," according to Trump Employee No. 5 in the classified documents indictment, now revealed as Brian Butler.  Butler worked for Trump for twenty years and helped Walt Nauta move a trove of stolen material in 2022, when the FBI came looking for them.  "We're all dirty.  We all moved boxes," he told CNN.  Of Trump, "He just can't take responsibility for anything."  Time to check out the Bedminster Golf Club and Cemetery.  

Strongmen often attract surprising admirers.  According to Vanity Fair Johnny Depp met and bonded with Prince Mohammed bin Salman while making a movie in Saudi Arabia and may take a high-paid job as a "cultural ambassador" for the kingdom.  Remind me to throw away my copy of Ed Wood.

Americans are notoriously short-memoried and many have already forgotten Angel Martyr Ashli Babbitt.  Luckily the right has a new candidate for political martyrdom in Laken Riley.  Unlike Babbitt, who was climbing through a window in the Capitol when she was shot by a police officer, Riley was on her morning run when she was murdered on the campus of the University of Georgia.  Police soon arrested an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant named Jose Antonio Ibarra, and Riley soon became the symbol of the "thousands and thousands" of Americans under siege from criminal "illegals."  Beginning with Governor Brian Kemp and spreading as rapidly as a virus to the rest of his party, Ibarra became the face of "Biden's failed policies" and not, as you might think, for the Congress's failure to pass the bipartisan border bill because Trump told his minions not to.  The officer who shot Babbitt was exonerated and faced no charges.  Ibarra's case has yet to be heard.  It doesn't matter because it's all about the image.  I don't know how the Riley family feels about hearing her name tossed around every day, sometimes as "Lincoln Riley," sometimes spelled "Lakan" by the semi-literate who insists the 2020 election was "RIGGED AND STOLLEN."  In this photo they don't seem worried.

The shit-eating grin while holding a picture of a murder victim is completely in line with the "ROT IN HELL" Christmas wishes and all the other indications that this is not a sentient human.  This is a bag of cholesterol with a cause that won't slip away like Karla Jacinto Romero, as it continues its desperate struggle to die someplace other than a prison infirmary.

Joe Biden wears a watch that belonged to his son Beau.  It's said that he carries Beau's rosary in his pocket.  To claim he can't remember the day and the hour when Beau died is contemptible and befits the worst kind of Trump operative.  His name is Robert Hur and right about now Gym Jordan must regret showcasing him to the House Judiciary Committee.  The Democrats on the committee took turns demonstrating that he is a liar and a jerk who can't stand to be confronted and contradicted, just like Trump.  I think Cori Bush's nickname "Ex-White-Supremacist-In-Chief," while a little unwieldy, will stick, no matter how many AI fakes of Trump with happy Black people his cult rolls out.  

And then there was Jerry Nadler's montage of Trump gaffes, all ready for the lazy mainstreamers to screen on the nightly news.  "A man who ought to think twice before accusing others of cognitive decline."  

One more from what we used to call the lunatic fringe, before the fringe became the whole blanket:  For years the Obama-haters have insisted that Michelle Obama is a man because it fits into their "theory" that her husband is gay.  Mrs. Obama, meet Mme. Macron.  International gender authority Candace Owens has done her own research and "would stake my professional reputation" that Brigitte Macron is a man.  She calls it "The BIGGEST political scandal in human history," so it must be important.  President Macron has been one of Europe's most forceful advocates for Ukraine, which I assume is why the fascists hate him, which they express by attacking his wife.  Classy, Candy.  If this doesn't get you on Trump's VP shortlist, I don't know what to suggest.  Your professional reputation and half a billion dollars will get him out from under the New York fraud judgment.