Lost: One set of marbles

 More election fraud?  According to Ramin Setoodeh's book Apprentice in Wonderland, he interviewed Trump about Joan Rivers, who was a contestant on The Apprentice in 2009.  "I thought she might have been a Republican," Trump told him.  "I know one thing:  She voted for me, according to what she said."  Rivers died in 2014.  I see where the president of Argentina seeks advice from his dead English mastiff, Conan, so who's to say it couldn't happen?  (Javier Milei does not claim that Conan voted for him.)

Other highlights:  Trump apparently also thought he had a shot with Debra Messing, then the star of Will & Grace.  He considered her "quite attractive" -- no Stormy Daniels but OK -- but she told him to get lost and "I watch her today and it's like she's a raving mess."  He also devotes a lot of space to trashing Omarosa Manigault, who briefly worked in the White House and says she has heard the tape that could be more damaging than Access Hollywood's, where he calls a contestant a n-----.  "It doesn't exist," he insists.  Probably another memory lapse.  

Setoodeh told an interviewer yesterday that he spoke to Trump numerous times for the book, most recently in 2021, and Trump could not even remember him.  Steven Cheung was ready with an explanation:  "This writer is a 'nobody' and insignificant, so of course he never made an impression."  That's no way to talk about the editor of Variety.  Maybe Trump will remember him now.  I'll bet Donnie's Book Club does not recommend the book.

Nor will it be promoting On Call:  A Doctor's Journey in Public Service by Anthony Fauci.  In one passage he recalls a typically elegant conversation with the President of the United States:  "I am going to win this election by a fucking landslide.  Just wait and see.  I always did things my way.  And I always win, no matter what all these other fucking people think.  And that fucker Biden.  He is so fucking stupid.  I am going to kick his fucking ass in this election."  Earlier he had screamed at Fauci for informing him (correctly) that booster vaccines would be needed.  "The president was irate, saying that I could not keep doing this to him.  He said he loved me but the country was in trouble, and I was making it worse."  So, already deep in dementia.  The people who lost friends and loved ones to covid will be startled to read that it was something Fauci did to Trump.  

As the first debate approaches and Trump's brain continues to deteriorate, his surrogates have stepped up lies about Biden's health.  Maria Bartiromo interviewed incompetent cabinet secretary and long-ago surgeon Ben Carson, who claims we have "somebody who's impaired with the nuclear codes, in charge of the military."  "You're a doctor," said Maria, who's right on top of things.  "Do you believe President Biden makes it to the election?"  Ben, a brain-type doctor, told her he's "sure" the Democrats are plotting to replace him.  You can tell by all the money they're spending on ads like this:

No sooner was Dr. Ben shown how to find the elevator than a plastic surgeon named Sheila Nazariank popped up to diagnose Biden with Parkinson's.  They've never met and her specialty is tummy-tucks, but she studies all the AI-faked videos currently in circulation.  Her story was picked up by the Daily Mail and relayed to the Kremlin by a Russian reporter called Dmitry Smirnov.  (Wait, another Smirnov?  Is it Russian for Smith?)  Now state media is reporting as fact that America is "continuing to search for the reasons behind Biden's strange behavior" -- the new defense pact with Ukraine, presumably.  When I was a young one back in 1964 some psychiatrists put out a statement that there was something not quite right about Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, who seemed awfully eager to drop the big one on the Russkies.  Every professional organization condemned them for this long-distance speculation.  I'm glad doctors no longer feel shackled by these tired old ethics.  (The scary LBJ ad with the little girl and the daisy, while a man counted down to zero?  Withdrawn after a single airing.  Different days.)

During a more recent election (2016) the gullible were told hourly that Hillary Clinton was dying.  When she fought through pneumonia to pay tribute to the 9/11 victims and stumbled getting into her car, every channel showed it at least hourly.  Long before AI, Trump pal David Pecker published doctored photos that showed a woman of about eighty, possibly with multiple sclerosis.  How do people keep falling for this?    

Bad news for Steve Bannon, good news for the rest of us.  Unless the Sleazy Six can put together some sort of hail-mary ruling, Pigpen is on his way to prison-prison.  Maybe Rikers, maybe Danbury, but not the kind of institution with volleyball courts and a computer room.  Because he's also under indictment in New York in the We Build the Wall money-laundering scam, the authorities want him someplace where he won't slip away to his friend's yacht.  His lawyers filed to get the sentence postponed because he's so important to the election process, the source of news for "millions of Americans."  If only Charlie Manson had had a podcast.  So. no Club Fed but maybe Club Dread.  I just need for you to do me a favor, Corrections Department.  Deliver him to Juan Merchan's courtroom in orange jumpsuit and shackles.  I won't ask for anything else.