Asking questions

 When is a rapist not a rapist?  We may be about to find out, at least according to Florida.  Judge Cecilia Altonaga says Trump can go ahead and sue ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for referring to him as a rapist just because a New York jury found him liable for raping E. Jean Carroll.  This could be defamatory, in Florida.  Can Stephanopoulos sue Trump for wittily calling him "Slopadopolus"?  Stay tuned.  (Carroll is still waiting for the millions she won.)

Was Trump struck by a bullet or shrapnel or did he scratch his ear with one of his polished fingernails?  FBI director Christopher Wray isn't sure.  Trump insists he "felt the bullet ripping through the skin" and that "much bleeding took place," though apparently not enough to require a transfusion.  The doctor(s) who applied the sanitary pad is not allowed to speak publicly and Trump is a pathological liar, so probably a fingernail.  Did he consult Robert Kennedy, Jr., about getting a tetanus shot?  Also unknown.

Not much scarring visible at the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, which I'm betting was not named for Bill Robinson.  Looks really old, though.  Are we sure he's only 78?  As Netanyahu raged at Congress Trump took up a familiar theme, conflating all Jews with Israel and accusing Kamala Harris of being "totally against the Jewish people."  Mr. Emhoff, would you like to handle this?

For the love of Bacchus, can't they make him shut up about Hannibal Lecter?

The Trump who looked death in the eye phoned in to the White Couch Show this morning to bemoan his terrible treatment at the hands of prosecutors and call Kamala Harris "real garbage." He stopped short of blaming her for poisoning the blood of our country, so this must be the sober, mature Trump, presidential even.  In fact, he's serene about the election in a hundred days or so because in fact, he has already won.  His army of "pole watchers" will make sure the Democrats don't steal it again.  "We have that's what I in fact my instruction," he explained smoothly. "We don't need the votes.  I have so many votes."  That's their strategy:  Don't Get Out The Vote.  Everybody clear? 

Why does Trump hate generals?  In Charlotte he proposed firing them all and replacing them with football coaches and NASCAR drivers.  "When you can win so many races, that's OK, you guide.  Same thing with coaches, you take some of the greatest football coaches and put them in a room -- it's not so different."  Because turning left for three hours at high speed while wearing out your tires is the real test of strategic brilliance, and football is just war with cheerleaders, OK?  

One general he hates above all others is the former chair of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley.  This morning Jeff Tiedrich reminds us of the ceremony where Milley asked Captain Luis Avila, a severely wounded veteran of Afghanistan, to sing "God Bless America."  Afterward the commander in chief demanded, "Why do you bring people like that here?  No one wants to see that, the wounded."  Why not let him die and move to Florida? he did not add on that occasion.  

Is J.D. Vance about to be given the big dump?  There is precedent:  Thomas Eagleton was removed from the 1972 Democratic ticket when it became known that he had been hospitalized for depression.  (In the pre-Oprah era, seeking treatment for psychological problems was a political career-killer.)  Nobody can remember exactly why Vance was chosen and now he's shattering the unity of MAGA as racists denounce him for marrying a woman of color who is not even a Christian.  The party prefers that such abuse be stockpiled for use against Kamala Harris.  They have also decided that one of her father's ancestors in Jamaica owned slaves.  Have you ever seen Henry Louis Gates's "Finding Your Roots"?  Everybody's ancestors owned slaves.  Even Larry David's, and he turned out to be a cousin of Bernie Sanders.

Kamala Harris has already distinguished herself from Trump by asking permission of Beyonce to use "Freedom" as a campaign anthem.  (Trump is being sued by at least a half-dozen artists for using their music without permission and implying that they support him.)  Harris knows and respects music, with Charles Mingus, Bootsy Collins and George Clinton among her favorites.  The commitment to jazz runs deep:  Ella and Cole Emhoff are named after Ella Fitzgerald and John Coltrane.  We could be in for the hippest White House since Jimmy Carter duetted with Dizzy Gillespie on "Salt Peanuts."

 

Trump is also using this image and quotation, claiming that he is among the patriots.  Does he know that General Grant fought against seditionists?  His descendants should sue.

A man was arrested at Miami Airport for stabbing a 17-year-old transgender girl eighteen times.  She was eating when the man, who did not know her, attacked her with a knife he had just bought and tried to throw her over a railing.  She is in critical condition.  Just a reminder in this political season that hate has real-world consequences.