Crunching the numbers

Elon Musk should stop making exploding cars and get himself a talk show.  He has a knack for putting people at ease.  On Twitter Tonight he showcased the laid-back Trump we seldom see, proclaiming the Kamala Harris Time cover "beautiful."  He showered the highest praise he could, comparing her to "our great first lady Melania...she looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live."  He was so close to proclaiming her "my type" that I worried for Harris's safety on the debate stage -- once a rapist, always a rapist.  

By the time I read about his "economics" speech in Asheville, North Carolina, I relaxed.  "They don't use a picture.  They don't use a picture.  They use an artist sketch.  I want to use that artist.  I want to find that artist.  I like him very much."  The artist fooled him, just as Hans Holbein fooled Henry VIII into thinking Anna of Cleves was a hottie.  How could any Black woman compare to Melania?  He went on to attack her laugh and to demand why she "hasn't brought back the jobs," which was practically all he had to say about the economy.

Net-zero emissions:  "You know what net zero -- they have no idea what it means, by the way.  Ask her what it means.  We are going to go to a net zero policy.  What does that mean?  I have no idea."

Interest rates:  "The clown that she picked as a vice president.  This guy is a clown.  He was so bad."

Home ownership:  "Putin respected us.  President Xi of China respected us.  Kim Jong-un of North Korea respected us."

Inflation:  "You know why she hasn't done an interview?  She's not smart.  She's not intelligent.  And we've gone through enough of that with this guy, Crooked Joe."

The crowd of 2,431 left none the wiser about economics.  Well, he did promise to lower energy costs "fifty to seventy percent" within a year, eighteen months at the outside.  After two years they'll be giving it away.  Meanwhile, the Biden administration's negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies are poised to cut prices 38% to 79% on the top ten Medicare-prescribed drugs, just as Trump was repeating the lie about his $35 cap on insulin.

Tim Walz continues to drive the MAGAs bonkers, dodging every punch like a young Ali.  After cycling through his military service and claiming that teaching is not "a real job," they look exhausted and it's still the first round.  Roger Stone, whose pod thing is called, I shit you not, "The Stone Zone," went for the gay:  "Saw him at a rally.  I mean, I hate to quote Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles but he was jumping around like a Kansas City faggot." I suspect that's not the only Blazing Saddles line he would like to quote.  On Newsmax, somebody named Chris Kohls went another way:  "He's got this Santa Claus-like look to him, except this Santa Claus could potentially be a serial killer...I mean this could be a movie.  This guy is so creepy, so terrifying because he's, like, a communist but he looks like Santa Claus.  So it's absolutely terrifying."  Chris had a bad experience in a department store:  "You'll shoot your eye out, kid.  HO HO HO!'

Sean Hannity decided to go after Walz's wife Gwen and daughter Hope, "basking in the violence" of the George Floyd protests, disseminating "confidential information" to the "rioters."  Gus Walz is only 17 and has not given interviews, but don't think that will get him any consideration, nor the dog and cat.  These people are desperate.  Wait till they find out Hope is not just a vegetarian, she's also a social worker in a homeless shelter.  As Kohls would say, it's absolutely terrifying.

Of course, they have a lot of ground to make up.  As J.D. Vance's public statements from the past few years continue to surface it seems he spent most of his adulthood stepping on, jumping on and Riverdancing on his own dick.  In 2021 he made a speech accusing Amazon and Jeff Bezos of funding Black Lives Matter so they would burn down retail stores, thus forcing people to shop online.  A year earlier, on a podcast called The Portal, he expressed support for multigenerational families but he couldn't stop there.  Vance agreed that "the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female" is to help raise children.  But he couldn't stop there.  He went on to praise his own mother-in-law, who has a career as a biology professor but took a sabbatical to move in and help with their baby.  But he couldn't stop there; he called it "a weird, unadvertised feature of marrying an Indian woman."  Of course, if we had paid parental leave like the advanced countries, she wouldn't have had to move in -- but he stopped well short of that.

It must be added that Vance doesn't get much help from the Trump loyalists.  Nobody at the "press conference" or the NABJ convention asked Trump, "So this demented obsession with Hannibal Lecter...what the hell?"  But somebody asked Steven Cheung and got this:  "President Trump is an inspiring and gifted storyteller and referencing pop culture is one of many reasons why he can successfully connect with the audience and voters.  Whereas [Kamala Harris] is as relatable as a worn-out couch."  Oh, no, you didn't.  Just when the "Vladimir Futon" jokes were beginning to subside, you went with the couch.  (NB:  J.D. Vance did not fuck a couch.)  

When it comes to old Jadee, there's no need to spend hours on the Wayback Machine searching for old statements.  He's producing fresh fodder for Democrats, like his visit to Fox to agree with Laura Ingraham that women don't care much about abortion, they care about "normal things" like, I don't know, the price of bacon or Drag Queen Story Hour.  The things Laura and Jadee care about.  Every poll says different; abortion access will be on the ballot in Missouri and Arizona, among other states.  But sure, keep talking about all the "mental patients" crossing the border and maybe the gals will forget about being stripped of bodily autonomy.  Every time some lout compares abortion to slavery (yep, old Jadee again), we need to remind them that enslaved women also had no bodily autonomy, or even the right to keep and raise their own children.  (Free women had scarcely more in the era they want to return us to.)

The chaos in the Trump campaign has even reached the Guardian, which reports that Lara Trump and Kellyanne Conway are already elbowing each other out of the way.  Now comes word that Corey Lewandowski is back, bringing that 2016 magic.  The only thing they can't change is the candidate, whose inner circle think he's experiencing post-traumatic stress from being shot at and was none too stable to begin with.  It looks like they want to fix the ballclub by replacing the manager and coaches.  I don't think the poll-takers are asking people what they think of Lewandowski.

Roadkill Robert Kennedy continues to sound like the kid who wasn't invited to the birthday party and decides it was a stupid party anyway.  He tried to get a meeting with Kamala Harris to discuss throwing his support to her in return for a cabinet job.  She was busy, so he decided her Democratic Party "would be unrecognizable to my father and uncle."  You bet it would -- all the Dixiecrats are Republicans now.  "I have no plans to endorse Kamala Harris for president.  I do have a plan to defeat her."  If so, he should share with the Trump campaign, which previously told him to go away.

Membership in Motel a Lago now costs a million dollars, which appears to be part of a trend.  Trump Turnberry in Scotland will jack up its green fee by $1,200 in June unless you check into the hotel first.  These clubs are the only Trump businesses he hasn't managed to bankrupt and he seems determined to squeeze every nickel out of them before --- what?  According to the BBC, Turnberry and another club in Ayrshire lost $5.5 million in 2021.

I don't understand the pointing and the Mountain Dew (yuch), but I did enjoy this snapshot of J.D. Vance sharing his ride with Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL).  Not sure if you can read it but the headline on the Wall Street Journal says INFLATION HITS LOWEST LEVEL SINCE 2021.  All right, who brought along this commie paper owned by -- Rupert Murdoch?