The wheels come off

 Remember the RNC webpage announcing the national convention last July in Milwaukee, with a picture of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam?  This is better.

The Trump campaign targeted Georgia voters with this Facebook ad, illustrated with a lovely photograph of Georgia, the republic in the Caucasus, formerly part of the USSR.  (Georgia USA has mountains, but they're not snow-capped.)

In an interview with Sharyl Attkisson, Trump clarified his plan for deporting millions of non-citizens:  "Yes to mass deportation, even of women and children.  You put one wrong person onto a bus or onto an airplane, and your radical left lunatics will try and make it sound like the worst thing that's ever happened.  But we're getting the criminals out and we're going to do that fast, and we know who they are, and the local police know their names and they know their serial numbers.  They know everything about them."

Here are a few of the questions Attkisson didn't ask:  If they have serial numbers, doesn't that mean they're here legally?  What would stop people from changing their "serial numbers"?  Were you planning on something more permanent, say, arm tattoos?  Who are these criminal children?  What's wrong with you?  

Instead, Attkisson let him boast about the "amazing job" he did battling the covid outbreak, which began when "dust flew in from China."  As usual, he didn't get enough credit, maybe because of all the bodies stored in refrigerated trucks because the morgues were full.  Or maybe it was the cockamamie suggestions about injecting bleach, swallowing horse medicine or waiting until April when it would disappear "like a miracle."  Once again her comments were confined to "Thank you, Mr. President."    

MAGA must be experiencing a serious case of whiplash.  Days after John Numbnuts Kennedy implied that all Muslims support terrorism, and while noted Islamophobe Laura Loomer continues to serve as Trump arm candy, he bragged of welcoming the amir and prime minister of Qatar to his Florida golf shack.  Even supporters were shocked, pointing out that many hostages are still held by Hamas and that Hamas and Hezbollah leaders are welcome guests in Qatar.  Trump's position is that any dictator who flatters or bribes him is a "great and powerful leader," end of argument. 

But Trump has bigger problems.  He watched Oprah's interview with Kamala Harris last week and shrewdly noted that it was not the "real Oprah," the one who sent him a polite pro-forma letter many years ago and is therefore a close personal friend like the late Queen Elizabeth.  She "just wanted to crawl under a table," while Harris "looked really foolish."  Could there be -- dare I say it -- two Oprahs?  Maybe a body double or a robot?  Or an AI creation like all the people at Harris rallies?  No doubt he will investigate "on Day One."

It's more than a month until Halloween, but J.D. Vance decided to get a jump on Mischief Night by egging himself.  He went to a supermarket to mourn the fact that Americans can't even afford eggs to go with their fifty-dollar bacon.  And he brought his sons, insisting that "they eat about fourteen eggs every morning."  Then he held up a dozen eggs, announcing that he had paid $4.25 for them.  He chose to do so while standing in front of a display case marked "eggs $2.99."  I hope Usha doesn't send him to the store very often.

It may be time to quit politics and buy a chicken farm.

Lots of excitement in the states, where elections get decided (thanks, Founders!).  Florida is always a good place to start.  Former state senator Frank Artiles is on trial for election conspiracy, and Alexis Rodriguez testified that he took $50,000 to change his party affiliation and enter the race against him, drawing off enough votes to elect Ileana Garcia, a devout Trumper.  Rodriguez says he was a "ghost candidate" who needed the money after his divorce.  One by one the DeSantis administration is abandoning plans to build golf courses on state parks in the face of public opposition.  And in Palm Beach County 257 electronic ballots were sent to service members and voters abroad identifying the Democratic vice-presidential nominee as "Tom Walz."  PB County has a history of election fuckery but this was probably a typing error.

Political operative?  Need a short-term job?  Willing to spend time in North Carolina?  The campaign of "Black Nazi" Mark Robinson is hiring after four senior staffers quit.  No experience needed, must have own car.

New York is cracking down on turnstile jumpers.  A man identified as Derrell Mickles didn't pay to enter the subway at Sutter Avenue in Brooklyn and two NYPD officers gave chase, firing a total of nine shots.  Mickles was hit, as was one of the officers.  Also two bystanders, one shot in the head.  Hey, $2.90 is $2.90, right?

The board of elections in Ravenna, Ohio, says it will dispense with the services of Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski to provide security.  Zuchowski, you'll recall, invited residents to take down the names and addresses of people with Harris-Walz yard signs so that "locust" (migrants) can be sent there.  

Margie Greene's innamorato Brian Glenn is also worried about the sanctity of the ballot.  He wants his listeners at Real America's Voice to hang around polling places and report seeing "bus loads, van loads of people" who don't look American (white).  Someone needs to be checking IDs is all he meant.

Online absentee voting in Montana briefly shut down after it was discovered that Kamala Harris's name had been omitted.  "Only a few voters may have been impacted," reported the secretary of state.  Well, Montana only has a few voters.

The Trump campaign pushed for a special legislative session to change Nebraska's law and make the electoral vote winner-take-all.  They were thwarted by a single Republican senator, Mike McDonnell.  Good for him.

On Friday the House passed a bill to juice up Trump's Secret Service protection.  (They won't be happy to read about the uniformed Secret Service officer who managed to shoot himself on duty.)  Meanwhile Matt Gaetz is pulling out the tired "look over there -- squirrel!" maneuver, telling anyone who will listen (Breitbart) that he knows of "at least five assassination teams" closing in on Trump.  With no evidence at all he says two are domestic while the rest are "Iranians, Ukraine, Pakistan."  So tell us more -- about the sex-and-drugs party in 2017.

Who says Trump has given up?  He's reaching out to all his Catholic friends including far-right Cardinal Timothy Dolan because Kamala Harris plans to skip the Al Smith Dinner on October 17 to campaign in a state she is less certain to win.  You never saw such ring-kissing.  "I don't know what she has against our Catholic friends...Catholics are literally being persecuted by this administration.  Any Catholic that votes for Comrade Kamala Harris should have their head examined."  That has a familiar sound.  Also, isn't Joe Biden a Catholic?  As for Al Smith, he wouldn't spit on Trump if his novelty necktie was on fire.

I saved the best part of the Attkisson performance for last.  He told her he doesn't see himself running in 2028 when he loses this year.  I have to wonder.  First, the howls of the rally mobs are the high points of his life, which is why he kept holding them while in the White House.  They're also the only revenue producers he has left, with Truth Social swirling in the bowl.  Second, he's a damn liar.  He'll be 82, only a little more demented than he is now.  But this has been an extraordinary year, and it's not a bad thing to let yourself hope once in a while.