A world of "NO"

 From the Guardian:

"Briana Boston, 42, had just had a medical claim denied and was talking on a phone call with a representative from Blue Cross Blue Shield.  The Lakeland [Florida] resident then allegedly said, 'Delay, deny, depose.  You people are next.'"  She was arrested and charged with threatening to commit an act of terrorism.  I'm impressed that she got a rep on the phone.  It was probably the hold music that drove her over the edge as much as the denial.  All our representatives are denying other customers.  Please hold...

Xi Jinping has an important haircut scheduled for January 20 and will not be able to attend the Leader's triumphant inauguration, according to CBS News.  Invitations are also out to Javier Milei, Giorgia Meloni, Viktor Orban and Nayib Bukele (El Salvador) because unlike all previous presidents, the Leader's fragile ego needs bolstering from other authoritarians.  (No Macron, Starmer, Ishiba, Lula, Trudeau or Sheinbaum.) 

Robert Rundo, leader of the neo-Nazi Rise Again movement, will be another no-show unless the Leader signs his inevitable pardon while taking the oath.  Rundo has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to riot and is scheduled to be sentenced today.  This is what "conspiracy to riot" looks like:

Always focusing on the important stuff, the Leader is obsessed with getting the two new planes he ordered from Boeing during the first term.  He has been on the phone to CEO Kelly Ortberg to complain, but the special fittings are taking longer than expected, coupled with a machinists' strike and the layoff of 17,000 workers.  The Air Forces One may not be ready before 2029, which would force him to remain Leader indefinitely.

"I go in, so many people mention groceries, that beautiful but simple word groceries, 'sir, my groceries,' you don't think of it that way but that's what they mention more than anything, my groceries..."  The gist of that gibberish seems to be that food costs too much.  That was the Leader campaigning.  Time asked its Life-Form of the Year if he'll consider his presidency a failure if food prices don't come down:  "I don't think so.  Look, they got them up.  I'd like to bring them down.  It's hard to bring things down once they're up.  You know, it's very hard."  It's intellectually dishonest, of course, but at least it's English:  I promised to lower food prices.  I can't because I'm full of shit.  Anyway, it's somebody else's fault as usual.

Groceries...say it soft and it's almost like praying...

The Leader's new adviser on the Middle East and Tiffany Trump father-in-law Massad Boulos has been advertised as a billionaire.  Turns out, according to the New York Times, he runs a truck dealership in Nigeria that's owned by his father-in-law and saw a profit of about $66,000 last year.  Which means he's even farther from being a real billionaire than the Leader Himself.  Give it time:  Jared Kushner wasn't a billionaire in 2017 when he was put in charge of sorting out the Middle East.  Look at him now!  And look at the Middle East!

There's gold to be mined in all that sand, which is why the Trump Organization, prevented from operating in New York because of some trivial matters involving taxes and falsified records, has turned its attention elsewhere.  It's partnering up with the House of Saud to build another eyesore, Trump Tower Jeddah.

Let's hope those slave construction workers can get it finished in time for the 2034 World Cup, which has been awarded to -- well, look at this! -- Saudi Arabia!  They were the only bidder because what's the point? said every other country.  That's the men's World Cup, of course.  Women in abbreviated uniforms playing football might give Saudi women unwholesome ideas, if Prince Bone Saw (probably King Bone Saw by then) allowed them to attend.

This message appeared on an electronic road sign on Highway 99 in Seattle yesterday.  The DOT thinks it was hacked.  They're not sure.

Banks used to advertise on television with commercials that concluded "Member FDIC."  Not if Captain Apartheid has his way.  Elon Musk wants to abolish the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, created in 1933 after hundreds of bank failures had caused thousands of Americans to lose their savings, homes, farms and businesses.  How can that be relevant in the age of imaginary cryptobucks?  Do banks even really exist anymore?  Where are the twenty-first century Dillinger and Barrow gangs?  I'll bet Musk hasn't seen currency in years.  Why not get rid of that, too?  Then certain people will stop asking what happened to the Harriet Tubman twenty.

Speaking of crypto, the Leader's new venture in partnership with Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, World Liberty Financial, tucks them snugly into bed with our old friends Hezbollah and Hamas.  So says Israel's National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing.  Small world, huh?

"We're in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before World War II.  Even the slogan is the same, 'America First.'"  And you, Mitch McConnell, bear a shitload of responsibility for it, the Financial Times's Alex Rogers did not point out, so I will.  It's not enough to call the Leader "a despicable human being" in a private conversation, you have to say it out loud.  Too late for regrets, Herr Frankenstein.

Nobody has seen Judy, uh, Jady Vance since he tweeted this skin-crawling image.  Has anyone heard from him?  Is he all right?  I think he learned what many others have known, from John Adams to John Nance Garner -- the Vice Presidency isn't worth a bucket of warm piss.  Of course, neither is he.