Following the money

 

When you just want to put your swollen legs up and watch Hannity but you have to dress funny and go to a boring dinner party where none of the women are under thirty and there's no Diet Coke.

At least he's wearing underwear.  Not like this pair couple:

Once the White House Make 'em Believe Ballroom is open for business they'll have a lot more practice in formal dressing, which starts with knowing your size before you call the rental place.  

The late Joan Rivers got a lot of comedy mileage out of Queen Elizabeth and her chamber pot hats.  I wonder what she would say about Melania's headgear.  (That's her on the right, Trying Not To Be Seen.)

Trying it out for the inevitable state funeral?  Which she probably anticipates even more ardently than we do.  Why is the queen explaining her ribbon collection to an understandably (for once) confused Trump?

England has seen its share of prophets and prophetesses but none so imaginative as our own Kat Kerr, who makes regular visits to heaven and reports back on the doings.  Apparently the Holy Trinity is now a Foursome, for behold, Charlie Kirk was standing right there with the Father and the Son.  He wore a white tunic with gold trim and -- well, you can read it yourself.  Laura Loomer would kill to be able to carry off that pink hair.

It usually takes the courts a few months to dismiss Trump's frivolous lawsuits -- universities, please take note -- but his demand for a $15 billion bribe from the New York Times is already gone.  Judge Stephen Merryday, Middle District of Florida, shitcanned it:  "A complaint is not a megaphone for public relations or a passionate oration at a political rally...A complaint is a short, plain, direct statement of allegations of fact sufficient to create a facially plausible claim for relief and sufficient to permit the formulation of an informed response."  In other words, you can't just pull a scary number out of your ass because a newspaper endorsed your opponent.  Grow up.

Ilhan Omar easily skirted Nancy Mace's attempt to censure her over -- what else? -- lack of Kirk reverence, with help from unlikely members like Cory Mills.  But the hits just keep coming, in the form of another unhinged Ministry of Truth Social rant accusing her of marrying her brother, among other things.  Omar should sue Trump for defamation and for holding her responsible for conditions in Somalia, a country she left as a child.  

Also unimpressed by Trump's bluster, George Soros has donated $10 million to Gavin Newsom's campaign to put redistricting on the ballot in California.  Social media users, stand back and stand by.  It's going to be a noisy weekend.

The House decided that October 14 needs to be Charlie Kirk Remembrance Day, with only 58 Democrats standing up for sanity (final vote 310-58).  One who didn't vote with the quislings was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said, "His rhetoric and beliefs were ignorant, uneducated, and sought to disenfranchise millions of Americans, far from the 'working tirelessly to promote unity' asserted by the majority in this resolution...he accused Jews of controlling 'not just the colleges, it's the nonprofits, the movies, it's Hollywood, it's all of it.'"  

In keeping with that proud tradition, Margie Greene has already warned against allowing Jews or Israel to get control of his Turning Point USA, while Steve Bannon broods about the assassination being the work of Israeli intelligence because he opposed the destruction of Gaza.  According to the International Federation of Journalists more than two hundred journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, so why not one fake journalist in Utah?  Another 31 journalists died last week when an Israeli air strike targeted the Yemeni army's press complex.  "Truth is the first casualty of war," said either Aeschylus or Hiram Johnson.  Israel seems determined to make sure it's true.

Knowing that American evangelicals are his biggest cheerleaders, Netanyahu felt it necessary to denounce as "a monstrous big lie" that Israel was involved in killing Kirk, and I believe him.  Not a lie is his determination to "punish" France for recognizing Palestine:  closure of their embassy, speeding up West Bank "settlements" and taking over the Sanctuary of the Eleona, a Christian pilgrimage site which France controls.  Sure, Bibi, next you'll be hearing from the pope.  If you enjoy being a pariah, might as well go all in.

Speaking of pushing in all the chips, Candace Owens just told her viewer(s), "You were born a man and you'll die a man," "you" being Brigitte Macron.  The first lady of France, in what has to be a legal precedent, will submit "scientific and photographic evidence" to the court that she is and always has been female.  Perhaps Owens will then submit evidence that she suffers from MAGA disease which prevents her from telling the truth.  Otherwise she will learn what it means to be "dans le ruisseau de merde."

Here's a unique bribe proposal:  the far-right Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns most of the ABC affiliates, says it will continue to carry Jimmy Kimmel's show if he apologizes to the Kirk family and makes "a meaningful personal donation" to TPUSA.  Kimmel never said anything derogatory about Kirk -- he accused MAGA of using his death for political gain.  Like this.  What they really hated was the video of Trump brushing off condolences to promote his latest insult to the White House.  Big laugh at Trump's expense, not Kirk's.

At least Trump is no longer promising to reduce prescription drug prices by 1,500 percent, which would be silly.  Now it's just 1,000 percent.  "It'll go from $10 to $20 for us."  Sounds like a good -- wait, what?  Must be jet lag.  Usually he's a stable genius.

I don't know if anyone at State has noticed, with so many foreign visitors to track down for insufficient Kirkolatry, but Russian fighter jets -- not drones this time -- violated Estonian airspace today.  This game of chicken looks likely to continue until a NATO country panics and shoots something down.  After that, who knows?   Does Trump even know where Estonia is?

I'd like to close this unlikely week by quoting Ted Cruz.  On his podcast -- am I the only person in this country without a podcast? -- he complained that Brendan Carr's war on Jimmy Kimmel was "right out of GoodFellas" and "dangerous as hell."  Not because of its danger to protected free speech but because "that will end up bad for conservatives."  When Democrats are in power, "they will silence us.  They will use this power and they will use it ruthlessly."  Just as Joe Biden took advantage of "presidential immunity" to add liberals to the Supreme Court and proclaim Turning Point USA a "terrorist organization" and threaten Peter Thiel and Elon Musk with RICO prosecutions, right, Ted?  You should know by now that Democrats don't roll that way.  We stay inside the lines and the laws.  It's our weakness and our strength.

Fuck Ted Cruz.