Boffo

 In The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Midge is disillusioned to learn that her husband Joel is performing a comedy monologue taken word for word from a Bob Newhart album.  He assures her that everyone starts out that way, and he could be right.  (S.J. Perelman once told an interviewer, "I could have been arrested for stealing from Ring Lardner.")  When Trump made his comedy debut at the Kennedy Center he may have thought he was channeling Don Rickles as he told the audience, "Many of you are miserable, horrible people.  But you are persistent, you never give up.  I wish you'd give up but you don't."  Apart from being mean, needless and completely unfunny, it was Mr. Warmth to the life.  Rickles died in 2017 so he can't complain and if he did, Trump would call him a r----d.

He made a twenty-minute speech hailing his Billionaire Bastards Bill from July but somehow forgetting to announce that gas is selling "for $1.98" in some unnamed state.  "I didn't really prepare very much.  I read a little bit.  I have a good memory," he assured reporters in the funniest line of the night.  And because he specializes in superlatives, the five honorees were "among the greatest artists and actors, performers, musicians, singers and songwriters ever to walk the face of the earth," watched by "billions and billions of people," some more than once I assume. 

I've never been a fan of Tom Cruise but after he turned down this farrago by claiming a "scheduling conflict" I like him better.  He avoided death threats from MAGAts while not having to experience Trump's so-called wit and Clydesdale flatulence.  The people who accepted got what they deserved.  

Bari Weiss will not be among next year's presenters after she failed to prevent Sixty Minutes from interviewing Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said hurtful things about Dear Leader.  He responded with a classic, explaining the "green/brown" joke of which he's quite proud and suggesting that she has frequently been "jilted," a quaint way of saying she's not his type.  With so many things to juggle (ballroom, Baseball Hall of Fame, going to heaven) he still has time to obsess over Hunter Biden's laptop, which is impressive in a demented sort of way.  Trump even called Greene "low IQ," usually reserved for women of color.

Watch out, Paramount, you're on the naughty list.  Colbert is still on every night until May and you have allowed criticism of the Leader in prime time.  It's terrible, just terrible, to think of the phone calls David Ellison is ducking today.  Even with Jared Kushner's Saudi-bankrolled private equity firm supporting Paramount's bid to acquire Warner Bros Discovery, he'd better fire "washed up Trump hating" Lesley Stahl before lunchtime or risk a visit from Brendan Carr and the boys.

As for Greene, she says she's had a pipe bomb threat at her house and her son received a death threat.  It may be time to call on these guys:

As the darkness closes in, Trump continues to obsess about penis size, which he believes correlates to virility as well as hand and foot size.  Seeing Arnold Palmer in the shower seems to have impressed him more than Arnie's golf game ("This is a guy that was all man").  J.D. Vance says he and Marco Rubio were in the Oval discussing "something really, really important," which is the first red flag.  Suddenly Trump woke up and told them they had "shitty shoes."  He pulled out a catalogue and asked them their sizes, promising to buy them four pairs apiece.  Then he told them of a politician who wore a size seven, meaning he ain't much of a man, har har.  I hope they aren't counting on those shoes, which will arrive shortly after the Republican health care plan.  

You can't fit every achievement into a twenty-minute song of self-praise, so Trump failed to claim a record for himself -- he has pardoned or commuted the sentences of at least a hundred major drug traffickers in the nearly five years he has promised to crack down (no pun intended) on the illegal drug trade.  It's not ideological; he has no beliefs.  It's based on their ability to "contribute" to his ballroom, his "library" or his superpac for the third term he's not allowed.  How many drug middlemen have received the same treatment?  Meanwhile the murder of men in boats who may or may not be transporting drugs continues.  Can we start calling it a holocaust?

So much injustice to fight, so few hours in the day.   After Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Gary Sheffield failed to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, probably because of their steroid abuse, Trump posted a long rant about the unfair treatment of Clemens.  Not the others, for some reason.  And it wasn't because sportswriters refused to vote for them:

A white man can't catch a break.

If it's Biden's, it's bad, whether it's fuel efficiency rules for cars or fines for airline malfeasance.  In 2022 Southwest Airlines cancelled nearly 17,000 flights, failed to provide refunds or notifications or even answer the phone, and generally ruined the holiday plans of thousands.  For this they were hit with a record fine of $140 million, of which $11 million has been waived.  Hey, shit happens.  I'm sure they'll be properly grateful to Uncle Don this Christmas.

How sharper than a serpent's tooth department:  Trump preemptively pardoned corrupt Rep. Henry Cuellar, only to have him announce that he will "be 'running' for Congress again" as a Democrat!  If possible he's even angrier at Cuellar than at Greene.  Cool your saggy tits, Donnie, if Abbott and the other stooges did their work well, Texas will never elect another Democrat.  Even if it does, Cuellar could be as useless as Joe Manchin or John Fetterman.  And your obsession with "Henry's daughters" is a little creepy.  (By the way, Epstein file -- where is it?)  But the last line -- "Oh' well, next time, no more Mr. Nice guy!" -- priceless.  Anyone who calls you a depraved, humorless husk will have to answer to me.

"God was very happy with me that day!" Trump congratulated himself on the Cuellar pardon.  Not the Honduran narcopresidente or the Dark Web guy?  Trouble in paradise?  His five-year-old's understanding of salvation as something you secure by accumulating points like Plaid Stamps reminds me of Dorian Gray performing a good deed and rushing to the attic to see if his portrait looks less ghastly, only to find smugness among the other sins on the dreadful face.  That's not how it works.  

This is how it works:

"The manager at Hola Arepa in south Minneapolis told a FOX 9 reporter that ICE had been in an alley behind the restaurant.  The staff at the restaurant reportedly stood up to ICE, and they ultimately left without detaining anyone."

Bullies are cowards.