Painful

 

The plaques you didn't read about:

JAMES BUCHANAN was the only President who did not marry but many people have said that he was all Man.  He was from the great State of Pennsylvania and belonged to the Democrat Republican Party which no longer exists.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN is considered great even though he failed to prevent the Civil War by making a Deal with the South.  There was much Violence and Killing and he made a speech in Gettysburg which has been compared to Trump's Second Inaugural.  He was over six feet Tall.

ANDREW JOHNSON had the job of repairing the Country after the Civil War by restoring competent Government in the South and removing all the Troops that Lincoln had left there to cause Division between the Americans and the Blacks.  For this he was IMPEACHED even though he had bought Alaska from Russia Russia Russia.  

You should see what he says about William Henry Harrison.

It's hard out there for a Cabinet secretary, or the daughter of one.  Scott Bessent had just settled down to dinner at the Adams Morgan restaurant when Olivia diNucci called attention to him, raised her glass in ironic toast and expressed herself about the outfit he works for.  "He's eating in this nice restaurant in Washington while sanctions cause starvation across the world," she told NOTUS.  Bessent left in a huff "because the owner...refused to remove the heckler.  Also the food sucked."  Sounds like a case of dine & dash.  Meanwhile Evita Duffy-Alfonso was calling the TSA "unconstitutional" because she was subjected to an "absurdly invasive" pat-down at some airport, despite being the daughter of Sean Duffy.  She refused to be scanned because she is pregnant and posted a long lament on X name-checking George Orwell and concluding, "The 'golden age of transportation' cannot begin until the TSA is gone."  I assume she has not flown in the past two decades when millions of us were enduring these tactics.  

Readers of Vanity Fair's interview with Susie Wiles and the surprising lack of rage-posting which followed must be wondering who's really in charge at the White House/Ballroom/Fallout Shelter.  Dear Leader's Wednesday night address sounded like it was made under duress, as if he couldn't wait to get it over and watch Survivor.  As expected, the bullshit count was high, the incoherence impressive.  "I negotiated directly with the drug companies, foreign nations...to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as...six hundred percent."  Huh?  In discussing Elon Musk's ketamine problem Wiles used the term "microdosing," implying she knows an awful lot about "drugs and pharmaceuticals" -- what was Trump on, and how much?  Adam Cochran had an easy time gainsaying everything:

A MAGA named Trisha Hope wrote, "Trump is speaking so fast he seems panicked.  I've never seen him like this, and I've attended 42 of his rallies."  Good God, she must follow him around the country like the Insane Clown Posse.  (Military families will indeed be getting a $1,776 bonus, but not because Mr. Scrooge suddenly felt generous.  It's included in the Big Billionaire Bastards bill Congress passed in July.  It comes out of their housing allowances.  Trump hasn't read it.)

Trump modestly omitted the news that the Kennedy Center will henceforth be called the Trump-Kennedy Center by unanimous vote of his handpicked board.  He made Karolyin' Leavitt announce it.  (By "unanimous" Leavitt somehow overlooked Rep. Joyce Beatty, who wants it known she voted "hell, no.")  Can ticket sales fall lower than Trump's poll numbers?  We'll find out.

There was also no mention of the "armada" poised to invade Venezuela.  It's almost as if most of MAGA doesn't want any foreign wars, even for oil, and Dear Leader knows it.  And why not thank Secretary Brainworm for the measles outbreaks in Utah, Arizona and especially South Carolina, reaching a level not seen since 1992?  The Q in QAnon stands for "quarantine."

Like children opening presents on Christmas eve, the Democrats on the Oversight Committee released another batch of photos before tomorrow's Epstein File extravaganza, featuring some of the regulars along with Noam Chomsky and David Brooks.  (Yes, the overbearing New York Times columnist.)  Epstein had a first edition of Lolita on display in his Manhattan townhouse but it's still disturbing to find pictures of quotations from the book written on a woman's body, apparently with a Sharpie.  For once I don't suspect Trump -- he never heard of Nabokov.

If you can't get tickets to White House Wrestling next June, don't despair -- in the fall there's Patriot Games, a four-day athletic event on the National Mall featuring "the greatest high school athletes, one young man and one young woman from each state and territory."  Possibly including the Protectorate of Venezuela, who knows?  Just don't call it the Hunger Games or you'll hear from Suzanne Collins's lawyers.  This is what the feeble-minded fascist spends his time on.

Trump denounces injection of religion into public affairs!  By way of attacking Senator Raphael Warnock, who ended his appearance on Meet the Press by saying he was going to his church to preach.  Outrageous.  Today in the Senate Judiciary Committee another of Trump's worthless federal bench nominees was questioned by Senator John N. Kennedy (!) about his preachments as a Presbyterian elder.  Does he still think pre-marital sex is "perversion" and that the disabled should not be allowed to marry?  He couldn't remember.  They never can.