End-stage MAGA notes from all over

You can't make it up. I can't make it up. Plus some short book reviews...

There are so many creepy tendrils emanating from the shattered, putrid rubble of the end-stage presidential campaign of former President Donald Trump, not to mention his associated accomplices, that to pick one particular theme eludes me tonight.

Call this a round-up.

The New York Times, the little darling MAGA enablers, have finally come around on their bipolar coverage of the president in the past few days. They endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, which wasn’t surprising at all. The Times has been playing a fascinating game recently, which consists of taking Trump seriously as a presidential candidate instead of running daily five column banner headlines saying that the man is flatly insane.

Oh, and a fascist.

Peter Baker and Dylan Freedman put out a fine story delineating this man’s public national mental breakdown, and it was refreshing to read, for once. It discussed Trump’s Castro-length mentally ill speaking/careening (oh, it’s “weaving”—sorry).

Here’s the headline, finally:

Trump’s Speeches, Increasingly Angry and Rambling, Reignite the Question of Age

From the NYT story: He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own “beautiful” body. He relishes “a great day in Louisiana” after spending the day in Georgia. He expresses fear that North Korea is “trying to kill me”when he presumably means Iran. As late as last month, Mr. Trump was still speaking as if he were running against President Biden, five weeks after his withdrawal from the race.

Duh.

I mean, Jesus H. Christ. Where has THIS New York Times been all year?

I actually canceled my subscription over this “approach”. I’ll mull resubscribing, faintly, but this has been a tragedy how they’ve handled Trump and his goon show.

I’ve been doing a better job covering Trump as he is, and I’m an effing political cartoonist.

My gut is telling me that the Times has decided that Trump is really going to lose, and they don’t have to treat him as anything other that what he is, which is an escaped mental patient. My gut biotics have also been telling me that coddling Trump is a bad strategy for them, for they’ve shattered their brand with this stuff already.

As Trump is going to find out in 25 days, you cannot rebuild a bad brand.

He’s the Chevy Corvair. He’s unsafe at any speed. He’s the Ford Pinto, complete with an exploding gas tank. He’s the White Star Lines, with their unsinkable Titanic plowing through ice fields.

So, welcome back to responsible American journalism, The New York Times. You’re joining the litany of bad brands. Congratulations!

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I am almost done reading “Romney: A Reckoning”, by McKay Coppins.

It’s…it’s…it’s…stunning. Yes, that’s stammering.

I met Coppins in Sacramento a few years ago, and he was one of our AAEC speakers. Hats off to Pat Bagley for bringing him in. Nice guy. He’s now ready to join the absolute front ranks of American journalists. Period.

Coppins got hours of face time with Mittens, and he’s as loose as my fellow LDS brother can be. While the color in the book is fascinating (Mitt Romney sitting by himself in a gigantic townhouse in DC by himself, eating junk food and making salmon sandwiches), what’s really fascinating is how Coppins describes the delicate dance Romney and the GOP had to do with this sociopath for years.

The main stunner thus far in the book for me is this:

“He (Trump) was supposed to be at a victory party in Boston that night, but something had gone wrong. An election was being stolen. The people had to know.

Just before midnight, the tweets began to appear.

“We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!”

"Let’s fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice!”

“This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!”

“Revolution!”

This was 2012, people.

He’s been planning this for years and years.

Only Coppins seems to have noticed it. I love this book and couldn’t recommend it more highly.

Honestly, buy this book. Period. If you want another book recommendation, see also: “Commander-in-Cheat” by Rick Reilly. It’s the other must-have Trump book.

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Finally, I noted, without a moment of shock, that Bob Woodward’s new book, “War” contained one of Woodward’s usual late bombshells.

Which wasn’t a bombshell. At all.

According to Woodward, Trump sent Covid testing kits to his Kremlin slavemaster Vladimir Putin in early 2020, when, you know, he was busily instructing his fellow Americans to drink bleach and eat Ivermectin. Oh, and watching them die by the thousands and thousands because he completely screwed up the initial response to the pandemic.

Which was no response at all, really.

Don’t get me started on this mass murderer and Covid, but imagine how many lives could have been saved if a sane person had been president of the United States. Literally anyone would have been better. MTG. Gaetz. Cruz. A dog. Anyone.

Wonder what the phone calls were like?

Dictator phone sex?

Seven calls? Huh. Golf chat? The weather?

Naw. Putin was giving him his marching orders. They have something on him and his family, and it ain’t pee tapes, people. I’d stay away from the windows in the Trump Tower if I were this guy. Further, I predict that Trump and his felonious tribe will leave the country when (not if) he loses. Russia? Saudi Arabia?

This sick, sick man has infected an entire country with his delirium.

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Speaking of Mitt Romney and vulture capitalists, the MAGA a-hole U.S. Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, David McCormick, was discovered to have shorted Hershey and U.S. Steel stock in Pennsylvania with his corporate gut-and-run company, Bridgewater Associates.

Hershey.

Chocolate. You shorted chocolate. Did you take Hershey’s Kisses from small children as well? A reverse Willy Wonka. Beautiful.

Really a smart play, and now Sen. Bob Casey can be pretty certain that that’s going give him a better margin on Election Day. It’ll help Harris as well.

Hey Dave, why don’t you short the Eagles while you’re at it? And run commercials criticizing Philly cheesesteaks? Give a news conference and explain why Yuengling beer sucks. Oh, and maybe you can figure out a way to sell the Phillies as an expansion team to Las Vegas.

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See you tomorrow, kids. Big night. Prayers for the hurricane victims. And remember, Donald Trump assures us that climate change is a hoax, and also wants you to know that FEMA won’t save you because of immigrants.

As usual, I thank you for your support, free or paid.