Just Ken ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Oscar Night Grouch:  Oppenheimer won big last night, nice, but the highlight of the evening was Ryan Gosling’s Ken performance followed by John Cena’s nearly naked streak 😊. Naturally, the grouchy predecessor guy with the twitchy finger was having none of it because that’s how he rolls and maybe Adderall?  Kudos to Jimmy Kimmel for putting him in his place by pointing out it was past his jail time.  That’s the same predecessor who spent part of his weekend at Mar a Lago exchanging endorsements with Hungary’s xenophobic, anti-press, anti-democracy, autocrat Viktor Orban while also making fun of President Biden’s life-long stutter. Stutter or not, Biden’s State of the Union address performance must have really rattled Trump and the Republican hoi polloi, how else to explain their claims that Biden’s lively performance was attributable to some miracle drug. Those accusations (projections?) are fairly ironic given that in addition to Trump, one of those tweeting the drug slime is former White House doctor, now Texas Congressman Ronny Jackson who was demoted by the Navy from Vice Admiral to Captain for drinking, pill popping, mistreating subordinates, and passing out drugs, including an amphetamine mostly prescribed only to military pilots in combat situations,  as if they were candy during his White House stint.

Fundie Folly:  Despite her oddly delivered SOTU rebuttal, no one’s accused Alabama Senator Katie Britt of any pill popping but her Thursday night performance did serve as fodder for Scarlett Johansson’s spot-on Saturday Night Live cold open performance. If turns out that Britt’s “fundie baby voice,” yeah that’s a thing, wasn’t the only off part of her speech; her retelling of her interaction with a sex-trafficked migrant was deceptive as well.  It turns out that Karla Jacinto, the woman whose dreadful sex-trafficking experience she cited wasn’t abused as a result of any border security inaction on Joe Biden’s part.  Jacinto’s awful experience dates back to the early 2000s, when George W Bush was president. Moreover, the woman in question resides in Mexico and was abused there, not in the US. Not that facts matter much to the MAGA set.  Over the weekend, Trump endorsed Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace’s reelection campaign.  Mace who has outspoken often about being a rape survivor is being primaried by a Kevin McCarthy supported opponent, part of the former Speaker’s attempt at paying her back for voting for his ouster.  On Sunday,  during an interview with George Stephanopoulos Mace defended Trump because, apparently, only her rape matters, E Jean Carroll’s not so much. On Friday, sex offender/defamer Trump posted a $92 million bond with the court so that he can proceed with his appeal. He also defamed Carroll some more over the weekend so that penalty could grow if she decides to sue again. The appeal bond was provided by the Chubb Corporation.  Maybe Chubb was willing to go where other insurance companies wouldn’t because back in 2018 Trump appointed its CEO Evan Greenberg to a White House advisory committee? Or maybe Chubb is just charging him an arm and a leg and has obtained some exceptionally valuable collateral to cover their risk?  The conspiracy crowd has noted that Chubb still has an office in Moscow while even suggesting that Orban could have delivered a check from his and Trump’s mutual friend Putin.  That’s probably fake news, but anyone up on the Kate Middleton photoshop controversy and yesterday’s recalled Kensington Palace photo knows that’s it’s been a weekend full of conspiracy theories. By the way, Princess Kate or someone issuing her statements fessed up that the picture was altered this morning.  Sadly, there’s no conspiracy behind why New Hampshire’s Governor Sununu, who is supposed to be one of the few remaining normie Republicans, has joined the Trump endorsement train despite his prior criticism of all things Trump but he has. He’s just leaving his options open because while we’re all focused on 2024, he’s already jumping forward to 2028.

Tik Tok:  As you’ve probably noticed the government is still fully open for business.  That’s because Congress averted a partial shutdown on Friday night after both Houses passing a $460 billion plus FY 2024 appropriations “minibus” package, largely along the lines agreed to by then Speaker McCarthy and President Biden.  That’s good news but the closing threat is still out there as the minibus covers less than one half of the year’s spending, a second tranche of spending bills or another temporary continuing resolution needs to be passed by March 22 to avoid a shutdown.   Trump who is mostly pro-shutdown, is now also pro-Tik Tok, probably because he met with Jeff Yass one of its big investors over the weekend and because Kelly Anne Conway is representing the pro-Tik Tok forces. Yass, a former anti-Trumper has recently become pro-Trump and has also become a contributor to Trump and Speaker for now Johnson.  Trump’s new support of Tik Tok is awkward for his Congressional fan club because they’re supporting legislation that would require Tik Tok’s Chinese owners ByteDance to sell or face a US ban.  At least they’ve been supporting that legislation until now, but Trump has spoken so that might change. 

#BringThemAllHomeNow