Careless People 🤯😱🌻✡️😱🤯

 STFU:  Two more days and this Trump shutdown will reach the previous 35-day record set during Trump 1.0.  Trump, who could end the shutdown by convening a meeting to hammer out a deal with Congressional leadership from both sides of the aisle instead blamed his mess on the “radical” Democrats and flew to Florida where he spent Halloween partying at a Great Gatsby themed shindig, one that featured scantily clad “showgirls” dancing alongside the usual Mar a Lago Botox and filler crowd of nameless and not so nameless people.  While he may have selected the Gatsby theme to punk us, odds are that he hasn’t a clue that the book is about the corrupting influence of wealth and that author, F Scott Fitzgerald depicted his wealthy characters as careless, wasteful, and morally bankrupt. Keeping with that theme, Trump also posted pictures of the remodeled Lincoln bedroom bathroom. Saying that because its previous “art deco green,” was totally inappropriate for the Lincoln era he’s had it redone in white and black statuary marble with accompanying gold fixtures, as was the look in Lincoln’s log cabin? Despite his assertion, there’s nothing about the new décor that says Lincoln era though it does scream Trump hotel.   It’s fair to assume that gold fixtures will figure prominently in his new two football field sized East Wing ballroom. To make sure that his design plans get appropriate approval, Trump has fired all the members of the National Capital Planning Commission, replacing them with fellow goldleaf aficionados.  In addition to partying, Trump sat down for a 60 Minutes’ interview with CBS’s Norah O’Donnell, parts of which were broadcast last night with its entirety posted online. Naturally, Trump bragged about the $16 million payoff he extorted from CBS and its parent Paramount Global, the amount they say they paid to get rid of his lawsuit over the legitimate pre-election editing of their Kamala Harris interview but what was really paid to get approval for their sale to David Ellison’s Skydance. He also celebrated the hiring of Bari Weiss who was hired as CBS News’ new editor-in-chief to eliminate all “liberal” bias from future CBS News broadcasts, and by liberal bias think that which offends Trump.  Weiss walks to the beat of her own drummer, so Trump might not totally appreciate her in a few months but only time will tell. When shown video of his INS militia beating the crap out of people, Trump said that he “doesn’t think that they’ve gone far enough.” When asked about his decision to pardon Binance chairman Changpeng (CZ) Zhao, he said that he has no idea who the convicted money-launderer, funder of child abusers and terrorist organizations is. Zhao’s Binance helped fund Trump’s crypto venture, so either Trump is far down the dementia hole or was lying bigly, or both.  Trump also asserted that his plan to start testing nuclear bombs was necessary because he needs to keep up with the Joneses, in this case Russia, China, and North Korea. North Korea hasn’t tested a nuclear bomb since 2017, other countries with nuclear weapons, including Russia, China, France, the UK, India, and Pakistan, have not conducted explosive nuclear tests since the 1990s.  Trump’s stated plans are alarming but since Chris Wright, his Energy Secretary, says that the ordered testing doesn’t involve nuclear explosions but instead focuses on “the other parts” of nuclear weaponry to make sure they are working properly, maybe not so bad though more than a wee bit distressing that the man who controls the nuclear codes has no idea what he ordered.  More dementia, perhaps? And that war he’s threatening to start with Venezuela, we will have to wait and see. Overall, the interview was classic Trump, chock full of lies, braggadocio, and blame shifting with everything bad, like inflation and the economy, Biden’s fault, naturally    

SNAP, Crackle and Pop:  After finding the federal government’s attempt to suspend SNAP benefits to 42 million Americans unlawful, US District Courts in Massachusetts and Rhode Island separately ordered the government to use the available contingency funds to make full benefit payments since that’s the purpose of those funds.  When asked about the court’s decision Trump mumbled some gobbledygook about his government lawyers having advised him that he can’t but that he’ll ask the courts to “clarify” their very clear orders and subject to them saying again what they said, it would be his “HONOR” to provide the funding.  Speaking in marginally clearer English, Treasury Secretary Bessent told CNN’s Jake Tapper that there’s a process that has to be followed, so we’ve got to figure out what the process is,” but that he thought that SNAP would restart midweek. Stay posted but don’t give up your spot on the food pantry line just yet.  In other snappish news, totally pissed that everyone now knows that his government plane is being used to ferry him and his country singer girlfriend to her appearances at wrestling events, FBI Director Kash Patel fired Steven Palmer, the long term agent, who served as head of the FBI’s critical incident response group which is responsible for handling major security threats as well as overseeing the FBI’s fleet of jets. Firing Palmer won’t hide Patel’s flight itineraries because there are lots of people who spend their days tracking plane from available flight data but who needs a major threat handler anyway?  By the way, Patel says his girlfriend is a patriot and obviously anyone who questions her free flights on taxpayer funded jets is not.

Politics:  Tomorrow is election day. There are lots of key races, especially in New Jersey, Virginia, and New York.  Odds are that Zohran Mamdani will come out on top in NYC.  Maybe that’s why the emboldened candidate isn’t even bothering to hide his scary biases.  Yesterday, his campaign held a phone bank featuring Jeremy Corbyn, the former head of the UK’s Labour Party who was forced to resign (ousted) from the Labour Party in response to allegations of his handling of complaints of widespread anti-Semitism within the party. To be fair, anti-Semitism isn’t just a problem on the left, it also lives boldly on the right.  Over the weekend, the conservative Heritage Foundation which has become increasingly MAGA-tized, defended its support of Tucker Carlson platforming and legitimizing white nationalist Nick Fuentes who blames everything he doesn’t like about the country on “organized Jewry in America.” Apparently normalizing the hate which has always lived behind closed doors or at least in whispers is back in vogue.  By the way, it’s great that Marjorie Taylor Greene has been calling out the Republican Party and Speaker Johnson for failing to deal with health care and for avoiding a vote on releasing the Epstein’s files but let’s not forget that she also blamed the California fires on Jewish Space lasers funded by the Rothschilds, who she now asserts she didn’t know were Jewish.  Wait until she finds out that the Pope is Catholic. Anyway, odds are that Greene is positioning herself for a run for a higher office in purplish Georgia in 2026 when Governor Kemp’s office will be up for grabs and Senate Democrat Jon Ossoff is up for reelection.