Entirely Inedible: On Glitches and Losses and Lies

Apologies for re-visiting GOP lowlifes and their yammering Mad Emperor, but damn things are getting weird out there. Having ended his trial not with a bang but a craven whine - so much for "absolutely" testifying: "I tell the truth" - Trump gave a daft, dark speech at the NRA convention, calling Biden "a Manchurian candidate," vowing to roll back all gun control, pondering a third term and slamming the country as a “cesspool of ruin." Then a long glitch turned him bizarrely silent. It was blissful.

In brief: To the cretins of a sick, corrupt, fast-diminishing NRA gathered in Dallas to endorse him, the tinpot babbled and spewed his usual ugly gibberish. Biden is "a threat to democracy" who'd get the electric chair if a Republican, he's fighting "hateful communists and criminals," Alvin Bragg is "Soros-backed," not even Lincoln did more for "the black individual in this country than Donald J. Trump," he won 31 golf championships or 29, he's just like his friggin' "genius" uncle at MIT, he's "a better physical specimen" than Obama, he's started an imaginary "Gun Owners For Trump" to stop "the violent migrant crime wave (Biden) has unleashed on our country" though violent crime has fallen sharply, and gun owners, of which he's clearly not one, are "under seesh, we're under seesh but they didn't move us an inch" so on Day One "we'll roll back every gun control measure."

Then came what was widely billed a McConnell-like, 35-second "freeze" but in fact more resembled a system glitch - in his brain, his reading of the room or the teleprompter. He was in the middle of his 6th-grade report - "The Texas spirit of proud independence was forged by cowboys and cattle hands, ranchers and rangers...Many came here with nothing but the boots on their feet, the clothes on their back, the gun in their saddle. Together they helped make America into the single greatest nation in the history of the world" - when he fell silent. For a long time. So did the room. He shook his head, furrowed his brow, stared. An ad popped up for a gold IRA: "Text TRUMP." Finally, QAnon/Nazi music swelled and he came back to awful life: "But now, we are a nation in declined. We are a failing nation." Cue inflation, collapsing banks, drugs, crime, dirty airports, other "horror" by "these tyrants and villains."

When news came of his "Milli Vanilli-type" malfunction, he shrieked, "Donald Trump doesn’t freeze!" He cited a "record crowd of very enthusiastic patriots" and a standard pause before "the musical interlude" and besides Biden "freezes all the time," also he didn't fall when his podium once almost tipped over and he can drink a glass of water! Observers noted it was like "Amateur City for a live performance": At his rallies there's "cheering MAGA morons," this time "just the abyss" of a dark room and NRA stage, like a sit-com before they add the laugh track. His team miscalculated, the crowd missed their cue, he has a memorized shtick he's too dumb to tweak, and he couldn't understand why nobody was cheering. Besides, one summarized, "Never, ever trust anything when it comes to Trump. His very existence is a criminal fraud, foully perpetrated to the detriment of the universe."

Donald Trump Rejects Claims He 'Froze' During Rallywww.youtube.com

Meanwhile, the universe is diminished by each of his repulsive followers in the news. "Sam Alito is a fascist insurrectionist," notes Noah Berlatsky in a piece subtitled, "Stop with the appeasement, you quisling motherfuckers." "He displayed a symbol of support for fascist insurrection shortly after an attempted fascist insurrection. The obvious conclusion would be that (Alito) supports fascist insurrection. He told us who he is. We should believe him." Ditto Rudy Giuliani, now cringingly hawking coffee to pay his legal bills, and Greg Abbott, who with no legal or moral justification pardoned Daniel Perry, serving 25 years for murdering a BLM protester - a pardon, writes Will Bunch, proving the law only applies if an undemocratic few in power say it does, and "a gross injustice in a former Confederate state that (reeks) of the bad old days (when) white men lynched Emmett Till and laughed at justice."

Thus, the "inverted reality" embraced by VP-hopefuls dutifully echoing the Big Lie. "Once one of the two major governing parties no longer believes elections are binding," notes Rachel Maddow, "in many important ways, the democracy ship has sailed." Along with Christina 'Election Integrity' Bobb's creepy mugshot, we have Marco Rubio, the latest to fudge on accepting election results, arguing it's Democrats who question GOP wins (and pay people $10 to vote). He also says Dems are the extremists on abortion and he supports protecting "all unborn human life," though when it comes to the lives of what he claims are up to 30 million migrants - "We don't even know who these people are" - the son of immigrants says, "This is not immigration...This is an invasion of the country." Add another sad bootlicker inexplicably in thrall to the guy who praises "the late, great Hannibal Lecter," though it turns out it's not reciprocal.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter DECLINES Trump's V.P. Offerwww.youtube.com

And that guy just keeps losing. New earnings filings show Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, reported a net loss of $327.6 million, with revenue of just $770,500, in its first fiscal quarter since debuting as a public company on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Also, his campaign to get back the job he so disastrously failed to do isn't doing well in the Saying the Quiet Part Aloud Dept. After eloquently suggesting he might limit access to contraception - "We're looking at that, and I'm going to have a policy on that very shortly...You will find it, I think, very smart" - he abruptly backtracked - "Things really do have a lot to do with the states, and some states are gonna have different policies" - almost like he has no idea what he's talking about. Same with a slipshod video he posted to celebrate his upcoming victory, that touted "A UNIFIED REICH," which quickly went missing.

And there's his trial, nearing its ignoble end. Despite 10 contempt findings, he isn't in jail, but not much else went well. His D-list, red-tie, Hell's Angels! posse - "circling (him) like the cold fragments of a destroyed planet" - was widely mocked, witnesses gave damning testimony, after insisting he'd testify he chickened out, and after claiming MAGA warriors would storm the barricades if he was prosecuted, nobody came. So he made them up: "Thousands of people were turned away, it is an armed camp to keep people away, it looks like Fort Knox." This is complete and utter bullshit," said one observer. Others: "There is virtually complete freedom of movement around the courthouse," "Nothing is happening," "There is a mouse pissing on a ball of cotton in China - that’s how quiet it is out here." Later, he bleated Judge Merchan should dismiss the case: "The right thing to do is to END THIS SCAM NOW AND FOREVERMORE." Yes. Please.