Just eight more days until the election. Today we’re seeing Trump’s eldest failson repeat claims that the Clintons employ baby-eating Satanists, a Trump-loving Senate candidate claim without evidence that Hunter Biden’s laptop contains pictures of her Democratic opponent’s teenage daughter, and the Savior himself claim that the former Mayor of Newark, NJ, never lived in Newark. Gonna be a fun week.
As an aside, Trump really has a hate-on for Corey Booker, doesn’t he? Between calling the Rhodes Scholar stupid and claiming he’ll destroy suburbs in an attempt to scare housewives, something about the New Jersey senator really sticks in Trump’s plus-sized craw. I’m in the dark as to what it could be, though. Wonder what could be coloring the president’s perceptions. He’s a racist, that’s what I’m trying to say, and is trying to use Corey Booker, of all people, as an ooga booga. There’s no way you can not be racist and try that. Anyhow.
On a straight party-line vote, Amy Coney-Barrett was elected to fill the United States Supreme Court seat opened by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month. No one is really surprised at this turn of events, even if the speed of the appointment is both unprecedented and exposes the Republican Party as the low-rent hypocrites we all knew they were. This solidifies a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court and, if nothing changes, the death of any significant progressive moves from the court for at least a generation, depending on how long Alito and Thomas can hold out.
There have been hints that Joe Biden might expand the court to up to 13 justices – which is just as unprecedented and Constitutionally viable as Coney-Barrett’s whirlwind induction, so everyone shut up – but he has to win next week’s election first. Apart from decimating the Affordable Care Act, hiding what Trump’s taxes might show, and overturning Roe v. Wade, one of the biggest worries is she might prove a deciding vote in the shenanigans to give Trump another turn despite how the vote turns out. The Latin is a bit much for me, but here’s a pretty good op-ed explaining the ins and outs. Short answer: don’t bet against it.
Of course, the big question might not be what she can do for Trump but if the GOP is going to keep riding with Trump. He’s losing to Biden by about 10 points nationally and the race is uncomfortably close in a number of usually rock-solid red states like Texas and Georgia. It might be that since the Republicans got their 6-3 they might bail on Trump and try to get their shit back together for a 2024 run with someone who isn’t an uncontrollable, petulant dipstick since he might crater some of their Senate chances this year.
Maybe the funniest turn on Trump comes in the form of the still vapor-like non-story concerning a laptop Rudy Giuliani claims belonged to Hunter Biden but won’t let anyone see. Or, more specifically, the Younger Biden’s dealings in Ukraine, which got Trump impeached when he tried to strongarm the country into manufacturing dirt on the Elder Biden. Anyhow, Russia’s big daddy Vladamir Putin has said he’s seen nothing at all untoward concerning Young Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine, contradicting Trump’s criticism. Indeed, said as far as his folks could tell, everything was on the up-and-up and quite profitable.
Now. It has been the policy down here in Enon Holler that while Trump probably took advantage of Russian interference in the 2016 election, he’s not “Putin’s puppet” to any appreciable degree that matters, and countries messing with other countries’ elections is part of the game. That being said, Trump has long shown an appreciation for authoritarians and especially for the former KGB thug running Russia. It’s also fairly well known that, like just about every other authoritarian Trump’s tried to suck up to, Putin’s played him like a fiddle.
So that’s got to chaff him. One thing Trump never learned because of his pampered existence is that no matter how hard you try and no matter what you do for them, the bullies will never, ever be your friend once you’ve shown them a weakness. He’ll always be that little boy who picks on smaller kids because the older boys make him eat spiders, and I think he knows that.
Dear Y'all 