Republicans Have Lost the Plot and Their Fucking Minds

 (By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

At this point, especially after Thursday, people could rightly wonder why Brooks Brothers doesn't make suit pants out of asbestos or some other flame-retardant material. And why don't more Republicans have third degree burns on their lower extremities considering their never-ending fire hose of bullshit?

      Let's start with Trump and Ohio.

The Hillbilly's Elegy

At first blush, it would seem as if the newly-minted bromance of Donald Trump and JD Vance is a match made in heaven, or as close as Republicans can ever get to the Pearly Gates. Both are one hit wonders who seem to be in a match to see how can out Hitler whom. That is, until you look beneath the headlines.

    Back in 2016, Vance was rightly critical of Donald Trump and had even compared him to the aforementioned Hitler. Since then the rabid Wookie had been furiously scrubbing his Twitter account with the industry of Lady Macbeth ("Out, damned tweet, out!"). All the same, Trump, who infamously never forgets a slight, endorsed him. And this is where Trump's usually tenuous grasp of reality floats off into the stratosphere.

     Vance did criticize him, he was far behind in the polls behind rival creepozoid Josh Mandel, as well as out-fundraised. It doesn't fit the usual profile of a Trump endorsement, which is getting behind a sure winner or revenge against a perceived enemy. In fact, Trump's endorsement of Vance seems to be predicated more on being creeped out by Josh Mandel than Vance's self-aggrandizing loyalty or (Ha ha) his fitness to serve in the US Senate.

     So, as Trump plays the carnival barker tonight in yet another sleepy burg on a Saturday night in which his traveling shit show is the only game in town, we'll just have to see if his inexplicable endorsement gives Vance a permanent boost or a short-term sugar rush that won't even survive this summer's GOP primary.

It's a Small Mind, After All

Not that any corporation should be considered a sacred cow, but you'd have to have about a hundred pounds of brain damage to go full tilt after a corporation whose mascot is a cartoon character beloved by tens if not hundreds of millions. You'd especially have to be hind leg-chewing insane if that corporation brings billions of dollars of tax and tourism revenue into the state of which you're the governor.

     Yet, that's precisely what Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature did last week when they essentially dissolved a special tax district created in 1967 for Disney when they expanded their operations to Florida. It essentially gave the Disney Corporation autonomy to run themselves and, for 55 years, it seemed to work fine. 

    Then Disney had the temerity to tepidly criticize DeSantis' "Don't Say Gay" bill. DeSantis went ballistic and responded in a manner that was disproportionate even by Nazi Germany's standards. Well, even before the dissolution of the Reedy Creek district, that resulted in an instant warning from Fitch Ratings that "place(d) a 'rating watch negative' on about $1 billion in outstanding district debt."

     What this essentially translates to is an additional tax burden on Florida residents that's estimated to be over $2200 a household. But who cares about higher taxes, as long as it isn't shouldered by the 1%.

Stop Me Before I Talk Again!

 

It's a miracle Kevin McCarthy isn't struck mute when he isn't sitting on Trump's lap with his tiny hand stuck up his ass.

     In a tweet that is hilariously still up on Twitter, Charlie McCarthy's step brother Kevin vigorously denied saying that he would ask Trump for his resignation. Here's the thing: The New York Times reporters who'd written a book, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, put the lie to McCarthy's risible denial he'd ever said any such thing just hours after McCarthy's tweet. Namely, they had the audiotapes recorded during a January 10 phone call between McCarthy and a few GOP leaders. Rachel Maddow made merry over it that night and a good time was had by all.

     Not only was it lying, it was artless lying on a neolithic scale of incompetence that's literally breath-taking. In fact, Martin and Burns were so sure of their sourcing, which was McCarthy himself, that their book's title, This Will Not Pass, is even a paraphrase of something McCarthy said during the call. Seriously, what McCarthy lacks in brains, balls or a spine he more than makes up for in chutzpah.

We Are Not a Cult That Will Go Quietly Into the Night

 

Lawyer: You think Pelosi is a traitor to the country? Greene: I’m not answering that. Lawyer: You’ve said that haven’t you? Greene: No I haven’t said that… Lawyer, snapping fingers like Warner Wolfe: Roll the tape. Greene: Oh no wait...

   That's kind of the way it went all day yesterday for the Queen of the Lead Paint chips Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who thought using the Ronnie Reagan/Iran Contra Hearings tactic would work for her. In fact, to hear MTG speak, she could barely remember her own name. The hilarious thing is that Greene was on the stand in Georgia yesterday to prove her fitness to be on the ballot in GA-14. Wouldn't it be ironic if the judge rules she isn't fit to be in Congress on account of her inability to recall anything?

     One thing she did recall: a line from the movie, Independence Day, a line that she shamelessly stole.