LEGO DAY UPDATES
You Can Build With 'Em, You Can Step On 'Em, You Can Make Action Movies With 'Em - YAY LEGOS!
-Lone surviving GOP challenger Nikki Haley continued to amp up her attacks on Ex-President Trump XCI's mental acuity today, hitting the Sunday talk shows (including Fox!) to point out that Trump mistaking her for Nancy Pelosi, angry denunciation of not needing her voters or financial backers, regular slurring of words (which happened multiple times in multiple appearances by Trump in Nevada) and continuing to act in what she described as an "unhinged" way (perhaps referring to Trump's insistence yesterday that he believes there is a "100%" chance of a terrorist attack in the U.S. this year) may, juuuuust may, mean Trump might not be the best choice for President. Whether Haley's attacks will continue through Super Tuesday or she doubles back and endorses Trump anyway remains to be seen, but it is fun to see someone speak truth on that side, so you go, Nikki!
-Another person that is beginning to swing at Trump: the man who beat him in 2020, Joe Biden. In a campaign appearance yesterday in South Carolina, the President slammed Trump with genuine anger for Trump's refusal to visit a cemetary in France and calling soldiers like Biden's late son Beau "losers." Biden also continued to call the former President "Donald Herbert Hoover Trump" - a line that reports say gets into Trump's thin fake bronzer-caked skin - and attacked Trump with the kind of ridicule and snark that is yet another thing that drives Trump utterly crazy amid a pile of things that do that ...
-... like judges who correctly call him a rapist and, after a jury verdict, force him to pay over $80 million in damages for slander, as Judge Lewis Kaplan did Friday in giving E. Jean Carroll yet another definitive legal victory. Somewhat amazingly, Trump has avoided slandering Carroll yet again on social media this weekend, though this morning he returned his Captain Caplock ire at the next judge poised to hammer down more of the Trump "Empire," Judge Arthur Engoron, who this week is likely to make his ruling on the penalty to be assessed against Trump, failsons Eric "Eric" and Donald Trump "SSSHHHNNNOOORRRTTT!!!" (ALLEGEDLY) (eyeroll) Jr., and The Trump Organization for their ruled-to-be-fraud over a period of decades - a ruling that could include forever being banned from doing business in New York State, along with more fines.
-And at any time before or after THAT ruling, there is still the three-judge panel assessing Trump's claim of having super-duper ultra-giga rooty-tooty-fresh-and-fruity Presidential Immunity over EVERYTHING! - a ruling that could restart the clock on the DC trial of the events of January 6, 2021. Tick tock ...
-Oh, and on top of all THAT, there was a story that first broke last week on the investigative news site Ars Technica that has been added to by Rolling Stone and NBC News of what the Heck was going on in the White House Pharmacy. Hand-written records published indicate that all sorts of painkillers and stimulants and sedatives, ranging from Ambien to Provogil to Ketamine to Benzodiazepines to Fentanyl (YES - FENTANYL!) were being "handed out in baggies," often as personal gifts, and according to one witness "like candy," with apparently no documentation of actual medical need or who was requesting or receiving the drugs. The story was first revealed in an Office of the Inspector General report, which noted that on top of the actual doping the drugs cost taxpayers upwards of $750,000 that were unaccounted for.
-The person that was supposed to be in charge of the meds was the White House doctor at the time, Ronny Jackson - the same Ronny Jackson who absurdly claimed Trump only weighed 239 pounds (that's probably what his daily discharges weigh) and “good genes” (both of Trump’s parents suffered from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, particularly Trump’s father) and who parlayed his Trump love into becoming a MAGA loyalist House member from, where else?, Texas.
-No comment from Trump other than continuing to insist he is the sanest candidate out there thanks to ease with which he is able to pass cognitive dementia tests (see "unhinged" from earlier update on Nikki Haley).
-In the semi-regular series "What is The Crazy Right Mad About NOW?!" the answer this week is ... black pilots. Earlier this week, MAGA "intellectual" Charlie "Someday I May Be a BOY!" Kirk, on his podcast radio program thingie, decided to move on from his Super-Genius take on Martin Luther King (that King was kind of a doofus and not at all a great man - 'cuz Charlie's EDGY!) to claim that he would "never!" go on a plane with a black pilot because black pilots are clearly affirmative-action hires who really cannot fly planes because of their blackness, more or less. His edginess was picked up on by another Deep Right Thinker, Candace Owens - a claim Kirk probably feels gives his idiocy weight because Owens herself is black.
-And you wonder how these folks think Trump is A Thing ...
-But to wrap this update up in a sort of full circle, Kirk is apparently going to focus on Yusuf Salaam, one of five African-American men who were falsely accused and later fully exonerated by DNA testing of a Central Park rape (but whom were attacked personally in a full-page newspaper ad by Ex-President Trump XCI when he was just a loudmouth wannabe socialite taking private flights from Jeffrey Epstein) (Trump has never apologized, natch). Salaam was just elected to the New York City council on a platform of justice, which of course will not do for the racist Kirk (who also paid for several buses to the January 6 insurrection). Kirk has started to slander Salaam about the rape that Salaam did not commit, calling Salaam a "disgusting pig." Here's hoping Mr. Salaam has the ability to reach out to E. Jean Carroll to find an attorney who has some experience shutting idiot right-wing men up while emptying their wallets ...
-On this date in 1958, a killing spree by Charles Starkweather and Carli Ann Fugate began in Lincoln, NE (the pair killed 11 people before it was done). On this date in 1973, a cease-fire went into effect in then-South Vietnam. On this date in 1985, several dozen music superstars "Check(ed) Their Ego At The Door" to secretly record "We Are The World." On this date in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven on board - including elementary school teacher Christa MacAuliffe, who was to be the first civilian to travel in space. On this date in 1997, four former apartheid-era police officers in South Africa admitted to that country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission that they killed activist Stephen Biko.
-Debuts today: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1813), the U.S. Coast Guard (1915) Legos (1958) (see?!), Vince Lombardi (hired by the Green Bay Packers, 1959), BARNABY JONES (1973).
-Happy Birthday to St. Thomas Aquinas, George Pickett, Henry Morgan Stanley, Colette, Jackson Pollock, Claes Oldenburg, Alan Alda, Rep. Bennie Thompson, Gene McFadden, Gregg Popovich, Nicolas Sarkozy, Peter Schilling, Randi Rhodes, DJ Muggs, Rakim, Sarah McLachlan, Mo Rocca, Jermaine Dye, Magglio Ordonez, Rick Ross, Joey Fatone, Nick Carter, Elijah Wood, and Andre Iguodala.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to Charlemagne, King Henry VIII, Sir Francis Drake, John McCrae, W.B. Yeats, Zora Neale Hurston, Red Grange, Hal Smith, Jerry Siegel, Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, Jim Capaldi, Paul Kantner, Signe Toly Anderson, Chris Doleman, Cicely Tyson, Lisa Loring, and Tom Verlaine.
-Feed the Worms: Roe v. Wade co-killer "Justice" Amy Coney Barrett entered Earth on this date. Infamous child killer Richard Loeb got his on this date.
-The Number One Fiction Book In America on this date ... in 2024, "Fourth Wing" by Rebecca Yarros ... in 2014, "The Invention of Wings" by Sue Monk Kidd ... in 2004, "The DaVinci Code" by Dan Brown ... in 1994, "Disclosure" by Michael Crichton ... in 1984, "Who Killed the Robins Family?" by Thomas Chastain ... and in 1974, "Burr" by Gore Vidal.