Whizzed over their heads

Forgive the inside baseball kind of post, but I really think it's funny that when Obama said Trump's White House renovations were like "Saddam Hussein opening a Cheesecake Factory" conservatives thought he was making fun of the Cheesecake Factory.

A tax on MAGA stupidity

I kind of hope that a bunch of Fox News Chuckleheads march into a coffee shop they think looks "liberal" and try to buy a coffee. Then they can discover that:

1. You can't buy anything for a dollar in most coffee shops because prices have risen so much.
2. No one uses cash anymore. There is a fair chance that the "liberal coffee shop" will point to a Reverse ATM instead of taking the coins.
3. The coffee shop could just refuse to accept the coin, like any good liberal coffee shop should.

Regarding #3, technically, it is illegal for any business in the U.S. to refuse to accept U.S. currency for a transaction (that's why U.S. bills say that they are legal tender "for all debts public and private"). But, if we are talking about technicalities here, U.S. law prohibits the issuance of coins bearing the likeness of any living person. So I would love it if some MAGA lunatic tried to bring a court case claiming a coffee shop had to accept a Trump coin as legal tender only to have the coins struck down as illegal.

These coins are really little more than a tax on stupid MAGA. A roll of 25 dollar coins costs $61, that's a 244% markup. A roll of 100 costs $154.50 a 154.5% markup. If any Trumpies are interested, I am willing to sell them a regular $100 bill for *only* $120. That's a much better deal and you can still tell yourself that Ben Franklin hated trans people.

Wag the Dog

I remember when this shit was frowned upon.

"shall be removed from Office for Impeachment for... bribery"

It's right there in the Constitution! Orange Julius Caesar offered a bribe to voters on national TV* last night. I predict this will not be a scandal and, in fact, will not be mentioned again by next week.

What a time we live in.

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* Well... C-SPAN. But C-SPAN is national!

What every headline should say: Mentally Disabled President Once Again Mistakenly Believes He Has the Ability to Tell People What Name to Use for Geographic Features

Can someone just mention that the President of the United States does not have any "power to name things" under the Constitution? He can, as chief executive, order the federal officers in the executive branch to use some new dumb name in official executive branch documents. So I guess the U.S. Geological Survey is now bound to publish maps that say "Lake America" and the military can waste taxpayer dollars reprinting all their maps to change the name of one of the Great Lakes.

But that's it. That is all the President has the authority to do. Everyone else in the rest of the world can continue to call Lake Ontario "Lake Ontario." And members of Congress, the Judiciary, all state and local governments, and every private person and business are legally entitled to ignore the ravings of our lunatic leader who still, after almost 6 non-consecutive years in office, does not have a solid grasp on what the job of U.S. President is.

What is the point of White House Counsel?

Is there any reason to still have a separate position of White House Counsel? My understanding is the position is to give the current president a lawyer to represent his own personal interests while he is president. This was needed because the Attorney General/DOJ was independent and was supposed to represent the interests of the country as a whole, which could conflict with the president’s personal interests.

But under Trump, that distinction no longer exist. He expects his Attorney Generals and the DOJ to act like his personal lawyers, and the guy who was his personal attorney (and still apparently thinks of himself as that) is now the AG. Doesn’t that make the White House Counsel superfluous? Why are taxpayers paying for another lawyer to represent Trump’s interests?

Will Trump end virtually all voting in two States? No one bothers to look into it

I've mentioned this issue before, but as Trump keeps trying various ways to stop mail ballots (whether through the latest edition of the SAVE Act or through Trump's executive order to block mail ballots from being delivered in states that won't give his administration full access to their voter rolls) no one is talking about the fact that two states vote almost entirely by mail: Washington and Oregon. If vote by mail ends, or even is severely restricted to just members of the military etc., then those two states would not be able to hold anything resembling an election in November.

Unless I'm missing something? That is possible. It is hard to figure out what the effects of, for example, the SAVE Act would be. There have been several different versions, and our national press is chronically allergic to explaining policy. A ton of ink is spilled over whether there are votes to break the filibuster, or machinations to attach the SAVE Act to some must-pass budgetary bill. But almost none of them ever get into the weeds to explain what the Act would do if it was passed.