Chocks away!

 Are you pumped?  I can't understand why CNN doesn't have one of those countdown clocks in the corner -- they've done it for other non-events.  Meanwhile, so much is happening.

The flying monkeys went on the attack last night, with Sean Hannity demanding to see the tax returns of The New York Times.  As it's a publicly traded company he could probably access them online in about thirty seconds, but SpongeSean's audience must have cheered his brilliant riposte.  Then Rudolph Giuliani called the Couch Crew to claim that Joe Biden "has dementia.  There's no doubt about it.  I've talked to doctors."  He even named Trump's drug of choice, Adderall, because he's an idiot.  And Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) knows the real scandal is not Trump's years of tax avoidance and financial chicanery but the fact that all our suspicions have been confirmed:  he wants an investigation to find out who committed "a felony crime" by handing the records to the Times, destroying all of Steve Mnuchin's hard work in concealing them.  (For Hunter Biden, as I recall, he had photocopies ready to distribute.)

Over at the Guardian, Wilfred Chan went in search of more tangible evidence of the way Trump operates and found, with some difficulty, Donald J. Trump State Park just north of New York City.  Purchased in 1998 for $2.5 million (of someone else's money, no doubt) for the purpose of creating yet another failed golf course, it was donated to the state in 2006.  Dimwitted governor George Pataki accepted Trump's claim that the land was worth $100 million for tax-deduction purposes and agreed to the vanity stipulation that it always bear the Trump name prominently displayed.  And so it is, at the entrance to what Chan calls "bramble bushes and an empty field with bits of trash."  A local attempt to turn it into a dog park was abandoned because its structures are full of asbestos, another Trump trademark.  Maybe that's why no real developer has tried to build there and discovered the bodies of former Trump associates who -- perhaps I've said too much.

 In the Washington Post yesterday Max Boot -- yeah, the guy with the hat -- explained why Trump always saw the presidency as a marketing opportunity (successor to The Apprentice) and a way to get out from under some of his debt mountain.  Apart from the extra-Constitutional rule that sitting presidents can't be prosecuted, he always had his eye on the emoluments.  (It explains why he covets that "Noble Prize," which comes with a check for nearly a million and a gold medal he can flog on eBay.  I always wondered why a tycoon was so familiar with eBay, the People's Sotheby's.  Who bid on Ivana's and Marla's wedding rings?)  Paul Krugman, an actual Nobel laureate, once observed that Trump would be better off now if he had put Fred's money into a savings account.  "Midas in reverse" is the phrase he uses in today's Irish Times, which goes on to describe how his cupidity and incompetence may wreck what's left of the economy.  Who was the last tycoon to hold this job?  My sources say it was Herbert Hoover.  Clearly Hoover, who rose from modest circumstances, was no Trump, but when the 1920s bubble burst it turned out the man who so skillfully organized famine relief for Europe after World War I had no earthly clue about macroeconomics, which is why his name still makes capitalists shiver.  Be afraid.

Continuing to explain away a disastrous performance that is still hours away, the Trump campaign and its PR department at Fox News are spreading the rumor that Biden will be using an earpiece to supply him with "facts" and other debating ammunition not available to Trump.  It's nothing new -- the Republicans regularly deploy this against more capable candidates.  Joe Biden doesn't need my advice but I'll offer it anyway:  Agree to a cavity search, pee in a cup, whatever they ask.  Then demand that the lecterns be removed.  If President Shoelifts has to stand for more than five minutes with nothing to lean on, wheezing and sniffing under those hot lights, tilted forward like a fat Jacques Tati, he's done.