It's you I like

I gave up Tunes of Glory on TCM to watch Joe's town hall, but it was worth it -- he pulled two million more viewers than Triumph of the Swill on NBC.   I know, FAKE RATINGS!!!  No gotcha moments or shocking revelations, but I'd already voted anyway.  A trumpista called Mercedes Schlapp thought it would be clever to compare it to "Mister Rodgers [sic] Neighborhood," i.e., boring.  As her boss struggles to win votes there, someone should have told her that Fred Rogers is a Pennsylvania demigod.  

But she's right -- the comparison is stark.  Mister Rogers told children they were safe and loved, and if they didn't feel safe they should "look for the helpers."  He could not have comprehended cruelty for its own sake, taking children already in a strange place away from their parents and forcing them to live in squalid cages.  He was a gentle man but his words for the monsters who do that would not have been gentle.  Nor would he have praised Nazis with tiki torches; the Tree of Life Synagogue is in his Neighborhood.  He told children they were fine just as they were.  They didn't need plastic surgery to make them "beautiful."  They should not have their disabilities mocked by some crude sociopath for the amusement of other sociopaths.  He would not have permitted it.  Schlapp got it.  She just doesn't understand why most of us prefer Misterogers Neighborhood to the the Ministry of Love.

In Misterump's Gated Community it seems to have been the usual shit-flinging madness.  Savannah Guthrie did her best to keep him tethered to reality but straight answers were scarce, even the yes-no "Were you tested for covid before the first debate?"  She gave him every opportunity to move even a few inches from QAnon but he wouldn't grab the lifeline:  "I do know they are very much against pedophilia," he said, implying that Democrats are wildly in favor of it.  They admire him and that's enough, and when he re-tweets their imbecilities he's just doing us a favor because the Lying Media won't.  Intellectual freedom!  

Savannah Guthrie was the designated Nasty Woman at hate rodeos in Florida and Georgia but she wasn't the only one.  David Perdue (R-GA) had a ton of trouble pronouncing Senator Harris's name:  "Ka-MA-la, Ka-MA-la, or Kamala, Kamala, -mala, -mala, I don't know, whatever."  If only she had a normal American white-lady name like Melania or Ivanka.  Perdue -- that's French for "loser," ain't it?

Does any of this help people to make up their minds when they get in front of a ballot?  Who knows?  Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, says he wrote in Ronald Reagan.  Hogan wants the presidential nomination of what's left of his party in 2024, so you might expect him to have more sense.  Of course, he also campaigned for Susan Collins, who donated to a couple of Qrackpots running for the Maine legislature.  We'll have to start calling you Suzy-Q, Senator.  

Today's number is eight million.  That's how many Americans have been diagnosed with covid.  It's also the number of Americans who have fallen into poverty as a result of the Trumpandemic, according to a study by researchers from Notre Dame and the University of Chicago.  Not to worry, Trump says covid will "peter out," telling Floridians, "We are rounding the turn.  I say that all the time."  Yes, he does, although yesterday saw the highest one-day increase since August.   Keep saying it.  See what happens.  

Hours after Twitter-screaming at California to "VOTE FOR TRUMP," he denied the state's request for federal disaster assistance, then changed his mind after calls from Kevin McCarthy and Gavin Newsom, presumably with tears in their voices.  They were properly grateful.

Ha!  Joni Ernst doesn't know the price of soybeans.

State Senator Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) knows what causes "inner city" obesity:  fried chicken.  He has many other equally thoughtful opinions about health.

Forgetting that he was still in Florida, Trump suddenly began ranting that Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota hates Israel and "married her brother."  This is a favorite trope of the right, so it probably was not caused by his course of experimental drugs.   We won't know for sure until the necropsy.

Then he re-tweeted a story from a "Christian satire site" called The Babylon Bee, unaware that it was satire.   I often lament not having been born rich or attractive, but at least I was born with a sense of humor, and these days that's everything.  Poor clueless Donald.