In the TV comedy Kim’s Convenience, there is an episode in which a mother comes with her young son into the convenience store run by Mr. Kim, a Korean immigrant who believes in being stern when bringing up his own children. The mother’s child-rearing philosophy is that one must never use the word ‘No’ with children because its stifles their creativity or something. Mr. Kim is horrified as the child runs berserk in the store, toppling racks, breaking things, and so on with the mother not able to prevent him, and when he orders the child to stop, the mother remonstrates with him for using the ‘No’ word.

I was reminded of this episode when serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) went to a tear this weekend on his social media site, issuing volleys of deranged missives on all manner of things.

Here’s one where he is urging Republicans to shut down the government unless they get all his demands.

The Republicans lost big on Debt Ceiling, got NOTHING, and now are worried that they will be BLAMED for the Budget Shutdown. Wrong!!! Whoever is President will be blamed, in this case, Crooked (as Hell!) Joe Biden! Our Country is being systematically destroyed by the Radical Left Marxists, Fascists and Thugs – THE DEMOCRATS. UNLESS YOU GET EVERYTHING, SHUT IT DOWN! Close the Border, stop the Weaponization of “Justice,” and End Election Interference – WE MUST HAVE HONEST ELECTIONS. It’s time Republicans learned how to fight! Are you listening Mitch McConnell, the weakest, dumbest, and most conflicted “Leader” in U.S. Senate history? HE’S ALREADY GIVEN THE DEMOCRATS EVERYTHING, THEY CAN’T BELIEVE HOW LUCKY THEY GOT. WE NEED NEW, & REAL, REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, NOT A CLONE OF MITCH, & WE NEED IT NOW!!!

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New Jersey Democratic senator Robert Menendez has long been dogged by allegations that he is sleazy and in an earlier federal trial in 2017 for corruption he avoided conviction because a hung jury resulted in a mistrial. So it was not a surprise when an FBI raid on his home was conducted to find evidence of corruption. What did surprise me was what they found.

Gold bars worth more than $100,000. A new Mercedes-Benz convertible in the garage. Wads of cash stuffed in the pockets of a jacket with “Bob Menendez” embroidered on the breast.
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Nearly half a million dollars in cash was found stuffed inside envelopes and stashed inside the pockets of clothing hanging in the closets of the Menendez’s home in Englewood Cliffs, including a big roll of bills in a jacket from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus with Menendez’s name on it.

Fingerprints belonging to the driver of co-defendant Fred Daibes were found on at least one of the envelopes, as well as his DNA and his return address, prosecutors said. “Thank you,” Nadine Menendez texted Daibes around Jan. 24, 2022, according to the indictment. “Christmas in January.”

Patrice Schiano, a former FBI forensic accountant who is currently a lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that’s “pretty damning.”

Today, Menendez defiantly addressed the press and his explanation of why he had these things was a doozy, that he is just an old-fashioned guy who does not trust these new-fangled things like banks and believes that you need to keep your money close to you in case of some kind of apocalpyse.

In his press conference, the senator addressed the money. “For 30 years, I have withdrawn 1000s of dollars in cash from my personal savings accounts, which I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba,” said Menendez, whose parents are from the island.

“Now this may seem old fashioned, but these were monies drawn from my personal savings accounts based on the income that I have lawfully derived over those 30 years. I look forward to addressing other issues in trial.”

So what exactly was he afraid of? The collapse of the banking system in the US? And how exactly are gold bars helpful in an emergency where you need to pay some urgent bills and the banks are closed, unless the emergency is that you need to flee the country?

In the 2017 trial, the evidence was less dramatic.

Prosecutors say the senator accepted more than $600,000 in political contributions, a luxurious hotel suite at the Park Hyatt in Paris, and free rides on a private jet from a wealthy ophthalmologist, Dr. Salomon Melgen, in exchange for political favors.

Given their failure to get a conviction previously I suspect that the FBI would be determined to make sure that they have a much stronger case this time and had, before they raided the Menendez home, already explored the possibility that all this money came from his own savings accounts.

The trial should be interesting. I look forward to other tips from the Menendez couple in the days to come about how to keep one’s money safe.

Author Michael Wolff is known for his gossipy, lightly sourced books that dish insider dirt. The stories he relates are titillating but not to be taken at face value since they lack convincing evidence. But they do serve as a measure of the zeitgeist within the political establishment and his latest book has an indicator of how low Florida governor Ron DeSantis has sunk because he provides an anecdote that, while having dinner at the Tucker Carlson home, DeSantis apparently irritated Carlson’s wife by dominating the conversation and may have actually kicked one of the family dogs.

The DeSantis couple allegedly failed “to read the room,” especially with Carlson’s wife, “a genteel, stay-at-home woman, here in her own house,” Wolff notes. “For two hours Ron DeSantis sat at her table talking in an outdoor voice indoors, failing to observe any basics of conversation ritual or propriety, reeling off an unselfconscious list of his programs and initiatives and political accomplishments.”

Making matters worse, Wolff claims, an “impersonal” DeSantis seemed dismissive and may have used physical force against one of the Carlson family’s four beloved spaniel pups.

During the dinner, Wolff writes, “DeSantis pushed the dog under the table. Had he kicked the dog? Susie Carlson’s judgment was clear: she did not ever want to be anywhere near anybody like that ever again. Her husband agreed. DeSantis, in Carlson’s view, was a ‘fascist.’ The pot calling the kettle even blacker. Forget Ron DeSantis.”

Is the story true? Who knows? But kicking people’s pet dogs and cats is something that is beyond the pale for anyone. This is the behavior of cartoon villains and even an allegation of doing so is damaging. Even some of the cult followers of serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT), although ever-willing to overlook his groping and other assaults of women, may find it hard to forgive their idol for doing so, unless they could be persuaded that the pet was the Devil incarnate or Joe Biden in disguise.

Adding to DeSantis’s woes, a new poll finds the one-time SSAT-slayer slipping to fifth place in New Hampshire polling.

Maybe we should bring out a DeSantis lettuce to see which lasts longer.

Serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) sat down for a lengthy interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker, which I did not watch. Of course, one does not need to watch any SSAT interview to know that he will issue his usual litany of lies and whines about how he is being persecuted and Welker has been criticized in some quarters for not refuting all the lies. But William Saletan says that such criticisms are unwarranted and that she did a good job because she did remind viewers of what kind of awful person SSAT is.

Here is the beginning. and end of his article.

THROUGHOUT HIS 78-MINUTE interview with Kristen Welker, Donald Trump spewed lies and delusions. The NBC News journalist, like others who have interviewed the former president, tried to parry his propaganda but let some of it pass so she could get on with her questions. For this reason, many of Trump’s critics judge Welker’s performance a failure.

I take a different view. I’m less interested in what Welker failed to do than in what she did. She exposed, up close and at length, Trump’s psychopathologies.

Let me take you through a few examples.
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IF YOU CAME TO THIS INTERVIEW hoping that Welker or NBC News would refute every lie Trump told, you’ll be disappointed. But I don’t think exhaustive refutation is what we need. In polls, Trump is running even with Biden because many Americans are unhappy with the economy, and most see Biden as old and tired.

These people need to be reacquainted with the reality of Trump. They need to be reminded how recklessly he makes decisions, how poorly he controls his impulses, how ruthlessly he lies, and how impervious he is to correction. They need to be reminded how callously he disregards his oath of office and how little he cares about anyone but himself. They need to be reminded what a psychopath he is.

That’s what Welker accomplished. She has done her job.