Aug. 24 Open Thread: Dead Elf Walking

You knew somebody was going to take the fall for the USS Trump hitting that iceberg Tuesday. If Trump were still on his game he’d turn this into reality-show fodder, stringing the media along with “Who will he fire?” speculation to dominate headlines.

Alas, the storyline won’t allow for it. Trump is already frustrated by his lawyers, who want him to wait until the Mueller probe is over before he pardons Paul Manafort. So, like most bullies, he’s going after the little guy, in this case the one who lives in a tree and bakes cookies (but never the chocolate ones). Pundits are all but starting a pool for the date the ax falls now that Sens. Lindsay Graham and Chuck Grassley signaled they’ll confirm a new AG — if he’ll just wait until after the midterms.

New developments on some of yesterday’s stories:
Ted Cruz is using that Beto O’Rourke video defending the NFL players to impugn his patriotism. The reasoning: Hollywood people have endorsed the video, and if Hollywood likes him he’s too liberal for Texas, ipso facto, QED. Ah, that Ted Cruz. He always was a master debater.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, the Overdraft King, manfully stepped up and blamed his wife for spending $250,000 in campaign funds on the couple’s personal expenses. He was, however, smart enough to resign his committee posts avoiding the bad publicity of a struggle.

The relationship between Trump and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker was more complicated than we knew. Pecker apparently kept a safe full of records of the multiple stories he spiked for Trump. Kompromat, if you will.

Rising sea levels have given rise to expensive infrastructure projects that planners hope will, literally, hold back the tide. How ironic that the biggest beneficiary of a $12 billion sea-gate proposal for the Texas-Louisiana coast would be the petrochemical industry, aka Big Oil, which is fueling the sea level rise in the first place.