I’m old enough to remember the mockery when President GHW Bush was photographed looking baffled by the then-newfangled grocery store laser scanners. That sprang to mind this morning after Trump apparently Googled himself for the first time. His reaction was classic: “They have it RIGGED” (the caps lock makes it art) to show only the bad news. Imagine how he’d react if he drove himself in one of those cars that brakes automatically — I’m sorry, is RIGGED to brake automatically.
Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman always has the Page Sixiest take on the White House backstairs gossip, and his account of Trump on the phone all weekend screaming at people is an exemplar of the form. You’ll want a mop to wipe up all the schadenfreude.
Kudos to Sen. Chuck Schumer for using John McCain’s death to troll the GOP. Schumer proposed renaming the Russell Senate Building (named for a Georgia segregationist) to instead honor McCain. That put Republican senators, Mitch McConnell in particular, in the unenviable spot of having to dishonor McCain if they don’t want to piss off Trump.
Speaking of McCain, Josh Marshall has a thoughtful piece on how the McCain “maverick” myth came to be, and how McCain destroyed it himself.
The midterms look good for Democrats almost everywhere in the country — with the notable exception of Florida, where Trump has lost less support than almost anywhere else in the country.
Finally, a woman in Kent County died of rabies. No word on when Trump bit her.