Oct. 31 Open Thread: President Pariah

Something unprecedented in American history happened yesterday — a sitting president was universally shunned when he tried to stage a photo op pay his respects at the Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 people were gunned down because they were Jewish. Trump even pulled one of his old ratfucking tricks — he called Pennsylvania politicians one at a time and lied to them that others had agreed to come. He tried that on Pelosi and Schumer, too; nobody fell for it.

Trump’s funeral-crashing wasn’t the shabbiest spectacle from the right yesterday. That honor goes to the attempt to frame Robert Mueller as a rapist. This jamoke was so inept that when he created a phony intelligence company to investigate the “allegations,” he used his mom’s phone number. The linked Vox article leans on the tired trope “by diverting journalistic resources and getting the rumor out there, the trolls won,” which is patent bullshit. This is yet another blow of bad PR for the right, and they certainly didn’t go to all this trouble to get exposed before their big reveal.

Off-his-meds mental patient Kanye West said yesterday that he’s “through with politics”, but not because of Trump. He’s upset that some black conservative Heather named Candace Owens was “using” him in reference to a logo for her Brexit campaign. Somebody fetch his binkie, but dip it in thorazine first.

Whitey Bulger, the Boston mob kingpin who enjoyed immunity from prosecution as a protected FBI informant even as he murdered people, was beaten to death by two other inmates within a day of arriving at a West Virginia federal prison. It was the third murder there this year.

Erstwhile Trump whisperer Steve Bannon went to Kansas yesterday, supposedly to stump for a Republican congressman who didn’t want him to come. The would-be kingmaker drew a “crowd” of fewer than two dozen people to what looks like a Holiday Inn. That’s the trouble with Russian bots — they never show up when you want to avoid looking like a flop-sweat-drenched failure.

Federal Express finally ended its NRA discount, but says it has nothing to do with the latest massacre. Ironically, it notified people via the U.S. postal service.