SOUTH CANADA, PRE-NUP, ART OF THE DEAL

“I’ll take BRIBE for $5,000, Alex,” say at least 35% of those on the voter rolls. President Trump’s dividend promised to every adult American, called the “Trump Dividend,” if the midterm elections result in House and Senate majorities for the GOP has been a reasonably hot topic in some news outlets following his Midterm Convention promise in Dallas. However, for the most part it resulted in a ‘ho-hum’ response, being seen as just more Trumpian hot air to Americans who have become immune to his antics. Of course, nobody will get a dime, regardless of their balloting, and as critics have pointed out such a bribe would cost the treasury around $1.3 trillion. Incidentally, those same critics jumped on the news that ‘holiday’ cash gifts of $45,000 each were given to Natalie Harp, Margo Martin, and a couple of other aides — his money or OUR money? As The Swamp on Substack posted, “No, it’s not a shakedown. Vote GOP, and we give you money. Mob bosses do that, too.”

VP Vance defined the ‘bribe’ on Fox News as a “dividend for American workers” to be funded by tariff revenue. “We’re taking in an extraordinary amount of revenue because the president of the United States is actually standing up to both foreign companies but also foreign countries who have been taking advantage of America’s workers for pretty much my entire life,” Vance explained. Marc Short, board chair of former VP Mike Pence’s think tank, Advancing American Freedom, said, “The president is a performer and having the pageantry of the convention [in Dallas], he’s going to throw out something,” — a “departure from Trump’s pledge of fiscal responsibility and conservative economics.” Former US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s snide remarks echoed those of many others: “$5,000 for the peasants will be in the mail after the election only if you vote Republican, along with those DOGE [$5,000] and tariff [$2,000] money checks.” Afterwards, Trump dared to propose yet another $500 rebate for nearly a million people he claims were “wrongly overcharged” under Obamacare. The president’s promises of cash payments in the past have never materialized, and we have to remember him once bragging that he could be the “best communist” in history because all he’d have to do is promise people free stuff and then never deliver.

A post on The Onion: “Trump promises to take $5,000 from every American if Democrats win midterms.” Isn’t he doing that already? And, leave it to Andy Borowitz to address the pie-in-the-sky dividend: “Calling it an effort to ‘restore sanity,’ on Thursday Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney offered every adult American $6,000 to vote against Republicans in the midterms. ‘If you oust the Republicans, you’ll receive a check for $6,000,’ he said at a press conference. ‘And to be clear, we’re talking American dollars, not Canadian.’ The prime minister’s announcement seemed unlikely to make Donald Trump increase his own offer, since $5,000 would be the most he has ever paid to a non-pornstar. Carney concluded his press conference by unveiling a new map of North America with the United States renamed ‘South Canada.‘”

Trump’s Dallas Midterms Convention will be remembered as an early Halloween celebration for its rows and rows of attendees dressed as empty auditorium seats, which didn’t fool the Orange King by a long shot. He announced on social media, a full house, packed to the rafters, breaking attendance records with crowds waiting outside, and beating the NFL in tv ratings. House Speaker Johnson told NewsMax’s Finnerty the arena was full, even as the cameras panned the interior to video the Halloween celebrants. Not fooling around, Liz Landers of PBS News posted a video of the half-full 20,000-seat basketball arena, and former Democratic staffer Aaron Fritschner posted on X, “Capacity-wise they could have held this in a high school gym.” Several pundits observed that the hot Texas sun may have discouraged many who had waited in a long entry line, with many needing medical attention from EMTs. The number of empty seats must have made the convention organizers realize that a bullet was dodged in not being able to book the Dallas Cowboys‘ 80,000-seat football stadium as Trump had proposed initially.

Daily Dose of Democracy posted on its site: “America’s wannabe dictator took center stage and forced the lemmings in attendance to pledge allegiance to ‘the greatest president in the history of the United States’ while also promising to ‘cheat like hell’ to make sure Republicans don’t lose in November. Uh, okay. Any Republicans who were hoping this week’s ‘midterm convention’ would somehow be more than a gratuitous spectacle of sycophants worshipping at the altar of their god-king just got an answer.” Trump raised his right hand, asking the attendees to do likewise, as he led them in a mock version of the Pledge of Allegiance, to pledge “if I am registered or not, I am going to cheat like hell like they [Democrats] do.” “You know what happens if you don’t vote? You go to hell, you know that? Okay? And I don’t want that to happen to  you, so please go vote,” the president concluded. VP Vance supposedly was given the biggest speaking slot on the last night of the convention, attempting to give a keynote address to bolster his 2028 presidential aspirations. He followed Trump’s speech and managed to give a 40-minute oration before Trump again took his microphone, spewing his inanities, and insuring that  the cameras focused on him. “We’ve got to take care of business this November, then we’ll worry about what comes next,” said Vance the greeter, standing at the gates of hell.

“I just love that we have an administration that treats the American voter like one of his [Trump’s] ex-wives. ‘How much money to make you happy? There you go.’ Like, I don’t think it’s wise,” comedian Roy Wood, formerly of The Daily Show remarked on CNN. The show’s anchor, John Berman joked, “You think that voters should get to spin a prenup with presidents?” Wood is now host of CNN’s American adaptation of the news and entertainment panel show, Have I Got News For You. Likening Trump to a surly divorcee who confuses his constituents with his marriages, Wood suggested how the prez could improve his outlandish bribe of $5,000 for voting in the Republican column. “I’m waiting on my money, so why not just give us half the money up front? Ain’t that the art of the deal?”

The Swamp on Substack says it’s never a good sign when the vendors offer cut-price merchandise before the headliner has left the building, and especially when the event wasn’t sold out as claimed. Sell-out Republicans have finally seen the writing on the wall, so they avoided the president’s self-promoted adulation fest, or quickly headed for the exits in the hopes of salvaging their political careers by Election Day. As for the swag vendors, t-shirts were half price on the second day of the convention,  although a shirt featuring a younger Trump as a Marlboro Man, astride a spirited horse sold out on the first day — $47 a pop! Food vendors were selling stale hot dogs along with a syrup enhanced cola for $25, with a small pre-packaged salad for only $12 extra. No complaints about ‘affordability’ here. Of course, the real eating, drinking and money-raising action was taking place in the private dining rooms and hotel suites for the GOP powerbrokers.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise reportedly was headliner at one of the week’s more fascinating fundraisers at the Highland Park home of billionaire mega donor, Harlan Crow, well-known for his buddying with certain Supreme Court justices. For the privilege of seeing Scalise host a fireside chat in Crow’s digs, guests ponied up $10,000 to $100,000, the side attractions being Crow’s library of thousands of rare books and manuscripts — not to mention the sculpture garden known as ‘The Garden of Evil‘ which is graced with statues of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong, and others. Nothing says Republican fundraising like a garden full of dead dictators. So while the convention floor at the American Airlines Center offered an excess of Trump’s presence, the real business of Trump-a-palooza was happening elsewhere in Dallas, along with ‘affordable’ cover charges.

Travis Gettys writes on Raw Story, “President Donald Trump seems to want to drag the United States down with him once he shuffles off this mortal coil, according to historian Alan Elrod.” Dark warnings were in evidence at last week’s Trump-a-palooza regarding the nation’s future if Republicans lose in the November midterms, with Trump encouraging his followers to cheat or risk hellfire, observes Elrod, a politics and history professor, in his column for Liberal Currents. “Trump’s speech came off more like a sermon [a la Jim Jones] from Jonestown. My own overriding thought was: ‘This speech was like some sort of performance art piece of a live entombing of a mad king and his most loyal followers.‘” Trump is constantly referencing legacy issues like the ballroom, the border wall, and global tariffs, while teasing a campaign for an unconstitutional third term in office, and as Elrod notes, his lavish praise for some women who had attended more than 200 of his rallies is reminiscent of the ancient Egyptian practice of ‘retainer sacrifice.’

Elrod references his colleague, Samantha Hancox-Li, who has a simple theory about Trump’s self-promotion and obsession with legacy and slapping his name on buildings and projects: fear of death. Hancox-Li says, “My current theory of Donald Trump is that he is utterly gripped by the terror of death, and is desperately attempting to leave some mark on the world that history cannot erase — the point of his wars, the annexation threats, the DC vandalism. I think right now he is genuinely fixated on adding new American territory as the brass ring, the thing they’ll never be able to take away from his memory.” Elrod is in agreement, saying, “It’s a macabre but convincing psychological assessment. Rather than making America great again, Trump is inflicting grievous harm on it with tariffs, now upgraded to import bans against select Canadian goods; an illegal war; and a total ransacking of our public and private sectors for the enrichment of his courtiers and his family. And he is going to bury us all with him in a tomb of his own design — a ballroom.”

Trump’s ranting about the impenetrable ballroom project which will hold up to 2,000 people caused Elrod’s thoughts to become dismal. “These are the ramblings of a neurotic, dangerous madman. If Trump is taking America down, if he is going to bury this country, all the good in it and all its prosperity and potential, then he wants his most adoring and loyal retainers with him. He wants his cult locked inside.” Trump die-hards are optimistic about the midterms — to a degree. “It’s going to be fantastic,” insists Melissa Cole from Oklahoma, as she donned a gold sequined MAGA jacket at the Trump-a-palooza. “It has to be fantastic…we’re in a war between good and evil.” Grape or cherry Kool-Ade?

In an essay in The New Republic, former federal appeals court judge Michael Luttig argues that even if Democrats win decisively in the midterms there’s no guarantee the winners will be seated. Yikes! The ghost of Mitch McConnell arises with memories of President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, and the Senate leader’s refusal to hold hearings! Judge Luttig sees a constitutional crisis in the making for January 3, 2027, the date that the 120th Congress should be sworn in, with procedures being disrupted by Speaker Mike Johnson as he fires constitutionalist House Clerk Kevin McCumber, a Republican who goes by the book. Johnson could then install a Trump loyalist who will then leave Democratic members-elect off the roll that determines who gets to organize the new Congress. “From there, it’s writs of mandamus, emergency appeals and weeks or months of a country without a functioning House while the Supreme Court decides whether America is still a democracy,” says Luttig.

Luttig, a Supreme Court ‘finalist’ who lost out to a corrupt and arrogant Samuel Alito, points out Trump’s whining about rigged elections — with Republican acquiescence — and the harping about “nationalizing the voting” to achieve “election integrity” as MAGA blames Democrats and voting non-citizens for widespread fraud that is unproven and discounted with only insignificant occurrences. The Constitution is clear in Luttig’s estimation — that the House cannot refuse to seat anyone who has won a free and fair election on a flimsy pretext, yet he looks askance at a Supreme Court which handed Trump immunity and dodged the Fourteenth Amendment question. Luttig encourages Republicans not to go along with the deviousness, but is not optimistic. The judge writes, “The writing is already on the wall.” And as John Byrne posts on Raw America about that comment, “It’s been there since 2021. Some people just refuse to read it.”

That writing on the wall began on January 6, 2021, and as Steve Schmidt writes on The Warning, “That day was a crime of immense magnitude. The failure of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Merrick Garland and a few hundred political appointees to defend the republic and demand justice on behalf of the American people was a sin. The bill is coming due and soon. Judge Luttig sees it clearly. He has picked January 3rd as the day America dies. Judge Luttig has called his shot. Shouldn’t we speak about this out loud? Or is it already too late? Is there already too much fear to say out loud what could happen? Are we already consigned to whispers? What happens on January 4 when the winners of elections have been declared cheaters, criminals and liars?” Schmidt reminds us that everything is in motion, not a Hollywood movie or a Trump fever dream, and when we consider the unimaginable, we should think about it completely. “After all, delusion is a MAGA trait, not an American one,” he concludes.

Lisa Needham writes on Daily Kos, “Much like the Iran War, which Donald Trump has already won a thousand times, the Reflecting Pool repairs were already perfect — the best ever. But now they will be even better. Are you tired of winning yet?” The president bragged about corrections that will now be done, such as inflow and outflow pipes, that were being delayed until the end of the year, but he sped up the ‘repairs’ to coincide with his big birthday bash, so now we get to pay for more unnecessary expenses due to his half-assed planning. He can’t let go his claim of “clear evidence of vandalism” on the original American flag blue liner, yet he will admit that “contractor error” was one element of the pool’s cheap swimming pool appearance. “Meanwhile, we’ll all wait with bated breath to check out those Reflecting Pool improvements. Our tax dollars are hard at work — moving themselves from our pockets to Trump,” charges Needham.

But, stop the presses! The Horror! The latest pool makeover has been hit by disastrous storms resulting in toppled protective fencing, fallen trees, dirty rainwater with leaves and debris, and yellow “Do Not Cross” yellow police tape littering the site. Mother Nature gave the kibosh to Trump’s “pool is almost completely fixed” proclamation — a setback for the president AND the taxpayers’ pocketbook — with no projected completion date. A DC tour guide remarked, “I’ve lived here since 1965 and this is the worst I’ve ever seen the pool. $16 million later, here we are.” Trump’s initial announcement on the repair plans called for a $1.5 million revamp that would take just a few weeks. Cost has now ballooned to nearly $20 million. Place your bets on what the final sticker price will be!

In an altered photo of Trump and an aide standing beside the pool, the president says, “All I see is scum.” The aide replies, “Well, it is a reflecting pool, sir.”

Speaking of repairs, everyone is asking, “What in the world is going on with Trump’s hair?” A photo of him de-boarding Air Force One went viral with his new imagery, a drastic new look with brown hair with hints of gray, and flipped to the opposite side. Shirish V. Dáte of HuffPost asked if the White House was able to “certify that no animals were harmed in this process,” and political commentator George Conway cracked that “something needs to be done about [Trump’s] hair under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.” The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols‘ take was that it was odd, but “not the most important thing in the world.” It is known that hair-sensitive Donny has a prominent bald spot hidden by his usual combover, which also has a supplemental cotton candy-like hairpiece, sometimes protected by a red MAGA baseball cap.

On the Inside Trump’s Head podcast, biographer Michael Wolff claims that the president is accompanied by a portable hair fix-it kit in all his activities. Wolff says, “The ‘patch kit’ consists of small tufts of hair that match whatever color his hair might be at the time.” No word on who the stylist might be, but this person applies the tufts to Trump’s head with “some kind of paste,” the maintenance being a major enterprise for many years. Bet you can’t wait to read the tell-all book that is bound to appear in the post-Trump period! Especially when you consider that this individual gets to sit next to the person carrying the nuclear codes! Hot stuff! Wolff’s co-host, Joanna Coles, joked that the hair-do looks “like one of those spun sugar things that you can put your hand in and pull it out and start eating it, and it would have no caloric value at all.”

Unable to let his grudge against Canada be, last week Trump levied more tariffs against that country which set off a round of insults and tariffs levied against the US by Canada. Daily Dose of Democracy reported, “America’s 80-year-old nincompoop-in-chief apparently wants Canadian companies to teleport their headquarters across the border overnight as a precondition to continue doing business with the United States. ‘Let all Canadian Companies that are doing business with America move to the United States, immediately. Many of them are Companies that moved out years ago due to stupid US Leadership. When you move back, there are no TARIFFS!’ Trump wrote, mistaking his Sharpie collection for magic wands. For those keeping score at home, Canada is the United States’ second-largest trading partner with $900 billion in cross-border economic activity each year.”

Thinking it would enrage Canadians, Trump recently ‘changed’ the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, changing the mnemonic, H-O-M-E-S, used to help in remembering the names of the five Great Lakes, to S-H-A-M-E — as pointed out by Rachel Maddow and others. Janie Bonkiewitcz posted on social media, “16 years ago Google pulled its search engine out of China, refusing to submit to an authoritarian government. Today, they’re renaming lakes to appease one.” This was a result of Trump’s demand that all navigation apps alter their maps to read ‘Lake America.’ Apple held out for a few days but acquiesced. Old-timer MapQuest refused to obey, simply allowing users to name the lake whatever they preferred, gaining new adherents and users in doing so.

People have been laughing at President Trump‘s upcoming so-called mid-term convention in Dallas, which is referred to as a Trump-a-palooza, with his promises of “lots of Great Entertainment,” and “a RALLY like none other,” with no party business being conducted. The obvious message here is that the president wants to make the midterms about himself, to be onstage, hugging the American flag, cameras rolling and crowds looking on in complete adoration. The Republicans running for office? He doesn’t care and neither do the candidates because they don’t wish to be anywhere near his toxicity. So, if they lose, it’s not his fault because he won in 2024, remember? The GOP would rather not attend this two-day poorly-planned event, viewing it as a shakedown for corporate America with Trump’s placing a price tag on the ‘privilege’ to attend. The highest tier will pay $100,000 to attend, the low admission is ‘only’ $25,000 (to include one guest) — a bargain toll for their own execution, eh? Contrast the 2,000 tickets sold so far, with the 50,000 in attendance at both the Republican and Democratic national conventions in 2024.

Trump is being a total cheapskate, guarding his PAC war chest which is estimated to be in excess of $400 million, despite his own claim of a stash of $850 million, and having no intention of parting with any of it to pay for his Disaster in Dallas. “Republicans desperately need the midterms to be about anything other than Donald Trump. Trump desperately needs everything to be about Donald Trump,” writes Kos on Daily Kos. “Because he’s a grifter first and foremost, you better believe he’ll find a way to use all that donor money on himself.” Poor planning, including invitations being mailed late, finds invitees already committed to other events, or quickly finding other excuses not to attend. Trump is noticing, and he will react with his childish fury, attacking the very Republicans whose seats he is supposedly trying to save. “They’re trapped in a no-win situation entirely of Trump’s making. And it couldn’t happen to a worse bunch of people,” concludes Kos.

Politico surveyed more than 70 GOP candidates and party members, finding that most will be no-shows or are undecided about attending Trump-a-palooza, with dozens more preferring to be mum about their plans. Reasons given include pre-existing district obligations, personal family plans, washing the SUV, with some bluntly explaining that avoidance of Trump this close to the election is best. Michigan Representative Tom Barrett says he would rather be “useful” in his district, saying, “I can’t control what the president’s going to say at the convention, but I can control where I’m at.” Cost has to be a major deterrent, with one member admitting that the costly fee gave him an easy excuse to skip an event he didn’t care to attend anyway, and another calling it “a waste of time,” aimed at the party base instead of attempting to persuade independent voters.

Trump and VP Vance will head the two-day event at the American Airlines Center, with leaders Mike Johnson and John Thune (a maybe), and a few 2028 hopefuls in attendance. Axios obtained a leaked list of speakers, with one name in particular drawing attention among critics, that of Attorney General Todd Blanche. “The United States Attorney General is speaking at a national partisan political convention,” former Obama campaign aide, Christopher Hale posted on X. Former US Attorney Joyce Vance notes that US federal executive branch employees are prohibited by law from using their position to influence elections, saying “The AG is on the clock 24/7, and his appearance is a potential violation of the Hatch Act.” Pick your poison carefully.

Lisa Needham writes on Daily Kos that Trump-a-palooza feels like a solution in search of a problem, “an unnecessary interference with actual campaigning, the point being to make President Trump feel special.” She says that it’s not about getting Republicans elected since that is being taken care of by gerrymandering and voter suppression. According to The Wall Street Journal, photos with Trump will cost $88,600, “a number that seems weirdly arbitrary until you realize that $44,300 is the current Federal Election Commission contribution limit for donations to national party committee. So, presumably, half would go to the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the other half would go to the National Senatorial Committee.” Needham calls that a bargain when you consider that a “roundtable” with Trump on the first night of the convention will run you $250,000 — as he continues to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday, perhaps? It’s all about a tiny ego, folks.

At the bargain table sits VP JD Vance who offers a roundtable for only $75,000, and paltry $35,000 for a photo. Needham writes, “Honestly, we’d pay five figures NOT to have a picture with Vance, the least charming man alive and the only person currently more poisonous than Trump.” But in the end, she says, to be fair, “Trump is still really good at raising money, because everyone who loves bribing officials loves to bribe him — and he’s always open for business. At best, this convention will be a big nothing-burger; at worst, a disaster. But either way, have fun Republicans. The rest of us will just be studiously ignoring the whole thing.”

A Jack Ohman political cartoon features GOP strategists sitting around a table, looking at an Out-of-PowerPoint display on the wall, headed ‘2026 GOP HOUSE STRATEGY,’ with bullet point messages: • Deny knowing President Trump, • Pixelate his face out of your ads, • Stay in denial. Don’t worry. Be happy, • Look! A Squirrel!

The convention will not be helpful to Republicans fighting for their political lives, but it will be helpful to Donald Trump, a disparity that displays “the cost of a cynical decision made a decade ago by a party that traded a few more years in the majority for their inevitable destruction,” writes Matt Kerbel of Wolves and Sheep. “It is the cost of blindly following someone whose life’s work has been to suck the value from whatever he can acquire and cast aside the remains. This is how Trump conducted business. It is how he conducts his presidency, how he approaches relationships with other nations, and how he is treating the Republican Party.” Kerbel recognizes that Trump has no use for the Republican Party beyond what it can do for him, and it will be fully apparent this weekend as the attendees view what is happening to the party which placed its fate in the hands of a narcissist who will get what he needs.

So, this desperate effort to gin up some kind of momentum for the midterms for a few weirdos who would rather watch an aging pedophile rant about ballrooms, windmills and immigrants instead of watching the opening festivities of the NFL season, can find out more about Trump-a-palooza at gopdallas2026.com. Although, that doesn’t take you to the convention website — it takes you to the Epstein Files database on the Department of Justice’s website.  HA! — GOTCHA!

Despite the bluster of the GOP, the White House is preparing for Democrats to be in charge, said Rick Wilson, former Republican strategist, and he has a plan to go after Trump should the blue wave come to pass with the midterms. The GOP is “starting to talk about executive privilege, about lawyering up, about making sure that people have their ethics disclosures and their financial disclosures and their personal paperwork in line, that they haven’t saved any incriminating documents, and that they’re not going to be patsies when they get investigated by the coming Democratic majority,” reports Wilson. He says Trump deserves to be impeached but because of the makeup of the Senate, those votes aren’t there, but, the Democrats need to take advantage of the fear that’s building within the opposition.

Wilson says, “The minute the polls close and we know we have a majority, Democrats should take a page from the book of mob prosecutors, and work their way through Trump’s key staffers first.” Starting at the bottom and quickly working through the chain of assistants, secretaries and key career staffers for their depositions to divulge Trump’s secrets, results initiating a fear that “is delicious, palpable, growing by the minute, a fear that needs to grow into a raging terror.” Unable to afford the big-time attorneys that Trump will hire for his protection, the lesser lights will fear for their futures, and recognize the urgency of being truthful about the administration’s willful destruction of this country, or the theft of assets from the country for the president’s benefit.

Elliot Kirschner writes in Through the Fog, “There will be a rush from those who appeased or conspired with Trump to distance themselves from the ashes of the dumpster fire they helped make possible, arguing that he [Trump] was an anomaly and that we need to get back to the America we had before. But that America was a big part of the problem, because it was the country that made Trump possible. We must recognize that the story America tells about itself has always favored the points of view of the privileged and the powerful…the forces that control and reap the benefits of the status quo almost never relinquish their position without a fight.”

As Rick Wilson pointed out, the reactionary forces are already trying to set the terms of the debate when the Democrats return to power. “This is a fight for the future, and we need the language equal to the stakes. Authoritarians will demonize whatever we call a mass movement to make the United States more fair and just…fighting back and holding these people accountable is not crazy. It is exactly what our Democracy needs if we are going to continue to keep it,” concludes Kirschner.