End of another work week this Friday evening, Republicans are homeward bound from Congress, and the country is going to shit in a wire basket — at least until June 5, so says Janet Yellen, then who knows.

Meanwhile and despite the noise, T-Rump has just finished a most-shitty week himself, which couldn’t have happened to a bigger asshole — Michael Tomasky at The New Republic this morning:

Nearly every week is a bad week for Donald Trump these days, but this week brought developments that, while extremely gratifying from my perspective, are monumentally, roaringly, Wagnerianly bad for the former guy. It now looks somewhere between probable and certain that as he seeks the presidency, Trump will be staring—at not one, not two, but three indictments—as well as at least one criminal trial, which we learned this week is going to happen in the thick of the presidential primary season.

[…]

There remains the question of whether there’s a point at which this all becomes too much even for Republican primary voters. A third indictment may be a bridge too far; they might decide at long last that Trump’s no longer worth the trouble. But he’ll turn this into Armageddon. It will get ugly—perhaps terrifyingly so. But the end times are coming, all right—not for the world, but for Trump. If he’d stayed a private citizen, the law wouldn’t have gone to the expense and trouble of nailing him. But he became a public servant. As corrupt as our country and legal system are in many ways, you just can’t do anything you want as a public servant. The system eventually says enough. Let’s sit back and enjoy every delicious minute of watching him learn this lesson.

Beyond courtrooms and a single crying baby has revealed the T-Rump horror:

Instant comparison:

TRUMP: "Get that baby out of here."

Character matters. https://t.co/QnzxBMUMJp pic.twitter.com/RcdvpAreAy

— Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) May 26, 2023

No pets (cats or dogs) and no babies — crying or otherwise. T-Rump is an asshole-piece-of-shit, cruel and nasty, which puts him in the self-centered situation of a cornered imbecilic bully. However, in dealing with legal issues and the judicial system, that might not be the best right-on strategy in a courtroom, and for lawyers attempting to do decent lawyer work. Cases/investigations/grand juries/whatnot from New York to DC to Georgia have made T-Rump an even bigger shit.
Amanda Marcotte at Salon this morning has another good, insightful piece, this time  on T-Rump’s attempts to keep himself out of jail, while it might be just a way to make money, of course — some snips:

To be clear, it’s not a good strategy. Despite Trump’s now-regular crowing about how proud he was of January 6, it’s worth remembering that throwing a MAGA mob at the Capitol to steal an election didn’t work. The MAGA method makes even less sense now. At least on January 6, there was a somewhat tangible goal (stop the electoral vote-counting) and the mob’s role in it was well-defined. This is more about vibes, and guessing that Garland will blanch when reminded that Trump is loved by millions of delusional conspiracy theorists. But this tactic is just as likely to backfire, especially as both Garland and Smith are experienced prosecutors who likely have a poor opinion of criminals who resort to threats and intimidation.

But, as the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Despite being a lifelong conman, Trump’s toolset of manipulation is surprisingly limited. Most of the time, all he really knows how to do is bully people. We see this with his response to losing the defamation and sexual abuse lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll. Even though he’s already been fined $5 million for assaulting Carroll and then lying about it after the fact, Trump’s response is to just do more of the very thing that got him in trouble: Hectoring Carroll. He lied about her on CNN and has kept up a steady patter of abuse aimed at her on Truth Social, leading her to amend her complaint and ask for much more money.

This is all very dumb on Trump’s part, especially since shutting up is right there as an option, one that was recommended by Carroll, her attorneys, and the court. But Trump doesn’t have the cognitive flexibility to change tactics. He has a problem — a woman speaking publicly about how she victimized him — and the only way he knows how to deal with such women is to persecute them into shutting up. It’s worked for him before, and even on Carroll, who stayed silent for decades out of fear. But now that it’s not working anymore, he’s at a loss. He just trying the same terrorizing method, praying that if he keeps it up long enough, it will finally work.

Trump’s limited imagination isn’t the only factor in play with this attack on Garland, however. There is, always, money. Trump is famously bad with money, perhaps more than any other person in history. His campaign keeps outspending what he’s raised, buildling on the epically bad money management of his 2020 campaign. As Politico reported last month, Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., appears to have nearly twice as big a campaign war chest as Trump, despite having a fraction of the polling support. And Trump isn’t just trying to fund a campaign with this money. He’s also using it to stay out of jail.

And the conclusion: ‘This goes a long way towards explaining why Trump’s lawyers are going along with his preferred strategy of publicly bullying prosecutors, judges, and juries, usually by leveling false accusations. From a legal perspective, that’s just a bad idea, because it tends to make those people less inclined to show mercy. But it is a good way to raise money.  Trump’s lawyers very much want to get paid. Trump’s big mouth may land him in jail, but as long as the donor wallets are open, his legal team will make a fortune in the process.‘

Orange jumpsuit for the orange turd.

And not just crying babies. T-Rump self-explains himself in criticizing others — memories from three years ago:

Sense of shame, or not, here we are once again…

Image out front is my favorite of the T-Rump mugs, though, ‘favorite‘ does not mean in any form or fashion, as in, ‘my favorite movie,’ or ‘my favorite song.’ It’s more of an anti-appreciation/like.

And aptly titled, ‘Basic Shapes,‘ by caricaturist/illustrator Chong Jit Leong (and found here), it’s an image that displays the elemental form of a purloined sociopath — a bloated profile of flatulent bile and arrogant ignorance.