There’s good news and bad news for the Republican Party today.
The good news is, President Donald Trump’s numbers are way up!
The bad news is, those aren’t polling numbers, they are the cost of a gallon of gasoline. WHOOOO-EEEE just look at those prices, which are higher than yrs truly on a Friday night!
According to cheap fuel finder app GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan, diesel — what the trucks that bring you your whoozits and your whatnots run on! — has hit an all-time banger of a price per gallon in California, which is an eye-watering $9.99 in some places — as high as it can go without adding another digit. They might just have to start moving the decimal point around. Soon it’ll be $99.9 a gallon! Go GOP!
But don’t worry, Trump does recognize that there’s an issue. Per The Bulwark, whose writer confessed that he couldn’t bring himself to listen to the whole damn thing either and worked from the transcript instead, which is for sure more than we did, here’s some of the ways Trump’s planning to make things better for the country, nay, the entire world:
“Food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down. And by the way, oil will be going down as soon as we win the war with Iran, which is taking place right now. We’ll win it. We’re winning it. We control the Hormuz Strait…. We should call it the Trump [Strait].”
“[I]f we lose, you’re going to lose your border, you’re going to lose your tax cuts, you’re going to lose your safety and security, you’re going to lose your wealth.”
“We’re more powerful now than OPEC and prices right after this very important election on November 3 will be plummeting. The world will be over very shortly after the election.”
Told you it was a death cult. (Our bold.)
Anyway, if you didn’t quite get it from what he said here, Trump eventually rambled his way into saying that he is here to make everything better with a brand-new imaginary dividend. He’s promising to give every American $5,000. Yay!
Oh, but there’s a catch. The GOP has to win the midterms. THEN every American will get $5,000. Yay!
“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” Trump said during the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas, according to Associated Press. “It will be called the Trump Dividend.”
Yes, of course it will.
It’s definitely not a bribe, though. It’s just a promise of money that is predicated on a specific outcome that depends on our collective actions, which is different from a bribe, because it is politics!
Just ask professional politics-knowers and Real Americans like Mrs. Sean Duffy, who is also Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy, who must have hyphenated her name on accident because we all know this crowd would never allow it on purpose. She got on the TV to say that she, a person who definitely thinks for herself, thinks it’s just great!
“This just shows just how creative and rule-breaking and out of the box President Trump is,” she burbled, stupidly. “I’m surprised no one has thought of this before. It’s actually a great way as you say to sort of get that momentum. Push things forward.”
It’s a good thing she is not fake-married to anybody in the White House or that would seem like a real conflict of interest thing for her to say!
The White House then stepped up right quick and put out a press release about some other money, or maybe it’s the same dividend, who knows? In any case, now it’s either $5,000 or $500 per person. Yay!
Give us 5000 or 500 or any dollars.
Oh yeah, and you better not fucking spend it where this administration can see you giving any money to undesirables.
“We don’t want you going to Canada to spend the money,” Trump said, without offering further details.
And then, Vice President JD Vance quickly said, probably while puckering mightily, that any payment program would probably be more limited, saying right after Trump’s speech that checks would be “for the middle class” rather than wealthy Americans (sure) and would depend on future tariff revenue (uh huh). Everybody probably looked at the more-than-$1-trillion price tag and decided they didn’t give enough of a shit about Americans to spare it!
But there’s one final catch. This is at least the fourth time that Trump has promised a “Trump Dividend,” and he didn’t say a thing about how this would be paid for even as our national debt hit some ungodly new number, so maybe it will end up being zero dollars for all Americans, which will be great news indeed!
Per the NYT:
He has proposed $2,000 checks based on tariff revenues (in an interview with The New York Times in January, he said that money could arrive by the end of this year). He has also floated the idea of $5,000 payments from money saved by eliminating thousands of federal jobs, and assorted payments to Americans from government health care subsidies.
We will get our Trump dividend and pay through our $99.9/gallon gas through vibes!
Yay!
OPEN THREAD.
I got my first primary care doctor today.
I have an extreme medical phobia. It has long been detrimental to my health.
But after moving to Cleveland and my life becoming more of what I want it to be, writing and just living beyond making money to pay the bills, I wanted to keep that good shit going.
You have no idea of how I had to battle my own monsters to get to today's appointment.
But I found a doctor who listened to me and respected my boundaries and fears. (I have had doctors refuse to treat me because of these problems.)
I have friends who supported me and didn't judge. It all came together.
It was the foot in the door I needed.
I'm 63, I want to be around for many, many more years. The loss of Fukui scared the fuck out of me and just might save my life.
My new doc might even see this, she let out a giggle when I said to look for ziggywiggy. (It is such a great nym in that way!)
Is it a bribe if it’s an obvious lie and no one gets a dime?