Also on whines and Tall Tails about a gunshot wound
‘Twasn’t a zillion voters on April 6, just a few friends.
The Trump total from the ‘Inaugural Leadership Dinner’ at the Palm Beach, Florida, home of billionaire investor John Paulson sets a record for a single fundraising event…. The price tag for the fundraiser ranged from $250,000 per person for those serving on the ‘host committee’ to $824,600 per person to serve as a ‘chairman.’ Perks for those contributing at the top level included dinner seating at Trump’s table.”
Whine whine and more whines …
Rachel Leingang of the Guardian: “Donald Trump’s speeches on the 2024 campaign trail so far have been focused on a laundry list of complaints, largely personal, and an increasingly menacing tone. He’s on the campaign trail less these days than he was in previous cycles…. But when he has held rallies, he speaks in dark, dehumanizing terms about migrants, promising to vanquish people crossing the border. He rails about the legal battles he faces and how they’re a sign he’s winning, actually. He tells lies and invents fictions. He calls his opponent a threat to democracy and claims this election could be the last one…. He’s also, quite frequently, rambling and incoherent, running off on tangents that would grab headlines for their oddness should any other candidate say them.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
On the Tall Tail guy in Montana …
Montana Senate Race. Meet Yer GOP Candidate. Liz Goodwin of the Washington Post: “Tim Sheehy, a charismatic former Navy SEAL who is the Republican candidate in a U.S. Senate race in Montana…, has cited a gunshot wound he received in combat that he said left a bullet in his right arm as evidence of his toughness. ‘… I have a bullet stuck in this arm still from Afghanistan,’ Sheehy said in a video of a December campaign event posted on social media, pointing to his right forearm. It was one of several inconsistent accounts Sheehy has shared about being shot while deployed.
And in October 2015, more than a year after he left active duty, he told a different story. After a family visit to Montana’s Glacier National Park, he told a National Park Service ranger that he accidentally shot himself in the right arm that day…. Asked this week about the citation [he received] … for illegally discharging his weapon in a national park…, Sheehy told The Washington Post that the statement he gave the ranger was a lie. He said he made up the story about the gun going off to protect himself and his former platoonmates from facing a potential military investigation into an old bullet wound that he said he got in Afghanistan in 2012.” Read on if you’d like to know Sheehy’s many tall tales about when and where and how many times he was shot. (Also linked yesterday.)
Arthur Ruger: Curmudgeon at Work 
I have always heard “you can’t fix stupid”, but it never really struck home until living through the last 8 years. We usually think people with money must be very smart. Seems that billionaires are wealthy, but also suffer from severely poor judgement just like regular people. But maybe it’s just greed. The real reason they are giving so much to him is the fact that the tax cuts they received (and have been further promised) are worth far more than their “investment” in a morally bankrupt, stupid, soon to-be-convicted and jailed, con man. The dinner you mention is proof positive. I find it revolting that anyone would want to sit and break bread with that disgusting excuse of a man. Further proof that even billionaires can let greed override all else. As far as the former military dude turned political wannabe goes, he is further proof you can’t believe a thing that comes out of a Republicans mouth. I am sure Montanans will flock to the guy in droved. Seems like red state voters love crass, lying scumbags.
The thing that really baffles me it if we let this man destroy our democracy, even the ultra-wealthy will lose it all.