Hurricane Helene Blows Trump's Mind

Trump says hurricane’s victims, some of them dead, will “be okay”

Sept. 30: Trump calls Harris “mentally disabled” … Helene death toll mounts … Dockworkers expected to shut down ports … More hot Mark Robinson action …

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Former Pres. Donald Trump on Friday in Michigan says he’d be helping hurricane victims if he were there, which he weren’t. (Screengrab that I may or may not have cropped to say “Rump” / RSBN video.)

With the death toll still rising from Helene, the casualties this morning appear to include what’s left of former Pres. Donald Trump’s mind.

Already ravaged after being besieged for decades by obsequious staff and fawning media, the fragile remnants of Trump’s capacity to reason appeared to give way in dramatic video from the storm’s aftermath.

Specifically, Trump at a post-storm rally on Friday said:

“Alabama, and all of the other states who have been really hit hard by that very large hurric — that was a big one, a very large hurricane this week. We’re with you all the way and if we were there we would be helping you and you’ll be okay.”

As part of the relief efforts, the campaign of Vice Pres. Kamala Harris was working nonstop to distribute emergency supplies of the video of Trump saying that to the storm’s victims and others in need of seeing Trump tell dead people and other storm victims – who are still refugees – “you’ll be okay.” Because let’s skip right past that messy, awkward stage where you’re not okay.

The Washington Post reports that social media was so horrified by Trump breezing past the dead and wounded and evacuated that they blasted Trump with a Category 4 Twitter storm.

Hilariously, the MAGA pushback included the claim that the Harris campaign cut the video and misquoted him…and then includes a transcript showing he wasn’t misquoted and the way they “cut” the video was by, um, not including the entire speech.

But “You’ll be okay” is actually a fairly normal, if unthinking, response. People say it all the time to people in grief and shock. But look at the rest of what Trump said.

“We’re with you all the way and if we were there we would be helping you.”

In other words, we’re with you and not with you. Now Trump is eating Schrödinger’s cat!

And also, “If we were there we would be helping you” = “I’m not there and I’m not helping you.”

Trump was campaigning in Michigan when he said it, and his campaign says he’ll be in Georgia today to distribute relief supplies. Pray to Jesus we get more paper-towel throwing.

He’ll also get an update on Helene’s damage, which apparently he couldn’t get while he was in Michigan. (Both campaigns have said they’ll be on the ground when it won’t disrupt relief efforts.)

Damage reports are already coming in, however, on the state of Trump’s brain.

Yesterday, when Trump still wasn’t there and still not helping victims, he was in Pennsylvania, criticizing Pres. Joe Biden for his response to Helene, accusing Biden of “sleeping” in Delaware, which is where, uh, Biden has a home and a bed and everything and, yes, it’s true, sleeps at night. (Biden will give a speech on the storm today.)

And even before that, on Saturday, Trump — who’s so not a doctor that even his doctor’s not a doctor — diagnosed both Biden and Harris as “mentally impaired.”

Here’s what he said:

“Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way. She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could’ve allowed this to happen to our country. Anybody would know this.”

Insulting the mental capacities of Black people is a longtime racist trope, no matter what color the target was born as or what color the attacker chose to be that morning.

The self-inflicted damage was so bad that even Republicans acknowledged the need for disaster aid. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said of Trump’s remarks, “The better course to take is to prosecute the case that her policies are destroying the country.”

Thoughts and prayers.

MEANWHILE The number of people who will never be okay — except in the afterlife Trump wants evangelicals to think he believes in — is still rising and approaching 100. Hundreds remain missing and presumably not yet okay.

Inland flooding has created devastation not usually associated with storms like these, creating thousands of refugees and possibly justmaybe finally wider acknowledgment that climate change is changing the shit out of the climate. 

The Washington Post writes up the virtually total destruction of an entire town, Swannanoa, NC, where first residents fled and then the houses up and left, too, borne away by floodwaters that left cars in trees and roads in ruin.

Dockworkers Strike Expected

Thousands of dock workers are expected to go on strike tonight when the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) contracts expire, and Pres. Joe Biden said Sunday he’s not planning to order them back to work even though somehow presidents of the land of the free have the power to force people to work.

A strike could mean that more than half of U.S. importing and exporting — of mostly pointless crap that marketers have convinced us to “need” — could come to a halt Tuesday at 12:01 am eastern time at dozens of ports all the way from the Texas coast to New England. (There’s a chance west coast dock workers could refuse to handle diverted East Coast cargo in solidarity, too.)

As the Washington Post notes, the strike could come the same day Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) will hold their vice-presidential debate.

The ILA has about 47,000 members, who may now hold the fate of retail prices and the presidential election in their exploited hands. Congressional Republicans and business groups have urged Biden to use his emergency presidential powers to ban a strike, because forced labor is just another option on the table when quarterly earnings are at stake.

Public details about what the ILA wants are scarce. But automation is an issue, as is the hoarding of the benefits of automation, which — surprise — are not being exported to the working class.

Israel Escalates De-Escalatory Escalation

Israel is so committed to peace, it’s now expanded its peace-keeping efforts to include military combat (of both the one- and two-sided varieties) in three (3) separate countries, one of them almost 2,000 miles away.

And Israel says it’s still figuring out whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal trial would be further delayed by it has the necessary intel for its first ground invasion of Lebanon since 2006.

Israel yesterday bombed power plants and shipping sites in Yemen. Israel says one of the port facilities was used to ship weapons into the region from Iran. (Wait til Israel finds out about all the weapons shipped into the region from the U.S.! Or the millions of dollars Hamas got with help from, uh, Israel!)

The Yemeni ports are also used to ship in humanitarian for the millions of people there who spend so much time living on the brink of starvation they qualify for housing subsidies.

And Israel is also upping its bombing of Lebanon where, in Israel’s defense, the Israeli Defense Forces appear to be killing actual terrorist leaders — both Hamas and Hezbollah — rather than just the civilian, underage terrorists that the IDF routinely kills in Gaza. The IDF has taken out much of the Hezbollah leadership, which is why the region is so much safer today and now the war can stop.

Mark Robinson Burns Himself But Literally This Time

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC), the self-professed foe of LGBTQ+ people and abortion rights and books (and the anonymously professed Black Nazi fan of transgender porn), burned himself over the weekend. But this time not with his mouth or keyboard.

Robinson remains the Republican nominee for North Carolina governor despite because of his hate speech, rampant homophobia, and autocratic theocratic autotheocratic tendencies. And also continues to enjoy the endorsement of twice-impeached, trindicted, fraudster, rapist former Pres. Donald Trump.

On Saturday, Robinson suffered second-degree burns on his hand. Robinson was already in a weakened state after suffering repeated third-degree burns over 100% of his campaign. Like the previous burns, this, too, was self-inflicted.

Robinson explained said claimed that he was getting out of a truck and seeking to avoid approaching supporters — the way any good politician, uh, doesn’t do — when he grabbed the truck’s hot tail pipe, the way one doesn’t do.

The incident comes on the high heels of a CNN report that prior to his political life, Robinson frequented websites for people with a fetish for hot tail pipes. Even then, he expressed an interest in seeking surprises in hot, steamy undercarriages.

Robinson is now recovering comfortably at the nearest all-night porno shop home. Luckily, it was his left hand.

Elon Musk Warns Immigrants Will Do All the Things He Did

Billionaire Elon Musk said yesterday that immigrants will end American democracy, suggesting they will turn the country into a hellscape like “the nightmare that is downtown San Francisco.”

Musk lent his voice and powerful megaphone to the anti-immigrant narrative being pushed by former Pres. Donald Trump and other Republicans.

Specifically, Trump and his followers have said that mentally ill undocumented immigrants are coming to America to steal jobs, replace white people, bring disease, won’t assimilate, won’t learn the language, make America dirtier, replace Americans with all their anchor babies, become a drain on society, steal credit from others, commit crimes (including sexual violence, drug use, and killing people), refuse to assimilate, and attempt to undermine the democratic process.

Musk would know, as he’s individually accused of doing literally every single one of those things.

According to Musk’s scenario, “if even 1 in 20 illegals [sic] become citizens per year, something that the Democrats are expediting as fast as humanly possible [sic], that would be about 2 million new legal voters in 4 years [sic].”

He was responding to a Tweet from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who claimed that the Justice Department was seeking to let undocumented immigrants vote in Alabama. In fact, the Justice Department is suing to stop an Alabama purge of voter rolls that is both illegally close to Election Day (giving the purged not enough time to file challenges) and that the state itself admits will disenfranchise voters who became citizens after the state’s voter rolls were last updated.

The big picture here is that Musk is complaining about immigrants getting the right to vote when they become citizens, which is not only legal and the American way, it’s how literally everyone or their forebears did it. 

Fascinatingly, however, it’s also what Musk himself allegedly did…along with committing or being accused of literally every single smear that’s leveled against immigrants. To wit…

Undocumented immigrant. Musk came to this country illegally, his brother said in 2013, and then became a citizen. Not in four years, which isn’t a thing, but in ten, he says.

“We were illegal immigrants,” his brother said. “Well…” Musk objected feebly. “Yes, we were,” his brother shut him up for lying.

Takes American jobs. Musk has taken the jobs of at least five CEOs, serving simultaneously as CEO of Neuralink, The Boring Company, Tesla, xAI, SpaceX, and X.

Has anchor babies to replace real Americans. Musk is believed to have sired, with three women, at least 12 children as of press time, including Exa Dark Sideræl, X AE A-XII, and Techno Mechanicus.

Brings disease. He brought malaria into the U.S.

Uses drugs. Specifically, LSD, weed, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine for therapeutic purposes, and ketamine for the other purposes.

Deals drugs. Allegedly, he’s thrown parties where drugs were readily available.

Won’t learn the language. Instead of using proper English, Musk just writes X on everything.

Won’t assimilate. Musk won’t conform to normal-people norms or laws (see list below). Can’t be bothered to give normal American names to his children Exa Dark Sideræl, X AE A-XII, and Techno Mechanicus.

Is a drain on society. In addition to his billions in federal contracts, when Musk arrived here without (his father’s) means to support himself, he was a parasite on private landlords — using a rented office to sleep in — and charities — showering at the YMCA.

Steals credit from others. Has taken credit for OpenAI, Tesla, Twitter, and the concept of tunnels.

Makes America dirtier. Is currently being sued for dumping his trash all over the property of the law-abiding American neighbors of SpaceX.

Is mentally ill. Said he has bipolar disorder.

Coming for our women. 

• Abandoned his free-speech principles to pay a former SpaceX flight attendant $250,000 not to exercise her free speech about his words, actions, and/or penis. 

• Allegedly tried to get women on his staff to get on his staff.

• Harassed Olympic boxer Imane Khelif.

• Threatened Taylor Swift that he would “give you a child,” and apparently wasn’t referring to any of the 12 already known to exist.

Kills people. The death toll from Musk’s non-self-driving self-driving cars was at 47 people as of press time, according to the actually existing Tesla Deaths database. SpaceX is only accused of killing two people. As of press time. Also, personally, Musk reportedly has utilized IVF, killing unknown numbers of precious microscopic baby cell clusters.

Breaks the law:

• The aforementioned drug stuff, which is both against the law and violates federal contracts.

• Fined $40 million for violating federal securities law by claiming falsely that he was taking Tesla private.

• Stole the dreams of everyone who wanted to see him get his ass kicked by Mark Zuckerberg.

• Consorted with a known criminal and former president, violating labor laws by conspiring to illegally threaten to fire workers illegally for striking legally.

• Has violated all kinds of occupational and environmental laws at his various plants.

Election interference. In addition to transitioning Twitter from its assigned birth identity into X, Musk has transitioned X into a political platform boosting Trump and other Republicans via his account and via his algorithms. Just last week, Musk banned reporter Ken Klippenstein’s account for Tweeting a link to his report on the dossier on Sen. JD Vance (R-OH).

In reality, of course, immigrants are supposed to achieve legal status here. And as they establish their new lives and set down roots and connect to their communities, becoming citizens and voting is not only perfectly natural, it’s their right, and it’s an essential theme of the American story.

If there’s a reason Republicans fear that new citizens will vote against them, that may not be due to Democrats. Instead, it might have something to do with immigrants recognizing that American Republicans are uniquely batshit compared to the rest of the world and/or being pissed off at what American policy has done to their countries, not only driving them out, but self-driving them here.

MORTALITY WATCH

CENTENARIANS Former Pres. Jimmy Carter will turn 100 years old on Tuesday. Maybe.

Carter reportedly has said he wants to live long enough to vote for Vice Pres. Kamala Harris, so if Georgia succeeds in suppressing every Democratic vote at least we’ll have Carter around for another four years.

RIP RISTOFFERSON Legendary singer and songwriter Kris Kristofferson has died. When I was a kid he was one of those guys whose appearance kind of rendered him culturally alienating to me. Not urban, and country enough that even before I thought about politics it triggered a distance and disinterest in me. I still don’t know enough about the guy, except to know that I wish I’d paid more attention but man I love that he had Sinead O’Connor’s back after that SNL bullshit. So, much respect and apologies to those who properly appreciated the guy.

TCB

VANCE-WALZ DEBATE! Don’t forget to join tomorrow night’s TFN live chat during the debate between Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) — bringing his almost two full years of government experience in a legislative minority — and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who’s run a whole-ass state and served in Congress for more than a decade.

It’ll be streaming live everywhere, and debate-watching Newsfuckers will be right here comparing notes, doing fact-checks (even if CBS doesn’t), sharing devastating insights, and dropping knowledge bombs left and right but honestly probably mostly left. And then, if all goes well, we’ll do a post-debate LIVE VIDEO! Don’t fucking miss it, because we’d fucking miss you.

NICOLE SANDLER If all goes well, I’ll be doing my weekly hit on The Nicole Sandler Show tonight at 5:30pm eastern time. You can watch or listen live or on-demand right here.

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Go get ‘em, kids!