It’s Trump stand-in time again. The featured image comes from the 19th Century political cartoonist Thomas Nast. The guy with the money bag on his head is Boss Tweed. It’s called The Brains, which was ironic when applied to Tweed and OTT ironic when applied to Trump. The MAGA stupidity, it burns.
One of my favorite candidates in the 2026 election cycle is Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff. He won a squeaker 6 years ago and looks poised to win again but it will be another tight race because Georgia has become the swingiest swing state of all. It’s still predominantly red but purple cracks are showing in the peach state because of years of rotten Republican rule.
Senator Ossoff understands that corruption is a winning issue. An anti-corruption message was central to the recent Hungarian election. It’s something the voters understand amidst all the glitzy bluster and bullshit thrown at them by Team Trump.
Ossoff gave a barn burner of a speech the other day. Instead of a brief quote we have an extended passage from a speech in which Ossoff coined a new nickname for the MAGA grifters: The Mar-a-Lago Mafia. I rarely use other people’s nicknames, but I dig this one. It nails the greedy grifters who swarm around the Kaiser of Chaos like buzzards circling roadkill, which is, of course, Bobby Junior’s jam. Who amputates a racoon penis while their kids wait in the car? Bobby Junior, that’s who.
“While you pay more for everything, the first family’s wealth is growing by billions of dollars – because they’re crooks, and everybody knows it.
“How much do you guys know about Jared Kushner, Ivanka’s husband? He’s on the Saudi payroll for $2bn, did you know that? And now he’s leading American diplomacy in the Middle East, apparently, while at the very same time asking princes and sheikhs across the Arab world to give him billions more.
“Can you imagine, like a normal, sitting US ambassador just hitting up Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman for billions of dollars? But he’s a Trump, a royal, a princeling. The rules are for us, not for them. And it’s not just Jared getting in on the action,” the senator said, adding that the president’s sons had also sought to profit, as had his defense secretary, according to a Financial Times report.
“Never before have we seen so little effort to hide so much corruption. The Mar-a-Lago mafia has taken American corruption to spectacular new heights.”
Jared’s sheikh shakedown reminds me of some wordsmithery by the late NYT columnist William Safire. He was a former Nixon aide whose politics were right-wing but whose wit was universal. That leads me to a sub-quote from Safire’s weekly language column:
“Speaking of puns and headlines, I was impelled to entitle a recent political column about the Saudi Oil Minister, Sheik Ahmed Yamani, ”Yamani or Ya Life.”
Can I get a rimshot?
Thanks, pooch.
Corruption is a feature not a bug of authoritarian rule. The Mar-a-Lago Mafia has taken grifting to the next level. They’re stealing millions, not thousands, and billions whenever possible. Greed is a feature not a bug of MAGA rule. A blue wave is required to remove MAGA’s hand from the national pocket before they steal everything in sight: Yamani or ya life.
Repeat after Jon Ossoff: They’re crooks and everybody knows it.
The last word goes to The Who: