Donald Trump’s extreme takeover of the Republican Party has been diligently noted by poliitical observers ever since his characteristically grandiose announcement in June 2015 that he was (gasp!) seeking the highest office in the land.

 

Beginning well before January 20, 2017, he has systematically purged the Republican Party of anyone who disagrees with him on even minor details.

 

Today, one his favorite targets, the venerable New York Times, published an editorial, "R.I.P., G.O.P,.” proclaiming the imminent death of the Republican Party:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/opinion/sunday/trump-republican-party.html?referringSource=articleShare.

 

As AP fans are already well aware, associate solitary reporter Johanna Jones is a mole placed in the White House to be with Trump 24/7. She reports directly to us and to DNC Chair Tom. Perez.

 

Jones was with Trump and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows when the former Tea Party Congressman from North Carolina told his boss about the Times’ announcement that the Republican Party is dead.

 

It didn’t take Trump long to decide what to do.

 

“Mark, call Putin and tell him to send his most malicious thugs to the Times Building on Eighth Avenue with a full supply of bulldozers.”

 

“Tell him to position the bulldozers outside at three o’clock in the morning, at which time my Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, will have the building surrounded by no fewer than one hundred tanks.”

 

"That will take care of the problem.”

 

“Everyone who works in the building is to be taken into custody and sent to Gitmo.”

 

Without objecting, Meadows made the call.

 

Look to Fox News to report on how well Trump’s order is followed.

Yesterday in Nashville, Donald Trump was on stage for a second debate with Uncle Joe Biden. Trump squandered his chance for an earlier debate ‘cause he objected to the rules announced by the impartial Commission on Presidential Debates.

 

When dealing with Donald Trump, everything and everybody damn well better get outtatheway. That there’s the Trump Doctrine.

 

Trump wasn’t wearing a mask, but when Joe showed up at the airport, he wore one.

 

This was originally supposed to be a foreign policy debate, but the only thing Trump knows about foreign policy (contrary to what he said in the debate, which was expertly moderated by NBC’s Kristen Welker) is that Vladimir Putin is his best friend. And that all the allies of the United States are to be dissed. Ask Angela Merkel and any other world leaders you’d care to talk to, and if you have any questions about that, just ask our Chief International Correspondent, associate solitary reporter Larry Theis.

 

Theis is a Man of the World who is universally known for his good humor and his kindness. He is fluent in many languages, including German, Ukrainian, Australian, Mongolian, Spanish, Latvian, Swedish, Maltese, Norwegian, Portugese, Telugu, Haitian Creole, Belorussian, Danish, Luxembourgish, Lithuanian, Dutch, Gullah, Finnish, Arabic, Afrikaans, Polish, Greek, Swahili, Hebrew, Uzbek, Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian, Russian, and Chinese, but he has never been to France.

 

That said, if French President Emmanuel Macron were ever to visit these here United States, the one American he’d really like to meet is Theis, a retired superlawyer and a proud Democrat. Macron would have no rational reason to meet with Trump.

 

And Macron knows a lot more about how to wear a mask to prevent against COVID-19 than Trump does.

 

After yesterday’s debate, we asked our Chief Scientific Correspondent, associate solitary reporter John Pinckney, about what would be the best place for Donald Trump to go, anytime between now and November 3.

 

Pinckney’s response was instantaneous, lasting only three nanoseconds. 

 

“SR, the best place for Trump would be on 101955 Bennu.”

 

"Bennu, as we in the Scientific Community refer to it, is a carbonaceous asteroid that was discovered in September 1999. Bennu is a mere three hundred thirty-three million, six hundred thirty-three thousand kilometers from Terra Firma.”

 

"Donald Trump doesn’t know what a kilometer is, and he doesn’t even know that in 1975, Congress passed, and President Ford signed, the Metric Conversion Act, which said that the preferred method of measurement world-wide is the metric system. If Congress had had the good sense to do so, it could have required our outdated inches, feet, yards, and all that to be converted to the metric system. But when President Reagan was in office in 1982, all that was thrown aside. But Reagan and most all American politicians, whether Republicans like Ford and Reagan the Genial, or Democrats, were too afraid of alienating their multiple constituencies."

 

“Bennu is a potentially hazardous object that has a one in two thousand seven hundred chance of impacting Terra Firma between 2175 and 2199. It’s named after the Bennu, the ancient Egyptian mythological bird associated with the Sun, Creation, and Rebirth.”

 

“Just three days ago, Osiris-REx, which was made by Lockheed-Martin in Colorado, and elsewhere, was able to touch down on Bennu, using an extendable arm, on the surface of Bennu, to collect a sample.”

 

“Could be a urine sample, or something much more interesting, but that will have to await the arrival of Osiris-REx in the Utah Desert in 2023."

 

“Donald Trump doesn’t know the first thing about Bennu, ‘cause the only thing he cares about is himself.”

 

“That’s why NASA would be very well advised to put Trump in one of their rockets and send him to Bennu, tomorrow.”

 

In other news, our Chief Congressional Correspondent, associate solitary reporter Melissa Smith, confronted Senate Majority Leader Addison Mitchell ("Moscow Mitch”) McConnell shortly after Uncle Joe scored a knockout win in Nashville yesterday over Trump.

 

Smith wanted to know why McConnell looks terrible, even though on Monday his SCOTUS pick, Extreme Textualist and Originalist Judge Amy Coney Barrett, 48, will be confirmed by the Senate that Mitch controls, for a lifetime appointment; but Mitch is wearing bandages and he shows constant signs of aging, and he’s about to be defeated on November 3 in the Bluegrass State by military hero Amy McGrath, who’s 45. See https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/22/politics/mitch-mcconnell-bruised-hands/index.html.

 

“Mitch,” Smith asked, “did you suffer those grievous injuries when Schumer vented about your changing everything to the McConnell Rule by putting Barrett on the Court?”

 

“Or did Pelosi do it? Hurry up Mitch, this is of the utmost importance, especially to sensible Republicans, if there are any of those left."

 

McConnell’s reply to ASR Smith cannot be printed in this family-friendly apocryphal newspaper.

 

These here days, things just ain’t what they seem.

 

Though the mainstream media just reported that Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans voted unanimously to send the name of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the full Senate for a vote on Monday (so Donald Trump can have even a little hope of keeping his job, and for no other reason), associate solitary reporter Melissa Smith, who covers Congress for us, knows better.

 

After Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) — who will, on November 3, lose his job to insurgent Democrat Jaime

Harrison — adjourned the hearing — which was appropriately boycotted by the Democrats on the Committee — ASR Smith followed Graham and the other GOP senators into Graham’s palatial office.

 

“Know what, guys,” Graham said, after he had filled his colleagues’ glasses with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s best Kentucky bourbon, “seems to me that with all the fuss fuss that our enemies the Democrats have made about this Supreme Court appointment, we really ought to reconsider.”

 

“Whatcha got in mind, Lindsey?” said Texas’ senior senator, John Cornyn.

 

“See guys,” Graham continued, “it’s really not a good idea to put yet another woman on the Supreme Court. There’s too many on the Court already.”

 

“But Lindsey, we’ve been all through this vetting, and Barrett is, supposedly, the dream candidate. Have you taken leave of your senses?”

 

“Absolutely not! Here’s the deal: I am so far behind in my own race, and I know that on Election Day the voters of South Carolina are gonna toss me out. Haven’t you noticed what a huge warchest Jaime Harrison has built up?”

 

“I don’t wanna have to go back to Central, South Carolina, where I come from, ‘cause it’s way too small, only 3,000 fulltime residents, or to Seneca, South Carolina, where I used to live before I got myself elected to this Seat that used to belong to the late, great segregationist, Strom Thurmond. There’s only 8,100 people living in Seneca. I need to stay here in DC and maybe find myself a nice Republican woman to get married to, after being a confirmed bachelor all these years.”

 

“Well, Lindsey, how you figure you can stay here in DC, since you just told us you know you’re gonna be voted out on Election Day?”

 

“That’s easy, John.”

 

By now, the other Republicans on the Judiciary Committee were wondering what the always arrogant Graham had in mind.

 

“The only way out of this,” Graham announced, in his most portentous tone, “is for me to go on the Court instead of Judge Barrett.”

 

“In case you’re wonderin’ how that could happen, I’ve got Mr. Trump, whom we all, of course, adore, on the speaker phone, and he totally agrees with me that since the Supreme Court is so very, very political these days, that the Court needs a good, solid, experienced Republican Senator to tell Sotomayor, Kagan, and Breyer what’s what.”

 

As senators Grassley, Cornyn, Lee, Sasse, Hawley, Tillis, Ernst, Crapo, Kennedy, and Blackburn thought the matter over, and led by 87 year-old Chuck Grassley of Iowa, they quickly realized that Graham’s point, about the Absolute Need for a seasoned Republican politician to have a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, they unanimously thanked Graham and Trump for the suggestion, as ASR Smith texted DNC Chair Tom Perez and Senate Minority Leader Church Schumer. Smith volunteered to write their Statement of Outrage for immediate release.

 

When ASR Smith notified Judge Barrett of the Committee’s unexpected move, she smiled and said that she never really wanted to move her family to Washington, because the climate there is way too swampy.

 

Most of the time these here days, Donald Trump’s personal attorney and attorney general, William Barr, has very little to do.

 

But knowing full well that it’s up to him to make news to distract voters, especially Latinx and Black voters, while his bossman is wasting precious fuel as he  galavants around this country to keep the job that he never should have had in the first place, Barr decided it was time to do something to change the subject away from Trump’s multiple failures dealing with COVID-19.

 

So he told Jeffrey Rosen, his most junior staff attorney, to file suit against Google, just for the hell of it (https://www.npr.org/2020/10/20/925736276/google-abuses-its-monopoly-power-over-search-justice-department-says-in-lawsuit).

 

Then Pichal Sundarajan, rarely known as Pichal Suchai, Google’s CEO and a Man of Color, told his few remaining employees that because Barr wants something done, he better do it.

 

That’s why just before closing time, associate solitary reporter Karen Greenwood, who keeps track of everything that ever ever gets googled, observed Sundarajan/Suchai, hat in hand, and bowing and scraping, walking into the U S District for the Southern District of Euphoria, with Barr, as they filed a Settlement Agrreement in which Sundarajan/Suchai agreed to order all his Google employees to vote for Mike Pence to keep his job, for the time being at least.

 

Barr emerged from the courthouse with a tepid smile on his face, but told Greenwood that he’s really, really worried about keeping his job.

 

Even though Donald Trump yells all day long that He and He Only gets to tell the nongovernmental Commission on Presidential Debates what to do — and even though he keeps dissing the Commission and Moderator Kristen Welker — we here at AP were greatly encouraged to see Politico’s Matthew Choi and Alex Isenstadt’s post this evening that the Commission has announced that on Thursday, it will mic off Trump and Joe Biden — but only during their opening statements (https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/trump-campaign-protests-final-debate-topics-430201).

 

Welker is biracial, Native American and Black; and, as all observers already know full well, Trump has trouble with assertive women and with people of color. 

 

All of which means that when we are glued to the Tube on Thursday, Trump will be Trump and that Joe — while maybe tossing an insult or two at His Odiousness, but only when provoked — will be Joe Biden, a public servant with forty-seven years of public service.

 

We can’t let you go without mentioning that today Trump called Dr. Fauci, perhaps the world’s best respected expert on infectious diseases, an idiot.

 

Trump has never heard of Fyodor Dostoevsky, who wrote The Idiot, a novel about a man who was poorly understood by those in his circle.

 

And he never will.