22 October—After a full day of deliberating on the guilt (or, it must be added, innocence) of Kosta Diamantis, incredible as it may seem, the federal jury sitting in Bridgeport is still out. Is Trump’s Sharpie poised to pardon him?

UPDATE AT NOON: GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS! Sharpie to the rescue?

In other news, then, when Donald Trump sprung George Santos on Friday, he also relieved his fellow con man of paying over half a million dollars in restitution and forfeiture. No surprise there. And what else can we expect Trump to do for his eager young protégé?

Also no surprise, Trump is about to order his justice department to pay him $230 million, supposedly to reimburse—compensate—him for his expenses in defending the crimes of which he’d surely have been convicted had he not been elected last year to a second term screwing the country and had not his Supremes given him carte blanche to do whatever he damn well pleases with immunity and impunity. Not that it matters, to be sure, but Trump being Trump, there’ll be nothing to substantiate his claims and there’s sure to be considerable personal profit for him.

Talk about self-dealing, Trump’s specialty. Certainly there are ethical and legal problems with paying himself out of public funds that are under his ultimate control. And Trump acknowledges, “It’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.” But when have silly things like ethics and legality ever stopped Trump from doing anything he bloody well pleased? Does he even know the concepts?

Any settlement with Trump would have to be approved by senior DOJ functionaries. But most of them used to be the con-man-in-chief’s personal defense shysters. And if any employees at all refuse to do their master’s bidding, out they go, to be replaced by uncompromisingly compliant lackeys. And Trump made it clear that he’d have final say on any payout. Or payoff.

Trump’s humongous gilded ballroom is being criticized by people with scruples and taste as an unneeded affront to the architectural integrity of the White House, inter alia. Of course, integrity of any sort isn’t only a foreign concept to Trump, but a dirty word. But he rhapsodizes in his customary narcissistic, superlative-heavy rhetoric that his garish ballroom is “the most beautiful ballroom you’ve ever seen.” And he probably believes it. At least he’s not indulging in execrably traditional—and traditionally execrable—Halloween-seasonal punning and calling the ballroom “bootiful.” Boo-based puns, above all other paronomasia, are once again contaminating all media. There’s no escape from that. Either . . .