The Penguin Returns
" Be Careful What You Ask For " This latest installment in my Batman parody lands us at the midpoint of Cobblepot’s second term. The grift, remarkably, is still running — though the paint job is chipping and you can see the rust underneath. Back in April 2019, when the Mueller Report finally dropped and PBS NewsHour/Frontline gave it the full hour-long treatment, this blog started calling Trump “President Cobblepot.” The resemblance to Batman’s nemesis, Penguin, was too good to pass up: a crook who gets himself popularly elected Mayor of Gotham, then uses City Hall as a chop shop for eliminating rivals and expanding the family business. As it turned out, Cobblepot’s short game — propped up by an alliance of crime syndicates — proved every bit as durable as Mueller’s long game was slow. Two impeachments. Thirty-four felony counts for falsifying business records. A $450 million fraud verdict against his real estate empire. The Georgia RICO conspiracy. Two multimillion-dollar r...
