Mike Lindell

If you’ve ever thought about buying a MyPillow, Cockburn advises that you do so now — they may not be around for much longer. After months of lawsuits, the company’s owner and Donald Trump devotee Mike Lindell announced last week that he is broke and millions of dollars behind in unpaid legal bills. "We've lost everything, every dime," Lindell told NBC News. "All of it is gone."  Last Thursday, the legal team representing Lindell in three defamation lawsuits filed to separate themselves from the company due to millions in unpaid bills. The pillow magnate said he is not trying to stiff his attorneys but simply cannot afford to pay them.

Oxon Hill played host to the muted sounds of MAGA last week. The Conservative Political Action Conference returned from Florida to the Washington, DC exurbs — but the conference was a shadow of its former self. While CPAC has been MAGA territory since 2017, some of Donald Trump’s intra-party foes sensed blood in the water. Perhaps none more so than Perry Johnson. Johnson, a Michigan businessman who was booted from the ballot during his failed 2022 gubernatorial campaign, has announced a long-shot presidential bid that has so far consisted of a cringe ad in the Super Bowl, and a third-place finish in CPAC’s vaunted “straw poll” for president. A number of “Perry Who?” Johnson shirts could be seen around the conference.

Donald Trump is suing CNN for $475 million for defamation, claiming the network associated him with Adolf Hitler and portrayed him as a Russian lackey. E. Jean Carroll is in turn suing Trump for defamation in connection with him allegedly raping her. Mike “MyPillow” Lindell is being sued for $1.3 billion for defamation in connection with remarks he made about the 2020 presidential election being false. And way outside politics in America, a foreign English teacher in Thailand faces two years in jail for defamation over a negative online review of a resort he stayed at. What is defamation? Why is it so hard to prove in the United States but relatively easy to prove in most other countries?

Last weekend brought some minor internet drama courtesy of Amanda Moore, a progressive activist who outed herself as having spent the past year “infiltrating” right-wing groups. On Twitter, she posted pictures that she'd taken with various luminaries of Trumpworld such as General Michael Flynn, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. She also claimed to have been given a counterfeit vaccination card from a member of a QAnon conspiracy group and to have worn a wire the whole time, recording the details of her meetings and chance encounters held under false pretenses. “We were literally at the same events,” she crowed at a photojournalist who sent a somewhat vulgar tweet mocking her.

What is it about Donald Trump that his closest associates seem to all go irredeemably insane? On Thursday, the CEO and chief priest of MyPillow Mike Lindell announced that he is suspending his advertising on Fox, 'immediately and indefinitely'. This is no minor boycott or tiff. MyPillow and Fox News are tethered together like no sponsor and sponsee since Michael Jordan spiritually merged his consciousness with Nike. Lindell claims his firm bought $50 million in ads on Fox in 2020, meaning he supplies almost two percent of Fox’s revenue. Fox doesn’t just market Lindell’s cushions, but also his life: the channel has aired the ad for his self-published memoir, What Are The Odds?

Don't call it a comeback! Whether it’s by popular acclamation or by a coup, as former national security adviser Michael Flynn suggested at a recent QAnon meeting, Donald Trump is apparently reckoning that he’ll be back in the White House by August. At least that’s the theory percolating among the Trump diehards ensconced at Mar-a-Lago. But then, nolens volens, came a contrary verdict from Lara Trump on Fox and Friends this morning: 'There are no plans for Donald Trump to be in the White House in August.' What a pity. It would be splendid to have Trump back in Washington even if only for the month of August. But keen-eyed observers will note that Lara confined her restriction to August. July remains open. So does September.