I saw Mark Esper, one of 45’s many Secretaries of Defense, on Bill Maher this weekend. Esper has the advantage of having witnessed, first hand, Donny in action. He’s SEEN the man operate. Not to put too fine a point on it, Esper knows Trump better than any of the campaign attendees who sing Donny’s praises. Esper isn’t operating on how he imagines Donny does things. Esper doesn’t have delusional hopes about how Donny does things. Esper’s knowledge isn’t theoretical, nor is it driven by sycophancy. Also, it doesn’t come from slanted news outlets. Esper knows.

He described Trump the same way most of Donny’s one-time staffers describe Trump – as a clear and present danger to the United States of America. (Remember, this guy’s JOB was identifying clear and present dangers to America.) He maintains that America should not, CAN not, put Donny back in the White House. He stated flatly, he would not vote for Trump again. Lots of the people who worked most closely with Donny have said the same thing. They won’t vote for the guy again because of the threat he represents to America.

So, Maher asks the obvious followup question: then will you vote for Biden? Esper hems. Esper haws. He hesitates. As it happens, he’s not ready to go that far. He knows he’s not voting for Trump but he’s not sure who he will vote for. Maher seemed to find that answer just as frustrating as I do. He kind of blurted out that he needed Esper to explain that. Maher asked him, straight up, “What is it intelligent people don’t understand about binary?”

It’s a fair question. If you don’t cast a ballot for Biden, you’re helping Trump, whether you mean to be or not. It’s a one or it’s a zero. There are no other choices. Binary. Those of us who could not be convinced in 2016 can be excused for 2016. NOBODY knew, for sure, the danger Trump is. But EVERYBODY knows now. There’s ONE vote to stop Trump, and that’s to vote Biden. Period. Full stop.

Now, understand: I’m a life-long third party ready voter. I’ve always voted my conscience and that, sometimes, has meant voting outside the mainstream. I didn’t care. I didn’t see it as “throwing away my vote.” I saw it – see it – as making a commentary on the often less-than choices thrust upon me by the parties. Sure, perhaps just “tinkering around the edges,” but I thought the commentary important. I despise the binary choice I face. I think of it as a failure of the system. But if we don’t vote Biden in November, there won’t BE any edges to tinker around.

I’ve seen interviewers from lefty websites go to rallies for his competitors, like Nikki Haley, when she was relevant, RFK, Jr now. Over and over, the attendees say they won’t vote Trump because he’s too dangerous or too chaotic. When asked what they’d do if their alternative conservative isn’t the candidate, though, several of them say that in that case, they’d probably vote for Trump.

Obviously, I have to acknowledge the possibility that they just don’t want to say, out loud, in public, and certainly not on video, that they would vote for Biden. Maybe, they’ll get into the booth, hold their nose, and press the Biden button but tell everybody they voted some other way. That’s possible. And, listen, MAGA is SO rabid, these days, it’s hard to blame them. Who the hell wants a barrage of invective dumped on them?

But sooner or later, the people who stand against Donny need to get to the point where they can state flatly that they oppose Donny. Cult 45 isn’t going to go away easily. It’s going to take a strong stance by people who know if it’s going to happen at all…

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Oh, you want an example? Donny has a new target in his latest criminal case: Judge Merchan’s daughter. No, she’s not a child. Neither is she in any way, shape, or form related to the charges Donny faces. She’s just the offspring of the judge. A “civilian.” I’m not in a position to know, for sure, but it’s my understanding that even the mafia won’t attack family. They’re understood “non-combatants.”

But not for Donny. He knows he can’t win his case on the merits. Hell, everybody knows that. So he’s trying to intimidate the judge by threatening his family. I can hear MAGA now, “What threat did he make?” All they have to do is pretend that they don’t understand Donny has an intention when he points out innocent bystanders and attacks.

There’s a word for a person who attacks like that: coward. Donald J. Trump is a coward. At least when he was attacking Engoron’s law clerk, she was related to the case, however distantly. Now it’s the daughter of the judge. It’s a straight up attempt at intimidation. But did you catch the other bit, there? What do these two women in Donny’s crosshairs have in common? What, oh, what could it be? Wait a minute. I think I see it. Ah, there it is. They’re women. Donny attacks women.

I’m not sure it was obvious before. When he attacked Letitia James and Fani Willis, well, they were/are the prosecutors going after him. Judge Engoron’s law clerk was helping Judge Engoron keep facts straight in Donny’s civil case. At least she was directly related to the events taking place. But Judge Merchan’s daughter’s only relationship to this case is her relationship to her father.

I think Donny should stop with all the threats and intimidation and all the stomping and stalling. You know what he SHOULD do? He should strut right into that courtroom and show all the lovely evidence he claims he has that proves his innocence. I guess he’s waiting for the right moment. Or something. Why, it’s almost as if he can’t prove his innocence at all.

The easiest solution for him would be to just win his cases. He claims he can. So do it! He doesn’t need to attack anyone. He doesn’t need to grandstand. He doesn’t need to lie about his situation. All he needs to do is provide the evidence the proves his innocence. Easy. IF you have the evidence. But if you CAN’T prove your innocence? Well, then, I guess you have to stall – and attack women – and call your cases “witch hunts.” Oh, AND fleece your supporters into poverty.

I’ll tell you this: Actions speak louder than words. Donny’s actions indicate guilt, not persecution…

Okay, I don’t know if this qualifies as a correction, per se. I think it’s more like an update. Word I’m hearing now is that it’s most likely the Appellate court in the NY fraud civil trial, the one that lowered Donny’s bond amount, thinks the lower court made mistakes in valuations. I wrote Thursday, “It was just math.” That’s still true, but you’ve got to do your math correctly. If you don’t carry the one (or whatever) when you’re supposed to, you’re going to get the wrong answer.

The thinking is, the court probably used assessed values to arrive at it’s number, not resell value, which is usually higher – but, I would add, more subjective. THAT thinking, in turn, means that, on appeal, the higher court will lower the amount of the disgorgement, in addition to having lowered the amount of the bond. The two will again align, just at the lower number.

The thing is, there’s this problem with that I’ll call “The Problem of the Toos” but only just this once and then never again because that’s kinda dumb. The appellate court says using the old appraisals was inaccurate because appraisals were too old, but clearly, using the resell values is FAR too subjective. True, appraised values don’t keep up with resell values. But if the appellate court tries to go with resell value, they’re opening up a can of worms that can play out forevermore.

I think Engoron was right to use the objective number, but I can understand how that same, objective number is outdated. So, the solution presents itself, doesn’t it? The court should order an immediate reappraisal of all trump properties, and then use THAT number. I like that solution for two reasons: one, it’s the most fair and, two it’s a double-edged sword for both sides.

On the one hand, the court would have a current, objective number to work with, but Donny would get a break on the crimes he committed at the earliest date of the frauds in question. (Because the appraised value goes up, the extent of his earliest frauds goes down.) On Donny’s side, he gets that break (and so pays a lower fine than he otherwise might), but now has to pay taxes on the new values going forward.

It’s a win/win or a lose/lose, depending upon how one looks at it. But it solves the problem in an objective way and removes all the subjective valuation possibilities. I don’t know what they’ll do, but I hope they do that…

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I find myself amazed at what happened in Baltimore. A ship hits a bridge and the bridge falls down? It’s going to cause havoc for awhile. Some 8,000 workers are out of work until the port opens again. (That’s millions out of the local economy.) Trucks pulling hazardous materials were required to use THAT bridge to move their cargo. Now what? It’s an economic disaster. It’s also amazing only six people lost their lives. That bridge is a major thoroughfare. It COULD have had hundreds, maybe thousands of people on it. A disaster – that could have been far worse.

Of course, MAGA media did it’s level best to MAKE it worse – by adding the stink of conspiracy theories. MAGA spends it’s days – and nights – searching, desperately for someone to blame and/or fear. No incident is too small but this one? This is a big one. It needed big lies. Lying Alex Jones suggested it was a cyber attack on the ship. “WW3 has already started!”

Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo suggested it was somehow related to the chaos on the southern border. Other’s tried to blame the crash on Obama. Some said they saw explosions. All fake. All fictions. Oh, of course, there was also the inevitable, ‘medical emergency caused by a Covid-19 vaccination.’ YEARS later, and MAGA STILL doesn’t understand science. Okay, so, none of the above.

The ship lost power for reasons still being investigated. Then, it drifted. It turns out, water has currents and those currents can move a ship, especially since it was already under way. Who knew? (Okay, everybody but MAGA.) I DO have one question: why weren’t the supports for that bridge better protected for such an event? I mean, that’s an important lifeline in Baltimore. I know, some things are inconceivable but it was somebody’s job to conceive of something like that. It’s not like it was ever absolutely impossible.

But that’s hindsight, and not a conspiracy. I’ll bet the new bridge has better protection. First, though, they’ve got to get that channel open, thereby opening the port again. Then they have to clear the rest of the debris. That’s going to take a long time before they can even start thinking about rebuilding, which will also take a long time.

I’ll tell you this: This thing is going to fade from the national news pretty quickly but in Baltimore, they’re going to be struggling with this for years to come…

Okay, then. More on the SAME two bits I wrote about just this last Thursday. That’s never happened to me before…

I’m sorry to hear that Princess Catherine has cancer. It’s still none of my business but now she can have the whole world hold good thoughts for her during her fight and, hopefully, eventual recovery…

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The second thing? Donny has a legal team out arguing to a judge that he just doesn’t have the money to pay his $454 million dollar (and climbing) bond. Donny, himself, is simultaneously out there claiming he has $500 million in cash and he plans to use “most of it” on his campaign. When it comes to trump, it’s possible those two sentences contain three lies. Maybe he has the money, maybe he doesn’t. That’s the first sentence. AND, from the second sentence, maybe he has THAT money and maybe he doesn’t, but since he has been directing more and more money to his legal defense, I doubt he has suddenly decided to focus on his campaign. Three lies in two sentences…

He used his popularity in “Ze Party” to install Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, as the new head of the GOP and the first thing SHE did was re-vamp the revenue sharing arrangement of the GOP. If you give to the GOP, for any campaign, some of that money (say, $.99 cents of every dollar) is being funneled directly to Donny for his legal defense and expenditures. Some of it never even reaches the GOP. It goes straight into Donny’s PAC, which he’s using to pay lawyers.

I’m guessing that GOP candidates across the land and up and down the ticket are going to be greatly underfunded so Donny has enough to cover he legal debts. The truth is, it’s hard for me to get my head around that. This dude is fleecing his flock to the tune of millions of dollars every month. They seem to know it, yet they KEEP giving to him from their Social Security checks so HE doesn’t have to touch any of his personal wealth. They won’t give a dollar to a homeless person but they’ll hand their entire Social Security check over to a self-proclaimed “Billionaire.” ‘A fool and his money…’ Indeed…

Oh, I’ve ALSO learned that, no, in fact, the bond companies don’t want his buildings as collateral. They’re not set up to handle hard assets. Of course, I ALSO learned that that’s not the way it’s done, anyway. See, Donny goes to a bank (which he’s allowed to do now) and gets a Guaranteed Letter of Credit, secured by some or all of his buildings as collateral, and takes that to the bond agencies.

The bond guys get cash, the banks get the buildings, should that need arise. Banks, at least, have the capability of dealing with Real Estate in ways bond companies don’t. Neat and tidy. Also, he doesn’t have to get all the money from one bond agent. He can go to several. The thing is, each bond agency is going to want their own fee. Donny doesn’t want to pay ONE fee, let alone several.

So NOW all he has to do is find a bank willing to guarantee $500 million dollars to a person literally JUST found liable for defrauding banks and he’s good. I know, that sounds silly but I’d bet there are banks out there that will do that deal, assuming New York Real Estate is the collateral. The problem is, they don’t have time to get the buildings independently valued and they’re greedy, not stupid. The one thing every rational (and probably MAGA) American knows, by now, is that if Donny is talking, he’s lying. So you would need independent valuations.

One avenue we know Donny could take is to turn to Putin or one of his Saudi buddies. Under normal circumstances, I would have said that taking such a drastic step would harm his attempts to re-gain the White House. But we don’t live in normal circumstances, now, do we? We live in bizarro America, where ‘crazy’ bends the knee to ‘stupid’ and ‘stupid’ rules the day! Who, I wonder, would vote for an American leader completely – and rather desperately – beholden to a foreign power? MAGA, that’s who.

So, we’ll see but I’ll tell you this: For now, I’m sticking to my story. I think he’ll post that bond as close to the last minute as he can. But I think he’ll post the bond…

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Okay, let’s lighten this up a bit. I heard, recently, that the castaways on ‘Gilligan’s Island’ (see? Lighter!) each represented one of the Seven Deadly Sins. (MY, that darkened up quickly.)

I’m not buying. Granted, the case starts off strong. Mr. Howell clearly represents Avarice. That was easy. The Skipper is a big guy, suggesting he might be Gluttony. One could make a case that Ginger represented Pride. After that, though, it falls apart pretty quickly. The suggestion was that Gilligan represented Sloth, but Gilligan wasn’t lazy, he was stupid.

So who was Envy? Mary Ann? Envious of, I presume, Ginger? No. There’s the immortal (but only for Boomers, apparently) question, “Ginger or Mary Ann?” I’m a Mary Ann guy. Ginger had NOTHING on Mary Ann and Mary Ann was too down to earth to spend time being envious of Ginger.

Nobody was Wrath. Yes, the Skipper got frustrated from time to time but that was always after Gilligan had done something stupid. He wasn’t walking around angry all the time. Hell, the Skipper was a pretty chill guy. Besides, he’s already Gluttony.

That leaves Lust. Right. On this “family show?” We’ve just covered the Ginger/Mary Ann thing but they were the objects of lust, not Lust itself. In fact, the inhabitant of Gilligan’s Island all seemed pretty asexual, to me. I was just a boy when that show ran originally and even I wondered why we never saw either Ginger nor Mary Ann (or, what the hell, maybe both!) sneaking out of the Professor’s hut from time to time. They were on that island for years. Really? Never once?

So if you want to see the personification of the Seven Deadly Sins, don’t bother with ‘Gilligan’s Island.’ Watch Donald J. Trump. He’s ALL of them; Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Avarice, Wrath, AND Sloth. At this point, all we have to do is strand him on a tropical island, somewhere, and leave him there. Now THAT’S a show I’d watch…

Alexander Smirnof, the absolutely irrefutable, impeccable, perfect, and oh-so-honest FBI witness the cons built their entire trumped up impeachment of Biden around, lied. Yeah, we know that. Joe and Hunter did NOT take $5 million dollar payments from Burisma – or anybody else. (You’re thinking of Jared, who accepted $2 BILLION from the Saudis.) An obvious question? Why did Smirnof lie? Turns out, he was paid to tell the story he told. $600,000! By an American company, Economic Transformation Technologies (ETT), a shadowy, Texas-based company. ETT is owned by some business associates of – wait for it – Donald Trump. ETT investments, the arm that delivered the actual cash was dissolved shortly after the cash was delivered. What a remarkable coincidence.

All we really know is that Smirnof was paid by ETT in 2020, exactly when he started weaving his tale of bribery for the FBI using “information” from his Russian sources. Does that mean Donny is behind it? No. But it’s stronger evidence than anything the GOP had while trying to impeach Biden so I guess the impeachment wheels will be turning again, this time against Donny, right? Because the cons are so interested in doing the right thing? Right?

(Crickets.) Yeah. The world knows who you are, MAGA.

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A bad day for Donny. Aileen “Loose” Cannon rejected the Dumbass’ request to toss the stolen documents case. Surprised? Not really. Jack Smith had given her a brief that was quite clear. She really couldn’t do anything else without being reversed, again, by a higher court. If she keeps getting reversed, she runs the risk of involuntary recusal. Then she couldn’t help Donny at all, so she’s playing it a bit safe, here. She DID give Donny an entire day to try to make his case. But, as always, his case was stupid and even a desperately sycophantic Cannon couldn’t help him this time. Next time, maybe, but not now…

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Donny’s bad day got worse when the judge in the Willis/Wade “scandal” decided to let Fani continue as the prosecutor. By now, MAGA media has created hundreds of articles claiming that the court got it wrong and that Fani should have been removed from the case in Georgia. No, tossed in jail. No, shot at dawn. After all, Fani and Nathan had sex! What more evidence do you need that they hated Donald Trump? Or something.

I’m pretty sure the only person on the planet thinking about Donald Trump during sex is Donald Trump. But, that was the charge. Oh, to be sure, Ashleigh Merchant, the lawyer who brought the charge claimed it was about money, somehow. An already successful lawyer with a thriving practice got a side gig helping to prosecute trumpery just so Willis could funnel money to Wade so Wade could take Willis on better dates? Yeah, dumb enough. But then the trial focused mostly on who touched what and when. (Hubba-hubba. Ain’t they dirty?)

The judge overseeing the trial, Scott McAfee, said there WAS an appearance of impropriety. (If you stand on your head, close one eye, and look at it from exactly a 36.2 degree angle with the sun behind your left, no, right shoulder at exactly 3:17 in the afternoon, Central Standard Time, you can juuust make it out.) Of course, he also said there was no actual impropriety – as Merchant’s own team acknowledged – and the appearance problem could be remedied with a resignation, which Wade offered up, directly, and Willis accepted. So, Wade’s out, Willis is back, and Donny’s looking for yet another stall. (He’s got a million of ’em…)

I was worried about this case. I still am. Because the Supremely Kangaroo Court has made clear they’ve joined Donny’s legal defense team, this state case is the best chance America has of punishing a traitor for traitorous behavior. (You know, instead of putting him in the most powerful office in the world.) The GOP in Georgia has aligned against Willis (and against justice) and taken positions supporting Donny (and injustice) and they have a LOT of evil tricks up their sleeves.

At this point, I’m convinced that everybody on the planet – everybody, MAGA or rational – believes Donald J. Trump is guilty of the crimes with which he’s charged. They KNOW he can’t even get to trial because if he goes to trial, he loses. Period. Just like he has, so far, lost nearly EVERY other trial he’s been in since he decided to host a coup in the first place. (Full disclosure, he DID win one case where people watching vote counters got to stand a little closer. BFD.)

I wish Willis could start her trial first thing Monday morning. She can’t, of course. Merchant will appeal McAfee’s ruling, knowing he’s right but ALSO knowing she’s stalling successfully, the primary goal. Besides, Willis has to provide trump with time to prepare his case, which he COULD have been doing all along, just in case. But he didn’t, likely because he doesn’t have any real defense. So he’ll get a little extra time.

McAfee’s ruling was a win (so far) for the rule of law and for justice and for America. The GOP HATES those things, though, and just because there was this little, initial setback doesn’t mean they can’t subvert justice some other new and clever way. All you gotta do is hate America. And they do that in spades…

I know. It can be difficult to keep track of which judge goes with which trial so I’ll try to keep it clear. Judge Scott McAfee, the judge in the Georgia trial, has dismissed 6 of the 41 charges Donny and his co-conspirators face, assuming the GOP can’t get the case tossed over some technicality, a pretended conflict of interest. (Hey, now that I think about it, that’s a good “band name” for that pretend patriotic “song” the cons – and in this case, that’s “convicts” – put out, ‘Donny and the Co-conspirators.’)

The 6 tossed charges include 3 of the 13 against Donny, himself. It’s important to note that McAfee did NOT dismiss the charges permanently. He said the prosecutor hadn’t provided enough detail as to the underlying felony for the defense to prepare. Basically, his order is drop it or revise it for clarity. But they CAN revise it for clarity.

I think sometimes, prosecutors throw in everything but the kitchen sink in case something gets thrown out and these charges might be that. So even if they don’t revise those charges, the allegedly criminal group still faces 35 charges and Donny, personally, still faces 10. And none of those charges raised any questions with the judge at all…

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I saw a story out of conservative media the other day. It asserted that certain charges the cons have made are too true, so there! It asserted these things have been proven and STILL the liberal media won’t report on them. (In the MAGA mind, if three people shout it loudly enough, and it might help Donny, then it’s “proven.”) One of them was about how it has now been proven, beyond question, that the Dumbass Don did too offer up 10,000 troops to protect the Capitol on J6! The point to that charge, in their minds, is that PeLOsi (you have to spit that. It’s the law.) is at fault for J6, not Donny, because she didn’t protect the Capitol properly.

It’s just a short step to the next, obvious question but the MAGA mind just never seems able to get there. Specifically, what was Pelosi protecting the Capitol from on J6?
“Hey, nice Capitol building you got, here. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it. We can get you, say, 10,000 National Guard troops to help protect the Capitol on J6?”
“Why would I need 10,000 National Guard troops to help protect the Capitol on J6? What do you know?”
“Oh, nothing. Nothing. No reason at all, really. We just thought it might be nice.”
“What’s ‘nice’ about surrounding the Capitol with 10,000 troops?” she wondered. “Look, nobody has ever done anything to disrupt this procedural event in the history of this country. Why would they start now? I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
“We’re going to remember you said that.”

On January 6, 2021, the Capitol building would not have needed 10,000 additional troops, let alone even the Capitol police if only Donald J. Trump had not decided to send an (admittedly ragtag) army to try to cling to power.

Hey, Dumbass, that was an option, too. The preferred one, in fact. The course EVERY defeated candidate before you had taken: accept your defeat like a man (even Hillary has bigger balls than you), walk away with a modicum of your little dignity still intact, and maybe run again in the next round. But no. You chose ‘whiny tantrum insurrection.’ THAT was MAGA. THAT was trump. Pelosi was not the problem, here…

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The right puts out video of President Biden stumbling over words from time to time. They call it incontrovertible proof that Biden has dementia. So, the left puts out video of their own, Donny stumbling over words. Also proof of dementia? Don’t be ridiculous. That’s just super clever stupidity – or something.

Here’s the thing. Biden has a long-since acknowledged speech impediment. It makes sense he might stumble over words from time to time. He’s done it as long as he’s been alive. But Donny? Donny presents himself as perfect. Infallible, in fact. When HE stumbles over words, he WILL NOT confess an “error.” He claims it was intentional. (It is not.)

For a dude who’s perfectly infallible, Trump messes up a LOT. I mean, it doesn’t take that much time to put together a blooper reel of the guy stumbling over even basic words and there’s video evidence out there of him locking up entirely. Can you imagine if Biden were giving a speech that included a sentence like, “We’re a nation that just recently heard that Saudi Arabia and Russia will ree… pee… too… ahhh…” and then just…blank out for a moment? To their credit, even MAGA seemed startled by that one. To their discredit, they just tucked their concerns away and started attacking Biden again.

Still, it’s down to these two again. An old man who occasionally stumbles over words vs an old man who occasionally stumbles over words but also faces multiple felony charges, has been adjudicated a rapist, has been adjudicated a thief, stands credibly accused of abusing prescription drugs, and regularly brags about someone thinking he needs yet another cognitive test. I swear to the gods, I don’t understand how this is even a question…

Well, I have a correction to make. Yesterday, I wrote that the focus of Katie Britt’s sex trafficking story was kidnapped and forced into prostitution at the age of 16. That was wrong. The person was 12, just a child at the time. She escaped when she was 16. (Even after all these years of MAGA, I STILL can’t believe how badly people can suck.) MyBaconPress regrets the error…

After being called out for misrepresenting, Britt went on Fox Not-News to defend her statement. She pretended people thought she said the person was a woman at the time. That wasn’t the issue. She pretended to be disgusted people would try to shut down her tale of sex trafficking. Nobody was doing that. She did NOT address the fact that the victim who actually suffered the event, Karla Jacinto, wasn’t happy Britt told the story during the rebuttal. She said, “I hardly ever cooperate with politicians, because it seems to me that they only want an image. They only want a photo — and that to me is not fair.”

It’s important to note, Britt took office in 2023. She mentioned that Biden had taken 94 “executive actions” in his first hundred days and then mentioned a couple that affected the border, trying to leave the impression that all 94 actions were border-related. They were not. Twelve of them were border related. Ten of the twelve reversed actions taken by 45. So the rest was just a bit of conservative misrepresentation to inflame people’s minds. (Hey, it’s what they do.)

After misrepresenting Biden’s actions at the border, Britt said she took a different path “after she took office.” She went down to the border and met Jacinto, who told her the story. Then, with no segue, she said, “We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a third-world country. This is the United States of America. And it’s past time we start acting like it. President Biden’s border crisis is a disgrace,” Britt said. “It’s despicable, and it’s almost entirely preventable.”

So…did Britt SAY, exactly, that the trafficking occurred under Biden’s watch and in America? No. She just implied it so heavily the idea couldn’t be missed, AND she buried those pesky details – which make such a difference – so deeply it took people a little while to dig them up.

I’ll tell you this: I have a rule about cons: Their tales of terror and woe are NEVER ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’ There is ALWAYS some bit left out that should be included or some bit tossed in that should not. It’s how good lies are built and the cons are VERY skilled liars. They have to be. It’s all they’ve got…

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Also yesterday, I wrote about the case against Fani Willis and how the cons are trying to protect their Precious by eliminating the prosecutor for “impropriety.” (The actual focus was the GOP controlled legislature giving Ashleigh Merchant a bully pulpit to make whatever case she felt like making with little to no pushback.)

I don’t think they can show any impropriety. The actual charge is that Willis hiring Wade violated a Georgia nepotism law. ALL cons will tell you, Wade was not qualified for the job. Of course, they’ll also tell you that Trump won in 2020. As we’ve seen – and see constantly, cons lie. Wade is an established lawyer with a thriving law practice. He also sits as an associate municipal court judge and a state court judge. Does he have any experience prosecuting criminal ex-Presidents? No. Who does? This is all new territory because we’ve never had such a corrupt and outright criminal ex-President as we have in trump.

But after claiming some professional impropriety, the cons have focused, almost exclusively, on revealing salacious details of the lover’s affair. They have shown, over and over, that a dude took his girl on a couple of trips – and that he used money he earned by working to pay for it. Isn’t that how ALL dudes take their lovers on trips? Paying with money they work for? (Yeah, I’m setting aside criminals and criminal activity for the moment.) The idea, as nearly as I can tell, is to suggest that these two had sex – so they hate trump. That’s dumb. Most people hate trump whether they’re having sex or not.

There are other problems with Merchant’s filing. For example, it didn’t include any factual support for key claims. It was all innuendo. That’s weird enough, but here’s a quote from a Politico article called ‘A Reality Check on the Fani Willis Scandal:’
“The motion may also have violated an important ethical rule that requires lawyers to disclose controlling law that is at odds with any position that they are advocating in the case. In particular, Roman’s filing claims that Willis and Wade may have violated the honest-services and RICO statutes because they “personally benefited from an undisclosed conflict of interest,” but that theory of criminal liability was foreclosed by the Supreme Court nearly 15 years ago. The lawyers who wrote that language either did not know that it was wrong (ethically fine, perhaps, but embarrassing) or refused to level with the court about it (not fine at all and deeply ironic).”

There was an opportunity for a Georgia Democrat to question Merchant during the spectacle. He showed that the primary case she cited in her filing (Whitworth vs State) didn’t support her claim. She even admitted as much, after a bit of verbal sparring. He also made the case that impropriety refers to profiting in ways you normally wouldn’t by getting the win in a case or by getting some piece of the case to work better to get the prosecution, like getting a bonus for flipping a witness or some such. Wade is being paid whether the State wins or loses. That’s not impropriety. Prosecutors get paid to prosecute.

I actually think the weakest point in Willis’ defense is Wade, himself. In court, it came out that Wade was trying to hide some income from his soon-to-be-ex-wife. During the Georgia Senate dog-and pony, Merchant said she thought one of the reasons the legal firm Wade had with lead witness Terrance Bradley came to an end because Wade insisted on using his own trust accounts rather than the official trust accounts of the firm. So Wade appears to be maybe a little shady with money, personally. None of that indicates that he has done anything improper during the case, though.

I’ll tell you this: I hope the case proceeds. I really hate the idea of justice being derailed because two human beings exercised their infatuation with each other for a short time…

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Sometimes, I get a little pushback when I decry Daylight Saving Time. Oh, hey, you disagree? Okay. That’s easy. In view of current issues, this one is very low-level. The position pro-DST people take, though, is that they get “more daytime.” No you don’t. There are 24 hours in a day. Period. The reason you get “more sunshine” is because the Earth/Sun relationship changed to Summer mode. We get more sun.

What YOU get is the opportunity to go to bed while the sun is still up and being forced to use a little more power in the morning when most of us have to get up and go to work. Less of an issue, I guess, if you’re retired or don’t have a job.

A law passed in the Senate is trying to set the clocks to Daylight Saving permanently. It has not progressed in the House. As it happens, we’ve tried that. It was (hyperbole alert) carnage on the roadways and death to schoolkids. The program was implemented on a two year test basis but cancelled after less than one year because of the increase in deaths. That’s true.

I would be okay with leaving the clocks alone but I could only support Standard Time as the permanent choice. Fear not, my DST lovers. You’d still get the same 24 hours in each and every day. It’s the way science works…

Huh. So, the Kangaroos ruled just the way I said they would. On the one hand, it’s great to be vindicated? Not so much, really. I think the only surprise was the 9-0 nature of the ruling. Now, to be sure, they didn’t agree on WHY they think the 14th doesn’t apply but they all said it doesn’t.

The cons on the court said it can only be implemented by Congress, the exact opposite of how the text reads because, you know, “Originalists!” Oh, and “Textualists!” Specifically, the text says, “But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.” Nowhere does it say, or even suggest, it’s up to Congress to impose the disability.

For their part, the lefties on the court said they were worried about a patchwork effect, some states allowing a given candidate, some states not. Of course, they would have put an end to THAT pretense by upholding the 14th, as well. Once it applied, it applied across the board, in the exact same way it does NOT apply…pretty much at all anymore.

But, I wrote at the time they decided to take the case up, they were not going to uphold the constitution so I’m not too surprised. Next up? They’re going to clear Donny of his J6 crimes by pretending he was just engaged in “official duties.” So he WILL be running. We’ll HAVE to beat him at the ballot box, which shouldn’t be too hard. BUT…

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An article by a guy named Thom Hartmann was brought to my attention. It’s called, ‘The New “Over the Top” Secret Plan on How Fascists Could Win in 2024’ (Click here). You really need to read this. I found it frightening and depressing. (Yes, I’m aware that’s poor upselling. But people would feel deceived if I described it as a delightful read – and then read it…)

Mr Hartmann, a brilliant mind with FAR too many consonants in his name, claims to have information regarding the NEXT conservative plan to steal the upcoming election. It’s frightening because it’s imminently “do-able.” It’s depressing because no rational mind anywhere on the planet would put it past conservatives to attempt to steal this election, any more than they continue to try to steal the last one.

The plan is predicated on two things: 1) A Trump/Putin loss, making the steal necessary, and 2) GOP control of the House of Representatives. Now, I don’t know about you, but I expect, after the wasted time, foolish follies, ineffectual “leadership,” and just general all-around clown show that has marked the Republican majority in the House, Americans are likely feeling the need to have some rational grownups in charge and will try to send Democrats back and put them in control.

That’s when step one of the plan kicks in: MAGA Mike Johnson – who worked tirelessly to help steal 2020 for Donny – simply refuses to swear in the new Democratic members, citing “voting irregularities,” and artificially (but legally) keeping conservative control of the House. Conservatives have been screaming about voting irregularities since 2015. Every single one of them knows ten, maybe fifteen, stories of some cheat “everyone knows” happened and they’ll be MORE than happy to share/shout them at you. Over and over and over again.

Not ONE of them has even the smallest scrap of evidence to support their claims, of course. They brought the crap they could scrape together into sixty different court rooms. Sixty! They lost every one. (MAGA thinks the cases “weren’t heard.” They were. They lost because there was no evidence.) No matter. Scream about it anyway.

The basic plan is this: artificially create a “Constitutional crisis” that throws the election to the House of Representatives, still artificially controlled by the GOP, who puts the Dumbass back into power (and destroys America in the process). You really should read this article (second chance click here). It will NOT uplift your spirit but it WILL inform you.

Frankly, I was a little hesitant to forward the article. After I read it, I thought, “Well, what’s the point, then?” I mean, it’s depressing, mostly because I have no doubt this is right up MAGA alley. I really gave it some thought. Finally, I arrived at something. Hartmann writes about the event, hijacking the certification process, and then jumps to the long-term consequences of GOP control and he does a masterful job of taking the reader along with him. It took me awhile – my emotions had to settle down – but I finally arrived at a question: what about January 4? January 5? What about January 7th? That is, what happens in the immediate aftermath of the hijack?

An issue not addressed; is the plan to NEVER seat the Democrats who won? Currently, Democrats control the Senate. Assuming rationality maintains Senate control, is there NO action the Democrats can take to intervene? In Hartmann’s analysis, there is little mention of Democratic responses, or of the responses of the American people. Some of the harm the GOP wants to do to the country can be accomplished with Executive Orders but some of it would require legislation. Would Senate Democrats be in “compromise” mode while the House was being held hostage?

What will the American people do when the House is held hostage to the GOP? Will we just get up and go to work or will we hit the streets, “France style” and do some screaming and yelling (and burning and rioting) of our own? Hartmann thinks the former because so many Americans were so tepid in their response to the GOP theft of the Supreme Court seats.

There’s a thing about liberals, though. We don’t want to fight. We would rather solve problems with our minds. Over time, that attitude can be mistaken as meaning we won’t fight. Cowards, you know. But historically, there is zero evidence to support that position. Yes, we might be slow to fight – because we don’t want to. But once we decide a fight is our only option? We fight. We usually win. See, the advantage of the slow-to-fight position is that we ensure we’re on solid moral ground. Having the moral high ground helps. It motivates.

Think of it this way: Russia should have simply overwhelmed Ukraine. Ukraine was disarmed a while ago and Russia is always heavily armed. But the Ukrainians are fighting for their homes and their families and the Russian soldiers are fighting because they were told to. They don’t have a legitimate reason to be killing and dying in some foreign country and they know it. It’s the same reason the powerful United States lost in Vietnam. Motivation.

Something that has become clear over time? The cons KNOW they’re lying about all the various charges they toss around. There’s no question. No, of course they’re not going to admit that to you. (False pride is a bitch of a taskmaster.) But they know. I’m sure of it because of all the times they readily refute their own talking points in trying to make another.

So the left will have the moral high ground and BOTH sides will know it. But that’s only if they fight. If Hartmann is right, we’ll just get up and go to work and wish it was different. If we do that, though? If we just throw up our hands with a “we’ll get ’em next time” attitude? We get what we deserve. The American people have had to fight to protect this country before, even against others who might have been called “fellow Americans.” It seems now the actual, most looming question is, will we fight for America one more time?

Well, the corrupt conservatives on the Roberts Kangaroo Court have stepped in to help their Precious. That’s a bummer. They’ve decided they’re going to hear the case regarding whether the President of the United States has absolute immunity. He doesn’t, of course. The Constitution doesn’t say he does and the Federalist Papers have a word or two on the dangers of kings and such, making clear the intent is that the President was never intended to be anything more than a citizen. First among equals, perhaps, but just a normal citizen, subject to the laws of the country.

Every other court that has heard this “question” has issued a ruling against 45. Of course he doesn’t have immunity. These turds on the Highest bench, though? First, they’ve narrowed the question. Does he have absolute immunity “…for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office?” Those are weasel words, the small crack he’s going to slip through and avoid prosecution for coup attempt.

What the corrupt high court should have done was simply refuse to hear the case. That would have supported the correct rulings from the lower courts and moved things along. Of course, that’s the problem. Things would have moved along against their Precious. EVERYONE knows he’s guilty. He CANNOT go to trial.

They scheduled the hearing for April 22 on a so-called expedited schedule. That’s a very slow “fast” if you ask me. What they could do is hear this bullshit case at that leisurely rate, then hand down their decision at the last minute after they “deliberate” until it’s time to go pick up their bribe checks – No, the President isn’t immune from crimes committed in office. Sadly, now that they’ve taken up the “issue,” that is the best case scenario.

Because what I fear they’re going to do is pretend to accept Donny’s assertions that he wasn’t battling to stay in office at all. Why, he was simply working, as President, to ensure the integrity of the election, an ostensibly “official act” and therefore, not guilty of a crime at all. Yeah? What about January 6th? What about phone calls coercing officials to “find votes?” What about fake electors? “Hang Mike Pence” seems like a rather extreme “test of the system” to me. You can expect them to hand down THAT horrifying call as they slink out the back in the dead of night – the way they do with all of their cowardly, ideologically driven decisions.

For conservatives, though, the important thing is the story they can tell, not what happened…

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Donny scored a second “victory” of sorts yesterday, too. In New York, when you lose a civil case, you have to post the amount you lost in a bond before you can appeal. Donny’s team asked a judge named Anil Singh to stay the amount, asking if, instead of the full $454 million he’s supposed to put up, could he put up only $100 million? The judge said no. So what was the “victory?”

The judge ALSO ruled that the bit about him not being able to borrow from New York Banks or serve as a corporate officer was too extreme and he DID issue a stay on that part of the order. So, now Donny can borrow from banks again (assuming one would be stupid enough to loan to him) and, likely, he’ll be back running his criminal organization in no time at all.

Keep in mind: at NO time, has Trump made even the slightest effort to prove he is innocent of these crimes. He’s using legal technicalities to weasel out of responsibility and even those technicalities wouldn’t work if it wasn’t for fawning sycophants who really, really want to help Donny – and so they do…

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I don’t know and, I mean, I really don’t know what the cons think they’re going to get when they finally succeed in turning this country into a fascist dictatorship. What I do know is that they’re not going to get whatever benefit they think they’re getting. Fascist dictatorships don’t work that way. They never have. The cons should have paid more attention in school.

It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen and, sadly, I’m not just seeing it. I’m living it. Conservative America already sucks. How bad is it going to get when their paranoid, angry, and delusional little minds are in charge of everything, with no guardrails? I guess we all get to find out together. Shit, man…