So…no one believes trump is actually going to show up for those debates as agreed upon and as scheduled, right? Okay, sure, if he’s in jail, it’s out of his control. Fair enough. Otherwise? I just don’t see it from the guy. No audience AND the mic gets cut when your time is done? How could Donny pull any of his avoid-the-question shenanigans?

The conditions of the debate were laid out at the time of the challenge. Donny knew them. Donny accepted them. But my guess is that was just a Donny ploy. He wanted to look tough for his base. But he KNOWS he can’t debate in a real debate. If he can’t disrupt and stir a crowd to disruption, he’s got nothing. So, now Donny will start screaming about how the format is unfair. The whole thing is rigged. He just can’t participate in a rigged debate. Then, he’ll run away. Like usual…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More and more MAGAGOP are showing up at trump’s trial. This isn’t the base. These are members of Congress. No, really. So many members went to New York, Thursday, to lick trump’s boots, business of the House had to be suspended. They’re so busy trying to fluff trump they’re not doing their jobs. I know, ‘not doing their jobs’ describes their entire tenure in Congress. This is just another excuse.

They’re playing proxy to Donny. As a result of the gag order he has earned with his big mouth, he can’t attack witnesses or other people not associated with the case. So he got his MAGA toadies to do it for him. Of course, that’s a violation of the gag order, too. The judge has already threatened jail time if trump keeps violating the order – and presumably, that includes having others violate it for him.

Of course, so what? Judge Engoron kept threatening, too. He never followed through. I don’t know if Merchan will follow through or not, but I wish he would. The fear seems to be, putting Donny in jail for a night or two would be just what he needs to motivate his base. I suspect the process of being booked into a jail cell would have a tempering effect on Donny. Yes, he would try to fire up the base but the base seems to be believing the charges, even as they scream about how unfair life has been to the pampered rich kid.

That’s just a suspicion. I base it on the fact that he can’t get anybody to fall out for him in New York in support. He called and called. A few showed up but not the fearsome army he seemed to be hoping for. THAT’S why he ordered his toady MAGAGOP minions to show up. So, how big of a threat are they?

MAGA already suspects the charges have more teeth to them than he’s saying. They’ve already seen him walk away from the J6 crowd after siccing them on Congress. (Oh, sure, he’ll pardon the J6 protestors NOW, he promises. He had from Jan 6 to Jan 20 to pardon them in 2021 so they could have avoided jail time altogether. Why didn’t he do it then? He could have. He didn’t.) MAGA isn’t going to say anything to thinking Americans about it. Donny’s their guy. But they’ve noticed. They’re still being frivolous with their words, but they’re being a bit more cautious with their actions. As they should be.

But we should ALL remember the politicians more loyal to trump than the Constitution of the United States. Matt Gaetz of Florida; Anna Paulina Luna of Florida; Lauren Boebert of Colorado; and Bob Good of Virginia, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Michael Cloud of Texas, and Mike Waltz of Florida. My second favorite moment of the day was when a thinking American held up a sign behind Gaetz that read ‘bootlicker’ as Gaetz spoke.

My favorite bit, though, was when Boebert leapt to the mic after the others had finished. I’m not sure she was expected to speak. As the others walked away, she pushed in to add her two cents, still only worth a half cent. But her crew walked away, anyway. She looked the fool.

But then, don’t they all, groveling for Donny’s praises? Maybe we should pass the hat. We could try to buy each of them a spine…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So…now MAGA Samuel Alito is flying the US flag upside down in front of his home? At sea, a flag flown upside down is said to be a distress signal, a “Save Our Ship” kind of thing. People on land adopt the signal from time to time to indicate their displeasure at whatever the current political climate is. These days, MAGA has adopted it as a symbol of the “Stop the Steal” movement, particularly obnoxious since THEY are the only ones trying to steal elections.

But a member of the Roberts Kangaroo Court? Gee, do you think the Supremely Kangaroo Court might get involved in any matter regarding the 2024 election? Do you suppose, now that everyone knows Alito is all-in for Donny, that he would recuse himself, as any person of honor should do? HELL NO, he won’t recuse! He’ll sit up there with his crooked buddy “Cash-based Clarence” (who should also recuse, but I did say ‘person of honor…’) and rule however helps his preferred candidate – and the constitution be damned.

This bizarro America is a very strange, very unpleasant place…

So, Donny had a meeting at Mar-a-Lardo with all the oil barons in the country. He allegedly told them that if they give him $1 billion dollars, he’ll let THEM write energy policy, should he return to the White House. Quick question; how is that NOT bribery? Or, maybe, solicitation of bribery? I mean, the dude hasn’t even been elected and he’s ALREADY committing crimes from the Oval.

It’s hard to say how the oil guys will respond. It’s a good deal for them – but only if Donny gets elected (or corruptly installed). They have to part with $1 billion dollars up front. If he then loses, they’re still out the money AND they didn’t get to craft policy. Fortunately, his shady behavior has already caught some eyes. The watchdog group, ‘Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’ or CREW, is “…taking a very serious look at whether Trump’s fundraising pitch to the oil executives for $1bn would merit some further action.”

From the Guardian, “Under the bribery statute, 18 USC 201(b), public officials are forbidden from seeking or receiving anything of value in return for carrying out an official act. Presidential candidates are allowed to solicit donations within the constraints of campaign finance laws, and they are also free to lay out their policy objectives to companies that might benefit from them.

They are not, however, allowed to ask for money directly in return for carrying out beneficial acts once in office.”

Democrats have noticed, too. Sure, Roepublicons have noticed, as well, but they’ve sold their souls by now. They wouldn’t say “poop” if they had a mouthful. So, it will be up to the Dems. The House Dems are already looking into it. On Monday, letters were sent from the House Oversight Committee to nine oil executives asking for details of their companies’ participation. The Senate is interested, too.

Here, let me save MAGA some trouble. “Ooh, it’s a political witch hunt. Oh, our poor, poor Donny. You want to punish him just because he committed crimes? You simply can’t. Why, that’s…that’s political interference and nobody (except us) should do THAT…”

I’m sick of MAGA and their childish ways…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The left is having a lot of fun with the fact that trump can’t stay awake for his criminal trial. I’m not all that surprised. Remember “covfefe?” This guy was infamous for tweets at 3:oo am. He generally didn’t come down to pretend to do any “presidentin'” until after 11:00 am most of the time. Those two things suggest a guy who has insomnia. I suspect it’s his agitated brain. On top of all of that, he’s a pampered snowflake who never had to work a day in his life. He got used to sleeping in.

The trials start early (for him). He’s an old man, likely operating on too little sleep. Add in the drugs he reportedly takes, falling asleep seems inevitable. I’m guessing the prison schedule will be difficult for him, too, should he end up there. But he’ll get used to it…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OMG, did you see the toady MAGA cons who came out to whine for Donny about how unfair life is to them? “All he did was commit a few crimes,” they cry. “Why should THAT be a problem?” They’re all vying to be Vice-President, which I can’t say I really understand. He made a very serious effort to get his last VP killed. You’d think that would cause a bit of…hesitation on the part of the next VP.

Of course, it turned out that when putsch came to shove, Donny had accidentally chosen someone with a modicum of ethics, someone who cared more about the country than “Zee Party” or even Donny himself. He won’t make that mistake again. But everything is about Donny, right? If you’re going to be his VP, you’ve got to show how willing you are to debase yourself in public for the trumpery. So, they’re lining up, dignity suppressed.

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Florida Reps. Byron Donalds and Cory Mills, and Florida Sen. Rick Scott, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and J. D. Vance (R-OH) have all made appearances. Oh, yeah, that lying creep MAGA Mike Johnson was there, too. I guess he needed to sully his reputation a little more. Done and done. As nearly as I can tell, they all even dressed like their guy. Dark suit, white shirt, red tie. It was almost precious. I doubt you could find a more coordinated ensemble in a gay bar.

The toadies are like the kid in class who knows the answer, thrusts their hand into the air and shouts “Oh! Oh! “I don’t have a shred of ethics! Pick ME!” They’re telling him who they are but they’re also telling the world who they are. Believe them…

Apparently, Donny is out there prepping the Deceived for a guilty verdict in his current felony trial. Obviously, NOT because of all that crime he actually did. Nor was it the meticulously presented case supported by physical evidence and/or witness testimony. No, Donny keeps suggesting he’s going to be found guilty (he will) because the whole thing is rigged (it’s not).

At a campaign rally in New Jersey, he was whining about the ongoing New York trial, Trump said “we haven’t had a decision here, but the decision here can probably only be one thing, I guess … ’cause … this whole thing – it’s a rigged deal; it’s a rigged deal.” Listen, putz, the decision will be the decision because YOU made choices – criminal choices. You shouldn’t have done that. SHAME on you, Donald J. Trump.

He hasn’t explicitly said he expects to be found guilty. Instead, he’s showing his belief in that outcome by whining about the process and the people involved. Normal, day-to-day events of criminal trials suddenly become outrageous affronts in Donny’s eyes. And, according to him, they’re all designed and intended to keep him from defending himself. He never clarifies how publicly calling people mean names and trying to intimidate witnesses is supposed to be a defense for him – but I think we all know.

According to the ‘USA Today’ yesterday, all of his whining, bloviating, blowhard, blather is intended to convince the Deceived that the system is rigged against him before the guilty verdict so voters will disregard the verdict in favor of the preferred, con victim status. As if MAGA needs help protecting his precious self. How DOES this whining, simpering, fragile little snowflake continue to convince his base he’s secretly a tough guy? Enquiring minds…

But, he’s not doing it for them, is he? MAGA already knows what they know and they’re not going to let any stinkin’ facts get in their way. According to the article, the trumpery is intended to gain favor with moderate conservatives and independents. But moderate conservatives and independents are not MAGA. They still have measurable brain function.

I’ll tell you this: I think moderate conservatives and independents are going to know that a guilty verdict most likely means he did the crime. It’s an Occam’s Razor thing: It’s just the simplest explanation…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Trump’s trial goes worse and worse for him, MAGA is getting madder and madder. I find I feel badly for them sometimes. Just think of the crash they’re due. If the scales ever fall from their eyes, and finally they see the trumpery for what it is, how epically disappointing, right? But right now, they’re fighting mad.

I got into a discussion with a MAGA who said to me, “This lawfare conspiracy with its unconstitutional manipulation that you all cheer for while you jeer Patriots Like MTG is a disgrace.” “Patriot?” “MTG?” “A patriot?!?” You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I can help: Patriot /pā′trē-ət, -ŏt″/ (noun)
One who loves, supports, and defends one’s country.
One who loves his country, and zealously supports its authority and interests.

The only thing I could say about MTG is that she HATES America and desperately wishes it was more like an authoritarian dictatorship and not the messy Republic we enjoyed until MAGA came along. She tried to have the Speaker removed because he did something good for the country. She was angry that he was working with Democrats. I’d say he worked with his fellow Americans for the benefit of America – and MTG effing hated it.

I’ll tell you this: That ain’t no “patriot…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It looks like Steve Bannon is off to jail. He was convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena to appear before the J6 committee. He has been free to inveigh against America pending appeals but in his latest effort the appellate court upheld the law rather than his personal preference. So? Off he goes.

He’ll be out again by the election. He was only sentenced to four months. That’s a heck of a lot better than the outcome he faced for defrauding the Deceived out of millions of dollars in his “Build the wall” scheme. Bannon and his co-conspirators promised to finish building Donny’s wall and then, instead, used the money they raised for themselves and lived a lavish lifestyle on the dollars of the Deceived. Donny had to pardon him to get him out of that one, though he apparently still faces state charges in the matter and, last I knew, THAT trial is scheduled to start later this month.

If he reports to prison, say, June 1, AND serves all of his time, he would be out at the end of September. But he won’t serve all of that time. They give time off for good behavior. He’ll likely do around two months. So, he’ll spend his summer in prison, then get out and start lying for Donny again. Well, unless he IS convicted in the “Build the wall” scam.

Hey, maybe Donny will be convicted by then, too, and Steve and Donny can be “roomies!” They can sit in their cell together and cry and whine about how unfair life has been to them…

Yesterday, I wrote that “virtually everybody associated with Donny has credibility issues.” To that point, the auditor, BF Borgers, for Donny’s media company, TMTG, has been charged with “massive” accounting fraud in their oversight of Donny’s company. Apparently, Borgers has filed over 1,500 fraudulent SEC filings on behalf of TMTG, the parent company of Donny’s lying ‘Truth Social’ site. BF Borgers has to pay $14 million dollars in damages and has been banned from accounting forever.

By now, I’ve gotten quite used to the fact that Donald Trump is a criminal surrounded by criminals in a vast web of criminal activity. But I continue to be impressed by the number of people willing to do his bidding – and they just keep coming back. Bill Barr is only the latest to switch from “He’s a criminal who has no business in the White House” to “Oh, yeah, I’ll vote for him.”

They go to jail for him or testify in order to avoid jail but for everyone who comes into contact with him, it seems, the threat or fact of jail is in their future. So why the hell do they keep signing on?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of signing on, or swallowing the Kool-Aid, Kellyanne Conway was on ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’ this weekend, all bubbly and energetic and mendacious. I presume she doesn’t think she’s lying. She likely thinks she’s merely advancing the Roepublican position. But she’s lying. MAGAS “positions” on anything are fluid, at best, and lying is required to keep up. The GOP KNOWS far too few people want to vote for their horrific true agenda so? They lie! Clever solution. EVERY second grader has come up with it and given it a try.

Personally, I hold that a position that requires a lie for support doesn’t deserve support. But I’m not a conservative. Since I dabble in reason, fact, verifiable evidence, and truth, it’s just easier to be progressive. But Kellyanne, obnoxious as she is in doing so, advances the GOP positions like a pro. She won’t acknowledge anything negative about cons. She just changes the subject and ducks into whataboutism. She’ll happily spew favorable statistics, which is easy for her since she just make them up as she goes along. Actually, she’s probably not just making them up as she goes along. I suspect she has a set list and plays it and plays it, so the pseudo-facts she presents become well known to her.

A woman’s right to choose looms, yet again, as a major factor in the upcoming elections. We’ve all seen state after state moving to out-do each other in cruelty to women. We’ve all heard various GOP members “suggesting” or calling outright for a national abortion ban at the Federal level. Kellyanne says I’m lying or playing ‘Chicken Little.’ The GOP won’t, she insists, try to institute a national abortion ban.

But Lindsay Graham actually introduced legislation trying to do exactly that – and he wasn’t first. Hey, Kellyanne, actions speak louder than words. You can tell me all day long that the GOP doesn’t want to implement a national abortion ban, but they have already tried. I’m going to remember what they did, not what you say.

I expect the GOP WILL implement a national abortion ban if they get the power to do so. That’s why I’ve taken to spelling their party name “Roepublicans.” I think it will help people remember which party did this to them in the first place. Smart people STILL have to come out and vote like their freedom depends upon it. Because freedom depends on it. (I know, they’re delivering the SAME message in conservative circles. Americans promote ‘freedom.’ MAGA promotes ‘freedumb.’ It’s VERY different.)

Kellyanne also claimed the economy was perfect under Donny. That was simply not true, even before Donny’s pandemic. The cons like to excuse Donny’s failed presidency by blaming Covid-19 but I, for one, continue to remember that if he hadn’t dismantled America’s “early warning system” because he was incapable of understanding it’s import, we and the world might not have suffered so mightily. That was ALL Donny, the Dumbass Don…

And, of course, she trotted out the old ‘Biden’s economy sucks’ bit. Cons LOVE to act like the Mad Max marauders are roaming our dystopian streets and that bread costs a wheelbarrow full of money. Inflation, inflation, inflation! Yes, things cost more. A LOT more. IS that systemic inflation? No. It’s not. It’s greed. And it’s greed brought to you by forty years of conservative practices and policies. It’s the inevitable result of deregulation. Once wealth controls a market, any market, they will squeeze that market as long and as hard as they can.

Yeah, yeah, economists can point to all kinds of charts and graphs and toss out a bunch of highfalutin words to make the economy sound mysterious and complex. But I can make it straightforward for you. Do you know how you can know, for sure, that current high prices are the result of greedy gouging and NOT systemic inflation? Profits. It really IS that easy.

If it really IS systemic inflation, prices go up as costs to the company go up, and the company’s overall profit position remains relatively unchanged. But that’s not what you’re hearing in profit reports, is it? Tell me, do the words “record profits” sound familiar to you? And aren’t you hearing the phrase “record profits” over and over and over again? Investors are starting to spook if companies don’t report record profits. It’s insane. Not as insane as investing in Donny’s criminal media company, but it’s pretty crazy.

The worst part is, these record profits hit us in the most vulnerable areas: housing, energy, and food. We need them all. But the drivers of the increases are just greed. The companies want more, there’s less competition (thanks to deregulation), so they take more. That’s not Biden’s fault. In fact, there’s very little he can do about it without Congress on his side.

Don’t vote against Biden because he’s having difficulty unwinding forty years of conservative destruction all by himself. He needs a Congress that will work with him and, as we all know, it’s the CONS who WILL NOT help, under any circumstances, lest they give Biden a “win.”

I’ll tell you this: If we give Biden a second term and give control of Congress to the Dems, we will see improvement. Sure, MAGA would choke on that notion. But MAGA thinks Trump is a genius and perhaps a god-on-earth. Why would rational people bother with input from people who can’t tell up from down and right from wrong?

I’ve noticed an interesting trend in our media. The students setting up camps protesting the genocide in Gaza are generally referred to as “Pro-Palestinian.” The people who object to those protests are called “Counter-Protestors.” I wonder why they’re not identified as “Pro-Israel?” Are there no “Pro-Israel” camps? Certainly none that have been rousted and made the news.

I think the so-called “Pro-Palestinian” factor should really be called the “anti-genocide” team, since that’s the true focus of their goal. I guess that won’t work with the American media’s choice of presentation, though, since it runs the risk of making the “Pro-Israel” faction the “Pro-Genocide” team. Still, “Pro-Palestine” vs “Counter Protestors” creates a false impression and I don’t much like it.

When a bunch of “Counter-Protestors” attacked a “Pro-Palestine” camp in the middle of the night at a college recently, it caused violent conflict but the masses were only told in passing that the violence started when “Counter-Protestors” (“Pro Israel?”) attacked the camp. Then the focus was ALL on the “Pro-Palestinian” factors fighting back. It seems to me that the message is rather heavily slanted in favor of one point of view.

Either way, I think the college kids (keyword: ‘kids’) have gone too far. Demonstrations of support are all well and good. Trying to get schools to divest from companies profiting from the death and destruction Israelis are inflicting could even be seen as honorable. But fighting over here is not going to change anything over there. Taking over buildings undermines their efforts. Running Palestinian flags up American flag poles isn’t convincing anyone of any thing.

It is the way of young people. Their passions regularly take them to extremes. As a movement gains popularity, more people not truly invested in the cause get involved and the newcomers often lack the detailed understanding of things. That’s when the racial slurs start. They don’t help anything, either.

So I find myself a bit ambivalent about the college actions. On the one hand, maybe added pressure from the public will result in something positive. On the other hand, the over-the-top actions we’re seeing threaten to undermine the whole effort as the “movement” gets too far afield from the base cause. If the “Counter Protestors” succeed in turning the understanding of the movement from “anti-genocide” to “anti-Jew,” the efforts of the “Pro-Peace” team will be fully defeated, despite their original intent.

I’ll tell you this: The best thing I can say about the college actions is that I believe the organizer’s hearts are in the right place. I support their cause – stop the violence – but I reject many of the tactics they have adopted as unhelpful…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Donny’s main defense in his current criminal trial, the hush money payment trial, is that he knew nothing about it. It was all, if you ask him, Michael Cohen. Cohen did this, Cohen did that. Donny didn’t even know. I guess the prosecution anticipated this. They played recordings in court of Donny and Cohen talking about the payments in detail, clearly indicating Donny had knowledge. The recordings were made in September, 2016.

Team Trump took the only avenue they have: they claimed the FBI planted the recordings. Uh-huh. But what are you going to do? The recordings put you right in the middle of things, dead to rights. Donny can tell the Deceived the recordings are AI and they’ll believe him because they WANT to believe him but in court he can’t say any such thing. Neither can his attorneys. Because it’s not true. He CAN lie on the campaign trail. He CAN’T lie in court. But his lawyers CAN “suggest.” So that’s what they did.

As the news of the payments became public in 2018, Donny tried to pretend even to those in his inner circle that Cohen had made the payments all by himself out of the goodness of his heart. Hope Hicks, one of the people Donny interacted with on a regular basis, says she never believed that story. On the stand, under oath, she testified that she never thought of Cohen as that kind of a selfless guy and she simply didn’t buy the story.

The main event is Michael Cohen on the stand (which will happen) vs Donny on the stand (which will NEVER happen). Cohen has some credibility issues, to say the very least. That’s what happens when you lie and lie and lie some more. But virtually everybody associated with Donny has credibility issues. Lawyers know how to deal with that and the prosecution is following the path, step by step.

One witness after another corroborates Cohen’s story even before he tells it. That way, when he DOES testify, the facts of his testimony will have been established well before he even takes the stand. That’s going to make it very difficult for Donny’s lawyers to paint him as lying.

The short version? The case isn’t going well for Donny. That’s the reason he has fought so hard to keep these trials from happening. NONE of them, if they actually get to trial, are going to go any better for him than this one is going. I think he’s going to lose this trial. That is to say, I think he’ll be convicted of a felony criminal offense.

MAGA won’t care. They’ve already dismissed the trials as fake news, despite the fact that we now KNOW Donny, himself, was the author of most of the fake news he was crying about. I don’t know if they’ll put him in jail. They should, in my view, if the evidence supports the charge but this really IS a special case.

MAGA is fond of whining that nothing like this has ever happened before and they’re correct, although for the wrong reasons. What had actually ‘never happened’ was that Americans had never been so stupid as to put such a low-level, whiny criminal into the most powerful office in the world before. But RussoMAGA got it done in 2016 and now the country has to clean up the mess.

I’ll tell you this: I think Donny should face the same punishment as anybody else convicted of such a crime, assuming a conviction is where it lands. No more, no less. But I suspect he’ll get a lenient sentence so I’ll just have to content myself with the fact that, as a convicted felon, he won’t be able to vote for himself. Even Trump won’t vote for Trump. I have to confess, I get a kick out of that…

The other day, I read an editorial in the LA Times that said, when it comes to crime, Donny is a buffoon but when it comes to corruption, nobody does it better. I think that’s dead-on.

Donny has been engaged in corruption, literally, his entire life. He has developed corrupting into an art form. He’s beyond professional level skill. For him, it’s a way of life, corruption. It’s second nature to him.

He corrupts anyone and everything he comes into contact with. If it’s a process, he corrupts it. If it’s procedure, he corrupts it. If it’s a person, he corrupts them. When the scales fall from the eyes, that’s what’s left: Donald J. Trump, the Great Corrupter…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m beginning to suspect that even MAGA is seeing the shine of their would-be deity starting to tarnish. It’s a couple of things. From what I hear, MAGA media isn’t hammering on “Ain’t Donny great?” stories so much as “AAAAH! We’ve GOT to stop the Democrats and Trump is our only choice!” That’s hardly a full-throat, hearty endorsement of Donny.

More importantly, Donny has complained several times about the lack of supporters outside the courtroom where he’s being tried for his crimes. He has even called the faithful out – and they haven’t shown up. At least, not in any significant numbers. In an effort to deceive any of the remaining still-deceived, he claims it’s because law enforcement is keeping them away but that lie was easily exposed. All the media had to do was take a camera outside the courtroom and show the few MAGA who DID show up. There aren’t a lot of them but those who are making the effort can get all the way to the courthouse without the police bothering them.

So, he whines it’s because everyone in New York City is a Democrat. How stupid is that? NY has something like 8 million people in it. ALL of them are Democrats? Based on the MAGA base rate in our population, out of 8 million people, 2 million of them should be dim enough to be deceived into MAGA. Even if you account for increased liberality of cities, he should STILL have over 1 million people ready to destroy the country in his name.

The estimate I’ve seen for the number of Trump supporters turning out is twelve. No, not twelve million, thousand, or even hundred. Just twelve. And I’ll tell you this: That is certainly NOT the fearsome army he was once thought to be able to conjure – emphasis on “con…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By now, thinking Americans should NEVER be surprised to find a MAGA accusation is actually a MAGA admission. These days, I’m not surprised by that. I expect it every time some new bit of story comes from MAGA media. “Oh, what are they confessing now?” But I’m still “back-filling” older information and, for some reason, it continues to blow my mind, from time to time.

David Pecker’s admission that Donald Trump was the author of massive amounts of the FAKE NEWS that came out during the 2016 campaign, all while screaming about all the FAKE NEWS out there shouldn’t surprise me. Of course Donny was the perpetrator. Cons are ALWAYS doing the thing they accuse their opposition of doing. ALWAYS.

And STILL, I shake my head in disbelief. The depths of deception this guy stooped to in order to get what he wanted continues to boggle the mind…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of Fake News, Fox Not-News has reported that Trump’s defense team member, Clarence Thomas, asked an “important question” while pretending to “weigh evidence” in the immunity case. Thomas asked if the on-scene attorneys for Donny had raised the question of Jack Smith’s legal ability to prosecute Trump. Apparently, that’s a thing in MAGA – a new story to sell. It’s made up of weasel-words.

As it happens, the Attorney General has authority to appoint a special counsel and said counsel does NOT need to be confirmed by Congress – and cons know it. They don’t even argue congress had to approve previous special counsels to the role. They’re pretending that Congress had to have approved them for something somewhere along their career paths.

I’m no lawyer but I didn’t see that requirement when I read the Congressional Research Service’s report on ‘Independent Counsels, Special Prosecutors, Special Counsels, and the Role of Congress,” dated June 20,2913. In fact, what I read there was, “Under the Constitution and its separation of powers principles and structure, Congress has no direct role in federal law enforcement, nor in triggering or initiating the appointment of any prosecutor for any particular matter (other than the advice and consent role of the Senate regarding certain nominations made by the President).”

I’ll tell you this: Since MAGA media lies about everything, all the time, I’m going to just assume this pretended ‘confirmation-at-some-point’ role is yet another in a long, long, long, oh, gods, even LONGER list of lies already rolled out and debunked by reality…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, hey, speaking of corruption, I know, now, why David Pecker was so forthcoming and in-detail complete while he was on the stand: immunity. Pecker was given immunity for his testimony. THAT means, the more he can spew in court, the greater his own protection, see? (It’s a fatal flaw in the whole “selfish serves” mantra of the cons. They can only “team up” as long as their own personal interests don’t come into conflict.)

I’ll tell you this: I found that kind of ironic. Donny claims he should have complete immunity from all crime because he was President once. Meanwhile, one of his cronies GETS immunity in this case to help prosecute Donny in a case RATKG&B wouldn’t be able to help him with anyway…

Donny’s legal team – Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett (RATKG&B) – are doing what they can. They heard arguments on Thursday on the question of whether or not Presidents have perfect, blanket immunity for any and all actions, no matter what. Okay, arguments were presented. Whether or not they were “heard” remains to be seen.

They’ve come to the conclusion that others before them have already come to. Yes, the President of the United States DOES, indeed, have immunity for some official acts of the office while in office. Um…duh! That has long since been the case. How could a President drop a bomb on an unsuspecting civilian car carrying the “number two man in Al-Qaeda” (along with his wives and children) without immunity? If we’re not in a declared war, that’s murder. Unless you’re the President of the United States, right?

In fact, the actual question at hand is whether a President has immunity for criminal acts committed outside the duties of the office. For example, if a President, say, loses an election and then tries, over and over again to stay in office anyway, is he immune? Technically, he was in office at the time. Doesn’t that count?

No. But if it does, I hope Joe Biden uses HIS immunity to have Donny’s “legal team” rubbed out so he can pack the court with his own people, solving the problem of having Supreme Court Justices moonlighting as defense attorneys. (Dear NSA, that’s satire, used to make a point.)

Trump team loyalists Alito and Kavanaugh suggested that some of the charges against Donny were hard to defend so they shouldn’t count. They said that if using laws is going to be the standard, future prosecutors could prosecute future ex-Presidents whenever they wanted to. (Interestingly, they didn’t mention the part about needing to violate that law in the first place, a key point in Trump’s trials.)

When the lawyer for the Special Counsel’s office dismissed that idea, citing the Grand Jury process, Alito sneered that a grand jury could “indict a ham sandwich.” That’s true, but could the prosecutor get a conviction? Alito even argued that our entire society might collapse if Presidents can’t just murder people, willy-nilly. For clarity, ‘murder’ was not mentioned, specifically. But “any crime” is ANY crime, right?

Two of the smart, non-ideologically impaired Justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonya Sotomayor, tried to inject some logic and common sense into the “debate” but they’re outnumbered so logic and common sense have no real place on that court.

Court-watchers are suggesting the way-too-high court is going to remand the case back to the lower court to double check if crimes are still, you know, actual crimes and if they’re really, really sure they want to indict Donny just because he committed them. Alternately, they might just hold their “ruling” until June 30 and issue it as they slither out the back door for their two month vacation. (Sounds like a hard damn life to me…)

Either way, it’s a win (of sorts) for Donny. If the case is remanded, it will buy Donny time. The trial likely won’t happen before the election. If the case isn’t remanded, the delayed decision will ALSO prevent the trial from moving forward until after the ballots are cast.

I’ll tell you this: Donny has a VERY effective legal team in RATKG&B, the best lawyer/judge combo money can buy…

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Hey, I thought the trial was a trick to keep Donny off of the campaign trail! Donny said so himself. He has said so more than once, too. “They’re trying to keep me off the campaign trail.” “I should be out there campaigning but I have to come here.” That would be a problem, too.

But, it’s not a ploy. He has to attend his criminal trial. That’s not a special rule for Donny. That’s the way it is. (And, btw, the ONLY one enjoying special privileges is Donny, no matter what he tells you.) That trial takes up every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday so the only days he has to campaign – get out there and press the flesh and meet the people as he claims he so badly wants to do – are Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday.

So, THAT clearly explains why, when he had a day off from court when he could campaign he set out as quickly as he could and…hit the golf course? Wait, what? When he’s doing his “Woe is poor, poor me” shtick, all he wants is to be out campaigning. When the cameras are off, he DOES what he really wants to do: he golfs. That was his presidency, too. Golfing.

From what I hear, for someone who golfs as much as he does, you’d think he would be a better golfer. The number of people out there who have played with him and will tell you he cheats is huge. Pretty much everyone who isn’t beholden to Donny in some way confesses Donny cheats. I think that makes him a double terrible golfer. He plays every chance he gets and he STILL has to cheat to get a good score?

But I digress. Dear MAGA, What Donny says is that he wants to be out there, with you. What Donny does is blow off a chance to be with you so he can go golfing. Actions speak louder than words…

Well, David is certainly not pulling his punches. Pecker, I mean. David Pecker. He’s on the stand in Donny’s hush money trial. He’s just spewing information. It could be because he has to after the ‘National Enquirer’ got in trouble for their part in his scheme, but I don’t think that’s it at all. It has been no challenge to get Pecker to share everything he knows and he’s not trying to hide things behind weasel words. That’s not a person forced to testify. That seems like someone salivating at the opportunity. Weird. I thought they were still friends.

David and Donny had made an “informal” agreement. Pecker would use his paper to assist Donny. They made up and published stories about Donny’s opposition candidates, not just from across the aisle but even fellow Roepublicans. Be clear about that: they made up stories. They published anything they could find (or make up) to shine a nice light on Donny AND they were involved in a catch-and-kill scheme for him. If someone had a bad story to tell about 45, the National Enquirer bought it as an “exclusive” – which they then never published.

As an “exclusive,” the seller of the story signed Non Disclosure Agreements and promised not to tell anyone else. Then, the Enquirer just filed the story in File 13 and that was the last of it. They paid a certain amount, then Donny was supposed to reimburse them. Pecker is Donny’s friend. He didn’t have any reason to think the scheme would work out any other way.

So, when the doorman wanted to tell his unverified story about Donny’s illegitimate child, Pecker was there. $30,000 dollars worth. And when Karen McDougal showed up with a story about an ongoing affair throughout Melania’s pregnancy, Pecker rose to the occasion. $150,000 dollars worth.

That’s a lot of media manipulation Donny participated in. ALL THE WHILE, he was out on the campaign trail complaining about media manipulations against him. MAGA was out screaming and yelling about “fake news,” remember? The “fake news” was coming from the right. I know. Who can be surprised? The right making an accusation that turned out to be a confession? When has anything like it ever…? Oh, right.

The Trump campaign was the source of much (most?) of the fake news of the 2016 election. Pecker has testified that these fraudulent stories were prearranged. Trump and Cohen had coordinated the manipulations with Pecker. Pecker was specifically asked what the Enquirer could do to help the campaign. The ‘Fake News’ and ‘Catch-and-Kill’ schemes were born. And MAGA was snookered.

I’ve been saying MAGA stays loyal because MAGA is deceived. Pecker has just confirmed that under oath in a court of law. Pecker laid out exactly how Trump, Cohen, and Pecker went about deceiving the base. He’ll be doing more of that today. Describing the scheme and it’s effects, I mean.

My guess? MAGA isn’t hearing ANY of it. MAGA media will simply not cover that aspect. Instead, they’ll cover how bravely Trump came into court and how persecuted he is and just how tough is this tough guy, anyway? There will be nary a peep about how Donny and the MAGA media worked together to deceive them…

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Before trial Tuesday, Donny came into the media ring and whined and cried that someone must be blocking all of his supporters from coming down to the building to show their support because there were precious few outside. It took no time at all for the media to debunk that bit – based entirely on the fact that Trump supporters ARE outside the building. Just not as many as Donny thought there might be. I suspect he was looking for a J6 crowd, hoping for some J6 intimidation. I ALSO suspect the J6 crowd, those not still in jail anyway, have learned a lesson.

So instead, he got a tiny, little crowd, even AFTER he tried to encourage people to come down and show support. It’s possible, his remaining supporters DID come out. There just aren’t as many as there used to be. He has fleeced his fan base into near-poverty. He has lied and lied to them, leaving them with egg on their faces, over and over again as they try to defend him only to learn he lied – again. (How many times are YOU willing to look like a fool defending him, especially when you KNOW not ONE of his stories has held up under scrutiny?)

Who knows, maybe they’ll show up en masse today. Maybe they’ve just been biding their time, looking for the perfect opportunity to get to the courthouse and show off their ignorance. Maybe. Maybe not. There seem to be some cracks in the loyalty. Even MAGA knows the famous phrase, “Fool me 107,286 times, shame on the Democrats. Fool me 107,286 times, eventually, shame on me.”

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…