“So Unfair…”

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…

I Win, I’m Happy…

“Well, if I win, the election was honest.” What kind of a position is that? No, he doesn’t say those words. He just says, “We’ll see” when someone asks him if he’ll accept the results. “If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results.” He DID say that. I’m saying he’s lying. Again. Thinking Americans across the land know that he means he’ll only accept a win as an honest election. How do we know?

2020. He lost that election, fair and square. His own people told him he lost the election. He has privately acknowledged he lost that election. Publicly, though? He keeps the Deceived inflamed by insisting the election was “rigged.” The only group even TRYING to rig the election was Donny and Team Traitor.

But again, because actions speak louder than words, Donny has made clear how he feels about it by his actions. He only accepts a win for himself as an honest election. That’s so easy to do, right? Okay, fair enough. I’d bet the left can do that, too. If Biden wins, it was a fair election. If Trump wins, it wasn’t. Period. Right? Isn’t that the way it works? We can’t face disappointment so we just insist we weren’t disappointed? Of course that’s Donny’s attitude.

Full disclosure, I actually DO have a tin-foil hat attitude about the 2016. I’ve noticed that Trump “won” amid hints and allegations of Russian assistance and interference when the machines – which I continue to consider as vulnerable – were used. He lost in 2020 when his feckless handling of Covid-19 forced most people to use mail-in ballots, although I acknowledge a wide variety of other possible reasons. (He was a terrible President!) Now, in 2024, we’ll be back to the machines, inviting more Russo-MAGA “assistance” and interference. That’s why I always encourage people to use paper ballots…

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The presumptive nominee for the Roepublican party is standing trial for crimes he committed leading up to the 2016 election. (A trial he couldn’t stall.) It seems to me the trial is going poorly for him. A parade of his own people have confirmed things in their testimony that will all be pulled together to prove he did exactly what he’s accused of doing. Of course, he stands outside the courtroom and confesses to the crime on a regular basis, too. That should help the prosecution.

“All I did was give money to a lawyer and then write it down as a legal expense. Well, I didn’t write it. A very good bookkeeper marked it as a legal expense but I was just giving money to a lawyer and put it down as a legal expense. What else was I supposed to do?” (<– That is NOT an exact quote…)

Here’s the thing: if one gives a lawyer some money for legal advice or services, that IS a legal expense. If one gives a lawyer some money to score some cocaine, that is NOT a legal expense. That’s because lawyers don’t generally provide cocaine as part of their practices and getting the cocaine is a crime. It’s NOT the act of handing a lawyer money that makes it a ‘legal expense.’

Trying to buy someone’s silence isn’t necessarily a crime. But cooking your books to hide it is. Doing so in order to prevent damage to your presidential campaign is ALSO a crime, making the combined acts a Felony. (Ironically, the specific crime constitutes election interference, once again pretending HE is the “victim” of the very crime HE committed. What a snowflake…)

Donny’s latest tactic is to move for mistrials. Stormy Daniels testified and she held her own. The courtroom got a little too far into the actual sex of the encounter in question. EVERYONE expected Donny’s legal team to object to some of the questions but they just sat there. It got so far afield, Judge Merchan stepped in more than once to stop the prosecution questions along that line. (The trial isn’t about the sex.)

Then Donny’s team tried to use their own feckless failures as the excuse for a mistrial. (“Hey, Judge, we really suck at this! Can we have a mistrial?”) The judge has rejected the motion. Twice. Judge Merchan even confessed surprise that Donny’s team hadn’t objected more – but they didn’t. If they allowed the testimony in, it was in.

The prosecution has already shown Donny was a principle in the plan, wrote the checks, micromanages everything in his world, and knew everything that was going on, step by step. They even proved the sex actually happened, although they didn’t have to. (The trial isn’t about the sex.)

In fairness, Donny hasn’t even started his defense, yet. It looks like he’s going to go with “Huh-uh!” I mean, what else has he got? He and MAGA are trying to apply the same standard to the trial they apply to elections: if Donny wins, it was fair. If he loses, it was not. It looks to me like they’re wrong on both counts. Donny looks very much like he’s going to lose and it sure looks like a fair trial to me…

Actions and Negotiations…

Well, finally, Joe has done something I can get behind in Gaza. Mostly, because it’s exactly what I’ve been saying I thought he should do all along. He has told Israel he’s not sending any more American weapons if they move forward with their planned assault on Rafah. Israel has responded by moving forward with their planned assault on Rafah.

Biden doesn’t have much more leverage than that. Nobody does. Bibi is free to mow Rafah, using the “kill them all and let God sort them out” standard if he wants to – and it looks very much like he wants to. But he’ll have to do it without weapons stamped “USA” on the side.

At least, no new weapons. I’m sure they have a stockpile, although military conflicts have a tendency to burn through armaments at a very high rate, which is great for investors. Israel has declared Biden’s decision “disappointing.” Oh, boo-hoo. If stopping the weapons stops the genocide, I’m all for it.

Maybe now our college campuses can settle down. The main complaint of the anti-genocide students has been that their schools are invested in the companies that make the bombs that kill the people. They want their schools to divest from those companies. But if the bombs aren’t going there to kill more vicious, 5 day old “HAMAS,” perhaps they can just get back to class.

I’ll tell you this: Nobody is going to stop Netanyahu in what he wants to do. It would be easier with American weapons, but he’ll do it with bear skins and stone knives if he has to. He just wants the Palestinians dead, dead, dead. But at least Americans won’t be complicit anymore…

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Aileen “Loose” Cannon has finally relinquished May 20th trial date. She had been holding it so none of Donny’s many other criminal trials would be able to slip into the slot. She held it as long as she could but kept putting off the processes needed to get the trial going so everyone KNEW she would drop the trial date eventually. The only question was when.

You’ve got to admit, she’s done everything she could to help her beloved. She’s a terrible judge with zero ethics or credibility, but she’s a very effective member of Trump’s legal defense team. I mean, SHE stalled the case as long as she could, then used her own stalling as the excuse to move the trial date! That’s some effective team effort, there, Aileen. The only thing she did better for Donny? She didn’t bother even trying to set a new trial date.

Rational Americans are pretending there is a bright spot to her underhanded decision in that it opens a slot for Jack Smith to move forward with one of his other trials but that’s just empty hope. Donny’s OTHER legal team of Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett (RATKG&B) have carefully coordinated THEIR part of the process and will NOT issue a ruling on whether or not Presidents have perfect immunity until it’s too late for Smith to do THAT, too.

Oh, hey, in what is likely a completely unrelated event, did you hear that Aileen “loose” Cannon has been found to be accepting lavish “gifts” without reporting them – at least until she was caught? These “gifts” come from conservatives with interests in the outcome of trials before her court. They seem to help guide her rulings…

Quick question: Are there ANY decent conservatives left in this once great nation?

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Speaking of despicable conservatives, how angry do you suppose Melania is these days? Of COURSE Donny told her the stories of the affairs were lies. Naturally, she knew better. She didn’t believe him? She negotiated. She’s evil, not stupid. But because the story is that she stands by her man, she looks like a gullible fool and being willing to look the fool is very expensive.

With this trial, the details are coming out – drip by drip. Stormy makes clear Donny called her ‘Honey Bunch.’ Has Donny called Melania ‘Honey Bunch?’ Then she knows that’s a nickname he uses. She KNOWS. She doesn’t really care, of course. To her, this is an opportunity to make some money. So, she renegotiates. And then negotiates again.

“You want dutiful wife? How much you pay?”
“You ARE my wife. Why should I have to pay you anything?”
“Because you don’t pay, I no longer wife. And I remember…certain tings during interviews.”
“How much do you want?”
“Oh, I don’t know, really. How about $1.2 million, set up in a trust fun for Barron with me as controller?”
“Your English always gets so much better at the money part. For $1.2 million, you’d have to appear with me during the campaign and smile.”
“I make…four public appearances. No smile. No touch. I try not to vomit.”
“Okay, okay, four appearances…”
Quick appearances. Show up, go home.”
“Okay, four quick appearances. After the campaign, I’ll get you the money.”
“Oh, Donald, you forget? I come to this country on genius visa. I make appearance AFTER you pay money.”
“Where am I supposed to get $1.2 million dollars?”
“From the same useful idiots who have been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for someone to brush my hair. They pay.”
“I need that money to pay my legal expenses…”
“I go hide in New York.”
“Alright, alright, I’ll set it up.”

Every word Stormy utters increases the amount Donny has to pay to present the portrait of a happy marriage until the election…

Waiting…

I’m a fan of early voting. Simply put, it allows more people to participate in the process and I think that’s a good thing. Kellyanne Conway is NOT a fan of early voting although, she says she’s resigned to the reality that early voting is here to stay. She said so on ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’ the other night. But then she asked why they don’t count the votes as they come in, and then count the votes cast on election day and announce the winner the night of the election? “Why do we have to wait?” She wanted to know.

The question goes back to a MAGA talking point about 2020. Every American knew there was going to be a red wave and then a blue wave. (I’m not sure MAGA knew…) The red wave would come from the machines as cons across the land cast their ballots, which were then counted first. THEN, the blue wave would come as the mail-in ballots were counted and when all was said and done, we would know who won. BUT…

MAGA had, on Donny’s instructions, largely turned their backs on mail-in voting. So they all toddled out in their walkers and voted on election day. Red wave. Then, the mail-in ballots were counted in the subsequent, predicted blue wave. Biden caught up and overtook Donny’s early lead. MAGA started screaming about how unfair it is Secretaries of States were continuing to count votes just because there were still legally cast votes to be counted.

So that’s the origin of Kellyanne’s question, a massive misunderstanding of the process. I continue to distinguish between rank-and-file MAGA, the deceived, and those doing the deceiving, like Kellyanne. For example, I’m sure rank-and-file MAGA don’t KNOW that many states have made it illegal to count mail-in ballots before election day. Kellyanne does, though. She just ignores that bit because it hurts her talking point.

The other thing she likely knows but won’t say to the faithful, there’s at least one specific reason they wait. If they keep a running tally of the votes as they come in, somebody, somewhere knows the standing of the race at any given moment. IF that information somehow (ahem…) got “leaked” before the election – and you KNOW it would – that running tally could have an affect on the turnout on election day. Literally, the ONLY way to prevent that, for sure, is if nobody knows how the mail-in ballots are trending and the only way to do that is to not count them early.

As an example, in 2020, the blue wave would have come first. Had the cons known they couldn’t win the Oval, they might not come out at all. That, in turn, would likely have hurt down-ballot candidates in their races. In short, had they done as Kellyanne suggested, Donny would have lost 2020 even worse than he did and it’s possible some of the cons now serving in Congress might not be there. Hmm, Now that I think about it, America would have been better off…

Oh, alright, history. Do you know that originally in this once-great nation, the President wasn’t inaugurated until March? Do you know why? Because it took awhile to collect, process, and count the ballots and then transmit the information to the Capitol. But…that means…oh, horror of horrors…everyone had to wait! No early projections? No instant calls the moment polling places closed? How could they manage? How could they stand it? Oh, the humanity!

But, wait they did. Nobody seems to have suffered from it. It all worked out okay. Apparently, they all just went about their business and at some point a winner was announced. The loser, if he was a decent person and man enough to acknowledge his loss and not a fragile and self-serving, narcissistic blowhard, conceded. Then the country enjoyed yet another peaceful transfer of power, a process that repeated itself over and over again for 230 years, only to be disrupted by the tiniest of would-be, tin-pot dictators.

I’ll tell you this: I think accuracy is more important than speed and I understand the process. I understand why they wait. I’m willing to wait, too…

Credibility Issues…

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?

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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?

Trends and Developments…

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…

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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…

Image Management…

It’s weird, where people find vindication, isn’t it? When Mitt Romney was running for President, he took a political hit when people found out he had tied his dog to the roof of his car on a family vacation. I mean, sure, the dog was in a pet porter but, hey, he tied his dog to the roof of his car on a family vacation, right? People weren’t as understanding as he seemed to expect and he had to carry that around with him for the (short) time he had left in his campaign.

In an effort to show she really is crazy enough to be a Roepublican VP in this day and age, Kristi Noem confessed in a book that she killed her dog, a 14 month old puppy named Cricket. Shockingly, that didn’t land with the masses any better than the idea of Romney tying his dog to the roof rack. Worse, even. Go figure. Now she may not get to be VP because she was too honest, too soon. (MAGA is trying to downplay their worst impulses as of yet.)

Now Romney is trying to redeem himself by pointing out that he “only” tied his dog to the roof rack, but Noem killed her dog. His point? Killing a dog is obviously worse that torturing a dog with a terror ride at 80 miles an hour on the roof with the wind cutting through your fur. I guess so. Marginally. I think HE thinks it could somehow vindicate the dog-tying scandal.

I’ll tell you this: I think they both suck…

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Donny used his day off from criminal court to campaign a bit. He made two stops. He hit his litany of lies like he’s gone through it 10,000 times – which, of course, he has. He still has supporters. That part, alone, kind of surprises me. But from the quotes in the article, they’re all in on his stories. It continues to boggle my mind that so many people can so successfully disregard any and all facts to the contrary in order to maintain their faith.

Even with religions, people who don’t accept them often cite the fact that there is no supporting evidence of any kind, any where. They are NOT able to cite fact after fact, mountains of evidence, that prove the stories false. Religious people tend to assign good deeds to their gods. These deeds become acts of their gods, making those gods seem “real.” So, choosing to believe those things is not, necessarily, crazy. But bear in mind, there is no solid, provable evidence or experiment showing that these things are NOT true.

THAT defines the line between the religious faithful and Cult 45. MAGA’S task is NOT simply to choose to believe something that lacks evidence one way or the other. Their choice is to believe something despite all of the mountains and reams of available evidence against what they choose to believe. That’s GOT to be harder.

They believe the economy was better under Trump. Not true. They believe the world was at peace under Trump. Not True. They believe Trump is a man of religious faith. Not true. They believe Trump is a – and you can’t make this up – faithful marriage partner! Absolutely NOT true. (Four wives? He cheated on every one of them!) They believe Trump is being persecuted. Not true. They believe Joe Biden is orchestrating the whole thing behind the scenes between, apparently, bouts of debilitating dementia. Not true AND not true.

Question for the Psychiatrists and Psychologists out there: how long CAN a human mind maintain such a fragile fiction in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary? I know that any of us can do it for awhile. I even know that sometimes, it’s necessary for the brain to “re-write” events to protect our sanity. But this seems different. This isn’t image management, it’s delusion. They’re pounding their thumbs with a hammer, acknowledging the pain, but then denying the existence of the hammer!

So, how long CAN a human being gaslight themselves without achieving a psychotic break? I suspect the answer to that question defines the life span of the MAGA movement and I’ll tell you this: Enquiring minds want to know…

The Great Corruptions…

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…

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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…”

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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…

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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…

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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…

Immune To Reality?

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…

The Truth Will Out…

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.”