The Orange God of Mar-a-Lago: August 2022

UPDATED 3/18/23

Only two presidents have ever pushed this country toward civil war.
Donald Trump and Jefferson Davis.

AUGUST 2022.

August 1, 2022: If you like democracy, you could say that August is off to a good start. Guy Reffitt, a recruiter for the right-wing “Three Percenters,” brought a gun to the January 6 riot. He came dressed in a tactical helmet with camera – and said he wanted to see Nancy Pelosi dragged out of the Capitol and down the stairs. He hoped to hear her head knock on every step. 

Today, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich gave Mr. Reffitt the next 87 months in prison to ponder what a colossal fool he was to believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump.

 

__________ 

“Trump deserves life in prison if my father is in prison for this long.” 

Peyton Reffitt

__________ 

 

In handing down the sentence, the longest given to any rioter yet, Friedrich torched the idea that the rioters were patriots. “And I want to be very clear ... under no legitimate definition of the term ‘patriot’ (does) Mr. Reffitt’s behavior on and around January 6 fit the term. It is the antithesis of the word.” 

He added, “Not only are they not patriots, they’re a direct threat to our democracy and will be punished as such.”

 

* 

This blogger was going to celebrate Mr. Reffitt’s incarceration until he heard what the defendant’s daughter, Peyton, had to say. I doubt I’d want to spend time talking politics with her dad, but there’s a good chance he did truly believe he was a patriot. We do know he believed blindly in Donald J. Trump – the fakest patriot in America history. Scott MacFarlane, of CBS News, was in attendance as Reffitt was sentenced. That’s when Peyton Reffitt spoke up. “Trump deserves life in prison if my father is in prison for this long,” she said. 

MacFarlane has been to many of these riot-related proceedings, and said he had never “heard anything close” to what Ms. Reffitt said. “I’ve never heard a defendant or a relative say Donald Trump should be sent to prison, jail, that was a unique and distinctive moment right there.” 

As the years of jail time continue to pile up, 14 days for one rioter, 60 for another, a recommended sentence between 47-56 months for a third, and now, plus-seven years behind bars for her father – one needs ask. Does Trump care about these people? They answered his call to come to D.C. when he promised it would be “wild.” He filled their heads with lies. He kept telling followers that the election was stolen – when his last two different attorneys general assured him it wasn’t. Does the former president deserve jail time for stirring up the attack on Capitol Hill? 

Peyton thinks so. 

Her father and her family have paid a steep price, because the patriarch believed Trump’s bullshit.

 

* 

9/11 Planner Killed. 

In other good news, Mr. Biden ordered a drone strike today, targeting an apartment building in a neighborhood of Kabul, Afghanistan, called by locals “Choorpur,” or “town of thieves.” Killed in that strike, after twenty-one years on the run, was Ayman al-Zawahiri, the last surviving planner of the 9/11 attack. 

When BBC reporters tried to reach the scene, they were warned off before they got close. “If you don’t listen to me, I’ll speak to you through my gun,” a Taliban guard said. 

In fact, the villa where al-Zawahiri had been hiding, is said to be owned by the Afghan Minister of the Interior. 

For real.

August is off to a good start.

___ 

 

8/2/22: The Attorney General of Arizona, Mark Brnovich, has issued his final report on voter fraud in 2020, in that state.

 

__________ 

“Surprised to learn that they were allegedly deceased.” 

Attorney General Mark Brnovich

__________ 

 

Ever since Trump’s defeat, his cult followers have insisted that in Arizona, dead people trooped to the polls by the trillions – as cemeteries emptied their crypts. Brnovich, who’s a Republican, examined every claim put forward by partisans of Ex-President Blubber, as he explained.

 

Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninjas [an investigating team put to work and paid for by Team Trump] reported as dead, and many were very surprised to learn that they were allegedly deceased. In addition, we received dead voter reports from other sources that were also reviewed. Three reports were submitted to the [Election Integrity Unit] that combined alleged 409 dead voters. One additional report, making no distinction between dead voters and dead registrants, included 5,943 registrations. Once again, these claims were thoroughly investigated and resulted in only a handful of potential cases.

 

Brnovich went on to say of such claims, “Some were so absurd the names and birthdates didn’t even match the deceased, and others included dates of death after the election.” 

So, there you had it. R.I.P. “stolen election” lie. The story of dead voters in Arizona had been laid to rest. Save for the fact that a slate of election deniers is on the ballot in the Republican primary today, all endorsed by the delusional Donald J. Trump. 

“While our office has successfully prosecuted other instances of dead voters, these cases were ultimately determined to be isolated instances,” Brnovich added. The claims of significant fraud in the State of Arizona were “insufficient and not corroborated.”

___

 

 

8/3/22: Someday – when Donald Trump is dead and gone – or this blogger is – I can stop worrying about his return to the White House. 

Today is not that day, because Trump is still lying and breathing, and Mr. Blogger is still typing.

 

__________ 

Kansas voters clobber Republican amendment plan.

__________ 

 

Mr. Blogger is not delusional. He is a student of opinion polls, which in aggregate are rarely wrong. So, he understands that Trump could still come roaring back in 2024, and up and pardon himself. 

Meanwhile, let’s consider a few important developments, starting with Kansas. In that deep red state, Republican lawmakers were pushing for a chance to amend the state constitution – and take away abortion rights. That effort was clobbered by voters in yesterday’s election, with 59% giving thumbs down to the move. 

 

Kansas voters sent a clear message.

Elsewhere, a number of far-right candidates prevailed in GOP primairies, including a delusional crew of election deniers in Arizona. All are endorsed by the most delusional Republican of them all, Fat Donald, himself. 

Plus, if a Trump loyalist loses – or even wins – they now automatically claim their elections were rigged – even by other Republicans. In Michigan, Ryan Kelly finished fourth in the GOP gubernatorial primary. He claimed it was a “predetermined outcome.” 

In Kelly’s mind, the fact he had been arrested for his role in the January 6 riot was definitely not part of the problem! The sap lost by 25 points. 

In another “nail-biter,” Michigan Senate candidate Mike Detmer, who carried the coveted Trump endorsement into the contest, posted on social media that he was “not buying” election results. And, oh, so close! Detmer lost his primary to incumbent Sen. Lana Theis, by 16 percentage points.

 

Conspiracy theories abounded. Tina Peters, a Colorado candidate for secretary of state, lost her primary by a “razor thin” margin of 14 points. Not long after, Ms. Peters washed up on Steve Bannon’s podcast, and claimed that there had been “extensive malfeasance” in the race, and demanded a recount. 

The dupes listening to Steve and Tina began donating to her cause, and she forked out more than a quarter million dollars for a recount. 

What did she get for $256,000? She gained one (1) vote in a test county – but the winner gained two, as did the third-place finisher. So, Peters got nothing but heartbreak for her money. 

(Actually, “their” money – from the silly folks who believed her, and regularly believe in Steve “I Got a Pardon” Bannon.) 

Nor was Peters the only GOP kook to demand and pay for a recount and still end up getting toasted. In Colorado, there were three. Dr. Rae Ann Weber picked up five votes – but not enough to close the 31-point victory margin for the winner in her race. Peter Lupia picked up three votes, but his opponent gained two. So he still lost by 28 points. And yet another Republican candidate offered up the now-formulaic “stolen election” claim. Zamora Wilson gained zero votes (0) in her recount. 

And her opponent notched a gain of one, padding his 32-point win.

 

* 

The first chapter of the current Republican playbook. 

To be honest, it’s the first chapter of the current Republican playbook for losers in elections to claim fraud, often before votes are held – sometimes even when they win – and even if elections are run by other Republicans. In Nevada, a loser in the GOP primary for governor, paid big money for a recount, even though his Trump-endorsed foe prevailed by 11 points. 

When the recount showed he lost again, he did his best version of Fat Donald losing an election. “All they’re doing is using the same fixed and cooked ballots, putting them through the same, broken machines,” Joey Gilbert exclaimed in a video filmed outside the Clark County elections office. “So, do I expect much to come from this? No. But it’s part of the process.” 

(Irony abounded, when, the day after the primary, Nevada’s Republican Party chair, Michael McDonald – who had called the 2020 election rigged – rebuked Gilbert for insisting his contest was rigged.) 

Meanwhile, the winning GOP nominee for secretary of state prepped voters beforehand – in case he lost. In a February candidates’ forum, Jim Marchant warned his audience that their vote “hasn’t counted in decades.” 

The same warping could be seen in South Carolina – a deep crimson state, where GOP officials control voting. Two primary challengers, gubernatorial candidate Harrison Musselwhite and attorney general candidate Lauren Martel, claimed something was fishy in how they went down to defeat. Musselwhite, who goes by the nickname “Trucker Bob,” and campaigned on a promise to end “medical tyranny,” and conduct a “forensic audit of the 2020 presidential election” in the state, lost by 66 points. 

Martel ran a closer race – but still got doubled up by the incumbent, who outpolled her, 168,330 to 82,085. 

 

My favorite election denier. 

Conspiracy nuts abounded, until it began to look like the modern GOP was a pecan tree. In Florida, Jason Mariner got thumped in a special election to fill a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Even before all the votes were counted, he had filed suit, complaining about how the vote was being run. 

He lost by 60 points. 

In Arizona, Trump-endorsee Kari Lake, running on the idea that the state’s 2020 election results were fraudulent, predicted more fraud might be coming in her primary. She suggested that shady operators “might be trying to set the stage for another steal.” On Election Night, Lake claimed her campaign was “already detecting some stealing going on,”  but disdained providing evidence. She told reporters that changing election laws was her top priority. 

“This is why we’re in this race,” she exclaimed. “This is why we have this movement right here.” 

And, lo, did, the fraudsters prevail…and…Kari Lake piled up a 12,000 vote lead, with 82% of results counted.

 

My favorite election denier, however, is still Kandiss Taylor, who suffered crushing defeat in her race to be the next Republican nominee for governor of Georgia. Even if she had pulled a Trump, and called election officials, demanding they “find” the 11,780 votes she needed – and even if they did agree to commit election fraud – she was going to come up a bit short. 

Incumbent Brian Kemp piled up 73.7% of the total vote. Trump-endorsed David Perdue, finished second, with 21.8%. Ms. Taylor garnered a mere 3.4% of the votes – meaning she lost by 70.3 points. 

Taylor remained unbowed, not to be disheartened by actual math. “I want y’all to know that I do not concede,” she announced in a video posted to social media. “I do not. And if the people who did this and cheated are watching, I do not concede.” 

This, then, is the legacy of Donald J. Trump.

___

 

8/4/22: We already mentioned that August is off to a good start and that start keeps getting better. Not for Alex Jones, though. But when Jones is having a bad month, humanity writ large is thriving.

 

__________ 

“I unintentionally took part in things that did hurt these people’s feelings, and I’m sorry for that.” 

Alex Jones, host of Infowars, feigning empathy.

__________ 

 

In an epic blunder, Jones’s lawyers forwarded the entire contents of his phone to attorneys for Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of one of the children lost in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Heslin and Lewis are suing him for defamation, one of three such cases filed by Sandy Hook parents. Having won by default in all three, the parents have advanced to the settlement stage. 

Jones spent years spreading conspiracy theories about the slaughter, insisting it had all been staged. 

Now, he says he believes the killings were “100% real,” and who would ever have been dumb enough to believe what they had heard on his show?

 

What other news has come out of the trial? For pure fun, child pornography turned up on Jones’s phone – materials which his lawyers claimed had been buried in emails sent to the Infowars host, and which he would never have viewed in a million years. What Jones definitely saw, however, were emails and texts he said he never saw – some of which he himself sent to friends. In one he noted that his website was making $800,000 per day, selling male enhancement pills, bogus COVID cures, and Doomsday prep supplies. We also learned that Jones sent a naked picture of Erika Wulff-Jones, his wife, to seven-time felon Roger “I Got a Pardon Too” Stone. 

As one might expect, Mrs. Wulff-Jones was less than happy to learn this news.

 

“Honestly I was unaware that this occurred,” Wulff-Jones told [reporters]. “I’m sure this was some type of brag exchange, look how hot my wife is type thing.”

 

“I am upset that he took privilege to send the image to someone without my knowledge. However, that’s really the least of my problems right now,” Wulff-Jones added. 

 

The fun continued when the court was shown a clip of Jones, in a recent video from his show, red-faced, and pounding a table. He was shouting that the lawyer for the parents, Chris Mattei, was trying to frame him. Not to mention, Jones posted a photo of the judge in the case (a civil matter) going up in flames. 

“That’s justice burning,” he offered lamely, in defense, when asked about it during the trial.

 

* 

Seeking $150 million in damages. 

As far as his attacks on the Sandy Hook parents, he wanted them to know he felt bad about stirring up his listeners, so that they sent the plaintiffs, who had already endured the loss of their six-year-old child, threatening texts, emails, and phone messages. He was equally sad to learn that they had been repeatedly e He    accosted by angry Infowars fans on the street, and that gunshots had been fired at their home. 

“I unintentionally took part in things that did hurt these people’s feelings,” Jones told the court, in a futile attempt to mimic empathy, “and I’m sorry for that.” 

Then again, lawyers for the parents noted that Jones had also spread conspiracy theories about the Oklahoma City and Boston Marathon bombings, and the mass slaughters in Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida. 

Jones called the Parkland massacre, in which 17 students and teachers were killed, a “deep state false flag operation.” He put David Hogg, a 17-year-old survivor of that attack, and a leading voice in the demand for gun control, at risk. He insisted Hogg wasn’t a student at the school, but instead a “crisis actor.” Once again, he managed to animate his followers to make threats against Hogg’s life. 

And if you were going to threaten the other side’s lawyer, and the judge, why not go for the trifecta. As The New York Times explains:

 

In another broadcast, Infowars falsely linked the judge to pedophilia and human trafficking; in another, Mr. Jones questioned the intelligence of the jurors in the case, implying that his political enemies had handpicked “blue-collar” people who “don’t know what planet they’re on,” and were ill-equipped to decide what monetary damages he must pay [the parents] Ms. Lewis and Mr. Heslin. In written questions submitted to Mr. Jones, jurors took immediate issue with that characterization.

 

“Are you aware that this jury consists of 16 intelligent, fair-minded citizens who are not being improperly influenced in any way?” one wrote to Mr. Jones.

 

“I don’t think that you are operatives,” Mr. Jones replied.

 

The parents in just this one case are asking for $150 million in damages. 

Jones’s lawyer suggested $8, instead, one for each of the eight compensation charges the jury was considering. Poor Alex, himself, has claimed that even a damage award of $2 million would sink him. 

And good riddance if it did. (See: 8/5/22.)

___

 

8/5/22: Well, that didn’t take long. 

In the first trial for damages in a defamation case against Alex Jones, the jury found for the plaintiffs, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis. They ordered the host of Infowars to pay the plaintiffs $4.1 million in actual damages.

 

__________ 

Good job, American judicial system!

__________ 

 

Then the jury deliberated again – this time to determine punitive damages. In other words, they had to decide whether or not to punish Mr. Jones if they believed his damaging actions were intentional, willful, or wanton. 

(This, of course, requires the blogger to look up “wanton,” which takes only a moment, due to the glories of the internet. “Wanton” is defined as being “(of a cruel or violent action) deliberate and unprovoked.”

The jury decides Jones is a soulless bully, with a nationwide megaphone, spreading hate behind a veneer of First Amendment free speech. Alex Jones knew he was lying when he said the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was faked – and that parents like Heslin and Lewis, who lost a son – were part of “a hoax.” He knew his listeners were tormenting the plaintiffs, and other parents who lost their children that bloody day. And he didn’t care. 

With that, the jury awarded Heslin and Lewis $45.2 million in punitive damages. 

Good job, American judicial system! 

(For further reading – which this blogger is much too lazy to complete, see the 107-page document titled “Punitive Damages as Societal Damages,” by Catherine M. Sharkey in the Yale Law Review.)

___ 

 

8/6/22: Both Exxon and Chevron have announced record profits in the second quarter of this year. 

Yay, Big Oil! 

After expenses, Exxon had $17.9 billion left to bank. Chevron had $11.6 billion, with both companies tripling profits, compared to the same quarter last year. 

 

__________ 

Fresh evidence of climate change.

__________ 

 

Speaking of Big Oil, we have fresh evidence that climate change is real and will increasingly wreak havoc on humanity. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last year’s record-breaking coastal flooding was a harbinger of what’s to come. “King tides,” as high tide floodings are called, have already become more frequent in recent years. These tides, defined as rising more than two feet above the daily average, mean waters often  “cascade over streets and bubble up from storm drains.” Such tides used to occur only during storms. Now NOAA says they can happen if the moon is full, or result from a shift in the wind. 

Slowly rising sea levels, driven by climate change, are the main cause.

 

* 

Charging $20,000 per day for legal work. 

August is also starting off to be a bummer for Rudy Giuliani, thrice-divorced lawyer pal of twice-divorced, three-time adulterer Donald J. Trump. Not only is Rudy one of several Trump lawyers and Trump-loving news media outlets named in a damage claim of $1.3 billion in a defamation case filed by Dominion Voting Systems. Now he’s being sued by ex-wife #3. Judith Giuliani says her ex has failed to pay her $262,000 that the court says he owes. (See: 8/10/22.) 

He's also a target of the January 6 Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, looking into a scheme to create fake electoral votes in 2020. Those votes were then to be submitted to Vice President Mike Pence. Then Rudy and Don could sit back on January 6, 2021, and watch Mr. Pence overturn the real electoral vote. (See also: 8/10/22.) 

Anyone else involved in that scheme? Yes. Alex Jones – who has other legal woes – would be one. (See: 8/4/22 and 8/5/22). 

And let’s not ignore Dr. John Eastman, the alleged mastermind of the fake electoral votes plot. We know that while Eastman and Giuliani, and a host of others close to then-President Trump, had dinned in his ears claims of epic election fraud, that even they understood were weak. 

On January 20, 2021, just hours after Joseph R. Biden was inaugurated, Eastman sent Rudy a request. He wanted help collecting $270,000 he was owed by Team Trump for his efforts to subvert democracy. Eastman knew he and like-minded conspiracy kooks had failed to prove their case. He suggested looking into the special elections for U.S. Senate in Georgia, which had taken place on January 5. 

“A lot of us have now staked our reputations on the claims of election fraud,” he admitted, “and this would be a way to gather proof.” So far, Eastman realized, they had little. “If we get proof of fraud on Jan. 5, it will likely also demonstrate the fraud on Nov. 3, thereby vindicating President Trump’s claims and serving as a strong bulwark against [a] Senate impeachment trial.” 

The invoice Eastman sent included $10,000-per day charges for eight days in January 2021. That included efforts on January 4, and January 5, when Dr. Eastman and President Trump pressed Vice President Pence to throw out all the electoral votes that Mr. Trump didn’t like. 

Rudy also sent in a bill for services. In his case, he was charging the Trump campaign $20,000 per day. 

More recently, both Rudy and Dr. John have been telling congressional investigators that they would really like “to plead the Fifth.” (See also, Donald J. Trump: 8/10/22.)

___

 

 

8/7/22: If you drive north, up I-71, on the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio you see what looks like a long, high ridge on your left. A fence surrounds the site, and pipes stick out in places like porcupine quills. Often, a bulldozer or large dump truck or two can be seen working near the top.

 

__________

 

“Over-heated birds fell from the sky.”

 

April heat wave in India

__________

 

 

It’s the city dump, of course, growing larger every day. And for those who don’t believe in climate change, you wonder why not. Starting with the simplest possible point: Shouldn’t deniers ask: “Where does my toaster go when it dies?” Is there a heaven for old water heaters? When we put out trash every week, is our garbage reincarnated somehow?

 

I was thinking about this recently when I saw that experts predict the world population will pass eight billion on or about November 15 of this year. I remember, when I was just starting my teaching career, in 1975, having seen a story that the world had passed four billion people the year before.

 

And I knew that in the lifetime of my parents, the planet had first totaled two billion residents.

 

Which meant more and more dead toasters keep ending up in the world’s mushrooming dumps.

 

Then a story in the August 1, 2022, issue of The New Yorker caught my eye. In the opening scene, in a story focused on climate change, called “Fahrenheit 121,” we met the people who worked in and lived near the Bhalswa landfill, on the outskirts of Delhi, India. Last March was the hottest March on record in India. The same with April; and on April 26, the dump caught fire. It burned for weeks, clouding the city in toxic black smoke. But what most caught my eye was the size of the landfill, rising seventeen stories into the sky.

 

The moral of this story isn’t difficult to comprehend. World population will continue to grow. The Columbus dump and the Delhi dump will rise inexorably higher into the sky. And the planet will keep warming – unless we act very wisely – and if we fail, we’ll our children and grandchildren will all be screwed.

 

“The heat is rising rapidly and much earlier than usual,” Prime Minister Narenda Modi explained this spring. Extreme heat in India was melting glaciers in the Himalayas, drying out forests, and damaging crops on the plains. “On a particularly hot day in May,” reporters for The New Yorker said, “the high in Delhi hit a hundred and twenty-one, and overheated birds fell from the sky.”

 

*

 

The hottest day in 350 years.

 

In England, we had further warning, again noted by a writer for The New Yorker. Bill McKibben explained:

 

The longest-maintained temperature readings of any location on earth are in the Midlands of England. A monthly tally began in 1659, and the daily record dates back to 1772. One can imagine mutton-chopped clerics and ruddy-faced retired colonels, in the centuries since, tromping out to take those readings; some days it was hot and some days it was cold, but, until last month, the highest daily mean ever measured there was 25.2 degrees Celsius, or about 77.4 degrees Fahrenheit, in August of 2020. Then, on July 19, as an epic heat wave swept across the British Isles, the mark was reset at 28.1 Celsius, or 82.6 Fahrenheit. If that hadn’t happened, topping the previous high by a full 5.2 degrees Fahrenheit would have seemed statistically impossible. The fact that it did happen is frightening – a sign of a world coming unstuck.

 

The growing danger should be clear – as clear as the burgeoning dumps outside cities worldwide.

___ 

 

8/8/22: NEWS FLASH: F.B.I. agents, armed with a search warrant, have arrived at Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Or as Ex-President Blubber puts it in a statement on Truth Social, his website:

 

These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate. It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for president in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections. Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before. They even broke into my safe! What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democratic National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th president of the United States.

 

Trump went on to call the raid “political persecution,” and supporters started howling with rage, even before any details were known. 

For today, this blogger will only say: Can someone help the former president with the rules of capitalization? 

Can someone also tell him he is no longer “President of the United States?” Technically, he’s just some orange dope, who used to be president. He has no more protection under the law than you or me. 

Third, just because he’s having a bad day, that doesn’t mean the country is. Mr. Blubber and America are not one and the same. 

Finally, Watergate? Is Trump really that clueless? Good Lord. The Watergate burglars had no warrant. They were not working for any legitimate government agency, not CIA or F.B.I. They were burglars. They broke into the Democratic Party offices in the Watergate building and tried to steal documents and bug phones. 

Today, at Mar-a-Lago, F.B.I. agents made zero attempt to hide their search. We also learn that previous to that search they had subpoenaed sixty days’ worth of security tapes for Mar-a-Lago. They had been tipped by someone inside that highly classified documents were still present at the former president’s club. 

And they had watched people moving boxes of suspected classified materials from one location to another, with minimal security, or none, observed.

President Richard M. Nixon.

___

 

8/9/22: August was already off to a good start, with the stock market rebounding, and gas prices going down. Democrats in Congress had agreed on an important, albeit imperfect plan to address climate change – which virtually every scientist in the world knows to be a critical threat. 

Then news broke yesterday that the F.B.I. had raided Ex-President Blubber’s Mar-a-Lago estate. And cracked open his safe!

 

__________ 

“This. Means. War.” 

Gateway Pundit

__________ 

 

Generally speaking, we don’t know what was involved. Blubber was up at Bedminster, New Jersey, at one of his other private clubs. We do know multiple carloads of agents arrived at Mar-a-Lago, dressed in suits. They showed their warrant, which would mean a federal judge had signed off on the search. 

We know that a warrant would require, at minimum, a finding of “probable cause.” That is, a judge would have to believe the F.B.I. had reason to search the premises because evidence of a crime, or a plot to commit further crimes, would be found. We don’t know what crime or plot might be involved. 

There might not turn out to be anything there at all. 

This state of not knowing could not stop Trump fans and Trump allies in the GOP from erupting in paroxysms of fury. So far, however, no one has dared say the former president is innocent of all crimes. Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump issued dark warning, “If this is what they’re able to do to a former president of the United States, imagine what they can do to you.” 

(I tried my best to imagine – but I don’t have a safe.)

 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene barked in all caps: “DEFUND THE FBI!” and, for once, didn’t mangle the English language in a tweet. 

So, progress, I guess? 

Rep. Elise Stefanik called it “a dark day in American history,” described the free press as “mainstream media accomplices,” and managed to throw in a  reference to the ”deadly limo crash in Schoharie County,” in her district. That crash took place in 2018. When Donald J. Trump was in office. 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, famous for once saying he believed there were two people Putin paid – one being Donald J. Trump – went with a threat aimed at Attorney General Merrick Garland:  

Rude partisans on the left responded with mockery in multiple flavors, shapes, and sizes. One dredged up an old Trump tweet, noting that on June 7, 2017, President Trump had reported, “I will be nominating Christopher A. Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI. Details to follow.” 

Wray, a lifelong Republican, had to have signed off on the Florida raid.

 

Who else was having a tough time handling the truth? The actor Randy Quaid was ranting, all in caps, “THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION RAIDED TRUMPS HOME. UN-F*CKING BELIEVABLE. BIDEN IS A THUG!! GET RID OF HIM AND HIS POLICE STATE ADMINISTRATION!! LET’S GO BRANDON!!!!” Leo Terrell, a dependable ass-kisser for Trump, tweeted, “I am angry as hell. The FBI broke into President Trump’s private safe,” as if, “private safe” somehow sounded more sinister. (Who else’s safe would they have broken into during a raid?) Tomi Lahren referred to everyone at the F.B.I., and responsible for the raid, as “snakes.” Congressman Paul Gosar, last seen asking then-President Trump to set him up with a pardon, went with: “I will support a complete dismantling and elimination of the democrat brown shirts known as the FBI. This is too much for our republic to withstand.” 

In fact, the “law and order” crew was suddenly no longer in favor of either “law” or “order?”

 

Sen. Marco Rubio couldn’t know what might have been in Trump’s safe or hidden under the Mar-a-Lago beds. But Rubio was damn sure he didn’t want the legal system to complete its work. “Using government power to persecute political opponents is something we have seen many times from 3rd world Marxist dictatorships[,]” he tweeted: “But never before in America[.]” 

Slipping in the word “Marxist,” must have seemed slick to Rubio, an extra effort to scare the Trump base. From where I sit, if he wanted to scare his right-wing pals, I would have suggested he mention Vladimir Putin having had critics poisoned, and thrown off fifth-floor balconies, instead. 

You know. Trump’s pal. 

Richard Grenell went with the “Big Scare.” In his tweet, he echoed the fearmongering of Lara Trump. “Trump 2024,” he said. “Because the government is out to get you,” he warned. 

I thought his tweet merited response. “I’m not worried,” I assured Mr. Grenell. “I’ve never taken classified documents out of the White House, and I haven’t lied to three wives in a row, proving I can never be trusted in any respect.” 

Monica Crowley tiptoed closer to a line, where violence might seem to the loons in the Trump cult to be the rational choice. “The most dangerous threat we face,” she howled, “is the weaponization of our own government against us. We are at the tipping point.” 

Perhaps my favorite tweet came from Florida state representative Anthony Sabatini, who really wants to be elected to Congress in the fall:

 

It’s time for us in the Florida Legislature to call an emergency legislative session & amend our laws regarding federal agencies. Sever all ties with DOJ immediately. Any FBI agent conducting law enforcement functions outside the purview of our State should be arrested upon sight.

 

So, let’s be clear. Again. No one knows what the F.B.I. was searching for – or if they found what they hoped. As Mr. Blogger has said repeatedly, he never liked it when Trump fans at rally after rally would bay like football fans watching their favorite team in the Super Bowl, screaming “Lock her up!” 

Or: “Lock him up!” 

Or: “Lock them up!” 

We don’t know what was in the safe – or in all the boxes of documents federal agents removed.

 

* 

Could Sen. Lindsey Graham’s manhood turn up? 

We don’t know what we don’t know; but if we were the QAnon type, we could simply start making shit up about what was inside the safe. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s manhood, perhaps? A DNA test, proving that Barron Trump was a half-alien-lizard child? Blueprints for the Jewish space lasers, signed by Stephen Miller himself? The desiccated head of Hunter Biden – meaning that the Hunter Biden walking around now is really JFK Jr. in disguise! If you believe in QAnon-type conspiracies, any nonsense will suffice. 

We do know this. Steve Crowder, a conservative commentator with nearly two million followers announced, “Tomorrow is war. Then he followed, incongruously, with “Sleep well.” At Gateway Pundit, a Trump-friendly website, editors went with what they must have thought was a punchy version of a call for one group of Americans to kill another group. “This. Means. War,” they said. 

Not to be left out, Joe Kent, a Trump-endorsed candidate from Washington State, showed up on Steve “I Got a Pardon” Bannon’s podcast. Bannon asked Kent what he thought of the raid. “This just shows everyone what many of us have been saying for a very long time,” his guest replied. “We’re at war.” 

Against whom? There’s the rub. Ex-President Blubber has done more than any other American politician, since Jefferson Davis, to stir up support for a civil war. Last time we tried this route, 600,000 Americans were killed.

 

POSTSCRIPT: For an example of the kind of hatred coursing like poison through the veins of Trump fans, listen to the threatening phone call received by Congressman Eric Swalwell of California.

___ 

 

8/10/22: If you haven’t been following the story of the raid on Donald Trump’s garish Mar-a-Lago pleasure dome, you may not realize how violently those on the right are reacting to the news. Almost without exception, the loudest voices in the “law and order” Republican Party are furious to find out that F.B.I. agents obtained and executed a search warrant, as per the rules that pertain under the American judicial system. (See also: 8/9/22.) 

At least no one busted down the door, yelled “police,” and immediately opened fire, as so often happens in darker-skinned neighborhoods. 

See: Breonna Taylor.

 

__________ 

Only the mob – and Donald J. Trump – take the Fifth.

__________ 

 

Without a doubt, Team Trump has been taking a series of conks on the legal noggin’ of late. First, a unanimous decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found in favor of Congress. Investigators may now have a peek at Donald’s back taxes. 

Meanwhile, the former president had to show for a deposition in New York City today, related to possible financial shenanigans involving the Trump Organization. So, how did that go? 

Let Mr. Trump tell the story: “Under the advice of my counsel ...  I declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.” 

This would be fine if you were a fan, as is Mr. Blogger, of the U.S. Constitution and the rights guaranteed to defendants under the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments. We don’t want innocent people to be dragged into court and convicted unfairly. 

(See: Trump and the Central Park Five.)

 

Sadly, if you have kept your wits about you – as has this blogger – you may recall a happier time when Candidate Trump, in 2016, repeatedly barked at rallies about how, if people who worked for Hillary Clinton were innocent, “Why were they taking the Fifth?” In those days, Trump scoffed at the rights of individuals under investigation. “Only the mob takes the Fifth,” he loved to say. 

With that, his fans would start chanting. “Lock her up!” Then the howl would build. “Lock her UP! LOCK HER UP!” 

It was the roar of a mob – and Trump enjoyed it immensely – and he promised, as soon as he was president, he would lock Hillary up. (Don’t forget that whenever you hear Republicans whining now about how Biden has politicized the Justice Department. That was Trump’s plan.)

This might be funny now, were Trump’s loyal fans not so impenetrably clueless, regarding how the U.S. justice system works. So. Trump showed up in NYC, partly under threat of a criminal contempt order. And, lo, did he decide that he was innocent. And the investigation was a “witch hunt.” And he would prove it by “pleading the Fifth,” to every question, save one. Had he been asked, “Were you ever President of the United States?” he would have invoked his constitutional right not to incriminate himself. 

In fact, he reportedly took the Fifth on more than 440 questions, over a span of four hours. 

Meanwhile, at Mar-a-Lago, the guessing game has begun. If the F.B.I. knew Trump was still hiding classified documents at his club – that by law, he should have returned to the National Archives – how did they know? How did they know where to look? What current Trump aide, or Mar-a-Lago butler or maid, ratted out Donald “The Fifth?”

 

* 

Democracy in action – or maybe Uber. 

Donald wasn’t the only member of Team Trump to take a judicial crack on the skull this week. Rudy Giuliani suffered several. “America’s Mayor” has been served a subpoena himself – to show up for deposition in Fulton County, Georgia. In his case, a grand jury is considering indictments in a possible Republican conspiracy to commit election fraud. Rudy fought the subpoena and lost. Then he informed the judge that he couldn’t make it to Atlanta on August 17, as required. 

Why? 

He claimed he was too sick at 78, to fly. The judge told Rudy to hire an Uber and make the drive if he must. 

Mr. Blogger, ever ready to perform his civic duties, hereby makes this outstanding one-time offer. He will pick Rudy up at his home, and drive him to Georgia, charging only for gas and meals along the way. 

As we liberals like to call it: “Democracy in action.”

 

FUN FACT: We would be remiss if we failed to mention Congressman Scott Perry, of Pennsylvania. Rep. Perry was stopped Tuesday by federal agents – while traveling with his family. The Republican lawmaker is allegedly involved in the same voter fraud conspiracy as Rudy – the one that hinged on sending fake electoral votes to Congress and gifting Donald an unearned second term. Under yet another court-ordered search warrant, he was forced to give up his phone.

___

 

 

8/11/22: We continue to learn more about the raid on Mar-a-Lago. For example, it turns out investigators submitted a subpoena and received a copy of sixty days of security camera footage from Ex-President Blubber’s estate. 

In a separate matter, we learn that under New York State law, if a defendant in a civil case takes the Fifth, as did Donald J. Trump a “mere” 440 times yesterday, a jury can draw the inference that the defendant is liable. 

As, for example: 440 times!!!

__________ 

A felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.

__________ 

 

In the richest of ironies, we are reminded that on January 19, 2018, President Trump signed into law a little-noticed bill. The new law increased penalties for federal officials who knowingly removed classified materials from their proper place with intent to retain them at an “unauthorized location.” 

Yes! 

Trump did it to himself! It was already a felony, but he upped the punishment from one year in jail to five. 

Then we had this. Newsweek reported that two high-level government officials had  confirmed that the raid on Ex-President Blubber’s abode was based on a “confidential informant,” working inside the estate. That informant told agents what Blubber was hiding and where. 

(I, for one, am hoping it turns out to have been Melania.)

 

Two Trump lawyers, who were present during the search have said that the warrant was partially sealed. 

Behind that seal may lurk additional danger to any and all lawbreakers living and/or working at Mar-a-Lago.

 

* 

Trump is fine with the Russian system of justice. 

Finally, a few odds and ends. Rejected-President Don said recently that if it were up to him, he wouldn’t bother to win Brittney Griner, the WNBA star currently locked up in a Russian jail, her freedom. You know. Griner – who was just sentenced to spend the next nine-and-a-half years in a Siberian labor camp. Yeah. An American citizen. Donald didn’t care. He would let her rot. For some reason, he saw nothing wrong with the Russian justice system – whereas he has repeatedly called the U.S. system a “disgrace.” He called the basketball star a “potentially spoiled person,” who entered Russia “loaded up with drugs.” 

Those Russians! They were really great when it came to law and order, Trump implied. “They don’t like drugs. And she got caught. And now we’re supposed to get her out – and she makes, you know, a lot of money, I guess.” 

By contrast, the Biden administration is trying to work a deal to free Griner and Paul Whelan, a former marine convicted on espionage charges, detained by the Putin regime on December 28, 2018. 

While Trump was sitting on his fat fanny in the White House.

___ 

 

8/12/22: Donald J. Trump’s no-good, rotten, terrible month still isn’t getting any better. He loses another staunch supporter when Ricky Shiffer shows up at the F.B.I. office in Cincinnati, ready to defend the freedoms all Americans love by killing federal agents – because he’s angry that other F.B.I. agents got a search warrant and entered Donald’s Florida home.

__________ 

[The World War II generation…fought against fascism…fought against Nazism …fought against extremism. … You don’t understand what the war was all about. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that. It is with deep regret that I hereby submit my letter of resignation. 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Miley, letter to President Trump.

__________ 

 

In a vain attempt to breach security, Shiffer fires a nail gun, believing he has figured out a way to break bullet-proof glass. He hasn’t. The nail gun doesn’t do the trick, and the dope can’t get past the front door. 

Shiffer leaps back into his car and flees, heading north on I-71. Units from the Ohio Highway Patrol pursue. Shiffer defends the Constitution by shooting at them from his car. Blue lives matter, right! He is chased off the interstate forty miles north, cornered in a field, and a gun battle ensues. Shiffer is wearing body armor, and wielding an AR-15, which helps him defend freedom, but he is finally shot and killed. 

The deceased had previously bragged about taking part in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. But no evidence had been found and he had never been charged. He was a huge fan of Trump’s new social media site, Truth Social, where he posted about the need for good Americans to prepare for “combat,” and protect freedom, by killing those of us who didn’t vote for Trump. Shiffer was allegedly a member of that Constitution-loving group known as the Proud Boys. That was the group Trump once urged during a presidential debate to “stand back, but stand by.” 

Shiffer was standing by. And the search at Mar-a-Lago set him off. “We must not tolerate this one,” he wrote in one post. In another, he urged people to kill F.B.I. agents “on sight, and be ready to take down other active enemies of the people and those who try to prevent you from doing it.” 

If you were driving along I-71, while law enforcement was in pursuit, and Shiffer’s shots hit you or your passengers – well, that’s the price of fighting to keep Donald J. Trump in office, right?

 

* 

“Doing great and irreparable harm to my country.” 

In other news, we learn that in the summer of 2020, then-Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley, wrote a scathing resignation letter to then-President Trump – but decided not to send it. 

(And the reason he didn’t is chilling.)

 

Milley’s concerns had been building for months, when, on June 1, 2020, Trump ordered peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square, just across the street from the White House, cleared by force. 

Trump had also talked openly about using troops to crush Black Lives Matter protests. At one point he mused, “Why can’t they just shoot them?” 

(Kind of the same idea as Shiffer!)

 

Now, on June 8, the general made it clear. He had had his fill. Milley penned the following letter of resignation, which should tell us all we need to know about what kind of leader Trump was.

 

I regret to inform you that I intend to resign as your Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thank you for the honor of appointing me as senior ranking officer. The events of the last couple weeks have caused me to do deep soul-searching, and I can no longer faithfully support and execute your orders as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country. I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military. I thought that I could change that. I’ve come to the realization that I cannot, and I need to step aside and let someone else try to do that.

 

Second, you are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people – and we are trying to protect the American people. I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people. The American people trust their military and they trust us to protect them against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and our military will do just that. We will not turn our back on the American people.

 

Third, I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States and embodied within that Constitution is the idea that says that all men and women are created equal. All men and women are created equal, no matter who you are, whether you are white or Black, Asian, Indian, no matter the color of your skin, no matter if you’re gay, straight or something in between. It doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, or choose not to believe. None of that matters. It doesn’t matter what country you came from, what your last name is – what matters is we’re Americans. We’re all Americans. That under these colors of red, white, and blue – the colors that my parents fought for in World War II – means something around the world. It’s obvious to me that you don’t think of those colors the same way I do. It’s obvious to me that you don’t hold those values dear and the cause that I serve.

 

And lastly it is my deeply held belief that you’re ruining the international order, and causing significant damage to our country overseas, that was fought for so hard by the Greatest Generation that they instituted in 1945. Between 1914 and 1945, 150 million people were slaughtered in the conduct of war. They were slaughtered because of tyrannies and dictatorships. That generation, like every generation, has fought against that, has fought against fascism, has fought against Nazism, has fought against extremism. It’s now obvious to me that you don’t understand that world order. You don’t understand what the war was all about. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that. It is with deep regret that I hereby submit my letter of resignation.

 

The general’s disgust was clear; but in the end, Milley decided to remain at his post and do his best to mitigate any further damage Trump might do. He had joined a lengthening list of those who had worked with Trump – people Trump chose for their jobs – who came to understand that the President of the United States was a clear and present danger to the republic. 

Among those who were called to serve, and who came away repulsed by what they had witnessed, we now add Gen. Milley’s name.

 

We have, then, Milley. We have General James Mattis, Trump’s first secretary of defense. and Mark Esper, his second. We include Richard V. Spencer, who served as Trump’s secretary of the Navy, Gen. John Kelly, who took the job of White House chief of staff, and John Bolton, Trump’s second National Security advisor. Add Bolton’s top lieutenant, Dr. Fiona Hill. Add Rex Tillerson, Trump’s first secretary of state, and Ambassador Bill Taylor (and a slew of other diplomats.) Don’t forget Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified against Trump under oath in regard to his first impeachment – and who never once had to plead the Fifth. Add his last attorney general, Bill Barr, and Barr’s replacement, Jeffrey Rosen, who served as acting attorney general, and Rosen’s top two aides, Richard Donoghue, and Steve Engle, all four of whom told Trump the 2020 election was never stolen. 

You don’t have to take some poor blogger’s word for it – although this blogger did serve in the Marines, and did teach American history, and does possess a solid understanding of the rule of law. Trump is, and remains, for now, the most dangerous politician in the history of this nation.

 

POSTSCRIPT: A brief word to any Trump fan who might stumble upon this blog and not want to start loading his or her gun, and mumbling about “libtards,” and pondering “civil war.” You do know that the Director of the F.B.I., who had to sign off on the warrant to search Mar-a-Lago was a Republican, too, don’t you? And that Trump chose him for his position? 

These are the people who have been serving as a bulwark, doing what they could to guard the American people from the authoritarian. 

That is: the man who hired them. 

___ 

 

8/13/22: When this blogger was a Marine, he and his comrades used to say that a person who f**ked up in some unforced fashion, had “stepped on his dick.” 

 

__________ 

Trump sycophants accuse the F.B.I. of planting damaging documents at Mar-a-Lago – which Trump later admits were actually there!

__________ 

 

In recent days, Trump supporters have been trampling on their dicks. Let us count the ways. 

1.     The right-wing chorus has been howling about the F.B.I. and other federal agencies, and how they’re attacking the U.S. Constitution, because agents raided the home of former President Trump. The level of calls online to “kill the feds” has ramped up – as Trump fans talk more and more seriously about killing other Americans. Trump could call off the dogs. 

2.     He hasn’t. Because he’s Trump. 

3.     On Fox News, Brian Kilmeade tried to tarnish the image of the judge who granted the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago. Viewers were shown a photo of Judge Bruce Reinhart “having his feet massaged by convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, and holding Oreo cookies and beer on a plane.” (Viewers were led to assume it was notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s plane, the “Lolita Express.”) That photo turned out to have been doctored, and Kilmeade had to apologize for what you’d have to say was honest-to-gosh “Fake News.”

 

4.     No member of Team Trump wanted to remind the Trump base that it was Alex Acosta, Secretary of Labor in the first Trump cabinet, who cut Epstein a sweet deal that saved him from spending a decade or more in prison. 

5.     Assorted Trump enablers stumbled over their dicks, trying to make the F.B.I. raid sound like a frontal assault on all Americans’ freedoms. Sen. Marco Rubio claimed an “Obama judge” had granted the search warrant. That led freedom-loving Trump fans to decide it would be a fine idea to start making anti-Semitic comments about Reinhart, who is Jewish, and then sweeten the deal by threatening to attack him, and the synagogue where he worships. 

6.     Garrett Zeigler, loyal Trump aide last seen posting racist, misogynistic posts himself, dug up information on two F.B.I. officials who signed off on papers related to the search. He thought it would be a terrific way to “Make America Great Again,” if he posted their pictures and home addresses – and links to their children’s social media accounts – online. “Hope he doesn’t get a good night’s sleep for the rest of 2022,” Zeigler fumed, in regard to one official.

 

7.     And also, let his wife and kids live in fear. Right, Garrett? 

8.     Rejected-President Trump hinted in a flurry of social media posts that the F.B.I. had come into his home – and planted the damaging documents they were supposedly searching for to begin. This QAnon-style conspiracy spread far and wide in the world of right-wing fools. 

9.     That fish tale was undercut when Trump’s lawyer, Christina Bobb, admitted that he and assorted Trump family members were able to watch the search on closed-circuit TV. Bobb herself was present at Mar-a-Lago, which spoilt the right-wing claim that no one from Team Trump was allowed to be present during the search.

 

10. The story of the “planted evidence” was killed for good when Ex-President Blubber admitted there were highly-classified documents present at Mar-a-Lago all along. (We have since learned that at least some of these materials were related to America’s nuclear weapons.) Well, no harm, no foul! Because now Blubber claimed he had declassified them all. 

11. F.B.I. agents found multiple folders filled with secret documents, none of which were marked “declassified” as required by law. In fact, they carried away twenty-seven more boxes of documents – to add to the fifteen boxes other agents took away earlier this year. 

12. We learned that a Trump lawyer had signed a letter in June, promising that no more classified materials remained at Mar-a-Lago. And if you can’t trust a lawyer – working for Donald J. Trump – who can you trust?

 

13. That lawyer may now be in serious legal jeopardy. (See also: Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, 8/6/22.) 

14. Having painted himself into a corner, the former president tried next to claim that if he kept highly-classified materials in an unsecured location, it wasn’t so bad, because Obama did it! Blubber made a special effort to refer to his predecessor as “Barack Hussein Obama. (Did you know that many Trump supporters still believe Obama is a Muslim – and still think he wasn’t born in America – even though Blubber has long since admitted he was?) Trump claimed Obama took 33,000,000 pages of documents, many classified, with him to Chicago when he departed the White House. (Note the clever use of “33” – as in Hillary’s 33,000 missing emails.) Trump also wondered aloud, “How many of them were nuclear? Word is, lots!” 

15. “Word is,” is not actual evidence. But it works for Blubber, and it always seems to work with his fans. 

16.  Even Fox News shoots that stupid claim down. 

17.  The National Archives and Records Administration also blows that claim to bits, using the kind of language one might use if talking to a small child. As the Washington Post explains, NARA said it had obtained “exclusive legal and physical custody” of Obama’s records when he left office in 2017. Officials estimated that about thirty million pages of records were transferred to a facility in the Chicago area and that they were maintained “exclusively by NARA.” 

18. There are indications that some documents found at Mar-a-Lago carried “Special Access Programs” designation. Such documents could include details about highly sophisticated technology used in – for instance – the top secret new B-21 stealth bomber. The U.S. Air Force would in no way want such details to leak to China, Russia, or Iran. And these were not exactly the kind of documents you want lying around at the Mar-a-Lago Club, where rich doofus friends of Ex-President Blubber come to hang out and talk about golf and B-21s.

 

19. Marjorie Taylor Greene and an array of Republican fools have kept themselves occupied by attacking President Biden – even though there’s no evidence he knew about the search beforehand. Thankfully, a few sensible GOP voices have been raised. “It’s incumbent upon everybody to act in a way that’s becoming of the office they hold,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a former F.B.I. agent, “And that’s not casting judgment on anything until you know all the facts.” Fitzpatrick said he hoped that transparency about the search would help restore the credibility of the F.B.I. “There’s nothing I want more than the American public to love the F.B.I.” 

20. Rep. Chris Stewart also commented: “I mean, if [Trump] had actual Special Access Programs – do you know how extraordinarily sensitive that is? ... If that were actually at his residence, that would be a problem.” 

21. Yep.

 

22. Finally, we would be wise to remember something Susan M. Gordon, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence from 2017 to 2019, once said. She suggested that the incoming president, Mr. Biden, should no longer provide security updates to the exiting leader of the Free World, because of “the potential national security risk posed by Donald Trump, private citizen.” Trump, she warned, would be “unusually vulnerable to bad actors with ill intent.” 

 

* 

Meanwhile, in court, Team Trump suffered another kick in the legal nuts, when a judge in New York City ruled that the criminal fraud case against the Trump Organization, and Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg could proceed. The fifteen-count indictment includes tax evasion charges, and also charges for grand larceny. 

Also facing fresh legal problems, we have Alex Jones. After his lawyer in one case blunders and sends the entire contents of his phone to the lawyer for the other side, it turns out Jones had had somehow obtained the medical and psychiatric records of several of the parents who lost children in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. These were the same parents who were suing them in three defamation cases. This is almost certain to be a violation of all kinds of laws.

___ 

 

8/15/22: Today, it’s time for fun facts! This morning, we learned that Rudy Giuliani has been notified. He is now a target of the grand jury investigation in Fulton County, Georgia, involving possible conspiracy to commit election fraud. Finally! Courts are taking efforts to steal the 2020 presidential election seriously – by Rudy and Donald J. Trump and their feloniously-inclined Republican pals. In related news, Sen. Lindsey Graham, who may have played a supporting role, has been ordered by a federal judge to show up and testify before the same grand jury. 

Now, the real question! Can either Lindsey or Rudy come close to Donald’s record-setting effort last week? When forced to give a deposition in a New York civil case, Ex-President Blubber set a Mt. Everest-high bar. He “took the Fifth” more than 440 times. 

Think about that. 

More than four hundred and forty times. (See: 8/10/22.) 

We should also note, that since the investigation in Fulton County involves violations of Georgia state law, a president could not pardon his pals. That would mean Rudy and (less likely) Lindsey could be looking at jail time.

 

* 

In other crime news (alleged), Donald has called on the F.B.I. to return documents they took during the recent search of his Mar-a-Lago club. This is interesting because Trump originally claimed, through his lawyer, that no more classified documents remained at his home. Then he claimed that any classified documents that turned up during the search were planted by the feds. Then he said, well, it didn’t matter. The top secret documents were there all along – even though he said they weren’t – but he had used his authority while president to declassify everything agents found, because “everyone ends up having to bring home their work from time to time.” 

If you thought Trump was lying from the start, you were not wrong.

 

 

* 

We also know that Trump and his allies have spent the last 24 hours demanding that the Justice Department release the affidavit, explaining why the Mar-a-Lago club was searched to begin. DOJ offered the following explanation for why it could not. 

Reading between the lines, there would seem to be serious legal danger involved for persons unnamed. 

In short, DOJ does not: 

·       Want the identity of cooperating witnesses revealed.

·       Want to discourage other witnesses from coming forward with information that might help with the investigation.

·       Want to provide targets of this, or any other investigation, a “roadmap” of the government’s case.

·       Want to divulge “future investigative steps.”

·       Want to reveal “other high-profile investigations.”

 

In closing, the Justice Department adds, “The fact that this investigation implicates highly classified materials further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the investigation and exacerbates the potential for harm if information is disclosed to the public prematurely or improperly.” 

The threats of violence directed at F.B.I. officials, the judge who granted the warrant for the search, and Democratic leaders, also lead DOJ officials to say they want to keep the identity of cooperating witness secret for now.

 

* 

And we’re still not done with the court news for today! The New York Times is reporting that the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization has reached some sort of plea deal. Andrew Weisselberg is expected to cop to a felony, but spend only five months behind bars. Hefty fines also seem likely. 

Weisselberg is refusing so far to implicate anyone else in this case (such as his boss, Donald J. Trump) but we will soon be adding another convicted felon to the Team Trump “Wall of Shame.” 

We’re going to need a bigger wall.

 

* 

Since both the F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security have issued warnings of increasing risks of attack – by Trump supporters on federal agents – judges – and Democratic leaders – we have to wonder what Ex-President Blubber will have to say about this. After all, any ordinary president or former president would hope that Americans would not kill other Americans. Am I right? On Fox News, Monday morning, what Blubber said was this: “People are so angry at what is taking place. Whatever we can do to help – because the temperature has to be brought down in the country. If it isn’t, terrible things are going to happen.” 

To fans of Fox News, it sounded like Don wanted to help. 

To most Americans, it sounded like a threat. Nor did Donald help bring the temperature down any, when he posted this screed on Truth Social, his social media ap, later in the day:

The fact is, “America” wasn’t suffering as a result of the search at Mar-a-Lago, any more than “America” suffered when Bill Clinton did have sex with that woman in the White House and got impeached for lying, or when Richard M. Nixon had to resign for sending burglars to the Watergate. 

No one is above the law in this country. 

Simple concept.

 

* 

In unrelated, but amusing news, we learned that Lions Not Sheep, a Utah apparel company that loves to sell shirts and hats and probably sexy underwear, supporting Trump, has been busted. 

We all know how much Trump supporters hate China, Chinese people, people who look Chinese – as for example, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Asian Americans – and companies that ship good American jobs overseas. 

So, what sin did Sheep Not Lions commit? The company has been fined $200,000 for ripping out “Made in China” tags, in MAGA gear it sells, and proudly substituting “Made in America” tags, instead. 

Check your red MAGA hat! 

In other hat-related news, Hillary Clinton decided to troll Ex-President Blubber in the wake of the raid on his Florida home. She posted the picture below, and reminded supporters that profits from sales of hats and t-shirts, carrying the slogan, “But Her Emails,” would go towards fighting for democratic causes.

 

* 

We can also report with a grin that Save America, Donald’s political action committee, has raised $250 million on a promise to fight voter fraud. As part of that effort, Save America handed over $60,000 to Hervé Pierre Braillard. 

Four installments. Fifteen thousand each. 

This is fun – because Mr. Braillard is former First Lady Melania Trump’s fashion consultant. And he was paid for “consulting services.” You can’t fight voter fraud if you’re not dressed in style. 

Also: No real voter fraud has been found.

 

* 

We also have fresh evidence to prove that right-wing types will never lose another election without claiming to have seen Bigfoot the Illegal Voter trooping through the woods, on his way to the polls. In Kansas voters blew up a GOP bid to amend the constitution and take away abortion rights. The margin of victory, for the pro-choice side was a whopping 165,000. 

Nothing daunted, Melissa Leavitt, an anti-abortion activist, has asked for a recount, insisting in a social media post that she has seen “data…that there were irregularities” on election night. 

This is Kansas, folks, a bright red state where sensible Republicans control all the levers of power. 

But Leavitt has her pet conspiracy theory, and started a campaign to raise the $275,000 required to pay for a recount of all 922,000 ballots. As of Saturday afternoon, she had raised $4,000. “I’m just going to say the next 48 hours is going to have a lot to do with God moving in people’s lives,” Leavitt said in a TikTok video. “And if it’s going to happen it’s going to happen and if it doesn’t it doesn’t. But I’m praying. I’m praying that we get it.” 

It may be true that God works in mysterious ways, but ballots aren’t loaves and fishes. There’s no chance the results of the vote will be overturned, even if Jesus returns to count them all by Himself. 

(Clearly, Jesus would never cheat when counting.)

 

* 

If you still believe in the “Stolen 2020 Election” myth, as the delusional former president still does, you are probably going to feel even sadder at news coming out of Wisconsin. State Assembly Leader Robin Voss, a Republican, has officially ended a review of that state’s 2020 voting results. 

After more than a year devoted to looking for election fraud, at a cost to taxpayers of $1 million, Voss pulled the plug, since nothing worth note had been discovered. 

Trump allies had been pushing to “decertify” the Wisconsin results from 2020. So, mark it down as another defeat for Ex-President Blubber. We rarely quote Democrats on this blog – preferring to let sensible Republicans, and non-partisan voices bolster our points. In this case, Democratic state Rep. Mark Spreitzer will have to suffice. “This sham investigation should never have started. It’s a shame it took so long for it to come to this pathetic end,” he said.

 

* 

Finally, in news that’s not even remotely fun, armed Trump supporters showed up in body armor, carrying AR-15 style weapons, outside the Phoenix office of the F.B.I. Because nothing says, “We believe in free and fair elections, and the Constitution,” like showing up and threatening to kill other Americans.

___ 

 

8/16/22: Yesterday, Rejected-President Trump talked about the need to “bring the temperature” down, since his fans have been talking increasingly loudly about civil war. 

__________ 

Talking “civil war:” Americans killing Americans.

__________ 

 

That is: Americans killing other Americans. 

Just before midnight, Trump changed his mind. On Truth Social, he started bellowing his rage once more:

 

There is no way to justify the unannounced RAID of Mar-a-Lago, the home of the 45th president of the United states (who got more votes, by far, than any sitting president in the history of our Country!), by a very large number of gun toting FBI agents, and the Department of “Justice” but, in the interests of TRANSPARENCY, I call for the immediate release of the completely Unredacted Affidavit pertaining to this horrible and shocking BREAK IN. Also, the judge on this case should recuse!

 

With that, he did his best to raise the temperature level even higher.

 

*

 

Meanwhile, down in Georgia, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is always good for a laugh. Rep. Greene showed up recently to talk to constituents about how much she loves washers, and driers. She wanted it to be clear. She loves them. And probably hair dryers and microwaves and electric toothbrushes, too. She warned her audience that wind power and solar energy were going to kill air conditioning and appliances by increasing our supply of electricity. “I’m going to be really pissed off about that,” she told her fans, to general laughter.

 

“I like the lights on,” she continued. “I like to stay up late at night. I don’t want to have to go to bed when the sun sets.”

 

Green energy, she grumbled, was “insane.”

 

Clearly, Greene was not staying up late at night to study the issues that face not only Georgia voters, but all Americans – and all humanity. Researchers from Finland have been studying satellite reports, going back to 1979. Generally, it has been believed that temperatures in the Arctic have been increasing at two or three times the rate in lower latitudes. Mika Rantanen, a researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, told The New York Times, “But when you look at the data, you can easily see that it is close to four.” The Barents Sea, between Russia and Alaska, she continued, was heating up seven times as fast.

 

At the opposite pole, NASA scientists are focused on equally worrisome developments. Ice sheets in Antarctica are crumbling twice as fast as it was thought. As Time explains, “Since 1997, 12 million metric tons [of ice] have been lost, the data shows, as opposed to the six million previously estimated.”

 

Chad Greene (no relation to the clueless congresswoman), co-author of a recent NASA study, warns, “Antarctica is crumbling at its edges.”

 

That’s bad news not just for Antarctica, but for the rest of the world. Floating shelves act as buttresses for the ice covering the Antarctic continent itself, and the more of the shelving that is lost, the more of the land-based ice is able to be lost too, contributing significantly to the rise of sea levels worldwide.

 

What led to the just-released findings were satellite measurement techniques that use altimeters not to measure the vertical sprawl of the ice, but the horizontal elevation. The height of the ice, the instruments found, has lowered, indicating that the warming ocean is melting them from below, making them thinner, more brittle, and more prone to calve away.

 

Even worse, ice loss is expected to accelerate in decades to come. According to NASA, “Antarctica’s largest ice shelves all appear to be headed for major calving events in the next 10 to 20 years.”

 

Rep. Greene doesn’t know any of this, because if she were given chocolate pudding for brains, it would be a noticeable improvement. She spends her time talking about how green energy will mean we all have to go to bed at sundown. Can we just chip in and buy her a kerosene lantern?

 

FUN FACT: In other news, we can also report that Rupert Murdoch, billionaire owner of Fox News, pillar of conservative values – such as family, flag, and tax cuts for fat cats – has finalized his divorce from wife #4.

 

Which is why I think we can all agree: The problem in America is that gays and lesbians can marry whomever they choose.

 

FUN FACT #2: If you missed this on Monday, President Trump offered a glowing book recommendation for Paul Manafort.

 

Yes.

 

As in, “Paul Manafort, the ten-time-convicted felon, who worked with Russians during the 2016 Trump campaign.”

 

Trump took the side of this sleazebag – over U.S. law enforcement. You cannot make this kind of story up.

___

8/17/22: Team Trump takes another hit when it is learned the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, Allen H. Weisselberg, is ready to plead to – not one felony – not two – not three.

 

Try FIFTEEN!!

 

He will admit he committed tax fraud. He will admit he committed grand larceny. He will admit he falsified business records. Finally, he will admit to having taken part in a conspiracy.

 

In other words, the guy is a one-man crime wave. Now, get this. He’s expected to serve only five months in jail.

 

“WTF,” you are thinking.

 

Don’t despair. Weisselberg was conspiring to commit a variety of crimes. Now he will be required to spill the beans on how the Trump Organization operated. Weisselberg will admit he managed to hide $1.76 million in income, as part of a complicated, years-long tax avoidance scheme.

 

Prosecutors must believe he can spill some beans on other tax cheats linked to the scheme.

 

Who else was in on the conspiracy? I wonder. Could it be…

 

Mr. Trump? Maybe Mr. Trump Jr.? And the other adult Mr. Trump? Maybe Ivanka, as well?

 

*

 

Also on Wednesday, Rudy Giuliani showed up to give testimony in a grand jury probe in Fulton County, Georgia. That probe is investigating a possible conspiracy to commit election fraud – organized by Joe…

 

Ha, ha, no. Rudy is allegedly a target of the investigation – and is suspected of helping organize a plot to steal the 2020 election in that state – and hand over sixteen unearned electoral votes to Donald J. Trump. According to news reports, he was grilled for more than six hours.

 

So, what do we know for sure? Should we start drooling like Trump supporters at a rally, and start chanting, “Lock him up!”

 

Rudy could be innocent. We don’t know. Trump could be innocent; but I’ve listened to his call to the Georgia secretary of state, where he asked him to “find” him 11,780 votes.

 

I’m not going to start chanting till the courts act; but I’ve listened to that call, and you should too. If it doesn’t sound to you like then-President Trump was suborning election fraud, you need to check your ears for wax buildup.

 

Finally, let’s remind our readers (if any) of how many members of Team Trump have proved prolific when it comes to committing felonies.

 

Allen H. Weisselberg: For now, he moves into first place, as the member of Team Trump with the most felonies to his name. He’s going to be tough to beat.

 

Paul Manafort drops into second – eight felony convictions – but an admission of guilt in ten more cases! Then he racked up another felony for witness-tampering. I can never remember how many total felonies Manafort had, because he also got a few for tax evasion. 

Konstantin Kilimnik – zero felony convictions – because this Manafort pal escaped to Russia before he could be arrested. 

Roger Stone – lied to Congress about meeting with Russians during the 2016 campaign. Charged with seven felonies, including one for witness intimidation, and convicted on all counts. 

You can kind of see a trend.

___

 

8/21/22: This seemed like a long time coming (see our posts for 2/4/19 and 7/29/19), but Tom Barrack, another Trump crony, joins the roster of arrestees who worked with the former president during his 2016 campaign, or palled around with “45” while he was in office.

 

____________________ 

Barrack put U.S. foreign policy up for sale.

____________________ 

 

In a numbskull nutshell, the billionaire businessman and longtime friend of Loser Don is accused of conducting foreign policy to benefit the United Arab Emirates (and to a lesser degree Saudi Arabia), rather than serving the interests of…um…this country right here. 

Barrack has been shady for years – which makes him a perfect walk-on character in the history of Donald J. Trump. He has also been charged with obstructing justice, the go-to move of every alleged Trumpian crook in every episode in the last five years. 

In one email, Barrack refers to the UAE as the “home team,” when in fact, the United States is the home team.

 

Here are just a few of the questionable connections and actors in this story. Start with Barrack. Throw in Matt Grimes, also indicted, who reported directly to Barrack at Colony Capital, the firm Barrack founded. And what country has invested heavily with Colony? You will never guess. 

Okay. You guessed. The United Arab Emirates. 

Then toss a third indicted co-conspirator – by the name of Rashid Sultan Rashid Al Malik Alshahhi, a.k.a. Rashid Al Malik and Rashid Al‑Malik, 43, a U.A.E. businessman, into the mix. 

In the indictment against him, prosecutors allege that Barrack put U.S. foreign policy up for sale. Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia were intent on winning a battle for influence in the Persian Gulf, against rival Qatar. So, if they could gain access to or influence with Trump, they were ready to pay. 

As the Washington Post explains:

 

“The defendant is charged with extremely serious offenses based on conduct that strikes at the very heart of our democracy [emphasis added],” prosecutors wrote in a court filing. Barrack, they said, “capitalized on his position of significant influence as an outside advisor to the Campaign and the Administration and as a national media figure with regularly televised interviews on major news networks to further the interests of the UAE as directed by senior UAE officials and their intermediaries.”

 

There are plenty of other fishy details to this story – including Barrack’s work with the 2016 Trump campaign, as alluded to by prosecutors. Barrack was in charge of the Trump Inaugural Committee. That committee is also under investigation for questionable spending practices, including vastly overpaying for use of Trump Hotel facilities in D.C. during the festivities. That included spending $300,000 to pay for a party for the Trump children. 

But wait, there’s more! Rick Gates worked on the Inaugural Committee with Barrack, too. Even after he ran into trouble – for working with Paul Manafort – who was collaborating with Russian agents during the campaign – Barrack kept Gates on his payroll, to the tune of $20,000 monthly. Gates ended up pleading guilty to multiple felonies, got sentenced to 45 months in jail, and agreed to cooperate with the Mueller investigation. Manafort refused to cooperate, got convicted on eight counts of fraud – then got convicted again in a case of witness tampering – then got charged in state courts with mortgage fraud – and then got a pardon from President Trump, which he assuredly did not deserve. 

Barrack also worked with Elliott Broidy to advance the interests of the United Arab Emirates. Broidy’s reward was a deal worth, by one account, as much as $600 million, to organize intelligence work for the U.A.E. Broidy then got indicted – for crimes similar to those with which Barrack is charged. Last October, Broidy plead guilty to one felony, again, basically for selling U.S. foreign policy, with so many sleazy side deals, we’ll just say you should read the Department of Justice charging document about it. Then, in December, he got a pardon too. 

But wait, again! There’s still more. Because now we have to throw in the guy who got busted for sex-trafficking a minor. Both Barrack and Broidy had worked in concert with George Nader, who was working for the U.A.E. to facilitate their interests. He ended up ensnared in the Mueller investigation and got nailed – and not for the first time – for dabbling in child pornography and having sex with minors. And, since we know Republicans hate homosexuals – we should note his victim was a 14-year-old boy. Nader’s already spending the next ten years behind bars.

 BLOGGER’S NOTE (12/2/22): Fair is fair, and the blogger might have had this one wrong. Well, not counting the parts where Gates and Broidy and Nader all get sent to prison – or nearly, not couting Broidy’s highly suspicious pardon. 

We do know now that Barrack and Grimes were both acquitted in court in November 2022. 

So: Nobody new is getting locked up. 

Still, you have to wonder why the third defendant, Rashid Sultan Rashid Al Malik Alshahhi fled the country shortly after being interviewed by the F.B.I. 

He hasn’t been seen in these parts since 2018.

___

8/25/22: The world waits with bated breath for the release of the redacted search warrant related to the F.B.I. visit to the Trump estate at Mar-a-Lago. 

Until tomorrow, we will have to be happy with other developments. Such as, real voter fraud!!!

 

__________ 

The nation wasn’t shocked at all.

__________ 

 

Yes. Bigfoot and Yeti and Elvis Presley have all been spotted heading to the polls to cheat Republicans out of victories they deserved. Elvis, still spry at 87, did a little hip shake before entering the polling place – despite the fact he had been declared dead and taken off the voter rolls in 1977. 

This past Tuesday, once again, a Republican loser in an election cried “voter fraud wolf!” 

This time it was Laura Loomer – disdained in decent GOP circles (which still exist!) as a hateful white nationalist and proud Islamophobe – who lost a GOP primary in Florida. In other words, the crazy Republicans continued to eat the sane Republicans whenever they could. 

“I’m not conceding, because I’m a winner!” Loomer cried, even though a count of the votes showed she wasn’t. “And the reality is, this Republican Party is broken to its core,” she continued.

 

(This blogger could not agree more – albeit for different reasons.)

 

“What we have done tonight is really, honestly shocked the nation,” she said through tears.

 

In fact, the nation wasn’t shocked at all. Not even miffed or perplexed. The vote went as follows:

 

Webster:        43,471    (51.2%)

Loomer:         37,612    (44.2%)

 

The rest of the ballots were marked for a third candidate – or ended up scattered for other dark horse choices. (Did you know Mickey Mouse often gets votes? Also, random people like to vote for themselves.)

 

“Loomer the Loser” wasn’t having it. “We have further exposed a corruption within our own feckless, cowardly Republican Party. And that is exactly the reason why, right, I decided to go against the RINO Republican Daniel Webster, do-nothing Daniel Webster,” she claimed.

 

“We are losing our country to big-tech election interference,” she added – without offering a morsel of evidence – which isn’t even required in right-wing circles today. “And I am pleading with the Republican Party to please start taking this issue seriously, because the American people deserve representation.”

 

Which in fact, the “American people” (at least a chunk of people who voted in a GOP primary in a Florida congressional district) got by sending Webster back to Congress and sending Loomer home to do more hating of minority groups.

 

Then again, I suppose those of us on the Democratic and liberal side should start taking voter fraud more seriously – because Republicans keep accusing other Republicans of rigging the game. Since Governor Ron DeSantis runs the show in Florida, we just start howling, “Lock him up!” (See: 8/3/22 for a list of other Republican election deniers who have accused Republican winners of cheating.)

 

*

 

“The kind of leader we need today.”

 

Since we’re talking sore losers and racist creeps, let’s add Carl Paladino to our post. The Buffalo, New York businessman also suffered defeat in a GOP primary in New York, to select a candidate to run for a congressional seat. Even before polls closed, a spokesperson for his campaign warned, “We are seeing a number of statistical irregularities in a number of counties that we will be looking [into] in the coming days. We want every single legal vote to count.”

Mr. Paladino’s official Twitter account also commenced seeding the field with conspiracy theories. Stories of “irregularities” were shared, and voters were urged to call his “electoral integrity hot line.” 

That number: 716-539-2994. 

I had to restrain myself from dialing and swearing I saw the Loch Ness monster swimming in Lake Erie.

 

Paladino’s chances were no doubt harmed when he suggested recently that Adolf Hitler was “the kind of leader we need today.” 

And if America should have been shocked, as Loomer the Loser claimed, it might be by the fact that Paladino (who once said Michele Obama should go back to Africa, live in a cave, and mate with gorillas), got 47.9% of the vote (22,283) in a GOP primary, losing to Nick Langworthy, who had 52.1% (24,275 votes).

 

* 

In other right-wing news, Rejected-President Trump lashed out this week at his former Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao – who just happened to serve in his cabinet for almost four years. Trump picked her and kept her around until she resigned in disgust after the January 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill. 

Now, he says she was “crazy,” and claims she and her family were “out to get rich on China.” 

Which, if true, you wonder why Trump had nearly four years in the White House and never figured it out. 

Chao is, of course, the wife of Sen. Mitch McConnell, and Trump decided to blast the top Republican leader in the Senate, as well. When McConnell told reporters that he feared the GOP would not recapture the Senate in 2022, and cited the questionable quality of some of the candidates (including several endorsed by the former president), you knew Donald was going to lash out. 

Don called Mitch “a broken down hack,” and said he should be working harder to drag the bums that Trump backed over the finish line.

 

* 

“If he were any dumber, he’d be a tree.” 

We would be remiss if we failed to mention one of the worst Republican candidates of all. That would be Herschel Walker, who wants to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate and is now running for the job. He was asked his opinion on climate change not long ago. The sharp-eyed candidate scoffed at the need for action to address the issue, telling a laughing, equally clueless right-wing audience, “We’ve got enough trees. Don’t we have enough trees around here?” 

As Barry Goldwater once said of another politician (and here it fits perfectly as a description for Mr. Walker), “If he were any dumber, he’d be a tree.” 

And don’t we have enough trees already? 

(Rep. Jim Jordan, for example.)

 

We have already highlighted Mr. Walker’s incredible explanation for good air and bad air, which sounded like it might have spilled from the lips of second grader – and not the sharpest student in class. Suffice to say, Herschel is even more obtuse than Mr. Trump, who had four years in office to figure it out, yet could never discern the difference between weather and climate. 

To reprise, in July, Walker was asked to comment on climate change and offered this response – which is not a parody: “Since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air,” the former NFL star explained. “So when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then, now, we got to clean that back up.” 

Some aide might want to prod the candidate in the posterior with a sharp stick and tell him that most of the Western United States is locked in the worst drought in 1,200 years, made much worse by climate change. Tell him that this summer most of Europe is suffering from epic drought – with rivers dropping lower than at any time in at least 500 years. And that China – yes, China – is cooking under an unprecedented 70-days-long heatwave, one without parallel in modern-day record keeping. As of August 22, 260 all-time high temperatures were set, mostly across Southern China. And it has nothing to do with whose air was floating where. In Mianyang, the old high was broken by four degrees. The city of Chongqing, set a nighttime record no one wants to endure. Even with the sun having set, the temperature never fell below 94.8 F – meaning that the night was hotter than the average August day for the city, and left nine million people sweltering. More than one hundred million have endured temperatures of at least 104 F during the ten-week period.

 

FUN FACT – IDIOTS: It may be a sign of both the violence that could be coming our way – and the idiots that we suspect will be behind it. Today, and angry American (we assume) scaled the six foot fence surrounding the F.B.I. headquarters in Chicago and started throwing rocks. 

Unfortunately, the next idiot will probably be carrying something more deadly than a pocketful of stones.

___ 

 

The fetus fails to develop a brain. 

8/26/22: In today’s red state world, Louisiana officials refused to allow a mother to end her pregnancy, even after doctors notified her that her unborn baby had acrania. It’s a rare condition, where the fetus fails to develop a brain. After nine months, that child will be born and die, usually within hours. 

To the right-wing religious zealots, it makes perfect sense to force the woman to carry the pregnancy to term. Because that’s what the Bible demands in 2022, even though, in Biblical Times, the birth of such a horridly deformed child would surely have been attributed to witchcraft. 

“Basically, they said I had to carry my baby to bury my baby,” Nancy Davis explained at a press conference Friday. “I want you to imagine what it’s been like to continue this pregnancy for another six weeks after this diagnosis. This is not fair to me and it should not happen to any other woman.” 

In Justice Clarence Thomas’s world, however, it will.

___

 

 

Fox brings the “Fake News!” 

8/27/22: It’s not “Fake News,” if the free press helps expose political corruption. No matter which party (or none) the crooks if office represent, honest Americans should rejoice when they’re exposed. 

Former Tennessee Speaker of the House and current State Rep. Glen Casada has been indicted, along with his former chief of staff, Cade Cothren. The pair came up with the novel plan to create a company to bilk the state out of a few thousand dollars every year. The scheme involved funneling money – for legitimate legislative mailing costs – to a political consulting firm run by “Matthew Phoenix,” despite the fact that Mr. Phoenix did not exist. 

You don’t need to know where these two dudes fit on the political spectrum to understand that you don’t want them making important government decisions in your name. (They’re Republicans, in this case.) 

As ABC explained, the two gentlemen are “charged with bribery and kickbacks concerning programs receiving federal funds, honest services wire fraud; and conspiracy to commit money laundering.” 

We also want the free press to do a good job, and, as a liberal blogger, I would argue that as long as Fox News is functioning, even if it attacks Biden daily, we should be happy to live in a country with a functioning democracy, where differing political opinions cannot be suppressed. Even the unhinged Alex Jones may occasionally serve a useful purpose – so long as he doesn’t lie. 

(And, of course, he often does.)

 

We do know that Fox News may need to clean up its business model. The massive $1.6 billion defamation suit filed against the company and some of its biggest names continues to move forward in the courts. Dominion Voting Systems, boogie man of countless stories about a “stolen election” on Fox, has asked the courts to punish the media giant for making baseless allegations that Dominion helped rig the 2020 election, causing Donald J. Trump’s demise. 

The following Fox hosts (and ex-hosts) have already been ordered to appear in the matter and give depositions: 

Tucker Carlson

Lou Dobbs (his claims were so nutty, Fox had to fire him to shut him up)

Steve Doocy

Sean Hannity

Jeanine Pirro

 

According to The New York Times, the chief executive of Fox News media, Suzanne Scott, may also be deposed, along with the president of Fox News, Jay Scott. Laura Ingraham is also named in the lawsuit. Dominion would appear to have a compelling case – since zero election fraud of any significance has been found – and none of the marginal fraud so far discovered has anything to do with Dominion systems. Both Rupert Murdoch, and his son Lachlan, who own and run Fox, may be required to put up or shut up (and pay) by the courts. 

As the Times explains:

 

The suit accuses Fox of pushing false and far-fetched claims of voter fraud to lure back viewers who had defected to other right-wing news outlets. In its initial complaint, Dominion’s lawyers framed their lawsuit as a matter of profound civic importance. “The truth matters,” they said, adding, “Lies have consequences.”

 

The judge overseeing the case allowed Dominion in late June to expand the suit to include the cable news network’s parent company, Fox Corporation, potentially broadening the exposure of both Murdochs. Shortly after, Fox replaced its outside counsel on the case and hired one of the nation’s most prominent trial lawyers, Dan Webb.

 

There are First Amendment issues at stake and Fox may prevail. But it’s worth noting, several recent defamation cases show that the courts still consider sustained lying out of bounds. Alex Jones has been held liable, in one defamation suit, for $49.2 million in damages. (He’s lost three, and awaits news of further damage in days and months to come.) Newsmax already agreed to settle with Dominion, and paid an undisclosed sum, because they had no chance of backing up all the lies that they had been spreading. 

Hannity and Fox have paid before. Back in 2016, Hannity pushed hard on the idea that Seth Rich, a young Democratic operative, had been killed by kingpins in the party, after he supposedly leaked their damaging emails to Wikileaks, which promptly published them in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Fox news had to retract a good chunk of its related “reporting” – which in this case we can definitely describe as “Fake News.” 

With Hannity and Dobbs both scheduled to be deposed by lawyers for the Rich family, and embarrassing details sure to be revealed in court, Fox agreed to pay “millions” and settled in 2020. 

One oddity of the agreement? Fox, which would be talking endlessly about the coming election that year, did not want viewers to start wondering about the veracity of their reporting. As part of the settlement, the Rich family agreed that nothing about the deal would be revealed until after November 3, when voters would have already gone to the polls, many of them swayed by the ridiculous stories they had heard and believed on Fox News.

The liar on the left, with the other liar.

___

 

 

Former Attorney General Realizes Trump Was Nuts. 

8/28/22: Former Attorney General Bill Barr has finally figured out what most human beings figured out in the summer of 2015 or early 2016. Or if they knew Donald J. Trump personally, long before. The guy is a terrible human being. 

And he’s nuts. 

(My wife, for one, rightly pegged Donald as suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder in early 2017.) 

Asked recently in an interview about his “most awkward” moment working for the former president, Barr responded – in apparent reference to a meeting on June 1, 2020: “The president was bellowing at a number of his Cabinet secretaries and especially the military guys, the DoD secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and calling all of us ‘f-cking losers’ at the top of his lungs.” 

This was around the same time that an unhinged, vengeful president was asking why he couldn’t call out active duty U.S. troops, and clear peaceful protesters outside the White House. “Why can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs, or something?” he mused. 

When rational individuals resisted, President Maniac lost his sh*t.

 

Barr took his usual shots at Democrats and left-wing types in the interview; but if we filter out the partisan lines, we’re left with this. Barr went after his old boss and gave him the kind of roasting he deserved. 

Taking note of the former president’s business career, Barr expressed surprise. “One would think that an executive would have a better idea how to operate with people and manage people.” Trump did not. Barr called him “a poor manager of people,” and his “own worst enemy.” 

(This blogger would change that to “America’s worst enemy”).

 

Barr told his interviewer that he was “disgusted,” “mortified,” and “angry” while watching the January 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill. He said Trump was “morally responsible” for the attack. It was “a shameful episode. It was a shameful riot,” he continued. “And the president certainly precipitated it.”

 

“In fact, he’s incorrigible,” Barr said of Trump. He “doesn’t take advice from people and he does his own thing, and you’re not going to teach an old dog new tricks. So I was under no illusion when I went in, but I felt there was a chance he would rally to the office and be more disciplined in his behavior.” 

Barr would not be Barr without attacking the Left, and accusing those of us who cherish the U.S. Constitution and long feared Trump, of suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” 

I’d argue that we figured out, starting with the pussy-grabber tape, if not before, that Donald J. Trump had no business setting foot in the White House. Not even as visitor. Electing Trump in 2016, was like electing Bill Clinton in 1992, if he had campaigned on a promise to force White House interns to provide blow jobs under his desk. 

Barr told a reporter that he warned Trump at the beginning of 2020 that he would lose the election if he failed to “adjust” his behavior. His words were wasted, and the president “continued to be self-indulgent and petty, and turned off key constituents [sic] that made the difference in the election.”

 

Even worse, Barr claimed, was what Trump was doing to the Republican Party. “The tactic that Trump is using to exert this control…is extortion,” he said. “What other great leader has done this? Telling the party, ‘If it’s not me, I’m going to ruin your election chances by telling my base to sit home. And I’ll sabotage whoever you nominate other than me.’ It shows what he’s all about. He’s all about himself.” 

Barr did have hope. “There’s never been more consistent conservatism within the Republican Party than there is today,” he said. “The idea that there are RINOs, people that really don’t support Republican principles, is simply not true. What the president is defining as RINOs are people who are true-blue Republicans and conservatives but who just have a problem with Trump personally,” he continued. “This is all personal to Trump.” 

Yeah. Classic Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Like I said, my wife had that figured out, and I posted my agreement no later than October 25, 2017.

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Life Expectancy Drops – Guns, Drugs and COVID.

 

8/29/22: My wife is making a grocery list. “What would you like from the store?” she asks.

 

“Chips,” I reply, as if there’ ever any doubt. She says she’s going to buy spinach, yogurt, and other healthy junk.

 

As she heads out the door, I reminder her: “Be sure you’re packing heat.”

 

In Oregon, this weekend, we had another grocery store attack. Once again, a man with an AR-15 style rifle walked into a store in Bend, and went aisle to aisle, shooting at people. He killed two, wounded one, and then killed himself.

 

*

 

Down in Texas, where everyone has a gun tucked in a purse, strapped to a hip, or carried over a shoulder in a sling, we also had a mass shooting. (Texas had a lot of mass shootings.) This time a man set fire to an apartment building, and ambushed people as they ran out. He was reportedly dressed in black, and used a shotgun to kill three. Police report that he had recently been evicted – but they did at least manage to kill him at the scene.

 

* 

Finally, it turns out President Trump’s last year in office was worse for our health than we realized. Life expectancy dropped in all fifty states and Washington D.C. Nice work,  Donald. 

And thanks for setting such a good example by refusing to wear a mask in public. The drop averaged out to 1.8 years per person, mostly due to COVID, and a steady increase in drug overdoses. If we multiply “lost years” by the estimated U.S. population, rounding off to 335 million, Americans suffered a loss of 603,000 millennia under Dr. Trump’s guiding care. 

COVID? Remember when Dr. Trump told us, “It’s just a flu.” 

Speaking of lost lives, schools in Uvalde, Texas will be back in session soon, as a ravaged community tries to heel from last spring’s deadly school massacre. Around town, murals have been painted to honor the nineteen dead children and their two teachers. 

 

According to a new report, last school year there were 193 shootings inside and around America’s schools. 

That means it’s time to purchase a bulletproof backpack for your child and send them off to school.

 

POSTSCRIPT: No sane person would truly blame Ex-President Blubber for the bulk of the steep drop in life expectancy, particularly in regard to drug overdoses. But Trump’s refusal to address gun violence in any way and his bumbling approach to the COVID threat didn’t help. 

Still, it’s fun to mock the dope, because “Ol’ Blubs” did hog credit when drug overdose deaths dropped one of the four years he was in office.

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“Have a new Election, immediately!” 

8/30/22: If you missed it yesterday, Trump went on a rampage on Truth Social, his media site. He posted eighty-eight times, including one truly bonkers idea. Claiming yet again that he had prevailed in the last election – although he hadn’t – he insisted he should be reinstated as president! “Declare the rightful winner or – and this would be the minimal solution – declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised,” he demanded, “and have a new Election, immediately!” 

Since there are no provisions in the U.S. Constitution, or in federal law, that would allow this to happen, you have to assume one or all of the following statements are true: 

1.     Trump has been drinking heavily, or abusing hallucinogens. 

2.     Trump is certifiably insane. 

3.     Trump doesn’t care what the Constitution says, and wants to be president again at any cost.

 

(Several of his other posts were almost as nutty, or dishonest, or dangerous, but we can’t possibly keep up with every twisted idea the man has.)

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