Part XV: The Destructive Path of Hurricane Donald (Steps #1273-1391)

Part XV: The Destructive Path of Hurricane Donald.

(Steps # 1273 – 1391.)

I like to call him the "Orange Dumpling."

 

__________ 

“Trained parrots tell more truth than most.” 

Truman Capote

__________  

 

IF “language is the soil of thought,” as James Russell Lowell once said, then Donald Trump was, and may soon be again, the Poisoner-in-Chief. For more than a decade, starting with his “birther” lies, he has doused the political landscape with toxic prevarications, pollutants, and unhinged rants. 

We have done our best, MAGA types, to lay out hundreds of easily grasped steps to lead you to the Truth. We will wrap it all up soon on November 5, 2024, and if Donald wins a second term, it will be too late. 

Truth will have to go into hiding for four more years.

___ 

 

1273. June 3: Amnesia Donald claims he never said he would lock up Hillary Clinton if he were elected president – and only Democrats would ever dream of “weaponizing” the Department of Justice. 

Trump 2024 is quickly fact-checked by Trump 2016. 

1274. Same day: Bill Gaun, the finance chief for the right-wing newspaper, Epoch Times – which does whatever it can to boost Donald J. Trump – stands accused in a $67 million scheme to launder “tens of millions of dollars in fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits and other crime proceeds.” 

(This may be unfair to include as proof Trump is a liar; but crooks do gravitate his way.) 

 

1275. June 4: In testimony before Congress, Dr. Anthony Fauci notes that he continues to be the subject of death threats – as are his wife, and three daughters. “Credible threats,” included at least one individual arrested on the way to do the killing. The doctor now has round-the-clock security protection. 

1276. Jim Troupis, Kenneth Chesebro and Mike Roman, three more Team Trump lawyers, are charged with forgery, for their roles in setting up a slate of fake electors for the State of Wisconsin. Chesebro and Roman have now been indicted in three states, including Arizona and Georgia. 

1277. June 5: As The Hill reports, the Colorado GOP has now called for LGBTQ flags to be burned, insisting that LGBTQ individuals are “godless groomers.” A fundraising email carried the subject line, “God Hates Pride.” 

(Next: Bring back witch-burning!) 

 

1278. June 7, 2024: Salem Media Group has retracted the movie “2000 Mules,” and the book version of the same story (that the 2020 election was stolen), after Mark Andrews, who filed a defamation suit in court – after he was portrayed as a vote-stealing mule – won a judgement against the Group. 

For extra fun, Salem is suing its insurer for not covering damages awarded to Mr. Andrews. Salem – a Christian broadcasting media operation, which is even more absurd – had a $5 million limit on each claim. 

Dinesh D’Souza was narrator of the film. Now, D’Souza Media and several other defendants in the Andrews defamation suit, both individuals, and media content providers, continue to advance toward a court reckoning.

 

1279. Have you noticed, MAGA folks? Crooks swarm around your beloved Orange Dumpling in creative combinations. In 2014, we should note that D’Souza was sentenced to eight months in a community confinement center, and placed on probation for five years, for making illegal campaign donations in the names of others. 

1280. We should also note that in the spring of 2018, President Trump decided Dinesh needed a pardon. 

 

1281. If you are still having trouble following these simple steps, look up the story of Elliott Broidy, once another bosom pal of President Trump. Broidy admitted making $10 million, in payment for just one of his illegal schemes, while secretly acting as a lobbyist for various foreign powers. He got his ass convicted in court, but somehow merited a pardon before the Dumpling left office. 

(Add Broidy and D’Souza’s names to the Team Trump “Wall of Shame.”) 

 

1282. June 12, 2024: Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, appears on Fox News to warn viewers about Donald J. Trump. 

“If you put yourself above the Constitution, as he has done, I think that makes you unfit for office,” he says. 

 

1283. FATHER’S DAY: You can’t say Donald isn’t consistent – always remembering to offer “thoughtful” words on holidays. This time, he goes with, “HAPPY FATHER’S DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING RADICAL LEFT DEGENERATES…” 

The man is nuts.

 

1284. June 24: Donald is on a roll, including telling an audience today that he would restore the names of military bases that had been named after Confederate generals. (You figure he has a soft spot for people who tried to overthrow the government in 1861, after he fueled a similar attempt on January 6, 2021.) 

To bolster his support for the rebels of 1861, he wondered what we would do about “George Washington High School.” The terrible Democrats might want to remove his name next, “They don’t know why. You know, they thought he had slaves. Actually, I think he probably didn’t.” 

The numbing stupidity of the man, where this nation’s history is concerned, is hard to believe. The number might vary, but historians have been clear. The first president and his wife owned several hundred slaves. 

You can even read about George’s slaves in his will – where he said they should be freed upon his death and the death of his wife. 

(Trump doesn’t read history. He doesn’t read at all, if he can avoid it.) 

 

1285. June 24, 2024: Steve Slaton, running for a seat in the Arizona legislature, carries the endorsement of Kari Lake, running for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Slaton has made much of his heroic service as a helicopter pilot, dodging enemy fire over the rice paddies and jungles of Vietnam. 

Which is cool: Since he was actually a helicopter mechanic – and joined the U.S. Army three months after the last American soldiers withdrew. He is now being asked to withdraw from the race. 

 
Lake, right, endorses the fake hero.

 

1286. June 25: We learn that yet another Arizona Republican is in need of mood stabilizers, after Shelby Busch, of Maricopa County lets rip in a video. He warns that if county recorder Stephen Richer “walked into this room, I would lynch him.” Richer, also a Republican, has been falsely accused by Ms. Lake of rigging the vote against Trump in 2020, and against her in 2022. 

(Need we say for the thousandth time that no evidence of such rigging has been found?) 

 

1287. Since the topic for today is right-wing fruitcakes, we would feel we had shrugged our duty, if we failed to mention Donald J. Trump’s warnings about electric battle tanks and jet fighters kept zooming through the skies, using alternative fuels. Maybe a few gallons of used fast food frier oil? 

“That’s the difference between, in a fight with the enemy, winning and losing,” he told one clueless audience. Biden and his pals, “They want to go in a clean environmental way as we bomb the shit out of a country.” 

The only problem with Trump’s warning? Electric tanks, with (we guess) long extension cords, and planes flying on used cooking oil don’t exist. Nor does anyone at the Pentagon have any idea what the fool is rambling on about. 

 

1288. June 28, 2024: We are going off topic here, in a sense; but if you ever wonder how billionaires manage to pay taxes at lower rates than car mechanics, firefighters, and teachers, consider Miriam Adelson. Widow of billionaire Sheldon Adelson, she announced today that she will donate at least $100 million in hopes of helping Donald Trump secure a second term. 

Proud recipient of a Presidential Medal of Freedom – won from Trump during his first term – for donating above and beyond the call of duty – Miriam hopes to have a hand in shaping the government for all of us ordinary schmucks, who don’t have a $100 million extra lying around the house. 

Call her the “Audie Murphy” of fat cat donors.

 

UPDATE: In August, Trump informs the crowd at a black tie dinner that the medal Miriam received is “better than the Medal of Honor.” Winners of that medal are often all shot to hell, if not dead, whereas, Trump says to Adelson, who is attendance, “She gets it and she’s a healthy beautiful woman.” 

Um…no offense…but Miriam is 79. 

 

1289. In any case, the organization for Veterans of Foreign Wars responds: “These asinine comments not only diminish the significance of our nation’s highest award for valor, but also crassly characterizes [sic] the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty.” 

 

Stall, stall and stall. 

June 30, 2024: To be honest, the first six months of the year have been good for former President Donald J. Trump, in one key regard. 

True. No one has offered up evidence that he is innocent – that he did NOT try to steal the 2020 election. But his high-priced lawyers have managed to file so many requests for delays, and so many appeals, that three of the four indictments against him have been completely stalled in the courts. 

1290. Stalling is the whole plan. 

(Also: Pleading the Fifth has been a popular Team Trump tactic.) 

 

1291. July 2, 2024: Trump lawyer and sycophant Rudy Giuliani is disbarred from practicing law in New York. This disciplinary step is a result of Giuliani lying in numerous forums, in the wake of the 2020 election. The board penalizes him for spreading untruths that were “designed to create distrust of the elective system of our country in the minds of the citizens and to destroy their confidence in the legitimacy of our government.” 

(Trump lost in 2020, MAGA ladies and gents.) 

(Everyone else knows it, just not you.) 

 

1292. July 5: Former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer – another Republican – has had her fill of election deniers in her state. 

As The Guardian reports, Brewer says it’s time to, “pull us back from the brink of election denialism, and get back to focusing on actual policy so we can win elections with our conservative ideas.”

 

She’s joined with two organizations, RightCount and the Democracy Defense Project, to publicly defend elections, alongside other Republicans and people across the political spectrum. She’s also endorsed Maricopa county candidates in Republican primaries who stood up to their party against intense pressure to overturn the 2020 election results.

 

“You have to stand up and defend the integrity of our electoral system, because that’s what unites us,” she said in an interview with The Guardian. “It’s so important that people understand that.” 

(Somebody needs to explain this to Mr. Trump, the King of Election Denialism.) 

(The entire story in The Guardian is worth reading.) 

 

1293. July 13: A young gunman, with an AR-15, perched on a roof not far from where former president Trump is speaking, gets off a burst of eight rounds, before a counter-sniper team kills him. Trump is incredibly lucky, to only have his right ear clipped by a bullet; but Corey Comperatore, 50, a volunteer firefighter in the audience, is killed, and two other rally-goers critically wounded. 

In Trumpistan, fans of Donald, decide that God was guiding those eight bullets, and decided to save Donald’s life. 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: This blogger has always been skeptical of God’s guiding hand, since, during World War I, one particular German soldier repeatedly risked his life, delivering messages under heavy fire. In fact, this soldier was awarded the Iron Cross, the equivalent of our Medal of Honor, for his courage. 

God could have directed one bullet his way – killed Adolf Hitler – and spared tens of millions of others. 

Anyway, it is fortunate that Mr. Trump was not killed. 

 

1294. At any rate, the MAGA faithful quickly decided that Democratic machinations were behind the assassination attempt. (Even though the shooter had researched Democratic targets and opportunities to shoot other politicians, too). Trump, they fumed, would never stir up the same kind of hatred… 

Then someone pointed out that during his first run for office, Trump had suggested an alternative way to stop Hillary Clinton, if she prevailed at the ballot box – which she did, just not in the Electoral College. As early as August 2016, he was ramping up a dangerous style of rhetoric. “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” Mr. Trump told one crowd, as his supporters began to boo. 

Then he added, as if being clever: “Although the Second Amendment people – maybe there is, I don’t know.” 

As we all know, a second assassin, this time in Florida, soon hatched a plan to shoot Trump while he was golfing. Secret Service agents foiled the would-be killer before he had a chance to fire. That incident was September 24. And again, the man who dreamed of killing the former president, was armed with military-grade weaponry. 

Sorry, MAGA fans – we Democratic types are in favor of controlling such weaponry. If nothing else: Background checks, which might keep more firepower out of the hands of these kinds of kooks. 

 

1295. Citing Rudy Giuliani for “uncooperative conduct,” U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane throws out his bankruptcy case. Giuliani, Judge Lane notes, has failed to comply with court orders, including revealing sources of income. Creditors may now pursue other methods of redress, including seizing his apartments and assets. He labels Rudy a “recalcitrant debtor.” (See: Step #1391.)

Among other gigs, Rudy failed to mention – a book contract (fiction, we assume), and sales of “Rudy’s Coffee.” 

Served hot or cold – but always with a shot of bourbon recommended. 

(That last line is the blogger’s joke.) 

 

1296. July 25: Paul James Kryscuk and two other white supremacists are arrested for plotting to blow up energy facilities and massacre Black Lives Matter protesters. They refer to themselves as the “modern day SS.” 

1297. July 27: Introducing J.D. Vance to a crowd, here in Ohio, State Senator George Lang warns, “I’m afraid if we lose this one [the coming election], it’s going to take a civil war to save the country, and it will be saved,” he promises. “It’s the greatest experiment in the history of mankind, and if we come down to a civil war, I’m glad we got people like ... Bikers for Trump on our side.” 

 

I wrote to Sen. Lang to ask him about his plan.

 

Maybe the fools talking so cavalierly about “civil war” are more dangerous to all of us than a few transgenders participating in girls’ sports? 

 

“He’s just a bad man.” 

1298. July 30, 2024: A friend of J.D. Vance, during his time at Yale, reveals a trove of emails that passed between them. In December 2015, for instance, Vance said he hoped Trump would “tone down the racism.” By October 2016, he had soured completely. “He’s such a f***ing disaster,” Vance wrote of Candidate Trump. “He’s just a bad man. A morally reprehensible human being.” 

1299. Meanwhile, a video of Vance from 2017 surfaces. During a talk at the University of Chicago, he was asked what part race played in the 2016 presidential election. The New Republic describes the exchange:

 

“Race definitely played a role in the 2016 election. I think race will always play a role in our country. It’s just sort of a constant fact of American life. And definitely some people who voted for Trump were racists, and they voted for him for racist reasons,” Vance responded.

 

Vance couched his answer by saying he didn’t think racism was the main motivator for Trump voters, but jobs were. But he did say that the 2016 election was “hyper-racialized,” and he blamed conservative extremists. …

 

“Like Steve Bannon?” [Alex] Kotlowitz [the host for the talk] asked.

 

“Right,” Vance replied, taking a shot at the Republican strategist who is now serving a prison sentence for contempt of Congress.

 

In an answer quite different from his present-day half-hearted defense of his Indian American wife, Usha, Vance addressed racism against his marriage head-on back then.

 

“There were all these alt-right people, and I’m in an interracial marriage, and I got a lot of stuff directed at me and my wife on online message boards and Twitter and so forth. So I definitely buy this was a racialized discourse unlike any that we’ve had in a really long time,” Vance said. 

 

August 1, 2024: Today marks the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s four-count federal indictment for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. That case has since been kicked up through the U.S. courts, with Trump’s lawyers claiming that he had total immunity for any crimes he might have committed in office. 

1300. It’s official. Representative Bob Good, from Virginia’s Fifth District, and the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, has been defeated in his campaign for another term in the U.S. House of Representatives. In the first count, State Sen. John McGuire led Good by 374 votes, in the Republican primary. 

Unfortunately, in today’s GOP, no loser is ever defeated, just because he or she got fewer votes. Rep. Good immediately suggested that something fishy was going on, and said he planned to demand a recount. 

Now the final totals are in, and we learn that McGuire gained three votes, to 31,586. Good finished with 31,216, or plus seven. Once again, a careful recount of nearly 63,000 votes showed how accurate results are in U.S. elections. At an estimated cost of $100,000, Good has a net gain of four. 

We can also report that many Republican colleagues were glad to see Rep. Good go. Said one dry-eyed lawmaker: “Bob Good is universally recognized to be an asshole.” 

 

1268. August 3: It is revealed that ABC host Rachel Scott received death threats after interviewing Donald Trump, during his appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago. During that interview, Trump claimed Kamala Harris was never black “until a number of years ago when she turned black, and now she wants to be known as black. So, I don’t know. Is she Indian, or is she black?” 

Trump fans were angry because Scott managed to ask a question, and Trump answered it by sounding like a moron. 

And a racist. 

 

1301. August 5: Republican Mayor John Giles, of Mesa, Arizona, has agreed to work to help elect Kamala Harris. “Our nominee is not fit for office,” he says. “Please join me in putting country over party and stopping Donald Trump.” 

1302. Same day: Frank Carillo, 66, of Winchester, Virginia, gets arrested, after he makes online threats to kill President Biden, Vice President Harris, and F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray. In one of many posts, Carillo allegedly said, “Kamala Harris needs to be put on fire alive I will do it personally if no one else does it I want her to suffer a slow agonizing death.” He also thought plucking out her eyes with pliers would be a pleasure. Killing her family members would be a bonus. 

In fact, Carillo seems to have touched all bases, when it comes to right-wing hating. He said he had an AR-15, “LOCKED AND LOADED.” Muslims? Yeah, he would be happy to shoot them. “Illegals?” Them, too. He even wanted to shoot Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 

 

1303. Remember when Trump supporters were all like, “Oh, he’s such a good man. He has donated his salary as president! What a patriot! He doesn’t care about money. He only cares about kissing dictators’ asses.” 

(Okay, they didn’t say that last part.) 

 

Anyway, it is true. Donald donated three years’ worth of presidential paychecks, possibly all four. That would be sweet patriotism, no! He gave up $1.6 million – or $400,000 per year. But here’s a story this blogger had missed. When Donald was first elected, he doubled the membership fee to belong to Mar-a-Lago, to $200,000. Then, at some point (I missed it), he jacked it up to $700,000. 

This month, the fee went up again to $1,000,000. 

So, if you wanted access to the former president when he was in office, or you want it now, it’s going to cost you “bigly.” Look. It’s true. Hunter Biden profited off his family name when he got a “job” in Ukraine. If you don’t understand that Trump, and all his children, and their spouses profited, when he was in office, and every day since, you probably need to do more reading. 

1304. See, for starters: Jared Kushner lands a huge deal with Saudi Arabia. 

1305. See also: Eric Trump’s wife, Lara, now paid $163,000 to head the Republican National Committee. 

1306. And see the former First Lady get paid $237,500 to appear at a campaign fundraiser held by the Log Cabin Republicans. 

1307. And don’t forget, when President Trump cut taxes on America’s top 1%, meaning all the billionaires, and multi-millionaires, he cut his taxes, too. 

(This is why Elon Musk loves him.) 

 

1308-1309. August 6: Laura Pelligrino, one of eleven fake electors charged in Arizona, as part of a plot to steal the 2020 election, has admitted guilt. A second conspirator, Jenna Ellis, a former Trump lawyer, has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify truthfully about the workings of the seven-state plot. 

Want to guess who else is listed in the indictment – and who is listed as an “unindicted co-conspirator?” Besides the eleven fakes, we have the “unindicted” mastermind of the scheme: Donald John Trump.

 

The following associates have been indicted: 

Christina Bobb, attorney for the Trump 2020 campaign. 

John Eastman, attorney and architect of the plan to change the outcome of the election in the contested states. 

Boris Epshteyn, attorney and adviser to the 2016 and 2020 Trump campaigns. 

Rudy Giuliani. 

Mark Meadows, Trump’s White House chief of staff in 2020. 

Michael Roman, director of “election day operations” for Trump’s 2020 campaign. 

To be exact, the eighteen defendants are accused of conspiracy to halt “the lawful transfer of the presidency of the United States, keeping President Donald J. Trump in office against the will of Arizona voters, and depriving Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”

 

FUN FACT: Ms. Bobb is currently serving as head of the Republican National Committee’s election integrity unit, which is ironic. 

And!! 

1310. She’s fighting giving a deposition in a defamation case, filed against One America News, where she worked previously, and Bobb, herself. 

1311. As her own criminal lawyer, Thomas Jacobs, said in court recently, “Any deposition of Ms. Bobb, could and likely would impair Ms. Bobb’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination” and “prejudice her criminal case.” 

 

1312. Elon Musk has used his giant platform on X to promote a theory that a free-thinking “Republic” could only exist under the decision-making of “high status males.” Women or “low T men” (low testosterone) would not be welcome in it. 

The theory, written by an anonymous user, suggests that the only people able to think freely are “high [testosterone] alpha males” and “aneurotypical people,” and that these “high status males” should run a “Republic” that is “only for those who are free to think.” The post continues: “People who can’t defend themselves physically (women and low T men) parse information through a consensus filter as a safety mechanism.” 

“Only high T alpha males and aneurotypical people (hey autists!) are actually free to parse new information with an objective ‘is this true?’ filter,” the anonymous author adds. “This is why a Republic of high status males is best for decision making. Democratic, but a democracy only for those who are free to think.” 

(Trump wants Elon to help him run the government if he wins a second term.) 

 

1313. August 9: Mark Shapiro, 73, is sentenced to two years in prison for threatening to kill Rep. Eric Swalwell – and his children. Shapiro had previously threatened to kill another congressman, and a U.S. Capitol Police officer who was investigating that threat, and also members of the Michigan Council of American-Islamic Relations. 

As a “bonus,” we learn that the right-wing nut was disbarred in New York in the 1990s, as a result of a bribery and fraud investigation. 

 

1314. August 12: A Mesa County, Colorado jury finds Tina Peters guilty on four felony counts. Peters faced charges after she allowed an outsider unauthorized access to county voting machines and records in the wake of the 2020 and 2021 elections. Which – of course – she believed were rigged. 

The outsider, Conan Hayes, is a retired surfer, and “self-proclaimed data expert,” with ties to nutty Mike Lindell. 

According to NPR, two former staffers testified that after evidence of the computer breach surfaced, Peters told them, “I’m f—d.” Peters told one staffer that she feared she was “going to jail.” Peters also told staff involved with the plan to give Hayes access, to get burner phones and not say anything.  

In other words, another election denier goes down in flames. 

 

1315. August 13, 2024: Trump takes time out of his busy schedule to sit down for a talk with that weirdo, Elon Musk. What could possibly go wrong? Donald tells Elon that if he loses the election he will go to Venezuela – because it will be a much safer place. “You and I will go, and we’ll have a meeting and dinner in Venezuela.” The crime rate in Caracas, he claims later, is lower than in most U.S. cities. 

Boy, oh, boy, won’t Venezuela be great! Donald will love it! Melania, not so much. (See: August 26, below.) 

Someone with a few brain cells in functioning order should remind the Orange Dumpling that Venezuela is a socialist state, run by an iron-fisted dictator, Nicolas Maduro, who definitely rigs elections. Which, in fact, he did while Trump was in office the first time (and hopefully the last). 

1316. For some reason, the people of Venezuela don’t think living in Caracas, or anywhere else in Venezuela is safe. Roughly one quarter of the population has fled since Hugo Chavez (now dead) and Maduro took power. 

 

1317. August 18, 2024: Maria Bartiromo, of Fox News, reports that migrants are lining up outside a state drivers’ license facility in Parker County, Texas and registering to vote. Those bastards! 

Her source? Bartiromo cited “a friend” who told her about the lines, after her friend talked to “the wife of a friend.” 

Ever vigilant to catch illegal immigrants voting, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sprang into action. And an investigation was launched… 

And…nothing. The chair of the Parker County Republican Party, and the county election administrator said there was no evidence to support such claims. (That doesn’t mean that fans of Fox News didn’t hear Maria and can now be expected to go to their graves believing that voter fraud is like a Democratic side hustle.) 

In addition, the Department of Public Safety, which manages the license offices, noted that it would not allow individuals of any political persuasion, or none, to register voters on the premises. 

 

FUN FACT: As we have previously noted, Paxton once claimed 58,000 illegal immigrants had voted in Texas elections and then couldn’t come close to proving it. We should also remember that Bartiromo helped spread lies of election rigging in 2020, which ended with Fox News losing $787.5 million in a defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, the company supposedly responsible for the “rigging.” 

1318. Bartiromo’s “source” regarding this latest tall tale from Texas: A woman who also claimed she could time travel, talk to the wind, and said she had once been “internally decapitated,” yet still lived. Also, Sidney Powell was involved. 

1319. So there was that extra level of craziness, too. 

 

August 21, 2024: Kandiss Taylor, Republican chair of Georgia’s First Congressional District makes it clear where she stands on the U.S. Constitution (which clearly states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”). 

1320. F**k that, says Kandiss. “We shouldn’t be electing anyone in government – local, state, or federal – that is not a Christian. That is how we take back this nation.” 

She goes on to insist, “The Constitution is founded on common law; common law comes out of the Bible.” 

“You can’t separate the two,” she says. “The idea behind the whole document was that the church runs the state. The church and we the people. We are the church ... and so we run the state. But the state, the government, has no control over the church.” 

“That is what we’re founded on, and I don’t have to honor your religion. I don’t have to give you ‘freedom’ of religion. Freedom of religion is there for us to worship Jesus. It’s not for you to come force anything else upon me,” she said. 

So, if Kandiss is right (and she isn’t), no Jews should ever hold office – and she specifically excludes Hindus and Buddhists, in one of her rants. What about the “good old days,” Kandiss, when various colonies limited voting to members of certain Christian denominations? Could Puritans in Massachusetts whip Baptists? (They did.) Could all the states enact laws to execute gay persons? (The Bible would say yes.) Can we hang suspected witches again? That would be fun. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” says the Bible. Could you ban Catholics from living in certain colonies – as colonial laws, based on the King James Bible, did? In fact, whose Bible are we using, Ms. Taylor? 

King James? 

Or Latin Vulgate?

 

1321. One obvious reason the Founding Fathers included “freedom of religion” in the First Amendment had to do with what they had seen religious people of one group do to religious people of another, for hundreds of years. 

Burning “heretics” alive, as just one example. 

1322. Also, Kandiss, you’re a big Trump fan. What about the biblical admonition to stone adulterers? 

Still good with that?

 

FUN FACT: Kandiss is still my favorite election denier. After she ran for the Republican nomination to be governor of Georgia – and lost – she claimed the winner, Brian Kemp, and other Republicans rigged the vote. 

Kemp got 73%. Ms. Taylor garnered 3.4%. 

 

1323. August 26: Somebody still loves New York City – home of judges and juries who supposedly hate former President Donald J. Trump. 

That person is Melania, who posts on “X,” today: “New York City captivated my heart the moment I arrived, 28 years ago today. This electrifying town isn’t just my home [emphasis added]; it’s a colorful canvas where dreams come alive. New York’s iconic skyline and vibrant culture inspire me every day.” 

Almost as if the former First Lady isn’t missing Donald Dumpling, way down there in Mar-a-Lago. 

 

“These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.” 

1324. August 27: Special Prosecutor Jack Smith files a new indictment against the former president. In an effort to address questions of presidential immunity, related to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in July, Smith reshapes his case. The same four charges remain: 

First: Conspiracy to defraud the United States. 

Second: Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. 

(That is, obstructing the allotment of electoral votes based on the popular vote.) 

 

Third: Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding. 

Fourth: Conspiracy against rights. 

(That is: the right of citizens to have their votes matter in choosing electors.) 

 

1325. As before, the indictment rests on the former president’s claims that the vote in 2020 was rigged, and his multi-state effort to overturn election results. “These claims were unsupported, objectively unreasonable, and ever-changing, and the Defendant and his co-conspirators repeated them even after they were publicly disproven,” the indictment explains. “These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.” 

A good chunk of evidence, however, has been removed, involving the president’s efforts to get top officials at the Department of Justice to lie and say they had found evidence of significant voter fraud. Weirdly enough, the Supreme Court has seemed to say that even asking subordinates to lie would be classified as “official acts” of a president, and therefore immune from prosecution. 

Also: Jeffrey Clark, the one top official at DOJ who seemed ready and willing to lie for Mr. Trump, has been dropped from the case as an unindicted co-conspirator. 

(Yay for lying!) 

 

1326. August 30: You had to be watching the news closely, but for a third time today, Donald admitted he lost the 2020 election “by a whisker.” While making that admission he forgot what he said four years ago. Now he claims he was told if he got 63 million votes in 2020, he couldn’t lose. 

This is even dumber than it was, in the wake of his defeat, when he claimed strategists told him 66 million votes would guarantee a second term. 

Hillary Clinton got 65.9 million votes in 2016. 

Barack Obama got 65.9 million in 2012. 

Barack got 69.5 million in 2008. 

(So, dear MAGA faithful, 63 million would not have been enough.) 

(And even 66 million would have been cutting it razor close.)

 

Also, you can look this up. In 2016, 128.8 million people voted (not counting third party candidates. That included Clinton’s share, above, and Trump who finished second with 63 million. (If you combine both totals and round down, it is less than 128.9 million.). As everyone expected, probably including the Orange Dumpling from Mar-a-Lago, turnout in 2020 was huge. This time 155.5 million voted. Trump did go up, to 74.2 million – as anyone able to perform simple math could have expected. 

Biden, of course, also went up – that is the Democratic side did – and he had 81.3 million. Those 26.6 million extra votes had to go somewhere. 

Got it???? 

(And that’s how both Biden and Trump managed to pile up huge vote totals in 2020.)

→←

    

1327. September 2, 2024: In an interview with Mark Levin, of Fox News, Donald Trump marvels at the fact his poll numbers go up every time he’s indicted. “It’s so crazy that my poll numbers go up. Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it,” he says. “You get indicted and your poll numbers go up.” 

Did he just admit he interfered in the election? 

Sounds like he did.

 

1328. September 4: Another school shooting, this one in Apalachee, Georgia, leaves two students and two teachers dead. Nine others are wounded. 

Was the student a Muslim terrorist? 

A transgender athlete? 

An illegal immigrant, transgender Muslim? 

Nope. Just another American teen, with serious problems, armed with an AR-style rifle. (See also: assassins, below.) 

Maybe we don’t need a wall along our border. Maybe put up defensive walls around every school. 

Just 48 hours later, VP candidate J.D. Vance will say, hey, too bad, Americans need their guns – and more of them – and school shootings are just “a fact of life.” Or a fact of blood and gore in school hallways. 

(When the blogger picks up his granddaughter, 11, after school one recent day, she mentions that she was scared, after her sixth grade class had a discussion about what to do if their school was a target of a shooter.) 

 

1329. September 5: Three times, in recent weeks, Donald has admitted he lost the 2020 election, with Biden beating him “by a whisker.” He went on to add, “It was a terrible thing,” but not as terrible as lying about how he “won” a “Sacred Landslide” the last time he ran for office, and convincing his dopey fans to go attack the U.S. Capitol. 

Anyway, his admission has cost him the loving support of Holocaust denier, and anti-Semitic hater, Nick Fuentes. Like so many other fools, Fuentes had fallen for Trump’s lies. Now he exploded online: 

“So, why did we do Stop the Steal? Why did anyone go to Jan. 6? Why did anyone go to jail? ... It would have been good to know that before 1,600 people got charged. It would’ve been good to know that before I had all my money frozen, put on a no-fly list, banned from everything, lost all my bank and payment processing.” 

(Yeah: A sad day when a hater learns that his Orange God is a liar.) 

(Well, Nick, you’ll always have Hitler.) 

(And Donald doesn’t need you for hating. Now he has Laura Loomer.) 

 

1330. September 6: You can never really know how low right-wing “influencers” are willing to go. (And this blogger personally knows at least one left-wing blogger, who he thinks is nuttier than a walnut tree in the fall.) 

Case in point: Tucker Carlson. He recently hosted a guest who said the chief villain of World War II was… 

Hitler? 

Mussolini? 

Stalin? 

No. Winston Churchill. 

Nor has confidence in right-wing media been bolstered by recent revelations that Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, and others have been unwittingly spewing Russian propaganda, for which they had been paid, and paid well. A Russian front, masquerading as a Tennessee media company, had $10 million to spend for “content” that would be helpful to Vladimir Putin and his cause. 

 

1331. September 7: A fundraiser at Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey has been postponed. 

Probably because the idea was f**king nutty. Money raised was going to go to the January 6 attackers of the U.S. Capitol. You know: the day the MAGA faithful did their best to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump has been stirring up his base, describing the attackers, now jailed, as “hostages.” But saner folk, advising Donald, apparently convinced him that his saying he plans to pardon them all, is not a good look for sensible Americans. 

Spray police with chemicals - get a pardon!

 

1332. September 8: No claim, no matter how bonkers, spilled from Trump’s lips, should ever surprise informed Americans. In a rally speech today, Donald laid out the following scenario: “Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day at school’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation.”  

And now he’s a transgender girl!!!!! 

Noooooooooooooo, the MAGA folks scream. Oh, the humanity! Time to buy more guns and ammo, for sure! 

Does Trump have any plans to help stop all the very real school shootings that afflict this nation? Um. No. 

(For a very long, very depressing list of school shootings, go to this link.) 

 

By comparison, here’s the list of children that went to school and came back a different gender: Okay, don’t be morons. There isn’t any list. 

 

September 12: There is joy in Trumpistan, as a Georgia judge throws out three charges in the election fraud case filed in that state. Former President Donald J. Trump now faces only eight felony charges. 

(Yay, Donald!) 

1333. But wait, there’s more! The selfsame judge upholds federal racketeering charges against Trump and his fourteen co-defendants, ruling that those charges are “facially sound and constitutionally sufficient.” 

1334. Unfortunately, with Trump having millions of dollars to spend on his defense, it is likely that any trial in Georgia will be held this year. Or next. 

Maybe in 2026. 

(If you think this proves he’s innocent, you’re a guppy.) 

 

1335-1336. In other news, the highest court in New York State tosses the former president’s lawsuit, asking that a gag order imposed during his hush money trial be lifted. The judge in the original trial imposed it after death threats were aimed at various court officers; and then an appeals court upheld it. 

Call it two more losses for Team Trump, as they try to plow over the U.S. and state judicial branches. 

 

1337. Mr. Trump, ever prone to explode when told he lost anything, including his car keys, explodes after Fox News host Neil Cavuto says he decisively lost the debate with Kamala Harris. Mr. Maturity responded, “Neil Cavuto, Fox’s Lowest Rated Anchor, is one of the WORST on Television. I actually prefer the losers at CNN and MSDNC.”  

September 14, 2024: Former President Donald Dumpling is promising his loyal followers that if elected president, he will deport millions of illegal immigrants – although where he plans to deport them too, remains murky. Also, one should ask: How much is it going to cost to rid our nation of all these people? 

As a good Democrat, I wonder. Will the Trump Organization, which has been known to hire all kinds of immigrants, both documented and otherwise, get rid of all its foreign employees, and hire more Americans? 

Ha, ha. No. Trump is a cheap bastard. And may I point out, he has hired more illegals than this humble blogger ever has (zero), and by far? 

1338. At least sixteen undocumented workers were employed at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey golf club – possibly as many as a hundred. 

1339. In fact, Donald’s willingness to hire the undocumented goes back as far as 1980, when he tried to stiff a bunch of illegal Polish immigrants who helped demolish a building on the site of the future Trump Tower New York. 

1340. Also, if Trump, and people like Gov. Greg Abbott, and Sen. Ted Cruz really want to protect the border, maybe they could get rid of the estimated 400,000 undocumented workers in construction, in Texas alone. Oh, no, wait. Some of the people crying out most loudly about immigrant invaders, keep hiring those “invaders” as soon as they show up and prove they’ll put up drywall, or roof new homes, or pick strawberries for half the pay American workers would demand. 

Plus: You don’t have to offer health insurance. 

1341. Or pay overtime. Trump, himself, recently admitted that he has always tried to avoid paying overtime. 

 

In fact, Trump was on a scuzbag kind of roll today, also suggesting that he would withhold disaster aid from “Governor Newscum,” as he pronounced Gavin Newsom’s name, if the California chief executive didn’t sign papers and go along with Trump’s policies, should he take office again. 

Yes, indeed – as said no other U.S. president ever. Trump would stiff ordinary Americans, whose homes had burned down in forest fires, if he didn’t get his way. In fact, I think we can say, Trump won’t even show up to throw paper towels at a crowd, like he did after a hurricane devastated Puerto Rico.

 

1342. After a four year legal battle, British singer Eddy Grant wins a copyright infringement suit against Donald J. Trump. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Donald played Grant’s song “Electric Avenue” without permission. 

Grant can now sue for damages. 

 

1343. Team Trump has also been sued by the estate of Isaac Hayes, for using his song, “Hold On,” without permission during the 2024 campaign. 

1344. You might even say that Donald and his campaign staffers are very, very slow learners. The following musicians and bands have issued warnings to Trump to stop using their songs: Abba, Adele, Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Celine Dion, Guns N’ Roses, Pharrell Williams, Phil Collins, Eric Burdon of The Animals, The Village People, the estate of George Harrison, Foo Fighters, John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Elton John, the group Earth, Wind and Fire, Johnny Marr of The Smiths, Leonard Cohen, Luciano Pavarotti, and Neal Young. Also: the estate of Prince, Queen, Rihanna, The Rolling Stones, the family of Tom Petty, Spinal Tap, the fictional band, and the White Stripes. 

As Jack White, of the Stripes, warned in a complaint filed against the 2024 Trump campaign, “Don’t even think about using my music, you fascists. Law suit coming from my lawyers (to add to your 5 thousand others.)” 

(If this keeps up, Donald will be stuck with some guy on an accordion, playing polkas at his future rallies.) 

 

September 15: Donald J. reacts to Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris in exactly the immature way we have come to expect. On Truth Social, he posts: 

 

1345. September 16, 2024: Rudy Giuliani tastes bitter defeat in court yet again. This time, his defamation suit against President Joe Biden gets tossed when the judge says he has “utterly failed” to prove his case. 

What Mr. Biden did was refer to Rudy a “Russian pawn,” during a 2020 presidential debate. This was regarding Giuliani’s attacks on Hunter Biden and his famous “laptop,” which was supposedly chock full of damaging information about the Biden family’s ties to corrupt officials in Ukraine. So, Rudy isn’t going to get any money in damages – and now he’s spent more on lawyers – and he’s poorer than ever. 

 

1346. Ohio is in the news again – and not in a good way. Bruce Zuchowski, the sheriff of Portage County, has suggested that people “write down all the addresses” of anyone who has “Kamala Harris for President” signs in their yards. Sheriff Z. also referred to Haitian immigrants as “locust.” 

This humble blogger finds the sheriff’s hate perplexing, since he taught American history for 33 years, and knows Eastern European immigrants – we are assuming “Zuchowski” is a Polish surname – were once also considered undesirable. 

 

A flaming racist finally gets banned in Trumpistan. 

1347. September 17, 2024: One must show a high intensity of hating to get kicked out of Trump’s good graces. Laura Loomer, an avowed white nationalist and Islamaphobe, has managed! But was hating the problem? Trump is an avid hater, himself, but maybe Melania was getting angry. 

Loomer was jetting around with Donald on his airplane, hanging close to him at Mar-a-Lago, and even traveled to Philadelphia with him for his debate with Kamala Harris – whereas the former First Lady was sitting tight in New York City. The final straw may have been Laura, looking particularly close in a short video, one in which Trump looks just a little too happy, right hand clasped round Laura’s waist, she looking quite fetching in a tight blue dress, breasts snug up against no doubt horny Donald. 

Sooooo…. 

Donald looks awfully happy. Loomer, left.

(You can watch a brief video of Laura and Donald here.) 

 

This matter of sexual tension, is supposition – but it is amusing to think that Team Trump realized it needed to keep Laura away – not because she’s a flaming racist, or because many good Americans are Muslim – but because the stench of Donald cheating on Melania (again) would not endear him even with some in his base. They might be willing to swallow the “Great Replacement” myth, that nefarious forces are behind a plot to replace white faces with black and brown faces in America and Europe. 

1348. After all top Trump aide, Stephen Miller, is deeply into the theory. 

Donald getting pokes from another younger women, and a 31-year-old, at that, might not fly with middle-of-the-road voters. As of now, Loomer is banned from the Trump plane. And dare we say: The Trump bed?

 

Even Sen. Lindsey Graham, a loyal lapdog for Trump, seemed concerned, telling reporters that he believed “the president would serve himself well to make sure this doesn’t become a bigger story.” 

1349. Graham went on to say, “the history of this person is just really toxic. I mean, she actually called for Kellyanne Conway’s daughter to hang herself. I don’t know how this all happened, but, no, I don’t think it’s helpful. I don’t think it’s helpful at all.” 

1350. Here it seems like a fitting time to remind Trump lovers everywhere, that Donald has always had a tolerance for racists and haters. Graham himself pointed it out, during the 2016 campaign for president. Trump, he famously said, was “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.”

 

1351. And can we just add, Loomer believes the attacks on 9/11 were an inside job. Yet, Trump let her tag along when he showed up for this year’s memorial services in New York City. 

(I wonder, did he and Laura stop in to say hello to Melania, at the time?) 

 

1352. Sept. 20: The head of the FCC has responded to Trump’s demand that ABC News lose its license, after he whines about moderators in the ABC debate, featuring Trump and Kamala Harris. 

Oddly enough, Trump also insists he won the debate bigtime. So why all the fuss? 

FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel scoffed at the former president’s demands on Thursday. “The First Amendment is a cornerstone of our democracy,” she explained. “The Commission does not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage.” As the Daily Beast noted, Rosenworcel “added that her agency licenses ‘broadcast stations in a manner consistent with the Constitution’ and other laws.” 

“There are no exceptions.” 

The most ridiculous moment in the debate came when Donald insisted Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were, “eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets.” 

1353. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio responded in a New York Times editorial:

 

As a supporter of former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance, I am saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants living in Springfield. This rhetoric hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives there.

 

Junior Liar J.D. Vance then added fuel to the fake fire, regaling the MAGA crowds with the sad story of Anna Kilgore, whose cat went missing, and her ravenous Haitian neighbors. Ms. Kilgore made it clear she suspected them, but soon had to apologize after she found her kitty, uneaten, hiding in her basement. 

1354. Meanwhile, Springfield was beset with bomb threats. Two elementary schools had to close. The largest hospital in town went on lockdown. City Hall also shut down. Two local colleges went to remote learning. 

1355. Did Trump or Vance try to tamp down the furor – you know, condemn all the bomb threats? 

Nope, they did not. 

 

1356. September 22, 2024: North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson is in a spot of trouble, after old posts he allegedly made online – including to porn sites, one named “Nude Africa” – surface. In one, Robinson, who is African American, refers to himself as a “black NAZI.” In another, he says some people are just meant to be slaves, and if they brought back slavery, “he would own some.” 

Robinson also stands out as the man who said, when he was running for lieutenant governor in 2020, that he believed all abortions should be illegal, even in cases of rape and incest, and women who had them should be arrested. 

Um…then…in 2022, he admitted paying for his girlfriend, now his wife, to have an abortion in the 1980s. 

You will probably not be surprised to learn that Robinson is trailing his Democratic opponent in most polls by double digits. 

(Still, he does have Donald Trump’s ringing endorsement.) 

(Trump called him “Martin Luther King Jr. on steroids.”) 

(Once more, Donald proves that he knows almost no American history.) 

 

1357. Rudy Giuliani flames out again. On September 26, he loses his license to practice law in New York, after a disciplinary panel finds he lied repeatedly about supposed “voter fraud” during the last presidential election. 

As NBC explains:

 

“Giuliani’s effort to undermine the integrity of the 2020 presidential election has helped destabilize our democracy,” the board wrote. “His malicious and meritless claims have done lasting damage and are antagonistic to the oath to ‘support the Constitution of the United States of America’ that he swore when he was admitted to the Bar.”

 

 

1358. September 26: Smartmatic settles its defamation case against Newsmax, with terms of the settlement to remain confidential. An attorney for Smartmatic did say, “Lying to the American people has consequences,” and vowed to continue to pursue another defamation suit against the Big Dog in right-wing disinformation – Fox News. 

1359. September 27: After Russell Valleau, 61, of Farmington Hills, Michigan received a “Kamala Harris for President” mailer, you might say the poor MAGA man lost his marbles. First, he told the mail carrier he didn’t want that “black b****” in his mailbox, then for good measure, he called the carrier, also African American, a “black b****” and threatened the carrier. Mr. Valleau got hit in the face with a blast of pepper spray, and then police were called and his racist ass got arrested. 

1360. Sept. 29: Ret. General Stanley McCrystal said during an interview that he was endorsing Kamala Harris. When pressed to explain why, he avoided using Trump’s name. Finally, he responded, “Because I think character is very important, and so I’m voting for character. I’m voting for Kamala Harris.” 

1361. Also endorsing Harris today: Former U.S. senator from Arizona, Jeff Flake, a Republican. 

1362. Also: former three-term U.S. Senator Nancy Kassebaum, of Kansas. 

1363. September 30: Caroline Giuliani, the daughter of disgraced, and now nearly bankrupt former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, has come out and endorsed Kamala Harris. “Donald Trump took my dad from me,” she explains sadly. “Please don’t let him take our country, too.”

 

 

1364. October 3, 2024: It is a rarity for any inspector general in the federal government to be fired, in large part because their job, in each department, is to root out crime, fraud and waste. So you only appoint people of impeccable credentials to these posts – unless you are Donald J. Trump. His choice for IG at the Department of Homeland Security, Joseph Cuffari, now faces 24 official complaints about his own conduct. After three employees questioned his qualifications for his post, because he had earned his Ph.D. from a “diploma mill,” for example, Cuffari retaliated, and fired one of the complainants. DHS then had to spend $1.39 million to investigate, and pay out $1.17 million in a civil suit filed by the wrongly terminated staffer.

 

Only the president can fire an IG, giving them protection to go after crooks in every department. And presidents are reluctant to fire them since they are the watchdogs in government.

 

1365. Well, unless you are Trump – and honest men and women prove impediments. In a six-week stretch, in the spring of 2020, Donald fired five inspector generals. In total, all other presidents, since 2000, had fired one.

 

Trump, of course, lied again, telling reporters at the time, “I think every president has gotten rid of probably more than I have.”

 

(At best, Donald is a clueless bozo.)

 

 

1365-1366. According to two members of the first Trump administration, the former president often expressed a desire to block disaster aid to states that voted Democratic – just as no decent president had ever suggested. “Never in a million years did I ever think that I’d be working in the White House with a president that didn’t care about the American people,” said Olivia Troye, a former top aide to Vice President Pence.

 

“He would suggest not giving disaster relief to states that hadn’t voted for him,” Kevin Carroll, a Homeland Security official, added. In a second term, he continued, “There will be no one to stop his worst instincts.”

 

 

1367. October 7: You may have heard that gazillionaire Elon Musk is excited about helping Trump get elected – so they can both enjoy firing ordinary workers if they go on strike.

 

1368. Maye Musk, Elon’s mom, certainly has a plan to  help Donald prevail. Since Democrats cheat – so she claims – she thinks MAGA folks should respond. “You don’t have to register to vote,” she claims. “On Election Day, have 10 fake names, go to 10 polling booths and vote 10 times. That’s 100 votes, and it’s not illegal.”

 

I hope Maye, herself, tries it, because I’d love to see her dumb ass get indicted, convicted, and sent to prison.

 

 

1369. October 9: Today marks the eighth anniversary of this tweet by J.D. Vance: “Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us. 

1370. How many ways can Donald and his amoral allies find to cheat? He has now been caught using fake firefighters, as a backdrop to a speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Multiple individuals, seated behind Trump at the rally, held up signs, proclaiming, “Scranton Firefighters for Trump,” The only problem: None of the people waving signs were Scranton firefighters. 

Fake bone spurs, fake patriotism. Fake interest in God. Fake tan. Fake everything. “We got the firefighters endorsed us, you probably heard,” Trump said at one point during his speech, turning to the fakes with the signs. That was also a lie. The Scranton firefighters’ union has endorsed neither candidate. 

 

1371. Trump also decided to riff on ugly windmills during his rally. As he explained it, all the windmills were falling apart. “They got these big, ugly suckers hanging down. They’re rusting and rotting,” he said. 

Apparently, he had seen some of them, himself – but failed to understand how they worked. “Half of them weren’t spinning, and the ones that were were going so slow. They were going, it’s not too windy, but y’know, they’re going like slow. The other ones were just dead. But they’re all rusting and disgusting looking.” 

Someone should probably explain that windmills spin some days, and not others, because they’re subject to…wind. 

Trump went on to claim (wrongly) that wind power is the most expensive form of energy, and then finished with an attack on the wind, itself. 

“The wind, the wind, it sounds so wonderful. The wind, the wind, the wind is, the wind is bullshit, I’ll tell you,” he said. 

(Trump, if you’ve forgotten, has also claimed windmill noise causes cancer.) 

(And windmills slaughter the birds.) 

 

“Can’t support a party led by that maniac.” 

1372. You can bash any Democrat with Republican voices, and vice versa; and that makes finding Truth a fool’s errand. What if Republicans, however, have told us the Truth about Donald? Consider this old story on Bernie Moreno, now running for U.S. Senate for a seat from Ohio. 

In 2016, Bernie said he would pray for a “miracle” at the Republican National Convention, hoping that Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio would block Trump as the nominee for president and “emerge as the saviors of the Republican Party.” 

Moreno had no doubts about what the GOP would be getting if Donald was the choice at the convention. He called Trump a “lunatic.” He said he would stop donating to the Republican National Committee. “I am a hard core true believer in the party! But ... If Donald Trump is nominated, I will consider that a hostile take over and no longer associate myself with THAT, new GOP,” Moreno wrote in March 2016. 

A month later, he explained, he would sideline himself, regarding the race for president. “I will support individual candidates, but can’t support a party led by that maniac.” 

Soon after Biden was declared victor in the 2020 election, Moreno urged his friends to accept the result. Was there some voter fraud, he asked. Yes. “Was it anywhere near enough to change the result, no.” 

Now Moreno says he loves Trump – has always loved Trump – will always love the Orange Dumpling – and we Ohioans should all vote for him, and for Donald – because they really care about ordinary Americans. 

 

1373. Also note: While former presidents Obama and Clinton are out campaigning for Kamala Harris, former President George W. Bush is not out campaigning for the Orange Dumpling from Mar-a-Lago. 

1374. Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a two-term Republican, says he will not be voting for Trump in November. 

1375. Recently, Retired Gen. Mark Milley, Trump’s former choice for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that Donald “is the most dangerous person to this country,” and “a fascist to the core.” 

1376. That warning was echoed by Trump’s longest serving White House Chief of Staff, Gen. John Kelly, who told The New York Times that Trump exactly meets the definition of a “fascist.” 

“He’s certainly the only president that has all but rejected what America is all about,” Kelly said, “and what makes America America, in terms of our Constitution, in terms of our values, the way we look at everything, to include family and government – he’s certainly the only president that I know of, certainly in my lifetime, that was like that.”  

Kelly also confirmed previous reporting. He said Trump told him he didn’t want to be seen in public with soldiers who had lost limbs. “He would just say: ‘Look, it just doesn’t look good for me [emphasis added].’” 

Did Trump really call fallen American troops “losers” and “suckers?” Kelly left no doubt:

 

“Whenever John McCain’s name came up, he’d go through this rant about him being a loser, and all those people were suckers, and why do you people think that people getting killed are heroes? And he’d go through this rant.”

 

“To me, I could never understand why he was that way – he may be the only American citizen that feels that way about those who gave their lives or served their country,” Mr. Kelly said.

 

Finally, General Kelly was asked if he believed Trump had any empathy at all – for anyone.

“No,” he said. 

The Trump campaign say – of course, of course, of course – that the former Marine officer is lying. 

 

1377. October 21: Candidate Trump goes on Saudi Arabian state-controlled television and says he has “so much respect” for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “I mean, he’s really a visionary. He’s done things that nobody else would have even thought about.” Trump called the prince a “great guy,” and a leader who is “respected all over the world.” 

If you have forgotten, Prince Mohammed is also the man who ordered a hit squad to seize the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, kill him, and have his body cut up with a bone saw. 

Trump’s idea of a “great guy.” 

 

Vote for “the despicable human being.” 

1378. Same day: We learn in a new biography about Sen. Mitch McConnel, written by Michael Tackett, that the former Senate Majority Leader was clear about what happened on January 6. “If he hasn’t committed indictable offenses, I don’t know what one is,” McConnell said of Donald Trump. As for the riot, he added, “there’s no doubt who inspired it, and I just hope that he’ll have to pay a price for it.” 

Anything else the senator wanted to say? Indeed, he told Tackett that Trump “has every characteristic you would not want a president to have,” labeled him, variously, as “stupid,” “nasty,” a “sleazeball,” and a “despicable human being.” 

McConnell has now crawled back to Trump and kissed his feet, and will vote for him in November. 

 

1379. October 22: Mr. Trump is hit with another defamation suit, this time from the group of African American men once known as the “Central Park Five.” Those five, when they were teens, were convicted or rape and sentenced to prison – and Trump paid for five full-page newspaper ads, demanding their execution. DNA evidence later cleared them, and they were released from prison. 

Despite that, during his debate with Kamala Harris, Trump claimed the teens had confessed to the crime, and that they had killed the rape victim. Heinous as the crime was, they didn’t do it, didn’t confess to doing it, and, fortunately, the victim, a white female jogger, survived the attack. 

Later the five exonerated men settled with New York City for $41 million in damages. At the very least, Trump should be more careful with the hateful “they’re eating the cats,” “they’re rapists,” hate stories he spews. 

 

January 6 arrests and convictions continue. 

1380. October 22: Two weeks left until the election, and we are running out of time to help Trump lovers see the Truth. 

Was the attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, for example, really a “set up” by the government, to make the MAGA faithful look bad? Was Antifa somehow involved? Were the rioters simply peaceful protesters – exercising First Amendment rights? Did Trump really urge his supporters to be peaceful? 

We direct you back to Part IV of this series, Steps #213-355, for answers. You can also get a sense of who the rioters were, and what motivated so many to attack, if you do nothing more than skim the long post, “Meet the January 6 Rioters: A Sampling.”) But today, let’s try an update. 

As a former history teacher, I believe in proven facts, and don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories. I don’t get my “facts” from shoddy internet information sites, and I definitely hate memes. 

So, in days following the January 6 attack, when three former students who are (or were) Facebook friends, insisted the rioters weren’t Trump supporters, I decided to pursue the Truth, as far as I possibly could. 

That means, I have read up on the cases of all 1,595 charged individuals, including in that number some of their allies, who did not riot, but were felled in court or lost jobs for related causes. Tucker Carlson, for example, was canned at Fox News because he refused to stop spreading “Stolen Election” untruths. Jenna Ellis, a Trump lawyer, plead guilty to felony lying about the election, and Rudy Giuliani got disbarred in both New York and Washington D.C., for similar lies. 

What, then, does hard evidence, gleaned from at least 2,000 court documents, show us so far? 

Antifa played no real roll in what occurred that day. Only one (1) charged rioter is an avowed leftist, #168, John Earle Sullivan, on my lists. 

Right-wing Proud Boys, many of whom came to D.C. planning to fight, often wearing battle gear, abound. At least seventy (70) charged rioters were members of that group, from #18, Nicolas DeCarlo, to #25, Eduard Florea, to #1294, David Mitchell Bates, to #1517, Troy Vincent Garrett. 

Many rioters headed for D.C. insisting they were prepared for “civil war.” That would include Michael Sparks, #40; Cody Page Connell, #76; and Thomas Hale-Cusanelli, #649. At least thirty individual (30) invoked war on other Americans as necessary to save Trump from a deserved defeat at the ballot box. Don Workman, #1557, upped the issue, calling for like-mind Trump supporters to spark the “boogaloo” – a racialized variant of an internecine bloodbath. 

That doesn’t include those who insisted it was time for “revolution,” not stopping to scratch their empty heads long enough to realize they’d be calling for shooting at other Americans, not redcoats climbing the slopes of Bunker Hill. We include here Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado (not present at the riot, save in spirit), Jessica Bustle, #332, and  William George Knight, #1525, as well as at least twenty-three (23) others. Also see: Ohio Sen. George Lang (Step #1297, above.) 

As the number of arrests rose over time, many suspects scrubbed their social media footprints. It became increasingly difficult to know exactly why some of those who attacked were there. 

We do know this: At least three-hundred-and-ninety-one (391), including #250, Jason Daniel Riddle (who earned 90 days in jail for his part in the riot), #297, James Burton McGrew (who earned 78 months behind bars, as a result of his violent attacks on police officers), and #1577, Brian Holmes (only recently arrested, but charged with assaulting officers on January 6). 

Finally, we know more than five hundred (500) people have been accused of assaulting police, and many have been convicted, and have received almost all of the stiffest sentences. 

Peaceful protesters? First Amendment rights? Rioters battered police with hockey sticks, baseball bats, two-by-fours, metal pipes, numerous flagpoles – many with Trump flags attached, expandable batons brought to Washington with violent intentions, and endless supplies of wasp spray, bear spray and pepper spray. 

(You can look this up, dear MAGA folks – you don’t have to remain ill-informed.) 

 

1381. Another woman steps bravely from the shadows, and says Trump groped her when she was young. That makes at least 17 women – and you can either believe them – or you can believe Trump. This time, the accuser is a former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, Stacey Williams. 

She says not long after this incident, Mr. Horny sent her a postcard of Mar-a-Lago, with this fetching suggestion on the back: 

Williams, right, the postcard inscription.

 

The Trump campaign – of course, of course, of course – says this is a made up story, and who are you going to trust? 

Really?

 

1382. Speaking of trust, three Trump allies, indicted in the Georgia election fraud matter, where Donald, himself, is under indictment, have lost a suit, asking the case to be transferred to federal court – where Trump, if elected, could squash it like a bug. Think they might be hiding something? 

1383. Republicans who fear a second term in office for Trump continue to make clear: They’re voting for Harris. Former Congressman Fred Upton, of Michigan, is out on Donald. He cited the Orange Dumplings “unhinged behavior.” 

The “Dumpling” part is the blogger’s phrasing.

 

1384. Also voting for Harris: The Republican mayor of Waukesha, Wisconsin, who warns, “I’m very afraid of the direction our country will head in if Donald Trump becomes president. I think we’ll be heading down a road of authoritarianism and fascism.” 

1385. Anne Veneman, Secretary of Agriculture under George W. Bush, is also passing on the Dumpling. “Donald Trump’s current tariff proposal is dangerous for rural America,” she explains. “It would raise prices on essential goods, harm farmers by undermining key trade relationships, and increase costs for consumers.” 

1386. Dale Schultz, the former senate majority leader in Wisconsin is a “no” on Trump, and a “yes” on Harris. 

1387. Al Cardenas, the former chair of the Florida Republican Party, is also out on Trump, in on Harris. Meanwhile, the Dumpling is regaling his rally goers with talks about former pro golfer Arnold Palmer’s impressive manhood. 

1388. Palmer’s daughter promptly responded that her father had no use for Trump.

 

My dad had no patience for people who demean other people in public. He had no patience for people who are dishonest and cheat. My dad was disciplined. He wanted to be a good role model. He was appalled by Trump’s lack of civility and what he began to see as Trump’s lack of character.

 

A spokesman for the Trump campaign exploded. Palmer, he said, hated America. Also, Donald was a better golfer, and could kick his ass, if Arnold would only come back from the dead and play him.

 

1389. Trump has said he will be a champion of working Americans – although we know he likes to hire working non-Americans, because he can pay them less. So the United Auto Workers was not amused to hear Donald and Elon Musk talking about how much fun it is to fire working Americans who go on strike to try to win better wages and benefits from people like Donald and Elon. “I mean, I look at what you do,” Trump told Musk. “You walk in, you say, ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike, I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike, and you say, ‘That’s OK, you’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone.’” 

(Make America Great Again, 1924!)

 

1390. Musk is currently worth an estimated $269,000,000,000 – just as Jesus always said it should be. 

1391. October 22, 2024: Rudy Giuliani takes yet another lump in court. Having suffered a crushing defeat in a defamation case filed by two Georgia poll workers, and having been hit with a judgement close to $150 million, he’s been stalling any payment. Now a judge has ordered him to hand over the keys to his New York apartment, a Mercedes-Benz, a dozen luxury watches, cash, and even a $2,000,000 legal claim related to work – still not paid for – he did for the Trump 2020 campaign. 

Ha, ha. 

Rudy got stiffed by Trump! And now his sorry ass is bankrupt. 

A little additional checking turns up the fact that Rudy’s “apartment” is a “multi-million dollar” home – for which he paid $4.8 million in 2002.

 

Located a block from Central Park on East 66th Street, the three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment sits atop the 10-story building. It has a semiprivate elevator landing, a library with a wood-burning fireplace and views up Madison Avenue, according to the listing, which was most recently held by Serena Boardman of Sotheby’s International Realty. She didn’t respond to a request for comment.

 

The disgraced former mayor will also lose signed sports memorabilia, furniture, and another article says, 26 watches. He’s losing a gift he was given by his boyhood hero, Joe DiMaggio, and his business, bank and checking accounts are essentially frozen. Also going, going, gone are items signed by Yankees legend Reggie Jackson, and a diamond ring.

 

1391. October 26, 2024: Since our topic is crooks, we should also point out that Trump is scheduled to campaign in Wisconsin next week, along with “NFL legend Brett Favre,” as Fox describes the former Green Bay Packers quarterback. Yes – a perfect match. Favre is remembered now for drug problems, and my favorite: getting paid $1.1 million to give speeches that…technically…he never actually gave. 

Even better, the funds used to pay the NFL Legend Ventriloquist Dummy, came from the federal government, in a grant to the State of Mississippi, to help low-income Mississippians. Instead, various politicians and businesspersons siphoned off $77 million and made sure most of it ended up in their own pockets. 

Or pockets of pals like Brett.