April 12, 2025: WELL, TRUMP FANS, what
did we learn this week and has what we learned made any patriots want to jump
off a very high bridge?
If you binge on right-wing
news, which most MAGA’s do, one story you almost certainly did not see would be
#1, below.
*
1. A
judge in Delaware has ruled that Newsmax defamed Dominion Voting Systems
in days and weeks after the 2020 election – when reporters and hosts insisted
Dominion helped rig the vote.
The Newsmax
case now goes to a jury, with Dominion asking for $1.6 billion in damages. That makes this another possible
loss to add to a lengthy string of definite losses, for right-wing “news” organizations,
when the “news” they peddled was propaganda, offered up to unwitting viewers as
righteousness indignation, and spewed at intense and angry decibel levels.
PREVIOUSLY,
WE HAD LEARNED:
2.
Newsmax lost a defamation case filed by Smartmatic, a
computer software company, after the same reporters and hosts who allegedly lied
about Dominion, definitely lied about Smartmatic. Newsmax insisted that the
company was central to the 2020 election fix. In that case, Newsmax was ordered
to hand over $40 million.
3. If
you have not been paying strict attention, we should remind you that Fox News,
the Big Kahuna of right-wing bullshit, was destroyed – also by
Dominion – also for massive, sustained lying about how the 2020 vote was
rigged.
Those
lies cost Fox $787.5 million, if you’d enjoy keeping track.
4. Fox
is also being sued for defamation by Smartmatic, which I had
forgotten myself. No decision yet.
At this
point, a rational human being would start to notice a pronounced trend,
but that would assume the rational human was not gobbling up a massive dose of daily,
right-wing nonsense.
Consider the case of Rudy Giuliani.
5. Rudy
insisted, repeatedly, that two Georgia poll workers, Ruby Freeman and her
daughter Shaye Moss, stole at least 54,000 votes during the 2020
election.
6. Two
statewide recounts in Georgia, including one recount of all five million
paper ballots, showed that 54,000 votes were not stolen – including zero by
Freeman and Moss. The Republican secretary of state, and the Republican
governor (both of whom had worked to help Donald Trump win in 2020), assured
everyone the voting in Georgia had not been rigged.
The
Georgia Bureau of Investigation cleared Freeman and Moss.
7. So
did the F.B.I.
8. Not
to mention the Georgia State Election Board. The final
tally in Georgia showed a gain for President Trump of 1,779 votes, with more than 800 of that gain coming
in Floyd County, where Republican officials were in total control of counting.
9. Still
not seeing the pattern? Mr. Giuliani couldn’t
stop lying and insisting that the poll workers were crooks. On at least one
occasion, he upped the tally and said Ruby and Shaye stole 192,000 votes.
(See #8, above, if you need help with the math.)
The poor
poll workers were inundated with death threats, and Freeman’s home was invaded,
and both mother and daughter went into hiding. They, too, eventually sued for
defamation. Rudy couldn’t stop himself – possibly because he was too busy
drinking – and refused to turn over documents demanded by the court. A jury
found for the plaintiffs, and ordered Giuliani to pay $148.2 million in damages, which I think we can all agree is
a high price indeed for lying.
10. Who
else lied repeatedly about those two women and nearly got them killed? We hate
to break the news, loyal MAGA fans, even if it is more than four years old, but
it was Donald! In a bonkers call to Georgia election officials he
claimed that hundreds of thousands of votes had been stolen, and insisted that the
Georgia folks “find” 11,790 votes, just enough for him to “win”
Georgia’s electoral votes.
(You can still listen to that call yourself.)
11. Trump
45 caught a break when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that asking state officials
to “find” magical votes might be seen as part of his duties as president, and
so he might be covered by presidential immunity, in the matter of this call.
Trump 47 still lies constantly about being cheated out of the win in
2020, but he is careful never to say exactly who did the cheating.
(See, by way of warning: His $5 million loss for defaming E. Jean
Carroll.)
((And his second loss, for $83.3 million, for defaming her again.)
12. Even
Rudy caught a break of sorts, when a judge reduced his damage settlement to $145,969,000,
reflecting the fact that Freeman and Moss had already collected more than $2.2
million in damages from One American News Network. Because
OANN also peddled malicious lies.
13. You
would think by now that the point would be impossible to miss, even for people
who own multiple MAGA-style baseball caps to wear to weddings, and funerals, and while
engaging in sex. The two women also won a defamation suitfiled against Gateway
Pundit, although lawyers for the right-wing website managed to craft a deal
which kept details of the settlement secret.
You
could tell who won, however, when Gateway removed twenty articles in its feed
related to the alleged misdeeds of Freeman and Moss.
14. And
we’re still not done. Smartmatic has also sued
MyPillow guru Mike Lindell for spreading “Stolen Election” lies. Recently, a
federal judge ruled that Mr. Pillow was in contempt of court after
refusing to provide documents plaintiffs demanded, which they said would prove
their case.
If you
love Donald Dumpling, we should politely mention, that you are not “winning” in
court, if a judge holds you in contempt.
Did you know Lindell urged Trump to declare martial law and overturn the 2020 vote? Now you do. Not funny.
15. Mike
is also famous for losing his cool during a different court
hearing, this one regarding his alleged defamation of Eric Coomer, the Dominion
official in charge of company cybersecurity.
Mike
called him a “scumbag” for daring to sue.
16. Here,
I should note that all this right-wing lying about the “Stolen Election” of
2020, might be funny, save for the fact that the poor dopes who fell
for all the lies marched on Congress on January 6, 2021, and attacked. So:
let’s remember that Mike Lindell said he had mathematical proof to show that millions
of votes were stolen – and promised to pay anyone who could disprove his evidence
$5 million.
It
didn’t take long – because a computer expert quickly showed that Mike’s
evidence was computer gibberish – mostly random code – and demanded his
reward. Lindell balked. So a judge ruled he owed the expert the dough.
17. Adding
insult to injury, Lindell must also pay the expert, Robert Zeidman, $4,508
in attorney fees.
18. Then
you might have noticed that the courts ordered poor Mike to pay $56,369 in legal fees to Smartmatic, after a
judge ruled he had filed a “frivolous” counter suit.
19. Even
Lindell’s lawyers are afraid they’re going to get stiffed, saying he owes them millions
in unpaid defense costs.
20. And
we should go ahead and mention that Smartmatic is suing Mr. Pillow for
defamation, as well.
(Just for fun, we should note that Trump paid $6 million for an
Arizona recount in 2020.)
(Biden gained 361 votes.)
(Then Trump paid $3 million for a Wisconsin recount – and Biden
gained votes.)
So,
there you have it, MAGA fans. Defeat after defeat in court, for those claiming
the 2020 election was rigged.
FUN FACT: As of
today, April 12, 2025, 1,621 days have passed since the 2020 election was held.
(So far, NO COURT has found evidence of any significant voter
fraud.)
That
means, barring new revelations, Donald J. Trump has been lying ever since, and he’s
likely to go to his grave, with a lie on his dying lips.
January 6: Trump fan, Edward Jacob Lang, acting on the basis if lies.
FUN FACT
#2:
The president also faces a defamation suit filed by the Central Park Five. In
1989, five young black men were accused of raping and beating a white jogger in
that New York City park. Donald took out a full-page ad, calling for them to
receive the death penalty.
Then DNA
evidence proved all five were innocent. Donald has refused to admit he was
wrong, even claiming during a debate with Kamala Harris, that the five men had admitted
their crimes (they had not) and insisting their victim had been killed
(fortunately, she survived).
NEW: 9/29/23: For once it’s time to focus on the Democratic Party and
the sins (alleged) of one high-ranking official. That would be U.S. Senator Robert
“Gold Bars” Menendez of New Jersey.
First,
since the blogger is not a moron, he will not commence shouting, “Lock
him up!” until evidence is gathered, the jury impaneled, the case heard, and
only then if Menendez is convicted.
(The
blogger is willing to wager that he will.)
Second,
the blogger is not going to complain about how the Department of Justice is
being “weaponized” against the innocent.
Finally,
when almost every important news media organization is reporting on the
senator’s alleged crimes, the blogger is not going to lambast the “Mainstream
Media,” or “MSM,” in Trumpian parlance, or the “Fake News” folks.
As
he says, the blogger is not a moron. He will consider the evidence and…wow…that’s
a lot of gold bars!!
The New York Timeshas describeed what it calls a “brazen plot,” with the senator and his
wife, Nadine, busy at “furtive dinners,” sending “encrypted messages,” and peddling
influence, to help the Egyptian government get what it wanted – particularly
military aid, despite a truly horrendous human rights record. According to the Times, another plotter,
speaking with an Egyptian general, referred to Sen. Menendez as “our man.”
As
a kind of “corruption bonus,” authorities allege that the senator used his
influence to aid two New Jersey businessmen under separate criminal
investigation, one for defrauding Medicare.
In
return for such efforts, participants in the alleged bribery scheme offered
Senator and Mrs. Menendez such perks as:
üChecks
for large sums of moola, including one for $10,000, sent to a consulting firm
run by Mrs. Menendez.
üA job
for Nadine, where she would “perform little or no work,” and still be paid
handsomely.
üCash,
and lots of it! A search of the Menendez home in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. and a
deposit box in Nadine’s name turned up $550,000, with loot tucked into clothing
pockets or stashed in boxes in closets. Some of that cash is said to bear the DNA
and fingerprints of co-conspirators linked to the Egyptian government.
ü*And: $100,000
in gold bars!
Look,
this isn’t complicated. If you think Hunter Biden was using his family name to
get a paid position on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy holding company,
you’re correct. But you can’t be a lunkhead and forget (or ignore) the truth: that
President Trump sent Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine, to find evidence of corruption –
hopefully involving the entire Biden family.
If
evidence was there, we still haven’t seen it. Whereas we know that
Rudy’s two helpers in Ukraine, Lev Parnas, and Igor Fruman, have already been inducted into the club that Sen.
Menendez and his wife are soon likely to join.
That
is: The Convicted Felons Club.
In
a similar way, we must take off any partisan blinders when we consider the
legal woes of the former president.
Currently,
he’s innocent. Still, there are piles of metaphorical gold bars in the Mar-a-Lago
closets. You can see them for yourself if you open your eyes and consider the proof.
Evidence is evidence, and having the audacity to talk about it, either in the
Menendez case, or the Mar-a-Lago documents case, or the Georgia election fraud
case, isn’t “Fake News.” It’s news about evidence.
If
the Department of Justice indicts a variety of suspects, based on a pile of
gold bars in a closet, that’s not “weaponization.” That’s the rule of law, and
us ordinary folks, who will never have the pleasure of stacking gold bars in
our closets – and wouldn’t take bribes, even if we were offered – are better served
when the people who do take bribes (or try to steal elections) are held
accountable.
*
SPEAKING
OF RUDY, Mr. Giuliani is in trouble (again) after he refused (again) to turn
over documents or pay $236,000 in legal fees to two plaintiffs in a defamation case, which
he has already lost by default. In that case, Rudy was lying about the
two plaintiffs – claiming they helped steal the 2020 election. That’s not “Fake
News” from CNN. It’s the free press reporting.
Nor
is it “Fake News” when Axios reports that Mike Lindell’s rights were not
violated (according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eight District)
when the F.B.I. seized his phone – after applying for and receiving a search warrant. It’s
not even “weaponization” of the Department of Justice.
Lindell
is allegedly involved in the plot to keep Trump in office, even after he lost
the 2020 election. Among Mike’s great ideas: Having Don declare martial law and pretty much say, “F.U.” to voters.
(Even
Trump lovers should be able to sniff out the danger there.)
Last,
but not least, it’s not commie Democrats or liberal pedophiles on the prowl, if
ABC News reports that another witness in the Mar-a-Lago documents case (Trump’s
personal secretary in the White House, Molly Michael – and until recently an
employee in good standing at his Florida home) says she was told to, at best,
fudge the truth when speaking to federal investigators.
We
know beyond any doubt that Mr. Trump was hoarding dozens of boxes of material
(some of it highly classified) at his Mar-a-Lago home. We have pictures to
prove that truth, taken by Trump’s own employees. Yet the former president is
alleged to have told Ms. Michael, if she were asked, to say, “You don’t know
anything about the boxes.” Other witnesses can back her up – citing similar
requests. And employees who did lie about the boxes are in a serious legal fix.
Walt
Nauta, for one, has almost no chance of avoiding conviction, after blatantly lying to investigators. He said he didn’t know
anything about any boxes – but they have him on security film – um –
moving all kinds of boxes – the ones he claimed he knew nothing about. Now
Nauta’s only hope in court is that Trump is reelected in 2024, and grants him a
pardon for his sins.
*
FINALLY,
we have more gold bars piled up in New York, in the tax fraud case involving
the former president, his family members, and top executives at the Trump
Organization. As you may know (but won’t if all you watch is Fox News) a judge
ruled recently that the Manhattan District Attorney has already proven
the key to the case. There was tax fraud, and the full civil case can now
move to trial.
In
the meantime, Donald and his kin will be protected in their legal rights by swarms
of high-priced lawyers – although not always the best high-priced lawyers, as
we have sadly learned. We know that his silly supporters will continue to
donate their hard earned cash to the cause, so that Donald doesn’t have to pay all
of his lawyers himself. His lawyers will then continue to file every kind of
delaying motion they can think of. Five of his attorneys were fined $7,500 each, essentially for gumming up the
courts, using legal arguments that had already been rejected. Those fines, and,
if I read the story right, similar fines against two of Trump’s sons (but not
Barron), and two of Trump Organization executives, will be appealed.
Any
defendant has the right to appeal, under our system of justice – assuming that defendant
has deep enough pockets to keep delaying a trial, or contesting results.
The
fact is, “We the People” benefit any time corruption can be proven against
any of our elected officials – or against business crooks. Sen. Menendez
escaped conviction in 2017, when prosecutors in another case couldn’t prove the
charges, and the jury deadlocked. (This blogger thought he was guilty, then, too.) During
that trial there were allegations that the senator helped a rich donor sneak “Juliani,”
a Brazilian stripper and one of the donor’s several mistresses,
into this country.
Six
years later, it appears that Menendez is dead meat – and it would be nice if
his party could force him to vacate his Senate seat.
So,
here’s how it goes:
If
Rudy Giuliani defames two low-level Georgia polling officials, and claims they
helped steal tens of thousands of votes – and evidence shows they didn’t, and
he loses in court – that’s a plus in the column labeled “JUSTICE.”
$61
million in bribes.
Here
in Ohio, when former Speaker of the House Larry Householder took his cut out of
$61 million in bribes – and got caught – and convicted – and sentenced to 240 months in prison – that was a gain for every Ohioan.
That
also goes in the JUSTICE column.
No
legal system is without imperfection. No human system can ever be. In the
courts, judges, jury members, witnesses, lawyers, plaintiffs, and defendants all
introduce a level of unpredictability. But this is the best we can do – and we
have been on a “winning streak” of later, as far as American justice is concerned.
If, in the New York fraud case, Eric Trump pleads the Fifth more than 500 times, an observer might consider that
suspicious. But Eric, or this blogger, should he ever find himself in a similar
situation, cannot be forced to incriminate himself, under the Fifth Amendment.
That
too, is JUSTICE.
In
a straight civil case, however, which is what the fraud case against members of
the Trump family and the Trump Organization is, jury members may infer, if a defendant
pleads the Fifth, that that defendant is admitting to claims against them – and
may rule in favor of the State of New York.
Dad,
of course, was also required to give a deposition in the case, and he too took
the Fifth hundreds of times.
Still:
that’s JUSTICE.
You
can lay this out with all kinds of examples, where JUSTICE prevails. Here are a
few of the blogger’s favorite examples:
:JUSTICE
1. Fox News defames Dominion Voting Systems, saying Dominion made the rigging
of the 2020 election possible. Fox can’t back up its claims, and Dominion
proves that even Fox hosts making those claims doubted they were true. Dominion
wins $787.5 million in damages.
2.
Donald Trump defames E. Jean Carroll, calling her a liar, because she says he
raped her in a department store dressing room, back in 1996. A jury in a civil
case awards Ms. Carroll $5 million.
3.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers file a motion, arguing that the cash award to Ms. Carroll should
be overturned, because the jury (in the civil case) found Trump guilty of
“sexual assault,” not rape. That’s what lawyers are supposed to do: They try to
present the best defense for their client/s.
4.
The judge rules that “sexual assault” and “rape” are so similar in meaning that
it is not worth quibbling. He tosses the motion.
5.
Mr. Trump defames Caroll again, in the wake of her first trial. She sues him
again, this time for $10 million.
6.
Trump’s lawyers appeal that decision – and they lose again. A second trial will
be coming.
7-9.
It’s a good day any time a pedophile is convicted of his, her or “they” crimes
(assuming the abuser is transgender). That would include a Democratic mayor, an Evangelical youth pastor now serving 45 years in prison, or a cult leader, who abused college
women, now looking at six decades in prison.
(By
the way, QAnon, which holds that only liberals are pedophiles, is nonsense.)
10.
Purdue Pharma, which aggressively marketed opioid painkillers, leading to the
deaths of tens of thousands of mostly young Americans, despite the known
dangers of addiction from the products they sold, agrees to pay $8 billion in damages.
10.
McDonalds franchises are fined a total of $200,000 for violating child labor laws, including employing (but not paying)
10-year-old workers.
11.
Trump University is required to return $25 million to former students, who described course
offerings as worthless, and the whole operation as a scam. That’s an old one,
but it still amuses me.
12.
A woman who sends ricin to then-President Trump and police officials in Texas gets
sentenced to 262 months in prison.
14.
A man in Las Vegas is convicted for voting twice in the 2020 election. And don’t you know: He voted for
Trump.
Both
times!
15.
A recount, demanded in 2020, by Team Trump, in Wisconsin (which they had ever
right to ask for, and for which they paid $3 million, is granted. Yay, Team
Trump lawyers!!!
17.
A jury convicts Trump pal Steve Bannon for “contempt of Congress,” that is, refusing
to respond to a summons to testify.
18.
A judge rules that former White House economic advisor Peter Navarro must also
stand trial for refusing to comply with a Congressional subpoena. (Both Bannon
and Navarro were suspected of knowing details about the plot to steal the 2020
election.)
19.
A California many is freed from prison after 28 years, when fresh DNA evidence proves police got the wrong man.
(Obviously
everything prior to that, in his case, would go under “INJUSTICE.”)
20.
Finally, at least 826 January 6 rioters have been convicted or have pled guilty for trying to stop the counting of the
electoral votes, and help Donald Trump gain a second term that he failed to win.
21.
All had legal representation if they wanted. Some chose bench trials (letting
the judge determine the merits of the case.)
22.
Some chose to go to trial before juries.
23.
A handful of defendants decided to represent themselves in court, which every
defendant has a right to do.
24.
Defense lawyers presented letters from family members and friends of
defendants, asking judges for leniency, and citing the good deeds of said
defendants.
25.
In cases where violence had occurred, injured police officers, or the wives of
officers who had committed suicide later, were allowed to present “victim
statements,” explaining how crimes had harmed their families and themselves.
Those
sentenced to the longest terms in prison include neo-Nazis (#348 on the list I keep of all the rioters), those who
battered police with various weapons, including hockey sticks (#154), flag poles and crutches (#568), and those threatening civil war (#706) – which would have meant killing
countless other Americans.
And
that, however imperfectly, is how the American justice system works.
SCROLL DOWN FOR NEWS FROM JULY 1, ON.
July 1, 2023: A new
month begins – a clean slate of sorts, on which Donald J. Trump can continue to
write the story of his legacy.
First, we learn that June ended with
Fox News agreeing to settle a lawsuit against Trump apologist Tucker Carlson
for $12 million. According to former Carlson producer, Abby Grossberg, her boss
made her job a “living hell.” Most pertinent to our larger story: Grossberg
alleged that Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, and Fox News lawyers had pressured her to give false testimony during a deposition, regarding the
Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against the leading cable news network.
In other words, Fox and its hosts had
been lying about the “Stolen Election” of 2020. They knew it – but their
clueless viewers didn’t (and still don’t) – and absent evidence to back up
their claims, Fox leaders panicked. They tried to get Grossberg to lie about
what she knew and aid in a coverup. When she balked, she was fired. As more and
more evidence supporting her claims was revealed, she decided to sue.
So add another $12 million to the cost
of lying for Fox News.
Fox gets another bill for spreading "Stolen Election" lies.
___
7/4/23: If you
have been paying attention during the Trump Era, you no doubt understand. Fat
Donald has only the most tenuous grip on American history. And he doesn’t know
sh*t about the U.S. Constitution.
On this most American of all holidays,
however, the Republican Party commits an embarrassing faux pas.
(I didn’t notice the mistake, myself,
at first, but the one star in the blue field is obvious, if you look. That
means they’re showing the flag of Liberia – which for those of you who
don’t know, is a country on the east coast of Africa, founded in 1823, by freed
slaves shipped “home” from the United States.
*
IN THE MEANTIME, what July Fourth in
America would be complete without a mass shooting or two. Or twenty-two. Over
the long weekend, gunfire erupted in at least seventeen states, leaving
twenty dead and a hundred other Americans, of all races, creeds, colors,
genders, sizes, shapes, and ages, wounded.
In Philadelphia, a shooter armed with an AR-15 style rifle, wearing body armor, and
concerned about “the loss of freedoms,” roamed a main street, randomly shooting
other Americans. (Five killed, four wounded).
In
May, [the suspect] shared posts from pro-gun groups supporting former President
Donald Trump and the Second Amendment. In June, he shared a mocking video of a
speech by President Joe Biden and added his view that Biden was trying to “take
our arms.”
He
posted on the same day, “The only thing more terrifying than blindness is being
the only one who can see.”
We don’t post the names of killers, or
alleged killers; but according to right-wingers, every killing in a “Democrat-run
city” is the Democrats’ fault.
Whereas the mayor of the city says
“ghost gun” confiscations in Philadelphia have increased 300% in the last three
years. These guns can be bought in kits, online, with no background check required,
just as the NRA has always wanted – and Republicans have always wanted, ever
since they knew the NRA and gun companies would give them fat campaign
donations, and help keep them in office.
Other mass shootings occurred in Fort Worth, Texas, where gunmen opened fire on hundreds gathered for a
block party (three dead, eight wounded), Fort Lauderdale, Florida (five wounded), Shreveport, Louisiana (four dead, seven injured), Truman, Minnesota (four wounded), Saint Ann, Missouri (likely a domestic violence incident, with three
killed, and one child wounded), and Wichita, Kansas (nine wounded when a gunman opened fire in a
nightclub).
That’s seven examples. You can look up the other fifteen yourself. Anyway, “thoughts and
prayers,” as the gun lovers like to say.
Finally,it’s not a “mass
shooting,” but it’s a typical story in America today. In Tampa, Florida, a July 4 argument over
jet skis ends in gunfire (one person dead, a 7-year-old boy, one wounded).
The shooter is on the loose – “proving”
once again that more guns make us safer – and isn’t Florida’s “permitless carry”
law, which went into effect just three days before, the perfect answer to all
the gun violence in that state and every other bloody corner of this land.
The boy was killed when his grandfather
tried to put him in his truck for safety, and covered his head with a hand. A
bullet passed through grandpa’s hand and killed the child, Yitzian Torres
Garcia.
___
7/5/23: We have
two “big” stories to cover today. Let’s see how the media handles them. First,
someone left a baggie of cocaine in a storage locker, in a public area inside
the White House, where visitors enter. Right-wing reporters are on the trail –
no, not that trail – intent on proving…
Who knows what.
Fat Donald, the Emperor of Mar-a-Lago,
has a few thoughts he wants to share, despite the fact investigation is
ongoing.
Does
anybody really believe that the COCAINEfound in the West Wing of the White House, very close to the Oval
Office, is for the use of anyone other than Hunter & Joe Biden. But watch,
the Fake News Media will soon start saying that the amount found was “very
small,” & it wasn’t really COCAINE, but rather common ground up Aspirin,
& the story will vanish. Has deranged Jack Smith, the crazy, Trump hating
Special Prosecutor, been seen in the area of the COCAINE? He looks like a
crackhead to me!
Here we have a classic of Trumpian “thought.”
We have random capitalization, as if supporters are too dumb to notice the word
“COCAINE.” We have the absence of evidence to support his fable. And we have
the gratuitous insult of Jack Smith.
If Smith looks like a “crackhead to
me,” as Trump says, I’m going to try my hand at responding in kind.
“To me,” Fat Donald looks like a sea
lion stuffed into an expensive suit, with a really bad hairpiece pasted to his
head.
The second story, which the folks at
right-wing news chose mostly to overlook, involved heat records falling
globally. According to real scientists, not internet dopes, June 2023 was the
hottest June ever recorded. This was only slightly worse than May 2023, which was the third hottest ever, and the hottest ever in Canada (not to mention the
seventh driest). That, in turn, has led to record-setting forest fires – with a
record 27.7 million acres in Canada already reduced to ashes.
And if you haven’t noticed, smoke from massive fires to our north has turned
U.S. skies orange and made outdoor activity much less enjoyable across much of this
country.
(That much burning would be equivalent
to torching the entire state of West Virginia, including Joe Manchin.)
Then, to top it all off, on July 3, the
world experienced its hottest day around the globe, ever recorded.
That record lasted for 24 hours, with
July 4, eclipsing the “old” mark. And that record lasted … until today.
FUN FACT:
Another Trump lawyer bites the legal dust, and goes to the Big Courtroom in the
Sky, metaphorically.
L. Lin Wood, so happy to toss out wild
claims of a “Stolen Election” in 2020, has agreed to let his Georgia license to
practice law – or malpractice, as it were – lapse. This saved him the embarrassment of being disbarred, and
in return, the State Bar of Georgia has agreed to drop disciplinary charges.
Like so many other misfit members of
Team Trump’s legal crew, L. Lin liked to issue statements about voter fraud
having been committed, which he never managed to back up with facts.
Now he just has to hope he doesn’t get
indicted.
(The
blogger is willing to bet $10 that this summer, Wood will.)
FUN FACT #2:
Speaking of the ineptitude of Team Trump lawyers, in another “Stolen Election”
story, former Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers, a Republican, told CNN
that he had sat for four hours with investigators recently and answered
questions about efforts by Team Trump to get him to wrap Arizona’s electoral
votes in a bow and gift them to Donald J. Trump in 2020.
Bowers said he would have required massive
evidence before he would had made any effort to reverse the result of the
Arizona vote. What he received, he laughed repeatedly, were “a couple of
letters” from “legal professors, a term paper from one of my colleagues, on
this…this ‘theory of law,’ and several things that were entertaining,” plus a stack
of irrelevant paperwork. He said, “tongue in cheek,” as he put it, that Team
Trump had offered him “proof” of voter fraud.
FUN FACT #3: Did we
just mention Rudy? Mr. Giuliani is having another bad month in court. Having been named in a
defamation suit by two Georgia lawmakers, whom he accused of stealing tens of
thousands of votes in the 2020 election, the first hammer shot to his pate
lands today.
The judge in the case rules that he
must pay the lawyers for the two plaintiffs, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss,
$89,172.50, because he failed to adequately provide all relevant documents in
the case.
Like…you almost think Rudy might be
trying to hide something.
___
7/6/23: Some
records may never be broken. For example, Cy Young’s total number of wins as a pitcher (511) in the major
leagues.
As for global heat records, for the
fourth consecutive day, the world was hotter than ever on July 6.
Climate change, as they say.
___
7/7/23: Well,
Joe Biden did it again. Added jobs to the U.S. economy, we mean. According to
the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 209,000 jobs were added in June, described as the economy
“cooling down,” which may help ease inflationary pressures.
Did you know that even before COVID-19
hit, in the first 37 full months of his presidency, that Trump averaged only
185,838 jobs added per month?
Well, now you do. And you don’t have to
be a dope. You can go look it up.
The May report was revised slightly,
lower, to 306,000 jobs added, so, with numbers still subject to revision (as
per normal practice) we see that Mr. Biden has added 1,669,000 jobs in the
first half of 2023.
Or 278,167 jobs per month.
*
JOBS? Did someone just mention jobs?
Down in Florida, jobs are plentiful. Workers are not. Governor Ron DeSantis,
who really, really feels the itch to be President of the United States, has
passed legislation to penalize employers who hire the undocumented – and so
many of the undocumented, who helped fuel the Florida economy, have picked up
their belongings and headed elsewhere.
This has left many Florida businesses struggling
to fill jobs, including Mar-a-Lago, where Team Trump has asked for
permission to hire 111 temporary immigrant workers, under the H-2 visa program.
In fact, between 2017 and 2022, when
the F.B.I. raided Trump’s gaudy Florida club/home, Donald asked permission to hire 380 short-term temporary immigrant workers, at the
same time he was leaving top secret government documents scattered all about.
Trump can afford to live here, and hide classified documents. But he can't afford to hire American workers?
*
IN OTHER NEWS,Rudy Giuliani’s
bad streak in court continues. He learns today that he is a near-lock to lose
his license to practice law in the District of Columbia.
He has been found to have pushed a
“Stolen Election” narrative despite the absence of evidence to support his claims – and by
that, we mean Team Trump’s equally fictitious claims, too. The D.C. Board of
Professional Responsibility has issued a preliminary filing, regarding
Giuliani’s efforts to get the 2020 vote in Pennsylvania overturned. His court
filings, according to a three-member disciplinary panel were “frivolous,” and
“destructive.”
“Unparalleled in its destructive purpose.”
After a week of
hearings, the panel concluded, “He claimed massive election fraud but had no
evidence of it,” which they explain in a 38-page decision.
“By
prosecuting that destructive case Mr. Giuliani, a sworn officer of the Court,
forfeited his right to practice law.”
Once,
after 9/11, Giuliani had been a pillar of strength, “America’s Mayor,” having
helped New York City and this great nation rebound from a horrific attack. Now?
“The misconduct here sadly transcends all his past accomplishments,” the panel
concluded. “It was unparalleled in its destructive purpose and effect. He
sought to disrupt a presidential election and persists in his refusal to
acknowledge the wrong he has done.”
As Politico
notes, the disciplinary report continued:
His hyperbolic claims of election fraud and the core thesis of the
Pennsylvania litigation were utterly false, and recklessly so. Mr. Giuliani’s
rash overstatement claiming that the election was stolen had no evidence to
support it.
Respondent … commenced litigation without evidence that its core
factual claim was true.
The hearing [before the panel, which lasted several days] clearly
and convincingly disclosed that there was no such evidence: Respondent based
the Pennsylvania litigation only on speculation, mistrust, and suspicion.
That’s legalese
for: Rudy was full of shit and so was his client, that lying sack of shit,
President Donald J. Trump.
___
7/9/23: Mr.
Blogger is always gratified to see that leading Republicans (including
individuals who worked closely with Mr. Trump) eventually come around. Mr.
Blogger has been warning for years that Donald is a menace to the U.S.
Constitution, and death to the rule of law. Now former New Jersey Governor
Chris Christie has made clear. He agrees. Asked by a reporter earlier this month what he envisioned,
should Trump be reelected, Christie said this:
“He’d be much
worse. When he first got in, he was scared. He would bluster a lot, he didn’t
know what government was like and didn’t know how to manoeuvre it. He would be
a lot more of a problem as president this time. He’s about increasing his own
power and lashing out at those people and institutions that he’s felt wronged
by.”
Then, on Sunday, we had this from Utah
Gov. Spencer Cox. Asked, during an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation, if any
of the six governors running for the party nomination could beat Donald Trump,
he responded:
I
hope so. I like governors. I think governors are great and have real
experience. The great thing about governors is we have to get stuff done,
right? We can’t just do the performance thing. … Potholes aren’t partisan. You
have to do those kind of things.
And
I think we have lots of amazing choices, and I’m really hopeful that we can
turn the page and try something else. Someone who can win, which I think is
important, and I think any of those governors could win and I certainly hope
we’ll give them a chance.
On a different channel, Gov. Doug Burgum of
North Dakota was asked by Chuck Todd if he would ever do business with a man like Donald Trump.
“I don’t think so,” he responded.
Todd asked, simply, “Why?”
Burgum hesitated briefly. “I just think
it’s too important…that you are judged by the company you keep…No. I wouldn’t.”
Then we can throw in an ad which is
running for a pro-Mike Pence political action group. President Trump, the group
notes, was “an apologist for thugs and dictators” while in office. “America doesn’t stand with thugs and
dictators. We confront them,” a narrator says as
footage shows Donald playing
nice with the likes of Kim Jong-un. “Or at least we used to.”
As
USA Todayexplains,
“Asked about the ad by reporters Thursday evening, Pence said ‘I never had any
illusions about Vladimir Putin.’ He pointed to the 2016 vice presidential debate when he called Putin a ‘small and
bullying leader.’”
FUN
FASCIST FACT: A brief clip surfaced
recently (or at least the blogger just saw it for the first time), showing
Trump behind the scenes, talking to one of the Fox & Friends shills. He’s
asked, is it possible an invite to Kim Jong-up might be in the works, to visit
the White House. Clearly enamored, the President of the United States, seems
enthusiastic about such a meeting. “He speaks and his people sit up in attention. I
want my people to do the same.”
In North Korea, you sit up at attention, or
risk death.
*
“More
beachfront property., actually.”
AS FOR DONALD, himself, the former
president, and likely future felon, has been talking about climate change/not
climate change again. Which means: Sounding idiotic! At a rally in Iowa, he admits that, yes, the oceans may be rising – although he’s been
spending his time lately minimizing the rise. “The ocean’s rising over the next 300 years,
that’s a risk,” he jokes. “Creates more beachfront property, actually. That’s
the way you have to view it,” he continues.
Yeah, if you’re incredibly stupid.
Many in the crowd laugh or give a cheer.
It was on to Las Vegas next, where Trump told
an appreciative
audience
– news flash – that in Nevada they don’t have an ocean!
In another
misguided attempt to mock the risks of climate change, Trump tried for this comparison:
Florida is
easier than other places, you have the ocean and you have the sun. There’s
something about that that works.
But you
have the sun too, but you don’t have the ocean...maybe someday you’ll have the
ocean, you never know.
Sure, it could happen! Since Las Vegas is 2,001
feet above sea level, you’d have to watch Florida drown, for sure. Almost all
of the Mississippi River Valley would be part of a new arm of the Atlantic, and
all of us in Ohio would be doing the dog paddle, since the highest point in our
state is only 1,549 feet above sea level.
Good god.
Donald is a clueless f**k.
___
7/10/23: The
hits keep coming at Fox News, where Tucker Carlson used to work. Ray Epps is
now filing a defamation suit against the network and, until recently, it’s
top-rated liar – I mean, “host.”
Epps, if you haven’t heard (because you
were not dumb enough to watch Carlson nightly at 8:00) was supposedly an F.B.I.
plant in the crowd that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. (Epps was
filmed outside the Capitol that day, and also filmed the night before. On both occasions,
he could be seen firing up Trump fans, calling on “patriots” to march. But he
has never been charged as a rioter and Carlson suggested – on twenty different
shows – that there was “no rational explanation” why Epps wasn’t charged.
Unless! Unless, he was a government plant. In fact, Carlson, now show-less
because he lied even too often for Fox News, said last week that the crowd on
January 6 was “filled with federal agents.” Epps being only the most famous in
right-wing land. Epps soon became the target of death threats. He lost his
business and home, and he and his wife had to flee for safety in their mobile
home.
So, why hasn’t Epps been charged? There
is no evidence yet to show he ever entered the Capitol Building. Nor is there any
film showing him attacking police lines. He urged others on, for sure, but as
violence spiraled out of control, he tried to calm the crowd. The fairly simple
explanation is that what he did do would be covered by free speech protections,
under the First Amendment.
But Tucker didn’t care. It served his purposes
(boosting his audience and pay) to portray Epps as a demon in a patriotic crowd.
See! President Trump’s incendiary words didn’t stir the mob! Epps’s incendiary
words – yeah – they did.
Epps’s lawyers are now planning to file
a defamation suit against Carlson and Fox. And, as we know, Fox has already
been pulverized more than once in court. (See: July 1, 2023, and Abby
Grossberg, above.)
FUN FACT: Team
Trump player Steve “I Got a Pardon, You Didn’t” Bannon has been ordered by a
judge to pay his lawyers $480,487.87 they billed him for his losing fight
to ignore a congressional subpoena.
All Steve got for his efforts (and
theirs) was four months in prison – a sentence Bannon continues to fight in the
courts – we assume, using new lawyers.
FUN FACT #2: With Florida Gov. Ron
DeSantis still bumbling along in his effort to close ground with Trump, for the
GOP nomination for president in 2024, other Republicans are thinking of entering the race.
Gov. Brian Kemp, of Georgia – an honest
Republican, if nothing else – is considering joining the race.
So, too, Gov. Glenn Youngkin of
Virginia.
DeSantis’s problem is simple enough.
Like Trump, he’s a giant asshole, but he’s not at good at it as the Orange
Original.
___
7/13/23: This
is the 982nd day since the 2020 election. Yet, in a portion of an
upcoming interview on CNN, Ronna McDaniel, the head of the Republican National
Committee cannot tell Chris Wallace that Joe Biden won the race fairly.
True. No recount, including several run
by Republicans, has shown any evidence of significant fraud.
True again. No court, not even Divorce
Court, had uncovered voter fraud of any import.
And, of course, top members of Team
Trump are likely, soon, to be indicted for…election fraud.
Ronna don’t care. Ronna don’t do facts.
Not logic, either. When Wallace tried to pin her down, she wriggles like a worm
trying to get off a hook. He asks her if Biden is president. She tries
to talk about the “process.”
“I think there were a lot of problems,”
she adds.
Finally,
she agrees – sort of -that Biden “ultimately” won the election. “But I don’t think he won it fair. I don’t, I’m not going to say that,”
she said.
Wallace tries again: “You’re saying you’re not
sure, as the Republican Party chair, that he was the legitimately elected
president?”
“I’m saying there
were lots of problems with the 2020 election and we need to fix it going
forward,” McDaniel replies.
Election denial.
Still alive and well. And still stupid.
___
7/14/23: What’s
in the news these days, that the average citizen might have missed? Cocaine
was, of course, found in the White House, in an area where hundreds of visitors
pass by. This is not good; but right-wingers and Donald Trump himself have
insisted that this proves Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and Jill Biden and their
dogs have all been snorting daily. This is Team Trump – which means no proof of
such claims is ever required.
Speaking of Hunter, it’s pretty obvious
(and has been for years) that he’s a mess, and that he played off his family
name to make a pile of dough.
Still, you have to be in a coma to
ignore the grifters of Family Trump. For starters, Donald has filed paperwork
to show he’s made almost a billion dollars since getting booted out of the
White House. A few of my favorite examples: He was paid at least $2
million for speaking at events hosted by Hak Ja Han Moon and a group she co-founded with her husband Sun Myung Moon, the late leader of the
Unification Church. If you went to college in the 70s, you may recall that Rev.
Moon claimed to be the new Messiah. He had acolytes
on every campus, called “Moonies,” cadging donations.
Sometimes, for fun, he would order followers to
pair up and marry other followers in mass weddings, often individuals they had never met.
Donald had his fingers in all kinds of pies. He
earned $2.5 million to comment on a boxing match – held on the twentieth
anniversary of 9/11 – the least respectful way possible to observe the
day. Meanwhile, Melania has raked in $1.2
million
in speaking fees – which, no doubt, helps her survive having to look upon her lumpy
husband every day. In another case, the former president realized he had made a
slight error in saying he earned $201 from a golf course he owns in Ireland. He
had to revise the figure upward, slightly, to $6.2 million. At first, he claimed
he made $5 million from his Doral golf club in Florida. He checked his addition
again and got a new answer: $159 million. As for his Truth Social media venture,
in 2021, investors were told it would soon be worth $1.7 billion. As of this
latest filing, Trump has had to admit his version of Twitter is worth…$25
million.
We also learn that during another gathering,
Donald earned $900,000, charging 90 suckers $10,000 a pop to pose beside him. It
would appear that Melania also got $250,000 for attending.
(At least
she’s attractive.)
Meanwhile, three golf
tournaments sponsored by the new Saudi-backed LIV golf league will be or
have been held at Trump courses. This excellent source of loot may help explain
why Donald has never been bothered to know that Prince Mohammed bin Salman had Jamal
Khashoggi, a journalist critical of the Saudi government, kidnapped and cut to
pieces with a bone saw. For the second year in a row, this summer, LIV will
hold its championship event at Trump’s Doral course. Or as Rejected-President
Trump once explained, “It’s big time and it’s big-time money. It’s
unlimited money. They love golf and the Saudis have done a fantastic job.”
Since our topic today is cults, including the
“Moonie” cult, let’s focus on the “Donald Cult” for a moment. The blogger is
not a dope. So he can look at political polling and understand what the numbers
mean. If the presidential election were held today, Trump could very possibly
win. FiveThirtyEight has an average of all the recent polls – and its almost dead even between Biden and Trump.
RealClearPolitics also has it in
a statistical tie. Biden at 43.8% vs. 43.6% for Trump. (I’ve
explained this many times, but if you take polls, in aggregate, they are rarely
off by more than one or two points. So, I’m not going to bet Trump won’t win a
second term in 2024. And I’m not going to deny I’d be happy if he were to be
struck down by a meteorite, while playing golf.
Still, like Rev. Moon, I think it’s clear. Trump
loves to boost his own image, to portray himself as the American Messiah.
On July 4, for instance: he posted this picture
on his Truth Social account:
This one is particularly amusing since no one
in Trump’s direct line has ever served in uniform. Not one Trump, since
Friedrich first landed on these shores in 1885 has fought for the country.
Not one.
Then, yesterday, Nick Adams – who labels himself as an “Alpha Male” on
Twitter, and calls himself “Trump’s favorite author” – talks incessantly about how
we need more alpha males to “Make America Great Again” (or something), posted
this:
Call me suspicious, Nick, but your post
looks homoerotic – kind of like that recent Ron DeSantis TV add that feature
buff men in skimpy outfits.
983
days
since the
2020 election.
Still no
proof in any court in the land that victory was stolen from Trump.
*
OH, YEAH. By the way, this summer seems
to be proving (yet again) that climate change is real, and a growing threat to
humanity. The waters off Florida are now the hottest ever recorded – in some places registering
a “staggering” 97 degrees, or “bathtub levels.” Hotter waters, of course, help
supercharge hurricanes. While Gov. Ron DeSantis works hard to keep anyone from
reading books that include gay or lesbian characters, Farmers Insurance, expecting
damage claims to continue to grow across the Sunshine State, is planning to pull coverage in some Florida markets.
So, Floridians, if your home gets
flattened by a hurricane this season, and you don’t have insurance, remember,
you voted for Trump – who calls climate change a “hoax” – twice. Now you’re
stuck with DeSantis. If you’re left with nothing but the foundation to your home,
and whatever you can save from the wreckage, well, at least Governor Ron kept
you safe from having to share bathrooms with transgender folk.
They won’t have insurance, either.
We’ll have more evidence later.
Phoenix, Arizona is, of course, always hot. This summer is hotter than ever,
and hotter than ever earlier. When I check, a little before eight a.m., Phoenix
time, the temperature stands at 96°. It’s expected to climb past 110°, making it
the fifteenth consecutive day to top that mark.
If forecasters are correct, the city could
exceed or hit that same level for twelve more days in succession. That will be
the longest streak of 110° days ever recorded. Highs on Saturday and Sunday
could top out at 117. But don’t worry. It’s a dry
heat.
___
7/16/23: Saturday
morning, a random shooting in Hampton, Georgia left four
Americans dead – because more guns make us safer, if, for example, we are walking
down the street and someone opens fire at random.
In Fargo, North Dakota, just a few
hours later, good guys with guns prove unable to stop a bad guy with a
gun (possibly an assault rifle). One police officer is killed, two are in
critical condition, and two other victims were shot.
The bad guy was eventually killed.
In Clermont County, Ohio, guns also
kept everyone safer when a father killed his three sons, ages 7, 4 and 3. Then he wounded
their mom. Dad was found by police sitting on his front doorstep, and arrested
without further bloodshed.
And sometimes there is no “good guy”
with a gun to stop the “bad guy,” with the gun, because there is no bad guy.
Sunday, three friends in Manassas, Virginia were passing round a loaded pistol,
when one pulled the trigger by mistake and killed his friend. The “shooter”
in this case is charged with involuntary manslaughter.
___
7/19/23: Former
Congressman Will Hurd, also running for the GOP nomination for president (he
has zero chance) says in an interview that Donald J. Trump did not win
the 2020 election.
True. Not really news.
He also warns that Trump, if elected
again, will be “a threat to our national security,” which this blogger has been
saying for seven years.
___
7/21/23: Mark
Esper, President Trump’s former Secretary of Defense appeared on CNN today to
express his opinion, regarding his old boss’s third run for the White House.
Esper told host Kaitlan Collins, “I said that I wouldn't support Donald Trump. I
don't think he’s fit for office because he puts himself first and I think
anybody running for office should put the country first.”
Nor is former GOP nominee for president, Sen.
Mitt Romney a fan. “Our party and our country need a nominee with character
[not Trump],” he warns, “driven by
something greater than revenge and ego [not Trump], preferably from the next
generation [definitely not Trump]. Family, friends and campaign donors are the
only people who can get a lost-cause candidate to exit the race.”
*
For his part, Trump responds to
criticism
from former GOP Gov. Chris Christie, who fights (and loses against) weight. It
is true, I think, that Christie has no chance to win the nomination for
himself. Mr. Maturity, however, sums up current polling this way: “Vivek
Ramaswamyis now beating
DeSanctimonious,” Trump says in a post on Truth Social. “Christie dead as his
stomach band. ‘Aida’ Hutchinson a solid minus 1%. I’m up 44 points!!! MAKE
AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
Trump takes pleasure in spelling Gov.
Hutchinson’s first name wrong. Guy has the maturity of a kindergartner.
___
7/22/23:
America’s pharmaceutical companies have only one desire: To make sure we all
stay healthier and live longer…
Allowing them to drain our pocketbooks
and bank accounts.
If you haven’t been mesmerized by tales
of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and scandalized by pictures of him having his needs
serviced by a prostitute (thanks to the sterling efforts of Rep. Marjorie
Taylor Greene), you may have forgotten entirely about the Inflation Reduction
Act. Signed by President Biden, and championed by the Democrats, that new law
allowed Medicare to negotiate prices charged on some prescription medicines. It was estimated
that this would save the U.S. government $98.5 billion over the next decade,
and reduce out-of-pocket costs for many older Americans.
All
agree that allowing the government to negotiate prices is unconstitutional, and
communist crap, and Joe Biden has a secret plan to kill all patriotic
Americans. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are scheduled to
release prices for the first ten drugs selected under the new law on September
1.
The
question of negotiated pricing may go to the U.S. Supreme Court in the end, and
with luck the conservative majority on the court will say, “Screw the sick and
they dying,” and agree that Big Pharma can charge us all whatever the market
will bear.
___
7/24/23: It
seems almost as if Rejected-President Trump is having some kind of psychotic
episode – or episodes. Pundits suspect he knows he’s about to get indicted for
the third time. Evidence points to Special Prosecutor gathering proof that
Trump conspired with others to steal a 2020 election win.
There is, however, a chance that the
third indictment he apparently fears may come out of Georgia. A state case
there is building, and at least 20 Trump allies (and likely Trump himself) are
rumored to be targets of that probe.
On Truth Social, Trump has exploded
again and again in the last 48 hours. Today he let rip: “Tremendous Media Censorship going on in the USA. What
they don’t cover is almost as bad as how dishonestly they do cover events,
people, and ‘things.’ This is a very DARK TIME IN AMERICA!”
In another blast, he insisted he shouldn’t be arrested because it would be
un-American to arrest a former president, but Joe Biden should.
Joe
Biden is the most corrupt President in the history of the United States, which
is being undeniably proven in the House of Representatives every single day.
With but with all of these horrible revelations and facts, why hasn’t Republican
“leadership” in the Senate spoken up and rebuked Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical
Left Democrats, Fascists, and Marxists for their criminal acts against our Country,
some of them against me. How long does America have to wait for the Senate to ACT?
Do you
think that A.G. Garland, and deranged Jack Smith, understand what we are in the
middle of a major political campaign for President of the United States? Have
they looked at recent poll numbers? Why didn’t they bring these ridiculous
charges years before – Why did they wait to bring them NOW – a virtually
unheard of scenario? PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT! ELECTION INTERFERENCE!
How many
times can Crooked Joe Biden’s DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE, TOGETHER WITH THEIR
LOCAL DEMOCRAT D.A.’S & A.G.’S, INDICT HIS POLITICAL OPPONENT DURING THE
COURSE OF THE CAMPAIGN? DO THEY UNDERSTAND THE DAMAGE BEING DONE TO AMERICA? IT
WILL ONLY GET WORSE. WE MUST STOP THESE “MONSTERS” FROM FURTHER DESTROYING OUR
COUNTY!
Another Trump classic, Sunday, read (and we are not making this up)
7/25/23: Today
seemed like the day Trump might get indicted by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith
again.
No news to report.
But Fatso from Mar-a-Lago is still losing his sh*t. Today he “truthed” on Truth Social:
So, let’s
get this straight? The Democrats SLIMEBALLS in Congress, then headed by Crazy Nancy
Pelosi, Impeached me over a PERFECT PHONE CALL (I won!), and are now Indicting
me over their continuing, illegal, and long running Witch Hunt, but Crooked Joe
Biden, who has stolen and extorted millions of dollars, won’t be Impeached or Indicted
by a very kind, friendly, and politically correct Republican Congress. Gee,
that seems very fair to me? MAKE AMERICAN GREAT AGAIN!!!
___
7/26/23: The
myth of the “Stolen Election” takes another in a lengthy line of hits. Rudy
Giuliani is forced to admit that he made false statements about two Georgia poll
workers. In the days after the 2020 election, Giuliani, working for Team Trump,
claimed Ruby Freeman and her daughter, “Shaye” Moss stole tens of thousands of
votes for Joseph Biden, and cost Donald Trump the win in that state.
Supposedly, they had a hidden
“suitcase” of votes that they pulled out when no one was looking (except
eagle-eyed Trump supporters), and pulled out 18,000 ballots and ran them
through the machines three times.
Or was it eight times? Team Trump
couldn’t even get that essential detail right.
Now, Rudy claims his lies were covered
by “free speech,” and he says his defamatory claims did not harm the women –
who are suing him.
As
CBS explains, “In his court filing, Giuliani specifically said he ‘does not
contest’ that assertions he made about the women – whom he accused of being
part of a vote-manipulation scheme in Georgia – ‘were false.’”
Furthermore,
CBS notes,
“Defendant Giuliani concedes solely for the
purposes of this litigation … that Defendant Giuliani made the statements of
and concerning plaintiffs,” his filing said. “He does not dispute for the
purposes of this litigation, that the statements carry meaning that is
defamatory per se.”
Who else accused the same two women, on
the basis of the same kind of “evidence?” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
stuck that claim in a lawsuit he tried to advance to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Fatso from Mar-a-Lago also peddled the same lie and right-wing news outlets
spread it far and wide.
In a head-spinning statement, however,
a spokesperson for Mr. Giuliani, who faces legal troubles on multiple fronts, soon
insisted that Rudy did not admit his statements were false. He merely agreed
not to contest the fact in court. Then he planned to ask for the case to be defamation
case to be dismissed. I would predict his chances of that happening are
somewhere between zero and nada.
*
THAT’S
NOT the only bad news for Team Trump. On Tuesday, Timothy Shea, who helped set up
a foundation to collect private money and build the wall with Mexico, is found
guilty. He was charged with stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the
fund, which raised $25 million.
Steve
Bannon was also charged in the scheme, but Trump handed him a Golden Pardon for
reasons unknown.
Shea
has been sentenced to spend the next five years and three months in a federal
prison. He must also forfeit $1.8 million dollars, and pay a fine in an equal
amount. Two other co-conspirators were previously found guilty and sentenced to
jail.
Only
Bannon got to walk,
___
7/27/23: The
bad news continues to pile up for Donald Trump – although that means it’s good
news for America.
A plan
to steal the election for him, not to stop it being stolen from him.
First: Trump’s lawyers (at least the
ones not being investigated, like Rudy) met with Special Prosecutor Jack
Smith’s team. They were told to expect another indictment, this one involving the plot to steal
the 2020 election.
(Wrack
up those indictments, Donnie!)
Please note, Trump fans. There’s massive
evidence to indicate that Trump and his toadies had a plan to steal the
election for him, not to stop it being stolen from him. (See, for
example: Rudy Giuliani’s and Trump’s lies, 7/26/23.)
(Wrack
up those indictments, Donnie!)
Second, in a move no one saw coming,
Smith and his team issued a superseding indictment in the Mar-a-Lago documents
case. Trump was hit hard again, with fresh charges of obstruction justice. A
new defendant was also added – and charged with trying to destroy evidence, at
the request of “the boss” (i.e. Trump).
As CBS explains, the fresh face in
crime (allegedly) is,
Carlos De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago property
manager and former valet. He faces one count of altering, destroying,
mutilating, or concealing an object; one count of corruptly altering,
destroying, mutilating or concealing a document, record or other object; and
one count of making false statements and representations during a voluntary
interview with federal investigators.
Trump also gets a 32nd count
of “willful retention of national defense information,” after a war plan he
showed around at his place in Bedminster – and then his lawyers couldn’t find –
shows up at…Mar-a-Lago.
As for De Oliveira, he is accused of
asking another employee at the Florida club to help him to delete security
camera footage, which would help establish a plan to hide materials from
federal investigators.
The short version of what happened
(this blogger will read the 66-page superseding indictment later) is as
follows:
June 24, 2022: The Justice Department issues
a final grand jury subpoena, asking for the surveillance records, etc.
June 25, 2022: Walt Nauta (previously
charged with obstruction) and De Oliveira go to the security guard booth where
surveillance video is displayed, and check out the situation. What’s showing,
they wonder???
June 27, 2022: De Oliveira takes another
Trump employee to a room known as the “audio closet. He asks that employee how
long security footage is stored. About 45 days, the second employee guesses.
De Oliveira says that “the boss” wants
the server deleted. According to the indictment, “Trump Employee 4 responded that he would not know how to do
that, and that he did not believe that he would have the rights to do that. ...
De Oliveira then insisted to Trump Employee 4 that ‘the boss’ wanted the server
deleted and asked, ‘What are we going to do?’”
(Hint to Trump fans: OBSTRUCT JUSTICE!)
January 13, 2023: Federal
investigators speak with De Oliveira at his house. They ask him about the
movement of boxes of documents, including highly classified materials, stored at Trump’s Florida club.
The suspect says
he doesn’t know beans about the movement of any boxes, and he never moved any
boxes. Not even boxes of Milk Duds. (Okay, I’m just riffing on that joke.)
Did De Oliveira
ever help move boxes, himself, investigators wonder?
Oh, no, never, he
insists.
Did he know about
anyone else moving boxes around – as if in some Mar-a-Lago shell game?
Nope, he insisted,
he “never saw anything.”
In fact, he had no
idea where items (such as the highly classified materials the F.B.I. wanted to
retrieve) might have been stored at the club, after Fat Donald reluctantly left
the White House – after failing to steal the 2020 election for himself (again:
allegedly).
According to this
new indictment, De Oliveira knew exactly where the boxes were because he helped
move them when they first arrived at Trump’s
Florida home in January 2021.
So, Donald gets
hit with multiple fresh charges, and both Nauta and De Oliveira find themselves
in tight legal jams.
Third: We know the U.S.
economy grew by 2.4% during the second quarter of 2023. Even Fox Business
couldn’t ignore such good numbers. “Talk about a strong economy – there goes that recession
talk, right?” admitted Fox anchor Cheryl Casone.
Fourth: In more good news for the U.S.
and our NATO allies, and for the valiant defenders of Ukraine, an amendment
proposed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to a defense spending bill failed spectacularly.
Greene wanted to cut U.S. funding to
NATO and also called for the U.S. to withdraw from the NATO treaty. All 210
Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives voted “no,” and were joined by
137 Republican colleagues. Only Greene, and some of the biggest fools in
Congress (Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Lauren Boebert), and 80 other GOP lawmakers
supported her gambit. Final tally 347 “no,” 83 “yes.”
Fifth: Republicans wasted precious time
this week (which means spending less time doing actual damage to America) by
holding committee meetings on UFO’s. Yes. UFO’s! Idiot lawmaker Rep. Tim Burchett
(R-Tenn.) made it clear he thought the government was engaged in a “coverup” to
keep proof of alien beings from the general public.
“The devil has been in our way through this thing. We’ve run into
roadblocks from members from the intelligence community, the Pentagon,” said
Burchett, who has been the subcommittee’s most vocal advocate for investigating
UFOs.
Burchett cited an example of when he proposed an amendment to the
Federal Aviation Administration that would have made pilot reports of UFOs
available to Congress, but the bill was never advanced.
The amendment, he said, would have required the FAA to report
sightings by commercial pilots to Congress.
In
any case, Rep. Burchett was going to do his damnedest to keep us safe from space
aliens, whereas the Republicans could have been focused on cutting Social Security benefits for younger Americans. This is
an idea their party is growing fond of. Former Vice President Mike Pence,
former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, all hoping to be the
party choice to run for president, have floated the idea of screwing coming
generations – apparently hoping they won’t notice because they’re too young to
care.
Right now, we mean.
(We’ll have more details on the latest
indictment after we read it. If you want to know more about the first indictment regarding the
Mar-a-Lago documents, we’ve already got that covered.)
Republicans: focusing on real problems!
___
“Should
never be president of the United States.”
August 1, 2023: Donald
Trump has run into so many problems lately, that we are sometimes at a loss
where to begin. For example, facing a third indictment to start this month,
former Vice President Mike Pence lays out his position clearly.
It’s a position most Americans should be able to grasp – assuming their
hats aren’t too tight and cutting off blood to their brains. “Today’s indictment serves as an important
reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be
President of the United States,” he says.
___
8/2/23: The
way this summer has been going, if Donald
Trump finally melted down and went running down the fairway at one of his golf resorts
naked, except for golf shoes, it wouldn’t be a total surprise.
(Well:
It would be because no one in the last decade has ever seen him running.)
Today, however, let’s start with climate
change. Is it real or, as Trump has often said, a “hoax?” To answer that
question, a person of even reasonable attention should be trying to look at the
evidence.
“Longer, stronger and more frequent.”
First, a few topline numbers: The heat index at the Persian Gulf
International Airport on July 16 registered:
152° F (66.7° C).
Then, on August 8, along the southern
coast of Iran, there was a heat index reading of:
158° (70° C).
The Persian Gulf, of course, is
famously hot – and if you’re the right-wing type convinced that Trump was
right, you can slough it off, in any case. You don’t plan to visit the region
anytime soon.
And f**k those Muslims, right!
Logically,
of course, no single datum proves anything. One impossible day at an airport,
and another along a coast, prove nothing. But the data continues to accumulate
(although in Trumpistan all such data are ignored or misinterpreted).
What data, you ask? As Scientific
American magazine reported this past May, “From
North America to South Asia, summer heat waves are becoming longer,
stronger and more frequent with climate change.”
In
Western Canada editors noted this past spring that “something exceptional” was
happening. “Normally, heat records are broken by a few tenths of a degree,”
they explained. “But last week in Canada near Hudson Bay,” which was then still
covered in winter ice, “a heat record was broken by a huge 7 degrees Celsius,
or more than 12 degrees Fahrenheit.”
The Province of Alberta, hotter and
drier than ever, has been hit for with record-breaking forest fires. On May 9, 88 blazes were burning, and 24,000 people had
been driven from their homes. With clouds of smoke creating a haze across the
region, one government official admitted, “Tens
of thousands of people have been forced from their homes and their jobs.
They’re leaving behind all they own, wondering if they will lose everything
that they’ve worked for.”
And,
indeed, many did.
(Smoke
from the Canadian fires has since blanketed the air across much of the United
States this summer.)
One in a century.
The evidence accumulates. A study reported in
the journal NPJ Climate and Atmospheric Science – which this blogger
assumes “Fat Donald” Trump has never read once – also blared warning. Since
1981, growing wheat in some of the finest growing regions in the world has been
getting more difficult. Withering heatwaves are now likely to occur in the
Midwest, America’s breadbasket, once every six years.
That compares to once in a century, prior to 1981.
In China’s best wheat growing region, similar
heat waves can be expected every 16 years, vs. once in a hundred.
Erin Coughlan de Perez of Tufts University, the lead author on
the study, warned readers, “The historical record is no longer a good
representation of what we can expect for the future.”
World Weather Attribution, another group of international
scientists, chipped in with its own warning. This summer’s broiling heat, they said, would be “virtually impossible” if climate change weren’t factored in.
By their estimate, freakishly hot weather in China this summer was made fifty
times more likely. Meanwhile, wildfires in Greece, made worse by hotter, drier
weather, have driven thousands of tourists to safety, but left many businesses,
which rely on tourism, in ashes.
Trump won’t admit it. His clueless fans
won’t see it coming. Nevertheless, the threat from climate change is growing. All of us – but especially our
children and grandchildren – are going to pay the price. This past June was the
hottest June, globally, ever. On one June day Bangkok, Thailand, hit its
highest temperature ever: 105.8° F. The city of Tuong Duong, in Vietnam, also
hit a record 111.6° F, as did Luang Prabang, in Laos.
The record there was 110.3° F.
If your
head is stuck up your ass that doesn’t prove it’s nighttime.
Even worse, a study from the
journal Communications Earth & Environment has warned that dangerous
levels of heat will occur between three and ten times more often in
Southeast Asia by the end of the century.
CNBC explains:
Tropical
regions, including much of Asia, could face double the number of days of
“extremely dangerous heat” of 124 degrees Fahrenheit (51 degrees Celsius),
according to the study. Asia faces hazards including flooding, drought
and typhoons in addition to rising heat and humidity.
Again, the data piles up. But you have
to be willing to look. You can’t just have your head stuck up your ass, and
imagine it’s always nighttime.
The National Science Foundation has been
following worrisome developments regarding the Pine Island Glacier in
Antarctica. Between 2017 and 2020, satellite images show the ice shelf holding
the glacier back from the sea, like a dam, has been “ripped apart.” This has
allowed Pine Island to speed up noticeably – another sign that a warming planet will mean rising
sea levels. Recent computations show that the glacier is moving at a rate 12% faster than
twenty years ago. This doesn’t mean everyone in Miami or Jakarta is about to
drown. It is a warning, however, like when a woman finds out she has a lump on
her left breast, which might be a sign of cancer.
On May 17, parts of Northern Italy were
hit with freakish rainfall, twenty inches falling in 36 hours. That was equal
to about half a normal year’s total. Scientists have repeatedly said that
warmer air (otherwise called “climate change”) will hold more moisture and freak storms will be more
common. In Italy, eight people drowned, and 5,000 were forced to abandon
their homes.
The signs multiply. Snow, as a percentage of precipitation, in Lake Tahoe, California has declined
from an average of 52% in 1910, to 33% in 2020. The city sits 6,200 feet above
sea level.
Nor do scientists believe conditions
will improve any time soon. The World Meteorological Organization warns that
the next five years could see record heat levels worldwide. Scientists caution
that humanity is facing a 98% chance that one of the next five years will be
the hottest ever, and that the five-year period will be the hottest five-year
period recorded.
This blogger is 74, had a heart attack
two years ago, and a worrying trip to ICU this past April, the result of a
brain bleed.
He might not be around five years
from now. But generations to come are going to face catastrophe if those who run
the planet now – and we, ourselves – don’t start getting our acts together.
*
The new figures
“are pretty disastrous.”
UNFORTUNATELY, Republicans refuse to admit we have
a problem. In the latest proof that future generations will have to take
conservation and environmental protection seriously, we might ponder the predicament
of Phoenix, Arizona.
The suburbs around that city have, until
recently, been booming, but Phoenix sits in the middle of the Sonoran Desert.
Even Trump might be able to figure out where
this is headed. More people moving to the area means more demand for water. A
23-year drought and rising temperatures, due to climate change, have exacerbated the
problem.
Arizona was one of seven western states relying on the Colorado River that were
forced recently to agree to cut water usage. In addition, ground water supplies
are continually diminished. In some places, the water table is expected to fall
by 185 feet over the next century
– meaning wells will run dry. “You’re living on borrowed water,” admits Terry
Goddard, a former mayor. If climate change gets worse, the people of
Phoenix are never going to pay it back.
The threats to humanity are clear – though not
to Donald J. Trump. (As we have noted before, he can’t tell the difference
between “weather” and “climate.”) A study using 50 satellites last April –
because that’s where science and logic come in – showed that Greenland ice is
melting at three times the
rate observed thirty
years ago. Or, as one climate expert put it, the new figures “are pretty
disastrous.”
So? What should we do? We could reelect Trump
who still thinks climate change is a
hoax, in 2024. Then
we can buy Greenland, like he once suggested, even though
Danish leaders called that idea “absurd.”
(Denmark
claims Greenland, going back to the days of Leif Ericson.)
Then Donald runs a pipeline through Canada
(after we figure out how to build it on giant stilts, over the Labrador Sea),
and south from there, to Phoenix, and Canada pays us for the pipeline.
Problem solved! Like Mexico and the Great Wall
of Trump.
(In the early nineties, ice in Antarctica and
Greenland was melting at a rate of 116 billion tons per year. By 2020, the rate
was 400 billion tons per year.)
It’s
now summer in the Northern Hemisphere and heat records are being shattered in
all kinds of places. Data.
And
more data.
Focusing again on Phoenix, we know that during the
“period of record,” covering the years 1896-2020, the city averaged 93 days, annually,
of temperatures over 100°.
Separating out the years from 1991 to 2020, the
average rose to 111, and in 2020, there were 145.
Temps above 110 are also becoming more common. During the period from
1991 to 2020, the first day to top that mark came, on average, a week earlier every
spring, than during the entire period of record. For the period of record, the
average year saw a dozen days with thermometers topping that mark. In 2020,
there were 53 days. The five hottest days ever recorded in that city occurred
in 1990 (122), 1995 (121), 1990 (120), 2013 and 2017 (both 119).
This
month the people of Phoenix have been getting their brains broiled daily. On Sunday,
July 23, the high in that city topped 110° for the twenty-fourth day
in a row.
(The old record was eighteen days.)
Then
the city topped 110° again on July 24, and July 25, to run the streak to 26.
*
HOW
ABOUT FLORIDA, where Governor Ron DeSantis, only slightly less clueless than
Trump, is focused on book banning as a winning campaign issue.
On
July 14, it turned out that the waters off Florida were the hottest ever recorded – in places registering a “staggering”
97 degrees – or what we in Ohio might call “bathtub level.” Hotter waters, of
course, supercharge hurricanes, which could bode ill for LGBTQ Floridians and
straight Floridians alike. We do know for sure that Farmers Insurance,
expecting hurricane damage claims to continue to grow across the Sunshine
State, plans to pull coverage in Florida markets.
So, Sunshine Staters, if your home gets
flattened by a hurricane this season – or the next – or the next – and you
don’t have insurance coverage, remember, you voted for Trump – who has no plans
to address the threat – and you helped elect him twice. Now you’re stuck with a
Trump-wannabe governor. If you find yourself left with nothing but the
foundation to your home, and whatever personal belongings you can salvage from
the wreckage, at least Governor Ron kept you safe from having to share
bathrooms with transgender folk.
Oh, and we have an update! On July 24,
a buoy in Manatee Bay, used to measure water temperature, registered 101.1°.
That followed a reading of 100.2° on
July 23, with other buoys in the area also approaching triple-digit territory.
Need more evidence? There’s always
more. In Greece, it was so hot one day in July that the Acropolis was closed to tourists. In Rome, in similar fashion, the Colosseum
was closed. To hot for humans. With much of Europe also seeing record highs
this summer, zoo keepers in Madrid were trying to keep pandas and other animals cool, by feeding them watermelon popsicles.
New chapters in this story are being
written every year. Only our children and grandchildren will be around to read the
book. In 2014, in a “plot twist,” you might say, ice round Antarctica reached an
all-time high expanse. Climate change-deniers redoubled their false claims.
Nothing to worry about, see! The planet was fine! We needed to drill for more
oil, and burn all the coal we could. Besides, windmills caused cancer, and
solar energy was a communist plot. Since then, however, the decline of sea ice
in the Southern Hemisphere has been uninterrupted. Ice coverage has measured below
normal every year, starting in 2016, with 2022 marking a new low.
So far, 2023 has been worse. Since
April, every day has set a record low for that date. On June 27, ice coverage surrounding
Antarctica was lower than ever before, with the equivalent of an area twice the size of Texas not choked by ice.
Finally, let’s wrap it up with the
record-setting flooding that destroyed many small Vermont towns last week.
Scientists have repeatedly explained. Hotter air means the atmosphere holds more
water, and when rains come they often come with new ferocity. In the Green
Mountain State, the town of Calais was drenched by 9.2 inches of rain in 24 hours. The capital of the state
– which you know you can’t name without googling (Montpelier) – has had three
of its four worst floods since 2011. Scientist also note that in the last half
century, freak rainfalls (five inches or more) have increased across the
Northeastern United States by one hundred percent.
Flooding will be an increasing problem around the world.
Well,
“thoughts and prayers,” anyway – the Republican answer for every current day problem,
from gun violence to the threat of climate change, to getting Trump back into
the White House in miraculous fashion.
Faced
with blistering heat, GOP lawmakers in Arizona, rather than admit climate
change was a threat, decided to put the question of what to do in the hands of the
legislative chaplain. “We pray, Father,”
he intoned, “for solutions to end suffering and for our temperatures to trend
downwards to provide relief for so many in harm’s way.”
In July, the average temperature
in Arizona, including both days and nights, was 102, seven degrees warmer than
normal.
Election-denier, climate-denier,
reality-denier Kari Lake announced that Democrats only wanted to create “mass
hysteria” so they could rule the world and make all patriots grovel before the
altar of Joe Biden.
*
__________
Graziano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any
man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two Bushels of
chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them they
are not worth the search.
Shakespeare
__________
SO, let’s just say that
Republicans aren’t going to focus on saving our children from the threat of a broiling
planet in their futures. They are going to save them from Shakespeare! In
Florida, where book banning is a growing fad, Hillsborough County teachers have
been notified that they may only use specific excerpts from The Bard.
Because?
Teachers have been warned not to
violate the “Don’t Say Gay” law, by broaching taboo topics. Students will now
be allowed to read parts of Macbeth, Hamlet, and Romeo and
Juliet – but not the full plays.
And the ultimate irony? As The
Hillreports: “Another reason for
the change is the new state curriculum and exam standards … Before, students
had to read two full novels or plays, but changes have been made due to the new
Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking [emphasis added] standards.
FUN FACT: Donald Trump and the Republicans also want to save America
from the scourge of “woke soccer,” after the U.S. team made an early exit from
the Women’s World Cup tournament. Rated #1 in the world, going in, the national
team was defeated in a shootout (a stupid way to decide any game) by Sweden,
ranked #3. The only explanation for this defeat had to be – according to the
former president, who was glad to see a U.S. team taste defeat – was that our
athletes were “woke.”
Otherwise,
no #3 seed in a soccer tournament could ever have defeated a #1. Trump
explained it this way:
The
MAGA faithful (not exactly known for being huge soccer fans, anyway) will doubtless
fail to notice that Sweden was later knocked out of the tournament, as well.
And Germany, #2 entering the World Cup, also got the early bounce.
Because
it’s not “woke” soccer, knuckleheads. It’s soccer – and sometimes really good
teams get upset.
(A normal former
president would be proud of the effort these dedicated women showed.)
___
8/6/23: Here,
in reality, where this blogger lives, he notices this bit of news, regarding
the coming trials of Donald John Trump. Regarding his indictment for trying to
steal the 2020 election, his own former Attorney General Bill Barr now says he
is willing to testify against his old boss.
Suck on that lemon, MAGA heads.
Asked on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” if he
would be willing, Barr responded, “Of course.” He also noted that on three
separate occasions, he told President Trump“in no uncertain
terms, that there was no evidence of fraud that would have changed the outcome”
of the 2020 election.
*
IN OTHER NEWS, Donald is raging again, in the
wake of his third indictment. This time, he attacks Rep. Nancy Pelosi, using
language beneath the dignity of any elected official.
That is: No surprise, coming from Lardo from Mar-a-Lago:
*
TRUMP’S
not the only Republican who has an axe to grind – and then bury in the back of a
another. Former Congressman Mo Brooks, who spoke from the same platform as
Trump on January 6, 2021, has long since soured on the charlatan from Florida.
Brooks has said that the former president asked him to ignore the Constitution, and break the
law, so that Trump could grab a second term in office.
Now,
Brooks is backing Pence for President 2024. After Trump insults his former VP,
Brooks responds:
___
8/8/23: Election Day in Ohio? Yes,
indeed. In an attempt to pull a fast one on the people, Republican lawmakers
decide to hold a special election, at a cost of $25 million. Voters will have
only one decision to make – to vote “yes,” or “no” on Issue 1. Issue 1 will
change the way the state constitution is amended, altering a system in place
for over a century. No longer will citizens vote on amendments by majority rule.
If Issue 1 passes, it will require 60% of voters to approve any amendment.
First, we should note that Issue 1 got
trampled.
57% of voters chose “no.”
43% said “yes.”
Coming in November is a ballot
initiative to amend the Ohio Constitution and protect a woman’s right to
choose.
Now, it’s almost certain to pass, by a
similar margin.
Naturally, Kari Lake, Imaginary
Governor of Arizona, who was in Ohio trying to drum up support for the “yes”
side, accepted defeat graciously!
Fake out! Of course she didn’t. Lake immediately said the election was rigged – which is
fun – since elections in Ohio are run currently be Republican elected
officials.
Voters pummeled Issue 1.
P.S. Kari Lake never said the 2020
election in Ohio was rigged, when Trump won by an 8-point margin.
___
8/9/23: Wednesday night, Fatso from Mar-a-Lago makes an appearance
on Newsmax, and tells host Eric Bolling all about how it’s so wrong he’s
being indicted for trying to steal the 2020 election. Bolling’s job is not to
ask questions, but to let viewers listen to Trump rant, and fill their heads
with pudding.
At
one point, the former president angrily insists, “I believe I won that election by
many, many votes, many, many hundreds of thousands of votes. That’s what I
think.”
First,
Trump is hedging his comment a bit – to say, “that’s what I think.” He’s
looking at using a First Amendment defense in his coming trials, and so, if he
expresses his views as an opinion (as here), it might help.
Bolling
doesn’t care if it’s true or not. But he has to come back after a commercial
break at the end of his program. “All right, folks,
now just to note: Newsmax has accepted the election results as legal and final.”
The channel is being sued for defamation, after
helping spread the lie that Dominion Voting Systems had helped rig the
election.
*
IN
OTHER NEWS, the F.B.I. shoots and kills Craig Deleeuw Robertson, after the Utah
man makes death threats against President Biden. Agents were serving a search
warrant at the suspect’s home when gunfire erupted.
With
Biden scheduled to visit the state, Robertson posted on social media, “I hear Biden is
coming to Utah. Digging out my old ghillie suit and cleaning the dust off the
M24 sniper rifle.”
___
8/12/23: You don’t have to believe this blogger, or President Biden,
when they tell you Donald Trump is a danger to this nation (and the world). Former
Congressman Will Hurd, running – with no hope – for the GOP presidential
nomination in 2024, is blunt.
Trump,
he says, is a “loser,” a “liar,” and even worse, a “national security threat.”
In fact, Hurd says, he’s only running for office again, because if he can dupe
the voters and win another term, he can “stay out of prison.” (See also:
Mike Pence, August 1, above.)
___
8/14/23: Donald John Trump and eighteen
co-conspirators get indicted for all kinds of election fraud in Georgia. Among
the crimes charged: perjury, witness intimidation, and obstruction of justice.
We are covering this topic of indictments in a
separate series of posts, titled: The Orange God and the Cult.
FUN FACT: Some people believe climate change is not a
threat. Those people are ill-informed louts.
In Canada, for the second year in a row,
hotter, drier conditions have led to historic wildfires. As of today, there are
1,100 active fires across the land, and the Canadian military has been called
out to help. So far, with plenty of time for the fires still to burn, 33.4 million acres have been reduced to blackened wasteland, the worst
fire season in that nation’s history. That’s more or less equivalent to setting
a match to the entire State of Louisiana.
___
8/15/23:
Florida health officials are warning residents of Broward and Miami-Dade
counties that one of the four variants of the dengue fever virus has been found
in mosquitoes. Luckily, there is a vaccine that offers protection.
Unfortunately, most MAGA types no
longer believe in vaccines. So go catch dengue fever and see how it goes! Most
people do recover, but the pain that can result from dengue fever has led to it
being called “breakbone fever.”
There’s a vaccine for that, too, but tried
and true anti-vaxxers would rather have their fingers and noses rot off than get
shots.
___
8/17/23: If you
obsess over presidential polling, like this blogger (a retired teacher with
time to spare) you know that Joe Biden’s approval ratings are in the dumpster. That
doesn’t mean most Americans want to see a return of Lardo from Mar-a-Lago. An Associated
Press poll, released today, notes that 53% of Americans say they will definitely
NOT support him in 2024. Another 11% say the probably” won’t.
The MAGA faithful, not exactly known
for their skill with deciphering simple math, look at those numbers and
congratulate themselves.
“We’ve got the overwhelming majority on
our side,” they shout. “It’s gonna be another landslide for Lardo.”
___
8/25/23: Republicans have been trying to score points with dumb
people by beating up Joe Biden on gas prices. When prices ballooned, after the
world economy began to recover from two years of dramatically slower business
and travel, due to COVID, they blamed Joe like he was pumping the gas himself.
Then prices declined for a year but none of the Republicans credited him for
that. Now prices are rising again, largely because of the war in Ukraine. That
means it’s fashionable again for GOP presidential candidates to insist that
Democrats have been crushing America’s oil producing companies.
That is why only four times has annual
oil production in the U.S. exceeded more than four million barrels. Trump did
it twice, in 2019 and 2020. (He barely missed in 2018.) Biden has now done it
twice, in 2021 and 2022. Almost as if Democrats didn’t try to squelch oil
production.
Ironically, under George W. Bush, who
rose to fame as a Texas oil tycoon, in eight years, the best he did was 2.1
million barrels annually. Then Obama took over and production soared to 3.4
million barrels in 2015.
And, what the heck, let’s hear it for
Abe Lincoln. In 1861, he was the first president to see annual U.S. oil
production surpass 2,000 barrels.
Two years earlier, total
production under James Buchanan – a Democrat, of course – was only 2.
___
8/29/23: The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare announce the first
ten drugs that will be subject to price negotiations, or, as Big Pharma might
describe it: “Commies taking over America!”
Under
the Inflation Reduction Act, passed by the Biden administration, the drug
companies won’t he able to keep raising prices on widely used drugs –
like insulin, which Type-1 diabetics must have to live. Prices for certain blood
thinners, diabetes medications, and drugs for heart conditions will be subject
to negotiation, with many of Medicare’s 65 million patients being affected.
Kind
of like Biden has a health plan that passed, whereas Trump came up with a
pocket full of stardust.
In
the U.S. House of Representatives, in 2022, 211 Republicans had a chance to vote for or
against the issue. All but four voted “no.”
The
other four decided not to vote at all.
(In
2022, the eight largest Big Pharma players made $110 billion in profits – but paid
just $2 billion in taxes.)
___
8/30/23: The Labor Department is proposing a new rule that would increase coverage for salaried workers not
currently eligible for overtime pay – because Donald Trump and his crew blocked
the last effort by Democrats to increase the number of salaried workers covered
by the 40-hour standard.
Three
years later, Team Trump decided that $35,576 was enough for any worker to live
on – so that a person making $665 per week, and perhaps putting in 50 hours as
an assistant manager at a Dollar General store, should be feeling pretty sweet
about making $13.30 per hour, and no overtime at all.
The
same assistant manager could work 70 hours per week, and make even less per
hour. Team Trump didn’t care.
If
Team Biden has its way, however any salaried worker earning under $55,000 will
soon qualify for overtime pay.
Expect
Big Business allies in Congress – namely, garden variety Republican dopes – to
fight it all the way.
___
8/31/23: If Republicans aren’t working overtime to protect our
grannies from Obama death panels, our Christmas greetings from godless Democrats, and our bodies
from cancer-causing windmills, now “Sleepy Joe” Biden is coming
after our beers.
Fortunately,
Sen. Ted Cruz is ready to start shooting if anyone touches his drink.
You
probably don’t know this – because like me, you may not be a model of good
health habits. But the health experts currently recommend no more than
two alcoholic drinks daily for American men and for women an average of one.
Now, George Koob,
director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, has
suggested that we may someday move in the direction of the recommendations
of the Canadian government – two drinks per week. Well, Sen. Cruz is wide awake
and he can hear jackboots in the streets! The Beer Nazis are on the march – and
they might someday recommend we drink less, and also recommend we
lose weight, because, frankly, if you look around in any bar, the average
American is packing some lard.
In plain fact, none of us have to listen – let
alone act upon any recommendations, which have not…um…even been made.
So, Ted, you can relax. And to be blunt you could
stand to lose a few pounds, yourself. You’re looking like Donald Trump.
___
September 1, 2023: Donald Trump starts the month as the
most-indicted former President of the United States ever – with four
indictments to his name.
He
broke the record of three in mid-August, a record he had held since breaking it
at two to start that month.
He
also set the record at one. And he may not even be done!
*
ACCORDING
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. economy added 187,000 jobs in
August – which would be just slightly better than the 185,858 jobs added
monthly under Donald Trump in the first 37 full months he was president – and
that would bebefore COVID hit.
You
can argue that Biden is only gaining back jobs Trump created, which were then
snuffed out due to COVID, but you would have to be math deficient to if you
did. Subject to slight revision, Mr. Biden has seen 1,884,0 286,214 00 jobs added to the economy in 2023, or
235,500 per month.
Fourteen
months ago, unemployment fell to 3.5%, as low
as it ever fell under Lardo from Mar-a-Lago.
It
has fluctuated since, dropping as low as 3.4% in January of this year; but in
those fourteen months, when all the jobs had been regained, beyond doubt, Biden
has averaged 286,214 jobs gained per month.
That’s
the math.
___
9/5/23: Also
having a difficult start to the month: Trump co-conspirator in the Georgia
indictment, Jeffrey Clark! After a
former colleague at the Department of Justice suggested that Jeff was in
extremely warm judicial water, Clark attacked his critic for attending the
Burning Man Music Festival, held annually in the Nevada desert. In Clark’s
words, it was a “neopagan ritual,” and our nation was in danger unless we all “repent” and “turn to
the Lord,” and if we end up on his jury, we find him innocent.
To get a flavor of Clark’s thinking,
facing his legal dilemmas, he had previous insisted that his indictment was the
work of “witches, spiritists, mediums, those with spirit animals, and
Ukrainian NPCs.”
(The blogger is too lazy to look up what “NPCs” are.)
___
9/6/23: We
learn, by way of ABC, that former President Donald J. Trump was warned in May
2022, long before his abode at Mar-a-Lago was raided, that if he did not comply
with a subpoena, then, yes, F.B.I. agents might visit.
How do we know?
His lead lawyer in the matter, Evan
Corcoran, kept audio notes, and those recordings were later obtained by Special
Prosecutor Jack Smith under a subpoena. Just minutes after warning Mr. Trump,
Mr. Corcoran had a conversation with another lawyer, who had been told that the
former president “would go ballistic” if pushed to comply.
Court subpoena? Fuck that shit!
When Corcoran joined Trump’s legal team
in April 2022, more than 200 classified documents had already been found in
fifteen boxes Donald had reluctantly returned to the National Archives. The
Justice Department believed he was holding on to more and sent a subpoena on
May 11. Soon after, Corcoran and a second Trump lawyer, Jennifer Little, flew
to Florida. During a meeting with their client, the former president talked
about all many grievances. Corcoran and Little tried to focus discussion on the
boxes (several dozen, we now know) that Trump still had in his possession.
Corcoran warned Donald that if he failed to comply he could be “held in
contempt” by the courts.
Trump wondered, “What happens if we
just don’t respond at all or we don’t play ball with them?”
The feds could get a search warrant and
show up on Donald’s door, Corcoran explained.
According to ABC News,
The indictment says that although Corcoran – who
ABC News believes to be “Attorney 1” in the indictment – and Little – believed
to be “Attorney 2” – “told Trump that they needed to search for documents that
would be responsive to the subpoena and provide a certification that there had
been compliance with the subpoena,” Trump still insisted to them, “I don’t want
anybody looking through my boxes,” and, “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told
them we don’t have anything here?”
BLOGGER: Me,
me, me! I know the answer. It’s, “No, you Orange Nitwit.” That would be
obstruction of justice.
In fact, according to Corcoran’s audio
notes, recorded at the time, other attorneys were telling him, as well as
Little, “that there’s no way he’s going to agree to
anything, and that he was going to deny that there were any more boxes at all.”
(That’s exactly what the indictment charges
Trump did.)
During
their meeting on May 23, Corcoran and Trump agreed that he and Little would
return in two weeks, and search for classified materials.
You could almost excuse most of this as
a crime of stupidity – save for the fact that highly sensitive secret documents
were involved.
And it was a crime to keep them
at Mar-a-Lago.
And lying about having them was a form
of obstruction of justice, which is another pretty obvious crime.
And – for Trump – it only gets worse.
Prosecutors have long claimed they have video proof, showing Walt Nauta, a
Trump aide, moving more than five dozen boxes around the Florida estate, like a
game of “Hide-n-Seek,” only involving highly classified materials. When
investigators began sniffing about, Nauta said he didn’t know anything about
the boxes, and an employee who knew how the security camera system at the Trump
estate worked said, yeah, don’t ask me about any boxes.
Never saw them, or heard about them, or
saw Walt move them around, which I didn’t see on surveillance videos.
That employee, Yuscil Taveras, has now agreed to cooperate with investigators. In July 2023, he
testified before a grand jury and said that he had been asked by Nauta, and
another Trump employee, Carlos de Oliviera, to see if he could delete
surveillance footage from the property.
And that is how you can get hit with a
charge of “conspiracy.”
Innocent until proven guilty, true. But
Trump better hope he gets elected again, and then he better hope the U.S.
Supreme Court agrees that he has the power to pardon himself. He’s going to
need it.
*
OUR TOPIC
TODAY is “clueless nitwits,” which means there’s been a Mike Huckabee sighting!
On a
positive note, Mike is looking svelte these days.
He’s
battled weight before.
Thick or thin, on his show today, the
former Arkansas governor offered up his nitwit opinion on the former president’s burgeoning
legal problems. If the rule of law – Mike doesn’t use that term, of course –
were to be applied to Donald, and that kept him from running, or winning again,
then 2024 “is going to be the last American election that will be decided by
ballots rather than bullets.”
___
9/8/23: It’s
not often that this blogger can say that he agrees with former Vice President
Dick Cheney. But today, he does.
In our nation’s
246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to
our republic than Donald Trump”
He tried to
steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after
the voters had rejected him. He was a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his
supporters. He lost his election and he lost big. I know it. He knows it. And
deep down, I think most Republicans know it.
___
9/9/23: Kari
Lake, the Imaginary Governor of Arizona, has now decided to double as the Imaginary
Attorney General of the United States.
Even though real judges and juries have
convicted 809 January 6 rioters so far, and
most of those rioters have said they rioted for one or more of the reasons listed
below, Ms. Lake is convinced the whole attack was a “staged” riot
to cover up the fact that lawmakers were going to certify a stolen election.
1.We rioted because Trump begged us to come to D.C., or we wouldn’t
have a country anymore.
2.Civil war is coming, and we must save America by killing
other Americans. The ones who don’t wear red caps.
3.Fox News told us the election was stolen and we believed Tucker
Carlson and Sean Hannity, because they are patriots!
4.“Q” of QAnon told us we had to save America – something
about Jews drinking children’s blood.
5.The commies piled up 7,000,000 more votes than we did. So those
votes had to be rigged.
6.We came because we hate minorities of all varieties (we
already mentioned Jews) and we must stomp them like bugs before they take over
this country and make it impossible for America to be great again.
7.Also: predominantly white and Christian.
___
9/10/23: Trump’s problems, related to mishandling of classified
documents may or may not have grown worse this weekend. NBC has now revealed
the existence of an unknown office on North Flagler Avenue, in West Palm
Beach, Florida. The office also contains boxes of material from Donald’s days
as president.
Oddly
enough, the office bears no name on the door, or on the hallway nameplate. It’s
funded by taxpayers (as is fitting under U.S. law), but Trump’s website doesn’t
list it anywhere.
(It’s
a ten-minute drive from Mar-a-Lago.)
Even
odder, a private firm was tasked with searching the premises for secret
documents – probably not the smartest move, unless those doing the searching
had the highest security clearances.
It
could be nothing more than the fact that Trump is a packrat. The question: Is
he a criminal packrat? It doesn’t help his defense, regarding the
mishandling of top secret document at Mar-a-Lago, if it proves true – as
newspaper reports indicate – that at least one box at Flagler was later removed
by federal agents. Inside were presidential schedules with classified markings.
___
9/11/23: Rep.
Marjorie Taylor Greene decided that the best way to honor the loss our country suffered on this
date, twenty-two years ago, was to suggest a little secession. After attacking
President Biden’s border policies, she tweeted this brilliant idea: “If the Biden admin refuses to stop the invasion of cartel led
human and drug trafficking into our country, states should consider seceding
from the union.”
Make America
Great Again – April 12, 1861, style!
Dancing on the Stars and Stripes in 1861.
FUN FACT: Rep. Greene’s 2020 campaign manager and senior political
advisor, Isaiah Wartman has been slapped for running a fake charity, he and an
accomplice have been ordered to repay $22,077.48
in donations that did not go to…
Charity.
___
9/12/23: You can’t say Donald Trump doesn’t have powerful friends
in politics, who want to help him.
Such
as: Vladimir Putin.
Today,
the Russian killer provided sympathetic assessment of Trump’s current legal situation. “What’s
happening with Trump is a persecution of a political rival for political
motives,” Vlad said.
Next,
Putin suggests Trump throw his enemies off fifth floor balconies if he can
manage to get reelected.
Or,
better yet, put poison in their underpants.
Still buddies after all these years.
FUN FACT: Tim Gurner, the Australian multimillionaire (worth an
estimated $929 million) is miffed to discover that in this post-COVID economy, the
average worker is not as willing to take orders from the Fat Cats and accept
whatever pay the Cats decide they want to give them. In an interview he insists
that unemployment needs to increase by 40-50%, to
humble the grasping workers, and remind them they work for the employer, and
not the other way around. Employees, he grumbles, feel like companies are lucky
to have them and it needs to be turned the other way around. Otherwise, people
like Gurner might not be able to keep piling up all those millions!
FUN FACT #2: Although Gurner hasn’t managed to crack the
list of the world’s billionaires, we can note that in 2022, globally, 2,640
individuals had, and combined, they were worth an estimated $12.2 trillion
dollars.
That
would mean that each billionaire had, on average, $4,545,454,545.45 cents. Put that
another way. Even if every billionaire failed to make profits in 2023, they could
still spend a million dollars every day, and at the end of the year, they’d
still have $4,180,454,545.45 left.
You'd have to be patient. It would take you two days to pay for this car: the 1,114 horsepower Hispano Suiza Carmen Boulogne. For $1.9 million you could go from 0 to 60 in 2.6 seconds.
(I think we
can all agree: The average worker needs to be humbled.)
___
9/13/23: Some
people believe in climate change, and other people are numbskulls. The scientists at
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have just reported that the
U.S. has already experienced 23 billion dollar-plus weather and climate
disasters, with almost four months to go this year.
That’s the new record.
Adjusted for today’s prices, and
starting in 1980, NOAA reports that on average the U.S. was battered 8.1 times
per year.
From 2018 to 2022, however, the average
has been 18. As experts have warned, hotter daily temperatures will dry out the
land – leading to disasters like the fire that swept Maui. Hotter ocean waters
will turbocharge hurricanes like Idalia. Warmer air can hold more moisture –
and freak rainstorms will be increasingly common, as with Tropical Storm
Hillary, which flooded parts of California and several neighboring states.
According to NOAA, this past July was the hottest recorded in 174 years of record keeping,
breaking the record set in 2021, and probably the hottest month on record. In
fact, the last 533 months have all seen temperatures that have surpassed the Twentieth
Century average.
And if you need more scientists to help
convince you something is going on around the world, NASA also calls July the hottest month on record, those records
going all the way back to 1880.
Also worried: the scientists at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Second hottest month, across the
Northern Hemisphere, ever recorded? According to the World Meteorological
Organization, that would be: August 2023.
The world’s oceans, which have absorbed
most of the excess heat generated by human activity in the last three
centuries, were also warmer than ever before, and set records for three months
in succession.
That’s the basic science.
THESE DOPES DON'T AGREE.
In Canada, hotter, drier conditions have led to
historic wildfires – for the second year in a row. As of today, there are 900 active
fires across the land, and the Canadian military has been called out to help.
So far, with plenty of time for the fires yet to burn, 42.7 million acres have been incinerated.
That’s more or less equivalent to setting a match to the entire State of Florida.
*
In other news, Sen. Mitt Romney announces that
he will not run for reelection in 2024, highlighting his estrangement from his
own party, as “reformed” under Donald J. Trump. At the same time, his recently
released autobiography dishes some serious dirt.
His disdain for Mr. Trump has long been clear,
but he writes that behind closed doors most party leaders agree. “Almost
without exception,” he says, “they shared my view of Donald J. Trump.”
A reporter for The New York Times
summarizes:
Mr.
Romney kept a tally of his colleagues who approached him to privately express
solidarity when he publicly criticized Mr. Trump, often saying they envied his
ability to air his views. At one point, he told his staff, the list reached
more than a dozen.
Mr.
Romney also recalled a 2019 visit Mr. Trump made to the weekly Senate
Republican lunch in the Capitol. The senators gave the president a standing
ovation and were attentive and encouraging during his remarks about what he
called the “Russia hoax.” They nodded when he said the G.O.P. would be known as
“the party of health care” after they moved on from impeachment. But as soon as
Mr. Trump left the room, the senators all burst out laughing.
Two Republican senators, in particular, came in
for severe criticism, Josh Hawley and J.D. Vance.
“You’re
the reason this is happening!” he recalled yelling at Mr. Hawley, Republican of
Missouri, during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. “You did this.” Mr.
Hawley, who suggested that Mr. Trump could remain in office and that President
Biden’s inauguration was not guaranteed, famously raised his fist that day
outside the Capitol in a show of solidarity with the rioters.
Of Mr.
Vance, the freshman Republican senator from Ohio, Mr. Romney said bluntly, “I
don’t know that I can disrespect someone more.” After reading Mr. Vance’s
best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” Mr. Romney said he had once been a fan.
It made Mr. Vance’s swift conversion to a MAGA soldier all the more depressing
to him.
“It’s
not like you’re going to be famous and powerful because you became a United
States senator. It’s like, really? You sell yourself so cheap?” Mr. Romney
said. “How do you sit next to him at lunch?”
Mr.
Romney, an observant Mormon, also had little regard for a fellow man of faith,
Mr. Pence. No one, he said, had been “more loyal, more willing to smile when he
saw absurdities, more willing to ascribe God’s will to things that were ungodly
than Mike Pence.”
In fact, after the attack on January 6, Romney
says he had a depressing realization: “A very large portion of my party really
doesn’t believe in the Constitution.”
Finally, the senator from Utah writes that he
was warned
about potential violence on January 6, and was worried enough to text
Senate Leader McConnell, and share his fears.
“In case you
have not heard this, I just got a call from Angus King, who said that he had
spoken with a senior official at the Pentagon who reports that they are seeing
very disturbing social media traffic regarding the protests planned on the
6th,” Mr. Romney wrote. “There are calls to burn down your home, Mitch; to
smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the Capitol. I hope that sufficient security
plans are in place, but I am concerned that the instigator — the President —
is the one who commands the reinforcements [emphasis added] the DC and
Capitol police might require.”
Mr. McConnell
never responded to the text.
*
Axios also reports on Sen. Romney’s observations. Normally,
a man of dignity, slow to attack even political foes, Romney doesn’t mince
words in describing Sen. Ted Cruz, or Sen. Hawley. Both men, he says, were far too
smart to believe that Trump won the last presidential election. He surmises they
both “put politics above the interests of liberal democracy and the
Constitution.”
Referring to Hawley,
Romney describes his willingness to go along with the fiction that Trump defeated Biden in
2020 as a kind of “oily disingenuousness.”
He also says that after
watching the House impeach Trump the first time, Sen. McConnell admitted, well,
“They nailed him.”
Romney replied
that he expected other members of the party to push the narrative that Trump
was delaying military aid to Ukraine because he believed there was proof of
corruption by the Bidens to be found. McConnell, he says, responded, “If you
believe that, I’ve got a bridge I can sell you.”
Mitch – who clearly needs to retire himself –
says that he can’t remember that conversation, and that it does not match his
thinking at the time.
___
9/14/23: The mule
has left the barn, and it’s too late to close the door and call your mother. Besides,
you can lead a mule to water, but it won’t drink if it doesn’t want to, and it
will kick you in the groin so hard you will forget what day of the week you
have a dental appointment, and you will never have children.
Jenna Ellis, who in 2016, correctly described
Donald Trump as an “idiot” and a “bully,” a man “unable to handle criticism,” and
then went to work as one of his lawyers, and shilled for him, insisting he won
the 2020 election, has turned again. She says she can no longer support him,
though she still has “great respect and love” for the man. (She loves bullies? She
respects idiots?)
On her radio show today, Ellis admitted
she “simply can’t support him for elected office again.”
And why not?
Well, there’s the
problem of his “malignant, narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never
done anything wrong.”
Ha, ha, Jenna. My
wife had this figured out in February 2017, when she told me she thought Donald
had a narcissistic personality disorder.
9/18/23: How
are the assorted misfits of the dysfunctional Team Trump doing as summer turns
to autumn?
Rep. Lauren Boebert got thrown out of a
performance of Beetlejuice for disruptive conduct. That included taking
pictures during a performance, vaping, and getting her boobs rubbed. She later
denied vaping – but when the video showed that she had – she apologized and
said she was going through a tough divorce, and didn’t remember. She failed to mention
the boob-rubbing, which we can assume she enjoyed.
Former White House economic advisor
Peter Navarro went to trial for refusing to comply with a congressional
subpoena. A jury listened to his defense and decided that he was a dumb ass –
and guilty as hell.
Former Trump Whisperer Rudy Giuliani is
being sued by his lawyer, after failing to pay $1.4 million in
legal fees.
Former White House Chief of Staff Mark
Meadows tried to get his trial for conspiring to help Donald Trump steal the
Georgia 2020 election switched from state to federal court. The judge
said “no.”
Then there was Ken Chesebro – who also asked
for his trial to be moved to federal court, but whose request was denied.
Today, we learn that he claims he can’t be charged with any crime, such as
pretending to be a real elector in 2020, not a fake, since he was “qualified
and elected by the Republican Party.”
The problem with that defense being simple:
You’re not a “qualified” elector in Georgia, until the governor signs off on
certificates, saying you are. And that certification – by state law – must be made no
later than eighteen days after the election, or November 21, 2021, in this
case.
Ken’s imaginary electoral vote wasn’t cast
until December 14.
Still, down in Texas, Team Trump scored a
limited victory, if you will. Attorney General Ken Paxton – a big fan of Donald
Trump – survived a rare impeachment trial, the third in Texas history, brought
by his own party. He still faces a trial on related bribery and fraud
charges. He still owes (or maybe the taxpayers of Texas do) several
whistleblowers he fired to cover up the scandal, $3.3 million for retaliating
against them.
We still know that during part of the time he
was accepting bribes, he was also having an affair.
Speaking of! No, not Donald Trump. We mean, of
course, noted self-righteous, professed family-values Christian, and Trump VP
wannabe, Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota. She is now rumored to have conducted a year-long affair. And with whom??? Noted Trump hatchet man and
political advisor – also big proponent of family values, Cory Lewandowski.
Finally, Trump sat down for an interview with Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” and all but
admitted he tried to steal the 2020 election – which, conversely, he says was
stolen from him. “It was my decision,” he said. He decided to go along with a
plan to create slates of fake electors in hopes of capturing the votes of
several key states he … small detail … clearly lost.
Did his own attorney general tell him
the 2020 vote was fair, and the election wasn’t stolen, Welker wondered? And
the acting attorney general who replaced him, and the acting deputy attorney
general, and his White House chief counsel, and the head of his campaign – to
mention just a few – did they all tell him?
Well, huffed Trump, “I didn’t respect
them.”
Whereas he did respect Ellis, and
Sidney Powell, and Rudy Giuliani, who told him what he wanted to hear – that he
had won.
Ellis has already been sanctioned by a
judge in Colorado and forced to admit that she told multiple “the-election-was-stolen”
lies. Rudy has already lost a defamation suit filed by two Georgia poll workers
he claimed helped steal thousands of votes in that state. Powell, of course,
has been forced to pay back the State of Michigan for filing frivolous lawsuits
in an effort to stop the Biden win.
(Of
course, Trump “respected” them.)
___
Sen. Tim
Scott: “Let the workers eat cake.”
9/19/23: If you
think Republicans care about the average American worker, you need to pay more
attention to the news. We have long known that Lardo from Mar-a-Lago enjoys
hiring undocumented immigrant workers. That’s because Lardo can pay them less than American-born employees and also
avoid Social Security contributions. Down in Texas, Governor Gregg Abbott is
all in on stopping illegal immigrants from crossing the border (not counting
the ones he puts on planes and sends, free, far into the interior. But
in Texas, which he and his party govern, undocumented workers are thick
as bees on a honeycomb and fill an estimated 1.1 million jobs. It’s kind of like that line in Field
of Dreams: “If you pay them to build it, they will come, and if you don’t
check their papers carefully, before you hire them, don’t blame Joe Biden.
By the way, this blogger has a great
deal of respect for immigrants. His Irish ancestors were once viewed as a
threat to this nation. His grandmother even got a cross burned on her lawn in
the 1920s.
But the hypocrisy!
GOP leaders baffle supporters with BS
about “invasions,” and the dire need for “border walls” if they want to be
safe.
Meanwhile, the Big Business folks who
almost always back Republican candidates and causes happily hire
undocumented workers. The undocumented cut up our bacon in meat packing plants.
They work overtime – but don’t get paid overtime – on high-rise construction
sites. And they stoop over rows of strawberries in the hot sun, harvesting the
fruit we pick up later at Kroger.
There’s a simple truth to this story.
On Monday, speaking to a campaign audience, Sen. Tim Scott simply blurted it
out. A listener asked him about the United Auto Workers strike. What
did he think of those union folks trying to pry a few dollars out of the grasp
of the Big Business oligarchs? If he were elected president, the questioner
wondered, would he insert himself into labor talks?
In keeping with the GOP brand, but
oddly off target in his answer, Sen. Scott replied, “I think Ronald Reagan gave us a great example
when federal employees decided they were going to strike. He said, you strike,
you’re fired. Simple concept to me. To the extent that we can use that once
again, absolutely.”
Marie
Antoinette couldn’t have said it more clearly. FU UAW strikers. If you can’t
afford bread, eat cake.
True: The queen's comment did not go over well.
“He does the opposite, frankly.”
9/26/23: Former
GOP Speaker of the House Paul Ryan decides it’s time to remind conservatives
that most Americans are repulsed by the former president,
Donald J. Trump. In a talk at the University of Wisconsin, he told the
moderator that he believed the party that put the first fresh face forward for
president in 2024, would win.
If it was Biden vs. Trump, he
warned, Trump would lose. Deservedly so. “I think leaders should
endeavor to be honest, ethical, moral people who try to set standards for
themselves and lead by example across the country,” the former House Speaker said.
“Donald Trump doesn’t try to do any of that. He does the opposite, frankly. So
I just don't think he's fit for the job here.”
___
9/27/23: Well,
if Paul Ryan was no longer a fan of President Trump, we can be sure Vice
President Mike Pence remains on his side.
Oops, nope.
Pence says anyone who put himself above
the U.S. Constitution, as did Trump after he lost the 2020 election, “should never be President
of the United States. Our country is more important than one man.”
Okay, maybe we can quote one of the men
he chose to be Secretary of Defense. First up, and first down, Gen. James
Mattis. Listening to Trump talk in June 2020, about shooting peaceful
protesters – at least in the legs – Mattis came away convinced that “45” was “a threat to the Constitution.”
Second up, and second down, we have
Mark Esper, who has called his old boss “a threat to democracy.”
More on Esper in a moment.
Okay, maybe we can count on his final
choice, Acting Secretary of Defense, Christopher C. Miller. He held the fort
for the final 72 days that Trump was in office, starting on November 9, 2020,
just as the Liar-in-Chief began ramping up his outlandish claims about the
“Stolen Election.”
Nope.
Miller would later make clear. He blamed his boss for the January 2021 riot on Capitol Hill. Two months after
the attack, Miller told an interviewer, “Would
anybody have marched on the Capitol, and overrun the Capitol, without the
president’s speech?” he responded rhetorically.
“I
think it’s pretty much definitive that wouldn’t have happened.”
Now,
in a new interview with Nora O’Donnell, Secretary Esper says he often had to
block Trump plans
that would have taken the nation in a “dark direction.” Any examples, O’Donnell
wondered?
He
listed a few, but my favorite was Donald’s idea that the U.S. could just “shoot
missiles into Mexico” and “go after the [drug] cartels.” Esper said he had to
keep reminding Trump that such action “would violate international law.” Esper
could understand Trump’s frustration with the impunity the cartels would
display; and no one would mourn a few dead drug cartel leaders. The problem was
the complete ignorance of the President of the United States on the realities
of the situation.
“Did
President Trump really say, ‘No one would know it was us,’” O’Donnell wondered.
“Yes,”
Esper said. “Yes,” he repeated, adding, “I just thought it was fanciful, right,
because of course it would be us.”
(Left to right below: Mattis, Esper and Miller.)
___
It’s the
gold bars, stupid!
9/29/23: For
once it’s time to focus on the Democratic Party and the sins (alleged) of one
high-ranking official. That would be U.S. Senator Robert “Gold Bars” Menendez
of New Jersey.
First, since the blogger is not a
moron, he will not commence shouting, “Lock him up!” until evidence is
gathered, the jury impaneled, the case heard, and only then if Menendez is convicted.
(The blogger is willing to wager that
he will.)
Second, the blogger is not going to
complain about how the Department of Justice is being “weaponized” against the innocent.
Finally, when almost every important
news media organization is reporting on the senator’s alleged crimes, the
blogger is not going to lambast the “Mainstream Media,” or “MSM,” in Trumpian
parlance, or the “Fake News” folks.
As he says, the blogger is not a moron.
He will consider the evidence and…wow…that’s a lot of gold bars!!
Gold bars recovered by investigators.
The New York Timeshas described what it calls a “brazen plot,” with the senator and his
wife, Nadine, busy at “furtive dinners,” sending “encrypted messages,” and peddling
influence, to help the Egyptian government get what it wanted – particularly
military aid, despite a truly horrendous human rights record.
According to the Times, another plotter,
speaking with an Egyptian general, referred to Sen. Menendez as “our man.”
As a kind of “corruption bonus,” authorities
allege that the senator used his influence to aid two New Jersey businessmen under
separate criminal investigation, one for defrauding Medicare.
In return for such efforts, participants
in the alleged bribery scheme offered Senator and Mrs. Menendez such perks as:
üChecks
for large sums of moola, including one for $10,000, sent to a consulting firm
run by Mrs. Menendez.
üA job
for Nadine, where she would “perform little or no work,” and be paid handsomely.
üCash,
and lots of it! A search of the Menendez home in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. and a
deposit box in Nadine’s name turned up $550,000, with loot tucked into clothing
pockets or stashed in boxes in closets. Some of that cash is said to bear the DNA
and fingerprints of co-conspirators linked to the Egyptian government.
ü*And: $100,000
in gold bars!
Look, this isn’t complicated. If you
think Hunter Biden was using his family name to get a paid position on the
board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy holding company, you’re correct. But you
can’t be a lunkhead and forget (or ignore) the truth: that President Trump sent
Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine, to find evidence of corruption – hopefully involving the
entire Biden family.
If evidence was there, we still haven’t
seen it. Whereas we know that Rudy’s two helpers in Ukraine, Lev Parnas, and Igor Fruman, have been inducted into the club that Sen. Menendez and
his wife are likely to join.
That is: The Convicted Felons Club.
In a similar way, we must take off partisan
blinders when we consider the legal woes of the former president.
Currently, he’s innocent. Still, there are
piles of metaphorical gold bars in the Mar-a-Lago closets. You can see them for
yourself if you open your eyes and consider the proof. Evidence is evidence,
and having the audacity to talk about it, either in the Menendez case, or the
Mar-a-Lago documents case, or the Georgia election fraud case, isn’t “Fake
News.” It’s news about evidence.
If the Department of Justice indicts a
variety of suspects, based on a pile of gold bars in a closet, that’s not
“weaponization.” That’s the rule of law, and us ordinary folks, who will never have
the pleasure of stacking gold bars in our closets – and wouldn’t take bribes,
even if offered – are better served when the people who do take bribes (or try
to steal elections) are held accountable.
*
SPEAKING OF RUDY, Mr. Giuliani is in
trouble (again) after he refused (again) to turn over documents or pay $236,000 in legal fees to two plaintiffs in a defamation case, which
he has already lost by default. In that case, Rudy was lying about the
two plaintiffs – claiming they helped steal the 2020 election. That’s not “Fake
News” from CNN. It’s the free press reporting.
Nor is it “Fake News” when Axios
reports that Mike Lindell’s rights were not violated (according to the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eight District) when the F.B.I. seized his phone – after applying for and receiving a search warrant. It’s
not even “weaponization” of the Department of Justice.
Lindell is allegedly involved in the
plot to keep Trump in office, even after he lost the 2020 election. Among
Mike’s great ideas: Having Don declare martial law and pretty much say, “FU” to voters.
(Even Trump lovers should be able to sniff out the danger there.)
Last, but not least, it’s not commie
Democrats or liberal pedophiles on the prowl, if ABC News reports that another witness in the Mar-a-Lago documents case (Trump’s
personal secretary in the White House, Molly Michael – and until recently an
employee in good standing at his Florida home) says she was told to, at best,
fudge the truth when speaking to federal investigators.
We know beyond any doubt that Mr. Trump
was hoarding dozens of boxes of material (some of it highly classified) at his
Mar-a-Lago home. We have pictures to prove that truth, taken by Trump’s own
employees. Yet the former president is alleged to have told Ms. Michael, if she
were asked, to say, “You don’t know anything about the boxes.” Other witnesses
can back her up – citing similar requests. And employees who did lie about the
boxes are in a serious legal fix.
Walt Nauta, for one, has almost no
chance of avoiding conviction, after blatantly lying to investigators. He said he didn’t know
anything about any boxes – but they have him on security film – um – moving all
kinds of boxes – the ones he claimed he knew nothing about. Now Nauta’s
only hope in court is that Trump is reelected in 2024, and grants him a pardon
for his sins.
BLOGGER’S NOTE: Team Trump lawyers
found a willing judge and used every stall tactic possible to thwart efforts to
bring Nauta, or Trump, or anyone else to trial. Stalling was expensive; but the
MAGA faithful paid the bills.
Now it is unlikely that Nauta will ever
be brought to justice; and if necessary, Trump says he can pardon himself.
*
FINALLY, we have more gold bars piled
up in New York, in the tax fraud case involving the former president, his family
members, and top executives at the Trump Organization. As you may know (but
won’t if all you do is watch is Fox News) a judge ruled recently that the
Manhattan District Attorney has already proven the key to the case.
There was tax fraud, and the full civil case can move to trial.
In the meantime, Donald and his kin will
be protected in their legal rights by swarms of high-priced attorneys –
although not always the best high-priced attorneys, as we have sadly learned. We
know that his silly supporters will continue to donate to the cause, so that
Donald doesn’t have to pay his lawyers himself. His lawyers will then continue
to file every kind of delaying motion ever conjured by devious attorneys. Five of
Donald’s were recently fined $7,500 each, essentially for gumming up the
courts, using legal arguments that had already been rejected.
Those fines, and, if I read the story
right, similar fines against two of Trump’s sons (but not Barron), and two of
Trump Organization executives, will be appealed.
Any defendant has the right to appeal,
under our system of justice – assuming that defendant has deep enough pockets
to keep delaying a trial, or contesting results.
The fact is, “We the People” benefit
any time corruption can be proven against any of our elected officials –
or against business crooks – or labor union crooks, if you prefer. Sen.
Menendez escaped conviction in 2017, when prosecutors in another case couldn’t
prove the charges, and the jury deadlocked. (This blogger thought he was guilty, then, too.) During
that trial there were allegations that the senator helped a rich donor sneak “Juliani,”
a Brazilian stripper and one of the donor’s several mistresses,
into this country.
Six years later, it appears that Menendez
is dead meat – and it would be nice if his party could force him to vacate his Senate
seat.
So, here’s how it goes:
If Rudy Giuliani defames two low-level
Georgia polling officials, and claims they helped steal tens of thousands of
votes – and evidence shows they didn’t, and he loses in court – that’s a plus
in the column labeled “JUSTICE.”
$61
million in bribes.
Here in Ohio, when former Speaker of
the House Larry Householder took his cut out of $61 million in bribes – and got
caught – and convicted – and sentenced to 240 months in prison – that was a gain for every Ohioan.
That also goes in the JUSTICE column.
No legal system is without imperfection.
No human system can be. In the courts, judges, jury members, witnesses, lawyers,
plaintiffs, and defendants all introduce a measure of unpredictability. But
this is the best we can do – and we have been on a “winning streak” of later,
as far as justice is concerned. If, in the New York fraud case, Eric Trump
pleads the Fifth more than 500 times, an observer might consider that
suspicious. But Eric, or this blogger, should he ever find himself in a similar
situation, cannot be forced to incriminate themselves, under the Fifth Amendment.
That too, is JUSTICE.
In a straight civil case, however, which
is what the fraud case against members of the Trump family and the Trump
Organization is, jury members may infer, if a defendant pleads the Fifth, that that
defendant is admitting to claims against them – and may rule in favor of the
State of New York.
Dad, of course, was also required to
give a deposition in the case, and he too took the Fifth hundreds of times.
Still: that’s JUSTICE.
*
You can lay this out with all kinds of
examples, where JUSTICE prevails. Here are a few of the blogger’s favorite
examples:
JUSTICE
1. Fox News defames Dominion Voting Systems, saying Dominion made the rigging
of the 2020 election possible. Fox can’t back up its claims, and Dominion
proves that Fox hosts making those claims doubted or even knew they were untrue.
Dominion wins $787.5 million in damages.
2. Donald Trump defames E. Jean
Carroll, calling her a liar, because she says he raped her in a department
store dressing room, back in 1996. A jury in a civil case awards Ms. Carroll $5 million.
3. Mr. Trump’s lawyers file a motion,
arguing that the cash award to Ms. Carroll should be overturned, because the
jury (in the civil case) found Trump guilty of “sexual assault,” not rape.
That’s what lawyers are supposed to do: They try to present the best defense for
their clients.
4. The judge rules that “sexual
assault” and “rape” are so similar in meaning that it is not worth quibbling. He
tosses the motion.
5. Mr. Trump defames Caroll again, in
the wake of their first trial. She sues him again, this time for $10 million.
6. Trump’s lawyers appeal that decision
– and lose again. A second trial will be coming.
Ms. Carroll, around the time of the attack.
7-9. It’s a good day any time a pedophile
is convicted of his, her or “they” crimes (assuming the abuser is transgender).
That would include a Democratic mayor, an Evangelical youth pastor now serving 45 years in prison, or a cult leader, who abused college
women, now looking at six decades in prison.
(By the way, QAnon, which holds that only liberals are pedophiles,
is nonsense.)
10. Purdue Pharma, which aggressively
marketed opioid painkillers, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans,
mostly young, despite the known dangers of addiction, agrees to pay $8 billion in damages.
11. McDonalds franchises are fined a
total of $200,000 for violating child labor laws, including employing (but not paying)
10-year-old workers.
13. Trump University is required to return $25 million to former students, who described course
offerings as worthless, and the whole operation as a scam. That’s an old one,
but it still amuses me.
14. A woman who sends ricin to
then-President Trump and police officials in Texas gets sentenced to 262 months in prison.
16. A man in Las Vegas is convicted for
voting twice in the 2020 election. And don’t you know: He voted for
Trump.
17. A recount, demanded in 2020, by
Team Trump, in Wisconsin (which they had every right to ask for, and for which
they paid $3 million), is granted. Yay, Team Trump lawyers!!! It’s a rare win!
18. A jury convicts Trump pal Steve
Bannon for “contempt of Congress,” that is, refusing to respond to a summons to
testify.
19. A California many is freed from
prison after 28 years, when DNA evidence proves police got the wrong man.
(Obviously everything prior to that, in his case, would go under
“INJUSTICE.”)
20. At least 826 January 6 rioters have
been convicted or have pled guilty for trying to stop the counting of the
electoral votes, and help Donald Trump gain a second term that he failed to win.
21. All the rioters had legal
representation if they wanted. Some chose bench trials (letting the judge weigh
the merits of the case.)
22. Some chose to go to trial before
juries.
23. A handful of defendants decided to represent
themselves in court, which every defendant has a right to do.
24. Defense lawyers presented letters
from family members and friends of defendants, asking judges for leniency, and
citing the good deeds of said defendants.
25. In cases where violence had
occurred, injured police officers, or the wives of officers who had committed
suicide later, were allowed to present “victim statements,” explaining how
crimes had harmed their families and themselves.
26. Those sentenced to the longest
terms in prison include neo-Nazis (#348 on the list I keep of all the rioters), those who
battered police with various weapons, including hockey sticks (#154), flag poles and crutches (#568), and those threatening civil war (#706) – which would have meant killing
countless other Americans.
And that, however imperfectly, is how
the American justice system works.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
