Acknowledging President Musk

 

There are tens of millions of people fraudulently receiving Social Security payments according to the genius minds of DOGE, led by our Dark Shadow President, The Elon. Or not. Actually, it could be that the CoderJugend and Musk himself are basically innumerate with regards to government processes and legacy computer systems that are basically a palimpsest of changes in technology and law going back decades. 

They could have requested some sort of agency-related sherpas to guide them through the mountains of data they were reviewing to not seem like hot messes, but somehow Trump was compelled to fire various inspector generals who would be those exact people, except they were kind of investigating Trump and Musk variously for just being all kinds of fraudulent little billionaire monsters. 

Feeling Blue Anonish

.@elonmusk conspired with foreign leaders to get Trump elected and make himself the de facto President of the U.S. There is no reason to certify the results of this election. The result was achieved via a foreign influence operation and psychological warfare on our citizens. pic.twitter.com/q3vtKOUwl8

— Andrew—New YouTube Channel @LiveFromTheResistance (@AmoneyResists) December 23, 2024

I mean, my rational brain has no proof of anything going on that would stop Trump (Musk and Vance and their various going concerns through Trump) from taking office, but some part of me really, really thinks there ought to be? 

Like it's dumb and not happening and no controlling mechanism that I know of--but still?

I would very much prefer it if a kind of lunatic corrupt, insurrectionist jackaloon was not going to be made president just because a whole bunch of my fellow countrymen seem to be dumb, spiteful, mis-and dis-informed shooting pigeons. As if there actually were grown-ups somewhere who could call a do-over or takesies-backsies or something. I know these aren't real things!

Disqualified and Murder-Minded

 

Trump on Liz Cheney: "Let's put her with a rifle standing there with 9 barrels shooting at her. Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face." pic.twitter.com/Mtx1fbLtwE

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 1, 2024

This is not a decent human being; this is a murder-minded felon. He's out on bail and in a decent world, these threats against a person who was a public servant doing her Constitutional duty as she saw fit would get him scooped up at once for violating his conditions. 

There is not one public servant who has gone up against Trump, I will bet, who hasn't had some kind of death threat--because that violence is the point of Trumpism--not just "cruelty" but actual threats of violence.  She understood the assignment. I don't love her politics, but she served justice as she saw fit.  And Trump isn't mad about the call out being wrong--it's because he was caught dead to rights. He is an insurrectionist with no business in the highest office in the land. 

This scoundrel cannot prevail.  

TWGB: It's the Great Bumpkin, Charlie Brown!

 

Trump apparently can't stop touching his nose and mouth and has fucked up his make-up, but clearly he is being some kind of nightmare squash for Halloween. It's a nice touch that his campaign decided he should be wearing a reflective work vest in case he goes wandering off.

So, yes, the actual response of his campaign to the furor of Puerto Rico being called a floating garbage island and his lately referring to the whole country as a garbage can is to play dress-up as a sanitation worker and literally be seen in a garbage truck labelled "Trump/Vance". 

I’m sorry, everyone else saw him straight up miss the door handle and nearly fall over, right? pic.twitter.com/Au2mmulLcD

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) October 30, 2024

In addition to looking absurd and infirm, this working-class drag stuff really has to stop. I mean, we just recently watched him trying to serve McDonald's while smelling like a flame-boiled Whopper, and this, too, stinks. (Of course, they are trying to make it about the thing Biden never did say, because they want to be martyrs thrown to lions except, we all know who bites.) 

Giuliani and the Boomerang

 

The Bullshit Artist formerly Known as "America's Mayor", who lied about the 2020 election and had to admit that he didn't have any proof whatsoever that the election was stolen, has been ordered to start turning his various valuable personal belongings into receivership to satisfy a judgment against him for defaming two election workers who were endangered by his lies and had actually not done anything wrong. 

Some people believe in karma. I don't know if I do--but I do believe if you throw shit around, don't be surprised if a stiff wind blows it right back in your face. You shouldn't be surprised if what you put out there comes back to you.

This man used to have a good reputation (I don't know to what degree he earned it, but he did). Then he decided to use up everything he was for Trump. And now he can lose everything he had. 

There's an example in there.

Nailed It!

 

A Trump statue of made up of nails and Trump’s Butler rally pic.twitter.com/tdy05dL3uX

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) October 5, 2024

The triumphal return of Trump to Butler, Pa, the scene of his would-be assassination, is best understood through kitsch. Everything about him is. He is a Lord of Misrule, and  his feast days are necessarily cringe. They feature things like a description of how he died. 

Yep, he died. The songless Joe Hill of the owner class entirely died at Butler, PA. 

Witkoff: That is the kind of leader he is. The kind we needed now more than ever. The kind that came here today even though he lost his own life on this stage. But he wasn't going to be deterred. pic.twitter.com/xmFGcDGnI6

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 5, 2024

Miraculously, he was shot in the head and the bullet struck exactly nothing that Trump ever used or needed. Halllujah and maranatha! 

The VP Debate was Kind of Demure, Very Mindful

 

Moderator: Just to clarify, Springfield’s Haitian migrants have legal status

Vance: The rules were you guys weren't going to fact check pic.twitter.com/zo5W3i9HIt

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 2, 2024

That right there? Was the most contentious the VP debate practically became. Because JD Vance stewed that he got called on the one very Big Lie thing he contributed to, because he can't understand why it is terribly wrong, bad and hurtful, and why he really did need to be checked on that very particular thing. Because he can't accept that the death threats and the bomb threats and the disruption of a whole town's active life can be marked down to his propaganda. 

Is he naïve? Does he not get that there are real-world consequences that follow from such lies, and that people with a conscience would avoid them? 

This debate didn't clue me anymore in on who Vance is, but he does remind me, oleaginously, of those old margarine commercials--it's not nice to fool Mother Nature. 

TWGB: Trump Lies For Love and Money

 

Trump says he really needs patriots to sign up for monthly recurring donations because of the “dirty dollars” that Biden is raising from “liberal billionaires.” pic.twitter.com/uGNOBl53ui

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 11, 2024

At some point during Holy Week, Trump took on the role of Good Shepherd. At some future point, I wonder if his fan cub realizes that shepherds aren't just at home with shearing but enjoy the odd tidbit of lamb. His fundraising has been abusive, especially revolving around the "Save America" concept of raising money to "prove" the voter fraud and try to get back into power, his stans might think, through some legal maneuver. (Never happened, right?) But basically, none of the funds had anything to do with proving election fraud--there just wasn't any. It's paying for Walt Nauta's legal fees. 

The reason I point this out is because the RNC is now running robocalls talking about massively unproven (debunked even!) 2020 voter fraud. There's no new proof of any fraud. Actually, things being what they are, there is no reason to believe that voter laws necessarily benefit Democrats if Republicans could also use them as cheat codes. (We know Republicans do engage in voter fraud.) You know and I know they still aren't doing anything about voter fraud--no matter what lil' Mike Johnson and Trump say about voter integrity at Mar-a-Lago (you know, the place where the loser of the 2020 presidential contests was found to have a pallet or so worth of classified shit). 

So, here's a funny addendum to that--Lara Trump's sub genius husband tells us every time his Daddy walks into a courtroom, he earns $million$. In campaign cash that he can't use as personal expenses, just legal fees right? Right? Who knows? If all of Eric Trump's functioning brains cells were laid end to end, an enterprising ant would carry them off for a short breakfast. Does he mean that Daddy Trump is getting pity bucks for frequently tripping over his own dick even if he's hung like a watch battery?

I don't know about YOU, but that's how I WOULD PUT IT.

Oh Look, We Found GA Voter Fraud

 It turns out, it was the GOP all along--or anyway, there was an election-denier who weirdly enough submitted multiple ineligible GOP ballots. 

Nine times.

While serving as the state party vice chairman.

There's a pattern, here. The GOP hates voter fraud and also, seem to be about doing it. It's almost like more Republicans are primed to think they will get away with it.  It is a given--you just will find more voter fraud happening with Republicans.

They do get caught though. I wonder how they got it into their heads that's there's massive voter fraud and no one ever gets caught. (I do not actually wonder this.)

TWGB: Where Did it Go?

 

So, it looks like Trump is broke. He got Chubb to do his E. Jean Carroll thing, but they'll be fucked if they are standing his fraud trial bond. His lawyers say he can't get that bond, and no shit. This man had debts before he even ran for president. He has big loans from all kinds of people. And he barely owns any properties at all in full or outright. This is actually a pretty old story--Trump never has been worth what Trump says he is.  Trump's value has been about Trump's word--and we know what his word is worth now. 

Even after the NY AG seizes his properties, he may still owe. That's where we are. Because I don't know for sure that he put anything up for collateral for the Chubb bond for the Carroll case, but probably? And what isn't encumbered? 

But here's my naïve question for you all, my readers, in all seriousness, if Trump has been overstating his property valuations to get favorable loan terms, and evading taxes on his business wherever he could, and engaging in various frauds, like Trump University and his slush fund charity and so on, and money laundering and the like--where does his money go that he can't find a half billion in liquidity? Is it a thing where the money is gone and he's just a whole shitting inept businessman who frauded his face off and still ended up in a hole? Or did he invest elsewhere (offshore, you could say) where the money is available to him and he isn't letting other motherfuckers get hold of it? 

Do you think if he graciously lets us see his tax returns for the last couple of years like a responsible presidential candidate, we'll even know? 

TWGB: Many Whistles

 

I think tomorrow if things go as scheduled, Trump's lawyers will be discussing whether there are things that Trump should just shut the fuck up about, but the picture I've used is a sweaty man, a saline-injected rotisserie chicken, suddenly finding himself turning on a spit in the supermarket of justice alarmed at the constant heat. He's not going to not talk. He projects, he rages, he confesses. He's a tea kettle on boil. He seethes. 

He whistles. 

Who else whistles? Whistleblowers. We have one recently, an FBI agent who maintains that investigations into TrumpWorld were suppressed, especially the ones involving Rudy Giuliani (who I think foreign ops used like a human dead drop since he's basically just a hollow dignity wraith wandering the earth looking for relevance), Russian money, corruption. things that didn't make TrumpWorld look good. And Charles McGonigal is implicated, which makes nothing but sense to me. 

Settled, But Not Over

 

Of course, I gasped with a bit of disappointment when we were just about to hear the opening arguments in the Dominion defamation case against Fox News, and then the delay...and then the news of a settlement. I know, $787,500,000 is not chump change, and Fox News definitely settled because they did not want the trial to go on but, but...

The dragging! Where was the great, beautiful Fox News dragging? I wanted to see Fox News hosting hoisting themselves on their own petard. Where's the spectacle? Where's the schadenfreude? 

It was, perhaps, never to be in this case. Here are the details: 

Dominion's legal team pursued a "to the pain" strategy, intending to inflict maximum discomfort for Fox and its proprietors in order to secure as big a payout and as public an apology from Fox News as possible. For Fox and its controlling owners, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, it was worth the cost to pay for the spectacle to go away. 

For Fox, what evidence dribbled out in court hearings and court documents piled embarrassment upon embarrassment upon disgrace: 

Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott warned her colleagues against running fact-checking segments by the network's own reporters debunking lies about election fraud, even as it gave such bogus claims acres of prime real estate.

The payout was a business decision between businesspeople, not a retribution against Fox News by the Avenging Spirit of Informed Democracy.  The thing that pisses me off isn't that they settled for a Very Interesting Sum, but that Fox News wasn't expected to make things right with respects to broadcasting the truth, on their own airwaves, in various timeslots, to correct the false impression they had created. 

And yet, the SOB thing about the Fox model, and right-wing media in general, is even the correction would be seen as something being "forced down their throats" by the liberal establishment, because this is the exact kind of fuckery they did on the brains of their loyal watchers. Faith, as in the belief in things unseen, and the ability to unhear what they never wanted to know. The Fox News watchers know what they want to believe and expect Fox to give it to them.

I really feel like only an exquisite dragging of the liars and jackasses who read "news" for Fox would have really done the necessary business.

Dominion says they will go on to make suit against other malefactors, and well, good luck to them. Maybe they will financially ruin some smaller outfit than Fox (OAN? Newsmax?) but undoing a lie is like trying to get toothpaste back in the tube. 

Now, Smartmatic says they are going to finish the job. I love that for them, and us, and Fox, if that's true. I still say Fox is in trouble--because I can't convince myself the bubble has yet been created that can't eventually be pierced, and I think the docs that Fox was hiding with respect to Rupert Murdoch must be very not great for them to have been hidden. 

But perhaps I should by now know to keep my hopes lower in the stratosphere. 

UPDATE: I find it interesting that investors are concerned that the business model has some real liabilities regarding coming onto contact with the truth. 

"CRYSTAL Clear"

 

The word that Fox News lost their bid to have the defamation case against them summarily dismissed is lovely enough, but the real story, IMHO, is that the judge determined that they lied their faces off:

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis handed Dominion a major win, too, when he agreed that the challenged statements are false. 

The ruling spares the voting machine company from having to litigate baseless conspiracy theories about its role in the 2020 election during the upcoming trial against Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp. 

“The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” Davis wrote in his 81-page ruling, emphasizing the word "crystal" in his ruling.

Only the "why"--whether the lies constituted actual malice, is being litigated at trial. And to that end, Dominion would like to have the cast of on-air (and off-air) talent take the stands to explain themselves.  That sounds not just entertaining to me (don't you think?) but far more informative than actually watching Fox News has ever been. 

And the Smartmatic suit is still waiting in the wings. 

Kari Lake is Somehow Still Not Governor of Arizona

 

I joined @JustTheNews to talk about our incredible victory before the Arizona Supreme Court this week.

It's so nice to be able to talk about good news for once! pic.twitter.com/oXaXVoeRAg

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) March 25, 2023

I can't do another TWGB because two back to back is one thing, but three is a whole emergency situation that the blog has never actually drilled for, and in the meantime, Ms. Vaseline Lens experienced an incredible victory that she is explaining to entire hamfaced John Solomon and I wondered, "What, now?"

She's talking about a review of Maricopa County. Most of what she wanted was rejected, but ok. They are checking one area. She very likely still lost, but I see what she's trying. They are going to pretend that they have no earthly idea where the ballots in Maricopa country came from because they can't account for how each and every one got delivered. Therefore, they must have been sketchy. 

Is the standard of "they must have been sketchy" a standard that should overturn an election, though? You have no proof of sketchiness, after all. Who created the sketchy votes? How was any pattern of vote sketchiness organized? IOW, if you can't describe the method and means of the sketchy votes, you have to admit there were voters and they did vote, and if you can't verify all the votes, neither can you falsify them. If the voters are real, then the votes recorded have a certain validity. 

In other words, what the fuck, Kari, just admit you lost and move the fuck on!

TWGB: We Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

 

So, it wasn't actually Tuesday that the indictment of former president Donald Trump happened, and I'm not really surprised, because why in the world would we take for granted something he says, anyway? While his planned protests (a disturbing idea in and of themselves) weren't especially robust, he got the turnout I should have known he would have been looking for--a lucrative one. Because it's all about that grift, isn't it? He plucked the pigeons for over $1.5 million. 

The emails are kind of disgusting if you aren't a MAGAt. Save our country (from, what, due process of a reasonably-suspected felon?) and it could happen to you! (sure, I don't know how many porn stars you've ever had to pay off to protect your presidential campaign, but sure--it could happen to you!) They operate on the same absurd logic he used during both of his impeachments--they aren't doing this to me--they are doing this to you. 

But of course that is stupid. He pays fines himself. He goes to prison alone. You, the hypothetical Trump supporter, do what political supporters of other candidates have done since forever. You loved Nixon, but now you are okay with Ford. You wanted George Bush but you got Ronald Reagan. You wanted John McCain, but you got George W.  You wanted Newt Gingrich but you got Mitt Romney--look, there has to be a morning after Donald Trump. He's not the only Republican on the face of the planet who can credibly run for president if you can call running for president after one disastrous term with two impeachments, a net loss of jobs, an insurrection and a post-presidential term classified documents scandal plus the threat of multiple indictments on the docket a credible run! 

This Man was NSA Under Trump

 

Michael Flynn today gave his assessment of Ukraine: “Russia has achieved all of their objectives, and they’re now exposing .. bio labs that have been in there sponsored by the US. The guy that just showed up to speak to our Congress in a sweatsuit should’ve been thrown out.” pic.twitter.com/4RMYZcDgif

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) January 2, 2023

I'm pretty sure Russia's objective was not to have what they thought was going to be a three-day's war turn into over 300 days, nor lose over 100,000 personnel in the process, nor be down to getting their missiles from Iran and ammunition from North Korea, Nor be facing severe economic uncertainty as their falling currency value leaves them between the inflation and interest rates so steep already pressed (or is it--press-ganged?) people are still unable to make ends meet. 

But Flynn is like a faithful little cobbler's elf clinging to his last, isn't he? I mean: bio-labs! Are we all this stupid? This is a guy who told us they were putting vaccines in salad dressing. So, he's out here giving off a Russian derivative of the busted Iraq biolabs thing the US was putting on to play up a casus belli for the Iraq invasion nearly 20 years ago? 

Is his opinion of all our intelligence that low--or is it just him? 

Rudy Giuliani, True Believer Part 2

 

It just isn't right that I'm posting about how this dripping clown was running a whole election fraud circus, but here we are. He was a true believer in trying to find dirt on the Bidens, and he went on to be a true believer about voter fraud. He basically lived in a state of improv--always saying "Yes!" 

And he needed money. He never got any from Trump, though. Even when he literally worked until the hair dye ran down his face.

Anyway, Giuliani stays loyal and still isn't paid. I don't even think the mob does low level guys that harsh. He made his bones, he did his job (poorly, poorly) but he isn't a rat and he sticks with the story. 

Trump never pre-emptively pardoned him and still seems cold. This is TrumpWorld's reward.

UPDATE: It's been determined that Giuliani violated at least one ethics rule and the DC bar recommends disbarment. But in the course of it, Giuliani still says he thought Trump won. Even now, though, he doesn't seem to grasp that never bothering to check whether his assertions were true before litigating them is kind of a big deal. Especially when a democracy depends on caring about that sort of thing. 

The Supremacist Who Worked for FL GOP (UPDATED)

 

In a story I want to highlight for obvious reasons--Lil Marco Rubio took a break from posting on Twitter as a Vacation Bible Camp fortune cookie and told us that one of his campaign canvassers was put into the hospital for just being a Republican, which is a horrific thing to be happening in Hiahleah, Florida, 

It quickly turned out that the young man in question had a long history of being associated with hate groups and had been paid by the GOP in FL for a while, apparently without them noticing or caring he was a part of the Unite the Right Rally or had been arrested previously for jabbing a Confederate flag at people.  

The first assailant who had been caught is probably not even political. A second man has been arrested, but nothing there reinforces Rubio's Republican persecution story, either. 

So, I guess what I want to know is, did Rubio point out that a person associated with Charlottesville and was a known right-wing provocateur in all innocence of who he actually was in the hope that people would honestly consider Republicans to be martyrs facing an underdog battle in (consults notes) Hiahleah, Fl, against militant liberal antifa hordes just roughing up innocent canvassers left and right, or was he trying to get in front of the story that RW/Proud Boys, etc. type guys were now a regular part of the GOP political scene by spraying the sanctity of a martyrdom beatdown all over him? 

Putin isn't Kidding

 

I'm not sure why people think you can negotiate with Putin like he's regular people. I'm not a foreign policy expert, I just read people, and he has the personality of someone who people don't talk to but listen to. So, listen. Because talking to him isn't going to work. There's some men you just can't reach, etc. 

Looking at the Russo-Georgian war or the invasion of Crimea in 2014, it's clear that Putin says whatever he wants and then practices aggression. His security concerns are pretenses (hello--what is Russia, anyway, militarily, etc.) so he can fuck around like he has a reason to do what he wants to do. The only answer to his willingness to fuck around is a policy of assured finding out. You don't look for the thing he "actually wants" when he sniffs around territorially. He wants territory. And the people living on that territory have valid reasons to not want invaded, or a war, or anything but normal unfucked lives.

So why is Putin like this? Bullshit, mostly. Believing in a world that was already rotten and falling apart when he was schooled to try and defend it. That doesn't strike me as a mindset dissimilar to people right here in the US, but there's no use in letting his worldview affect ours: sovereign nations like Ukraine are sovereign. They are a democracy. We, the US, supposedly, are supposed to support free nations. 

I'm in. Here's why: he hasn't just fucked with Ukraine. He's been fucking with the US, the UK, Canada, Italy, France, etc. He's been using influence campaigns wherever he can to destabilize our belief in what it is to be a free nation. We are lousy with disinfo. But what we can know is if Putin has mobilized the sheer amount of troops he has at this moment, it isn't for nothing. He isn't doing it for shits and grins. he means it. 

The Wall Street Journal Publishes Fake News

WSJ reporters exasperated once again by paper’s Edit Page https://t.co/mu4g9MHUgq

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) October 28, 2021

Sure, it's the Opinion page. But is that a distinction the people who really want to believe are inclined to make?

Trump is a liar and a sore loser who has been complaining about the election being rigged since before the election even took place. The narrative serves the GOP, but it is deeply irresponsible and is doing real harm to the process and to people.  But it is still a lie.  And rather than even publish this nonsense from the former (FAILED!) one-term president, it would have far, far better to have declined his rantings.

There may have been people who have done more harm to US politics than Rupert Murdoch, but truly, he and his media outlets have done more enough.

UPDATES: Of course, Fox News is not to be one-upped in the shameless lying department, and Tucker Carlson is apparently about to present a case that January 6 was a false flag. Because of course he is.  I wonder if he's concerned that anyone associated with Rep. Jim Banks' office was involved?