TWGB: Jumping the Shark?

 

He’s waving to nobody. His campaign staffer filming this is who he points to. That’s it. It’s all a scam, staged, and fake. pic.twitter.com/15LEDhCJVh

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 10, 2024

This isn't the first time recently Trump has been caught waving to a supposed bunch of admirers that just aren't there. It's just that it's starting to get so sad and obvious. You know what else is--this kind of puffery about crowd size:

But after all, one of the first big lies about Trump's Administration was regarding the crowd size at his Inauguration. Poor Donald! Nothing is ever BIG enough! And maybe, just maybe, there were people paid to be at his very hot, very disappointing rally in Las Vegas this Sunday. (Hopefully they get paid, that is--he's already threatening to stiff the teleprompter people for making him say "Hispanicans.") That's not a new story in TrumpWorld, either. And he has jokes!

TWGB: Gag Me With a Silver Spoon!

 

Trump got hit with a gag order...again.

Today, a judge barred the ex-president from denigrating court employees, prosecutors, or witnesses in the criminal case stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. https://t.co/dPoSKujmIv https://t.co/dPoSKujmIv

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) October 17, 2023

The thing to keep in mind from the above article:

 Much of the hearing was taken up by back-and-forths over which types of statements should be off-limits. Throughout, Lauro insisted that nothing Trump has said would constitute a threat to anyone. But the threat of violence has hung over this case and others. In August, a Texas woman was arrested for calling Chutkan’s office and leaving a voicemail allegedly saying that she would kill anyone who “went after Trump.”

“You are in our sights, we want to kill you,” the woman allegedly said. “Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, b**** … You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it.”

Some of Trump's little fan club are sad people who are all talk and just leave voice messages, but some of them, after being steeped in Trump's uniquely brazen rhetoric are capable of carrying out their violent threats. It was that way even before he lost his election. 

We've Found Some Weaponization

 

Trump discussed having the IRS and other federal agencies investigate two FBI officials involved in the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia, John Kelly says in a sworn statement. ⁦@nytmike⁩ https://t.co/IIhuPpY19B

— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) July 8, 2023

I remember when, during the Obama years, there was an IRS scandal that turned out not to be one at all--someone at the agency noticed there was a whole ton of new 501 (c) 3 and 4 orgs cropping up and wondered if they were all legitimate non-profits and not actually political and gave that paperwork more scrutiny. It turned out, they weren't even targeting specifically conservative organizations but certain keywords, that included "occupy" as well. The IRS apologized and settled with the organizations and processed all their applications. 

Anyway, conservatives acted like this was the worst, top-down oppression against conservative institutions by the Obama Administration in cahoots with the Deep State that anyone ever saw. It wasn't. But I'm pretty sure the legend remains in the minds of the people who always think the Deep State is in cahoots with Democratic presidential administrations.

Anyway, Trump personally wanted to sic the IRS on people he didn't like. I'm ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN the anti-government weaponization folks in the Freedumb Caucus will get right on that, of course? 

Heh. The House weaponization fixation is about using Congressional oversight (and your tax money) to investigate Biden. No amount of money (they seem to believe) should ever investigate the guy who lied about the 2020 election, cause an insurrection attempt, and stole classified documents.  But they will absolutely get on the lil' baggie of blow and Hunter Biden, because absolutely no one in the White House staff, or with the WH press correspondents, or a tourist from anywhere outside of the White House, even has some coke and smile anymore.

I'm just saying sometimes the hypocrisy really hits one in the face. Or it should hit somebody...

Dissection of a Diss

Former WH COS John Kelly has some considerable differences with Trump's behavior regarding Ukraine, and says Lt. Col. Vindman had done the right thing:

“He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave,” Kelly told the audience at the Mayo Performing Arts Center. “He went and told his boss what he just heard.”

 

Although Trump has long insisted that his call to Zelensky was “perfect,” Kelly made clear that Trump indeed conditioned military aid on Zelensky’s help digging up dirt on the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

 

And also says that Trump was doing the wrong thing on his "perfect call":

 

“Through the Obama administration up until that phone call, the policy of the U.S. was militarily to support Ukraine in their defensive fight against … the Russians,” Kelly said. “And so, when the president said that continued support would be based on X, that essentially changed. And that’s what that guy [Vindman] was most interested in.”

 

When Vindman heard the president tell Zelensky he wanted to see the Biden family investigated, that was tantamount to hearing “an illegal order,” Kelly said. “We teach them, ‘Don’t follow an illegal order. And if you’re ever given one, you’ll raise it to whoever gives it to you that this is an illegal order, and then tell your boss.’”

 

 Reasonable people can disagree. But this is about Trump, so the response (via Twitter, because what else?) is pure ad hominem. As an example of the art, it fascinates me:

Within the compact space of two Tweets, Trump has incorporated many themes common to this kind of response. Although Trump says he hires the best people, he says Kelly was "way over his head", which indicates he did not, in fact, hire the best people. He states that he could not fire Kelly fast enough, even though the man had two positions while working for him (DHS and COS). His language sounds like he is talking about a spurned lover ("like so many X's") and assumes he just wishes he was back (with Trump).

He also indicates that Kelly should stay quiet for several reasons--that he has a legal and military reason to do so (he does not, he is retired and is providing an informed opinion of the events in question) but also, very oddly, he implies that Kelly is making a liar of his own wife, an "incredible" person who Trump mentions by name in the Tweet, who allegedly promised that the former WH official would "only speak well of you." Which is probably something Trump made up in his own head, but the mentioning a member of Kelly's family by name has a point, and it's creepy.

So, he's indicating loyalty has to extend to even avoiding expressing one's opinions, pretty much forever, or have one's actual professional and personal character be publically derided.

Which doesn't make me feel an overwhelming sympathy for Kelly, who was still pretty bad in his way (but in a way not remarkable for WH senior staff in the Trump Administration, past or present). But it does speak volumes about what loyalty to and working with Trump can be like-in personal and abusive ways.

John Kelly Misunderstands Trump

John Kelly says he warned Trump before he left: “Whatever you do, don’t hire a ‘yes man,’ someone who won’t tell you the truth — don’t do that. Because if you do, I believe you will be impeached.” https://t.co/QNCtU65ZOB

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) October 26, 2019

They do say the saddest words are "might have been", but I think this bit from former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is also pretty pity-worthy:

"That was almost 11 months ago, and I have a lot of, to say the least, second thoughts about leaving," Kelly said. "It pains me to see what's going on because I believe if I was still there o someone like me was there, he would not be, kind of, all over the place."

The sad thing about that is that Kelly seems to be holding himself responsible, or believes that other people ought to be responsible, for reigning in Trump's worst impulses. It's a fallacy that Trump does not fail, but is being failed at every turn, that, as former NJ Governor Chris Christie has put it, Trump has been "ill-served" by the people around him. Trump promised that his government would be staffed with "the best people", and yet, we've seen an extraordinary turnover in staff in just one term, and Trump often indicates afterward that these were not, in fact, the best people.

At the end of the day, can't anyone just admit Trump's biggest problem is Trump? That a man we're going to entrust with the highest executive office should not need fucking baby-sitters? It isn't Kelly's fault, or even Mulvaney's fault that Trump is in the position he is. It isn't even the fault of the thousands of people who blew smoke up Trump's ass over the years and made him think he's the Pope.

Trump is Trump's problem. He's a grown man who can't hear the word "no", who needs happy news about himself to keep his mood elevated, and demanded the subscriptions of certain newspapers for federal agencies be cancelled.

How would Trump even know a person was a "yes" man? Wouldn't a person who always agreed with him just simply be "right"? Bear witness to what Trump considers the real story:

And the White House @PressSec Stephanie Grisham responded to former chief of staff John Kelly with a blistering comment. “I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President.”

— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) October 26, 2019

"The genius of our great President." The "stable genius"? That statement from Grisham might as well have been dictated by the Dictator himself.

No. Trump would never have taken such advice as Kelly wanted to give about staying out of trouble and avoiding impeachment. A person whose cabinet meetings consist of his advisors praising him isn't looking for this kind of advice. If Kelly didn't leave under his own steam, he'd have been forced out, and someone like "cool step-dad" Mick Mulvaney would have always been ready to step in. Trump is not a toddler, but is habitually treated like one, even unto the latest item of fixing policy in Syria to "guarding the oil" because it met up with Trump's ill-formed obsessions.

Even Lassie would have let this dotard stay down in the well (like a dog!). Trump doesn't need saving. We need saving from him.

This Comey Transcript is Something

So, I've been reading this thing, and I'm a little weirded out, because it kind of looks like House Republicans are trying to legitimize idiotic stuff Tweeted out by President Trump.  They are asking him about private messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that he wouldn't have been privy to during 2016, and trying to get him to admit political bias made its way into their work product against Trump when I'm pretty sure that doesn't match either what publicly was released from FBI or what they could expect to get from Comey himself (which might have been a part of why they did not want this questioning made public). 

This definitely makes me wonder: was there some quiet, secret, desperate hope amongst Republicans that Hillary Clinton would have won in 2016, so that they could endlessly litigate what she had done (thus and so) over Benghazi and emails and any other little thing, and never actually shoulder the mantle of governance? Because this transcript reads like the forlorn hope that Hillary Clinton would become relevant again so they could get another bite. But all they have is Jim Comey, and his Boy Scoutish but dry-humored implications that they are not only not barking up the wrong tree, but that he is not, in fact, a tree at all, but a very tall human who was simply trying to do his job. 

In other news, they do, in fact, have Donald Trump as president, who Tweets things like this:

which must truly be a very great comfort to them. But it doesn't necessarily obscure the rather difficult reality that Trump lies and probably has materially obstructed justice rather a lot, right in front of us, and it is not the FBI's fault if they noticed it.

Also, Trump probably posts awful Tweets like the above, not because he is barking mad (although he might be) but to try and change the news cycle from a bad thing happening to him (because he is incompetent) to a bad thing he said (because he is a very bad boy, please love his badness). He also is using the John Kelly resignation announcement as the same kind of deflection, for the great number of people who don't speak knuckle-dragger. But the subtext is that the guy who sometimes facepalmed moments of utter Trump depravity will be banished, so let's bring on someone who is more of a Scaramouche. 

We don't know who this person will be, but rest-assured, they will be awful, and should not ever, ever, be intro'd as a signal of a Trump pivot. This dude doesn't pivot. He just spirals, wildly, always, flailing, like a tantrum-y toddler, and maybe takes a big enough dosage of adulting to sit through a funeral, a little bit. But it will not ever last.

And GOP needs to stop fronting for his dumb ass.

The Celebrity White House

My most difficult task as a blogger in the Trump era is trying to sort out the noise from the actual reality of things, when, for a considerable part of this administration, the noise is their point. It's easy to be distracted by something as obviously eyeball-seeking as Trump's invitation of Kid Rock and Kanye West to a White House bill signing to-do that really had nothing to do with them. The bill in question ensures artists can still receive royalties from music made before 1972. Neither Kid Rock nor Kanye West were making any music before 1972, but they are vocal Trump supporters--so there they are. 

Amidst the odd things rambled about in the event, one might miss that Trump, when questioned about the apparent murder of US green-card holder and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, gave some of the weakest baby-shit answers imaginable. Well, it's a darn shame. And it didn't happen here but in Turkey. And he wasn't an actual US citizen. And we made an arms deal. This genuinely makes me wonder if Trump actually grasps that murder is bad when governments do it. He doesn't seem to--consider his admiration for the Chinese handling of the Tiananmen Square protesters. He's praised the toughness of people like Rodrigo Duterte and Kim Jong Un specifically regarding their ruthlessness. It might sound in his mind like he's being some version of macho, the same as when he threatens the press with phrases like "enemy of the people"--he's "fighting back"!

And yet, here's the weakness of his rhetorical corner: this peculiar admiration for "toughness" means he "fell in love" with the North Korean dictator who delivered Otto Warmbier back to us in a clearly brutalized state. And because of Trump's "happy talk" kind of rhetoric, he paints himself into a bit of a corner, doesn't he? If North Korea is not compliant regarding what they might have agreed to think about doing (or if, perhaps, China and Russia are not compliant in upholding any sanctions re: North Korea on their end), Trump's switch from "love" is like a confession of failure. Trump needs his list of accomplishments, after all. 

It seems like, to Trump, a wee bit of extrajudicial killing for dictators is like pussy-grabbing when one is a celebrity: they just let you do it. "They" being people with no earthly observed or enforced ability to stop you. Why would he enforce what he clearly thinks is okay for Saudi Arabia to do? Aren't we already helping them do genocide in Yemen?

Which brings us back to celebrity and Kanye West. I am curious about what brought about the invitation of Trump-backing musical artists to this particular event, and wondered if, in part, the batshit signal didn't go up in response to Taylor Swift's recent endorsement of Democratic candidates and clarion call regarding the importance of voting.  It's like a form of entertainment-news poker: "I see your Swift and raise you a Yeezy."

But I worry that this is sort of like creating a spin-off of his usual brand now that his campaign-style rallies are even being ditched for low ratings on Fox News Channel. In rather the way The Celebrity Apprentice was a more interesting vehicle for the Trump reality tv brand--will we be seeing more famous(ish) Trump-supporting faces out there to sort of give him a little buzz when press is rough? Will Trump Administration press turn away from press briefings (which Sarah Huckabee Sanders seems really loathe to do, and Raj Shah is basically not likable for Sean Spicer values of "ugh") to just do weird "Love Boat" like "episodes" where Scott Baio or whoever just show up and everyone's time gets wasted because this person was in entertainment? 

There is no good reason for press persons to ask Kid Rock what he thinks about anything, except for enumerating the various right reasons for starting an escort service. There is no value in psychoanalyzing Kanye West, or even studying whether his performance suggests that Get Out was a documentary. His mental health is a family issue--but his and Trump's rhetoric about race (and masculinity) is definitely and regardless, not healthy. It's window-dressing that forces us to deal with "Trump as Celebrity" when we need to look at "Trump as Accountable Elected Official".

And he is failing at accountability, transparency, swamp-draining, and more. His celebrity persona, his carefully-cultivated persona, was being the guy who said "You're fired" and made money all the time--but the reality is he's a cheat, a scam artist, and he is afraid of firing John Kelly. He can't stand up to North Korea or Saudi Arabia and has to pummel immigrants and shit-talk Democrats to fake being something. 

He is a Potemkin president, all surface. But he has nothing at his core. His image is celebrity, and nothing more. 

The Trump Shutdown

It isn't an entire year that Donald Trump has been president, and yet, with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, the government is now facing a shutdown because, as everyone probably should have known during 2016 but just enough failed to take into account--he hasn't the least clue what he's doing. 

He articulated a lot of promises during the campaign about building a wall that Mexico would pay for (but it most certainly will not) and deporting millions of undocumented immigrants. That sort of thing doesn't seem very in line with the idea of crafting "a bill of love" with respects to DACA recipients, anymore than his basically ending it by executive order did. 

It really doesn't make sense then, that Democrats should be faulted for the GOP deciding to hold both DACA and CHIP beneficiaries hostage in the continuing resolution debate. And yes, this is exactly what they had done, as Mitch McConnell, may his neck skin rise up to swathe his breathing holes, clearly Tweeted:

The intention being to bully the Democrats into picking CHIP kids over DACA, and probably ensuring DACA protection would never happen. I mean, the GOP basically considers DACA to be an amnesty. Trump put DACA on the line. Majority Leader McConnell never did boo about renewing CHIP. If the GOP cared about either, they could have easily ensured their continuation--even without Democratic agreement (although they would have had it). Instead, they held them to lord over Democrats for a continuing resolution that there's no real reason to believe the Democrats would have been against if there hadn't been hostage-taking by the party that happens to be the "government shutdown experts" in the first place. Thus resulting in the first time a government shutdown has occurred with a White House and Congress both in the same party's power.

And of course it's Republicans. Because they can't govern, because they don't seem to know what government is for.

Trump, the populist common guy communicator and all around deal-making sonofabitch, who bragged to all and sundry that he could get shit done, got no shit done. The wall isn't happening, the GOP, trying to pin the failure of the CR on Dems not loving DACA enough just made it clear who really is supporting Dreamers, and in the meanwhile, funding CHIP is now and always has been a thing McConnell could introduce, right?

The GOP owns this, but as with so many things a lot of people have a piece of the ownership of, let's put Trump's name on this one. This is the Trump Shutdown. The Shithole Shutdown. This is his inaugural 1st anniversary present.  He said he alone could fix it--he can't even explain it. 

And tomorrow, there will be marches. Because we resist.

Sometimes They Show Themselves in all Their Glory

I guess most of us who are not giant Trump-Heads are already a little past General Kelly idealism and have careened into Kelly-cynicism: the dude is just as bad as any of the White House  Kool-Aid-itariat, maybe worse because he could have been so much more. But I think the interview that Trump's Chief of Staff just gave pretty much reveals all you need to know--

He's Trump's guy. You could look for anything else in him, but damned if you'll see it. For one thing, he strongly defended a man who would be comfortable seeing black people in this country have a permanent "compromised" second-class citizenship. And for another, he defended Confederate General Robert E. Lee. (The joke is obviously not funny--Trump, a New Yorker, has been obvious in what he means by discussing "our heritage" when talking about the statues of Confederate generals, and it does not mean the heritage of a location at all--but a certain "spirit".) Although he lied in his recollection of Rep. Frederica Wilson's speech regarding the naming of an FBI building for two fallen officers, he sees no truth about her character that he needs to respect. 

He'll spread conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton like margarine on toast, just to get his boss over this little episode of possible light treason, so that the Trump Administration can keep deporting dangerous foreign folks.

I don't know what more Kelly could have been. Sometimes, you just have to look at a person, and let them show themselves.  

The Pitch That Defiles

President Donald Trump's Chief of Staff spoke at length about the process in returning a US soldier home and the nature of how Gold Star families are informed of their loss. General Kelly has an intimate and experienced knowledge of that process, and I don't care to take away from that--except to call out that this was a very moving wrap, a sort of turgid tortilla, for a bullshit burrito. Because while he spoke movingly about the process, he also slammed into his address some actual indefensible nonsense. 

Here are some excerpts of note: 

Well, let me tell you what I told him. Let me tell you what my best friend, Joe Dunford, told me — because he was my casualty officer. He said, Kel, he was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed. He knew what he was getting into by joining that 1 percent. He knew what the possibilities were because we’re at war. And when he died, in the four cases we’re talking about, Niger, and my son’s case in Afghanistan — when he died, he was surrounded by the best men on this Earth: his friends.

That’s what the President tried to say to four families the other day. I was stunned when I came to work yesterday morning, and brokenhearted at what I saw a member of Congress doing. A member of Congress who listened in on a phone call from the President of the United States to a young wife, and in his way tried to express that opinion — that he’s a brave man, a fallen hero, he knew what he was getting himself into because he enlisted. There’s no reason to enlist; he enlisted. And he was where he wanted to be, exactly where he wanted to be, with exactly the people he wanted to be with when his life was taken.

For one thing, this only corroborates the statement that was made by Congresswoman Wilson that Trump stated that her husband knew what he was getting into when he signed up for service. This particular bit only reinforces the statements of the people who heard the call. Also, talking about Rep. Wilson "listening in" was inaccurate, because it sounds like she was eavesdropping, and wasn't invited to share in that call by the widow because she, also, was a close friend of the deceased.

It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me. And I thought at least that was sacred. You know, when I was a kid growing up, a lot of things were sacred in our country. Women were sacred, looked upon with great honor. That’s obviously not the case anymore as we see from recent cases. Life — the dignity of life — is sacred. That’s gone. Religion, that seems to be gone as well. 

Gold Star families, I think that left in the convention over the summer. But I just thought — the selfless devotion that brings a man or woman to die on the battlefield, I just thought that that might be sacred.

The member of Congress, once again, listened in by invitation of the family of the deceased. That choice has its own sanctity. The dignity of life? Don't make me laugh! We're talking about the dignity of death, and whether the dead also serve the CIC. For whatever use he has for them, for a kind of order they have no ability to refuse. Whether the currently serving POTUS gets to use General Kelly's son as a human shield.

And what about "Women were sacred, looked on with great honor" and "Religion, that seems to be gone as well"?

Are women uppity tarts now that we get to serve in congress and are without honor or sacredness? Are people just entirely falling down on the routine offering of "Merry Christmases"? Do either of those things have any fucking thing whatsoever to do with whether Trump tried to use the fallen soldiers to shield himself from criticism regarding the Niger mission, whatever that was, as if their blood expiated him from the basic sin of incompetence? Was the Gold Star  Khan family really to blame for the debasing of their conversation?  Why not Trump, who started it by demeaning immigrants, many of whom serve this country, and then lashed out at the Khans when he didn't like what they had to say?

It was a kind of dutiful clean-up where Kelly tried to mop up Trump's mess regarding what he had to say about fallen servicemembers, that became Kelly's mess about how he served a lying, stupid, unacceptably unprepared man.

That is still who Trump is, by the way. Nothing Kelly said changed that, either. It only made him a little more responsible for it.