It's Weird, Right?

 

Trump staggered up the stairs of the helicopter on his way to go play his customary weekend golf with the omnipresent little Musk kid leading the way. This is after a weird speech at DOJ HQ (weird especially for being there, and breaking the illusion of agency independence), complete with his rally music set. The man who was facing federal charges for storing classified information at his Mar-a-Lago resort/residence said he'd rather face jail than be seen as being old and mentally incompetent. 

And of course, Trump isn't facing prison because many people saw him as being fit to be President, instead, but you know, all of this weird, right? Like, I don't think this man is in his right mind, at all. But here he is.

This Looks Interesting

 

It has taken everything I have to NOT write another bitchy little post about the people who seem to have voted for Trump with all the intentionality and forethought of someone getting lotto scratchers at the gas stations, and while something deeply petty in me would love to go over the hapless folks whose web searches looked like "what is the ACA?"; "student loan forgiveness reversed?"; or "how to change my vote"--I can't. 

Sometimes things will just have to play out for people to really see what is happening. 

But in line with long-standing "Strangely Blogged" TrumpWorld traditions--this looks interesting. It seems like RU comms has gone to "everyone knows what we did and everyone knows what is expected of him."  Dmitry Medvedev has suggested that maybe Trump could wind up like JFK. Nothing threatening there, right?

Anyway, US intelligence was pretty quick this year letting us know about the podcaster payoffs and Russian-based bomb threats to voting sites. It feels like this year they were a little more--I dunno--in our face about it?  So are they just doing a little "friendly "propaganda? Or are they really implying that the incoming president is well and truly held by the short and curlies? 

I know a lot of intelligence professionals before the election thought for sure Trump was a unique national security threat.  But, like newspaper endorsements--things like that only sink through to an electorate that even reads. (Oh--I looped back to that again, didn't I?)

Unqualified Shitheadery

 

Vivek Ramaswamy says he'll pardon Donald Trump "Because that will help reunite the country,”

Vivek Ramaswamy will never be president.
(Video: ABC News) pic.twitter.com/IkIXLXHkRN

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) September 3, 2023

Yeah, no. The idea that pardoning Trump would "unite the country" is dumb as hell. It already assumes that most people want him to be pardoned, and I don't think they do. He lost the 2020 elections and the upcoming trials are not going to be pretty for him. But if most people did, and there was nothing absurdly, obscenely wrong with any of Trump's activities:

Why is your stupid ass running against him in the Republican primary, then? And the same question goes for the fools who raised their hand to say they would vote for Trump, if he was the 2024 primary winner, and was also convicted of any of his 91 charges.  Once again--what is the play? Are they praying for a meteor strike? Do they think the King of the Hermit Kingdon of Mar-A-Lago is going to stroke out on a gilded toilet passing a big greasy hamberder very conveniently in March 2024 or thereabouts?

For that matter, when Tucker Carlson darkly suggests that Trump is likely to be the recipient of a hit, aren't we all pretty well aware it would benefit his would-be Republican successors far more than it would Democrats? 

Two-Tiered Justice System Stuff

 

They are different people. They did different things. Of course they aren't being treated the same. You could explain it to a five year old. https://t.co/MZDuZgNbaq

— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) June 20, 2023

Josh Hawley, who is a US Senator and not some dumb guy on a barstool in Shithouse Falls, MO (does he even live in Missouri?) is going to pretend that Hunter Biden is being treated with the softest of kid gloves while poor, poor, mistreated waif Donald Fucking Trump, a goddamn billionaire who actually was president once (hopefully never again) and was supposed to be Mister Manly Alpha Male personified, is the most persecuted forlorn little disregarded pumpkin in the whole pumpkin patch. 

A pumpkin who apparently did felonies. Not misdemeanors. Felonies. 

Call me slow on the uptake. I wondered at the idea of a two-tiered justice system from the real perspective of the poor and minority persons in this country getting the short end of the stick regarding charging and sentencing alike. It didn't naturally occur to me that what Republicans were getting at is that they thought Democrats were just forever getting off with light sentences or whatever and somehow, SOMEHOW!!!! Republicans were just being charged left and right and for no reason, and especially poor, sad, elderly, possibly addle-pated Mr. Trump. a man bereft of opportunities to defend himself, barely capable of funding a legal team on his own, who has to struggle to fight his multiple felony charges in different venues. 

The justice system's discrimination against blue-eyed blond billionaires is notorious, no? 

No? Isn't there a history of the DOJ just fucking with Republicans until the sun don't shine?

Not especially. 

Unpardonable

 

I guess you could do a search to "Lowry", "Trump" and pardon to read whatever the argument behind this is, but I'm going to go ahead and give the counterargument, sight-unseen and link-unlinked:

Convicting a former president for crimes isn't a violation of norms but a necessary function of criminal justice. Pardoning Trump would give the impression that there was something right or permissible in Trump's continuing to have documents he had no business having, even obstructing justice to keep them. A pardon would send the message that what Trump did is somehow right--it was not.

Violence By Other Means

 

The promised indignant rampage of aggrieved MAGAs never did materialize, probably in part chastened by the real world sentences of the leaders of the 1/6 melee and with no clear goal available to them (stop Trump's arraignment today, and it only goes on another day...), so we never saw the American Carnage that marked the end of Trump's brutally stupid one-term reign. 

But what we did see was a brutal violence against truth--as in the above screen cap from Fox News, describing Biden as a "Wannabe Dictator" who had "his political rival arrested". Or, maybe, Biden is a president whose DOJ followed up on leads that Trump took documents that he had no business having, asked nicely to get them back, and then was lied to and had to issue a search warrant because they were after all, the property of the US Government, and not Mr. Trump's. Culminating in the selection of a Special Counsel once Trump announced he was running again for the office for which his one-term, twice impeached ass was manifestly unfit.

It has nothing to do with President Biden. Trump took the docs himself and is responsible for what he did with them--period. Trump choose to pretend he didn't still have docs when he did--he failed to turn over docs that were requested. He can pretend he thought they were his, but the law says no. The Presidential Records Act, which a lot of people think let Trump off, does no such thing--it reiterates that government documents created are the property of the US government and not the President. And Trump stopped being president January of 2021, no matter what fantasies his lil fanclub wants to entertain. This warping of reality is a form of violence. It is intended to create a false impression with the idea that people might act on that. Blame Biden for what, as anyone understanding the rule of law might understand, any AG might have charged Trump for. 

(This wasn't Biden or even his AG--but the result of an investigation by a Special Counsel, yet.)

Where the MAGA Buses Run

 

It looks like Trump wants a MAGA crowd to greet him on Tuesday, and FWIW, I recommend exactly zero counter-protestors show up, because if Trump, Inc. puts out a "Y'all Come!" it isn't for you babies, except as a trap.  Let MAGA folks, Proud Boys, Patriot Front, people who just like dressing up in an American flag, getting on busses, and yellllllliiiing, go do their thing. And let the Florida National Guard handle things if they get out of pocket in some major violent way or whatever. Because no self-respecting governor would let people go wild in his own state, not white supremacists and extreme right-wing militia folks and whatnot. 

Truly, it would be a real leadership crisis for whatever was running the state this trial is being held in!

Luckily...

OMG.  I mean. Wow.

No. Obviously, Ron DeSantis is an intelligent man and will skillfully sort out how to not have MAGAs run riot in his state in a way that doesn't alienate the MAGAs and makes the rest of the country think he knows what end is up. He has a high EQ like that, doesn't he? 

Hmm?

Sorry, I was disassociating. No really. No reason to think this will be a January 6th style shitshow. Except that many of those people are still out here.  And never got the message that Trump lost fair and square, isn't a good politician at all, and probably is guilty of all kinds of crimes. 

What was the phrase? "Will be wild"?  That ethos is coming to Florida.

Trump's main primary opponent better hope not, and also, too....

(I gave my last sympathies at the office.) 

TWGB: Huh.

 

Fox's Mark Levin: "President Trump is 76 years old. If the Department of Justice gets its way, he will die in federal prison." pic.twitter.com/wH2gUJtWiM

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 9, 2023

I can't call Mark Levin a liar, here; we did find out earlier this week that Richard Hanssen, the most damaging US spy so far in our history, died in prison.  If this was a work of fiction, I guess we would call that foreshadowing. This country doesn't like people playing games with our secrets. We jailed Chelsea Manning and Reality Winner for fooling around with classified docs. It would honestly be a sign of a two-tier justice system, the weird phrase Trump defenders keep throwing around, if Trump's charges weren't taken seriously just because he was wealthy and well-connected (a former president, no less!). Call it vetting for a job that Trump is finally getting about 7-8 years too late to avoid this reckoning. 

Robert Jeffress, who threatened Civil War over impeachment not so long ago, seems to think the Durham Report (which does exactly nothing) immunizes Trump from something because--I dunno. Propaganda? 

Jeffress: I told Trump that he is immunized against any indictment because of the Durham Report pic.twitter.com/D5MCy0zzTB

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 9, 2023

 Of course, Jeffress is just a part of the long Religious Right-wing Jericho March to crumble the wall between church and state that might be personified by Pat Robertson, whose death was announced today, and who I will briefly note, loved himself a culture war, demonizing his political enemies, and once said that revolting against Trump was revolting against God's plan for America. Which, coming from a man  who regularly failed to announce the date of the world's demise and blamed hurricanes and earthquakes on queer people existing, was always obviously to be taken with a grain. I think the religious right have always seen Trump as a battering ram, not the tip of the spear exactly, but a blunt force object they could use. 

TWGB: The Target

 

We're on pins and needles, aren't we? I mean, news has come out that Trump's lawyers have received a letter that he's a target in the documents' investigation, and we also hear that the grand jury is considering charges for Trump under the Espionage Act and for obstruction.  We also are finding out that Mark Meadows has accepted a plea to some federal crimes in exchange for his testimony against Trump, which overlaps both the Espionage case and the 1/6 investigation--which has the bonus of so much admissible stuff against so many people he was texting with, like a whole lot of people. 

For what it's worth, even if the Espionage Act stuff (Two grand juries? with Jay Bratt whose deal is Espionage Act? Hmm!) seems like the real damaging stuff (I think it's bad, because it certainly looks bad), I'm not overlooking the possibility that Trump also eventually sees some heat from the 1/6 stuff, especially regarding the gathering of R. Congress people and talking to assorted goons to that fell purpose. (I consider Flynn a goon. Some people wouldn't but that just attributes to his success at creative goonery.) Steve Bannon has been subpoenaed in that matter. 

Am I confident that we're going to see some indictments in these things as early as this week?  Hell if I know. I know in the short term, based on what I see on the MAGA comments on Twitter, if it happens some folks are gonna be shirt-ripping mad, and then their mommas are gonna be mad they ripped their shirts. 

So Dumb it Has to be True?

NEWS: An employee at Mar-a-Lago drained the resort’s swimming pool last October and ended up flooding a room where computer servers containing surveillance video logs were kept, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, w/ @kpolantz @kaitlancollins https://t.co/VZqCUDCTuT

— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) June 5, 2023

There's a little part of me that feels insulted! that I might be suckered in by a "too dumb to be true" apparent cover-up where an employee floods a room that juuuuussssttt haaapppeeennnnns to have surveillance video logs in it. Come on! This isn't a Coen brothers movie! This is real life! 

And then I remember who these folks are...

TWGB: Trump Has Some Explaining To Do

 

Now, it might seem like I'm writing a TrumpWorld Grab-Bag because I can't find a hook for the debt ceiling vote that took place, and you'd be exactly right! I hate writing about debt ceiling brinkmanship because it feels a little like "Hey let's pretend we're about to violate the Constitution and shiv the economy to let people know who the real patriots are." 

That's insane, right? Like undermining the courts or the DOJ, or defunding law enforcement or pretending our elections are rigged, all without real proof, this is kind of seditious, you know? And it doesn't really surprise me that the same MAGA Freedom Caucus who did wild stuff like support not certifying Biden's win and some of whom even asked for pardons from Trump? Are down with hijacking the cockpit and bringing our economy down, Flight 93 style. 

They are ideological terrorists. I don't think you could persuade them that fucking up the US economy is wrong because it hurts their constituents and even has ripples in the entire world economy. They have stockpiled guns and freeze-dried beanie-weinies.  They feel good. They are waiting on some kind of political rapture. Maybe that looks like the Second Coming of Trump. I'm not even a good Christian, and that feels all kinds of blasphemous to me. 

TWGB: It's Him. He's the Problem.

 

The thing with Trump is, he doesn't ever stop his dumb mouth. Even though his lawyers probably told him this already, the Judge in the civil defamation/sexual assault trial against Trump needed to comment on Trump's social media commentary. What Trump was trying, and always is about, is making his case to the public. He seems to believe that if you're a really popular guy, maybe the rules don't matter. If you are a star, you get away with things. 

And in Trump's world, he is a supernova. His gravity bends time and space. Why wouldn't his continued invective against the woman who accused him be fine and dandy?

Um, because this is a defamation case, and that shit right there was more defamation? This is where I say a little prayer for all the people who still think Trump is smart and want him to be president, because if you see him do that shit, and still think he is smart--my god. The daily life you lead. The struggles you face. The afterschool special that is you. The entire cautionary tale of your mislead existence. How you don't drown in the pouring rain with your whole mouth agape mystifies me, but go on doing you, I guess. 

Anyway, Alvin Bragg might try to gag his mouth separately and for all the same reasons. Lawyers always remind their clients they can shut the hell up and help their case. Trump has that right but fails to demonstrate the ability. 

Anyway, his issues with respect to his legal woes have a lot to do with him--I suspect it was his choice that Tacopina is the guy he wanted to question E. Jean Carroll. The big dude who looks like a mob enforcer. Not one of his lady attorneys. So this big dude is asking a slight older woman why she didn't scream in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. When so many of us women would entirely understand why. The irony that the exact trauma you would want to be saved from is the exact highly degrading position you don't want to be seen in. The shock of being moved on and the adult-think responsibility of thinking this is the thing you, and you alone, have to save yourself from. 

Oh! I Think I Get it Now!

 

It has come to my attention that Tucker Carlson is at it, again, and laying it on rather thick about how poor Jack Texeira is a TRUTHTELLER! Being MARTYRED! For giving us the actual ugly truth about the war in Ukraine.  

Carlson loves grievance. It's his thing. And he seems to love Putin. And Here's the amusing bit--the truth-telling that Carlson is running with? Is a lie. The figures he cites on his show from the leaked docs are doctored. 

Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Thursday rattled off seemingly made-up casualty figures from "leaked intelligence" to argue that Ukraine is losing the war with Russia.

But the actual leaked classified United States documents show that more than twice as many Russian soldiers as Ukrainian troops have been killed. 

During his "Tucker Carlson Tonight" broadcast, the Fox News star said that the leaked documents show "Ukraine is in fact losing the war."

So it looks like he's doing two things here: making Texeira out to be a hero in the mode of Rittenhouse, Perry, Zimmerman and Babbit, while also promoting Putin's propaganda. But actually, there's a third thing he might be doing here--see, after telling us mishandling classified information is bad, actually, when Reality Winner does it, there's someone else who seems to have mishandled classified information lately:

Trump, who is likely to be charged under the Espionage Act. So I think the ground for pretending what Trump did is just fine is a part of this messaging as well. 

God, Fox News sucks, and Carlson sucks harder. 

The Dangers of Vice-Signaling

 

I wrote very recently about Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas' determination to pardon a convicted killer because Tucker Carlson told him to, and the publication of former Sgt. Daniel Perry's prior social media history highlights how very, very, ill-advised it would be to pardon someone like this. 

The documents released Thursday were filed on March 27, when prosecutors announced their intent to introduce messages and posts they'd gathered from Perry's cellphone. Some of Perry’s messages were presented during his trial, including a May 31, 2020, social media post where he said he might have to kill people. But the newly unsealed filing contains dozens of other posts and messages that weren’t presented publicly. 

Each piece of evidence is listed separately in the 76 pages. They include Internet searches for news about George Floyd-related protests, posts of memes that appear to encourage or rationalize shooting protests, and Perry's own messages in which he talks about being angry and scared over the protests or writes about committing violence.

More documentation of Perry's social media history is here.  And to be fair, I might have searched many of the same things he did--because I write about movements like Black Lives Matter being in favor of them and I write about extremist violence being very much against. 

Welcome Home, Brittney Griner

 

I want you to know that Brittney Griner cut her locs because it was so cold in detention in Russia that her hair couldn't be washed--it would freeze. I can not imagine what she suffered as a queer woman of color in detention in a place of pure hostility to everything about her, but I am so glad she has come home. She has come home to her wife, and a country that should value her because she represents us--America the Beautiful. The Brave. 

This is a woman who was imprisoned for an amount of hash solely for management of having a body that does stuff. It very well would be treated as medicinal here. She is not what we could consider a drug addict or a dealer. Just an occasional ad lib user because bodies sometimes need an assist for relaxation. 

Some people want to pit the existence and freedom of this athlete against some straw human--or make a straw human out of Paul Whelan, who Russia insists is some kind of spy. 

I don't understand how getting an American home is supposed to be wrong. I am happy this woman is home. 

UPDATE: Conservatives who are critical regarding her release seem to have the wrong idea that getting Whelan released was an option President Biden had but rejected. Actually, it was an option former president Trump had when he was in office but rejected. Just to clear that up. 

TWGB: It's Bad

 

The conviction of the Trump Organization for 17 counts of assorted tax fraud charges is, to put it mildly, a bit of a setback for the presidential candidacy of former president Donald J. Trump, although of course, he's appealing it. And we can look back and note that the sad ends of Trump University and the Trump Foundation didn't scathe Trump's image as a successful (and definitely not a con artist) businessman. (They totally should have.) It's hard to say that what should be a bit of a (to use a term) legal coup against a corrupt real estate scion is even the beginning of the end of Trump--the man, the myth, the mofo. 

But why not say it is? Because whatever is going down around him--it isn't good. 

I wonder about little gestures in TrumpWorld, like the revelation that Trump's lawyers have a team investigating whether there were still classified government documents to be found on Trump properties, and while they did find a couple in a storage unit, they are pretttttttyyy sure Trump's usual haunts are clean. 

My favorite bit is where the FBI decline to watch the search:

The team also offered the FBI the opportunity to observe the search, but the offer was declined, the people said. It would be unusual for federal agents to monitor a search of someone’s property conducted by anyone other than another law enforcement agency. Federal authorities have already searched Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s primary residence, and he spends almost all of his time at those three properties, advisers say.

They would like to watch a search at Trump Tower or Bedminster, is my guess, but doing it when expected is not how this is going to go down.  I just have the vague suspicion that this story is Team Trump trying to get out in front of something.  I mean, Trump;s lawyers say he's got all the clasified docs out of his sstem but they've been wrong before, right? 

TWGB: The Wild Card

 

This was another one of those weeks where it felt like Trump was on the verge of a comeuppance. I'm starting to hate that feeling. It's the kind of hope you feel when you think Michael Myers has been finally shivved for good just before he bounces back up again. 

Sure, he was deposed in the defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll. I note that he spewed the same comments against her, now, as a private citizen, that he did when he was president, and kind of hope that means his defense that he said what he said as a defense of himself as the holder of the officer of president goes away, now that he has said the same thing as a private citizen. I also don't see any indication that he turned over a DNA sample. It just seems to me that if the DNA sample was the thing that definitively "set him free" from her claims, he wouldn't be loath to provide it--so what's the deal? 

There was a time when this kind of scandal might have rocked a political career, and still, the mainstream media treats this man, the one-term twice-impeached self-described pussy-grabber--as a completely viable 2024 presidential candidate, even while he is under investigation for stolen government documents under the Espionage Act, his business is under investigation in a civil case in NY, his conduct related to the 1/6 insurrection attempt is under investigation by the 1/6 Committee,  and his attempt to fraudulently disrupt the Georgia vote count is under investigation by a grand jury in Georgia. 

Bill Barr Isn't Buying It

 

Former Attorney General William Barr appeared on Fox News to say there is no “legitimate reason” for classified documents to have been at Mar-a-Lago and cast doubt on the idea that they had somehow been declassified. Watch: https://t.co/NobM6J2aKR

— CNN (@CNN) September 2, 2022

You could say Barr's institutionalist instincts are tardy, but when they kick in, here, and also with rejecting the Big Lie over widespread voter fraud, they are firm. The man has a quite understandable line: he may be a partisan, but he will not be an idiot. And if a line of argumentation is simply foolish, it doesn't matter what cause it serves if it is beneath one's honor to try to use it.

As with praising Liz Cheney with faint "Damn, girl!", taking note of Barr making a simple acknowledgement of an absolutely obvious thing feels like something I ought to temper before losing my liberal street cred. I am not an utter Machiavellian with respects to how we get by in this political stew, though. It's lovely to think, that, along with a coordinated distancing of various far-right folks who want to move on to DeSantis (Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Laura Ingraham) that Barr is scenting gangrene in the open wound Trump has been and is finally suggesting that the party amputate. 

TWGB: The Picture Worth a Thousand Takes

 

The rebuttal to the Trump filing I referred to as the "Clown Suit" from DOJ made some of the points I expected it to make, to wit--the former guy and his lawyers were lying about turning over all of the documents and they were already gone over so there was no need for a special master. It also included a picture of the kind of documents that had been found during the search, just to hammer home how clearly the top secret/classified docs were marked.  The white space is redacted. You aren't being exposed to anything other than what should be obvious to you by now--these were sensitive materials that should not have been in desk drawers or closets or boxes in a basement. They should have been in NARA's hands. 

Trump and his defenders are in denial. How dare anyone show these documents on the floor as if to suggest that was where he would carelessly leave them? Why would they take a picture of them if they were so secret? Is this how the FBI handles these docs?

Oh, for fuck's sake. This kind of picture is the story of many a bust. Cops love to pile up the evidence so people can get a tangible picture of what they were doing in a search:

In this case, the point is that you can see the clear markings on the docs, which were mixed in with random other shit and in boxes and in different rooms, because it's Trump who didn't care. The docs were on the floor (and they never did imply it was Trump who put them there) only to show the extent of what they were finding. And then those docs were put into containers and taken to where they were actually secure. The FBI didn't mishandle them--they were documenting what they saw.