This Was "America's Mayor", Once

 

Watch "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani call Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis a "ho," and the Christian audience at the ReAwaken America tour go wild for it last night. pic.twitter.com/yy68oan7lg

— Stephanie Mencimer (@smencimer) June 8, 2024

He's not half racist and misogynistic, is he? It reminds me that he went out of his way to defame, and continued to defame, two Black, female election workers, also in Georgia.  But because my government name ends in the same vowel as his, let me help him with the pronunciation of Ms. Willis' name:

And she isn't a "ho"--but an adult female who can socialize with another adult person. Are we going to sit here in 2024 and pretend a professional adult woman is not allowed to have adult relationships? That "dating" is some form of harlotry?

Is this the Middle Ages?  I do not want to hear sexual slurs about anyone under the sun from this sleazeball. 

TWGB: The Only Winning Move

 

The disqualification trial of Fulton County DA Fani Willis saw a decision that enabled the case to continue, as Willis stays on while her top prosecutor, Nathan Wade, leaves the case--but we also learn that the judge in the Trial, Scott McAfee, faced threats and was concerned about getting security for his family. This is appalling, but not an unusual feature of TrumpWorld. McAfee, a conservative, will be treated by MAGA as having been somehow biased (I checked Twitter--they are GRUMBLING) when it is hard to objectively state what was uncovered in the trial more than a mere appearance of impropriety. 

He made as fair a decision as he could. He chided Willis for her conduct. It's not enough. 

From what I can tell, the lesson of TrumpWorld is similar to the lesson of playing "tic-tac-toe" in the 1983 movie WarGames--the only winning move is not to play. It means a little something different here though--it's the choice of game. You don't win at appeasing MAGA. You win only by doing your job. In other words--how about a nice came of chess?

Mike Pence knows this one. He just recently explained why he could not endorse Donald Trump, his old running mate, for president. Trump required him to do something illegal and unconstitutional to show his loyalty and he could not. In return, his life was threatened, and Trump to this day considers Pence "disloyal". It seems clear that to Trump's mind, you cannot serve two masters: the Constitution and Trump.  It also stands as a stark warning to other would-be GOP VP nominees--he will not be someone you serve with, just someone you serve. I can only ask what the conscience of a conservative has to say about that.

TWGB: Running Interference

 

It's a funny old thing that Trump wants to scream "ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!" with respects to his two lawsuits today. They are both actually election interference lawsuits, in that Trump took extralegal efforts to interfere with what happened in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. 

In the so-called "hush money" case that Trump lost his motion to dismiss today, the case really has to do with using his business funds fraudulently to cover up information that would tend to prejudice voters against him: that he had intimate relations with an actor in the porn industry while his third wife had just given birth. This kind of secrecy and coverup is a part of Trump operations in general: he has long been an avid user of employee NDA's (which were, as constructed, not a valid truth-quashing mechanism for political campaigns or White House administrations) , and used his friendship with National Enquirer exec David Pecker to "catch and kill" negative stories. 

Trump is really great at using funds. sometimes fraudulently, to cover up things. Some say he used Trump Foundation money to pay to Florida prosecutor Pam Bondi's political campaign org to stop an investigation into Trump University, (I dunno if it happened that way, but the results are the results.) Trump sued Tim O'Brien for pointing out Trump's numbers never did add up because he hated to be called out on what we could have should have known about his businesses. Was it worth it to give some of us a glimpse into what we learned later when his 2005 taxes were exposed--he's been drawing down his liability from a mega loss in 1995? (He still was benefiting from losses when his last six years got opened up later on.) He mightily fought to keep that tax data unknown. Because he was doing crimes. 

TWGB: Flipping Bricks

 

Well, here's to having the kind of week in the news where a journey into TrumpWorld actually feels like a bit of a vacation. And before I get things started, let's hear it for this week's TrumpWorld winner, though he doesn't even know it, Jim Jordan, for not becoming Speaker of the House. I used to joke about a tough job as "leading the clowns and following the elephants"--and that's what GOP Speaker would look like right now. Jimmy--enjoy doing less. I hope to enjoy you doing less and less in the future. It suits you. 

Now on to TrumpWorld--obviously, the big story this week is out of Fulton County where Sidney Powell and now Kenneth Chesebro have entered plea agreements with cooperation.  This does a handful of things--shocks TrumpWorld because some folks probably thought Powell was too batshit to get flipped: nah, she's a lawyer and figured out how screwed she was--and with the addition of Chesebro, um, probably Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani should be getting on the phone about getting correct, you think? 

By admitting guilt, they are highlighting that the conspiracy was real and by agreeing to talk about it without Trump and the other co-conspirators getting the benefit of watching those speedy trials get played out for them, they are giving some folks specters of not a penny or a dime dropping, but a whole Coinstar machine falling out. Happy Halloween being haunted with the ghosts of felonies past and sentences future, you guys!

TWGB: The Bride at Every Wedding

 

The highlighting of the above screenshot is courtesy this Tweet from Ben Collins, wondering what exactly Trump is doing here. But I'm the idiot who does TrumpWorld Grab-bags, so I know. He's too clever for us, is Trump. He can't scarper. He won't go scuttling away in the dead of night--why no! he's too famous for that! He won't go abseiling down the wall of the tower he will, Rapunzel-like, be held in. Not even if you gave him enough cable.

He's thinking about it though. Does he think Daddy Vladdy has an extraction team ready to escort him to a well-appointed dacha? Because it isn't 55 years ago, and Russia can't even invade neighbors or land spacecraft on the moon like they used to. They tie up loose ends a very different way now. (He's 90. I mean nothing by this. Of course, I don't. Also...) 

What Trump is saying is "poor, poor, pitiful me" because he is far too rich and famous to disappear and that's just an incredible burden. He's too recognizable--what is he to do, shave his head? Wear sweats? Quel dommage, mais no. Even so, he's known from Jibib to Atlantis.  

Maybe Kushner has an in with the Saudis. I understand they can make people disappear. 

Am I being unnecessarily dark? Sigh. I am cutting up the revelations of the soul-baring of a narcissist who wants you to identify with his plight. Usually, it's only in banana republics a former leader needs to fear coming to justice for a planned coup. Usually, it's only in banana republics a leader plans one. He is, as Francis Albert (who didn't care for him, BTW) sang, doing it his way. And oh! the melodrama! 

TWGB: F'ing Around During Finding Out Season

 

So, it looks like the brilliant press conference displaying the report that was supposed to present "irrefutable proof" of his Georgia win and all-around innocence has been cancelled because his lawyers told him it was a very, very bad idea. This disappoints me so much because I was hoping to bend the report over and give it a right Bishop Berkely refutation (by means of employing one's foot to the meat of the argument). It is apparently not to be. Who knew that reiterating one's fraudulent claims could pose such a hassle?

It is possible something has changed in the atmosphere of TrumpWorld. Even Trump's Truth Social posts are creating a problem for him: is he witness-tampering? Is he giving the message to others to do witness tampering--or even jury-tampering? Because jury-tampering appears to be part of what is going down. Threats against jurors and court officials are now being investigated in the wake of the most-recent indictment. 

And these sad, violent souls think they are "helping".  They also like to apply Trump's new term "rigger" in the way he meant it--a word with two hard "r's". What he always meant by the vote-rigging in 2020  2016 and since isn't lost on me, or anyone with a good sense of who he is. And his race-based theories as well as his voter-fraud theories were and are...baseless. 

Roger Stone pushes elector plot on tape

Doesn't it remind you a little of the "Green Bay Sweep?" It should. Like the "Eastman Memos" it really suggests the bid to just declare victory and throw out Democratic votes was always part of the plan.  We always knew Trump would plan to declare he won early and take advantage of the "Red Mirage" to pretend the election was being stolen.  Trump and friends were going to bet on their little fan club's ignorance of how voting worked to pretend the steal was a thing, when they were going to do the stealing. After the fact of course. By leaning on every GOP person with the full force of the White House and all that. 

The dumbfuck thing was how many Trump stans fell for it. And he expects they will again when he reinvokes the same busted shit from a Bedminster stage in order to pretend he was exactly right to lean on the Georgia state campaign apparatus. Does anyone seriously believe he has some new shit he didn't wave from the rafters before he got indicted in Georgia? Like since he lost in 2020? 

It sounds stupid to me, like something he's doing to once again threaten some court somewhere to gag him so he can play FREEZEPEACHMARTYR!  I think he would adore the opportunity to have posters strewn about with his mouth sealed with duct tape or the like. Poor Trumpy, celebrity, owner of Truth Social, silenced. A victim of trying to do too much, to care too much, to be too much. Why do they hate him for being so awesome?

One thing better he could do? Gather up and pay his 2020 lawyers like Guiliani (who is apparently flat busted broke) that he forgot to pay anything to. In order to prevent them explaining in detail why their holding forth totally is fraud/crime exception in their plea deal.  Since he apparently didn't pay them and they got indicted anyway. And he went and fundraised on his trials and tribulations. 

But he won't think of that in a hurry. And that's great, too. I don't care. I am rooting for maximum Trump enbuggeration. Self embuggerment. Ye olde own petard-hoistification.  I dunno. The thing of when he goes off and finally fully fucks himself. 

TWGB: The Fourth Indictment is Here and It's Beautiful

 

I feel like the other indictments against former president Trump are all really special in their way, of course. I mean, it's not really just four is it? There's Manhattan, and the Florida documents one, and the DC 1/6 one, but can't we sort of count the superseding indictment to the Florida one as a sort of other....

Nah. No need to. The Georgia indictment is the unlucky number four for Trump, the one he bragged he needed to clinch the 2024 election. It's not just charges against Trump, but includes 18 others and mentions other unindicted co-conspirators, and displays the lengths that the Trump 2020 campaign were willing to go to in order to try to steal the election. 

And it is beautiful. The truth:

Defendant Donald John Trump lost the United States presidential election held on November 3, 2020. One of the states he lost was Georgia. Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump. That conspiracy contained common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states.

He lost, and he and his associates tried to overturn the election in Georgia and in other states. In my state, as a matter of fact. And I'm still mad about it. They engaged in lying about the election results--particularly members of the elite strike farce, Giuliani, Ellis, and the Kraken. They lied about election workers Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman and caused them to be harassed. With horrible results for these innocent election workers. 

TWGB: Trump--Target and Bullseye

 

Trump hustled to let us know he got his letter on Suday, right after he did his little thing at TPUSA whatever, and he was so mad you guys. He knows this means an indictment (or several more) for him is likely imminent. 

Is he really surprised? I mean, do you concoct a whole "Stop the Steal" thing when your own Attorney General and two firms you hired to look into the voter fraud thing all say you lost, and think no one will notice you were lying? 

Trump's statement was extra-special:

Trump says he’s a target of special counsel’s criminal probe into 2020 election aftermath pic.twitter.com/ZR5swPqqJK

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 18, 2023

It's a litany of presumed wrongs heaped upon his noble brow--feh. It's a bunch of stuff he's also fucked up with. He's pointing out the many, many scandals imputed to him--do you really want to bet they are all hoaxes? If you really know Trump--would you put good money on ANY OF THEM being hoaxes?  

Look, given the Mar-A-Lago documents scandal, which is dumb as hell because he could have just given over what the National Archives asked for and no one would have said anything more, but OH HELL NO THAT'S NOT HOW TRUMP ROLLS, he played around. He FA and is big mad he has to FO about it. And he lost his election and knew it, and FA about that, and is now big mad he has to FO about that, too. 

TWGB: Trump Doesn't Have to Be Explicit

 

It seems that people are wondering why the story that an armed man who participated in the 1/6 insurrection was arrested in Barack Obama's neighborhood after wandering about a school while armed and oh! the important thing--after Trump posted former president Obama's address to his Truth Social (which no one is flocking to in the pending demise of Twitter, and which has already accrued some insider trading trouble) isn't given more attention. 

I don't exactly know this for a fact, but it feels like the media have trained themselves to ignore that Trump is always crowdsourcing violence. He has been from the very beginning. The wouldbe gunman, Taylor Taranto, said he chose the school because it was close to the home of Rep. Jamie Raskin. Ponder that. 

It doesn't take some wild leap to recall Cesar Sayoc, who sent improvised pipe bomb-like things to the journalists and political figures he believed to be on Trump's hitlist. Or maybe this reminds you of the Pelosi home invasion. Or because this violent individual was also a part of the 1/6 insurrection, it can't help but remind you of those fools for Trump, doing his dirty work.