TWGB: Back to the Scene of Every Crime

 

Donald Trump calls this "a day of love" and said no one died. pic.twitter.com/hEYF7aw2OM

— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) October 17, 2024

Trump pretends there were no guns and maybe no one died or maybe only one person did.  And he wants to pretend they all did come out--the people he calls "we" and sometimes "hostages", for reasons that had nothing to do with his campaign quite openly promoting "Stop the Steal" and having campaign events after the election was over. He helped the disaster that followed because it was a little violence party held in his honor. And he did feel honored. Never try and tell me he didn't. 

He even has his current running mate saying he thinks Trump might have won in 2020. I want someone to ask Vance very pointedly which of the dumb things he believes in: is it the Italian servers? The Chinese thermostats? The German servers Gina Haspel nearly died to defend? Is it the bamboo ballots shipped in from China--or the ballots shipped in from North Korea? Is it the Dawn of the Dead voting by so many deceased people that no one could check it, or was it the supposed hordes of immigrants with some kind of very authentic fake ID? What incredibly stupid conspiracy theory of all the incredibly stupid conspiracy theories that flew about in 2020 does JD Vance want to swear to ascribe to? And what is his proof? 

If he wants to lie so pathologically out of any one of his two pathologically lying faces, I need notes. 

TWGB: Would You Buy a Watch from this Man?

 

So, obviously this thing where Trump is selling watches is a part of the "Trump campaign as business plan" ethos that the media doesn't quite know what to do with. It's at least as good as the NFT racket. It's better than the Trump DC Hotel racket, that Trump even found a new way to lose money at. 

We might not be able to really talk about things like the $10 million that flowed to Trump (allegedly) from Egypt in 2016, probably, or even fully investigate his business interests in China. But we could definitely ask why he's got the Mrs. out here pounding her book (which he hasn't read), her jewelry line, and fucking Chreestmas ornaments as a kind of Trump "lifestyle brand". 

Is this what serious people do? Like, if people can't afford bacon and eggs, is this really how you demonstrate solidarity with them? 

So, here's the thing--back in 2017, Trump trotted out a lawyer and like a pallet of blank paper in file folders to pretend he divested from his businesses, and LOL, no he did not do that. But dipstick MAGA  brainwashed cult members will tell you all about what he gave up to be president. That's right MAGA--he never did spend most of his time between Trump Tower, Bedminster and Mar-a-Lago. He wasn't still CEO of Trump Org when he was directing the payment of hush money from the White House. He didn't direct funds to his various properties from the US government whenever possible. 

TWGB: With Fear for Our Democracy

 

I will respect the limits of presidential powers that I have for three and a half years. But any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law.

I concur with what Justice Sotomayor wrote today:

"With fear for our democracy—I dissent."

So do I. pic.twitter.com/YmrPBMQhgY

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 2, 2024

I took a weekend-sized break from commenting on the "replacing Biden" discourse in advance of this actual decision.  Chief Justice Roberts can pretend he limited the immunity of a deranged and/or criminally intentioned officeholder to their "official acts", but I fail to see a brightline or obvious test for what that actually means. It is the decision of Humpty-Dumpty: When the court uses a word (or a phrase) it means what they chose it to mean, neither more nor less.   

The contentiousness of the debate over whether Biden. finding himself tongue-tied and twisted in a 90-minute fact-free-for all against a serpent-tongued bigot, misogynist, traitor, rapist, and white collar fraud, should step down pales before this--of course Trump is a bad man and Joe Biden is a good man. But who the fuck among them believes in the American experiment of a country of the people, by the people and for the people?  Because don't be mistaken, and far too many were in 2000 and in 2016:

You aren't just voting for a person, you are voting for a government. Will that administration care about good government that tries to lift us all up because it is the right thing to do? Or are you getting a petty tyrant and corruption? (Please ask yourselves what legalizing bribes and inviting everyone to go on ahead and sue to get the law you like, the congress be damned means--draining the swamp my fat ass.) 

Our talking heads and assorted media jackals aren't up to this shit. If Trump has a political enemies list, then the press-the folks he has called "enemies of the people" are going to be on it, it's just a question of when.  And they want to talk about whether an old man with a cold who has won back our allies, stands up to our enemies, and has reinvigorated our economy glitched during a dog and pony show? 

Are they not up to this historical moment? Do they have no read on the failures of history? Are they entranced by the notion that It Can't Happen Here? 

TWGB: A Certain Persuasion

 

Trump: You have to really play the hand that your dealt. And then you had a jury that's from a certain persuasion, would have been hard to do no matter what. pic.twitter.com/K8sxVuvErw

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 2, 2024

Consider what that sounds like--roll it around in your mind. It really sounds like he's moving past saying the trial was "rigged" because Soros funded Bragg or because Joe Biden ordered a lawfare hit on him, down to saying the jury was biased against him: from a "certain persuasion." 

Dog whistle?  Air raid siren?

TrumpWorld has being saying this disturbing thing out loud for a minute: Russia and China aren't the real danger, people who oppose Trump are. MTG has endorsed the execution of prominent Democrats, for example. But take a look at who else gets burned?

Republicans like former Governor and current US Senate candidate Larry Hogan, who made what once would have been viewed as a completely reasonable statement:

TWGB: King Goon Found Guilty of All 34 Counts

 

Let's just take a beat to bask in what should be a solid moment for criminal justice: a trial concerning a former president with charges determined by a grand jury was brought before another jury, who, having weighed the evidence, found him guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying documents with the purpose of laundering the hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels with the intent to hide Trump's sordidness for the sake of election interference. 

Despite the jurors having to be held in anonymity for their own protection, despite Trump's repeated violation of his gag order, despite his traipsing of various political figures into the courtroom--it was demonstrated that they, the regular folks on that jury, could read the evidence and determine there was no reason but Trump's ambition to be president that accounted for these payments and the false business documents trying to cover up that a payoff had been made. It isn't rocket science, and the chain of evidence wasn't obscure. 

And because Trump is King of the Goons, the Goons are coming out to dismiss the entirety of our justice system, pretend King Goon was victimized and railroaded, and demonstrate that they are willing to destroy our faith in our Constitutional system if it didn't find their little adjudicated pussy-grabber, fraudulent, bankrupt, moron, knuckle dragger, racist pig purely innocent of what all the documentation involved, not merely the testimony of the witnesses, demonstrated quite factually he was guilty of. 

I've spoken before about the categorical error of the Republican Party that they confuse Identity Politics as being to blame for things when the reality is that people face consequences in the real world for their actions. Trump was not found guilty because he is the leader of the GOP or because he is the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee, He is guilty because he was the guy in the dock, who fucked Stormy Daniels and directed his "fixer" to pay her off, and then tried to launder it through his business. That is all. If this was the leader of the GOP and the presumptive nominee for the 2024 presidential contest and had not done that--he would not be in this situation.

He fucked up. He. Did. That. It is not the sin of other folks for noticing it and holding him to account. 

Just So We're Clear About Trump's Trial

 Trump is lying about his defense and what he was supposedly forbidden to do:

Here's another Trump lie. His lawyers, formally notified the court that Trump did not want to pursue an advice-of-counsel defense, which makes his post below a flat out line. pic.twitter.com/dHLZX7QNOm

— David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) May 29, 2024

If Trump pursued an advice of counsel defense, he would have to give up privilege over his communications with Cohen (and that might have been tricky). Same thing with whether he could take the stand--of course he could, His lawyers would have asked him questions within the limits of the gag order and could coach him how to not fuck up--but he would have, and it would have introduced various indiscretions on his part that would impeach him as a witness.

Trump is his own bad news. He's a serial liar and scofflaw. 

Trump also complained about witnesses who were not called up--does he mean Allen Weisselberg? Because nothing was stopping his defense from calling him, other than whether he would have helped their case.

Trump is referring to Allen Weisselberg.

When the judge suggested that he could ensure Weisselberg was brought to court, Trump’s lawyer protested, noting that he wasn’t on the witness list.

Trump’s team could have called Weisselberg to the stand but didn’t want to do so. https://t.co/ZXRV6ObfdQ

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) May 30, 2024

TWGB: All the King's Goons

 

It took me awhile, but I remembered when Matt Gaetz used Twitter to harass witness against Trump, Michael Cohen (he was cleared of wrongdoing for that, but you know, and I know, he crossed a line), and then again, there was this time he and his fellows stormed a SCIF during Trump's first impeachment--an actual stupid and futile gesture:

So am I really shocked to see Matt Gaetz thugging it up the 2020 election way by declaring he is "standing back and standing by" in an echo of the Proud Boys? 

Of course he is. Little Lauren Boebert, handy as always, lent her 1776 spirit to Thursday's proceedings. In an echo of unwise guy Tommy Tuberville, she copped to being there to be a disruption and say things Trump can't say under the gag order. 

Stormy Daniels Makes a Point

 

Trump's attorneys have tried to slut-shame and impeach the testimony of Stormy Daniels because her testimony is damaging to Trump and her story is exactly what he never wanted voters to hear in 2016: he's a creep, sex with him is coercive yet boring, and left her with bad feelings. If she was about to say, as Marla Maples was supposed to have said, it was the "best sex ever", he might once have thought that a very good advertisement (along with other stories about the Donald's social life, some very made-up). The Trump team's foolish tactics left them trying to get a mistrial because of testimony that they felt "went too far"--and they also asked to lift the gag order on Trump to let him respond to Daniels.

These requests were denied. One reason is that Trump only selectively chose Stormy Daniels as a witness he wanted the gag order lifted for, and behind that there is Trump's savage record of misogyny and his own stated tendency to want to destroy people he views as disloyal.

TWGB: The Hope Hiccup

 

The funny thing about Hope Hicks being the person whose testimony thus far has most atomized Trump's defense is that her job used to be helping defend Trump--even telling "white lies" to do so. "White lies" are a TrumpWorld problem--they add up, and after a while, they stop being quite so white, because there is a lot of dirt underneath. Like snow that has been trampled--it all mixes with the mud eventually. 

We are told she broke down on the stand at the start of cross examination, and some folks have speculated as to why--why, then? 

I have a notion--secrecy is prized far more highly than honesty in TrumpWorld, and the penalty for honesty can be high. For a long time, Hicks was able to tell white lies and stay in the good graces of "the family", but even though Trump had nothing to say on leaving the courtroom (being a bit more sandbagged with reporters over Merchan's unceremonious dumping of Trump's "I can't testify because of the gag order boo hoo" whinge) to properly articulate (to the best of his current abilities) his displeasure, it will be felt. 

TWGB: Von Shitzinpantz

 

Trump: I’m not allowed to testify. I’m under a gag order pic.twitter.com/4qeH81ERWo

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 2, 2024

It's hard not to view Trump's latest lie--that being under a gag order means he can't testify in his hush money trial--as living down to Michael Cohen's charming nickname for him: "Von Shitzinpanz". One could very well assume he's chickening out, knowing full well that nothing he says will actually help him. But does his reluctance to testify mean he is, literally or figuratively, shitting his pants over it?

Although it's desperately unethical, I can imagine a world where exhausted lawyers just give Trump the impression that the gag order does so mean he can't testify because it's simpler than telling him he's a great big dotard and no competent lawyer would put him on the stand. Maybe his lack of campaign events (other than the two on Wednesday, where he navigated sentences in his mother tongue as if said tongue had come to a shocking fork) is also a tricky bit of advice--sure. The gag order. Because having most of one's campaign fundraising money go to legal fees means not holding as many events and certainly not for the purpose of screwing himself harder by yapping freely about why having suspected Democrats on the jury is jamming him up. 

It's a dangling dagger, a sword of Damocles, a sharp set of scissors for a toddler to be running with--today, he gets fines, but it really could be jail if he keeps it up. 

TWGB: And the Portions are Too Small!

 

The downtrodden billionaire schlump, Donald Trump, has laid bare his soul to move us to pity and fear (first as tragedy, then as farts) by laying out the paradoxes of his current fate: they are rushing his trial, and he is spending too much time in court; and he is being kept away from all the campaigning he wants to do that he is absolutely not doing on the days he does not have court. 

It is a pity--he is too mad and hurt to fundraise (Trump not ready to take money: UNPOSSIBLE!) but of course, by email his campaign will fundraise off of his legal misfortunes. And they really, really have to, because lawyers are expensive. And he's mad at his lawyers for not being aggressive enough and for delays in the case, even while the aggressiveness he WANTS is causing delays and might not even be the best strategy for him. 

No wonder the bottomlessly energetic Trump (according to the unbiased ramblings of #2 son, Eric) can't stay awake at trial. He's trying to take all the options in the "Choose Your Own Adventure" his life has become. This is why his recent rant sounds like the Woody Allen joke: "The food is terrible and the portions are too small." 

What the hell does he want or expect, really? 

TWGB: This Situation is not Hypothetical

 

In today's SCOTUS hearing, Samuel Alito argued that immunity for former presidents is good, actually, because without it, ex-presidents might refuse to leave office peacefully if they lose reelection...

Make it make sense. https://t.co/HepJVcgN2Q

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) April 25, 2024

If I were to take Justice Alito as a good-faith interrogator adhering to the actual facts of the Trump presidency--the actual president this case is about, and not some future generic president we're just having a classroom thought-experiment about, are we supposed to play along and imagine a path where 1/6 does not happen because Trump can rest safe in his bed at Mar-a-Lago certain that no ill shall befall him, because he had immunity. So, he just gracefully turns over the keys to the established firm:

And maybe that even means he is just fine keeping those documents from the White House that he doubtless acquired during his presidency--several boxes of, in fact--and selling them, because we are just going to assume a president does official things officially, and not shady-ass criminal stuff because one has always been a shady-ass criminal? 

On a day where Justice Brown-Jackson noted that immunity (or should we rather call it, impunity?) would turn the Oval Office into a center of criminal activity, we received testimony that Hope Hicks and Sarah Huckabee Sanders were in contact--via their White House offices, with David Pecker regarding the election interference/hush money cover-up scheme. 

TWGB: Been Caught Sleeping?

 

Maybe other things happened at Trump's first day of his first criminal trial, but the apparently most notable thing was that he appeared to nod off a few times. This prompted the ever-loving internet to change his nickname from Don Poorleone to Don Snoreleone (The Nodfather!), some wags to ponder if Trump wasn't loaded up with Xanax to keep from going ape, and Trump to give the stankeye to Maggie Haberman, who was the one who caught him whispering to his chest hairs. It's a pretty bad look for Trump, who once murdered Jeb Bush with the term "low-energy" and whose worst nickname for President Biden was, of all things, "Sleepy Joe".

The idea of a "sedated Trump" really doesn't seem too out of the realm of possibility to me--he's already skating on thin ice with multiple violations of his gag order and was apprised today that a courtroom outburst could result in a contempt arrest. His contempt hearing for the gag order violation is next week (between the $175 million bond hearing and the SCOTUS immunity argument). Trump's usual combativeness will NOT be an asset, here. (Buying popcorn for the Sandoval bit, tho'. As I understand it, that's where the court determines the kinds of Trump's shitty behavior that he can and can't be hit with in cross during the trial. I'm probably super-over-simplifying because IANAL.) 

I'm sure the Trump faithful will insist that, like Daniel in the lion's den. he was relying on the power of prayer. Or something. They are pretty good at making myths to deal with the paradoxes of TrumpWorld. 

TWGB: Are You Buying What He's Selling?

 

Donald Trump said he learned about murder victim Ruby Garcia's "contagious laughter and when she walked into a room, she lit up that room" from her family. The family denies speaking to him, and that language appears in her obituary as reported in Trump's beloved New York Post. pic.twitter.com/RjeuEdLdIW

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) April 3, 2024

I think I want to start this one with a weird lie--Trump said that he met with the family of Ruby Garcia and they talked with him about her and--that did not happen. It really looks like he "remembered" stuff from an obituary he read. I first wondered if he was conflating meeting with Ruby Garcia's family with meeting with Laken Riley's family. That doesn't seem to be it.  He just plumb forgot, after a long history of telling fictional "Sir" stories about strapping big men with tears in their eyes who sing his praises, that if you talk about real people, they can contradict you. 

That's not normal. Most people would understand that you don't lie about something like that. Trump does not. 

Most people would not go out of their way to violate a gag order, either. Trump would, though He would continue to lie about the relatives of a judge in one of his trials, and even insist it was necessary for him to do so. It would seem like he's either really just too dumb to know when to shut up, or maybe he thinks getting tossed in jail will earn him valuable martyr-points. (Jail is bad. Peter Navarro says so.) 

My question today is--are you buying what he is selling? It's a simple question--is this guy Mr. Honesty?  Are any Trump fans ready to wake up and smell the bullshit yet? 

We've got some fun, fun, fun stories about Truth Social today. It was reiterated that yes, Virginia, Truth Social was carried over the finish line to the IPO date by Russian money. And this is connected to the brothers who just pled to insider trading, because that's a very auspicious way to start a business.  And if you want to know where Trump sits in all of this, it's suing the Celebrity Apprentice guys who hooked him up with this scheme for poor management. He wants their shares. The value of the stock he has might be slipping so he saw what they had and went:

You know how he does--possession being nine tenths and a third of the law, or whatever--oh wait: that's his Mar-A-Lago documents strategery!

TWGB: A Volatile Day

 

The Truth Social stock continued to tumble after its 8-K was released (you can read it here, or a bunch of documents--I like to provide context). I've pointed out before that the business wasn't likely to appreciate in any sense from here--think about it? What is a cash infusion going to do? Build out memory for subscribers who won't exist? But $4 million revenue vs. $58 million losses does not net a $8 billion dollar valuation. But the docs are funny--they basically say we aren't tracking certain industry standard key performance indicators because that's not where our sense of value comes from, and also if we do have thoughts about that we're not telling. 

But maybe most of the value resides in the team! 

Guys, I don't know. If you said "8-K" to me a little while ago, I'd have said I never heard of one those races. But it seems to me if someone has deposited one's nest egg in that stock, one was...unwise. If one was a Trump fan who still owed like, $50K on a tricked-out long-cab short bed male insecurity-hauler 1500, I guess one could practice saying things like "The plan always was retirement at 80" or "Those kids never would have liked college anyway."

That's just capitalism.