TWGB: Live By the Fake News...

 

The "professional shitposter" who falsely claimed to be a juror's cousin and whose post MAGA has been running with to demand a mistrial just posted this. pic.twitter.com/ojiTEnepUS

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) June 7, 2024

TrumpWorld loves the idea of Fake News. They wanted to make the events of 1/6 about antifa, who weren't even there, after all. So why not try to invalidate Trump's very real guilty verdict on 34 charges with the word of a "shitposter"?

My God. How much has Trump himself benefitted from fake news and shitposting?  Is a rando keyboard wiseass going to be the reason Trump isn't seriously convicted with some white collar crime for laundering his hush money through his business to benefit his 2016 election and so on?

Judge Merchan is pro-actively addressing this particular arcane form of internet fuckery, I feel like this is about nipping the stupidity in the bud. After all, the convictions make a lot of sense to people who aren't idiot-pilled: there are two things in life Trump loves, and they are adultery and white-collar crime. Eventually, they were going to collide and blast Trump right in his orange-painted face. 

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: In Memory of His Sacrifice!

 

Honestly, people!  Didn't you pause amidst your bank holiday sales and cook-outs and fireworks and actually honoring the fallen servicemembers of the wars of the United States to think of the real sacrificial victim of all of our total history, bar none, of which there have been none greater, one Donald J. Trump, Stable Genius? 

Maybe you did because you missed his bizarre self-pitying post! But I'm extremely online, so I got to be appalled the way normal-thinking people actually would be on being confronted with the comfortable, silver-spoon airhead of advanced age telling us his pussy-grabbing and bank-defrauding penalties are proof of a rigged system. Even though he has the funds to appeal it all the way, paid for by his non-silver spoon airhead faithful. 

TWGB: Wheels Within Wheels

 

I joke from time to time that we aren't ever leaving the 2016 election, and it's not actually that funny--we're in 2024, but the Trump hush money trial feels like old home week, what with characters from earlier in the Trump Saga popping back up. This week, we will hear from former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who plead guilty to a campaign finance violation regarding Stormy Daniels, Last week, in a story that was overshadowed by the trial, former 2016 Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort decided to step back from his involvement with the 2024 Republican National Convention--for which he was going to work for free, as he did for Trump's campaign. 

"Free" for a value of "access to our political infrastructure" which actually does have value. 

We are never leaving 2016. The Russian disinfo op that tried to blame Ukraine for the DNC hack that profoundly affected the 2016 election (in Trump's favor?) still has echoes in the Trump impeachment and the current-day GOP House still trying to impeach Joe Biden. The story of what happened to Stormy Daniels, now a little bit better understood as coerced sex--a situation not much different from the "casting couch" or the cartoonish image of a boss chasing a secretary (just imagine it in the White House) reminds us of all the stories we just barely heard in 2016 in the wake of the Access Hollywood video, which were drowned out by Wikileaks.

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? 

I Love the Smell of Discovery in the Morning

 

Comer’s new talking point is that the reason his impeachment investigation is stalled is because there’s *too much evidence* 😆 pic.twitter.com/MOi09SmVka

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 30, 2024

It smells like burning whatever Comer's fucked-up old "evidence" is. And yes, I am saying "fucked up old evidence. " And Comer should know by now, it doesn't actually go anywhere. If there was too much evidence, why haven't we seen an orderly, not-debunked, probative trail of information that connects the dots from Hunter Biden doing....aw Jesus, any damn thing....and his dad somehow benefitting and quid pro quoing the fuck out of it? 

Hunter Biden, despite being depicted as unqualified for various positions he's worked in by Republicans as if he's a nepo-baby, is a lawyer. He's a good lawyer with really good lawyers. He's suing Fox News for defaming him over exactly the bullshit that the House GOP has being trying to impeach his father over. And I say "Bravo!" because here's the fun thing--Fox News seems to do the same thing for Trump the National Enquirer did--bury negative shit about Trump, and fluff absolute bullshit to denigrate his opponents. That's what happened with their Dominion and Smartmatic voter fraud lies--and until the Biden story became obvious toxic waste, that's what they were peddling to an audience well-conditioned (by them!) to believe in Democrat fuckery and excuse any obvious GOP lies. 

How shitty, busted and past its sell-by date is the Biden impeachment story? Um, Rudy Giuliani, who needs an intervention and seems to have no one in his life who is considerate enough to make it happen, is making it very clear SOMEONE should just "lean on" Zelenskyy again.  

TWGB: Trump Lies For Love and Money

 

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

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 11, 2024

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

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

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

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

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. 

Does the RNC Situation Look Bad?

 

Here's a fun thing we learned today--the RNC seems to have an agreement with the TrumpWorld Powers That Be to the effect that Trump legal fees get paid first, and then I guess the RNC biscuits just get whatever gravy slops over the plate. That's just beautiful. To put it in perspective, Save America PAC, the slush fund out of which Trump's legal fees are getting paid, has a burn rate that is way crazy--$230K a day on legal fees. And in the meanwhile, Trump's struggle-campaign can't afford campaign stops in probably not-crucial states like (checks notes) Arizona. (Was that a big deal in 2020? Let me think back....)

To put this all further in perspective, Nikki Haley, though out of the race, has more cash on hand as of the end of February than the RNC did. She didn't have the same issues with raising money or overspending because her campaign as a challenge to Trump in part rested on being a choice, without annihilating him via negative campaigning. 

You'd think this might make Haley a great option for VP, yes? After Trump decided she's a birdbrain and she decided he's probably senile, I kind of doubt it. She didn't endorse and I don't think it's likely he'll ask--but what if--?

South Carolina Sweet Tea Leaves

 

I spend way too much time on Twitter, but I know Twitter is not real life. Dean Phillips just finished 3rd in South Carolina. Despite polling that only had Joe Biden at 69%, he won SC with about 96%. (Maybe they were looking at the results upside-down?)

I see people online trying to say there was really low turnout. President Biden is the incumbent. Nobody expects him to lose. It isn't a sign of ,as far as I can tell, anything, and the spin people are putting on the low turnout takes me back to, um, former President Trump's numbers in Iowa. I also want to point out that SC isn't a state Biden would expect to win in the general (although, no kidding, I'd love to pretend Democrats were competitive everywhere) 

Here's the thing that is interesting to me--South Carolina has open primaries, but you can't vote in both and they are held on separate dates. So what I'm wondering is, what's going to be the turnout for the Republican SC primary, held after the Nevada contest (which looks like a dog's breakfast, and why would any political machine do that to themselves?)  

TWGB: It Should Cost Him More

 

The news that the jury in Trump defamation trial of E. Jean Carroll came back fairly swiftly with a verdict in the amount of $83 million gave me a sense of deja vu--it hadn't taken that long for a jury to decide the first defamation case in Ms. Carroll's favor, either. Now, our scandal-ridden former president owes her nearly $90 million. His not-especially good lawyer, Alina Habba, says they will appeal.

I don't think they should. I think they are the most unappealing bunch imaginable. 

Maybe delay has been a key strategy of Trump's with respect to his legal woes during an exceptionally legally contentious life, but this is wearing thin and is bound to have diminishing returns. Can he put up the bond for the amount of his judgments? Is he as liquid as he said he was (considering he's got the likely 9-figure judgment in his NY civil trial coming up)? And isn't he just bringing more and more attention to his miserable behavior?

As I've long covered here, his behavior doesn't diminish him in the eyes of the true MAGA believer. They can dismiss that Trump is a life-long sex pest because the real problem they have is with someone pointing it out. Take Elise Stefaniak or Nancy Mace--they don't care. And maybe TrumpWorld doesn't bat an eyelash that Trump's defenders include Matt Schlapp and Rudy Giuliani*--both under scrutiny for sexual misconduct. 

So, Iowa Picked the Rapist with 91 Felony counts?

 

I don't especially enjoy the primary season because the idea of caucuses themselves are dense and dumb to me--what the whole fuck is going on with those? People are dropping votes randomly into paper bags and empty popcorn buckets. Who knows who is showing up? (I see no ID's in the deep freeze, they don't need these when the voters are all Y.T.'s.) 

And then there's Iowa itself--an entire state that feels like a FOX news set-up in a rural PA diner no more than ten miles from the nearest militia training site. What gets me is the state gets these political creatures camping out among them, speechifying at them, trying to shake hands with them for at least six months out of the year, and when the inevitable man/woman-in the street interviews take place, they just say the most normie, uninformed things. Like, one guy was hung up on where Vivek Ramaswamy was from because of 9/11. There were no Hindu people with Indian ancestry having anything to do with that. And if he was concerned, how about looking up anything at all ever? Candidates do townhalls, have debates, have featured articles in newspapers and magazines and there's FUCKING WIKIPEDIA and some dolt allowed to vote doesn't know where this man's people are from. OR who did 9/11. 

One young lady said she was just thinking about Jesus and how he died for our sins, and wasn't that why Trump was going through all these trials? No, damn it, I want to yell--you weren't thinking that; Trump and every asshole warming up the crowds for him told you that and it somehow drilled its way into the thing you pick out sandwich fixin's with. Being in trouble for defaming one of his rape/assault/harassment victims has NOTHING to do with you. He stole government docs belonging to the US Gov't which is basically all of us, and that is a crime against you. The insurrection was a crime against our government. Also against you. 

How in the hell did about half the caucus goers decide the guy who has been determined to be a rapist and a fraud, is twice-impeached, and had a whole bathroom's worth of White House docs, PLUS, horked out of his Florida home is still somehow fit to be president?

TWGB: He Would Like to Not Have Rules, Thanks.

 

So, like, Trump's lawyers really said: pic.twitter.com/qWiQxWxMpN

— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) January 9, 2024

 As any thinking person may have predicted, Trump's extreme view of presidential immunity absolutely sanctions death squads, thank you very much. His lawyers just "what if'd" themselves into supporting a sitting president offing a rival, only to be chastised if the Congress can't get with it. But you would be amazed what some people can "get with" once the assassinations start rolling. 

It's a real good thing you did, Mr. Trump, wishing those people into the cornfield, Trump lawyers might add, as Rod Serling showed in his most harsh indictment of totalitarianism. What if a child-brain had absolute power to coerce others with violence? What if every competent person was labeled "the Deep State"? What if every competent journalist was declared an enemy? The "lying press"? 

This is what our Bill of Rights in the Constitution was about--not giving the state absolute power or resting absolute power in the guy who was made executive of the state. We protect the press and witnesses of crimes. We're supposed to have due process for individuals accused of a crime. Even if Trump's investigation (s) were "supposed" to be political at their source, the purpose of our legal system is that the political fuckery is minimized by design. People can hear out the facts, and then be the judge of them.

You wouldn't even need to tamper with witnesses or the jury if you were innocent. If a fair hearing of facts benefitted you, why would you even tamper with witnesses or a jury or the judges or the prosecutors, or want violence for any of them? You wouldn't need your little fan club to swat judges and prosecutors. You wouldn't even have their names in your mouth, because you could be assured the facts set you and them straight. 

Magnets-How Do They Work?

 

Trump: All I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets pic.twitter.com/TopK4BRsOq

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 6, 2024

Look, just take a kitchen magnet and get it wet.  It will still work. I don't know what he thinks will happen.  I don't know where this thing came from. Anyway, he thinks gas sells for $8 a gallon. He has said people need to show their ID to buy groceries. He doesn't know how things work, which is why he also says things like he was going to sell US oil and gas to Europe to pay the national debt.  He has a real problem with windmills. He just kind of thinks everyone else also does not know how things work and will also think what he is saying is great and smart. 

He still seems to not know how bills become laws or what branch of government does what or how he got indicted four times. It's very concerning.

Judge Chutkan and Jack Smith were recently swatted. It's really hard for me to reconcile going out of one's way to terrorize people to try and get one's favored candidate for office clear of a lot of very serious charges with that person also being a transparent idiot. 

TWGB: The Hot Stove Lessons of Democracy

 

A couple of days ago, one of the insurrectionists sometimes called "Pink Hat Lady" (government name: Rachel Powell) took to Twitter to complain of her treatment.  She has apparently spent the last three years barefoot and mooning out the window like a princess in a tower...no wait, she was able to move about, but violated her pre-term release and got home confinement. She pretends she has no representatives, but she had lawyers. She exhorted her fellow 1/6 dopes to enter the Capitol that day--why isn't she being looked at as a possible "Fed" provocateur, huh?

She's living in a whole different universe from our reality. She went from saying on social media: “We will do what we want and there’s nothing the gov can do to stop us,” to asking, “Why should I go to jail? Over what? A broken window?”

Burglars break windows, too, and are felons. And apparently, the government actually DOES do something about that. These windows were broken because the stolen-election-believing sheeple who went to the capitol on 1/6 wanted to steal the election back for their Peerless Feeder. 

Will incarceration "fix" Rachel? Who knows? But maybe she educates others as an example to not be her. 

This is why I look at nattering nabobs like David Axelrod with disdain. OOoooooohhhh, taking Donald Trump off the ballot will divide the country, will it? Tell it to the fuckfaces who already thought we were in a Civil War on 1/6. A Civil War, because Trump's election is a Lost Cause that he keeps fighting, and maybe, just maybe, that shit needs to be removed from his grasp, and the people who lived through our bloodiest conflict on this soil understood that very well. 

TWGB: All Trump Wants for Christmas

 

Well, it's not hard to figure out what Trump wants for Christmas, since it's all been put into a filing available to the public: he wants immunity!  Some people might want their day in court and to be found innocent and to clear their good name. 

He would like to very much not have that conversation out loud if we can at all. His lawyers are claiming that everything he did while president counts as an official act (I guess they mean everything: official Tweets, official watching tv, official golfing, and probably official trips to the bathroom--since that also covers "document handling") and he wasn't convicted by the Senate at his impeachment, so if that was good enough for them, it's good enough for him. 

It's a fantasy. It starts out with a wonderful supposition: 

"During the 234 years from 1789 to 2023, no current or former president had ever been criminally prosecuted for official acts. That unbroken tradition died this year, and the historical fallout is tremendous," the Trump filing reads. "The indictment of President Trump threatens to launch cycles of recrimination and politically motivated prosecution that will plague our nation for many decades to come and stands likely to shatter the very bedrock of our republic—the confidence of American citizens in an independent judicial system."

We are to believe it would seem, that the officeholders from 1789 to January 20, 2017 may have been simply lousy with crime, but were not prosecuted due to...tradition?  And we are not invited to contemplate the fallout from a president being told that literally anything they do and label an "official act" is without legal consequence? And he's handing that same card to our current sitting president?

Lordy. I think Santa definitely puts one on the naughty list for this kind of jackassery. 

The Price of Lying

 

Rudy Giuliani has been court-ordered to pay $148 million to Ruby Freeman and Wandreya Moss in their defamation case against him. He was the only witness on his behalf and there are two important points to make:

He lied about them and admitted it. 

He provided no proof of any kind that backed up the stories he spread about them, and actually withheld requested discovery documentation. 

These women were threatened and their lives were severely disrupted by the lies Giuliani told. A quick perusal of rightwing social media features a lot of "whataboutism": "But what about what these women did?" Because they don't get the point:

The women didn't do anything. They were counting ballots--of course you move them. They want to believe Giuliani's lies and so, the lie persists for them. THAT's what's worth $148 million. Once their reputations were destroyed by a lie, there is no getting things back to how they were before. 

Because Giuliani is reprehensible, he wants to claim he was shafted by the court: 

Giuliani was unrepentant after the ruling, telling reporters outside the courthouse, “The absurdity of the number underscores the absurdity of the entire proceeding,” and adding falsely that “I have not been allowed to offer one single piece of evidence in defense, of which I have a lot.”

Of course, that's untrue: he was sanctioned for NOT TURNING OVER anything. He always had shit. And if he felt like the court was not letting him be "heard" he could turn his troves of information over to the media. Which he has had plenty of time to do.  And can't. Nothing's stopping him but the lack of information that supports him in any way.

Sometimes It's Better to Remain Silent

 

Rudy chickened out of testifying. Rudy claimed he was going to prove Ruby Freeman & Shaye Moss stole the GA election. He put on no defense. Here is Rudy when trial started:

“When I testify, you will get the whole story & it will be definitively clear that what I said was true.” pic.twitter.com/semCA8sKrs

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 14, 2023

Rudy Giuliani certainly promised that he was going to tell the whole story and prove he was right; on Monday he was still reiterating the exact same lies that he had no basis for. But at some point, he realized he was completely unsympathetic and needed to shut his damn mouth. Probably when the election workers he defamed explained how he ruined their lives over a lie. Definitely when his lawyers hammered home to him his fat mouth was screwing himself. He was already in thin ice with the court for not turning over information and being a no-show last week. (About the latter, sadly, my first thought was someone needs to do a wellness check...the man is not healthy and it shows.)

So, he did what his sometime boss, Donald Trump, did himself on Monday--he kept his mouth shut. The plaintiffs had been through enough and Giuliani's bank accounts were going to be going through more than enough.

TWGB: Trump's Case has the Mondays

 Trump just recently pretended he really wanted to testify on Monday, but the damn dirty bitches put a gag order on him that stopped him from bringing up the court clerk, which definitely undoes all the 5th amendment-taking he did earlier.  Like why would all that 5th amendment taking earlier be a part of the reason why Trump has nothing to say right now, huh? When instead we could blame all the pretend claims about how unfair this whole process is that one would irrelevantly try to work into one's defense? 

Trump loves to pretend there's a defense that exists but doesn't. Like his "disclaimers" that never actually state "We are lying". They just hint that figures are a little off, not made up by some order of magnitude. 

This man has no defense, that's why he barely put on one, except for his very expensive expert witness, who cost a whole lot of VOTERBUX.  Apparently spending $900K or so on a yes man is no guarantee of anything. 

Ah well. Maybe he will have better luck when SCOTUS reviews whether he had presidential immunity against doing crimes, a lot, a lot of the time. But I don't think he will. I mean, do they really want to pretend this guy is exempt from any crime-doing ever? Or any other president was, also too? 

That seems really sketchy, and I don't think SCOTUS would rule for that at all, at all. 

So, what I'm saying is nothing has ever been rigged against trump and even when things are rigged for him he's fucked them up. He's just a guy who can't tell the truth without incriminating himself. Is that so worng? 

TWGB: Fit to be Gagged

 

This is not the judge’s wife’s account. He is posting lies to incite violence, plain and simple. pic.twitter.com/P2d3UKrrYE

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 1, 2023

Trump's vicious attacks on his detractors have long been including lies--but attacking the wife of the judge in his civil case in NY supposedly without checking if this even plausibly is her account makes it really hard to say he shouldn't be clapped into a cell overnight for his flaunting of his gag order, recently reinstated, and for very good reasons. The man has earned his gagging by what he's been and done. And what his little old fan club wants to see done.

And let's face it, when he lets his mouth just fly, it gets ugly in a hurry. Like when he's demeaning one of his rape victims again. Oh, did it seem like I'm playing like there's multiple rape victims?  I don't know how often I need to read about any man's faults as seen by his victims without thinking "Goddamn, there are victims." 

Anyway, Trump just got caught trying to move money from his business to pay his personal stuff, like his civil debt to E. Jean Carroll and his taxes, by moving money from his business without contacting his court-appointed minder. 

Maybe that's why HER name was in his social media mouth again.  And he should pay for that too.