TWGB: TrumpWorld is Definitely Not OK

 

You know, all I wanted to do last night was post a little bit about Rudy Giuliani fixing to sue President Biden, but I fell asleep at the computer because it got so deep in the weeds, and as of today, there was more to the story:

Look, I think it's great that Rudy Giuliani found lawyers to take this case even though he is being sued by some of his other lawyers for not getting paid and can't seem to keep a Georgia-based counselor to save his behind. He's getting sued by Hunter Biden, of course, and by a former employee alleging sexual assault and harassment which is a case involving details that are profoundly stomach-churning. But these guys believe enough in Rudy Giuliani to pursue a case where his allegations are that Joe Biden's crack about Giuliani being a Russian pawn spreading disinfo cost him his reputation and millions of dollars of business--

In a way actually being a source of Russian disinfo, making wild pronouncements about a stolen election with shoe polish running down his face, putting on a presser at a landscaping service, farting COVID into the face of his stolen election co-counsel, losing his license to practice because of his shoddy ethics and being so frequently intoxicated that it's part of the investigation into the attempt of the Trump Team to steal the 2020 election are not the ACTUAL THINGS that screwed Giuliani's reputation? 

TWGB: Look Who's Coming to the Doral

 

Stories about the Trump organization being fined $1.6 million for 17 felonies (overhead! practically a turnpike toll!) or Trump and his lawyers being sanctioned nearly a million dollars for a frivolous LOLsuit against Hillary Clinton and a whole cast of characters based on Trump's long-established grievances (as if the body of his one-time Twitter feed had coalesced itself into a legal document) are heart-warming, sure, but they leave me cold. 

It only follows, as the night the day, that some degree of fucking around will get some finding out on the morrow. Do I find Trump's balance of FA to FO satisfactory?

I do not. He still gets around and has got some coming around.

This is why I am watching his re-election campaign such as it is find its footing with interest, because as he typed out on Truth Social, he has something wild planned at the Doral. Funny evocative world--wild. I remember when things were wild at the Willard and proceeded to get wilder at the Capitol. Surely, there's nothing intentional there?

But look who is coming to Doral! It's former General and Trump NSA Michael Flynn and the ReAwaken America circus!  It's a person some consider to be a traitor who has gathered election-deniers, Christian Nationalists, Qanon, and the Apocalyptic viewpoint of a showdown between good and evil, happening right here in the good old US of A. 

He's Attached to Reality, All Right

 

Former Attorney General Bill Barr on Pres. Trump pushing baseless conspiracy about Dominion voting machines: "I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with — he's become detached from reality." https://t.co/NRwraEI6rO pic.twitter.com/Mx6vQUR9Xq

— ABC News (@ABC) June 13, 2022

 Not everyone is the hero of their own story when they tell it, but very few people make themselves out to be the villain. Bill Barr might have seen through the conspiracy theories that Trump claimed showed that he won, but he helped in his way with creating the illusion that maybe there was something to the voter fraud issue all the same. And if he thought that Trump was actually not in his right mind (as it is possible that Mike Pompeo and Steve Mnuchin considered as well) then he could have just said so.

It clears Trump to claim he was detached from reality, in a way. Poor old Trump, not knowing how to handle a loss, unable to accept it in the gilded frame of reference of his towering ego.  What's a belief to someone like Trump though? He believes he's worth TEN BILLION DOLLARS, give or take. Some people believe Trump is a Christian, but I think he'd be a Hare Krishna if there was any juice to it. It's like telling him something is good or bad, legal or illegal. Believing makes it so, if you have lived an utterly unaccountable existence. 

But two things happened with the curious belief.  He had the presence of mind to try and keep contesting the election on the basis of it, and to fundraise. He's still doing the latter. There's a whole "Trump Won" grift industry out there. It's a fable, but it's profitable. Even if entirely untrue, Trump will hold onto the claims until he's wrung the last iota of value out of it. 

Barr commented that Trump started making these claims directly after the election was called, before those claims could remotely be investigated. This is because he was always going to make those claims. He laughed when referencing D'Souza's "2000 Mules" nonsense. It should be embarrassing for the GOP that people can still make money off of this bullshit, but man, they still do. It's funny that people exist to be fleeced, and it's also very much not. 

How many elected officials and party hacks have also profited off the voter fraud fable? How many people were threatened or materially harmed? It gets less and less funny. Trump is not detached from reality, but even if he was--is the party that has been his support system and cover-up team all, also, detached from reality? Not quite right in the head? 

No. They are completely sane and fully knowledgeable that the claims about Chinese thermostats and Italian satellites and Venezuelan voting machines and North Korean ballots are bullshit, but they have lied right in their voters' faces and took their money and asked for their votes. 

Let me repeat that: they are completely sane and lied right in their voters' faces and took their money and asked for their votes. 

Is it any wonder they would rather people not watch these hearings, and that they want to discredit them?  They saw who these people they have been lying to can be on 1/6 and what they are capable of if their ire is roused. And I wonder if they ever thought what would happen if those voters realized they were being used as sheep--sometimes merely used for fleecing, and sometimes served up as mutton? 

They didn't just let Trump lie in people's faces and take their money. They helped. Even when people were getting death threats. When their families were being threatened. When the violence broke out 1/6 and subsequently people died. 

Get attached to that reality. It's not even about what Trump believed. What they fuck did his little friends think? 

TWGB: Imagine There's No Privilege

 

Perspective: Trump can’t hide behind executive privilege anymore. But he’s still trying. https://t.co/Qt2ughfJPR

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 20, 2021

Trump's life has been about utilizing privileges to his benefit, whether it's bankruptcy laws that favor wealthy people or having the resources to fund multiple litigations or lean on witnesses nearly endlessly to delay or obstruct justice.  He's basically what you might think of as a vexatious litigant--he uses and abuses legal procedures trying to exhaust justice. His suit regarding his (former) executive privilege is of a piece with his whole life strategy--delay accountability, never be transparent. 

Do Trump's superfans understand that someone who goes to these lengths for reputational opacity is genuinely sketchy as all get out? Because my read on wanting executive privilege for his campaign shenanigans as if his one-term in office gave him perpetual license to bury his faults should be a big red flag that this man is hiding stuff!

So let's talk about the House 1/6 Committee's holdout, Steve Bannon. The committee voted to hold him in criminal contempt of Congress. If he was trying to avoid self-incrimination, one thing he could do is show up and plead the 5th. What he's claiming instead goes along with Trump's delaying tactic--claim a thing that is frivolous, wait for chaos. Bannon's 1/5 podcast suggests foreknowledge of all kinds of shit going down on 1/6. He has also, in the interval since, regularly hosted googly-eyed pillow magnate Mike Lindell on his podcast to chat about voter fraud and Trump's reinstatement. As near as I can tell, Bannon isn't just involved in events leading up to 1/6, but still wants to foment post 1/6 unrest.

Trying to Understand Cullman

 

The rally in Cullman, Alabama, in the midst of a state of emergency due to COVID-19 (things are pretty dire), was exceptionally well-attended, despite the weather. This is definitely Trump country. It isn't vaccination country.  They're pretty solidly Republican.  They went pretty soundly for Trump--although Biden voters exist in that county. Cullman was settled by German immigrants just post Civil War and is considered by some to be a sundown town. As in--people with direct experience of it. 

Their local ABC affiliate is in the Sinclair Broadcast Group. The Cullman Tribune looks fine. This is one of those areas where ivermectin might be more available than hospital beds, but these folks aren't stupid--there are good schools in Cullman. I can't help but note, though, that this crowd was stroppy two times during the show put on by the Trump travelling political players:

The first time was when Mo Brooks, Senate candidate, I guess, suggested that Trump stalwarts move past the stolen 2020 elections to concentrate on 2022. (Ignoring whatever Mike Lindell was on about, which is pretty easy to do.)

Did he think these people were stupid? If you admit that the 2020 election was stolen and don't address that--how are they supposed to accept the 2022 election as anything but bullshit? Where are their assurances? What the hell? It's as if you were just saying 2020 was stolen to make noise but just hoped you would get voted for later! (The folks of Cullman could see through that devious fuckery, that much I can tell you.)

The second time was when Trump recommended that the crowd get vaccinated.  Was Trump seriously going to act as an agent of Bill Gates and make sure everyone gets a microchip, or what? And what about the vaccine injury, and the other twaddle these folks have drank deep of at wells no more or less polluted than the Joseph Flynn (brother of Mike Flynn) Twitter feed, where he eschews the vax for ivermectin. How in the world is Trump not aware of this incredible predatory bullshit?

So despite boring the good people of Cullman, who braved rain, which is a very real thing, and COVID-19, which could be a hoax (it isn't), with tales of listening to crying men and 5 year old children in forming his foreign policy, and also lying his ass off in other ways too good too be fact-checked, Trump came really close to these folks wondering what he really was about--because that kayfabe is what makes the wrestling match work. Does Trump want another January 6 or what? Are they supposed to spread the Wu Flu to spite Biden or what? 

I'd love to think they have questions. But as they stood check and jowl where there's about 15% Covid infectivity, I worry more about their lives than their minds. Because I think they have been lied to a lot and they deserve better than anyone dying for this one trick pony and other assorted dogs show. 

You Know What Yesterday Was?

 

"The morning of August 13 it'll be the talk of the world, going, 'Hurry up! Let's get this election pulled down, let's right the right, let's get these communists out, you know, that have taken over,'" Lindell said.https://t.co/4RuHRhhdBv

— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) August 13, 2021

It was yet another day that Donald J. "Stable Genius" Trump did not, truly, become president. And I know, it is such stuff as memes are made of, but even though the 72-hour Mike Lindell supposium crashed and burned out in the real world where people realize that the "technical difficulties" weren't hacks but a cyber rendition of "The dog ate my homework" and where Lindell's "antifa attack" turned out to be just an aggressive dude who wanted a selfie, the threat from true believers is still real. They are not necessarily true believers in Trump, so much as true believers that democracy needs a fiery finish.

In the meanwhile, I think it's great to celebrate the little things--Trump isn't in office. Maybe he'll be indicted for his various schemes. Maybe Dominion will sue the baggy pants off him. I'm a true believer too--that the truth matters.

TWGB: Nothing to It

 

To start off this edition of the TrumpWorld Grab-Bag--a riddle:

When is a legal strategy an illegal strategy?

Answer: when the president of the United States who just lost his election in a perfectly legitimate contest tries to engage federal employees in a plot to overturn said election with a pretext based on claims of fraud that were, themselves, completely fraudulent. 

Look, I never said that the riddle was going to be funny, but it kind of is. Buried in the link is one of Trump's current lawyers, Doug Collins, late of Congress, claiming he will do law stuff at people very hard if they overstep in their inquiry into Trump's soliciting of election campaign advice from federal employees due to "privilege". He doesn't cite what flavor of privilege this is supposed to be, but, like, I don't think it should be executive privilege if he's asking them to violate the Hatch Act and since DOJ lawyers aren't his personal attorneys I don't think bog standard attorney/client privilege applies, especially since Trump seems to have been aware that he lost legitimately and claims of fraud were actually just a pretext for engaging in electoral fuckery post facto. So--the fraud claims themselves were a fraud.

I hate to play lawyer on the blog, but that can't possibly be kosher, right? Anyhow, it looks here like Rosen did his best to cover his bases regarding what information he could provide by conferring with the DOJ IG and ultimately told his story before Trump lawyers could enjoin him not to. Which somewhat implies everyone here knew that these revelations are kind of a big freaking deal. 

TWGB: Chinese Thermometers and Italian Satellites.

 

There is something about TrumpWorld Grab-Bags that starts feeling like an old comfy shoe over time: the mediocrity. Hannah Arendt referred to the banality of evil, and yep. It doesn't fucking startle anyone with its brilliance or beggar the imagination with strategy and insight surpassing the norm. It's just grubby little ambitious motherfuckers going about what they consider their business even if it usurps the rights, comfort, or lives of  millions because they found themselves in the position to do it. It's chastening about the human condition but I drink and write bad poetry so I can handle that. 

So take your Trump Administration attorney, Jeffrey Clark, who had numerous letters in his quiver to different states but most particularly Georgia, who had a theory that that the election was flipped by hackers accessing a thermostat hooked up to the World Wide Web of stuff that shouldn't be hooked up to the internet, and that somehow got them access to the actual voting machines, a thing that is not possible for reasons that are numerous, obvious, and which Clark, upon being informed of them, did not believe because it didn't match his worldview. Which was informed by loyalty to Trump in the assumption this lead to rewards for favors rendered, I pretty much assume. 

I'm not sure myself how much of a pay rise it would take to make me cool with defending rapeor subverting US democracy. But Clark gives us a flavor of how it might just be for some folks. (I will say, there are people on social media fine with doing this for free and they are also in my humble opinion very bad, but lacking in the capitalist spirit.) 

The Insurrectionist's Vision Board

 

As seen on Twitter:

This is a full view of the board behind Michael Flynn and Mike Lindell. (2/2) pic.twitter.com/SYw5wqSE8e

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) July 6, 2021

It wasn't all that long ago that self-described "rodeo clown" Glenn Beck was smoking up Fox News with a fun gimmick: spelling out his conspiracy theories on a chalkboard so that every person with no capacity for critical thinking whatsoever could be entertained/enthralled/credulous about the amazing lessons they were learning about things that were actually...bullshit. (He might still be pulling this on, I dunno, is Blaze still a thing? I don't feel like checking.)

This board is something else. I mean, it's in the same broad category of random brain-droppings shoved together to look like there's a point, but it's really just arrows of supporters to Trump. Maybe giving him powerful prayer-energy? I note that there are lots of crosses and names of figures in the religious right on the board. Also scripture. "Jesus is King" sits next to a quote from Rev. 3:7--

“To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.

Yeah. An expanded look at that is regarding the second coming and who the hell do these people think Trump is, anyway?  And with that kind of logic, I see one reason why Q is capturing evangelical market share--"Make America Great Again" might sound an awful lot like making a "New Jerusalem".  (A home for Judeo-Christian believers with high walls. And there is a theocratic movement that has gotten pretty damn close to Trump, who is, pretty transparently, probably the most materialistic and concupiscent person for that lot to have picked for a vehicle to the promised land, but who am I to say? (A scarlet beast, full of profanities, ridden by a whore, is more like it--aligned with false prophecy. But Lindell has other ideas about "the beast" and it's Mark. I think anyone who listens to him is a "mark", that's for sure.)

Anyway, I both want a better look at it and don't. There is no path to a reinstatement for Trump in August or at any other time. But in the meanwhile, I think this sort of nonsense could be pulling gullible people into the idea of a holy war and inviting stochastic terrorism. When this kind of mumbo-jumbo is allied with the idea that "God ordains it", you get fanatics who aren't scared to die, but would take others with them.