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: Where's the Cavalry?

 

Trump's trial, in a way, involves a bit of myth-making--today we learned that, per an agreement between Trump and David Pecker of the National Enquirer, stories were placed in the paper regarding Trump's 2016 political opponents that were wholly false. So if you were wondering about Ted Cruz's dad, the mad assassin, or Marco Rubio's love child, well--they were bogus. This puts a real damper on the idea that the 'catch and kill" part of the deal, where the public did not read negative stories about Trump's wayward libido had something to do with Trump's desire to protect his family--it was about politics, i.e.--election interference.

Trump also seems to want to create another myth--that there ARE SO throngs of supporters who would be protesting the case against him right now, if they weren't being thwarted by...something. There just...aren't, though. And he's been telegraphing as hard as he can via his gag order violations that he wants someone to save him so bad, too! Where is the cavalry?

Yeah, about the gag order. Trump's lawyers didn't have a great defense for Trump's multiple gag order violations that survived actually looking at the posts Trump has made. But there's nothing accidental about the violations--I think they are very intentional. Trump is what could be called a "habitual line stepper" in any event, but he's smacking right up against witness intimidation and jury tampering quite deliberately, both to see how far he can go and to try and draw a penalty in the hopes it signals to his cavalry that the time has come. 

RFK Jr. Does a Fascism

 

Since the assassination of my father in 1968, candidates for president are provided Secret Service protection. But not me.

Typical turnaround time for pro forma protection requests from presidential candidates is 14-days. After 88-days of no response and after several…

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 28, 2023

I know he's just having an issue with the Secret Service regulations in part determined after the assassination of his own father, and I stand in recognition that some candidates, like Barack Obama, absolutely needed early Secret Service coverage. I don't know why Bob thinks he needs it. Is he a serious candidate yet? Is he subject to unique threats? But it's the funny old 14-days and the 88-days that throws me.

In my part of the internets, we notice patterns like signifying numerology.  Is it really 14 days since any old thing, and 88 days of no response? Or did some media idiot new hire think this was cute and no one would notice? Was it funny to some dumbass with their fingers on RFK Jr's socials to think flirting with 1488 was cool? Because that wins you exactly zero votes in a Democratic primary. And if RFK Jr himself is responsible for it, wow. The more fucked up thing about anti-Semitism is you. 

Anyway, my take on RFK Jr and his being a whole signifying racist is he's responsible for himself, and no one else is. I wish he would take a beat and figure out how all this is wrong, but he isn' t likely to. 

I don't think he started off as a bad person. How folks go this way just bothers the shit out of me. 

Exactly What Nancy Pelosi Said

 

Pelosi’s response to hearing Trump might march to the Capitol is definitely worth watching pic.twitter.com/wpUlvKoqwT

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 14, 2022

"...And I'm going to be happy!."

I know. I know.  I would pay to see that.

UPDATE: (Disclaimer) of course not literally punch Trump. That would be violence. However, while this blog does not endorse the commission of violence upon the person of one Donald J. Trump, Stable Genius--one certainly would understand. 

TWGB: The "Raid" on Emperor Commodus

 

There's nothing like starting your damn dumb day out knowing you are going to have to post about your fucking Moby Dickless white supremacist whale, but when I cracked open yon internets this morn to finally unload about the weekend's vote-a-rama and how it demonstrates Republican fecklessness, I already knew I was committed to talking later about how the Trump presidency has gone down the toilet. Literally. 

It's been widely and accurately AFAIK reported that Trump tore up docs that were required to be preserved and may have even eaten docs he didn't care to be preserved, despite the presidential records act. For someone who derided and persecuted his 2016 opponent over records retention, it is astounding that this is the guy who presided over an entirely unaccountable wipe of DHS, DOD and Secret Service digital records. 

I mean, astounding for a value of being shocked when a chronic liar somehow does something the exact opposite of what he claims he finds important. 

What might get lost here is that today, the anniversary of Nixon's resignation announcement, Paul Manafort had admitted that yeah, he did give Trump Campaign polling data to someone he wants to pretend he didn't know full well was connected to GRU because why not? I mean, thanks, we have several volumes of Senate Intelligence Committee data on the various connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, but it's nice someone wants to skirt about copping to it in order to secret-boast about it. He's literally humble-bragging he does coups, you guys. Do you need an election fixer? Manafort is out here putting out feelers. He is broke and in need of the only work he knows-fuckery. Kilimnik, you guys, goes back to Ukraine shit, too. It all does.  Russia was always going to fuxxor Ukraine in Trump's second term, but they are fucked because they tried it in Joe Biden's first. 

I really wish MAGA so-called patriots tried to suss out where in their Daddy fixations they decided Trump or Putin were real men. They are baby-nard projectionists. 

Anyway, today we also got a glimpse of what an anti-democratic, pro-Nazi shit Trump is with respect to his relationship with the military and entire misunderstanding of the history of American service, which includes thinking Nazi generals were al loyal and this was somehow great (ok, Operation Valkyrie, and also, this dope heard of the idea of the "good Nazi" and thought it was a compliment?) and also there was a confirmation of Adam Serwer's most salient observation of the Trump presidency--that the cruelty was the point. We also learned Trump didn't want disabled vets at his military pride parade because he thought it would look bad. 

He thought heroes who showed physical valor in the line of duty was a problem, you guys. That their physical ordeal wasn't a visible reflection of sacrifice to a higher cause.

So how would I be shocked if Mar-a-lago was "raided"? (For a value of "raided" that means subject to a lawfully executed warrant based on probable cause because of due process.) This former president took 15 boxes of apparently classified shit out from the White House with him. 

We're supposed to give a shit that MAGAs are mad about it. Of course they are. They are conditioned to be mad because of a steady diet of mad-fuel. They believe a free and fair election was stolen with no proof at all--of course they are mad about their little God King. They literally don't know what due process is or appreciate that Trump is not inviolate but is still just a citizen subject to the same laws as anybody else. 

Literally any day could be the day when MAGAs decide to explode. They did on 1/6. It looks like for some reason some /Donald peeps thought 8/8 was some kind of big deal.  (88 stands for Heil Hitler in some Nazi iconography.) Who cares? Democracy isn't about the feelings of losers and bigots. 

And justice isn't about politics either. Sometimes, your boy is just guilty as fuck and you need to acknowledge it. The GOP is having problems with the basic idea of right and wrong. But the pursuit of the evidence and the facts matters. 

TWGB: World of Discovery

 

Now, I have a guaranteed break-even strategy regarding gambling that has never failed at me not losing money--I don't bet. That's one way to never lose. The TrumpWorld folks aren't me, a working-class kid with a tenuous middle-class existence in adulthood. They are whales, machers.  They live whole lives of fucking around without the guarantee of finding out. They gamble. They risk a whole country. That's why I write about TrunpWorld, in part--the fascination for how they think. 

So, you all know about Alex Jones' phones and the specter of some "intimate conversation" with Roger Stone? (Yes, I had to do a third-eye wash to not see the word "intimate" and "Roger Stone" together and be like "Ewwwwwww." It's probably way more like Stone's entirely not weird caught on documentary video conversation with Matt Gaetz about pardons than the way my brain tried to interpret "intimate".)  Yeah, I think there's more there though. There's supposedly two years worth of communications, and it's not like Jones is in the Secret Service and has the incriminating bits extremely intentionally wiped, right? 

The worst thing about a conspiracy is that the people in on it have to communicate to keep their cover-up alive. Is that why Trump isn't supposed to talk to Mark Meadows anymore? This is a reasonably fraught thing--it might very well legally benefit Mark Meadows to shrive himself before the DOJ or the 1/6 committee, but there is hardly anything in this world Trump loves like he loves loyalty tests and witness tampering. 

It's clear that Trump's current legal team understand the circle is tightening. Former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury regarding his knowledge of events re: 1/6, and claims of executive privilege regarding Trump are basically really slim. Trump is not president and preserving his time in office is a campaign goal, not an official task of the executive office. 

And then there's the funny old thing about the revelation that Trump DOJ lawyer (oddly working on behalf of the Trump campaign) John Eastman was still looking for the very elusive proof of the voter fraud that didn't exist weeks after 1/6.  He was also looking to get paid. This is so amateur. Trump believes he should be defended because his cause is always sanctified and is its own reward because he is who he is, and I don't know how Eastman (or Giuliani, or anyone else) failed to notice that. Also, too, Eastman and Giuliani and other lawyers never did get pardons, because like a Trump wife or girlfriend, he expects his lawyers to get themselves off. 

But while Eastman never secured a pardon, it's pretty clear people thought his plot was probably legally contentious if not treasonous. They knew it was wrong in Arizona.  They knew it was wrong in Wisconsin. 

Even Trump's 1/6 rioters know the buck should stop with him. It's his "privileged" associates who are late to understanding their legal jeopardy in all this. 

Trump is at the center of this, and it's his party, and he should cry if he wants to, but all signs point to his culpability. And if he doesn't get served, boy, I don't know. I just don't.  But I don't like what that implies. 

TWGB: The 'Keeping Secrets" Service? 2 UPDATED

 

PURGED — Here’s the news. ⁦Those @SecretService⁩ texts are gone, gone, gone . Agency scoured records and said it found nothing new to give Congress . National Archives now investigating if USSS broke the law https://t.co/ROMnhjXSf5

— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) July 19, 2022

If these texts are "gone, gone, gone" then obviously, that sounds very deliberate and obviously sketchy as hell--that's destruction of official records, it's obstuction of justice, and it's really, really bad. It reminds me of the destroyed CIA torture tape or the Nixon's missing 18 1/2 minutes. The cover-up looks bad, but those texts must have been really bad. I don't think they are just covering uo for Trump-and I think there will need to be some housecleaning at the Secret Service.

UPDATE: The migration took place while Secret Service was aware that these texts were being sought:

 

Congress informed the Secret Service it needed to preserve and produce documents related to January 6 on January 16, 2021, and again on January 25, 2021, for four different committees who were investigating what happened, according to the source. The Secret Service migration did not start until the January 27, 2021. 

"Nobody along the way stopped and thought, well, maybe we shouldn't do the migration of data and of the devices until we are able to fulfill these four requests from Congress," said Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, a committee member, in an interview on MSNBC. "The process as explained to us was simply to leave it to the agent to determine whether or not there was anything on their phones worth saving that was necessary to save for federal records." 

Separately, a source familiar with the matter told CNN that employees were instructed twice to back up their phones.

Compliance with backing up the data was left to the agents.  

UPDATE: This is a criminal inquiry now, because everyone is paying attention now, but I think people realized this was seriously funky probably beforehand because HOW DON'T YOU? Which means the Secret Service will not be investigating themselves about the things they did to not memorialize other things. Also too, this is probably late enough to the game that considerable information is actually scuppered. But the people whose information is specifically missing is specifically interesting. And other inquiries regarding personal comms etc. could certainly prove interesting. 

TWGB: The "Keeping Secrets" Service?

 

There is something very wrong with a picture wherein a government agency charged with protecting the physical well-being of the president and the vice-president becomes engaged in the protection of the president in what looks for all the world like a violation of his oath to defend the republic from all enemies, foreign and domestic. But that's what it looks like we have when the Secret Service seems to be engaging in shenanigans regarding their texts regarding what was witnessed in the lead-up to the events of January 6th, 2021. 

With the story of why the texts haven't materialized changing several times, it appears that now the texts have been recovered? Why, how fascinating! Is it possible the stories were a stall tactic that wasn't going to work if a whole lot of scrutiny fell on an agency that should also, being law enforcement recognize both their responsibility to hold on to data for record keeping purposes as a federal agency and also the ability of cyber forensics to recover data that isn't really gone? 

Yeah. Probably something like that. Should we feel weird about what those texts will say--like, knowing Mike Pence has a good instinct about the threat kind of weird?

TWGB: You Know He Did--The Infection Edition

 

Mark Meadows is an absolute Trump loyalist, and if he says in his book that Trump had a positive Covid-19 test and then tested negative and decided to go ahead without quarantining to do a presidential debate and some fundraisers because why actually do the considerate and cautious thing? You know what? I believe that super-loyal Mark Meadows is telling the truth, and is dopey enough to think this makes Trump look like a real hard-working maverick who doesn't care a fig for his own health when there's a job to do.

Sure, a normal person might surmise that this is crazypants, and obviously it's irresponsible and Trump probably infected all kinds of people and endangered who knows how many others. It's the same kind of ignorant irresponsibility that led to 400,000 US deaths during his presidency, and a presidential campaign notable for actually killing some of its supporters, like Herman Cain. After all, the White House stayed a practical Covid-19 "hot spot" for a good while afterwards, even resulting in one WH official receiving amputations and a three month hospital stay, and an absurd number of Secret Service personnel also became sick during this time. 

But no one associated with the Trump White House is goddamn normal. After all, this is a world where VP Mike Pence had a whole flipping lynch mob set on him, and is to this day like, "Well, President Trump and I will never see eye to eye on this..." when, like HELLO! he was gonna be fine if you died! This is a world where Chris Christie wrote a book allegedly trying to separate himself from the Trump Era conspiracy theories and to some extent, Trump, and acknowledged that when he was in the hospital with Covid-19. Trump's major concern was whether Christie would blame getting sick on him. BUt you know, it's not like he's mad. 

So sure, the White House didn't have it in them to stop Trump doing what he wanted to do and it was fine and dandy with them if Trump and his family strolled in late to the debate without masks on the "honor system" and who knows? Maybe threatened to infect the Democratic candidate. So sure, Trump might have exposed Gold Star families to the virus quite knowingly as well, and even blamed his exposure on them. 

What kind of person even does this? (Republicans do this. This is what Republicans do, now. They do insurrections and spread COVID-19 everywhere. This is Trump's legacy.) 

Trump denies it of course, and called it "Fake News"--which is really just Trump's way of saying he doesn't like how it sounds and it doesn't match his lie. And this being Trump World, how does Mark Meadows respond? 

Newsmax anchor Rob Schmitt: "I believe the president said it's fake news. What's the story here?"

Mark Meadows: "Well, the president's right, it's fake news." pic.twitter.com/p2zkaT5Vw0

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) December 2, 2021

So there you have it, there is no good reason to read Mark Meadows' book because it is chock full of fake news.  Sure, some of it might be true, of course, but screw him. And Trump too, but with protection because who knows what you might catch off him. right?

Nielsen Bites the Dust

One of the worst moments, perhaps, of outgoing DHS chief Kirstjen Nielsen's tenure was probably the time she sat in a Mexican restaurant and got hollered out by DSA activists. How in the hell was she there appreciating the food of Mexican culture, likely prepared by people of Mexican and maybe other non-US western hemisphere descent, after defending policies that treats these human beings like they are not properly human? Because this is the inflex point between understanding people are people, and not seeing them as such. She didn't think about where she was and how it connected to what she was doing. What was happening at the border was not supposed to intersect with her life.  Who were these illegal entrants to the US, and who were their support group, anyway? 

There are so many really bad moments to choose from in Nielsen's DHS admin. Her hearings were closemouthed and clueless. Who admits they don't exactly know how much how much border wall there is and how many kids have died in CBP or ICE custody or acts shocked that separation policy psychologically damages children? She boldly stated that asylum seekers were illegally entering the US, when this is the only way they can seek asylum, and denied there was a separation policy, when this very policy had to be later defended and was rejected by the courts. 

(And they still do.)  ("Defensive asylum" can be claimed wherever the claimant got through, and it should be up to a court to determine the validity of the claim, however loose the proofs of such might be--but this isn't up to DHS. This is why Trump is currently going fucknuts about judges.  He just hates immigration he can't control, period.)

Anyway, a more detailed story about her resigfiring (my term for people who have been told by the administration to go get up on their shield and ride it out) might be made that includes her attempts to warn Trump of how continuing legally-scrapped policies would be unwise or how isolated she was in terms of supporters, but I can't see how it matters. When being asked to do immoral things, she declined to leave.

I don't know what I should think about the removal of Secret Service director "Tex" Alles, either--especially having happened so precipitously on the heels of the arrest of the woman who was rather conspicuously not supposed to be at Mar-A-Lago.

(Can I just address this bit:

Secret Service agent Samuel Ivanovich, who interviewed Zhang on the day of her arrest, testified at the hearing. He stated that when another agent put Zhang’s thumb drive into his computer, it immediately began to install files, a “very out-of-the-ordinary” event that he had never seen happen before during this kind of analysis. The agent had to immediately stop the analysis to halt any further corruption of his computer, Ivanovich testified. The analysis is ongoing but still inconclusive, he said.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article228963409.html#storylink=cpy

Um, I think Q did this sort of thing in Skyfall  and everyone was like, "Shit, this millennial Q is such a rookie why is he even?" and it was one of the only bad things in Skyfall.)

Anyway, my theory of Trump is he wants all his shit super compartmentalized to maintain lots of control, so of course he does not like Secret Service being really hands-on. He loves people having access at his Winter WH and probably tries to maintain an own-brand security perimeter that keeps actual government agency professionals at a distance.

Because he loves crimes. Also hates transparency. And also needs lackeys to keep up his super dubious border crisis position. So that is my opinion of Trump and I know, I have said all these things before.

UPDATE: Here is part of Nielsen's legacy. I don't know if CNN or Fox has an option on her already, but please, think about whether what she accomplished was truly reprehensible before offering her ass a job in any opinion-making forum. Her opinions are contemptible.

Frigging in the Rigging 3: The Flag it is How you Say, Artificial

So a really weird thing happened just a bit ago--Trump was appearing at a rally in Nevada (does he pronounce it right yet or what?) when he was whisked offstage because somebody apparently said "gun" and indicated a person who had a sign. A sign. Because he would most likely not have a gun, since there was a metal detector at this political "do".  But of course he wasn't done talking about the rigged system, so, he went back onstage, which is a thing the Secret Service never would have permitted if there was a real security breach.

In other words, there never was any danger. There was no assassination attempt. Nobody had a gun at all. It was an aggravated case of the collywobbles. No one tried to pull a von Stauffenberg, here, m'kay? But let's just take a look at what was being said before the shit-lossage took place:

Trump made his last-ditch effort for Nevada voters in Reno on Thursday during a speech to about 4,000 at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center, even as the numbers show an increasingly difficult path for to victory. During his speech, Trump criticized the decision to leave the polling location at Cardenas grocery store in Las Vegas open until 10 p.m. as more than a thousand people flocked to vote. Trump said Democrats were bused into the area to vote.

“It’s a rigged system and we’re going to beat it,” he said.

Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald also criticized the move to leave the polling place open.

“Last night, in Clark County, they kept a poll open until 10 o’ clock at night so a certain group could vote,” McDonald said.

Trump said he wanted to beat the corrupt Washington system, which included “crazy” and “broken” U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s political machine.

How to unpack it all--I know! I don't give a flying fuck whether people come out to vote in busses, taxis, Ubers and Lyfts (the way they very may well have to here in Philadelphia, where SEPTA is on strike and we have no early voting --but my friends--there is a discount called "free", and that is not rigging, sir, that is called a "ground game" )  or Conestoga wagon. If these people are citizens and registered to vote, there is no good reason you should have a problem with them being in this process. Except NV GOP Chairman McDonald apparently has a problem with "a certain group".

Mmm-hm. They know you have a problem with them voting--that's why they are doing it. Same thing is going on in FL and NC.

But I do want to highly protest this idea that Hillary Clinton "ran away from the rain"--who are you now?

Yeah--this is her not running from the rain. Her speech might have been short, but it reflected her stamina and her concern for her audience standing out there. And to me, that's all like, exactly enough for me. And despite the involvement of Russia, WikiLeaks, the FBI, Fox Mushroom Farm, Alex Jones and the National freaking Enquirer--she is still here, too. Rigging you say?

Nah.

UPDATE: Here is more detail on the "assassination attempt' that wasn't.

UPDATE 2: This is Austyn Crite, a Republican who just isn't that into Trump.

Some Kind of Mickey Mouse Organization?

I didn't really have a whole lot to add the the recent revelations of security lapses by the Secret Service, But this recent piece about departing Secret Service Director Julia Pierson gives me plenty of reason to think that her resigning is the right idea.  Here's a sample:

In her 18 months in charge, Pierson also became the subject of derision among some lower-level agents for accommodating the White House staff’s wishes for less-cumbersome security over the warnings of her tactical teams. 

In the spring, Pierson was irate at what she considered the excessive security measures her team had planned for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, which Obama hosted this summer, demanding that it dismantle extra layers of fencing and reopen closed streets, according to two agency supervisors. Supervisors who had mapped out the security plan said they were taken aback when Pierson, who worked during high school at Walt Disney World as a costumed character and park attendant, said: “We need to be more like Disney World. We need to be more friendly, inviting.”

It is not the business of the Secret Service to be "accomodating" to the wishes of White House staff (and I would bloody well like to know who those folks were) who wanted "less-cumbersome security". This president has had far more threats made against him, and the likelihood that some of them are dead serious should proportionately go up in their threat estimation. So I would far rather see a Director of the Secret Service take that stuff deadly seriously and push back.  And, with no disrespect intended to the security job done by the staff at Disney World, which in a sprawling entertainment environment has to deal with millions of visitors and numerous unique challenges--the comparison to security at Disney World and personal security detail of a world leader just ain't the same thing.

Pierson was brought in when there were some pretty serious lapses of judgement by agents on detail--but that meant she should have been enforcing discipline and refocusing the importance of that particular mission. If she was talking "Mickey Mouse", no wonder she's fresh out of Donald Duck.

But as an aside, it is very hard for me to point in any way to what the president does or doesn't say about the people who are charged to protect himself and his family. If anyone is expecting sharp criticism or direction coming from him particularly--think about what that means, Their job is their job--he isn't the Director of the Secret Service, he is, in part, their mission. If one can't see how that affects his ability to criticize the job they do for himself and his loved ones then I just don't know how to elaborate it.