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. 

Trump: Seriously or Literally, in a Nutshell

 

The Republican Party front runner for the 2024 Presidential elections. pic.twitter.com/IwYLqRt0Il

— David Weissman ✡️ (@davidmweissman) June 26, 2023

Yes, he seriously belongs in a literal nutshell.  

TWGB: Sedition and Espionage

 

Before I talk Trump, I just want to discuss the sentences of Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs. The Oath Keepers were found to be guilty of a seditious conspiracy. They acted in the belief that it is acceptable in a civil society to take up arms in the case of a political disagreement over an election on the basis of lies--and I don't think they cared whether those lies were lies or not. The "tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots" types never seem to note that in a representative government, sometimes your particular flavor of "patriot" isn't winning elections and violence isn't so much a revolutionary action as a pity party gone badly wrong. They said, basically, "Fuck who voted for Biden, we want our Trumpy Bear," and somehow convinced themselves that was exactly on a par with what our founding fathers would have wanted. 1776, you guys! 

Stewart Rhodes, Yale-trained lawyer, was especially prolix on the subject of a "divided nation", and in reply, the judge pointed out that Rhodes presented an ongoing threat and raised the "t-word"--treason. To undermine our government because one can't fathom that other people differing in opinion are allowed to protest, speak, and vote, even win elections lawfully, and not have those elections overturned by the force of a determined few, heedless of the knock-on effects to our civil society, is an exceptional lack of a grasp on basic civics, let alone law. 

TWGB: Arraignment Eve

 

Exclusive: Trump to be formally arrested and charged with 34 Class E felonies for falsification of business records tomorrow. But he will not be handcuffed, placed in a jail cell or subjected to a mug shot, per a source debriefed on Tuesday's procedures. https://t.co/3cqbNJD8VS

— Michael Isikoff (@Isikoff) April 4, 2023

It's a wild thing to consider in TrumpWorld: Is it better to surrender oneself and not have the mugshot. or is losing the mugshot losing an opportunity to have Trump mugshot-branded swag? On one hand, a mugshot is very bad because a president shouldn't be a felon. On the other hand, the market is there. And it would be the manliest mugshot the world has seen. (Lie: that would be the mugshot of Francis Albert Sinatra who was booked for the charge of seduction--and his hair was perfect.) 

This Holy Week, the transit of Stunato Mundi is truly a representation of the Stations of the Ass and It's Foal he rode in on and no one's palms are clean. Between you, me, and the whole entire internet, I am going to be sick that the arraignment of Trump on April 4th will give Christianist Doomsday heads some Maranatha energy and lets total racist assholes make MLK analogies. People are seriously covering his willing surrender in NYC (his hometown) as if it was notable that he didn't, I dunno, abscond to Argentina. It's for the drama. Trump is a thirsty bitch who lives for the drama. He could have done this by Zoom.  He wanted a display of pretend martyrdom.

MAGAS: Donald Trump is not your bridegroom, Gurl. Just drop that like it's hellfire hot. He's also not a martyr for any damn cause and isn't being denied going to the mountaintop of a second term. He's a twice-impeached pussy-grabbing, mafia-adjacent, seditionist who is wildly earning all the indictments. Get a whole grip on reality. The man looks bad right now because he's been bad forever and never got good. 

His campaign boasts that he's raised $7 million or so since the indictment. If I believe that: good. That money could have gone to actually viable Republican candidates instead of this guy. That money is several $$$ less in MAGA hands. 

TWGB: Just the Mob, Russia, Echoes of 2016 and 1776

 

Depicted above is Donald Trump, former president, with Skinny Joey Merlino, formerly, to the best of my knowledge, of the Philadelphia mafia, if that's a thing, about which I have little to say. Anyhow, Trump very recently crowed that he had information about every person who came down to Mar-A-Lago and should know who Merlino is and so I would be astonished if this was accidental. Please--he doesn't care. He didn't care about Nick Fuentes, and he doesn't care about Joey Merlino--he needs all the friends he can get. He has long depended upon the kindness of strange people. 

Why is this my lead-in into today's TrumpWorld Grab-Bag? Because this is a long and strange journey spurred by an echo of the 2016 campaign: a former head of FBI counter-intelligence in the NY office was arrested for taking money from a Russian oligarch with ties to the Trump Russia probe.  This is the outcome of an interesting story that gives us a little more about McGonigal back when this was in the grand jury stage. 

The federal scrutiny of McGonigal is especially striking given his work at the FBI. Before his retirement in 2018, McGonigal led the WikiLeaks investigation into Chelsea Manning, busted Bill Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger for removing classified material from a National Archives reading room, and led the search for a Chinese mole inside the CIA. In 2016, when reports surfaced that Russia had hacked the email system of the Democratic National Committee, McGonigal was serving as chief of the cybercrimes section at FBI headquarters in Washington. In that capacity, he was one of the first officials to learn that a Trump campaign official had bragged that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, sparking the investigation known as Operation Crossfire Hurricane. Later that year, FBI Director James Comey promoted McGonigal to oversee counterintelligence operations in New York. 

Pretty flipping fascinating, no? Anyway, the NY office was described back in 2016 as TrumpLand and definitely leaked info regarding Anthony Weiner's laptop to various people, prompting James Comey's announcement of the reopening of the Clinton email case, which a lot of folks are pretty sure sank the election for her. And I don't know this for a fact and don't want to impugn the NYT's reporters on this, but even though the CI investigation of Trump in 2016 was based in DC, I would not be surprised if the front page news that the FBI found no connection to Russia in 2016 was leaked from that office. Funny how the folks not looking for it weren't finding it. 

A Solemn Anniversary and the Ongoing Coup

 

Today, President Biden bestowed one of our nation's highest honors, the President's Civilian Medal, to people who held the line for democracy and the truth regarding the Big Lie in the face of the violence promulgated by the promoters of the voter fraud canard and those who did their part to prevent the coup attempt of 1/6 from prospering. 

His words bear some listening:

And let me close with this.  Eighty-two years ago, on this very day in 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union Address that became known as his famous “Four Freedoms” speech, as he defined America’s place in the world. 

He reminded the American people of, quote, the “strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their individual stake in the preservation of democratic life in America.  Things that have toughened the fiber of our people, renewed their faith, and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect.”  End of quote.

Eighty years ago, after that speech, on this day two years ago, we were reminded about the most fundamental of things: democracy itself. 

As I’ve said before, we face an inflection point in our nation’s history.  On January 6th, it’s a reminder that there’s nothing guaranteed about our democracy. 

There is nothing guaranteed about our democracy. It's a truth our Founding fathers knew. They knew that the price of freedom (the "part where freedom isn't free") was eternal vigilance (regardless of who gets attributed the sentiment). Vigilance against the would-be tyrants, the demagogues, the inciters of crowds and promoters of smashed windows and shot-up homes.  The space where liberty is safe is where truth can gain on a lie even if the lie had a head start, where honest people don't fall for malarkey even when it comes with side-order of strong-arming, where people charged with the duty to protect and serve understand full well what to protect and who is served by it. That liberty isn't the mad abandon of a ravening crowd, but the peace of any citizen under their fig tree and vine, and none shall make them afraid. 

The saboteurs of our democracy want to anoint themselves as "patriots", and they may very well have the money and the barrels of ink behind them to try and rewrite the near-past to create a kind of "lost cause" mythos where maybe the rioters had a point--but they never did. This was not a Civil War, this was just brainwashed thugs supporting Trump because they wanted a reality show host to have another disastrous term because they don't understand how fucking government works. 

Look at right-wing media, or even just the bullshit going on with the Speaker of the House decision--the coup is ongoing, There is a significant part of the Republican milieu that opposes the concept of good government, democracy, that sees partisanship as a religion and opposition to Democrats as part of a holy war.  

Ideally, we would be better than this. It wasn't necessarily true in FDR's time, and it isn't now.  But we must be vigilant, and we must nevertheless hold the line. Just as these good folks who were awarded today had done. 

UPDATE: In a separate ceremony on the Capitol steps, only one Republican showed up to commemorate the day and the efforts of law enforcement in protecting those members and our democracy.  

And in separate news, Trump is still defaming Ruby Freeman, who had done absolutely nothing to him, and whose safety is impacted by his lying words.

These actions seem very revealing to me. The coup isn't over.

This Man was NSA Under Trump

 

Michael Flynn today gave his assessment of Ukraine: “Russia has achieved all of their objectives, and they’re now exposing .. bio labs that have been in there sponsored by the US. The guy that just showed up to speak to our Congress in a sweatsuit should’ve been thrown out.” pic.twitter.com/4RMYZcDgif

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) January 2, 2023

I'm pretty sure Russia's objective was not to have what they thought was going to be a three-day's war turn into over 300 days, nor lose over 100,000 personnel in the process, nor be down to getting their missiles from Iran and ammunition from North Korea, Nor be facing severe economic uncertainty as their falling currency value leaves them between the inflation and interest rates so steep already pressed (or is it--press-ganged?) people are still unable to make ends meet. 

But Flynn is like a faithful little cobbler's elf clinging to his last, isn't he? I mean: bio-labs! Are we all this stupid? This is a guy who told us they were putting vaccines in salad dressing. So, he's out here giving off a Russian derivative of the busted Iraq biolabs thing the US was putting on to play up a casus belli for the Iraq invasion nearly 20 years ago? 

Is his opinion of all our intelligence that low--or is it just him? 

TWGB: Here's the Report

 

The long-anticipated January 6th Committee Final report is out and it's here at this link.  At 800-something pages, it sounds like it would be pretty hefty, but you can blast past the copious footnotes just to get the narrative of the thing--and of course, if you watched the televised hearings, you already know a lot of what it in there. 

The bottom line is: everything comes down to the former president--but we knew that. TrumpWorld knew it too--they protected Trump. Take the odd case of former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson's legal counsel, who definitely was interested in her protecting Trump, not in her best legal interests. As in, that's point blank what he said:

“We just want to focus on protecting the president,” Ms. Hutchinson recalled Stefan Passantino, a former Trump White House lawyer who represented her during her early interactions with the committee, telling her.

There's probably a lot of that going around. It's been likened to mob lawyers and I don't see a problem with the analogy. 

I'm seeing some complaints from people who've blogged or reported on the events surrounding the 1/6 insurrection who are concerned about what the report doesn't show, but I think there has to be a limit to how many rabbit holes one wants to jump in and the committee had to pick and choose between things that could actually be usefully examined and addressed. How do you solve a problem like, for example Ginni Thomas? 

I'm not sure there was a good recommendation, there. Same with trying to tease out what can be revealed from all those folks who plead the fifth or thought that contempt was the better part of valor. 

To me, the most interesting parts are left for the end of the report, the sections labeled Appendix Three, The Big Rip-Off: Follow the Money and Appendix Four, Malign Foreign Influence. This is because the two recurring themes I come back to over and over again is that Trump is a confidence trickster, and that Putin's government wants the US owned by a confidence trickster. Trump encouraged his faithful little marks to give their money to a scheme to undermine this country. Trump gets to use that money for his legal expenses, they, for their part, get to participate in sedition. 

The RNC, and many GOP elected, had only been too happy to go along with a swindle that they had to know was not true. Trump himself knew he had lost and admitted as much. Fox News, one of the biggest spreaders of the voter fraud fertilizer and now facing a defamation lawsuit, has had their on-air personalities admit they knew better.  I don't for a minute think that the Republican congress people (not even Gohmert, Gosar, Greene, etc.) cared what was true. 

But at what cost to national security? Because you can't support a divisive fraud and not weaken us a country. One of my major premises has been that if you accept that Putin supports Trump (and vice versa) you also have to accept that you are no longer putting America first, because there simply is no reason to believe that Putin gives one shit about the best interests of the US. It's far more likely he is against them. 

This is why I have likened the GOP in the TWGB series to sunshine patriots that talk boldly of their love of country but run like Josh Hawley when asked to do one actual tough thing to defend it--or rather, a thing that wouldn't even be so tough, only scrupulous. It's also why I grit my teeth at the claim that no Republicans "of good standing" were on the committee, when apparently the price of that good standing was fealty to a bloody-minded fraud. 

TWGB: The New Territory

 

The January 6 Committee has referred Trump (and others) to the DOJ for a swath of crimes unimaginable. But the thing I want to direct you to is what I have always seen as the main problem: Trump furthering a conspiracy to make false statements and also to defraud the US. The takeaway had to be--the big lie (That significant voter fraud existed) is over--it was never true. 

Trump of course lies. Like he breathes. The voter fraud thing was the kind of lie that known liars should have known to check--but they didn't care, did they? 

Anyway, his lies are so done that we will even see his tax returns. Which weren't even under audit. Which is one thing he fraudulently claimed. 

No former president has ever been treated this way. But then again, no other president ever needed to be. He's in new territory because he engaged a whole new dimension of crimes and misdemeanors.  He'll surely blame everyone under the sun, but it all comes back to himself.

TWGB: It's Bad

 

The conviction of the Trump Organization for 17 counts of assorted tax fraud charges is, to put it mildly, a bit of a setback for the presidential candidacy of former president Donald J. Trump, although of course, he's appealing it. And we can look back and note that the sad ends of Trump University and the Trump Foundation didn't scathe Trump's image as a successful (and definitely not a con artist) businessman. (They totally should have.) It's hard to say that what should be a bit of a (to use a term) legal coup against a corrupt real estate scion is even the beginning of the end of Trump--the man, the myth, the mofo. 

But why not say it is? Because whatever is going down around him--it isn't good. 

I wonder about little gestures in TrumpWorld, like the revelation that Trump's lawyers have a team investigating whether there were still classified government documents to be found on Trump properties, and while they did find a couple in a storage unit, they are pretttttttyyy sure Trump's usual haunts are clean. 

My favorite bit is where the FBI decline to watch the search:

The team also offered the FBI the opportunity to observe the search, but the offer was declined, the people said. It would be unusual for federal agents to monitor a search of someone’s property conducted by anyone other than another law enforcement agency. Federal authorities have already searched Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s primary residence, and he spends almost all of his time at those three properties, advisers say.

They would like to watch a search at Trump Tower or Bedminster, is my guess, but doing it when expected is not how this is going to go down.  I just have the vague suspicion that this story is Team Trump trying to get out in front of something.  I mean, Trump;s lawyers say he's got all the clasified docs out of his sstem but they've been wrong before, right? 

TWGB: Seditious Conspiracy

 

In very interesting January 6 news, Stewart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy regarding the violence that day.  It wasn't hard--they had Rhodes talking about civil war and 1776. His mess of people weren't just being security for Roger Stone--they were intentionally looking to disrupt the process of government and take the results of the election into their own hands.

It was an insurrection. 

Ah well. All kinds of people were there. But so many claim they thought they were doing what Trump wanted them to do.

This is because the people swarming the Capitol on 1/6 were taking all their cues from Trump's disinformation about the election fraud that wasn't and saw an opportunity for the overthrow of government. The possibility of being the top dogs in a dog-eat-dog world. 

These dogs are getting kenneled. 

Anyhow, in other news, Mark Meadows is going to have to testify in Fulton County, just like Lindsey Graham did. Stephen Miller testified before a federal 1/6 grand jury.  Tony Ornato testified before the 1/6 Committee and so did KellyAnne Conway. 

It just seems like a whole lot of TrumpWorld business is going to get aired out. And it seems like Trump never expected that aired out life. But he's very welcome to it. 

TWGB: The Clown Suit

 

I got home from work and discovered to my joy upon hitting up Twitter at the dinner table (don't judge!) that Trump, pro se!  (something, something, idiot for a client) had filed for a bad court thingy against the federal government for being big meanies and taking his precious. 

I mean, the search warrant was as very warranted as a very warranted thing, if you go by the standards of: the FBI actually got reams of the sort of thing they went in to retrieve because it was, in fact, holed up where the informant(s) claimed they were. But Trump has various objections to this standard 4A process, to wit:

1) I was complying in every way possible except for handing over all the docs and actually lying about still having them.

2) It's very unfair to bring politics into this, but DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

3) Did you know this would make my superfans really angry? You won't like them when they are angry!

Once Again, Not One Republican

 

Given the opportunity to participate in delivering an economic package that invests in preserving our climate, keeping health care costs affordable, ameliorating inflation and reducing the deficit, the House Republicans chose to say "Thanks, but no thanks." 

Here's what that means: they would have been in favor of higher insurance premiums. They would have been in favor of higher drug costs, especially for seniors. I've already explained what Senate Republicans shamefully did regarding failure to assist millions of Americans reliant on insulin to live.  The GOP preferred to lie about this bill over supporting a reduction in the deficit--that means they just aren't fiscally responsible. They don't care that this bill curbs inflation--they would rather we had runaway inflation, if it only meant they had a better electoral position. 

That's an astonishing disgrace, isn't it?  Depending upon what party is in power, you can't hardly rely on Republicans to ever do the right thing, they will just do the politically convenient thing. Take a look at  their old president, who they still support in rigid lockstep, as if unable to entertain what anyone with critical intelligence and a functioning ability to connect the dots would have realized--he's just not any good. 

They have done more to support Trump than they have done to support this country, in roughly the way Trump has done more to protect his tax returns than he has ever done for presidential records. 

They are a benighted and useless party, an infected appendix of the body politic. They need to be voted out before they become septic.  All the more reason for anyone who cares about the future to vote Democratic. 

And then they came for the wealthy and well-connected, and I Laughed my ass off.

 

a Trump lawyer (Alina Habba) floats the idea that the FBI planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago. That's the second time today a Trump lawyer has floated this. pic.twitter.com/vdIjxFTtp4

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2022

Maybe there is something explosive in there, but it was as rigged as an election that more or less behaved as the poll numbers always suggested.  It really sounds to me like someone is hedging expectations for a big and damaging reveal. They, unlike you and I, have seen the warrant. 

The GOP is steadily going ahead with the "If it can happen to Trump it can happen to you" line. Look at the 1/6 rioters who came to the Capitol because Trump told them to, and look at Trump, who initiated the lies that got them there, still walking around as free as a bird.  No--things happen to you if you don't have the insulation of money and connections. Things aren't supposed to happen to people like Trump--and that is exactly why he behaves the way he does. 

Police have been planting things like small quantities of drugs and toy guns besides the bodies of slain youth in some communities. They sometimes have done so to live people, who don't have the resources a former president does, to perhaps gather around himself a roundtable of helpful GOP congresspeople to strategize with. 

People lose their freedoms, their life savings, and their homes due to unfortunate circumstances all the time. Trump stole top secret US documents like they belonged to him for a reason we don't even know and just got served a search warrant to get the things back (or it there more to it--worse? If it looks bad it is bad?), and his GOP buddies lined up to protect him. That isn't a former president, that's a capo. They support him, but what part is respect and what part fear?

I feel like it's a lot of fear, because given what he does, I don't know how he gets respect. Maybe Republicans are just badly potty-trained and can't sort out the difference between fear and respect. 

But I laugh whenever I see "If they can do this to a former president, they can do this to you" stuff.  Sure. Me and my how would I even get 15 boxes of top secret information ass is sweating that ridiculous supposition.  I also never started an insurrection or extorted another world leader.  What a load of stupidity! He has rights, in court, where I guess we can get a load of his actual, not public relations, defense. 

Standing Back and Standing By Until They Weren't

 

Four leaders of the Proud Boys, including Enrique Tarrio, have now been charged with seditious conspiracy over the 1/6 insurrection, joining the Oath Keepers who had previously been charged. It certainly appears that at some point there was a "meeting of the minds":

In recent weeks, prosecutors have introduced as evidence in the latest case a video of a meeting in an underground parking garage near the Capitol among Tarrio, Rhodes and Kellye Sorelle, an attorney who has worked with the Oath Keepers, on the eve of the rioting. Leaders of two right-wing groups, Joshua Macias of Vets for Trump, a scheduled speaker the following day, and Bianca Gracia, head of Latinos for Trump and a Jan. 6 event organizer with White House ties, were also at the meeting. 

Snippets of audio released do not capture what the group discussed. Tarrio has said he was only interested in connecting with Sorelle because she was a “good attorney” after he was released from jail and ordered to leave Washington pending trial for a separate incident, the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a church in the District in late 2020 after a different pro-Trump rally. Tarrio pleaded guilty in the banner-burning case and completed a four-month jail term earlier this year. 

Meanwhile, multiple Oath Keepers members provided security for Trump confidant Roger Stone on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, court records show, while at previous pro-Trump rallies he surrounded himself with Proud Boys, including Tarrio, who has served as an aide to Stone. 

In the Oath Keepers case, a defendant this spring made public the transcript of a Nov. 9, 2020, videoconference call of the Oath Keepers, in which Rhodes has Sorelle debrief members on “multiple pods working” to challenge Biden’s election victory. Sorelle said those in the pods included the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, QAnon supporters and the legal team of Rudy Giuliani.

I very helpfully put that last paragraph in bold for you--this wasn't spur of the minute, and people in the Trump campaign were aware. But this was telegraphed earlier, wasn't it? I mean, during the debate back in September 2020, Trump darkly hinted that there was going to be a use for them in the future.  You know, in the same way he hinted that he wouldn't accept the results of any election he didn't win. 

He was never going to accept a loss and potentially violent options were on the table--including sending armed people to gather the voting machines. You know, because just like people, if you don't get the numbers you want from the machines, try to shake 'em down harder. 

This was a thugocracy, and the people still covering up for it and trying to distract from what had taken place are scoundrels. 

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.