It is disturbing that most of the media does not refer to the current Trump trial as being about election interference; instead they say it’s about hush-money. it is about illegality, rather than simply having sex with a porn star. Shame on the media for failing to brand the trial accurately. It’s about criminality, not immorality. The press is supporting Trump’s whining about being a victim when headlines blare “hush-money.”
This sexing up, in the legacy media, of crimes against the democratic rule of law, the narrative framing of the criminal charges as a winner v loser fight between a plucky individual’s right to freedom being persecuted by a corrupted deep state, is exactly what his global criminal backers want the masses to believe is the truth. They want to break the rule of law nation state models worldwide in order to profiteer and exploit the planet and its people without any constraint. The madmen in John Huston’s 1948 film, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, look positively sane compared to this international cartel of crooks.
@ Monnina. You have seen clearly my friend. Bill Weir just pointed out that the number of profit-driven corporate executives pushing this would fit in a couple of school busses. The people, meaning the majority of people, need to defend our democracy and regulate the profiteers.
Barb Spratt : Yes, it is! They will be evaluating many more potential jurors than usual. I have hope that they know what they are doing, and it is just!
The most enjoyable part of yesterday was when Judge Merchan told him,'act up in this courtroom and I'll put you in jail,also',if you don't show up,I will sign a warrant and have you arrested'.'Do you understand'? That was truly superb!Let's see when the next temper tantrum happens.I wonder how much ketchup is somewhere on the walls at Mar a Lardo.
Sounds correct cept democracy is ba brain washed democrats crap how. Say the national anthem. Again founding fathers defines democracy and a Republic. I cand most intelligent people want Republic we all get a Say in OUR democracies. We have not had a real vote other than to suggest I firmly belive because of the DNA evidence. Never really.... we've been manipulated and lead to thwart misshaps. Sadly so many folks lack character to see truth b against those own poor judgment. Meaning can't admit even to themselves when thru are badly wrong. Don't get me wrong many ppl have woken up apologized for somethings, they see what they did not see... and was able to humble themselves. But the military is neither conservative or another good(righteous) vs bad (evil). It's that simple many secrets societies just haven't realized they b have been used for an evil agenda. That's the truth
What is a crime is how Trump manipulated his company’s accounts for the money to be used to interfere w/ presidential elections in 2016. That is the real subject.
He knows his house of cards is falling down. We are witnessing a malignant narcissist "melt-down" in real time. If any other defendant ranted the way that trump does (gagged?🙄)...they would have been fined or imprisoned already.
The world is watching - on both sides of the ledger. Those against democracy and those for it. If democracy fails in the US, the domino effect will be worldwide. (I am Canadian).
Years ago, Naomi Klein wrote a book "The Shock Doctrine - The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" highlighting the way oligarchs profit off of economic distress. Perhaps she should write a sequel about "The Rise of Insurrectionist Capitalism".
Klein's book is a must read. Her main conclusion is that the economic policies favored by libertarians are incompatible with democracy. F. A. Hayek, once the darling of libertarians, came to the same conclusion later in life.
Well said, Monnina. Wealth is power, power corrupts, and the greater the wealth the greater the corruption, or so it seems. Their amorality is stunning!
Exactly" WHO" wants global criminal backers? I'm being dead serious. Are you not seeing the same reality as I am and I think 75% of Americans and 85% of the rest of the world is. As EVERY COUNTRY is fighting for freedoms and liberties
I understand, but perhaps see this global land/power/money grab and widespread rage and misery differently. Our postwar social paradigms are long past their sell by date. We must change our political moral compass to steer toward social and environmental equity or we will all be broken on the jagged rocks of revolution.
Cuz the constitution has ALREADY FOR MANY MANY MANY DECADES but especially last 3.5 years... these CORPORATION EMPLOYEES of 2020 election did not sign any contracts local state, our 50 unions of individual power that signal handling have master power over all federal cept SURPREME COURT JUSTICE SCOTUS. THE finding fathers intentional wrote our bill of rights, declaration of independence, federal and all state constitutions, and they did MILITARY LAW AND SWORN OATH TO PROTECT WITH LIFE AND LIBERTY A COUNTRY THEY THEN FOUGHT for the freedom of for many years. The military is always America's last hope. We need to learn what we had and what changed. Going back to less than a handful of Generals is my first fight. To many roasters.
Me, too, Paula B. Never did I ever expect to see America sink so low. Never did I worry that the solution to the evils may not be within easy reach of the good guys.
RR is right sbout labeling trial accurately. Even liberal media is calling it hush money trial Still surreal to me that despite all we know. Hes still on the ballot and has successfully delayed 3 out of 4 cases AND has a chance to win ! AND most MAGA dont follow basic day to day actual events!! Counter every fact with gaslighting lies and then bundle them into this. false grievance politics
That's what made me really disgusted with his rant before going into court! He goes on about them holding the court cases now when he should be campaigning. He's the one that delayed them all! It wasn't anything DONE to him, he did it himself!
Well, SCOTUS' legalization of anonymous dark money bribery in their 2010 Citizens United decision only serves to prove that this bribery money from oligarchs, (both foreign and domestic), is NOT limited to only the GOP. Their attack on the USA, it's Constitution and the weakening of our Rule of Law is fueled by any politician who is willing to sell both their Ethics and their Vote to the highest bidder. Citizens United needs to be reversed which means we need to reshuffle and make certain that there's a Supreme Court Judge appointed for all thirteen Federal District Courts. Freezing the number of Justices @ 9 is every bit as harmful to this democratic Republic as freezing the House of Representatives numbers to 435 was waaaaaaay back in 1929..
Consequences for the SCOTUS! Any Judge on the Court who does not uphold their oath to uphold the Constitution should be Off the Court! They can only stay on with '"Good behavior"!
Would that it were possible, Laurie. "Upholding the Constitution" is supposed to be what they do, but there is a very wide range of understanding what that means. And they have so far refused to uphold any ethical standards. The buck stops there, so I suspect Roberts may rationalize, "What's the point of an ethical code? There is no one to enforce it."
Beth Galbreath : It is very concerning that what appears to be obvious can have so many differing interpretations. To the point where our justices can be deliberately obtuse! The facts show crimes. Supreme Court judges are taking bribes. Those who should be recusing themselves are not doing so. And, as you point out "There is no one to enforce it".
Hard to expect justices to uphold a constitution for which they have contempt & want to sabotage or destroy, such as Alito, Thomas & Gorsuch want to do
:D It's a little off subject, but IMHO "Man" shaped gods in his OWN image and not the other way around and therefore: No one has any "divine right" to anything at all. But we who are living in the democratic Republic of the USA today ALL have a human duty. A duty to pay it forward for future generations of American citizens through fair taxation on EVERYONE. Just like the generations of American citizens, (the rich and the not so rich), who paid it forward for you and me and our family and friends and communities decades before we were ever born.
I see no reason to admire the ultra-rich who pay NO taxation on their gazillions of dollars and give NOTHING back to the nation who provides their PROFITS but invests in monopolization and bribery through the 2010 Citizens United decision so they can keep all profits to themselves while average American citizens work for a living, pay THEIR fair share of taxes and bear the brunt of "Paying it forward" for new generations as the ultra-rich just sit back and count out how much it will cost to buy their way OUT of their responsibilities instead of simply paying their fair share, thus fulfilling their DUTY as an American Citizen.
Malcolm. Two reasons why the "liberal" Media (there is none , it is a right wing myth) are calling hush money.
1. It is salacious that way, and salacious sells.
2. They fear retribution should Trump re elect (with their help as always)
Back to the media. In a previous post on a different subject. I did a deep dive into the media ownership and what to my blood shot eyes should appear, but a cabal of private equity funds like Vanguard, Black Rock, First State as principal owners of stocks on all major broadcast,including cable media. NYT is owned by Ochus Sulzberger family, it's reporters are to a large degree professional, but it's editors are right wing and establishment. WAPO is now owned by Jeff Bezo's with the same situtation.
The private equity funds also own medical centers, pharmaceutical companies, chemical companies and who knows what else. They are institutions, owned by major investors, and they have reps on the board of directors of all of those companies.
If I had the time and motivation I would like to construct a Venn Diagram of America's corporations.
For fear of retaliation, few corporations will stand up to him. Some surprise there. They know Trump, if elected, can wield the power to either make their own lives miserable, or that of their company. That’s why they will play footsie with him. Hoping he will ignore them. One can only hope that he either loses or dies of a heart attack. It’s incredibly sad that we’re come to this point, where fear dictates and truth and dissent will be abolished. I predict that it will come to a point where any ally that decides he or she can’t abide by his methods anymore, that they will be shunned or worse. Until it starts to affect supporters, it will not stop.
I totally agree John. Considering tfg's diet and lifestyle. I am puzzled as to he has lived so long. I mean a diet of KFC and hamberders, washed down with the cancer causing addictive Diet Cock would have terminate many a man long before this. That his brain is addled is nothing, it only mirrors his cult and those that will vote for him.
A scary thought that we share this nation with hundreds of millions mini me's. Mental emotional clones of their dear leader.
Does anybody actually think that this nation will survive in it's present from, even economically, should he be #47. His and his cults thirst for retribution will drive this country into the gutter, and it will most certainly become a shithole nation.
1920 and 1930 Germany existed in an era of heavy industrialization. Factories and production lines staffed by hundreds of thousands of a renewable natural resource, called humans that were in constant supply, easy to replace, and required only rudimentary simple task programming.
Todays production lines are staffed by very expensive, time and resource consuming robots, which are easily programmed, but require constant a nd expensive maintenance, (parts, servos and programming, mother boards, heat sinks, etc).
In WWII, American women and 4Fs turned out tanks, war planes by the hundreds of thousands, and women turned out hundreds of thousands of bomb, shells, and millions of bullets daily if not hourly.
Today we can't keep up with production needed to replenish stocks sent to Ukraine, meanwhile Russia is tooling along on the Stalin model of quantity over quality, of man over machine, of analog over digital.
The recent success (99%) of the joint nations anti drone/rocket/missile defense against the Iranian barrage of drones, rockets and missiles, have surely depleted the ability to defend.
All Iran has to do is keep it up for a week and they will deplete the stock of defensive munitions.
Iran has been building a stock of offensive munitions and weapons, while the west has been sitting on it's ass enjoying the "peace dividend"
It is easy to bloviate about a military industrial complex, when you are sitting in a castle surrounded by two huge moats, called oceans, and living high of the hog, not ever knowing distress and despair, because the system your parents, grandparents have created is full of fat, that one is living off.
It is quite different when that fat is burned off, and the society that enabled one to live high off the hog, degenerates into a shit hole country.
I can see a time when Mexico builds a wall to keep out the dirty gringo's.
There's a third reason - the MSM employees know who pays them, and how fast they can disappear if they make those leash holders unhappy. Self censorship is rampant.
Of course if Trump gets reelected, he'll still take down a media outlet or major pundit a week (or even more often) just to prove he has the unlimited ability to punish disloyalty to Trump. By coddling Trump the media has handed him the means. Even the media owners will be targets. In their worship of low taxes for themselves, and their pursuit of loyalty to Trump, some of them will have enabled Trump the means to destroy them. It will be poetic justice, but we'll all be too busy trying to deal with having "Anthony Fremont" ["Twilight Zone] as our President to care.
"Even liberal media is calling it hush money trial"
Well, the charges against Trump are the result of alleged hush money payments that were allegedly improperly recorded in business ledgers. How should the well informed non-gaslighting media describe it if not as a "hush money trial?"
You are right, however election manipulation and interference are what most people think is baked into all elections while being a sleazy sexual predator and adulterer is still repulsive. Hiding the sexual stuff was what he was originally trying to do. This trial is putting it front an center and IMO is more likely to get people to pay attention and be turned away from him. So while we keep hammering at the election interference crime let’s not minimize the salacious sexual aspect. It is what interests the public.
DK Brooklyn : let's not normalize criminality by thinking, "everybody does it, cheats on their wife, or girlfriend...no big deal. Tfg wanted to hide a character defect and fact that could affect the election. He hid the truth from voters! It's a serious crime! Not just a character defect!!
“Everybody does it” was Hankey’s comment about his reasoning behind his insurance company supplying the $175M bond backing TFG in the NY appeal. Hankey claimed 75% of loan applications to his financing company overestimated assets, so that makes it okay for TFG.
I’m so tired of politicians and CEO’s using “two wrongs make a right" philosophy. [Proverb dates from a 1734 poem published in the The London Magazine per Wikipedia]
Haha. Yes Clinton did it too. And the sex is what everyone remembers and found so icky. That is my point. Maybe I’m wrong and people really care about the illegal machinations to hide it and not the sex. Do you think people are waiting to hear Michael Cohen explain the money matters or Stormy tell what it was she was paid not to talk about.
I know what I’m interested in hearing for the salacious nature of it. It isn’t about the checks. I also think I know what Trump still doesn’t want on TV. But maybe I’m not the average guy.
MSN yesterday did explain it perfectly as election interference. What bothered me is they were also saying that Trump will never spend a day in jail because no one knows how to imprison a former president, (secret service etc.).
It is such B.S.! If a Bin Laden was captured ; There would be no hesitation to imprison him at Gitmo. tRump is at least as large of a threat to this country, and the rest of the Democracies in this world as Bin Laden!
That's silly of them. Trump could sit in a cell with his agents outside. They could come and go on shifts. It's not like the agents are sentenced to live in his cell.
As for other security, they could arrange meals or exercise (hahahaha!) away from the general population. But who's kidding who? He'd be at some plush facility, or the judge would sentence him to home detention with an ankle monitor. Again, Trump is above the law.
'Mar A Lardo' is not a secure place! It's laughable! I heard a pundit saying he will end up on 'House arrest' at Mar a Lago! It would take an army to police that scenario! How do we know that his present security has not been compromised? His old 'buddy' Mr. Epstein had a 'house arrest' situation set up , and he continued to do his crime. How do we even know if Epstein actually committed suicide?!? Has the media promoted the "inevitability" that trump cannot be jailed?!? B.S.! Gitmo should hold him! There must be good security people somewhere who can be trusted! An ankle monitor! Pathetic!
If Trump were given home detention with an ankle monitor, he'd still break the rules his lawyers had set up for him. Unless they turn his rooms at Mar a Lago into a de facto prison with locked doors and bars on the windows, he'll be galavanting all over the place and continuously whining at national fundraisers no matter that he's not supposed to leave his house.
As the Times indicated recently: Only 2% of voters are willing to respond to a poll. So how can it be that that 2% are not thinking differently than the unresponsive 98%. The mere fact that they respond while the vast majority does not, indicates the reason that the polls have been so wrong for several election cycles and why the only poll that counts is the election itself. The problem is that elections have become a multi billion dollar industry, and industries run full time to make a profit. Polling is one more profit center, just like the political ads that keep the major networks from allowing their news departments to report news that may cost them ad money and viewers
It's gotta be tiring for even the most die-hard trump fans to listen to the same old whining tropes over and over. I realize we are a nation with short attention spans, but how many different ways can he cry (and the media report) about being the victim before it gets to be like a waterlogged ship sinking under its own weight.
You underestimate how short some people's memories are and how often they need to be reinforced that their alternate reality world is entirely true. Trump has to keep these things in their heads to be sure there's never any room for the actual truth to sneak in.
I hear tell ol' Tovarich MAGgot is now blaming his lawyers for "letting" him fall asleep during his NY trial, yesterday. Next it'll be the court itself. Then he'll say everyone's being unfair to him because he was only "resting his eyes!"
Dirty Laundry was actually from Don Henley’s first solo album “I Can’t Stand Still”, released in 1982. The song was co-written by Henley and Danny Kortchmar, guitarist on most of the songs. The first screaming guitar solo on that song was by Joe Walsh, who had joined the Eagles in 1975.
I get it. The point is the lyrics. An amazing song and a great put down of the idiocy of mainstream "news".
I was just trying to give Henley credit for his solo work apart from the Eagles. As for "It says Don Henley on the page", my thought was that most readers would not click on your link and see Don Henley's name on the page. Dirty Laundry is not an Eagles song and never will be. Also, the page you refer to did not include Danny Kortchmar as co-author of the song, and his musical input is what gives the lyrics extra power.
I also thought it was an interesting bit of trivia that Henley had Joe Walsh (a member of the Eagles) play guitar on the song.
Dela Rees : I watched two weekend shows and a Monday show on MSNBC that featured the " Hush money" headline. With the pundits hastily and dutifully saying that it's really about election interference: after the fact. Kind of late by then! How many get that message, once the "Hush money " headline " is trumpeted!? They keep screwing the message , then try to peddle it back! Fake news! We are not stupid! Show some pictures of Stormy and the MacDougal woman in their 'alluring" outfits, and the 'job ' is done! Screw the media when they do this to US! I'm paying attention MSNBC! Crap is crap!
Rachel Maddow exposed exactly this media crapola in a recent program. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out. There is a monopoly on the news media and it doesn’t serve the people. Fox covered the trip to trial as if it was a state visit. What up?
Why are we treating this talking carcinogen with such deference & kid gloves ? We're acting like he's a senile, fragile - as - a - boiled - egg old coot who has to be taken & led to the bathroom after some EXTREMELY MONSTROUS, HEINOUS Cr-p. He needs to be treated like the foul, malignant, EVIL, bag of offal & toxic waste that he is ! THEN INCENERATED as a warning to other would be insurrectionists & traitors. NO Mercy for tyrants & turncoats.
The attempted coup that was abruptly generated by Mr. Trump on 1/6 didn't actually fail the effort was just in its early stages. Each and every day Trump does something to loosen reality's grip on his prize, our country. Only one of two things will end up stopping Trump, the total collapse of his base or his long-awaited passing. How about both.
Of all his 30,000 documented lies, the one lie that keeps him afloat is that the election was stolen. His modus oprandi is to project what he is guilty of onto the Democrats. He openly created a cult via social media, his Fox propaganda machine and MSM with its both-side-ism was complicit as well. That's the core of the problem we face, nearly half of the country believes him. He planted the seed in 2017 as POTUS that the only way he could lose an election was if it was rigged. From that day forward, that flat out baseless lie mushroomed into the Big Lie and ultimately the Jan 6 violent insurrection. How do we undo this? I think we have to inform the public at large and expose and call out the authors/ members of Project 2025 what they are demagogues - dangerous demagogues waiting in the wings to convert our democracy into a White Christian Nationalist Theocracy. with tfg or any. other guy as a totalitarian dictator.
Absolutely correct Donald. People think of coups as overnight violent things.
Jan 6th was a self coup (the media is allergic to that phrase), not initially succeeding it has turned into a long coup, the violence follows in the aftermath, not in the conduct.
We think of coup's as the military storming the castle, but here we have one that is appareling in many way, the coup of 1932 in Germany, that happened within the government.
Only ours is happening within the system set up by the founders, to govern and regulate the government.
The constitution itself, is being used to destroy the constitution. The freedoms of democratic rule are being used to destroy democratic rule.
It is not the first time that democracy has been used to destroy democracy. Two glaring examples Germany in the 1930's and Hungary today. Another is Russia, a short lived democracy.
I do intend to be argumentative Donald, but it is the nature and quality of the person who "runs" (owns, controls, manages, administrates) every thing that determines it's quality, nature, goals, objectives, processes and procedures.
So yes whether one lives in a democracy, depends on who is running it, but Hungary and Russia and other quasi dictatorships are called democracies, only because they have elections (fake though they are) but elections never the less.
so elections in themselves do not make a democracy.
A Democracy being a government for and by the people.
The word has become so cheapened that there is now a modifier, and adjective, a representative democracy, the phrase itself is redundant, but used even by the learned without any embarrassment, because the word democracy no longer means a government for and by the people. Not when Hungary and Russia are called Democracies. They even have elections in Iran, and then there is the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.
If Trump is found guilty does that give his "current" wife the psychological edge she would need in order to file for a divorce. There is absolutely no logical reason for Melania to suffer any more than she already has. If you stop and consider the mental anguish that woman has had to contend with, maybe she should be in line for some sort of civilian award for expressing the level of personal courage she has demonstrated just to survive the experience, and we thought we had it bad. For once, I hope she puts the screws to him. If Melania does sue for divorce, we all know what got into her, yuck. What was that old saying about a woman's scorn?
Power: I don't quite understand your comments. It must be me, however this comment of yours caused me realize that the problem with America and most Americans is that we are self obsessed. We believe that we are the center of the universe, that we are special, and it isn't new, it manifested itself in the idea of "Manifest Destiny".
Our children are raised to believe that they are "special". Self obsessed, special children, grow up to be self obsessed special adults, whose first thought is of themselves.
Only in America do people who claim to be psychologists and psychotherapists drive Mercedes Benz's and live large. Self help, psychotherapy books clutter the shelves of book stores We are raised to believe that we are,what others think of us (despite the fact that we aren't mind readers and have no idea of what others really think, nor should we care). Self indulgence leads to obesity, physical and social ills and diseases, self obsession leads to me, me and mine, greed and consumerism, keeping up with the Joneses.
I want it all, and I want it now. An attitude not only of the elites, the plutocrats, but of Americans writ large.
Greed is manifest not only materially, but emotionally as well. What do you think Likes and upvotes, down votes are? What's behind the assinine performances on Tik Tok
Power--Innocuous placebos can mutate into insidious placebos, who fed you this line of crap? A placebo is an innocuous agent that holds absolutely no ability to prevent anything. They simply fool the mind into thinking the pill did the trick.
It rather makes me sick that this society has so much reverence for money, an almost metaphysical and spiritual reverence, that they will treat a monster like Trump with kid gloves—and a stupid monster at that.
A home owner I know had her rental property destroyed by two wealthy sledge hammer wielding tenants who felt affronted that they were evicted for not paying rent and insulting her. I said that they should go to jail, but she declined to press charges because “they come from a GOOD FAMILY.” I felt like vomiting. When I see and hear Trump, I feel like vomiting. When I see how the system is going soft on him, I want to vomit. I wish I could vomit him and his kind right off this planet.
“Good” as in wealthy. It’s fairly recently that money has become the measure of everything, even character. We no longer have just a capitalist economy, but a capitalist society. Government is distained because it isn’t profitable. Corporations exist only for profit. It’s a regrettable situation.
The pursuit of money for money’s sake takes money out of circulation and stuffs it in a bank. The sense of accomplishment from that is an end in itself. This is one of the major problems with capitalism.
The motive that drives one to build and invest for profit only has a major benefit to society when it is fairly governed by a strong democratic government.
In the early days of the steam engine they had to design a device called a “governor “ that prevented the engine from building up too much pressure and exploding—it’s kind of like that, but the governor isn’t working properly.
Scott, this reverence for money, to me, will be the downfall of our country. Too many of the richy rich only want money and power and could care less about the rest of us!! Politicians will tell you what you want to hear when campaigning, but, as soon as they get elected, they head to Washington and begin to grift and make as much money as they possibly can!! They are easily bought by the richy rich who actually control our government. I am with you on the whole vomiting thing. Maybe we could start a vomit line that would hurry him and his kind away!!!
Kinda sorta sounds a lot like the amazing amount of ginormous millions of dollars that President Barak Obama’s family has now accumulated over and over;Since his previous background was that of an entitled community activist… As, there are the Clinton’s who have profited from the dubiously affluence since Clinton Foundation was established… Not to forget mentioning how financially well off is the super wealthy and the former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s family profited from her insider trading deals during the 2008 Recession all during the subprime mortgage loan crisis and her dividends before Google faced an audit by the SEC… Kinda makes Al Capone really look a lot like more of a Saint nowadays… C’est la vie
Of course Charles, you have inside knowledge and documented proof you can cite for all these accusations - you probably just forgot to put in the links? Kinda sorta sounds a lot like a trump liar rant!
My sources are easily accessible at almost any public library and you can simply petition the Freedom of Information Act request for yourself and your erroneous assumptions on Trump has “No Quarter” in regards to my political realm being since I’m proudly voting for RFK Jr. in 2024.
Daddy's money shouldn't protect them from the consequences. The lady not pressing charges would have made a conviction very difficult However people like this often go on to do things that are a lot more serious. Money shouldn't prevent that, but I'm sure it does.
They are psychopaths or close to it. Psychopaths tend to take over and are highly motivated to attain positions of power: police, judges, investment capitalists, and they rise to power by dint of their ruthlessness.
If they weren’t in the money business, they would be serial killers.
Dr. Robert Hare came to the conclusion that 1% of the general population are psychopaths and 20% are in prison making life for the other prisoners hell.
A psychologist who wrote a book titled The Sociopath Next Door, said it was more like 4% are “sociopaths”.
It’s a genetic condition that perpetuates itself like a parasitic cancer.
We must identify this gene and eliminate it from our species so that we are not held back every generation or so by wars and economic ruin.
I keep sayin' I don't know this as a fact, but behind the scenes, I bet that Trump's lawyers are seeking pre-trial intervention.
Once upon a time I had a client in a PI case who continually fell asleep in front of the jury. We lost.
A juror later told me that I tried a good case, and the jury liked me, but since my client didn't care enough to pay attention to the facts, they didn't care either.
Just my thoughts. I know that I have a tendency to fall asleep when I am in a state of being content. I think Trump is feeling content about the trial because he has always been able to skate through everything previous to this trial. He believes he will again prevail again and so he is bored with all of it.
but i am assuming you are not a psychopathic narcissist, and a fairly honest person. beware trying to understand anything that he does. just be confident it’s a sterling example of a psychotic narcissist
Do they even sound like the words of a sane person? Is he running a long con, i.e., can he sustain a plea of “not guilty by reason of insanity” and still get elected?
It should be. Such a penalty would send a serious message to other tyrants like Putin and XI that the rath of the people is a tide that cannot be held back.
In the NYstate cases, the judge's authority to impose "civil coercive" contempt is limited. In the federal system a separate hearing is required but in terms of how to make a violator conform the sky's the limit, although progressive discipline is usually used. Progressive discipline is the process of using increasingly severe steps or measures when the violator fails to correct a problem after being given a reasonable opportunity to do so.
Daniel, I'm not aware of any reason why judges should treat Trump differently than any other defendent so I'm at a loss as to why judges seem "challenged" to dealing with the chump. It seems irrelevant to me that he was the President, or running for election, etc.
I think the issue is whether they will add to incitement of his cult.
We had numerous cases here in Baghdad By the Sea that were removed to other locations (change of venue) to try to avoid a bad outcome. We had intermittent riots, major and minor over a period of years. I documented the 1990 riot in the novel.
We recently had a political case involving one of the Miami city commissioners moved to Ft. Lauderdale. Happens all the time. "Outside the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fuller blasted (Miami Commissioner) Carollo as a “bully” and a “coward” and said “it feels great to finally smash that cucaracha,” Miami Herald news partner CBS News Miami reported."
Steve ; His present re-election campaign is a continuing coup. He is allowed to hold 'rallies' even at the Court of law! He violates gag orders! Who the F33k else would get away with this threat to our government!? the rich crooks support him!
Steve reed ; He should not be treated differently than any other defendant. They are either bought, or scared of his threats. Corruption is real. That is why the Founders made short work of traitors!
As long as the BIG LIE persists, we are stuck in a "doom loop" that keeps spinning.
The bad actors behind the "Stop the Steal campaign" and the January 6th insurrection - Stone, Flynn, Bannon (the Flynnstones) and many other criminals - received pardons in exchange for their loyalty to DJT. They continue to be key operatives in the 2024 election campaign.
In addition, the PROMISE of pardons also has been abused to give bad actors, like those involved in the insurrection, the motivation to take action, including violent acts, in exchange for protection from prosecution and incarceration.
I remeber the Nixon years and have always believed that Gerald Ford's pardoning of Richard Nixon set the stage for the abuse of executive power by putting Nixon above the rule of law.
With the election deniers in Congress currently controlling the levers of government, democracy is broken and, if not repaired, dead and done.
Do not listen to what the Trumplican's say, watch what they do 😳
Bannon goes to trial in New York, on May 28 for the build the wall fraud scheme. Indeed, he was pardoned by Trump; however, New York stepped up and charged him because New York citizens’ money was donated. Bannon’s trial may overlap a week with Trump‘s current trial.
Wouldn't it be a dream come true for both of them to be found guilty? That would be delightful!! I know I sound callous and cold, but those two caused me stress, sleepless nights, and lack of trust. I do not feel sorry for them because they did this to themselves and now that they are being held accountable they scream like little babies!!
Peggy, I believe in compassion on all counts. I believe we should be kind and fair to our neighbors. But since others don’t share that belief overtime, we have established mores and our laws have come from them. Long-held customs and mores are what have formed what we have known as a “Safe” society of laws. Trump and Bannon have both indicated that they feel they’re above the law. Bannon used the skills he gamed as a military member to create Cambridge Analytica, the company that supplied Trump his election data in 2016. Without gaining permission from account holders, Bannon and the company he formed, Cambridge Analytica attached an API to Facebook and gave that data to Trump. Zuckerberg claims he remembers nothing of that. When he was called to testify in Congress about it, he claimed he couldn’t remember and he also didn’t remember what hotel he stayed in the previous night. To Russian computer scientists ran the data. They were not Russian immigrants. They were Russia's’ Russians. As in Russian citizens. Despite this and the investigations and the closure of Cambridge Analytica (Formed in England by Steve Bannon and his partner) after DOJ and FBI investigations, found no Russian interference in Trump’s election. Cambridge Analytica closed: Bannon received his many millions of dollars in equity in the company and received a job in Trump administration where without any clearance at all he sat in on highly Sensitive intelligence briefings - Until he was booted under protest by military generals and an admiral. He then went to advise Orban in Hungary. He then scammed the border Weil. He then was indicted by DOJ. He refused to comply with a January 6 subpoena and he is fighting that now on appeal. And the DOJ indictment was pardoned by Trump on his last day in office in January 2021. It has been reported that Rudy Giuliani was accepting million dollar payments for pardons. Within days, Bannon had formed his podcast, the War Room from where he speaks for disinformation with his psy ops training six days a week. My guess his pardon was attached to an agreement to keep the lie going because to this day Steve Bannon sends messages many many times per day to Republicans that Trump was really elected in 2020. Under Bannon training in the military if things are repeated enough times people believe them so that’s the MO he is using. Trump in 2016 as he campaigned in Iowa claim he could shoot someone on fifth Avenue in New York and not lose any voters. He has absolutely no empathy for anyone and his only purpose in being elected president is to stay out of jail. He started his run for the 2024 presidency three days before Jack Smith was appointed (publicly) as special council to investigate him. If a mole informed him that has been kept quiet, but there has been a rumor about a mole in the DOJ who was let go. He wanted to get the jump on Jack’s appointment so he wouldn’t look like he was reacting. He has no empathy: He doesn’t care what happened to anyone on January 6. He has never made a statement of care about those 7 deaths. Police officers and other security have been permanently maimed. Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked and brutally injured. Dozens of representatives and senators have resigned because of threats made to them. Met Romney has written a book in which he details how he spends $5000 per day for security for his family and the reason these representatives and senators are resigning is they don’t have the money to protect themselves. Bannon would run over you on fifth Avenue with a Mack truck for one dollar. He doesn’t care about anyone. They are both ruthless two of a kind and I don’t care if they’re incarcerated so much as they are without power: political, personal, financial. Our society incarcerates criminals when they are found guilty In a court of law. These two individuals have figured out how to escape the penalty of law. I would like them to be completely ruined and known as who they really are. The attention span of the average American and the intellect is kind of subpar. The only thing most citizens will pay attention to is them being found guilty sentencing, and incarceration. Neither can ever have access to the airwaves in my opinion. They are so dangerous, I wouldn’t want them even to live freely anywhere in the world. I’m a hippy dippy from way back by the way and until January 6, and knowing Trump involvement in causing it, I didn’t believe in incarceration.
in fact when I joined this Substack, I didn’t believe in incarceration. Attorneys on this Substack argued that point with me and I came to my own conclusion: they should never be allowed to walk free again after their treason against our country. My opinion and I cannot say ‘alleged treason’ because that hasn’t been charged. Whatever: treason is treason. Jack Smith brought Alex Whiting from the hag to help him, and so there’s always a chance that more charges could be brought. Treason may be on the table. So if we have empathy for someone, the other side of the equation is that we are hoping they learn from their mistakes. They both have had many chances to get on the right side of the law. They refused to do so so they need to take the lumps the law hands out. I believe they’re both going to jail. Trump will try to run his campaign from his jail cell.
Thank you, Valere! That was extremely informative and gave me a really clear picture of just how criminal trump and bannon are. I do agree they should be in jail and wholeheartedly agree that they should never be allowed to spew their vicious rhetoric anywhere!!
Thank you for that response Peggy. I’m a total Kumbaya and didn’t even believe in incarceration until I had been part of the Substack for a while. Had nothing to do with the Substack itself, just becoming informed on the breadth and depth of the criminality of Trump and company.
Lock them ALL. These people want to turn America into a Russia! We shall not let that happen ! period! Vote blue down the ballot and end this insanity. May the true Republicans come back !
I also am old enough to recall the Pardoning of Nixon. After watching the hearings for weeks on end, it was such a sickening anticlimactic action. I felt it undermined the trust in the judicial process.
What about this "pardon thing?" isn't it another off ramp for wealthy criminals? I never read about or heard about any President using the pardon power to help those with whom they committed crimes! It was something that was used to allow someone who was wrongfully convicted and did a lengthy jail sentence to finally be freed! It was never intended to be used by a president to allow his partners in crime to get away with the crimes!
If we had a decent press, media, there would be no big lie. A society has the right to defend itself against widespread promulgation of destructive lies/falshoods. Our ideal of "freedom of speech" like other simple minded slogans should not prevent us from taking action. We live in a very rich variegated technologically and psychologically challenging media environment. We no longer live in John Stuart Mills society for which he wrote and we should understand this and have laws that deal with current realities.
Commenting feels dirty to me. All the great orange mistake wants is attention. In that he is very successful, distracting us from the real problems of the nation and the planet. Yet, in order to attend to the reality of our world, we have to focus on that misbehaving time warp of a human that adds nothing but chaos to our social discourse. Never have I wanted a human to just disappear as much as this addled ex-president. (Oh, and take MTG with you when you go, please!)
I have a friend who tells me that every morning she turns on her computer hoping that this will be the day he's died. Then she tells me she wonders if anyone else feels the same. Ha!
Regarding Trump's criminality: If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, repels water, leaves duck-like droppings, has webbed feet, and finally, answers to the name Donald, it is most certainly an f-ing duck!
Greg ; Maine just joined the Interstate Vote Compact, which is slowly but surely increasing the chance to get rid of the Electoral College. Inequality Media is educating voters online about this. when I can afford it, I give what donation I can to support their work!
He's not the only treasonous traitor. We have an abundance. State legislatures and Congress are stocked full of R ones. And there are judges, big donors and Media screamers. Every single one of them ignores and chides the common good, treats Democracy and their fellow citizens with contempt and spits on The Constitution. And tens of millions of people applaud them. Insanity is rampant.
The challenge is for the sane to stay sane and not get sucked into their vortex and become insane (unconscious) too. Helping each other steer clear is important.
Looking at the ongoing charade that is Trump I am staggered that the USA is even considering him as a candidate in the run for President. How can you possibly allow a criminal run a country as important on the world stage as America. Surely in your constitution there is a cast iron law?
a plan to destroy our democracy and create an oligarchy similar to Putin’s oligarchy, and they’ve been working on it ever since then.
They underhandedly captured the Supreme Court
and corrupted it. They massively altered campaign
finance, created a body to oversee campaign
finance laws and then appointed corrupt officials to it. They backed candidates for Congress who were either already corrupt or corruptible and/or easily manipulated.
They expanded their political base by catering to evangelicals and racists. They managed corrupt republicans in Congress by paying them to vote
how they were told to vote on legislation. The
Republican Party partnered with the corrupt Fox News cable TV platform to provide plausible
back-up for their lies and and manipulations.
The problem was that all of these things were
done over a long period of time—several decades.
Just like putting a lobster into a pot of cold water
and gradually turning up the heat, it doesn’t know it’s being cooked.
At some point they partnered with Vladimir Putin.
Russian money is laundered a number of different
ways to evade campaign finance laws and it’s then donated to various campaigns. We also have money from China and Saudi Arabia illegally finding its way into campaign coffers. Foreign money donated to campaigns are bribes that create indisputable and unethical conflicts of interest.
Russia helped elect Donald Trump monetarily and
strategically, using online info about voters to tailor
Addendum: Trump is allowed to run for president again because our DOJ waited almost two years until after a Congressional investigation into the violent insurrection he spearheaded, to hire a special prosecutor. Nor has it investigated members of Congress who helped plan the insurrection, one of whom has been elevated to the key position of Speaker of the House and is in line to take over the presidency if Biden & Harris are unable to carry on.
Mike Johnson is a libertarian who passes as Christian. He has the support of many Catholics and Evangelicals. Putin has the support of the Russian Orthodox Church. Mussolini and General Franco had the support of the Catholic Church.
Diana, our forefathers could not predict trump so yes, a convicted felon can run for the office of President. Fortunately, the only ones considering voting for him are his extreme cult. Surprisingly, convicted felons in some states can not vote!! In many states convicted felons get their voting rights restored after release. I always found that interesting that a person can run for the highest office in our land while behind bars but couldn't cast a vote!! Only in America I guess.
Diana: If you actually want the answer to that question (and many others), read “The Many-Headed Hydra” by Linehan and Rediker… if it hasn’t been banned already.
I have thought that for a while. But in their own time in history, they saw what could happen when a "mad king" ruled. The difference may be that they never thought so many people could be so blind as to actually ELECT a "mad king". But then, they also didn't have mass media to promote lies, either.
Actually they did. Jefferson was very concerned about the growing role of money in politics and predicted that some day a wealthy opportunist might become dictator. He had no solution to the problem, neither did anybody else.
Washington, Jefferson, and others hoped that an educated, well informed electorate would be able to counter the influence of money. Their hope was not unfounded, and subsequent experience gave hope. Three billionaire's ran for gubernatorial office in California; all three lost. Americans like "log cabin" candidates. Trump is an exception. Lobbying is where money exercises its power most effectively.
What if Al Gore, who had real reason due to malfunctioning voting machines and the electoral changes in the key state of Florida that preceded his 2000 bid for the presidency, had contested the Supreme Court's dubious judgement on the outcome in awarding it to Bush?
He accepted the judgement precisely because he placed preserving US democracy above fairness and personal interest. What would the MAGA republicans be saying now if he had refused to concede and roused half the country to "stop the steal"?
Thank you, Robert, always, for all of your hard work. Yes to your final question - and the one prior in 2016, which Trump won with the help of Cambridge Analytica, as well as gFacebook giving 75 million accounts to Cambridge and their Russian computer science engineers to furnish data to Trump that helped him win in 2016. How could Robert Mueller possibly have missed this ‘help from Cambridge Analytica (speaking of treason)?
Valere, I just spent some time looking at Cambridge Analytica on Wikipedia. Yikes! Pertinent quote: "Cambridge Analytica's data head, Alexander Tayler said, "When you think about the fact that Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 3m votes but won the electoral college vote, [t]hat's down to the data and the research." "
Wouldn’t it be ironic, if the endless days in the courthouse cause his demise? They already are questioning his bond. New York will get his property and in 2054, his years of chaos will be summarized in a paragraph. Elected because of reality show, taken down by porn star.
My 11 month old grandson took his first steps yesterday and in doing so demonstrated far more stability, social maturity, and sincere curiosity than our former absolutely corrupt, sociopathic president. Much love to all the young parents whose children represent our hope for a more perfect union.
It is disturbing that most of the media does not refer to the current Trump trial as being about election interference; instead they say it’s about hush-money. it is about illegality, rather than simply having sex with a porn star. Shame on the media for failing to brand the trial accurately. It’s about criminality, not immorality. The press is supporting Trump’s whining about being a victim when headlines blare “hush-money.”
This sexing up, in the legacy media, of crimes against the democratic rule of law, the narrative framing of the criminal charges as a winner v loser fight between a plucky individual’s right to freedom being persecuted by a corrupted deep state, is exactly what his global criminal backers want the masses to believe is the truth. They want to break the rule of law nation state models worldwide in order to profiteer and exploit the planet and its people without any constraint. The madmen in John Huston’s 1948 film, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, look positively sane compared to this international cartel of crooks.
@ Monnina. You have seen clearly my friend. Bill Weir just pointed out that the number of profit-driven corporate executives pushing this would fit in a couple of school busses. The people, meaning the majority of people, need to defend our democracy and regulate the profiteers.
Good thing they're not in the jury pool.
All it takes is one!
SCARY.....
Barb Spratt : Yes, it is! They will be evaluating many more potential jurors than usual. I have hope that they know what they are doing, and it is just!
Gulp!
Not so sure about that.....watch this space....we live in hope......
We hope
The way to defend democracy is to vote.
Can I use this phrase? I’m. writing post cards & this would be a perfect closing!
We need good justices
The most enjoyable part of yesterday was when Judge Merchan told him,'act up in this courtroom and I'll put you in jail,also',if you don't show up,I will sign a warrant and have you arrested'.'Do you understand'? That was truly superb!Let's see when the next temper tantrum happens.I wonder how much ketchup is somewhere on the walls at Mar a Lardo.
Thank you for sharing this gem.
At least impartial Justices!!!
C Mann : If they are not impartial, they are not good nor just!
Exactly! We need HONEST Justices.
Amen.
Sounds correct cept democracy is ba brain washed democrats crap how. Say the national anthem. Again founding fathers defines democracy and a Republic. I cand most intelligent people want Republic we all get a Say in OUR democracies. We have not had a real vote other than to suggest I firmly belive because of the DNA evidence. Never really.... we've been manipulated and lead to thwart misshaps. Sadly so many folks lack character to see truth b against those own poor judgment. Meaning can't admit even to themselves when thru are badly wrong. Don't get me wrong many ppl have woken up apologized for somethings, they see what they did not see... and was able to humble themselves. But the military is neither conservative or another good(righteous) vs bad (evil). It's that simple many secrets societies just haven't realized they b have been used for an evil agenda. That's the truth
@Mortie. Sorry, this is unintelligible to me.
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.
You are clearly babbling. Must be a maggot-man.
Yes! Hush money isn’t the problem.
What is a crime is how Trump manipulated his company’s accounts for the money to be used to interfere w/ presidential elections in 2016. That is the real subject.
He knows his house of cards is falling down. We are witnessing a malignant narcissist "melt-down" in real time. If any other defendant ranted the way that trump does (gagged?🙄)...they would have been fined or imprisoned already.
This 2024 election ad is great: t.co/l4pbfMJofY
Yah. Try it with your bosses. Is it working for you.?
Well said ! Scary but true
The world is watching - on both sides of the ledger. Those against democracy and those for it. If democracy fails in the US, the domino effect will be worldwide. (I am Canadian).
Trump has already done enormous damage to the US and all those who aspire to a just and truth-abiding world.
I agree. This domino effect will be equally powerful in empowering social democracies if the rule of law is seen to prevail in the US.
Thank you! -- exactly right!!
Years ago, Naomi Klein wrote a book "The Shock Doctrine - The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" highlighting the way oligarchs profit off of economic distress. Perhaps she should write a sequel about "The Rise of Insurrectionist Capitalism".
Yes - the disaster capitalist
never lets some outrageous incident go to waste ( and
figures out how to profit from it ) .
Maybe we can take a page out of this and figure out how
to turn the tables on
Mr. Disaster Himself.
Klein's book is a must read. Her main conclusion is that the economic policies favored by libertarians are incompatible with democracy. F. A. Hayek, once the darling of libertarians, came to the same conclusion later in life.
Exactly !
Well said, Monnina. Wealth is power, power corrupts, and the greater the wealth the greater the corruption, or so it seems. Their amorality is stunning!
Monnina : well said!
Exactly" WHO" wants global criminal backers? I'm being dead serious. Are you not seeing the same reality as I am and I think 75% of Americans and 85% of the rest of the world is. As EVERY COUNTRY is fighting for freedoms and liberties
I understand, but perhaps see this global land/power/money grab and widespread rage and misery differently. Our postwar social paradigms are long past their sell by date. We must change our political moral compass to steer toward social and environmental equity or we will all be broken on the jagged rocks of revolution.
They are certain people in power of countries, corporations & hedge funds, like Putin, MBS, Orban, Murdoch, Koch, Yaas, Mercer, Crowe, Musk...
Cuz the constitution has ALREADY FOR MANY MANY MANY DECADES but especially last 3.5 years... these CORPORATION EMPLOYEES of 2020 election did not sign any contracts local state, our 50 unions of individual power that signal handling have master power over all federal cept SURPREME COURT JUSTICE SCOTUS. THE finding fathers intentional wrote our bill of rights, declaration of independence, federal and all state constitutions, and they did MILITARY LAW AND SWORN OATH TO PROTECT WITH LIFE AND LIBERTY A COUNTRY THEY THEN FOUGHT for the freedom of for many years. The military is always America's last hope. We need to learn what we had and what changed. Going back to less than a handful of Generals is my first fight. To many roasters.
Not looking good. This court is so corrupt I can smell it all the way from California.
Me, too, Paula B. Never did I ever expect to see America sink so low. Never did I worry that the solution to the evils may not be within easy reach of the good guys.
It's as if we've gone through the looking glass, Beverly.
RR is right sbout labeling trial accurately. Even liberal media is calling it hush money trial Still surreal to me that despite all we know. Hes still on the ballot and has successfully delayed 3 out of 4 cases AND has a chance to win ! AND most MAGA dont follow basic day to day actual events!! Counter every fact with gaslighting lies and then bundle them into this. false grievance politics
That's what made me really disgusted with his rant before going into court! He goes on about them holding the court cases now when he should be campaigning. He's the one that delayed them all! It wasn't anything DONE to him, he did it himself!
Well, SCOTUS' legalization of anonymous dark money bribery in their 2010 Citizens United decision only serves to prove that this bribery money from oligarchs, (both foreign and domestic), is NOT limited to only the GOP. Their attack on the USA, it's Constitution and the weakening of our Rule of Law is fueled by any politician who is willing to sell both their Ethics and their Vote to the highest bidder. Citizens United needs to be reversed which means we need to reshuffle and make certain that there's a Supreme Court Judge appointed for all thirteen Federal District Courts. Freezing the number of Justices @ 9 is every bit as harmful to this democratic Republic as freezing the House of Representatives numbers to 435 was waaaaaaay back in 1929..
Amen! And that's a great idea. Also, term limits for the SCOTUS.
Consequences for the SCOTUS! Any Judge on the Court who does not uphold their oath to uphold the Constitution should be Off the Court! They can only stay on with '"Good behavior"!
Would that it were possible, Laurie. "Upholding the Constitution" is supposed to be what they do, but there is a very wide range of understanding what that means. And they have so far refused to uphold any ethical standards. The buck stops there, so I suspect Roberts may rationalize, "What's the point of an ethical code? There is no one to enforce it."
Beth Galbreath : It is very concerning that what appears to be obvious can have so many differing interpretations. To the point where our justices can be deliberately obtuse! The facts show crimes. Supreme Court judges are taking bribes. Those who should be recusing themselves are not doing so. And, as you point out "There is no one to enforce it".
Hard to expect justices to uphold a constitution for which they have contempt & want to sabotage or destroy, such as Alito, Thomas & Gorsuch want to do
'They do not have the divine right of kings!!!
:D It's a little off subject, but IMHO "Man" shaped gods in his OWN image and not the other way around and therefore: No one has any "divine right" to anything at all. But we who are living in the democratic Republic of the USA today ALL have a human duty. A duty to pay it forward for future generations of American citizens through fair taxation on EVERYONE. Just like the generations of American citizens, (the rich and the not so rich), who paid it forward for you and me and our family and friends and communities decades before we were ever born.
I see no reason to admire the ultra-rich who pay NO taxation on their gazillions of dollars and give NOTHING back to the nation who provides their PROFITS but invests in monopolization and bribery through the 2010 Citizens United decision so they can keep all profits to themselves while average American citizens work for a living, pay THEIR fair share of taxes and bear the brunt of "Paying it forward" for new generations as the ultra-rich just sit back and count out how much it will cost to buy their way OUT of their responsibilities instead of simply paying their fair share, thus fulfilling their DUTY as an American Citizen.
And disbarred.
I worry about expanding the Court, though, because it could be even more stacked with Republicans.
"Citizens United needs to be reversed..." YES YES YES!!!
Malcolm. Two reasons why the "liberal" Media (there is none , it is a right wing myth) are calling hush money.
1. It is salacious that way, and salacious sells.
2. They fear retribution should Trump re elect (with their help as always)
Back to the media. In a previous post on a different subject. I did a deep dive into the media ownership and what to my blood shot eyes should appear, but a cabal of private equity funds like Vanguard, Black Rock, First State as principal owners of stocks on all major broadcast,including cable media. NYT is owned by Ochus Sulzberger family, it's reporters are to a large degree professional, but it's editors are right wing and establishment. WAPO is now owned by Jeff Bezo's with the same situtation.
The private equity funds also own medical centers, pharmaceutical companies, chemical companies and who knows what else. They are institutions, owned by major investors, and they have reps on the board of directors of all of those companies.
If I had the time and motivation I would like to construct a Venn Diagram of America's corporations.
For fear of retaliation, few corporations will stand up to him. Some surprise there. They know Trump, if elected, can wield the power to either make their own lives miserable, or that of their company. That’s why they will play footsie with him. Hoping he will ignore them. One can only hope that he either loses or dies of a heart attack. It’s incredibly sad that we’re come to this point, where fear dictates and truth and dissent will be abolished. I predict that it will come to a point where any ally that decides he or she can’t abide by his methods anymore, that they will be shunned or worse. Until it starts to affect supporters, it will not stop.
I totally agree John. Considering tfg's diet and lifestyle. I am puzzled as to he has lived so long. I mean a diet of KFC and hamberders, washed down with the cancer causing addictive Diet Cock would have terminate many a man long before this. That his brain is addled is nothing, it only mirrors his cult and those that will vote for him.
A scary thought that we share this nation with hundreds of millions mini me's. Mental emotional clones of their dear leader.
Does anybody actually think that this nation will survive in it's present from, even economically, should he be #47. His and his cults thirst for retribution will drive this country into the gutter, and it will most certainly become a shithole nation.
1920 and 1930 Germany existed in an era of heavy industrialization. Factories and production lines staffed by hundreds of thousands of a renewable natural resource, called humans that were in constant supply, easy to replace, and required only rudimentary simple task programming.
Todays production lines are staffed by very expensive, time and resource consuming robots, which are easily programmed, but require constant a nd expensive maintenance, (parts, servos and programming, mother boards, heat sinks, etc).
In WWII, American women and 4Fs turned out tanks, war planes by the hundreds of thousands, and women turned out hundreds of thousands of bomb, shells, and millions of bullets daily if not hourly.
Today we can't keep up with production needed to replenish stocks sent to Ukraine, meanwhile Russia is tooling along on the Stalin model of quantity over quality, of man over machine, of analog over digital.
The recent success (99%) of the joint nations anti drone/rocket/missile defense against the Iranian barrage of drones, rockets and missiles, have surely depleted the ability to defend.
All Iran has to do is keep it up for a week and they will deplete the stock of defensive munitions.
Iran has been building a stock of offensive munitions and weapons, while the west has been sitting on it's ass enjoying the "peace dividend"
It is easy to bloviate about a military industrial complex, when you are sitting in a castle surrounded by two huge moats, called oceans, and living high of the hog, not ever knowing distress and despair, because the system your parents, grandparents have created is full of fat, that one is living off.
It is quite different when that fat is burned off, and the society that enabled one to live high off the hog, degenerates into a shit hole country.
I can see a time when Mexico builds a wall to keep out the dirty gringo's.
There's a third reason - the MSM employees know who pays them, and how fast they can disappear if they make those leash holders unhappy. Self censorship is rampant.
Of course if Trump gets reelected, he'll still take down a media outlet or major pundit a week (or even more often) just to prove he has the unlimited ability to punish disloyalty to Trump. By coddling Trump the media has handed him the means. Even the media owners will be targets. In their worship of low taxes for themselves, and their pursuit of loyalty to Trump, some of them will have enabled Trump the means to destroy them. It will be poetic justice, but we'll all be too busy trying to deal with having "Anthony Fremont" ["Twilight Zone] as our President to care.
Board rooms are increasingly incestuous and monopoly friendly. Is vulture capitalism redundant?
I don't think you need to. The circles would all converge.
"Even liberal media is calling it hush money trial"
Well, the charges against Trump are the result of alleged hush money payments that were allegedly improperly recorded in business ledgers. How should the well informed non-gaslighting media describe it if not as a "hush money trial?"
You are right, however election manipulation and interference are what most people think is baked into all elections while being a sleazy sexual predator and adulterer is still repulsive. Hiding the sexual stuff was what he was originally trying to do. This trial is putting it front an center and IMO is more likely to get people to pay attention and be turned away from him. So while we keep hammering at the election interference crime let’s not minimize the salacious sexual aspect. It is what interests the public.
DK Brooklyn : let's not normalize criminality by thinking, "everybody does it, cheats on their wife, or girlfriend...no big deal. Tfg wanted to hide a character defect and fact that could affect the election. He hid the truth from voters! It's a serious crime! Not just a character defect!!
“Everybody does it” was Hankey’s comment about his reasoning behind his insurance company supplying the $175M bond backing TFG in the NY appeal. Hankey claimed 75% of loan applications to his financing company overestimated assets, so that makes it okay for TFG.
I’m so tired of politicians and CEO’s using “two wrongs make a right" philosophy. [Proverb dates from a 1734 poem published in the The London Magazine per Wikipedia]
Michael G ; I wonder if this Mr. Hankey is related to that cartoon character in "South Park"?
"being a sleazy sexual predator and adulterer is still repulsive. Hiding the sexual stuff was what he was originally trying to do."
You're talking about when Bill Clinton lied under oath about having sex with Monica Lewinsky?
Seriously, I'm not trying to troll you here. I"m just trying to provide context, and perhaps get a laugh.
Haha. Yes Clinton did it too. And the sex is what everyone remembers and found so icky. That is my point. Maybe I’m wrong and people really care about the illegal machinations to hide it and not the sex. Do you think people are waiting to hear Michael Cohen explain the money matters or Stormy tell what it was she was paid not to talk about.
I know what I’m interested in hearing for the salacious nature of it. It isn’t about the checks. I also think I know what Trump still doesn’t want on TV. But maybe I’m not the average guy.
Thought the same when listening to a late-night host - let us call it what it is "fixing an election".
Right on
MSN yesterday did explain it perfectly as election interference. What bothered me is they were also saying that Trump will never spend a day in jail because no one knows how to imprison a former president, (secret service etc.).
It is such B.S.! If a Bin Laden was captured ; There would be no hesitation to imprison him at Gitmo. tRump is at least as large of a threat to this country, and the rest of the Democracies in this world as Bin Laden!
Someone will have to take a deep breath,hold their nose,and DO IT!
several trustworthy and well trained and backed up someones!
That's silly of them. Trump could sit in a cell with his agents outside. They could come and go on shifts. It's not like the agents are sentenced to live in his cell.
As for other security, they could arrange meals or exercise (hahahaha!) away from the general population. But who's kidding who? He'd be at some plush facility, or the judge would sentence him to home detention with an ankle monitor. Again, Trump is above the law.
'Mar A Lardo' is not a secure place! It's laughable! I heard a pundit saying he will end up on 'House arrest' at Mar a Lago! It would take an army to police that scenario! How do we know that his present security has not been compromised? His old 'buddy' Mr. Epstein had a 'house arrest' situation set up , and he continued to do his crime. How do we even know if Epstein actually committed suicide?!? Has the media promoted the "inevitability" that trump cannot be jailed?!? B.S.! Gitmo should hold him! There must be good security people somewhere who can be trusted! An ankle monitor! Pathetic!
The best ankle monitor I can think of for Trump is a ball and chaîne.
Perhaps,we might be pleasantly surprised,miracles do happen!!! I've lived them!
If Trump were given home detention with an ankle monitor, he'd still break the rules his lawyers had set up for him. Unless they turn his rooms at Mar a Lago into a de facto prison with locked doors and bars on the windows, he'll be galavanting all over the place and continuously whining at national fundraisers no matter that he's not supposed to leave his house.
As the Times indicated recently: Only 2% of voters are willing to respond to a poll. So how can it be that that 2% are not thinking differently than the unresponsive 98%. The mere fact that they respond while the vast majority does not, indicates the reason that the polls have been so wrong for several election cycles and why the only poll that counts is the election itself. The problem is that elections have become a multi billion dollar industry, and industries run full time to make a profit. Polling is one more profit center, just like the political ads that keep the major networks from allowing their news departments to report news that may cost them ad money and viewers
.
Saw a lefty pundit on MSNBC or CNN do that yesterday.
America has become one big ad.
It's gotta be tiring for even the most die-hard trump fans to listen to the same old whining tropes over and over. I realize we are a nation with short attention spans, but how many different ways can he cry (and the media report) about being the victim before it gets to be like a waterlogged ship sinking under its own weight.
You underestimate how short some people's memories are and how often they need to be reinforced that their alternate reality world is entirely true. Trump has to keep these things in their heads to be sure there's never any room for the actual truth to sneak in.
The teletubbies repeated "again"! Security for them! Grownups should want more than that! Unless they are on drugs!
That's because "The National Enquirer" has now become the "free press" paradigm!
I hear tell ol' Tovarich MAGgot is now blaming his lawyers for "letting" him fall asleep during his NY trial, yesterday. Next it'll be the court itself. Then he'll say everyone's being unfair to him because he was only "resting his eyes!"
https://youtu.be/igeIMvhw4mo?si=pbPbIdSkxKbL4gK2
If he's the strongman he wants people to think he is he shouldn't say things like that.
Dela remember the Eagles song, Dirty Laundry?
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/donhenley/dirtylaundry.html
Dirty Laundry was actually from Don Henley’s first solo album “I Can’t Stand Still”, released in 1982. The song was co-written by Henley and Danny Kortchmar, guitarist on most of the songs. The first screaming guitar solo on that song was by Joe Walsh, who had joined the Eagles in 1975.
We know that. My point is the lyrics. It says by Don Henley on the page
LVD,
I get it. The point is the lyrics. An amazing song and a great put down of the idiocy of mainstream "news".
I was just trying to give Henley credit for his solo work apart from the Eagles. As for "It says Don Henley on the page", my thought was that most readers would not click on your link and see Don Henley's name on the page. Dirty Laundry is not an Eagles song and never will be. Also, the page you refer to did not include Danny Kortchmar as co-author of the song, and his musical input is what gives the lyrics extra power.
I also thought it was an interesting bit of trivia that Henley had Joe Walsh (a member of the Eagles) play guitar on the song.
That's a wonderful song!
Will listen. Thanks.
Dela Rees : I watched two weekend shows and a Monday show on MSNBC that featured the " Hush money" headline. With the pundits hastily and dutifully saying that it's really about election interference: after the fact. Kind of late by then! How many get that message, once the "Hush money " headline " is trumpeted!? They keep screwing the message , then try to peddle it back! Fake news! We are not stupid! Show some pictures of Stormy and the MacDougal woman in their 'alluring" outfits, and the 'job ' is done! Screw the media when they do this to US! I'm paying attention MSNBC! Crap is crap!
Exactly! ‘Election Interference’ = direct attack on democratic process!
Yes, that should be the headlines journalists use! Excellent!
BS.
Rachel Maddow exposed exactly this media crapola in a recent program. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out. There is a monopoly on the news media and it doesn’t serve the people. Fox covered the trip to trial as if it was a state visit. What up?
You’re right!
Does any of Trump’s reactions sound like the words of an innocent person?
Why are we treating this talking carcinogen with such deference & kid gloves ? We're acting like he's a senile, fragile - as - a - boiled - egg old coot who has to be taken & led to the bathroom after some EXTREMELY MONSTROUS, HEINOUS Cr-p. He needs to be treated like the foul, malignant, EVIL, bag of offal & toxic waste that he is ! THEN INCENERATED as a warning to other would be insurrectionists & traitors. NO Mercy for tyrants & turncoats.
The attempted coup that was abruptly generated by Mr. Trump on 1/6 didn't actually fail the effort was just in its early stages. Each and every day Trump does something to loosen reality's grip on his prize, our country. Only one of two things will end up stopping Trump, the total collapse of his base or his long-awaited passing. How about both.
Unfortunately, there will always be another cruel, mean, nasty, fake news AH to take his place. Just look at the bobble heads in the Senate.
Of all his 30,000 documented lies, the one lie that keeps him afloat is that the election was stolen. His modus oprandi is to project what he is guilty of onto the Democrats. He openly created a cult via social media, his Fox propaganda machine and MSM with its both-side-ism was complicit as well. That's the core of the problem we face, nearly half of the country believes him. He planted the seed in 2017 as POTUS that the only way he could lose an election was if it was rigged. From that day forward, that flat out baseless lie mushroomed into the Big Lie and ultimately the Jan 6 violent insurrection. How do we undo this? I think we have to inform the public at large and expose and call out the authors/ members of Project 2025 what they are demagogues - dangerous demagogues waiting in the wings to convert our democracy into a White Christian Nationalist Theocracy. with tfg or any. other guy as a totalitarian dictator.
Joan--That's precisely why we have elections. They are intended to weed out the people that think like Trump.
They're being sent to Russia.
Sounds good to me!! Can't wait!!
Lisa--I'll keep the light on.
His passing would be great. I think we would all feel safer.
Colin--As long as the passing isn't his usual.
Absolutely correct Donald. People think of coups as overnight violent things.
Jan 6th was a self coup (the media is allergic to that phrase), not initially succeeding it has turned into a long coup, the violence follows in the aftermath, not in the conduct.
We think of coup's as the military storming the castle, but here we have one that is appareling in many way, the coup of 1932 in Germany, that happened within the government.
Only ours is happening within the system set up by the founders, to govern and regulate the government.
The constitution itself, is being used to destroy the constitution. The freedoms of democratic rule are being used to destroy democratic rule.
It is not the first time that democracy has been used to destroy democracy. Two glaring examples Germany in the 1930's and Hungary today. Another is Russia, a short lived democracy.
Elections do not make or define a democracy.
William--However the men running in them do.
I do intend to be argumentative Donald, but it is the nature and quality of the person who "runs" (owns, controls, manages, administrates) every thing that determines it's quality, nature, goals, objectives, processes and procedures.
So yes whether one lives in a democracy, depends on who is running it, but Hungary and Russia and other quasi dictatorships are called democracies, only because they have elections (fake though they are) but elections never the less.
so elections in themselves do not make a democracy.
A Democracy being a government for and by the people.
The word has become so cheapened that there is now a modifier, and adjective, a representative democracy, the phrase itself is redundant, but used even by the learned without any embarrassment, because the word democracy no longer means a government for and by the people. Not when Hungary and Russia are called Democracies. They even have elections in Iran, and then there is the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.
William--I agree, I was just being hopeful.
Quite true. In some authoritarian countries people are required to vote (for the only real candidate).
Vote or wind up in prison or dead.
Many of those who wound up dead in Iraq had voted--for GW Bush. Perhaps some individuals should not vote-- for our and their own sake.
Amen!!!
Peggy--At times I just say "A-women." Then remember what it was like to be young.
Hahahahahaha!! That was a good one!!
I am woman hear me roar.--
Donald Hodgins <silencenotbad@gmail.com>
12:37 AM (0 minutes ago)
If Trump is found guilty does that give his "current" wife the psychological edge she would need in order to file for a divorce. There is absolutely no logical reason for Melania to suffer any more than she already has. If you stop and consider the mental anguish that woman has had to contend with, maybe she should be in line for some sort of civilian award for expressing the level of personal courage she has demonstrated just to survive the experience, and we thought we had it bad. For once, I hope she puts the screws to him. If Melania does sue for divorce, we all know what got into her, yuck. What was that old saying about a woman's scorn?
Sounds delightful!
Power: I don't quite understand your comments. It must be me, however this comment of yours caused me realize that the problem with America and most Americans is that we are self obsessed. We believe that we are the center of the universe, that we are special, and it isn't new, it manifested itself in the idea of "Manifest Destiny".
Our children are raised to believe that they are "special". Self obsessed, special children, grow up to be self obsessed special adults, whose first thought is of themselves.
Only in America do people who claim to be psychologists and psychotherapists drive Mercedes Benz's and live large. Self help, psychotherapy books clutter the shelves of book stores We are raised to believe that we are,what others think of us (despite the fact that we aren't mind readers and have no idea of what others really think, nor should we care). Self indulgence leads to obesity, physical and social ills and diseases, self obsession leads to me, me and mine, greed and consumerism, keeping up with the Joneses.
I want it all, and I want it now. An attitude not only of the elites, the plutocrats, but of Americans writ large.
Greed is manifest not only materially, but emotionally as well. What do you think Likes and upvotes, down votes are? What's behind the assinine performances on Tik Tok
E
Power--Innocuous placebos can mutate into insidious placebos, who fed you this line of crap? A placebo is an innocuous agent that holds absolutely no ability to prevent anything. They simply fool the mind into thinking the pill did the trick.
Power--In the first place a placebo never cured anyone, all they ever do is fool the mind into thinking things are OK.
How does America house deserting freshly trained troops before they kill?
America is thousands of miles west of Ukraine, with the Atlantic ocean in between. And it isn't Americans killing freshly trained Russian Troops?
It rather makes me sick that this society has so much reverence for money, an almost metaphysical and spiritual reverence, that they will treat a monster like Trump with kid gloves—and a stupid monster at that.
A home owner I know had her rental property destroyed by two wealthy sledge hammer wielding tenants who felt affronted that they were evicted for not paying rent and insulting her. I said that they should go to jail, but she declined to press charges because “they come from a GOOD FAMILY.” I felt like vomiting. When I see and hear Trump, I feel like vomiting. When I see how the system is going soft on him, I want to vomit. I wish I could vomit him and his kind right off this planet.
Trump is definitely not from a "GOOD FAMILY"! Just look up the actions of his father and his grandfather.
“Good” as in wealthy. It’s fairly recently that money has become the measure of everything, even character. We no longer have just a capitalist economy, but a capitalist society. Government is distained because it isn’t profitable. Corporations exist only for profit. It’s a regrettable situation.
The pursuit of money for money’s sake takes money out of circulation and stuffs it in a bank. The sense of accomplishment from that is an end in itself. This is one of the major problems with capitalism.
The motive that drives one to build and invest for profit only has a major benefit to society when it is fairly governed by a strong democratic government.
In the early days of the steam engine they had to design a device called a “governor “ that prevented the engine from building up too much pressure and exploding—it’s kind of like that, but the governor isn’t working properly.
Scott, this reverence for money, to me, will be the downfall of our country. Too many of the richy rich only want money and power and could care less about the rest of us!! Politicians will tell you what you want to hear when campaigning, but, as soon as they get elected, they head to Washington and begin to grift and make as much money as they possibly can!! They are easily bought by the richy rich who actually control our government. I am with you on the whole vomiting thing. Maybe we could start a vomit line that would hurry him and his kind away!!!
Kinda sorta sounds a lot like the amazing amount of ginormous millions of dollars that President Barak Obama’s family has now accumulated over and over;Since his previous background was that of an entitled community activist… As, there are the Clinton’s who have profited from the dubiously affluence since Clinton Foundation was established… Not to forget mentioning how financially well off is the super wealthy and the former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s family profited from her insider trading deals during the 2008 Recession all during the subprime mortgage loan crisis and her dividends before Google faced an audit by the SEC… Kinda makes Al Capone really look a lot like more of a Saint nowadays… C’est la vie
Of course Charles, you have inside knowledge and documented proof you can cite for all these accusations - you probably just forgot to put in the links? Kinda sorta sounds a lot like a trump liar rant!
My sources are easily accessible at almost any public library and you can simply petition the Freedom of Information Act request for yourself and your erroneous assumptions on Trump has “No Quarter” in regards to my political realm being since I’m proudly voting for RFK Jr. in 2024.
She should have pressed charged and they should be doing time for criminal damage. Perhaps the police should have done so anyway.
But if they have wealth nothing will happen.
Daddy's money shouldn't protect them from the consequences. The lady not pressing charges would have made a conviction very difficult However people like this often go on to do things that are a lot more serious. Money shouldn't prevent that, but I'm sure it does.
They are psychopaths or close to it. Psychopaths tend to take over and are highly motivated to attain positions of power: police, judges, investment capitalists, and they rise to power by dint of their ruthlessness.
If they weren’t in the money business, they would be serial killers.
Dr. Robert Hare came to the conclusion that 1% of the general population are psychopaths and 20% are in prison making life for the other prisoners hell.
A psychologist who wrote a book titled The Sociopath Next Door, said it was more like 4% are “sociopaths”.
It’s a genetic condition that perpetuates itself like a parasitic cancer.
We must identify this gene and eliminate it from our species so that we are not held back every generation or so by wars and economic ruin.
Yes, this is the way it is now!
On the contrary, if they come from a "good" family she could have won a nice big judgment from them. I would have sued their asses off.
In some countries he would already be in prison. If he was lucky. In the US he is on trial and proof of guilt shown.
Look how Brazil handled Bolsonaro. Pulled his passport. Etc We have So. MUCH FAIRNESS BUILT INTO OUR SYSTEM SND TRUMP KEEPS EXPLOITING LOOPHOLES!!
Which we need to close up good when we get rid of him,I know the possibilities,but I am NOT RESIGNED to his success.NEVER!
@Keith. He couldn't stay awake.
I keep sayin' I don't know this as a fact, but behind the scenes, I bet that Trump's lawyers are seeking pre-trial intervention.
Once upon a time I had a client in a PI case who continually fell asleep in front of the jury. We lost.
A juror later told me that I tried a good case, and the jury liked me, but since my client didn't care enough to pay attention to the facts, they didn't care either.
Meanwhile we need to sweep.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/missi, on
Just my thoughts. I know that I have a tendency to fall asleep when I am in a state of being content. I think Trump is feeling content about the trial because he has always been able to skate through everything previous to this trial. He believes he will again prevail again and so he is bored with all of it.
More likely sedated. Off his Adderall.
It turns out my client was manic depressive and was in his depressive phase. He didn't tell me. My request for a new trial, it was civil -- denied.
but i am assuming you are not a psychopathic narcissist, and a fairly honest person. beware trying to understand anything that he does. just be confident it’s a sterling example of a psychotic narcissist
Delusional
Sadly, even Colbert and Kimmel have been calling it “hush money.”
Do they even sound like the words of a sane person? Is he running a long con, i.e., can he sustain a plea of “not guilty by reason of insanity” and still get elected?
Keith--Only from the prospective of a mime.
The actor reveals his true self: Calvin without Hobbes.
Borowitz did a hilarious satire post on this very subject 🤣 😂
No they sound like a crook trying to prove his innocence.
"The judges handling these cases are doing their best to uphold the Constitution and maintain the principle that no individual is above the law."
Not SCOTUS, rather the opposite in fact. These judges are actually going to debate whether or not an orange douchebag from Queens IS above the law.
And yes, the charges against Trump should be amended to include treason.
Is the penalty still death?
It should be. Such a penalty would send a serious message to other tyrants like Putin and XI that the rath of the people is a tide that cannot be held back.
In the NYstate cases, the judge's authority to impose "civil coercive" contempt is limited. In the federal system a separate hearing is required but in terms of how to make a violator conform the sky's the limit, although progressive discipline is usually used. Progressive discipline is the process of using increasingly severe steps or measures when the violator fails to correct a problem after being given a reasonable opportunity to do so.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-754-criminal-versus-civil-contempt
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/contempt_of_court
Daniel, I'm not aware of any reason why judges should treat Trump differently than any other defendent so I'm at a loss as to why judges seem "challenged" to dealing with the chump. It seems irrelevant to me that he was the President, or running for election, etc.
I think the issue is whether they will add to incitement of his cult.
We had numerous cases here in Baghdad By the Sea that were removed to other locations (change of venue) to try to avoid a bad outcome. We had intermittent riots, major and minor over a period of years. I documented the 1990 riot in the novel.
I did not know that was part of their job. That objective seems to me could lead a judge to many places
In 1980, the McDuffie case -- that started a couple of riots was moved from Miami to Tampa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Miami_riots
We recently had a political case involving one of the Miami city commissioners moved to Ft. Lauderdale. Happens all the time. "Outside the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fuller blasted (Miami Commissioner) Carollo as a “bully” and a “coward” and said “it feels great to finally smash that cucaracha,” Miami Herald news partner CBS News Miami reported."
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article275978606.html#storylink=cpy
Steve ; His present re-election campaign is a continuing coup. He is allowed to hold 'rallies' even at the Court of law! He violates gag orders! Who the F33k else would get away with this threat to our government!? the rich crooks support him!
yeah I don't really understand judges or the law. Certainly not with what's been happening.
They sure seem to be enabling him!
Steve reed ; He should not be treated differently than any other defendant. They are either bought, or scared of his threats. Corruption is real. That is why the Founders made short work of traitors!
Thank w, Daniel. I appreciate
Treason and sedition. Both foreign and domestic.
Paula, this applies to the entire Republican Party.
Michael: By hanging? I
As long as the BIG LIE persists, we are stuck in a "doom loop" that keeps spinning.
The bad actors behind the "Stop the Steal campaign" and the January 6th insurrection - Stone, Flynn, Bannon (the Flynnstones) and many other criminals - received pardons in exchange for their loyalty to DJT. They continue to be key operatives in the 2024 election campaign.
In addition, the PROMISE of pardons also has been abused to give bad actors, like those involved in the insurrection, the motivation to take action, including violent acts, in exchange for protection from prosecution and incarceration.
I remeber the Nixon years and have always believed that Gerald Ford's pardoning of Richard Nixon set the stage for the abuse of executive power by putting Nixon above the rule of law.
With the election deniers in Congress currently controlling the levers of government, democracy is broken and, if not repaired, dead and done.
Do not listen to what the Trumplican's say, watch what they do 😳
Bannon goes to trial in New York, on May 28 for the build the wall fraud scheme. Indeed, he was pardoned by Trump; however, New York stepped up and charged him because New York citizens’ money was donated. Bannon’s trial may overlap a week with Trump‘s current trial.
Wouldn't it be a dream come true for both of them to be found guilty? That would be delightful!! I know I sound callous and cold, but those two caused me stress, sleepless nights, and lack of trust. I do not feel sorry for them because they did this to themselves and now that they are being held accountable they scream like little babies!!
Not callous or cold, Peggy. Justice served.
Lock.’Them. All. Up.
Peggy, I believe in compassion on all counts. I believe we should be kind and fair to our neighbors. But since others don’t share that belief overtime, we have established mores and our laws have come from them. Long-held customs and mores are what have formed what we have known as a “Safe” society of laws. Trump and Bannon have both indicated that they feel they’re above the law. Bannon used the skills he gamed as a military member to create Cambridge Analytica, the company that supplied Trump his election data in 2016. Without gaining permission from account holders, Bannon and the company he formed, Cambridge Analytica attached an API to Facebook and gave that data to Trump. Zuckerberg claims he remembers nothing of that. When he was called to testify in Congress about it, he claimed he couldn’t remember and he also didn’t remember what hotel he stayed in the previous night. To Russian computer scientists ran the data. They were not Russian immigrants. They were Russia's’ Russians. As in Russian citizens. Despite this and the investigations and the closure of Cambridge Analytica (Formed in England by Steve Bannon and his partner) after DOJ and FBI investigations, found no Russian interference in Trump’s election. Cambridge Analytica closed: Bannon received his many millions of dollars in equity in the company and received a job in Trump administration where without any clearance at all he sat in on highly Sensitive intelligence briefings - Until he was booted under protest by military generals and an admiral. He then went to advise Orban in Hungary. He then scammed the border Weil. He then was indicted by DOJ. He refused to comply with a January 6 subpoena and he is fighting that now on appeal. And the DOJ indictment was pardoned by Trump on his last day in office in January 2021. It has been reported that Rudy Giuliani was accepting million dollar payments for pardons. Within days, Bannon had formed his podcast, the War Room from where he speaks for disinformation with his psy ops training six days a week. My guess his pardon was attached to an agreement to keep the lie going because to this day Steve Bannon sends messages many many times per day to Republicans that Trump was really elected in 2020. Under Bannon training in the military if things are repeated enough times people believe them so that’s the MO he is using. Trump in 2016 as he campaigned in Iowa claim he could shoot someone on fifth Avenue in New York and not lose any voters. He has absolutely no empathy for anyone and his only purpose in being elected president is to stay out of jail. He started his run for the 2024 presidency three days before Jack Smith was appointed (publicly) as special council to investigate him. If a mole informed him that has been kept quiet, but there has been a rumor about a mole in the DOJ who was let go. He wanted to get the jump on Jack’s appointment so he wouldn’t look like he was reacting. He has no empathy: He doesn’t care what happened to anyone on January 6. He has never made a statement of care about those 7 deaths. Police officers and other security have been permanently maimed. Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked and brutally injured. Dozens of representatives and senators have resigned because of threats made to them. Met Romney has written a book in which he details how he spends $5000 per day for security for his family and the reason these representatives and senators are resigning is they don’t have the money to protect themselves. Bannon would run over you on fifth Avenue with a Mack truck for one dollar. He doesn’t care about anyone. They are both ruthless two of a kind and I don’t care if they’re incarcerated so much as they are without power: political, personal, financial. Our society incarcerates criminals when they are found guilty In a court of law. These two individuals have figured out how to escape the penalty of law. I would like them to be completely ruined and known as who they really are. The attention span of the average American and the intellect is kind of subpar. The only thing most citizens will pay attention to is them being found guilty sentencing, and incarceration. Neither can ever have access to the airwaves in my opinion. They are so dangerous, I wouldn’t want them even to live freely anywhere in the world. I’m a hippy dippy from way back by the way and until January 6, and knowing Trump involvement in causing it, I didn’t believe in incarceration.
in fact when I joined this Substack, I didn’t believe in incarceration. Attorneys on this Substack argued that point with me and I came to my own conclusion: they should never be allowed to walk free again after their treason against our country. My opinion and I cannot say ‘alleged treason’ because that hasn’t been charged. Whatever: treason is treason. Jack Smith brought Alex Whiting from the hag to help him, and so there’s always a chance that more charges could be brought. Treason may be on the table. So if we have empathy for someone, the other side of the equation is that we are hoping they learn from their mistakes. They both have had many chances to get on the right side of the law. They refused to do so so they need to take the lumps the law hands out. I believe they’re both going to jail. Trump will try to run his campaign from his jail cell.
Thank you, Valere! That was extremely informative and gave me a really clear picture of just how criminal trump and bannon are. I do agree they should be in jail and wholeheartedly agree that they should never be allowed to spew their vicious rhetoric anywhere!!
Thank you for that response Peggy. I’m a total Kumbaya and didn’t even believe in incarceration until I had been part of the Substack for a while. Had nothing to do with the Substack itself, just becoming informed on the breadth and depth of the criminality of Trump and company.
Lock them ALL. These people want to turn America into a Russia! We shall not let that happen ! period! Vote blue down the ballot and end this insanity. May the true Republicans come back !
Sounds like VP material to me.
I also am old enough to recall the Pardoning of Nixon. After watching the hearings for weeks on end, it was such a sickening anticlimactic action. I felt it undermined the trust in the judicial process.
What about this "pardon thing?" isn't it another off ramp for wealthy criminals? I never read about or heard about any President using the pardon power to help those with whom they committed crimes! It was something that was used to allow someone who was wrongfully convicted and did a lengthy jail sentence to finally be freed! It was never intended to be used by a president to allow his partners in crime to get away with the crimes!
If we had a decent press, media, there would be no big lie. A society has the right to defend itself against widespread promulgation of destructive lies/falshoods. Our ideal of "freedom of speech" like other simple minded slogans should not prevent us from taking action. We live in a very rich variegated technologically and psychologically challenging media environment. We no longer live in John Stuart Mills society for which he wrote and we should understand this and have laws that deal with current realities.
@steve remember the Don Henley hit? It sells.
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/donhenley/dirtylaundry.html
Are we becoming a Bannonana republic?
If they think the election was stolen, how do they justify winning *their* races?
Good and often overlooked point. It seems that only Trump's election was stolen, hence only a conspiracy can explain this.
Commenting feels dirty to me. All the great orange mistake wants is attention. In that he is very successful, distracting us from the real problems of the nation and the planet. Yet, in order to attend to the reality of our world, we have to focus on that misbehaving time warp of a human that adds nothing but chaos to our social discourse. Never have I wanted a human to just disappear as much as this addled ex-president. (Oh, and take MTG with you when you go, please!)
YES!!
I have a friend who tells me that every morning she turns on her computer hoping that this will be the day he's died. Then she tells me she wonders if anyone else feels the same. Ha!
Very likely "the great orange mistake" would like to be president, as any cases against him would, at a minimum, be put on hold.
MaryK ; the Election itself should be put on hold! It is that important to get it done justly! He needs, at a minimum, to clear his name!
Regarding Trump's criminality: If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, repels water, leaves duck-like droppings, has webbed feet, and finally, answers to the name Donald, it is most certainly an f-ing duck!
My favorite shorthand for him is Donald QuackQuack. Puns intended: Multiple illegal actions. Sounds of unintelligible things from mouth.
Pesident Abraham Lincoln anticipated Donald trump a long, long time ago. Lincoln said:
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time", but you
can't fool ALL of the peopLe ALL of the .time LINCOLN WOULD SAY that Trump's ardent supporters are some of the people you can fool ALLL OF THE TIME.
Captain Penny said you can fool some of the people all of the time and all the people most of the time, but you can't fool Mom.
Mother nature is hard to beat, too!
"Orange Lies Matter" also applies to Trump, as he will soon learn from his trials.
Fool some of the people all of the time to get in power and then corrupt the media so you can fool mostly all of the people all of the time. Putin.
Maybe because they hate Lincoln.
John Hudanish ; Yes, but for how long?
He already won once with LESS than 51%, thanks to the corrupt, racist Electoral College system. And he’s not the only one.
Greg ; Maine just joined the Interstate Vote Compact, which is slowly but surely increasing the chance to get rid of the Electoral College. Inequality Media is educating voters online about this. when I can afford it, I give what donation I can to support their work!
Me too. But I’m saving up for a passport just in case.
He's not the only treasonous traitor. We have an abundance. State legislatures and Congress are stocked full of R ones. And there are judges, big donors and Media screamers. Every single one of them ignores and chides the common good, treats Democracy and their fellow citizens with contempt and spits on The Constitution. And tens of millions of people applaud them. Insanity is rampant.
The challenge is for the sane to stay sane and not get sucked into their vortex and become insane (unconscious) too. Helping each other steer clear is important.
So true!
Looking at the ongoing charade that is Trump I am staggered that the USA is even considering him as a candidate in the run for President. How can you possibly allow a criminal run a country as important on the world stage as America. Surely in your constitution there is a cast iron law?
Diana, Trump is the Republican party’s nominee
for president, both in 2016 and now. The back-
ground of our present circumstances is that 30
to 40 years ago a few wealthy Republicans created
a plan to destroy our democracy and create an oligarchy similar to Putin’s oligarchy, and they’ve been working on it ever since then.
They underhandedly captured the Supreme Court
and corrupted it. They massively altered campaign
finance, created a body to oversee campaign
finance laws and then appointed corrupt officials to it. They backed candidates for Congress who were either already corrupt or corruptible and/or easily manipulated.
They expanded their political base by catering to evangelicals and racists. They managed corrupt republicans in Congress by paying them to vote
how they were told to vote on legislation. The
Republican Party partnered with the corrupt Fox News cable TV platform to provide plausible
back-up for their lies and and manipulations.
The problem was that all of these things were
done over a long period of time—several decades.
Just like putting a lobster into a pot of cold water
and gradually turning up the heat, it doesn’t know it’s being cooked.
At some point they partnered with Vladimir Putin.
Russian money is laundered a number of different
ways to evade campaign finance laws and it’s then donated to various campaigns. We also have money from China and Saudi Arabia illegally finding its way into campaign coffers. Foreign money donated to campaigns are bribes that create indisputable and unethical conflicts of interest.
Russia helped elect Donald Trump monetarily and
strategically, using online info about voters to tailor
online ads and propaganda to them.As social media
platforms expanded, Russian & republican operatives flooded them with disinformation about
the candidates for the presidency. Trump was their
Trojan Horse for the purpose of disrupting the
government’s norms and creating chaos, to prove
the republican propaganda that our government is
dysfunctional and our Constitution must be overhauled. Neither of which is remotely true when
our government isn’t being deliberately undermined by one of our two political parties.
Addendum: Trump is allowed to run for president again because our DOJ waited almost two years until after a Congressional investigation into the violent insurrection he spearheaded, to hire a special prosecutor. Nor has it investigated members of Congress who helped plan the insurrection, one of whom has been elevated to the key position of Speaker of the House and is in line to take over the presidency if Biden & Harris are unable to carry on.
Mike Johnson is a libertarian who passes as Christian. He has the support of many Catholics and Evangelicals. Putin has the support of the Russian Orthodox Church. Mussolini and General Franco had the support of the Catholic Church.
Interesting.
Diana, our forefathers could not predict trump so yes, a convicted felon can run for the office of President. Fortunately, the only ones considering voting for him are his extreme cult. Surprisingly, convicted felons in some states can not vote!! In many states convicted felons get their voting rights restored after release. I always found that interesting that a person can run for the highest office in our land while behind bars but couldn't cast a vote!! Only in America I guess.
He’s really the SCOTUS’s candidate
Diana: If you actually want the answer to that question (and many others), read “The Many-Headed Hydra” by Linehan and Rediker… if it hasn’t been banned already.
I have thought that for a while. But in their own time in history, they saw what could happen when a "mad king" ruled. The difference may be that they never thought so many people could be so blind as to actually ELECT a "mad king". But then, they also didn't have mass media to promote lies, either.
Actually they did. Jefferson was very concerned about the growing role of money in politics and predicted that some day a wealthy opportunist might become dictator. He had no solution to the problem, neither did anybody else.
Washington, Jefferson, and others hoped that an educated, well informed electorate would be able to counter the influence of money. Their hope was not unfounded, and subsequent experience gave hope. Three billionaire's ran for gubernatorial office in California; all three lost. Americans like "log cabin" candidates. Trump is an exception. Lobbying is where money exercises its power most effectively.
The commentary on George III in the Declaration of Independence shows a pretty clear understanding of sociopathy.
What if Al Gore, who had real reason due to malfunctioning voting machines and the electoral changes in the key state of Florida that preceded his 2000 bid for the presidency, had contested the Supreme Court's dubious judgement on the outcome in awarding it to Bush?
He accepted the judgement precisely because he placed preserving US democracy above fairness and personal interest. What would the MAGA republicans be saying now if he had refused to concede and roused half the country to "stop the steal"?
Without Fox news he would be nowhere.
Along with the rest of the right wing media machine: radio; corporate both-sidesism news stations and newspapers.
Thank you, Robert, always, for all of your hard work. Yes to your final question - and the one prior in 2016, which Trump won with the help of Cambridge Analytica, as well as gFacebook giving 75 million accounts to Cambridge and their Russian computer science engineers to furnish data to Trump that helped him win in 2016. How could Robert Mueller possibly have missed this ‘help from Cambridge Analytica (speaking of treason)?
Valere, I just spent some time looking at Cambridge Analytica on Wikipedia. Yikes! Pertinent quote: "Cambridge Analytica's data head, Alexander Tayler said, "When you think about the fact that Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 3m votes but won the electoral college vote, [t]hat's down to the data and the research." "
Wouldn’t it be ironic, if the endless days in the courthouse cause his demise? They already are questioning his bond. New York will get his property and in 2054, his years of chaos will be summarized in a paragraph. Elected because of reality show, taken down by porn star.
I've thought of that too.
I still cannot get over the fact that he's even allowed to run.
He is more treasonous than he is idiotic.
My 11 month old grandson took his first steps yesterday and in doing so demonstrated far more stability, social maturity, and sincere curiosity than our former absolutely corrupt, sociopathic president. Much love to all the young parents whose children represent our hope for a more perfect union.
Yes, indeedy!