TWGB: The Failing Man

 

Trump's having a weird week--yesterday, he gave an answer to the question of how to make childcare more affordable that made JD Vance sound like Mr. Policy King by giving us nothing and landing on we're a "failing country". He was applauded when he finished his rambling response which did not go into policy details (sorry to Chris Sununu) and didn't even contain a complete sentence (sorry to Bobo Kennedy) but because he finished talking, which was all anyone wanted him to do at that point. 

Then, earlier today, he decided that the best way to handle his appeal of the first civil case judgment of defamation for his sexual assault victim would be to give a press conference where he defamed her(again!) and mentioned other (alleged) sexual assault victims of his. And he referred one of the women as not "the chosen one" as if to indicate sometimes he does pick out potential assault victims, but in his long career of doing this, she does not meet his exacting standards. 

He followed this up with another rally thing where he forgot he wasn't running against Joe Biden and also made a weird non-joke about Nancy Pelosi's house having walls that did not stop the man who attacked her husband and gravely injured him. (Which says something about walls not working. An odd thing to note about a crucial gimmick of his political career.) 

This is why Joe Biden nailed Trump today, calling him "a failing man." 

Biden: My predecessor believes America is a failing nation. He is a failing president and a failing man pic.twitter.com/ZTnez17ImR

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 6, 2024

And that sums it up--Trump projects: nothing is his fault, his blame, his fuckup.  But the more he casts his insulting, perverse, negative view of the world, the more you can understand the sickness in him. 

TWGB: All the Bad Guys

 

Convicted Felon Trump bragging about colluding with Russia in front of all our faces because his supporters are rubes that will support him no matter how treasonous. pic.twitter.com/TKaQfkcZpG

— Tim Hannan (@TimHannan) June 4, 2024

It is fitting that convicted felon Trump chose to once again advise us that he was colluding with Russia just as we hear President Biden make a very clear statement regarding Trump: "All the bad guys are rooting for Trump, man." Putin is a bad guy who has taken a prisoner--effectively a hostage. He's a terrorist. And Trump says, basically, that his terrorist friend will release the hostage if he wins the election. 

Imagine that kind of friendship. "My hostage is your hostage." It sounds like...Trump is a goddamn terrorist too. A hostage taker. 

This is something people need to understand about Trump--in fact, it's something that our foreign allies already do. David Rothkopf, writing for The New Republic, describes the fear of a Trump presidency folks in the former eastern bloc countries experience, knowing he's willing to bargain away their freedom. McKay Coppins in the Atlantic reports in a similar vein: allies are worried that we do not appreciate the threat of a transactional and authoritarian leader inimical to the concept of democracy. 

Red Flag Warning--Who Are They Working For?

 

You know, if there are GOP congresscritters who are spouting Russian propaganda (and OMG--there sure are!) maybe we should pay attention to what legislative activity they also seem to be doing on behalf of Russia. 

When Marjorie Taylor Greene talks about Ukraine like NATO invaded it and they are Nazi or anti-Christian, she is directly aping Putin, and what she is saying is pure lies-shouldn't we be very interested in where this fool, who has yakked about Jewish space lasers and spread Q nonsense, gets her information? 

Maybe we should be more curious about why Scott Perry believes Ukraine shouldn't be supported because they can't win. I truly want to know where Tommy Taterhead is getting his extreme nonsense POV from. He seems to have Ukrainian public servants confused with Russian oligarchs. 

Would You Believe---Russia?

 

For the first time, 60 Minutes is reporting that multiple sources say a senior official of the Department of Defense, was struck by the mysterious symptoms, coined Havana Syndrome, and sought medical treatment at last year's NATO Summit. https://t.co/RNG5twMYLn pic.twitter.com/CGUOoOewUG

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) April 1, 2024

This is the most believable and also weird story happening recently. It's probably too easy to dismiss vague symptoms of some unknown origin as being anything but a kind of mass hysteria, but because of the nature of who was experiencing the "syndrome" and so on, it being a Russian op feels both too on the nose and a little like: "Who else?" 

But it is also absurd--we aren't living in Cold War times anymore, right? Except that we never stopped being in one. We (the US, apparently) thought when the Soviet Union failed, our relationship had radically changed. But that isn't exactly what happened. 

TWGB: The Only Winning Move

 

The disqualification trial of Fulton County DA Fani Willis saw a decision that enabled the case to continue, as Willis stays on while her top prosecutor, Nathan Wade, leaves the case--but we also learn that the judge in the Trial, Scott McAfee, faced threats and was concerned about getting security for his family. This is appalling, but not an unusual feature of TrumpWorld. McAfee, a conservative, will be treated by MAGA as having been somehow biased (I checked Twitter--they are GRUMBLING) when it is hard to objectively state what was uncovered in the trial more than a mere appearance of impropriety. 

He made as fair a decision as he could. He chided Willis for her conduct. It's not enough. 

From what I can tell, the lesson of TrumpWorld is similar to the lesson of playing "tic-tac-toe" in the 1983 movie WarGames--the only winning move is not to play. It means a little something different here though--it's the choice of game. You don't win at appeasing MAGA. You win only by doing your job. In other words--how about a nice came of chess?

Mike Pence knows this one. He just recently explained why he could not endorse Donald Trump, his old running mate, for president. Trump required him to do something illegal and unconstitutional to show his loyalty and he could not. In return, his life was threatened, and Trump to this day considers Pence "disloyal". It seems clear that to Trump's mind, you cannot serve two masters: the Constitution and Trump.  It also stands as a stark warning to other would-be GOP VP nominees--he will not be someone you serve with, just someone you serve. I can only ask what the conscience of a conservative has to say about that.

Biden's Memory and Hur's

 

Memory is a motherfucker. That's something I picked up from Death and Other Details. But also from reality. Grief doesn't fix things into stone, like when you lost someone. You still have them, as a part of you, like a phantom limb, wearing their conversations in your mind. It can be a comfort and not a comfort all at once. You might know facts intellectually, but they don't exist in your lived reality. It's like two things, overlapping--what did happen, and what it feels like. 

Being human, being mortal, is weird. It just is. But the funny old thing is, Joe Biden is actually tracking quite well with reality. He has a lot of life experience. He can tell you about it in great detail. Damn near photographically. He also has had access to classified information and knows very well what to do and not to do with it. And his situation was not one damn thing like former President Trump's. There is no way to determine intentionality with what was retained by Biden, and some of what Hur looked at was diaries that were not a part of the PRA. Hur's characterization of Biden's memory was gratuitous and biased. 

TWGB: Bust Out?

 

BREAKING - Trump moved docs from Mar-a-Lago to Bedminster in 2022, according to another Trump employee who confirms what has long been reported - including this video from spring 2022:

pic.twitter.com/eUxW1sESVV

— Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) March 12, 2024

The savvy among you know perfectly well this blog title isn't about how the classy ladies of Mar-a-Lago are wearing their cleavage this year but is actually a term of art. The above reference in the embedded Tweet to Bedminster reminds of that quintessentially New Jersey show--The Sopranos.

There's a great episode that lets us know what Tony Soprano's business is--Bust Out. Davey Scatino, a gambler, thinks he understands who Tony Soprano is and what his business is. He thinks they are friends. But his business is ruined because he's in debt to Tony. Why? Business, and respect. Tony is a mob boss. His business is getting paid back in full. Friendship doesn't get in the way of that. 

When Trump was betrayed by the American people by their not re-electing him, he took a few things from the White House. (He would have taken things anyway.  He takes. He's funny that way.) For all I or you know or The Mahoff of Jabib knows, he still has documents at Bedminster, where one of his Mar-A-Lago employees has broken omerta and told us he knows some of these boxes of documents went there. A lot of water has run under the bridge since then. It would be great if it could be confirmed there is still something there. (I'm guessing a legal pretext for a warrant needs something more substantial than "COOMMMME OOOONNNNNN!")

I just think maybe it's time to see a case opened up in New Jersey. "Loose" Cannon seems to be okay with giving Trump infinite delays. And I am definitely not. 

Anyway, TrumpWorld has officially taken control of the RNC, and changes are being made--big changes. There will be dozens of staffers let go, and believe me, any replacements will be Trump loyalists. You can already foresee what the fundraising goals will look like. And where the money will go. How assets will be used. How "help" will be steered to the Trumpiest candidates for down ticket offices, if at all, and might even be withheld for candidates that just aren't Trumpy enough. All with the strategic know-how of people named Trump or Yunaska or behind the scenes ass-wipers from the set of Celebrity Apprentice. 

TWGB: Trump and the Missing Binder

 

The recent story about a binder of raw intelligence regarding Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election is--

Well, I would say shocking if I a) didn't already not put anything past the Trump Administration, b) didn't assume that was exactly the sort of thing that would disappear. The Obama Administration thought this was exactly the sort of thing Trump would make disappear and made a little list of items that would definitely be missed. 

And of course, Trump was trying to declassify what I've always assumed was some but not all of the Russian interference intelligence because that "Russia, Russia, Rusia" thing sat over the White House during his term no matter what denials he ever made about it. 

(It's very hard to deny something on Twitter, and then turn around and be like "Hey kids, let's do a joint cycbersecurity with Putin!" and not sound like your head was up Vova's ass. Or giving Israeli intelligence to Russia.  Or halting aid to Ukraine. Or any of the other "deliverables" Trump seemed to want to give Putin since oh, Day One of his first term, He'll be doing the same Day One of a second term as well, while also being a dictator.) 

Two-Tiered Justice System Stuff

 

They are different people. They did different things. Of course they aren't being treated the same. You could explain it to a five year old. https://t.co/MZDuZgNbaq

— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) June 20, 2023

Josh Hawley, who is a US Senator and not some dumb guy on a barstool in Shithouse Falls, MO (does he even live in Missouri?) is going to pretend that Hunter Biden is being treated with the softest of kid gloves while poor, poor, mistreated waif Donald Fucking Trump, a goddamn billionaire who actually was president once (hopefully never again) and was supposed to be Mister Manly Alpha Male personified, is the most persecuted forlorn little disregarded pumpkin in the whole pumpkin patch. 

A pumpkin who apparently did felonies. Not misdemeanors. Felonies. 

Call me slow on the uptake. I wondered at the idea of a two-tiered justice system from the real perspective of the poor and minority persons in this country getting the short end of the stick regarding charging and sentencing alike. It didn't naturally occur to me that what Republicans were getting at is that they thought Democrats were just forever getting off with light sentences or whatever and somehow, SOMEHOW!!!! Republicans were just being charged left and right and for no reason, and especially poor, sad, elderly, possibly addle-pated Mr. Trump. a man bereft of opportunities to defend himself, barely capable of funding a legal team on his own, who has to struggle to fight his multiple felony charges in different venues. 

The justice system's discrimination against blue-eyed blond billionaires is notorious, no? 

No? Isn't there a history of the DOJ just fucking with Republicans until the sun don't shine?

Not especially. 

TWGB: The Notorious Box-Grabber

 

Baier: Why not just hand them over? Trump: Because I had boxes, I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things pic.twitter.com/PwW85wlTzH

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 19, 2023

They are his things! His precious! And he wanted to keep the things!  Trump had them, and didn't want to give them over. He was told they weren't his things, he felt differently. How do we know? He keeps telling us:

He wanted them back in 2022, he wants them back now. 

They are his "Beautiful mind" material.  What the whole hell:

During President Donald J. Trump’s years in the White House, his aides began to refer to the boxes full of papers and odds and ends he carted around with him almost everywhere as the “beautiful mind” material.

It was a reference to the title of a book and movie depicting the life of John F. Nash Jr., the mathematician with schizophrenia played in the film by Russell Crowe, who covered his office with newspaper clippings, believing they held a Russian code he needed to crack.

The phrase had a specific connotation. The aides employed it to capture a type of organized chaos that Mr. Trump insisted on, the collection and transportation of a blizzard of newspapers and official documents that he kept close and that seemed to give him a sense of security.

They were his PRECIOUS! And we keeps the preciouses close we does. 

Violence By Other Means

 

The promised indignant rampage of aggrieved MAGAs never did materialize, probably in part chastened by the real world sentences of the leaders of the 1/6 melee and with no clear goal available to them (stop Trump's arraignment today, and it only goes on another day...), so we never saw the American Carnage that marked the end of Trump's brutally stupid one-term reign. 

But what we did see was a brutal violence against truth--as in the above screen cap from Fox News, describing Biden as a "Wannabe Dictator" who had "his political rival arrested". Or, maybe, Biden is a president whose DOJ followed up on leads that Trump took documents that he had no business having, asked nicely to get them back, and then was lied to and had to issue a search warrant because they were after all, the property of the US Government, and not Mr. Trump's. Culminating in the selection of a Special Counsel once Trump announced he was running again for the office for which his one-term, twice impeached ass was manifestly unfit.

It has nothing to do with President Biden. Trump took the docs himself and is responsible for what he did with them--period. Trump choose to pretend he didn't still have docs when he did--he failed to turn over docs that were requested. He can pretend he thought they were his, but the law says no. The Presidential Records Act, which a lot of people think let Trump off, does no such thing--it reiterates that government documents created are the property of the US government and not the President. And Trump stopped being president January of 2021, no matter what fantasies his lil fanclub wants to entertain. This warping of reality is a form of violence. It is intended to create a false impression with the idea that people might act on that. Blame Biden for what, as anyone understanding the rule of law might understand, any AG might have charged Trump for. 

(This wasn't Biden or even his AG--but the result of an investigation by a Special Counsel, yet.)

Where the MAGA Buses Run

 

It looks like Trump wants a MAGA crowd to greet him on Tuesday, and FWIW, I recommend exactly zero counter-protestors show up, because if Trump, Inc. puts out a "Y'all Come!" it isn't for you babies, except as a trap.  Let MAGA folks, Proud Boys, Patriot Front, people who just like dressing up in an American flag, getting on busses, and yellllllliiiing, go do their thing. And let the Florida National Guard handle things if they get out of pocket in some major violent way or whatever. Because no self-respecting governor would let people go wild in his own state, not white supremacists and extreme right-wing militia folks and whatnot. 

Truly, it would be a real leadership crisis for whatever was running the state this trial is being held in!

Luckily...

OMG.  I mean. Wow.

No. Obviously, Ron DeSantis is an intelligent man and will skillfully sort out how to not have MAGAs run riot in his state in a way that doesn't alienate the MAGAs and makes the rest of the country think he knows what end is up. He has a high EQ like that, doesn't he? 

Hmm?

Sorry, I was disassociating. No really. No reason to think this will be a January 6th style shitshow. Except that many of those people are still out here.  And never got the message that Trump lost fair and square, isn't a good politician at all, and probably is guilty of all kinds of crimes. 

What was the phrase? "Will be wild"?  That ethos is coming to Florida.

Trump's main primary opponent better hope not, and also, too....

(I gave my last sympathies at the office.) 

TWGB: It's Really Very Damning

 

Um, the thing with the nuclear secrets and the boxes of stuff just being out where anyone would see them is real. The pictures are like some freaky episode of  Hoarders. Mar-a-Lago staff was calling these boxes "Beautiful Mind Paper" because TFG was obsessed with them. Did I spend the last half-dozen years going around saying "It looks bad because it is bad?" Because shit, look upon the goddamn works of your trunkless idol and despair!

The indictment: Trump had documents about U.S. defense and weapons capabilities and U.S. nuclear programs. pic.twitter.com/vHLwdgWSk0

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 9, 2023

Yes. Nuclear program stuff.   Kept in places as insecure as a bathroom and a ballroom, in a country club where randos, including foreign nationals, just wander in and out all the time.  This was revealed after the absolutely damningest transcript of all time, save one:

The transcript of the audio recording suggests that Trump is showing the document he’s discussing to those in the room. Several sources have told CNN the recording captures the sound of paper rustling, as if Trump was waving the document around, though is not clear if it was the actual Iran document.

“Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” Trump says at one point, according to the transcript. “This was done by the military and given to me.”

This here is classified--please, non-eligible person to receive this data, look. 

TWGB: Huh.

 

Fox's Mark Levin: "President Trump is 76 years old. If the Department of Justice gets its way, he will die in federal prison." pic.twitter.com/wH2gUJtWiM

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 9, 2023

I can't call Mark Levin a liar, here; we did find out earlier this week that Richard Hanssen, the most damaging US spy so far in our history, died in prison.  If this was a work of fiction, I guess we would call that foreshadowing. This country doesn't like people playing games with our secrets. We jailed Chelsea Manning and Reality Winner for fooling around with classified docs. It would honestly be a sign of a two-tier justice system, the weird phrase Trump defenders keep throwing around, if Trump's charges weren't taken seriously just because he was wealthy and well-connected (a former president, no less!). Call it vetting for a job that Trump is finally getting about 7-8 years too late to avoid this reckoning. 

Robert Jeffress, who threatened Civil War over impeachment not so long ago, seems to think the Durham Report (which does exactly nothing) immunizes Trump from something because--I dunno. Propaganda? 

Jeffress: I told Trump that he is immunized against any indictment because of the Durham Report pic.twitter.com/D5MCy0zzTB

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 9, 2023

 Of course, Jeffress is just a part of the long Religious Right-wing Jericho March to crumble the wall between church and state that might be personified by Pat Robertson, whose death was announced today, and who I will briefly note, loved himself a culture war, demonizing his political enemies, and once said that revolting against Trump was revolting against God's plan for America. Which, coming from a man  who regularly failed to announce the date of the world's demise and blamed hurricanes and earthquakes on queer people existing, was always obviously to be taken with a grain. I think the religious right have always seen Trump as a battering ram, not the tip of the spear exactly, but a blunt force object they could use. 

TWGB: The Target

 

We're on pins and needles, aren't we? I mean, news has come out that Trump's lawyers have received a letter that he's a target in the documents' investigation, and we also hear that the grand jury is considering charges for Trump under the Espionage Act and for obstruction.  We also are finding out that Mark Meadows has accepted a plea to some federal crimes in exchange for his testimony against Trump, which overlaps both the Espionage case and the 1/6 investigation--which has the bonus of so much admissible stuff against so many people he was texting with, like a whole lot of people. 

For what it's worth, even if the Espionage Act stuff (Two grand juries? with Jay Bratt whose deal is Espionage Act? Hmm!) seems like the real damaging stuff (I think it's bad, because it certainly looks bad), I'm not overlooking the possibility that Trump also eventually sees some heat from the 1/6 stuff, especially regarding the gathering of R. Congress people and talking to assorted goons to that fell purpose. (I consider Flynn a goon. Some people wouldn't but that just attributes to his success at creative goonery.) Steve Bannon has been subpoenaed in that matter. 

Am I confident that we're going to see some indictments in these things as early as this week?  Hell if I know. I know in the short term, based on what I see on the MAGA comments on Twitter, if it happens some folks are gonna be shirt-ripping mad, and then their mommas are gonna be mad they ripped their shirts. 

So Dumb it Has to be True?

NEWS: An employee at Mar-a-Lago drained the resort’s swimming pool last October and ended up flooding a room where computer servers containing surveillance video logs were kept, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, w/ @kpolantz @kaitlancollins https://t.co/VZqCUDCTuT

— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) June 5, 2023

There's a little part of me that feels insulted! that I might be suckered in by a "too dumb to be true" apparent cover-up where an employee floods a room that juuuuussssttt haaapppeeennnnns to have surveillance video logs in it. Come on! This isn't a Coen brothers movie! This is real life! 

And then I remember who these folks are...

TWGB: Trump Has Some Explaining To Do

 

Now, it might seem like I'm writing a TrumpWorld Grab-Bag because I can't find a hook for the debt ceiling vote that took place, and you'd be exactly right! I hate writing about debt ceiling brinkmanship because it feels a little like "Hey let's pretend we're about to violate the Constitution and shiv the economy to let people know who the real patriots are." 

That's insane, right? Like undermining the courts or the DOJ, or defunding law enforcement or pretending our elections are rigged, all without real proof, this is kind of seditious, you know? And it doesn't really surprise me that the same MAGA Freedom Caucus who did wild stuff like support not certifying Biden's win and some of whom even asked for pardons from Trump? Are down with hijacking the cockpit and bringing our economy down, Flight 93 style. 

They are ideological terrorists. I don't think you could persuade them that fucking up the US economy is wrong because it hurts their constituents and even has ripples in the entire world economy. They have stockpiled guns and freeze-dried beanie-weinies.  They feel good. They are waiting on some kind of political rapture. Maybe that looks like the Second Coming of Trump. I'm not even a good Christian, and that feels all kinds of blasphemous to me. 

TWGB: Helsinki Vibes

 

It's funny that Trump put a post up on his Truth Social thingy that wanted to remind people of how he out loud in 2018 admitted he believed Putin over the intelligence agencies of the United States, and how he bad-mouths these agencies and basically always acts like Putin's very own bottom bitch every chance he gets, like somehow that's supposed to be attractive. I'm so sorry to all you real Trump is a he-man believers, but this is bottom bitchery. He got caught fucking with the enemy and he blames people with eyes to see. But he was serving Putin all the while.

Of course, his twisted egomaniac ass denies he got help from Russia, Russia Russia. But he did though. Never forget he did. They even tried to help in 2020 but were stymied by people being aware of his actual performance in office. And Trump paid them back by being a whole ass bottom bitch.  Over and over and over again. 

Garland Appoints a Special Counsel for Biden

 

Sure, people can complain about the swiftness with which Merrick Garland appointed a Special Counsel to investigate the Biden documents case compared with the time it took to do so in the Trump case, but you can't not know why, right?

Biden is the current president, and has to be held to a high standard, and Trump is corrupt as hell, and his party would prefer to hold him to no standard at all. The difference in degree and in the way the two men have comported themselves (Biden with cooperation, Trump with obstruction) doesn't figure into the math, here. Misplaced documents are serious and the issue has to be treated with seriousness--

Period. If somehow no special counsel were appointed for the Biden situation, the House Republicans would scream bloody murder. They will, anyway (some conservatives will now read the Robert Hur tea leaves for any indication that he's been anything but a conservative all this while), but they've been undercut; Trump is investigated, and Biden is also being investigated.  It is being taken seriously in both cases. Biden isn't being given some "special treatment."

There's another thing that I can't put my finger on and want someone looking into: what documents, why were they mixed with other Biden materials, why were they discovered now? I don't want to say the Trump era has made me paranoid (I've always been) but isn't it--weird?

I don't know. I just think that lefties who want to rap Garland for appointing a special counsel here are missing the point. Sure, Biden has been a responsible public servant for like fifty years and Trump is a corrupt ass. I'd be certain Biden's possession of these things was innocent and without his knowledge--but that literally isn't the point.  It's about demonstrating the USG takes classified document storage seriously, and it only bolsters a case against Trump by demonstrating he isn't just a poor embattled martyr getting picked on for no reason.

Which he will do and is doing anyway (WITCH HUNT!!!) but again, he looks sillier and more butthurt for it.

TWGB: It's Bad

 

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

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

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

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

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

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