Trump Undone by the Truth of His Pecker
In days ahead, the criminal protection racket known as the GOP will spend an enormous amount of energy reinforcing Trump’s spin on the crimes of which he was convicted.
The court room was so cold it violated his due process rights.
Any judges who have Democrats in their family are disqualified from presiding over trials of Donald Trump.
It is unfair for a man to be tried in the state where he lived for 70 years of his life, where he built a business, where he committed his crimes.
Trump cannot be prosecuted for cheating to win while he was President and cannot be prosecuted for cheating to win after he lost the presidency.
Trump’s practice of hiring liars to lie for him should immunize him from any criminal liability for crimes committed by those liars.
All of this is nonsense. But it is nonsense that has become an article of faith for members of a cult that make up 40% of the US voting population. All of this nonsense is the price of admission to the Republican Party. And because they all adhere to this nonsense, it serves as a kind of reality for those who adhere to that faith.
I’m of the belief that Trump’s prosecution will only matter if the entire GOP is held accountable for willfully sustaining the Reality Show that says Donald Trump, and only Donald Trump, must be immune from accountability. Indeed, the criminal protection racket must double down now, because if Donald Trump starts being held accountable for his own actions, then the years of coddling his misconduct — the corrupt choices they made to sustain his fiction of invincibility — may start to backfire on all those who made those corrupt choices.
Upholding the fraud Donald Trump has been spinning for eight years has become an object of survival for the entire party. And not just for the party, but for their psyches.
And that’s why it is important to emphasize why Donald Trump lost the case, as was made clear by the single substantive question the jurors had: To re-read four passages of testimony, three involving David Pecker.
Those passages made it clear that Trump was personally involved in efforts to kill stories that would harm Trump’s election chances — and that Pecker refused to kill a third, the Stormy Daniels story, in part because he couldn’t have his tabloid be associated with a porn star.
Q. Around this time, in October of 2016, did you also have any conversations with Michael Cohen about Stormy Daniels?
A. Yes, also a number of conversations.
Q. Can you tell the jury about some of those conversations?
A. Michael Cohen asked me to pay for the story, to purchase it.
I said, I am not purchasing this story. I am not going to be involved with a porn star, and I am not — which I immediately said, a bank. After paying out the doorman and paying out Karen McDougal, we’re not paying any more monies.
Q. How did Michael Cohen take that?
A. He was upset. He said that The Boss would be furious at me and that I should go forward in purchasing it.
I said, I am not going forward and purchasing it. I am not doing it. Period.
Pecker’s testimony, which validated Michael Cohen’s, came from a man who said he still considers Trump a friend. It came from a man who said he viewed Trump as a mentor.
David Pecker spent years spinning fictions. He put that fiction spinning machine to work for Trump’s campaign, attacking his opponents and killing harmful stories.
And then, he told the truth about spinning those fictions. He told the truth about why and how he spun those fictions. He told the truth about Trump’s role in spinning those fictions.
Trump’s success, his persona, has always been a careful creation built on fraud.
And that fraud became criminal in significant part because David Pecker told the truth about the fictions that go into sustaining the fraud.
Update: ernesto1581 reminded me that this account of the epic production efforts that went into making Trump look like a flashy CEO came out yesterday, thanks to the final lapse of the NDA.
I feel honored to be one of the first commenters under the Empty Wheel column with the best headline ever! All very true statements that you made above! However, somehow these convictions don’t feel as satisfying as the convictions on the Jack Smith indictments will feel, I suspect, since they involve substantive, national security issues. I hope Democrats amplify and repeat the shocking message that David Pecker gave us – Donald Trump worked with the National Enquirer to manufacture fake news in 2016. The man who made his bones by constantly screaming about “fake news”, was the largest purveyor of this fake news!
Greatest headline ever!
Might I suggest a subtitle: Shrodinger’s Pecker – no one can know how he’s lying until exposed.
The Republican Party has chosen to define itself as the principal part of that sustaining fraud. The price of power is to keep Donald Trump out of prison and in the White House. The cost of it is to spin more lies for its evangelical base, and a more dictatorial, low-tax and -regulation failed state: heaven on earth for those who believe. Seems to boil down to a red pill or blue pill choice.
Spineless Ted Cruz is fully on board with Trump’s claim that the conviction is bogus, despite being a victim of the Trump / Cohen / Pecker criminal scheme. He is typical of the entire GOP, which is complicit in Trump’s destruction of everything the party previously claimed to stand for.
It’s time to update the Palin Baby Name Generator to a new one: MAGA Excuse Generator. I’m looking forward to punaise and Savage Librarian’s input, so take it away!
We’ll compare the results to the number of trial balloons (not sorry) tossed out in the media and the most used gets some EW swag as judged by the mods.
With respect to the accountability question, it’s the entire MAGA GOP (one and the same now) that has eternal hall passes because ‘patrioting’ is hard. Don’t worry about wasted jail space, that’s for the DFHs and other undesirables like pushy females.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
Voltaire
Pecker has proved himself to be a stand-up guy.
Pecker sat erect and told the truth. That must have been a strange feeling for a man who’s been so flaccid before Trump in the past.
It’s the stiff of legends.
These puns are killing me.
Pecker tracks lead to trump
Is it fair to say the trial climaxed early?
More accurately to describe the trial as edging slowly and methodically along, until it exploded with a climatical a 34-count felony conviction.
I have a slightly different take, because of being raised in the Solid South, which was not a democracy.
Not every white person in the South was a racist but almost every one was intimidated by white supremacy. Once white supremacy was politically mortally wounded, it lost most of its power of intimidation.
Sometimes, when walking through Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and seeing all the interracial couples moving about without any reaction, I think back to the first time I ever walked through that airport. That was 1953. If an interracial couple had walked in then, there would have been a homicidal riot.
To be clear: I think something like 40% of Americans are natural fascists, ready for a fuehrer. But picky about who they will accept.
I suspect — hope — that like the large number of Southern whites who were freed by the Voting Rights Act to express their indifference to segregation, the conviction of trump will allow a largish fraction of Republicans to shake free of the active party’s trumpism.
White Supremacy has not been mortally wounded. Trump breathed vigor back in it by capitalizing on the backlash to the election of a Black President. All that venom which had been suppressed in polite society since the mid 1960’s roared back. The hard core racists stopped hiding.
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Thank you for that. I’ve nearly bitten my tongue through restraining myself from replying to that “mortally wounded” bit.
Me too. I’ll leave it at that.
What you say about the public stance is correct but that did not restore white supremacy. Perhaps you are not old enough to have experienced it.
Oh honey stop. White supremacy has never, ever died. It just worked in the shadows when and where shaming still worked.
This is not the first time your privilege blindness revealed itself.
Lee Atwater had an explanation for why White Supremacy changed its stripes, but not its color.
White Supremacy die?I will never ever forget walking into a restaurant in southern Missouri, off the beaten path, with my spouse. We are an interracial couple. Every fucking pair of eyes in the place turned and stared at us and told us to leave, without anyone saying a word. We willingly obliged.
I am astonished that in a forum like this, several people are unable to distinguish between white supremacist opinions and white supremacy as a political system.
I quote from two South Carolina school histories. The first is Dargan’s School History of South Carolina (1906): “The slogan of the Hampton campaign (of 1876), ‘Carolina for the Carolinians and, by the eternal God, we must have it,’ had found fullest realization, and from that day to this the State has been controlled by the white people.”
A hundred years later, Horne’s South Carolina: The History of an American State, said: “Hampton . . . did not believe on social equality between the races, but he did his best to practice political equality, He appointed many blacks to minor offices. . . .Not all of the Conservatives agreed with Hampton’s views on political equality. Martin Gary . . . believed that politics was a matter of “race vs. race” and that blacks should not be appointed to any office or have the right to vote . . . The 1896 Constitution effectively disfranchised blacks. . . .”
White supremacy was mortally wounded by the Voting Rights Acts of 1965 and 1966. It ain’t coming back even if millions of white suprmacists want it to.
Reply to Harry Eagar
June 2, 2024 12:20 pm
Seriously, stop. You’re embarrassing yourself OR you’re deliberately promulgating a lie.
It’s impossible to tell which of the two you’re engaged in but white supremacy is alive and well with a sustained boost from Trump, beginning with his birtherism and continuing with his attacks on non-whites from campaign rhetoric to endorsement of white supremacist GOP candidates.
Not to mention the GOP’s on-going efforts to disenfranchise non-white voters every chance they get. One only needs to look at the lawsuits Marc Elias has had to file over the last handful of years to measure the GOP-as-white-supremacist-party’s efforts.
But then the White Supremacaists struck back and gutted the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County case. Chief Justice Roberts wisely opined that “Things have changed dramatically” since 1965, so the pre-clearance rules were no longer needed. And, as many more astute observers predicted, a slate of discriminatory changes to voting rules followed immediately wherever the pre-clearace rules were removed.
Any consequences on his financial affairs ? For a normal citizen, getting a loan is harder once you have a felony on your record. But of course, it is also harder (I suppose) if you already have declared bankruptcy twice, and that did not seem to affect his ability to get credit.
The irony of his friend Pecker leading Trump to these felony convictions cannot be overstated, period. My only regret is that David Pecker’s parents didn’t name him Richard.
“Peter” would have been almost as entertaining.
Ahem.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled Peckers.
Sorry. Sorry, everyone.
Good thing they didn’t have a daughter named Anita.
Or one named Ivanna.
I had a girlfriend in College. Her roommate was named Anita. Anita had had a high-school boyfriend whose last name was Mann. Were they to marry, she would be Anita Mann, and she wouldn’t.
When Leonard Woodcock worked in the Carter administration, I often wondered if he was related to Woody Woodpecker.
Trump has already lost access to the loan sources that most businesses can use. Thats why nobody besides Deutsche Bank would do business with him.
I am watching to see which journalists or tv pundits challenge the politicians when they use these excuses.
Margaret Sullivan’s column today:
“ In a divided world that can’t seem to agree on a single fact, we now have one that is impossible to argue with: Trump is a felon”
The Guardian
May 31, 2024
In theory, at least.
The following information should be widely spread and, hopefully, accompanied by lawsuits.
Will Trump also need to apologize for his spreading of the BIG LIE, and in doing so, dissipate his prodding of maga violence for his power grab?
https://boingboing.net/2024/06/02/publisher-of-right-wing-2000-mules-film-apologizes-for-its-lies.html
Publisher of right-wing 2000 Mules film apologizes for its lies
Rob Beschizza Sun Jun 2, 2024
The conspiracy flick 2,000 Mules has already been widely debunked as a fraud. But its claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election through vote-stuffing has led to worse consequences for its creators. Salem Media Group, the “Christian” group behind it, has apologized to a voter it falsely claimed had illegally voted and agreed to end distribution of the film and accompanying literature.
snip
They’re a bunch of crooks and they’re crooked to one another too. Just look at this guy’s constant chiseling:
When D’Souza published the book version of the film and made allegations of illegal “ballot trafficking” against specific nonprofit groups, True the Vote issued a statement saying that the group “had no participation in this book, and has no knowledge of its contents.” True the Vote added, “This includes any allegations of activities of any specific organizations made in the book. We made no such allegations.”
That anyone pays attention to them is really on us, the media. Let it be their shitty samizdat.
Pardon me. There are lawsuits.
From above article:
“Andrews filed a defamation lawsuit against Salem, as well as the team behind the movie: right wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza, and the group True the Vote.”
One poke over the line, sweet Jesus
One poke over the line
Sitting downtown in an ice cold court room
One poke over the line…
Youtube linky to listen to the source of this pop culture reference: https://youtu.be/L9HXClusp_E?si=dQ6Diz8Fn_i03eIP
(I was born after the song’s release so needed to go find out.)
Speaking of the manufacture of fiction & fraud, there’s a good article on Slate (not behind paywall) by 1st & 2nd season producer of The Apprentice, Bill Pruitt, his 20-year NDA having finally expired.
Nothing, of course, is real. Plenty to get hung about, though.
The Donald Trump I Saw on The Apprentice
https://slate.com/culture/2024/05/donald-trump-news-2024-trial-verdict-apprentice.html?
Added it above, to the post, too.
I was just beginning reading that…here it is on the Internet Archive:
The Donald Trump I Saw on The Apprentice
For 20 years, I couldn’t say what I watched the former president do on the set of the show that changed everything. Now I can. https://web.archive.org/web/20240530112522/https://slate.com/culture/2024/05/donald-trump-news-2024-trial-verdict-apprentice.html BILL PRUITT MAY 30, 2024 5:35 AM
Marcy, thanks for the link in the post to:
‘The Apprentice’ producer says Donald Trump used the N-word on set
Updated Thu, May 30, 2024
Pruitt:
“You gotta keep his con even after you take his money; he can’t know you took him.”
-con artist Henry Gondorf in The Sting (973)
These MAGA cultists WANT to believe the con.
“Melania doesn’t even know about this place.”
-Trump bragging to The Apprentice producer about his secret house at Trump National Club
A small start would be to find and arrest the people that are calling for political violence. Another step would be to move Jack Smith and his team into the regular DofJ. Protecting the nation against a gangster and a criminal is part of the duty of the President under the constitution. That would be consistent with ignoring the lies that the prosecutions are politically motivated. President Biden has a duty to protect the nation.
New Yorkers know Trump best. The city erupted in a chorus of cheers.
There’s a huge prosecutorial burden regarding speech calling for political violence, so that’s a non-starter.
Additionally Jack Smith’s going to remain Special Counsel. There is no discernible effect of bringing him in to DoJ (whatever that means, which is unclear), that I can tell anyways, as he already has the resources of the DoJ plus he is insulated from any hierarchical and institutional pressure as Special Counsel. Changing that status, were it even possible, would open up an opportunity for more inane insinuations, not less.
If there is going to be a debate, Biden has to remind Trump and the public, that Trump is a three time loser, and felon. I would be throwing his business failures and adulterous sexual addiction in his face constantly.
Ol’ Joe needs to go ‘dark Brandon’ big time at that debate.
We have rights too. Sometimes attorneys forget the victims. But the victims usually don’t have attorneys, appeals and corrupt judges to protect them. In the instance of Donald Trump, maybe the victims and potential victims have those assets.
A simple but significant point is that the rule of law prevailed.
It took individuals to make that happen, but Trump’s threats, lies, and efforts to try the case in the court of public opinion failed.
His façade of impunity was tested and readily defeated.
There is reason to believe that he has been engaged in criminal activities his entire adult life. But now, recently and repeatedly, when actually subjected to the machinery of the judicial system, his cheap sack of extra-judicial defenses are found wanting.
True, but recall that if he had done everything just as he did, but had simply paid Daniels out of his pocket, the rule of law couldn’t have touched him.
Trump skirted the law to his own ends umpteen times, each time getting closer to the flame of justice. Finally, it consumed him. All his money, all his power, all his corruption; and all it took was The American Justice System and twelve informed citizens to take him down.
Neither sleeping with Daniels nor paying her off are illegal. Scummy, but not illegal.
So yes, if he hadn’t broken the law, then the law couldn’t touch him. That’s a feature, not a bug.
I hope Trump’s potential sentence is no better or worse than anyone else in his circumstances. We owe it to ourselves to treat him fairly regardless of personal animosity, with which I am overflowing.
From the Guardian a few hours ago:
The GOP and the Kremlin are singing in harmony, I see.
But to be scrupulously fair, Trump has yet to fall out of a window. have his tea poisoned, or have his plane blown up in mid-air.
Trump is still exceedingly useful to Putin; consequently, Trump will be allowed to live for the time being.
It is interesting to note that he spends much more time at his comfortably low-to-the-ground Mar A Lago residence than his formerly 30,000 square foot penthouse apartment in New York since he lost the Presidency.
Pretending that this trial was federal, because they need the martyrdom.
Without even the faintest scent of irony.
Pot calling the kettle…
Easily this EW posting has the best title since last July or August when I started reading EW on a regular basis.
And the content of this particular posting is one of the best since then as well.
You perfectly described today’s Republican Party. It’s now a ghastly cult led by a deranged, disgraced and despicable lump of fat, skin and blood.
Shorter headline:
Pecker Nails Trump.
Upside-down flags become symbol for Republicans protesting Trump’s verdict. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/31/nyregion/trump-news-trial-guilty#upside-down-flags [nineteen minutes ago]
Also Ali ALEXANDER
What’s the flag situation outside Alito’s house, I wonder?
(IANAL, older than dirt, and have been following Marcy since TLH and FDL days because of my now-60-year-old experiences in the IC.) I live up a blackwater river deep in The South. I’m stunned and glad for the 34-count conviction but wonder how much impact it will have on the Flat-Earther/Romney-Republican partnership that represents almost half the electorate. How will they respond to “Who you gonna believe? Me or your own lying eyes?” Ignorance, greed, and power versus community. It seems that is what it’s come down to. I’m trying to be optimistic.
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Not certain about the electorate, but so long as Team Trump retains a stranglehold on the RNC and donations intended for the Republican Party, incumbent Flat-Earther/Romney-Republicans will continue to bend their knee for fear they will face either a MAGA in primary or even a write-in, as well as financial starvation of campaign funds.
Lets see what happens in the Colorado Sp Election and the primary. If the voters accept Boebert it will be a sign that the cult has taken control. But it is contingent.
I admit I haven’t checked — is Boebert running in the same district she’s been representing?
Boebert is running in the 4th district this time, clear across the state from her current spot.
They are already starving the down-ticket races, so another factor is that people who have opposed him get the standard slew of threats against themselves and family from the cultists, which has led some to not seek reelection.
The voters defeating Trump is necessary. But not sufficient. The Democrats have to win a 1934 type sweep election.
Do you mean 1936, FDR vs. Alf Landon? That and 1964 might be examples of Democratic landslides.
It’s something to work toward, but a 1936- or 1964-style landslide isn’t going to happen today for a variety of reasons. For one thing, the “Solid South” is now solidly for the Republican rather than Democratic party at the state and federal level, for obvious reasons. The overarching causes everywhere are geographical sorting by party (i.e., Democratic collapse in rural and exurban areas and Republican collapse in urban and, increasingly, suburban regions), accompanied by ideological sorting between the parties. Example: Obama comfortably won Iowa twice; look at it now. This is also the reason why Democrats have so much difficulty today winning Senate seats in Appalachian and Plains states. But in my opinion, the root cause of much of this is the fact that approx 40-45% of the population has been brainwashed by rightwing TV/radio and social media into living in an alternate reality. Impossible to reverse that overnight. The good thing is that the Republicans are also not going to win a 1972- or 1984-style landslide.
So does attacking the criminal justice system fall under supporting or defending the constitution? Very confusing
I would not bet on Trump showing up for the coming debate
Having just watched Trump’s rambling, looping press conference I hope he makes that debate.
But all his staff will fight against that.
I am nonplussed by this Megillah. I read reports that several journalistic outlets had this story in 2010 as Stormy Daniels wanted $15k to spill the beans. Cohen apparently stopped the magazines by threatening to sue. But, Trump, being cheap, let this story fester until it became gangrenous. If the story came out then it would have been old unverifiable news.
Frankly, Stormy Daniels is avaricious and uses her body to make money and there is nothing wrong with that.
Trump was trying to get a freebie, but Stormy goes that a working girl has to get paid. What is perplexing is that Trump’s supporters make him out to be the paragon of virtue.
A striking example of inflation in pre-Covid times. An item valued less than $15K in 2010 became $130K in 2016, and ballooned to $420K in 2018. DJT turned something into a lucrative business.
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Your comment is very funny but true. One oversight though, you forgot to add the legal fees. I find it amazing that a large segment of the country will vote for a guy who is this bad at decision making.
If Stormy is avaricious, what does that make Trump? Avoracious?
No, Trump is a rock dumb incubus. But, this whole ordeal was good for the NYC economy. Look at the millions incremental plane fares, hotel rooms, book sales, strip shows, administrative and legal fees generated by one dark and Stormy night.
Marcy: I’m of the belief that Trump’s prosecution will only matter if the entire GOP is held accountable for willfully sustaining the Reality Show that says Donald Trump, and only Donald Trump, must be immune from accountability.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson
starts with GOP Senators who voted to aquit TRUMP on two impeachments:
Letters from an American
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-30-2024
Excellent contribution.
Thank you.
In general I consider Rachel Maddow a long-winded blow hard, but her podcast series about American fascist plots from the thirties, named Ultra if I’m not mistaken, was very good. Efforts to expose and prosecute the perpetrators, including sitting members of congress, ultimately became a circus before fizzling out. Until I listened to the podcast, I only vaguely knew some of the players- it’s been memory holed.
McTurtle was complaining last night, and getting a lot of pushback from people who remember his actions in the impeachments. And his statements after the second one, turning it over to the courts.
[ https://x.com/ break LeaderMcConnell/status/1796343412914004233 ]
Lauren Boebert is still the Representative for CD3, but is moving to run in CD4. The move is from the western slope to the eastern plains of Colorado. Last I heard she was middle of the pack of candidates.
Thanks for that clarification. CD4 is rated R+13, seems like she might not be R enough given that current rating; CD3 is R+7.
She almost lost to Adam Frisch, so she moved to a more red district, thinking with Trump’s endorsement she’d have the nomination. I don’t think it’s that she’s not red enough, her opponent is a retired marine named Ike McCorkle who is making his third bid for this seat and she’s viewed as a carpetbagger who does not know the needs of the district. Maybe her non-accomplishments, clownish behavior, and the Beetlejuice incident have hurt her?
She would win the general election, but she needs to win the primary first. In her former district, the opposite is the case: she’d win the primary, but lose the general. She didn’t count on not being the candidate. We’ll be rid of her in <270 days.
A recent internal poll from a democrat running in D-4 shows McCorkle led Boebert 41% to 27%, with 33% undecided. The 33% undecided is large, but Boebert would need to have more than 75% of them to break for her to erase a 14-point lead.
I recall reading a while back that Boebert dropped out of CD3 because here chances of re-election were slim to none. It was reported long enough ago that Wikipedia has now caught up:
“Due to Boebert’s narrow re-election in 2022, and her decreasing popularity, she dropped her bid in this district, and is instead running in the neighboring 4th district, which is much more heavily Republican.”
Hopefully, she will be turfed in the next election.
“Trump wasn’t sleeping, he was praying.”
-Lauren Boebert during House Committee meeting
I think you’ve got a tyop there, and it should read “preying”.
Apparently, the failed, 1-term, multiply-indicted former prez was also sleep-farting in in the courtroom. Todd Blanche did a whole lotta suffering during this trial, but he deserved every bit of it. As a final indignity, he probably won’t get paid, either.
Actually, ATM she’s the presumptive winner of the primary, which is June 25th. She’s raised 10x the $$ that the number-two guy (out of six total) has, and the Democratic party is planning its campaign around running against her. The more the Republicans saw of her, the more they liked her, as it turned out.
My cousin’s daughter works on the Democratic campaign there, hence my knowledge on this topic.
Indeed, the criminal protection racket must double down now, because if Donald Trump starts being held accountable for his own actions, then the years of coddling his misconduct — the corrupt choices they made to sustain his fiction of invincibility — may start to backfire on all those who made those corrupt choices.
They’ll double down so much, they will take the whole country down if they have to. Germany 1930. Everyone thought Hitler was a lunatic. The German 1%ers put him in power anyway.
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To me the most interesting part of this “Stormy” story, is the complete loss of sanity by the oligarch owned news. I live in Los Angeles. It’s beyond all belief. L.A. Times is owned by an oligarch and it’s beyond all comprehension, in a city of about 4 million, in a county of about 10 million, the complete lack of reporting on major news every day, especially weekends including SPORTS. “Pavlov’s,” & late. Keyword LATE vs. I.e., the twit news. I.e., connected to the internet, perhaps?
So I’m surfing all of these news sites… and there’s an article (I think LA Times…) about how the deliberations could takes weeks, maybe longer. The next day the real verdict.
Rayne, maybe someday when the times dial down, you could do a open post on “news today in your hometown,” so some of us elders could give a much needed heads up to the younger gens.
I have this huge knot in my mental thinking now with “the deliberations could takes weeks, maybe longer,” because that is just an example of what, nonstop.
I have subscriptions to the unfortunate NYT, the only-slightly-less unfortunate WaPo, Detroit Free Press, and the LAT.
IMO, LAT’s content reflects a state which is very nearly a different country, being the fifth largest economy in the world on its own and not having representation in federal government proportional to its population and economic size. I keep LAT because it isn’t at all like that POS NYT (which I would never subscribe to if it weren’t for being an EW team member) and WaPo, both of which completely forget we have a west coast and a share of the Pacific Rim let alone states west of the Rockies. That said, LAT still offers this when it matters:
[source: https://www.freedomforum.org/todaysfrontpages/#CA_LAT%5D
EDIT: BTW, unrelatedly — I haven’t seen any comments about Trump’s tie color. This photo on LAT front page makes it hard to miss that it’s not his usual MAGA red. ???
Blue, who knew? TY. At one point he tried to buy the empty Ambassador Hotel here in Los Angeles & build I think another hotel or some such. The residents & city fought him & he lost. They built a school there. I think that’s so cool as a foundation of learning, a school.
I knew he was out to erase history then & there. …
When I noticed his tie, I figured that he was pretty sure he was going to be found guilty and didn’t want his signature look to be associated with the “loss.”
That’s as good an explanation as any — mitigation of personal brand damage. I wonder, though, if it was a signal to someone that he had been warned about the likely verdict since he would have had the tie on before the verdict was announced.
Dr. Wheeler, this is your funniest title ever! Made my day!
My take: we can now see (and point to) what Aileen Cannon is successfully shielding Trump from. Which would be at least ten times worse.
Once again, AI lede generators have nothin’ on Dr Marcy Wheeler who, unlike #45, maintains her honorific according to AP Style guidelines regarding convicted felons.
The great irony is that the “liberal” entertainment industry is to blame for so many of the myths that the right depends on for their propaganda. It is Hollywood that brought us the gun toting “good guy” mercenary and the idyllic small town with the perfect nuclear family and happy housewife. It is Hollywood that denigrates the crime ridden big city. The entertainment industry has done far worse than simply making a grifter with a bad combover into a great businessman and man of the people.
You must have missed out on the westerns of the 19th and early 20th centuries: people used to *read* for entertainment.
You think only Hollywood did that? I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you, and an avenue named Madison.
I think some people have forgotten a few details — like Jeff Zucker and his roles at NBC (he was key to getting Trump on board with The Apprentice) and at CNN (he oversaw the network’s Trump campaign coverage which greatly exceeded Clinton campaign coverage).
Forgotten, also, that NBC and CNN aren’t in Hollywood but in NYC and Atlanta.
And you think Hollywood is liberal. That would be funny if it wasn’t so obviously false. It’s like saying the news has a liberal bias. How does the saying go, the devils greatest trick is convincing people that he doesn’t exist.
My interpretation is that Soundgood2 was being sarcastic about the stereotype of Hollywood, putting “liberal” in quotation marks and listing ways in which Hollywood actually reinforces rightwing myths.
If I were Todd Blanche, I’d hunker down and work on the appeal, while trying to keep my client from committing more crimes and instances of contempt of court. After all, Juan Merchan has not yet handed down his sentence. I would not be spouting off for the Fox cameras.
I’m not sure I’d blame Blanche for this. He still has a client who requires constant ego-stroking. Given Trump’s constraints, I think his defense team has done at least a respectable job.
I’m a bit surprised that Trump hasn’t already fired the defense team by now. Maybe he’s been shopping for appellate lawyers, and couldn’t find any.
I took Blanche’s television appearances last night, in which he emphasized that Trump was involved in every aspect of the defense case, as his first step in defending against a later malpractice claim by his client.
Donnie is probably thinking of an “advice of counsel” appeal.
That’s the difference between being a legal beagle and a Trump poodle. Besides, Blanche knows the drill. Whether he’s in fact essential to the defense is irrelevant; he lost. Trump will throw him under the bus.
I’ve been wondering along PJ Evans’s lines: will that bus-throwing-under take the form of ineffective assistance of counsel (Blanche)? This would be rich because (it seemed to me) every bad choice Blanche enacted seemed dictated by his client, but with Trump somebody else always has to take the tire treads.
Losing a case does not qualify as ineffective assistance of counsel. As with a “reliance on counsel” defense, Trump will never formally complain that his counsel was ineffective.
It would make him look like a chump, not a victim, and it wouldn’t be credible, given the lawyers he hired. Plus, Trump would never disclose the information he would need to to prove his claim. If he did, as Blanche asserted, it would probably show Trump made the bad decisions, after being fully informed about why they would be bad.
But Trump will do it informally, because there’s always a bus with messy wheels following him around.
I said back in 2016 that trump was on his way to prison the second he won the election. Yesterday was a long time coming but I stand by my previous statement.
With the conviction in place I was prepared to see a ratcheting up of sycophant BS and the MAGATS didn’t disappoint. But many of them have to be wondering if it’s worth it anymore. trump is the proverbial sinking ship, so many of them have to be looking for a lifeboat. Those who are too deep in or too unwilling to face reality will double down.
Until November.
Once trump loses and he no longer has anything to offer how will they act then? What will Connon do with her shot at SCOTUS forever gone? Will she still bend to the whims of Leonard Leo or will she process trump through her courtroom as fast as possible?
The next few months will be very interesting.
I watched a bit of Trump’s press conference this morning. It was not easy hearing his voice, and hearing the same ole words and language.
There he was, once again blaming others for each action HE has done. Same words, same body movements. No human is as faultless as Trump claims he is. But this tactic is very successful. The Democrats/Others are then put in a position of having to disclaim what Trump (wrongly) accuses them of. Many members of the general public don’t have the patience or understanding to understand facts.
I imagine David Pecker’s parents must have had some interesting conversations while deciding David’s name. (And then I ask, is “Pecker” REALLY his last name upon birth?)
Regarding Stormy Daniels, unless I have this wrong, Trump had his “affair” with her while his wife Melania was in the process of giving birth to Baron. It seems to me, it’s one thing going out having a drink; it’s another spending the time having sex with someone else. I haven’t heard this talked about much. While I think it’s a characteristic of one of the slimy-est, sleezy-est, disgusting things a man could do, what do you think the men in his “Base” think of it? You think they see it as sort of a trophy?
“… what do you think the men in his “Base” think of it?”
Trump and his ilk see women as objects to be used and controlled. They feel entitled to whatever they want from women-as-agency-free-objects.
You know, just “grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” No consent required because women are objects.
I believe he was quoted at trial as saying “the guys will think it’s cool.”
Seems he was right.
MAGA Mike Johnson is on Fox digging deep into his Trump bible to find justification for 34 felonies.
A Pecker Trumps a Johnson.
None of this would have happened if Trump had paid her off with a personal check.
But no, he had to scam his own company and cheat on the taxes.
I saw Ronan Farrow talk about this case last night and beforehand. Trump could have paid her off in 2010 for $15k and a NDA.
I am curious if any of the lawyers or other court practitioners have any input on this action at dumpAlito.com
Is this form sufficient to make a complaint?
I do not believe that the rules and complaint forms apply to the USSC. They seem appropriate as to Canon, but cannot say that they would be acted on.
Most states do not allow felons to have a weapon. Isn’t it just a little ironic that people might vote for a “commander in chief” who is not allowed to actually carry a weapon?
Then again…. where does one start with the many ironies.
Dear Republicans who committed 34 felonies,
Watch your backs; they’re coming after YOU next! Don’t say Trump didn’t warn you.
There are good people on both sides.
Cost Overrun
He’s come undone,
His blanch now shows
what he has dreaded so,
His new playground
is still embedded though,
Is it too late?
He’s come undone,
He’d hound a Pecker,
Boss of AMI,
But when he found out
it wouldn’t fly,
It was too late.
What’s his fate?
Is this too far?
Cost overrun,
He’s come undone.
We wanted truth,
But all we got was lies,
His criminal enterprise,
Now it was too late.
He’s come undone,
His blanch now shows
what he has dreaded so,
His new playground
is still embedded though,
Is it too late?
What’s his fate?
Is this too far?
Cost overrun,
He’s come undone.
Too much accounting,
rapes and damn affairs to hide,
Too many charges
and those blabbermouths,
Those congresspeople
and the MAGA GOP,
They have lives to mislead,
The Big Lie’s applied.
What’s his fate?
Is this too far?
Cost overrun,
He’s come undone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoHk4S4-U-E
“The Guess Who – Undun (1969) with dancer Anita Mann”
Excellent re-vision of one of my childhood favorite songs. Thanks as always, SL.
Good to see you. Hope you’re all settled in your new home and all is well.
Slovenian woman
Stay away from me
Slovenian woman
Mama, let me be
Don’t come hangin’ around my trial
I don’t wanna see your phony smile
The Guess Who – American Woman
The sordid transgressions of this overbearing oaf are most un-presidential.
Chekhov’s Pecker, comes into play in the last act.
“Upholding the fraud… has become an object of survival for the entire party”
It’s a coordinated flurry so well prepared they likely planned the response prior to the verdict announcement. It’s therapy for the cult.
But will it work? History shows Nixon never ever lost 25% of republicans -even decades later they defended him. That was prior to Fix News and the RW bubble evolving into a fascist reality-free fortress.
47% is bandied about as the number of righties that never see the light. It’s enough to make liberals appropriately apprehensive about November. 538.com used to have a toggle of various voter groups for prediction purposes and the untapped (unlikely voter) electorate was always daunting. And 2020 proved they weren’t always unlikely.
Chaos is being sown here
yet again by Trump and its messiness permits delaying accountability. This is a window of opportunity that really should be embraced to shut DJT down.
Yes, the entire GOP needs to be held to account.
Today, those Republicans who showed up to the trial in Trump cosplay are just as humiliated as their man. Of course they will do as their man does – pretend the world doesn’t see it. Carry on in their alternate reality, because what else can they do? In for a penny, in for a pound.
As I continue to read GOP leaders and their nominee for Pres try to destroy the rule of law, I am reminded by this epic post on X-Twitter by Marcy from Aug 1 2023:
https://x.com/emptywheel/status/1686456824000593920
“I hope someone who has interns is pulling the quotes of all the Republicans, starting with MItch McConnell, who said they voted against impeachment bc the proper remedy was prosecution.”