Today's Today

Just four years ago.

How Many Will That Make It?

Donald Trump has failed &/or gone broke more often than most people change their underwear.

A couple more are about to bite the dust.

Company That Organizes Trump’s Paid Speeches Is Going Broke

The American Freedom Tour, which struck a multimillion-dollar deal with Trump after he left office, has lost two top executives and canceled events in a number of locations as it has failed to pay its bills, according to people familiar with the activities and documents obtained by The Washington Post. Its founder and owner, who has a history of bankruptcy filings, recently sought bankruptcy protection again.

The group has promised events in a number of locales but canceled them before they began and appears to be banking on a large event at Mar-a-Lago in December to turn its financial position around.

The only people who have gotten paid are people close to Trump. The same company ran the big paid event arena tour that was a total disaster. It turns out that even Trump’s supporters were not willing to pay premium ticket prices to see Trump, his family, and various cronies.

Trump had to cancel a for-profit rally in North Carolina when he had to testify in the New York fraud investigation.

Trump tried a tour with Bill O’Reilly in 2021, resulting in thousands of empty seats.

As his legal woes mount, investors are bailing on Truth Social.

The post-presidency of Donald Trump appears to be one endless series of failed grifts. Donald Trump has overinflated the value of his brand to his fans, and anyone who did work for the former president without getting payment upfront is being left holding the bag.

Today's Glenn

From Kirschner's lips to god's ear.

Glenn Kirschner breaks it down. He's betting his max that Trump's lieutenants are going to do some time in a federal lockup, and the only thing that might shorten their terms is how completely they roll over on Trump.

If Glenn turns out to right, I'll go out on a limb and say we'll see at least a couple of suicides.

They may even be legit.

Jan6 Stuff

WaPo: (pay wall)

Multiple criminal referrals of Trump possible, Cheney says

The Republican Party cannot survive with Trump as 2024 presidential nominee, she adds.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection could make multiple criminal referrals of former president Donald Trump over his role in the U.S. Capitol attack, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the committee’s vice chair, said in an interview that aired Sunday.

“The Justice Department doesn’t have to wait for the committee to make a criminal referral,” Cheney said on ABC’s “This Week.” “And there could be more than one criminal referral.”

Cheney emphasized that the committee’s aims were not political, but also that the Justice Department should not refrain from prosecuting Trump out of concerns about political optics if the evidence warrants criminal prosecution.

In an interview with ABC on July 3, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) emphasized that the aims of the House committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, are not political. (Video: The Washington Post)

“I think it’s a much graver constitutional threat if a president can engage in these kinds of activities, and the majority of the president’s party looks away, or we as a country decide we’re not actually going to take our constitutional obligations seriously,” Cheney said.

Cheney went on to express grave concerns about the idea of Trump running as the GOP presidential nominee for a third time.

“I think there’s no question, I mean, a man as dangerous as Donald Trump can absolutely never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again,” Cheney said.

The Republican Party, she said, could not survive if Trump were its 2024 presidential nominee.

“Millions of people, millions of Republicans have been betrayed by Donald Trump. And that is a really painful thing for people to recognize and to admit, but it’s absolutely the case,” Cheney said. “And they’ve been betrayed by him, by ‘the big lie,’ and by what he continues to do and say to tear apart our country and tear apart our party.”

The interview was Cheney’s first since the Jan. 6 committee began holding public hearings, and it was taped days after Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, gave bombshell testimony about Trump’s actions — and inaction — on the day of the Capitol attack.

Hutchinson testified last week that Trump knew that some of his supporters were armed but urged them to march on the Capitol anyway, and that he was reportedly indifferent to the mob’s threats to hang Vice President Mike Pence.

“What kind of man knows that a mob is armed and sends the mob to attack the Capitol and further incites that mob when his own vice president is under threat? When the Congress is under threat?” Cheney said. “It’s very chilling.”

Trump and his allies have since sought to discredit Hutchinson, but Cheney said she was “absolutely confident” in the former White House aide’s testimony. Hutchinson also testified last week that Trump was “irate” when he was told he would not be able to travel to the Capitol with his supporters after his speech on the Ellipse, and that she was told Trump lunged at his security detail in anger while inside the presidential limousine.

When asked if the committee had additional evidence to corroborate Hutchinson’s testimony, Cheney said the committee had “significant evidence about a whole range of issues, including the president’s intense anger” inside the presidential limo. Cheney pointedly suggested that anyone who was denying Hutchinson’s version of events testify before the committee under oath as well.

“What Cassidy Hutchinson did was an unbelievable example of bravery and courage and patriotism in the face of real pressure,” Cheney said. “The committee is not going to stand by and watch her character be assassinated by anonymous sources and by men who are claiming executive privilege.”

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified on June 28 about President Donald Trump’s actions surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post, Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), the only other GOP member on the Jan. 6 committee, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that more witnesses have come forward since the hearings began, including since Hutchinson testified.

“I don’t want to get into who, or any details,” Kinzinger said. “Every day we get new people that come forward and say, ‘Hey, I didn’t think maybe this piece of a story that I knew was important.’ ”

The Jan. 6 committee had already interviewed two people who were inside the presidential limo at the time of Trump’s reported outburst: Robert Engel, former head of Trump’s Secret Service detail, and Anthony Ornato, who coordinated physical security at the White House.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the Jan. 6 committee, said Ornato’s memory “does not appear to be as precise” as Hutchinson’s but hesitated when asked whether Ornato had given his testimony to the committee under oath.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), another member of the Jan. 6 committee, said Sunday that he could not go into detail about what Engel and Ornato had previously shared with the committee but that committee members would be interested in having the two men return to “shed light” on what happened inside the presidential limo.

The committee, he added, was also “in discussions” with lawyers for Pat Cipollone, former White House counsel, whom the committee has interviewed before but would like to bring back for further testimony. Hutchinson testified last week that Cipollone had warned of the legal risks for Trump if he were to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“But the most important thing is: There doesn’t appear to be any dispute over the fact the president was furious that he could not accompany this armed mob to the Capitol,” Schiff said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “That doesn’t seem to be disputed by anyone except Donald Trump, who has, as we’ve seen in the past, no credibility at all.”

Schiff said he agreed with Cheney that there could be multiple criminal referrals made of Trump to the Justice Department and that it would do far more damage to the country if Trump were not investigated out of a concern for further political division.

Schiff warned that if the Justice Department were to take the position that it could not investigate or indict a former president, that would elevate Trump to become someone who is above the law.

“That’s a very dangerous idea that the Founders would have never subscribed to — even more dangerous, I think, in the case of Donald Trump,” Schiff said. “Donald Trump is someone who has shown, when he’s not held accountable, he goes on to commit worse and worse abuses of power.”

The Jan. 6 committee is continuing to explore any connections between the Trump White House and far-right white nationalist groups that participated in the Capitol attack, he said.

“Our next hearing will be focused on the efforts to assemble that mob on the [National] Mall: Who was participating, who was financing it, how it was organized, including the participation of these white nationalist groups like the Proud Boys and Three Percenters and others,” Schiff said. “I think we’ve gotten some answers, but there’s still a great deal we don’t know that we’re going to find out.”

Deadbeat Update

As of close of business today,

Donald Trump owes the State of NY

$110,000

Deadbeat Update

As of close of business today,

Donald Trump owes the State of New York

$100,000

Pay Up, Deadbeat

As of the close of business today, Donald Trump owes the state of New York $90,000.

Forbes: (pay wall)

N.Y. Judge Refuses To Stay Trump’s $10,000-A-Day Fine For Contempt

Former President Donald Trump will continue paying a fine of $10,000 per day after a New York appellate court rejected a motion from the ex-president for a stay of a contempt of court ruling, which came after he failed to turn over documents to New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) as part of her investigation into potential financial fraud by the Trump Organization.

KEY FACTS

The decision from New York Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, First Judicial Department Associate Justice Tanya Kennedy upholds the fine while Trump appeals the contempt ruling from Judge Arthur Engoron.

Engoron held Trump in contempt on April 25, which suggests the former president now owes upwards of $80,000 in fines, though it’s not clear if Trump has actually paid any of the penalties.

Trump claimed in an affidavit he does not have any of the requested tax records and other Trump Organization financial documents in his “personal possession,” arguing that the Trump Organization would more likely hold the documents, and his attorney has called the $10,000-a-day fine “little more than a contrived publicity stunt.”

Trump sent out a statement Tuesday evening lambasting James’ probe as a “continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in history,” calling it “a politically driven Scam the likes of which has never been seen before.”Forbes BusinessREAD MOREPositive Fan Interaction Leads To Viral MomentAnd Emotional Meeting With Aaron Judge

KEY BACKGROUND

James has been leading a civil probe into Trump and his businesses for years, after former Trump attorney Michael Cohen testified in a 2019 congressional hearing that Trump-operated businesses lied about the value of assets. The Trump Organization has been accused of both undervaluing assets to taxing bodies to cut down on tax bills and overvaluing assets to banks to secure higher loans. Trump and his associates have repeatedly denied allegations of wrongdoing, with the former president blasting James’ probe as a politically motivated witch hunt. James’ investigation is not a criminal probe, but could result in a lawsuit against Trump and his business empire.

TANGENT

Grand jury selection began on Monday in Fulton County, Georgia, as part of an investigation into whether Trump broke the law with his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The Georgia probe could lead to criminal charges against the former president.

How Stoopid Is This Guy?

Pretty fuckin' stoopid.

He thinks it's all just a show. He has no idea what's going on, because he doesn't pay attention, because he seems to believe all he has to do is hit his mark and start talking whatever shit that pops into his pea-sized lizard brain. 

WaPo: (pay wall)

Trump immediately botches what’s happening in Ukraine

If there’s one thing Donald Trump and his allies want you to know about what’s happening in Ukraine right now, it’s that it wouldn’t be happening if he were still in charge.

If only he actually knew what was happening.

Trump opted to appear on Fox News Channel on Wednesday night shortly after Russia announced that it would attack Ukraine. And not for the first time, he seemed woefully unfamiliar with the particulars of an issue of massive import. Trump at one point seemed to think that the United States had suddenly decided to go to war with Russia.

Midway through the interview, Laura Ingraham noted that “we are just learning that U.S. officials are looking at a potential amphibious landing now in Odessa, Ukraine.” The clear implication was that this was Russia engaging in the potential amphibious landing as part of its attack, but Trump took it as the United States itself “looking at” such an action.

After Ingraham broached the topic, the interview cut away to what was happening at the United Nations. When she returned to her guest, he was ready to use the report to go after one of his favorite targets: those same “U.S. officials.”

“Well, I think the whole thing, again, would have never happened. It shouldn’t happen. And it’s a very sad thing,” Trump said. “But you know what is also very dangerous is, you told me about the amphibious attack by Americans, because you and everyone else shouldn’t know about it. They should do that secretly, not being doing that through the great Laura Ingraham. They should be doing that secretly. Nobody should know that, Laura.”

Ingraham quickly cut in and emphasized that this wasn’t, in fact, what Fox was reporting.

“No, those are the Russian — the Russian amphibious landing,” Ingraham said.

“Oh, I thought you said we were sending people in,” Trump said.

“No, I did not. No, no. No, no, no,” Ingraham replied. “That would be news.”

And indeed it would be. While Ingraham’s initial phrasing was indeed a bit ambiguous, the Biden administration has said repeatedly that American troops would not be used even if Russia did invade Ukraine. Just hours earlier, White House press secretary Jen Psaki reinforced this, saying flatly, “We are not going to be in a war with Russia or putting military troops on the ground in Ukraine fighting Russia.”

Were the United States to have so quickly pulled a 180 on that — and, given the gravity of such a decision — it probably would have merited more than a brief reference to what U.S. officials were saying about new developments. And yet Trump seemed to believe the U.S. military was on the move and decided to criticize his own government on the basis of his incorrect assumption.

Perhaps most important, the prospect of an amphibious Russian attack in Odessa has been in the news for weeks, with Russian ships recently entering the Black Sea near Odessa’s commercial ports. “Eleven amphibious ships ring the Black Sea coast, ready to disgorge marines onto Ukraine’s southern underbelly,” Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported Feb. 13.

This is hardly the first instance of Trump’s being out of the loop on such a major issue. It cropped up repeatedly, early in the coronavirus pandemic. He repeatedly showed a lack of interest in the basics of how Congress works. Trump has even previously displayed unfamiliarity with key issues regarding Russia — for instance, when he misunderstood Vladimir Putin’s comment about Western-style liberalism being “obsolete” to refer to left-leaning politicians in the Western United States.

Earlier in the same interview with Ingraham on Wednesday night, Trump used the opportunity to suggest that President Biden was missing in action.

Ingraham said: “We understand that President Biden is monitoring the situation at the White House now and is going to talk to the G-7 tomorrow. … And he’s going to talk to the nation at some point tomorrow as well. Your reaction to that approach?”

“I don’t think he’s monitoring,” Trump said. “I think he is probably sleeping right now.”

Mere moments later, Trump made pretty clear that Biden’s predecessor, at least, isn’t exactly monitoring the situation very closely.

On That "Truth" Thing

Trump's new venture - Truth Social - crashed. Because most new software thingies crash when first released, and...

No, actually they fucking don't. Not when they're developed and managed by professionals who know what the fuck they're doing.

Yes, there's always a glitch or two. And yes, the Beta Version is always kind of a wreck at first, which is why you do the Beta thing in a very limited environment. You don't just put the thing out there in wide release and let it crap out in public so everybody can see what a fucking disaster it is.

Of course, this is Trump, so - yeah.

A tech product that doesn't work as if by magic is not ready for the market.

BTW - all the hyperbolic attacks on "big tech" are being orchestrated (IMO) as pretext to the "conservative" plan to turn around and seize control of the platforms for information distribution, and of the info itself.

They make a big noise...

"All you faithful hard-working Americans are being victimized by Big Tech, and you need the strength of a strong leader to strongly show those weak-but-somehow-amazingly-powerful nerds who the strongest and strongly strengthiest boss really is."

...which makes it easier to convince people you're doing all this really nasty shit for all the right reasons.

On Trump Shit And GOP Fuckery

1) The sanctity of the filibuster in the US Senate is a fucking joke.

2) During his recent deposition, Eric Trump was questioned on (among other things) his involvement in the overstatement of the values of certain Trump real estate holdings, in order to get favorable treatment.

He claimed 5th amendment privilege more than 500 times.

Ol' Doc Maddow:

Gelding

Trump continues to lose his oomph.

Rachel Maddow

Today's Beau

Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column

We know 45* was aware of the attack on the Capitol - he sat in the Oval Office or the Situation Room or wherever, watching it on TV - and we know he got at least some of those text messages begging him to do something about it.

So there are only 2 options:

1. If he couldn't do anything, then he's impotent
2. If he chose to do nothing, then he's a monster

Fun With The PDB

I don't know who came up with these, but they're brilliant and I wanna buy them a hot tub or something.

Confirmed

What we think we've always known - we now know.

And BTW, something else we've "known" without acknowledging - or more accurately, refused to admit because "she just rubbed us the wrong way" or whatever - Hillary was right about that "vast right wing conspiracy" thing way back in the 90s, and we should suck it up and tell the truth about ourselves.

Billionaire vulture Paul Singer

WaPo: (pay wall)

Conservative website first paid Fusion GPS for Trump research

A conservative publication said Friday it paid a Washington research firm to start probing Donald Trump’s background — a move that set in motion a chain of events leading to the explosive dossier alleging ties between Trump associates and Russia.

In a statement, the Washington Free Beacon said it retained Fusion GPS to provide research on multiple Republican candidates in the 2016 presidential election. Two people familiar with billionaire GOP donor Paul Singer said he provides financial support to the publication. A spokesman for Singer’s firm, Elliott Management, did not respond to requests seeking comment.

The Free Beacon said its research ended before Fusion GPS hired a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, to produce a series of reports alleging links between Russia and those close to Trump. That occurred after the firm was retained by a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

“None of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier,’’ said the statement from Free Beacon editor in chief Matthew Continetti and chairman Michael Goldfarb. “We stand by our reporting and we do not apologize for our methods.’’

The Free Beacon’s lawyers notified the House Intelligence Committee of its role in the matter Friday.

The website published a statement on Friday that said it paid Fusion GPS to research “multiple candidates in the Republican presidential primary, just as we retained other firms to assist in our research into Hillary Clinton.” Since its inception in 2012, the website “has retained third-party firms to conduct research on many individuals and institutions of interest to us and our readers.’’

Opposition research is nothing new in political races, or the corporate world, but it is not a common practice for a news website to hire out such work, which is often expensive. Firms like Fusion GPS can charge tens of thousands of dollars for research on a single subject.

After the Free Beacon stopped paying Fusion GPS, the research firm offered in April 2016 to continue researching Trump for the Clinton campaign and the DNC. The Free Beacon said it did not know at the time that the Clinton campaign and the DNC hired Fusion GPS later to continue the work.

Intelligence chiefs briefed Trump and Obama on unconfirmed claims Russia has compromising information on president-elect

The dossier — a collection of reports compiled by Steele that began in mid-2016 and continued after the election — cited sources familiar with the inner workings of the Kremlin, who said Russia had obtained compromising information about Trump, including lurid alleged details of his 2013 visit to Moscow for the Miss Universe Pageant. The Steele reports also alleged Russia had been working with Trump associates to help him with the election.

Trump has denied those claims, and called subsequent probes by the FBI and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III a witch hunt. Officials have said that the FBI has confirmed some of the information in the dossier. Other details, including the most sensational accusations, have not been verified and may never be.

U.S. intelligence agencies later released a public assessment, which concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to aid Trump. The FBI has been investigating whether any Trump associates helped the Russians.

For months, House Republicans have been pressuring Fusion GPS to identify who paid for the dossier.

Last week, Fusion GPS executives invoked their constitutional right not to answer questions put to them by the House Intelligence Committee. Previously, the firm’s founder, Glenn Simpson, had spent 10 hours answering questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

While questions about the mystery clients have now been answered, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are still pressing to find out how much Fusion GPS was paid, and how much, in turn, that firm paid Steele.

There's a high probability that the big dollar guys weren't particularly interested in sinking Trump, they just wanted to find out what they'd have to be ready to compensate for - ie: what dirt they could expect the Dems to come up with and how they could countervail it. Which I think is exactly how it played out. I think the Repubs knew about Trump's weird proclivities, but they decided not to fight Trump, thinking they could use the dirt to control him, and they did all that for reasons I think we need to stop denying and start screaming about.

1. Trump did not remake the GOP in his own image - he's the perfect refection of what that party has become
2. They chose not to take action against Trump because Republicans hate this country's traditions of democratic self-government - their project is to tear it all down and replace it with a corporate plutocracy

 

And The Big Scam Continues

First - as always - fuck you, Google.

Now then.

45* just can't stop. First, he floated the brilliant idea that he could win a seat in the House for himself (which, of course would mean Republicans take back the majority, cuz the Trump coattails are just that fucking strong 🙄🤦🏻‍♂️).

Then he'd run for, and win the Speakership, and then he'd engineer the impeachment and the removal of both Harris and Biden - and presto change-o alakazam - meet the once and future President Trump.

(not kidding, guys - those idiots thought they might try that one)

But that was so stupid, not even the bozos in the FreeDumb Caucus signed on for it, and the idea failed to raise the donation money he was looking for - which is all he fucking cares about anyway - so now this from Business Insider:

Trump is actively working to oust McConnell as Senate Republican leader

Former President Donald Trump has spoken recently with Republican senators and political allies about ousting Minority Leader Mitch McConnell from leadership and is gauging whether there is any interest among lawmakers for a possible challenge, according to The Wall Street Journal.

There appears to be little support for such a drastic move, according to the report, but Trump's actions could potentially morph into a larger issue for the party, especially as the Kentucky Republican hopes to regain the Senate majority in the 2022 midterm elections and the former president continues to float a potential 2024 bid.

While Trump and McConnell worked together to fill scores of federal court vacancies with conservative jurists, along with passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and other GOP priorities, Trump's intransigence in accepting his election loss to now-President Joe Biden and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot deeply strained the relationship between the two men.

After Trump's second Senate impeachment trial for "incitement of insurrection" for his role in the riot, McConnell declined to find the president guilty, but sharply rebuked him on the Senate floor. Later, McConnell said he would support Trump in 2024 if he were the GOP nominee, but Trump has not forgiven the minority leader for his speech.

Trump has continued to needle McConnell in the press — he recently took the minority leader to task for backing the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package that passed in the Senate last month, calling the legislation "a disgrace."

"If Mitch McConnell was smart, which we've seen no evidence of, he would use the debt ceiling card to negotiate a good infrastructure package," the former president said at the time, pointing to the looming debate over the country's overall fiscal health.

As McConnell looks to the Senate map next year, he hopes to win in states like Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania — which were all carried by President Joe Biden last fall — and a protracted fight with Trump could potentially dampen enthusiasm and hurt GOP candidates on the ground.

With the Senate evenly divided between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, there is no margin for error, especially as both parties will soon ramp up spending for congressional races as 2022 approaches.

McConnell, a prodigious fundraiser, has led the Senate Republican caucus since 2007, serving as majority leader from 2015 until 2021.

In a recent interview with the Journal, Trump did not reveal if he was searching for a lawmaker to challenge McConnell, but expressed support for new leadership and said that Senate Republicans should remove the Bluegrass State politician from the top post.

"They ought to," the former president said. "I think he's very bad for the Republican Party."

However, McConnell has long possessed a strong grip over the caucus, especially on big votes like the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 bill signed into law in March that didn't receive the support of any Republican senators.

"Naw, I'm not going to get in that fight," Sen. Tommy Tuberville told The Journal. The first-term Alabama conservative, who defeated Democratic Sen. Doug Jones last fall, said that McConnell "is doing a good job."

Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, who is up for reelection next year, told The Journal that the odds of anyone ousting McConnell were virtually nil.

"I just don't realistically see that happening," he told the newspaper.

McConnell, who was first elected to the Senate in 1984, easily won reelection to a seventh term last year.

The Non-Elite Elites

Are the rubes finally starting to catch on? Do they realize there's just no fucking way these millionaire grifters are "lookin' out" for them?

American Airlines Center - Dallas

the blue dots are unsold seats

Vanity Fair - Hive: (pay wall)

If you ask Donald Trump, his upcoming arena tour with disgraced ex–Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly is already an outrageous success. “I will be focusing on greatness for our Country, something seldom discussed in political dialogue,” the former president said, promising that the tour—which is scheduled to launch in Sunrise, Florida, in December and stops in Orlando, Dallas, and Houston, among other places—will be “fun, fun, fun for everyone who attends!”

If you ask box office employees, the story is very different. Tickets to hear the pair of accused sex pests in conversation have been on sale for more than a month, but thousands of seats remain available for purchase on Ticketmaster and AXS, according to Politico. “We have concerts that are doing a lot better than this,” one Orlando Amway Center employee told the outlet. For instance, a Bad Bunny concert at the Amway Center reportedly recently sold out within 48 hours, despite the fact that it won’t take place until next March. (In a text message to Politico, the marketing director for the Amway Center protested: “The box office person you talked with did not provide an accurate assessment nor do they speak for us.”)

A stadium employee at the American Airlines Center in Dallas told Politico that a “large number” of seats are still open for the event. And an employee with access to ticket-sales information said that at Houston’s Toyota Center, “60 to 65% of seats remain unsold.” (A Toyota Center spokesperson declined to comment to Politico, and an American Airlines Center spokesperson said they could not comment on ticket sales.)

The lackluster sales may represent flagging momentum for the right-wing stars—or the prices could be to blame. Those willing to settle for standard tickets—or even seats in the nosebleeds—can expect to pay between $100–$300, per Politico. For those who want to be closer to the action, prices are in the $1,000 neighborhood. And the “VIP Meet & Greet Package” runs up to $8,500, according to Insider, and includes a pregame reception, floor seats, and personal fan pictures with the hosts.

The Dichotomy Of It All

Speaking of contradictions - like 45* just can't leave it alone.

He desperately needs to get back on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube, and so what does he do? He gets shitty and picks a fight with them.

It's easy enough to think he's just going to use it as a fund-raising angle, but I think he might actually believe he has the stroke to bull his way in and bend them to his will.

He's like "You gotta take me back, baby - please, baby - please, baby, please - and fuck you if you don't - I hope you die horribly in a fiery train wreck - but please, you gotta take me back, baby. Please."

It's just so fuckin' creepy.

NYT: (pay wall)

Donald Trump Just Can’t Quit Zuckerberg and Dorsey

Really, he can’t.

That might be one way of trying to grok the stunt of a lawsuit that the former president filed yesterday against Facebook and Twitter, as well as Google’s YouTube, for kicking him to the curb in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

With zero appetite for becoming handmaidens to sedition by allowing Donald Trump to continue abusing the rules of their powerful platforms, they finally made the decision to dump him — Twitter permanently, YouTube indefinitely and Facebook for two years.

Since then, Mr. Trump has been casting around for a replacement: First via a lame blog that sputtered out and then by dribbling out rumors that he was building his own social network. As that has turned out to be complicated, his latest scheme — and it is a scheme, all right — is to file a class-action lawsuit with himself as lead plaintiff, alleging that the companies have violated his First Amendment rights.

As if.

It’s clear that Mr. Trump’s ability to communicate the way he likes — loud, unfettered — has been hindered by his exile, even if his most pernicious lies about election fraud have managed to crawl, like misinformation slime mold, into a large part of the body politic. And part of me thinks he actually had gotten addicted, like a lot of us, to erupting at any time, day or night, with whatever message popped into his manic mind.

But the lawsuit is most obviously a feint aimed at fund-raising — texts asking for donations went out as soon as Mr. Trump’s news conference started — and to up the grievance knob on his base of supporters, who have come to believe that social media platforms are our new public squares.

Unfortunately for Mr. Trump’s legal case, they are not. Only public squares are public squares. Like it or not, private companies can do whatever they want when it comes to making rules and tossing off incorrigible miscreants.

Like, of course, Mr. Trump, who appears to have a comprehension issue when it comes to reading our Constitution. “Congress shall make no law,” the First Amendment says, “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Congress, not Facebook. Congress, not Twitter. Congress, not YouTube.

In fact, a government forcing these platforms to host people they don’t want to host is a violation of their First Amendment rights. But not according to Mr. Trump, whose most inane allegation in the lawsuits is aimed at Facebook: He argues that its “status thus rises beyond that of a private company to that of a state actor.”

They are state actors as much as Mar-a-Lago is one, which would mean under this legal analysis that I have a right to join even if Mr. Trump does not want me there to enjoy Six Star Seafood Night Wednesday evenings on the patio. But to that I say: Give me “two-pound lobsters, freshly grilled fish and meat items, salads and a dessert bar, accompanied by a saxophonist under the stars” or give me death (by indigestion)!

Naturally, most legal scholars reacting to the case noted that similar efforts to make tech giants into governmental entities had failed miserably and concluded that it is a frivolous attempt at garnering attention.

Still, it’s not necessarily a stupid thing to use Big Tech as a punching bag, which is not a new trick for Mr. Trump and many others in politics. Florida’s governor and a potential 2024 presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis, signed the equally performative Stop Social Media Censorship Act in May, which sought to bar certain social media sites from banning political candidates. It has been blocked by a federal judge on several grounds.

Both legal outbursts are trying to tap into the idea that we simply cannot live without tech and have a right to be on social media sites because of the ubiquity of tech in work, politics, entertainment, communications and commerce. It has certainly felt truer than ever during the Covid-19 pandemic, when digital services became a necessity for almost everyone.

But feelings aren’t facts. And what is at issue is really the concentration of power that both Republicans and Democrats have allowed to happen in the tech industry. Their longtime inaction has left consumers, including Mr. Trump, very few alternatives across a range of areas.

A better route of attack for him and others bellyaching about their being made irrelevant by our digital overlords is to perhaps pass the wide range of bipartisan legislation slowly coalescing in Congress to deal with a wide range of issues such as monopoly power and the lack of resources for regulators who have to monitor powerful corporations.

Of course, ever the shortcut taker and consistently shoddy at execution, Mr. Trump has chosen to create a time-wasting circus when it comes to reining in tech power, which has long been his modus operandi. He did it when it came to investigating the potential dangers of TikTok’s Chinese ownership, he did it when it came to needed upgrades to the cloud capabilities of the Defense Department, he did when it came to putting cyberdefenses in place, and he did it when it came to needed reforms of Section 230, which gives tech digital platforms broad immunity from legal action, as well as the ability to moderate content and punish bad actors.

Here’s what’s actually going on: Mr. Trump has behaved badly for years and now is paying a price he is trying to avoid, as always.

BTW - don't be quick to dismiss this whole thing. There are still some very bad actors operating more or less in the shadows who (IMO) want very much to use this nonsense for a little leverage in their project to condition us to accept plutocracy.

ie: Business is Government.

You heard it here first.

Too Stoopid Twice

Bob Cesca: "Trump always makes things worse for Trump."

45* was too stoopid or too stubborn - or too stubbornly stoopid - to get after COVID, making it nearly impossible for him to get re-elected, which made it even more nearly impossible for him to make the money he needs now to keep his sorry ass afloat.

So...

CNN:

Trump's personal Boeing 757 was always the crown jewel of his wealth -- the ultimate sign that he had made it. He's used it as a backdrop for sleek photo shoots, campaign rallies, VIP tours, for shots of him eating his Big Macs and KFC, plated, with a knife and fork. Trump loved to show it off -- the customized cream-colored leather seats, gilded bathrooms, the seat buckles layered in 24-karat gold.

But today it sits idle on an airport ramp in Orange County, New York, about 60 miles north of Manhattan.

One engine is missing parts. The other is shrink-wrapped in plastic. The cost to fix and get it flyable could reach well into the high six-figures, a price-tag Trump doesn't appear to be dealing with right now. Though the current state of his finances aren't public, the Covid-19 pandemic has taken a toll on the hospitality industry home to so many of his businesses.

AKA: Consciousness Of Guilt

Glenn Kirschner, on Bill Barr's interview in The Atlantic:

And be sure to catch the Mitch McConnell piece of it (starting at about 6:50).

These guys crooked as fuck. I'll go ahead with a blanket condemnation, saying all politicians are first and foremost concerned with gaining and keep and wielding power. The cliche is true - you can't do as much if you don't win the election.

OK fine, but when you have to stay in power in order to stay out of prison, you've taken things just a few steps too far.

Every Day Is Opposite Day

per Media Bias Fact Check:

The Western Journal:

While Obama Made Millions off the Presidency, New Report Says Trump Lost $1.1 Billion

Years after leftist media outlets attempted to paint former President Donald Trump as an evil, greedy menace, the exact opposite has recently been revealed.

Dealing a massive blow to the establishment media’s narrative of Trump’s alter ego as the devil himself, Forbes reported Tuesday that the former president actually lost $1.1 billion after his presidency, causing him to fall almost 300 places from his original spot in billionaire rankings.

I guess the point thye're trying to make is that the guy they said was totally inept at business is the guy who's made loads of money, and the guy they tell us is some kind of business genius is the guy who lost over a billion dollars, even though he was skimming federal revenues - funneling those tax dollars into his own pockets?

Alrighty then. Got it.