Showing posts with label cult45. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cult45. Show all posts
Oct 5, 2024
Jul 29, 2024
Doing Battle
My hero cult leader can do no wrong
My fellow hero cult devotees can do no wrong
I can do no wrong
Because my hero cult leader is just like me.
Everything good is to my credit.
Everything bad is on you.
I decide which is which at any given moment
Because I can do no wrong,
Because my hero cult leader can do no wrong
And he's just like me.
Jul 18, 2024
The Gathering
There's always a few at every convention.
They show up dressed like they're expecting
to meet Monty Hall at a live taping
of Let's Make A Deal.
But always before, they'd have buttons
from 30 or 40 or 50 years ago.
Now there's nothing but Trump.
For them, everything started with Trump
and everything will end with Trump.
BECAUSE IT'S
A FUCKING CULT
May 31, 2024
Mar 12, 2024
Today's Brando
Here's Tennessee Brando asking the right questions.
His power over us grows stronger yet
And the Dems turn from you
They glance behind
The president of the United States
Is in their mind
Sep 4, 2023
It's A Wonderment
So, not to cast aspersions or anything, but I have to wonder -
Just how deeply closeted are some of these guys?
Aug 19, 2023
Oh, The Fuckery
They knew what they were doing all along.
There can be no appeals of ignorance. No hiding behind a veil of legal counsel.
They fucking knew. They all fucking knew.
Aug 1, 2023
One Plus One
I generally look for stories about two things that may seem disparate, but when taken together, could be interlocked, and cause something to happen that becomes obvious only in retrospect.
Trump committee nearly broke and other key takeaways from campaign filings
Reports filed show that some of Trump’s fundraising committees are spending about as much as they are taking in amid legal expenses
Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee raised $53.9 million during the first half of this year for his presidential campaign — an enviable haul that speaks to the enthusiasm of his donors and dwarfs the sums raised by his GOP rivals.
But Trump’s political committees are burning through cash as he grapples with his mounting legal bills, according to campaign disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission Monday night. Here are a few takeaways from the new disclosures filed with the FEC:
Trump’s leadership PAC drains its cash
Trump remains in a commanding position, with a New York Times/Siena College poll released Monday showing the former president leading the field with the backing of 54 percent of likely Republican voters. But reports filed on Monday show that some of his committees are spending about as much money as they are taking in. Though his joint fundraising committee raised $53.9 million over the first six months of the year, it spent more than $52 million over the same period, the reports show.
Trump’s Save America leadership PAC, which had more than $100 million at the beginning of last year, now has about $3.6 million in cash on hand after it became the vehicle used to pay millions of dollars in legal bills for the former president, his aides and his associates. As Trump fights federal and state investigations, his advisers have told The Washington Post that the PAC has been handling the legal bills for almost anyone drawn into the investigations if they ask Trump and his advisers for help.
Trump’s team is moving money to ease their financial strain
Trump’s legal entanglements are putting a considerable strain on his war chest, which has been bolstered by scores of small-dollar donors across the country — many of whom share his view that he is being unfairly persecuted by his political opponents. A portion of the money raised by the Trump campaign’s joint fundraising committee goes to the Save America leadership PAC. Earlier this year, Trump’s advisers upped the percentage of each contribution that is directed to the leadership PAC giving them more leverage to pay bills.
The reports filed on Monday night show Trump officials moving money among the different fundraising entities in his orbit to ease that financial strain. The Save America leadership PAC recently asked for a refund on a large contribution the group had previously made to another PAC supporting Trump. That development was first reported by the New York Times.
Monday night’s filings show that Trump’s super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., reported that it had raised more than $13 million over the first six months of this year and had about $30 million in cash on hand at the end of the reporting period.
But the group issued a $12.2 million refund to the Save America leadership PAC, which was reflected on the mid-year report.
DeSantis super PAC leads outside groups in cash on hand
The super PACs supporting the 2024 GOP presidential candidates were required to file their mid-year reports to the FEC by midnight on Monday — offering a more in-depth look at the top financial backers of the White House hopefuls and a few hints about which groups may be well funded enough to help their candidates go the distance in the battle for the nomination.
The super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Never Back Down, boasted nearly $97 million in cash on hand at the end of June to support its expansive field and advertising program as DeSantis tries to reboot his struggling campaign. The outside group has taken on many of the duties that would normally be shouldered by the campaign. Much of the $130 million that the group raised from the beginning of the year came from an $82.5 million transfer from the governor’s former Florida political operation that allowed it to build a team of more than 121 people and a contract workforce of about 240 canvassers who work out of 11 offices across the country.
A super PAC supporting Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina reported raising $19.3 million with about $15 million in cash on hand.
The sums raised by the super PACs supporting lower-polling candidates like former vice president Mike Pence and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie were far lower, reflecting the difficulty they may face in the months ahead. The group backing Pence, Committed to America PAC, raised about $2.7 million and has about $1.8 million in cash on hand. The Tell It Like it Is super PAC supporting Christie raised more than $5.8 million and had about $5.5 million in cash on hand at the end of the period.
‘Strategy consulting’ fees for Melania Trump’s former stylist
Though Trump’s growing legal jeopardy has contributed to a strain on cash for the Save America PAC that has been handling many of his legal bills, that committee still found the funds to pay Melania Trump’s former stylist. The committee reported payments of $108,000 to designer Herve Pierre Braillard for “strategy consulting” during the first six months of this year.
Opinion
Admit it, GOP. Trump’s legal woes make him an unviable candidate.
The revelation that Donald Trump’s political action committee spent more than $40 million on legal fees in the first half of 2023 does more than cast doubt on the former president’s ability to run a competitive primary campaign. It provides yet another reason why Republican voters should reject his candidacy if he does not drop out first.
Running for president requires more than charisma and a few rallies. It requires time and money — and lots of it. Candidates must constantly be on the road stumping for votes. They also need support from the modern apparatus that places digital and television ads and identifies persuadable voters that can cast ballots for them.
This is especially true when running against an incumbent who can count on a united party for support. President Biden, along with the national Democratic Party and its state counterparts, will raise billions of dollars to crush whoever rises as his opponent. In 2020, Biden’s campaign and affiliated outside groups spent $1.6 billion while the Democratic National Committee and state and local parties spent another $1 billion. A cash-strapped candidate would not stand a chance against this onslaught.
Then there’s the time factor. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that prosecutors are filing bogus charges to wound Trump politically. He might be able to beat all of those raps, either at trial or on appeal. But he would still have to manage his defense in at least two, and perhaps as many as four, major criminal cases. He has prodigious energy, especially for a 77-year-old man. But even he can’t be in five places at the same time.
Trump can theoretically solve his cash problem. He is reportedly considering a legal defense fund that would finance his team of lawyers. If he can raise money for that without cannibalizing his campaign fundraising, he might still be able to raise enough to be competitive. But that’s a big if.
Nothing can solve his time problem. He will have to attend a series of pretrial hearings over the next few months, and that’s the least of his concerns. A criminal defendant has to manage his defense team on a regular basis as it searches for evidence to win an acquittal. Consider Edward Gurney, the Florida senator who resigned in 1974 rather than run for reelection while simultaneously fighting a single criminal indictment. It’s unreasonable to think Trump will risk his own conviction to campaign.
This will strike many, if not most, Republicans as unfair. Whatever one thinks of Trump, it is clear he has suffered more harassment and vitriol from political opponents than just about any recent major figure. Democrats and their allies have been relentlessly hounding him since he became the GOP nominee in 2016. He certainly exacerbated his situation with his often over-the-top, pugnacious ripostes, but he has had a political bull’s eye on his back for years.
But fair doesn’t count in politics. Facts do, and it is a fact that Trump is already hamstrung by his legal charges, which are only going to get worse.
Trump insists he won’t drop out, but that doesn’t mean he’s locked in. As the financial and legal pressure ratchets upward, even a man of his colossal ego and willpower might eventually decide to save his own skin rather than press his luck.
If he doesn’t, Republican primary voters will have to decide whether they want to risk nominating a man who can’t campaign for himself. Trump acolytes might point to Biden’s campaign in 2020, much of which was conducted from his basement, as proof that someone can win without actively hustling for votes (although that would force them to acknowledge that Biden did in fact win). But that was during the pandemic, when all candidates — including Trump — were limited by covid-19 restrictions.
Biden might be old, but he’s certainly capable of making a few campaign appearances each week. Imagine what independent voters will think when they see that alongside coverage of Trump sitting in a courtroom for days at a time.
MAGA die-hards should be rooting for Trump to drop out sooner rather than later. If so, establishment-leaning Republicans such as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin might reconsider their decisions not to enter the race. If they do join the field, they would splinter the establishment even further, giving Trump the chance to endorse a clear MAGA alternative. That person would likely vault to the front of the pack overnight and inherit Trump’s base.
Trump’s famous catchphrase on his show “The Apprentice” was “You’re fired.” In politics, though, the voters are the boss. If Trump won’t quit on his own, Republican voters should show him the door.
Or, in this case, two related things that seem to indicate the near-inevitability of an event, but could easily mean just the opposite - especially considering the upside-down-ed-ness of these Nazi MAGA Daddy State assholes.
(WaPo 1) Trump committee nearly broke and other key takeaways from campaign filings
(WaPo 2) Opinion
Admit it, GOP. Trump’s legal woes make him an unviable candidate.
Reports filed show that some of Trump’s fundraising committees are spending about as much as they are taking in amid legal expenses
- plus -
Admit it, GOP. Trump’s legal woes make him an unviable candidate.
Normal people might think those two things have to mean Trump will keep sliding, and be out of the race pretty soon.
And we can hope for that to become more than a possibility. The Country Club Republicans can't be happy with the prospect of getting their asses kicked continually for the next several cycles as they refuse to stop playing their shitty little thread-the-needle game.
ie: "No, we love plutocracy - plutocracy is what we're all about. We simply haven't found the right Plutocrat-in-Chief yet. But don't let the rubes in on that, OK?"
The problem there is that the rubes hate the Country Clubbers so much, they've convinced themselves that Trump is actually on their side - like some weird fantasy version of the FDR-type traitor-to-his-class that they can call their own.
Knowing what we know about their tendency to embrace and internalize every shitty aspect anybody has ever ascribed to their character, we have to assume they'll do whatever it takes to be good little Cult45 devotees.
Trump committee nearly broke and other key takeaways from campaign filings
Reports filed show that some of Trump’s fundraising committees are spending about as much as they are taking in amid legal expenses
Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee raised $53.9 million during the first half of this year for his presidential campaign — an enviable haul that speaks to the enthusiasm of his donors and dwarfs the sums raised by his GOP rivals.
But Trump’s political committees are burning through cash as he grapples with his mounting legal bills, according to campaign disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission Monday night. Here are a few takeaways from the new disclosures filed with the FEC:
Trump’s leadership PAC drains its cash
Trump remains in a commanding position, with a New York Times/Siena College poll released Monday showing the former president leading the field with the backing of 54 percent of likely Republican voters. But reports filed on Monday show that some of his committees are spending about as much money as they are taking in. Though his joint fundraising committee raised $53.9 million over the first six months of the year, it spent more than $52 million over the same period, the reports show.
Trump’s Save America leadership PAC, which had more than $100 million at the beginning of last year, now has about $3.6 million in cash on hand after it became the vehicle used to pay millions of dollars in legal bills for the former president, his aides and his associates. As Trump fights federal and state investigations, his advisers have told The Washington Post that the PAC has been handling the legal bills for almost anyone drawn into the investigations if they ask Trump and his advisers for help.
Trump’s team is moving money to ease their financial strain
Trump’s legal entanglements are putting a considerable strain on his war chest, which has been bolstered by scores of small-dollar donors across the country — many of whom share his view that he is being unfairly persecuted by his political opponents. A portion of the money raised by the Trump campaign’s joint fundraising committee goes to the Save America leadership PAC. Earlier this year, Trump’s advisers upped the percentage of each contribution that is directed to the leadership PAC giving them more leverage to pay bills.
The reports filed on Monday night show Trump officials moving money among the different fundraising entities in his orbit to ease that financial strain. The Save America leadership PAC recently asked for a refund on a large contribution the group had previously made to another PAC supporting Trump. That development was first reported by the New York Times.
Monday night’s filings show that Trump’s super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., reported that it had raised more than $13 million over the first six months of this year and had about $30 million in cash on hand at the end of the reporting period.
But the group issued a $12.2 million refund to the Save America leadership PAC, which was reflected on the mid-year report.
DeSantis super PAC leads outside groups in cash on hand
The super PACs supporting the 2024 GOP presidential candidates were required to file their mid-year reports to the FEC by midnight on Monday — offering a more in-depth look at the top financial backers of the White House hopefuls and a few hints about which groups may be well funded enough to help their candidates go the distance in the battle for the nomination.
The super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Never Back Down, boasted nearly $97 million in cash on hand at the end of June to support its expansive field and advertising program as DeSantis tries to reboot his struggling campaign. The outside group has taken on many of the duties that would normally be shouldered by the campaign. Much of the $130 million that the group raised from the beginning of the year came from an $82.5 million transfer from the governor’s former Florida political operation that allowed it to build a team of more than 121 people and a contract workforce of about 240 canvassers who work out of 11 offices across the country.
A super PAC supporting Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina reported raising $19.3 million with about $15 million in cash on hand.
The sums raised by the super PACs supporting lower-polling candidates like former vice president Mike Pence and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie were far lower, reflecting the difficulty they may face in the months ahead. The group backing Pence, Committed to America PAC, raised about $2.7 million and has about $1.8 million in cash on hand. The Tell It Like it Is super PAC supporting Christie raised more than $5.8 million and had about $5.5 million in cash on hand at the end of the period.
‘Strategy consulting’ fees for Melania Trump’s former stylist
Though Trump’s growing legal jeopardy has contributed to a strain on cash for the Save America PAC that has been handling many of his legal bills, that committee still found the funds to pay Melania Trump’s former stylist. The committee reported payments of $108,000 to designer Herve Pierre Braillard for “strategy consulting” during the first six months of this year.
Opinion
Admit it, GOP. Trump’s legal woes make him an unviable candidate.
The revelation that Donald Trump’s political action committee spent more than $40 million on legal fees in the first half of 2023 does more than cast doubt on the former president’s ability to run a competitive primary campaign. It provides yet another reason why Republican voters should reject his candidacy if he does not drop out first.
Running for president requires more than charisma and a few rallies. It requires time and money — and lots of it. Candidates must constantly be on the road stumping for votes. They also need support from the modern apparatus that places digital and television ads and identifies persuadable voters that can cast ballots for them.
This is especially true when running against an incumbent who can count on a united party for support. President Biden, along with the national Democratic Party and its state counterparts, will raise billions of dollars to crush whoever rises as his opponent. In 2020, Biden’s campaign and affiliated outside groups spent $1.6 billion while the Democratic National Committee and state and local parties spent another $1 billion. A cash-strapped candidate would not stand a chance against this onslaught.
Then there’s the time factor. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that prosecutors are filing bogus charges to wound Trump politically. He might be able to beat all of those raps, either at trial or on appeal. But he would still have to manage his defense in at least two, and perhaps as many as four, major criminal cases. He has prodigious energy, especially for a 77-year-old man. But even he can’t be in five places at the same time.
Trump can theoretically solve his cash problem. He is reportedly considering a legal defense fund that would finance his team of lawyers. If he can raise money for that without cannibalizing his campaign fundraising, he might still be able to raise enough to be competitive. But that’s a big if.
Nothing can solve his time problem. He will have to attend a series of pretrial hearings over the next few months, and that’s the least of his concerns. A criminal defendant has to manage his defense team on a regular basis as it searches for evidence to win an acquittal. Consider Edward Gurney, the Florida senator who resigned in 1974 rather than run for reelection while simultaneously fighting a single criminal indictment. It’s unreasonable to think Trump will risk his own conviction to campaign.
This will strike many, if not most, Republicans as unfair. Whatever one thinks of Trump, it is clear he has suffered more harassment and vitriol from political opponents than just about any recent major figure. Democrats and their allies have been relentlessly hounding him since he became the GOP nominee in 2016. He certainly exacerbated his situation with his often over-the-top, pugnacious ripostes, but he has had a political bull’s eye on his back for years.
But fair doesn’t count in politics. Facts do, and it is a fact that Trump is already hamstrung by his legal charges, which are only going to get worse.
Trump insists he won’t drop out, but that doesn’t mean he’s locked in. As the financial and legal pressure ratchets upward, even a man of his colossal ego and willpower might eventually decide to save his own skin rather than press his luck.
If he doesn’t, Republican primary voters will have to decide whether they want to risk nominating a man who can’t campaign for himself. Trump acolytes might point to Biden’s campaign in 2020, much of which was conducted from his basement, as proof that someone can win without actively hustling for votes (although that would force them to acknowledge that Biden did in fact win). But that was during the pandemic, when all candidates — including Trump — were limited by covid-19 restrictions.
Biden might be old, but he’s certainly capable of making a few campaign appearances each week. Imagine what independent voters will think when they see that alongside coverage of Trump sitting in a courtroom for days at a time.
MAGA die-hards should be rooting for Trump to drop out sooner rather than later. If so, establishment-leaning Republicans such as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin might reconsider their decisions not to enter the race. If they do join the field, they would splinter the establishment even further, giving Trump the chance to endorse a clear MAGA alternative. That person would likely vault to the front of the pack overnight and inherit Trump’s base.
Trump’s famous catchphrase on his show “The Apprentice” was “You’re fired.” In politics, though, the voters are the boss. If Trump won’t quit on his own, Republican voters should show him the door.
⬆︎
Apr 11, 2023
Spotted Today
Stephen Miller
at the federal courthouse in DC this morning -
deciding not to talk with the press.
MAGA Update
"The whole world is fucked up except for you and me - and you're making me wonder about you."
Cults like MAGA will always become death cults, and will eventually self-destruct. Unfortunately, as we watch for it to play out, good people will have to fight, and bleed, and die in the process.
Let's save everybody a lot of time and heartache by skipping forward to the part where the leader commits suicide in a bunker, and all his henchmen are put on trial, and either die in prison or at the end of a rope.
So fuckin' sick of this shit.
One-time Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, who was a leading figure in pushing falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election, is now being attacked by some prominent Trump supporters for being insufficiently loyal to the MAGA cause.
Writing on Twitter, Ellis posted screen shots of some recent posts from top MAGA influencers lobbing a number of crude insults against her.
Included among them was a post from failed Florida congressional candidate Laura Loomer, who mocked her for being "disowned by Trumpworld" and trying to ingratiate herself with Ron DeSantis' campaign by offering herself up as "sloppy seconds."
Fellow Trump supporter Preston Parra took a similar line of attack and accused her of being a "for hire escort for Ron DeSantis."
And MAGA fan Alex Bruesewitz referred to her as "Jebba Ellis" before going on to describe her as a "D-list reject goon."
Ellis bitterly complained about the treatment she's received from the former president's fans.
"I was called a lot of things and had a lot of leftist hit pieces trying to destroy my credibility while I represented Trump," she wrote. "But I never saw a media outlet or journo use the blatant sexism and vulgarity that “MAGA influencers” do now. And I don’t even work for DeSantis. Telling."
Jul 16, 2022
Spy Story Stuff
People who hang with certain big time movers & shakers have an unfortunate tendency to meet with tragic ends.
Ivana Trump died of ‘blunt impact injuries,’ medical examiner says
Ivana Trump, the first wife of former president Donald Trump, died of “blunt impact injuries” to her torso, according to a report from the New York City chief medical examiner Friday. The manner of death was classified as an accident, the report added.
The Trump family announced that Ivana, 73, mother of Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr., had died at home in Manhattan on Thursday.
“I am very saddened to inform all of those that loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City,” the former president said in a post on his social medial platform Truth Social.
Ivana Trump was found unconscious on a staircase in her East 64th Street home near Central Park after police received an emergency call at 12:40 p.m., and she was pronounced dead at the scene, according to two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the event. New York police detectives began an investigation and found no sign of forced entry or obvious sign of trauma suggesting criminality.
More than one in four Americans older than 65 fall each year, and falls are the leading cause of injury-related death among that age group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deaths from falling occur at a rate of about 64 deaths per 100,000 older adults, it said.
The former president and his children lamented her death in statements online.
Ivanka tweeted: “Heartbroken by the passing of my mother. Mom was brilliant, charming, passionate and wickedly funny. She lived life to the fullest. … I will miss her forever.” Her siblings also shared family photos online.
Ivana, who was born in the Czech Republic, married Donald in 1977. They divorced in 1992.
In the 1980s, Donald and Ivana were one of the most famous power couples in New York, frequently featured in the tabloids with a social profile that seemed to grow at the same rate as the Trump business empire. Throughout their marriage, Ivana, a former skier and model, played an active role in her husband’s businesses.
Following her death, depositions of the former president and two of his adult children — Donald Jr. and Ivanka — in the wide-ranging civil fraud probe of New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) were postponed.
The depositions had originally been scheduled to take place during a six-day window that began Friday.
“In light of the passing of Ivana Trump yesterday, we received a request from counsel for Donald Trump and his children to adjourn all three depositions, which we have agreed to,” Delaney Kempner, a spokeswoman for the New York attorney general’s office, said.
“This is a temporary delay and the depositions will be rescheduled as soon as possible. There is no other information about dates or otherwise to provide at this time.”
I'm not saying somebody showed up at Ivana Trump's place on the upper east in NYC and helped her have a terrible accident. I'm just saying happenstance can seem pretty nasty and dark, especially considering that some of the people in relatively close orbit with guys like Trump and Putin have done the Peter Pan thing off of roofs and out windows, and down staircases - and dead ex-wives tell no tales.
Paranoid Mike says, "Fuck that - somebody definitely got to her. They got to Epstein, didn't they!?! She knew shit and there was probably a highly probable probability that she'd spill the beans, cuz maybe the NY AG's investigators were getting a little too close to something, and anyway, even if she didn't know anything there's no better way to send a signal to every other would-be witness rat to keep their tater traps shut, cuz hey - if we're willing to snuff the mother of the guy's kids...y'know?"
Whew - sorry - just had to get that out. But really, isn't that kinda how we do things now?
WaPo: (pay wall)
Ivana Trump died of ‘blunt impact injuries,’ medical examiner says
Ivana Trump, the first wife of former president Donald Trump, died of “blunt impact injuries” to her torso, according to a report from the New York City chief medical examiner Friday. The manner of death was classified as an accident, the report added.
The Trump family announced that Ivana, 73, mother of Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr., had died at home in Manhattan on Thursday.
“I am very saddened to inform all of those that loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City,” the former president said in a post on his social medial platform Truth Social.
Ivana Trump was found unconscious on a staircase in her East 64th Street home near Central Park after police received an emergency call at 12:40 p.m., and she was pronounced dead at the scene, according to two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the event. New York police detectives began an investigation and found no sign of forced entry or obvious sign of trauma suggesting criminality.
More than one in four Americans older than 65 fall each year, and falls are the leading cause of injury-related death among that age group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deaths from falling occur at a rate of about 64 deaths per 100,000 older adults, it said.
The former president and his children lamented her death in statements online.
Ivanka tweeted: “Heartbroken by the passing of my mother. Mom was brilliant, charming, passionate and wickedly funny. She lived life to the fullest. … I will miss her forever.” Her siblings also shared family photos online.
Ivana, who was born in the Czech Republic, married Donald in 1977. They divorced in 1992.
In the 1980s, Donald and Ivana were one of the most famous power couples in New York, frequently featured in the tabloids with a social profile that seemed to grow at the same rate as the Trump business empire. Throughout their marriage, Ivana, a former skier and model, played an active role in her husband’s businesses.
Following her death, depositions of the former president and two of his adult children — Donald Jr. and Ivanka — in the wide-ranging civil fraud probe of New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) were postponed.
The depositions had originally been scheduled to take place during a six-day window that began Friday.
“In light of the passing of Ivana Trump yesterday, we received a request from counsel for Donald Trump and his children to adjourn all three depositions, which we have agreed to,” Delaney Kempner, a spokeswoman for the New York attorney general’s office, said.
“This is a temporary delay and the depositions will be rescheduled as soon as possible. There is no other information about dates or otherwise to provide at this time.”
Jul 12, 2022
Jan6 Stuff
A lot of folks are wondering why these bozos recorded their plotting and planning. Some of these goons went so far as to have documentarians follow them around with video cameras to catch every move.
Stop wondering. This is one of the hallmarks of authoritarianism, and it fits very well with Timothy Snyder's list of things we need to watch out for ("On Tyranny"):
Obeying in advance
Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. Individuals think ahead about what a repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked.
Trump will never give anyone a direct order to commit some crime for him. But every member of the cult knows he wants all manner of fuckery to happen. And they know they'll be rewarded in some way for it. So they hatch all kinds of weird schemes, and they need to have their valiant efforts documented so they can show the boss what good little devotees they've been.
There's a reason we know so much about the horrendous events that occurred under regimes like Pol Pot and Sadam and Hitler, et al. The Daddy State always develops a very good bureaucracy to keep track of the shit they do - they have to be able to show the boss.
Rachel Maddow: (thru about 20:40)
BTW - These assholes had hand grenades!?!
BTW 2 - "I don't fucking care that they have weapons - they're not here to hurt me..."
This is a guy who's always yammering about "false flag" and "AnitFa in disguise". Why is he not at all concerned that one of "his people" is in fact not one of his people and is in fact there to hurt hm? This is of course also part-n-parcel of the Daddy State bullshit about taking your fantasy version of reality and twisting it and smash-fitting it, so it serves your immediate political need.
Jul 3, 2022
Today's Beau
Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column
The story about the little scrap in the SUV is not the bombshell.
And the story about the story is not the fucking story.
Trump always surrounds himself with people who're less than thoroughly professional. He needs flunkies who will do what he wants done without getting specific instructions, and without getting hung up on trivialities like "is this legal?" and "is this something my mom would be proud to see me doing?".
You don't overthrow American democracy all by yourself.
We don't know what all Trump had in mind for that day. And we don't know everything that was going on with any of his lackeys either.
Was Mark Meadows sitting on the couch casually fuckin' around with his phone because he was just waiting to see how it played out? Cuz he figured on Trump triggering the kind of crisis that makes it easier for him and his gang of Freedom Caucus terrorists to hang Trump for his crimes while seizing power for themselves?
We're in this mess because we've allowed ourselves to be convinced that honor just isn't something we value anymore - it's not something we insist on having our political leaders demonstrate or even talk about.
We've put some very dishonorable people in high positions of great power, and somehow we're shocked to see them behaving dishonorably.
And what's even harder for me to watch is so many "regular Americans" who seem to be OK with it.
A nation of placid uninvolved Eloi
will come to be dominated by a government
of viciously predatory Morlocks.
On Trump's Defense
Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the tussle in the SUV on Jan6, when Trump got so pissed off about not being taken to the Capitol that he grabbed at the steering wheel, and then kinda went for the Secret Service guy who stopped him from grabbing the wheel.
And the wingnuts have all gone crazy jumping up and down on Hutchinson's head, screeching about how it couldn't have happened the way she said Tony Ornato told her it happened etc etc etc.
Y'know what we haven't heard - what we never hear whenever one of these episodes is revealed?
We never hear anyone defend him with, "Nah, man, that can't be - he's too good a guy - he'd never do that."
Jun 30, 2022
Today's Glenn
Glenn Kirschner - Justice Matters
Best breakdown I've heard so far. One thing leads to the next.
If that and not this, then this and not that, and then that and then this.
lack of accountability for one shitty thing,
encourages all the subsequent shitty things
May 23, 2022
Divide-N-Conquer
via Yahoo news
Former President Donald Trump shared a post on his social media platform that appeared to propose or predict a civil war in the U.S.
A Truth Social user suggested “civil war” in response to a March 19 tweet from El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, which was screengrabbed and posted to Truth Social by former Fox Nation host Lara Logan. Trump “retruthed” the comment about civil war.
“The most powerful country in the world is falling so fast, that it makes you rethink what are the real reasons,” Bukele’s tweet read. “Something so big and powerful can’t be destroyed so quickly, unless the enemy comes from within.”
Trump shared a post suggesting a U.S. "civil war."
Bukele, whose extensive Twitter use and hardline immigration policies have led some to designate him a “mini Trump,” has had a tense relationship with the Biden administration. Officials have expressed serious concerns about his commitment to democracy.
His tweet was in response to a Bloomberg News article about rising inflation in the U.S.
- more -
A Truth Social user suggested “civil war” in response to a March 19 tweet from El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, which was screengrabbed and posted to Truth Social by former Fox Nation host Lara Logan. Trump “retruthed” the comment about civil war.
“The most powerful country in the world is falling so fast, that it makes you rethink what are the real reasons,” Bukele’s tweet read. “Something so big and powerful can’t be destroyed so quickly, unless the enemy comes from within.”
Trump shared a post suggesting a U.S. "civil war."
Bukele, whose extensive Twitter use and hardline immigration policies have led some to designate him a “mini Trump,” has had a tense relationship with the Biden administration. Officials have expressed serious concerns about his commitment to democracy.
His tweet was in response to a Bloomberg News article about rising inflation in the U.S.
- more -
Beau Of The Fifth Column
The people most willing to accept and support the idea of civil war are the people who stand to lose the most because of it.
"...enemies within - enemies without..."
Question:
Has the US ever been this polarized?
Answer:
Off and on for as long as I can remember.
Apr 6, 2022
Today's Tweet
This started out as a Reddit post, but Reddit has a particularly annoying habit of deleting posts, so I went out and found a Tweet version instead.
BREAKING UPDATE: One person has been arrested and accused of defacing the LGBTQ Pride Intersection in Delray Beach: https://t.co/VjXq3leUXx pic.twitter.com/puEnmYXzOT
— WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) June 17, 2021
It takes a real dickhead to do that kinda shit, and once the cops nailed his ass, the dickhead's mug shot got posted, and he looks pretty much how you might expect a dickhead like that to look.
faces charges of criminal mischief,
reckless driving with property damage,
and evidence of prejudice,
which elevates the crime to a felony.
FUCK YOU, MAGAt
Dec 16, 2021
Dec 12, 2020
It Could Be A Storm Alright
... just not sure what it'll look like, and whether or not Qult45 will start to behave like normal people or go full-blown Berserker the way they've been talking.
Manhattan D.A. Intensifies Investigation of Trump
State prosecutors in Manhattan have interviewed several employees of President Trump’s bank and insurance broker in recent weeks, according to people with knowledge of the matter, significantly escalating an investigation into the president that he is powerless to stop.
The interviews with people who work for the lender, Deutsche Bank, and the insurance brokerage, Aon, are the latest indication that once Mr. Trump leaves office, he still faces the potential threat of criminal charges that would be beyond the reach of federal pardons.
It remains unclear whether the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., will ultimately bring charges. The prosecutors have been fighting in court for more than a year to obtain Mr. Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns, which they have called central to their investigation. The issue now rests with the Supreme Court.
But lately, Mr. Vance’s office has stepped up its efforts, issuing new subpoenas and questioning witnesses, including some before a grand jury, according to the people with knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.
The grand jury appears to be serving an investigative function, allowing prosecutors to authenticate documents and pursue other leads, rather than considering any charges.
When Mr. Trump returns to private life in January, he will lose the protection from criminal prosecution that his office has afforded him. While The New York Times has reported that he discussed granting pre-emptive pardons to his eldest children before leaving office — and has claimed that he has the power to pardon himself — that authority applies only to federal crimes, and not to state or local investigations like the one being conducted by Mr. Vance’s office.
Mr. Trump, who has maintained he did nothing improper, has railed against the inquiry, calling it a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
The investigation by Mr. Vance, a Democrat, has focused on Mr. Trump’s conduct as a private business owner and whether he or employees at his family business, the Trump Organization, committed financial crimes. It is the only known criminal inquiry into the president.
Employees of Deutsche Bank and Aon, two corporate giants, could be important witnesses. As two of Mr. Trump’s oldest allies — and some of the only mainstream companies willing to do regular business with him — they might offer investigators a rich vein of information about the Trump Organization.
There is no indication that either company is suspected of wrongdoing.
Because grand jury rules require secrecy, prosecutors have disclosed little about the focus of the inquiry and nothing about what investigative steps they have taken. But earlier this year, they suggested in court papers that they were examining possible insurance, tax and bank-related fraud in the president’s corporate dealings.
In recent weeks, Mr. Vance’s prosecutors questioned two Deutsche Bank employees about the bank’s procedures for making lending decisions, according to a person familiar with the interviews. The employees were experts in the bank’s underwriting process, not bankers who worked with the Trump Organization, the person said.
While the focus of those interviews was not on the relationship with Mr. Trump, bank officials expect Mr. Vance’s office to summon them for additional rounds of more specific questions in the near future, the person said.
Glimpses into the investigation have come in court records during the bitter and protracted legal battle over a subpoena for eight years of Mr. Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns and other financial records.
A month after Mr. Vance’s office demanded the documents from the president’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, in August 2019, Mr. Trump sued to block compliance with the subpoena. The case has twisted its way through the federal courts, with the president losing at every turn, and is now in front of the Supreme Court for the second time.
Danny Frost, a spokesman for Mr. Vance, declined to comment on recent moves in the investigation. Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s general counsel, declined to comment, but recently said that the company’s practices complied with the law and called the investigation a “fishing expedition.”
Aon confirmed that the company had received a subpoena for documents from the district attorney’s office but declined to comment on the interviews with prosecutors. “As is our policy, we intend to cooperate with all regulatory bodies, including providing copies of all documents requested by those bodies,” a company spokeswoman said in a statement.
Deutsche Bank, Mr. Trump’s primary lender since the late 1990s, received a subpoena last year from the district attorney and has said it is cooperating with the inquiry.
In court papers, the prosecutors have cited public reports of Mr. Trump’s business dealings as legal justification for their inquiry, including a Washington Post article that concluded the president may have inflated his net worth and the value of his properties to lenders and insurers.
Michael D. Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and fixer who turned on him after pleading guilty to federal charges, also told Congress in February 2019 that Mr. Trump and his employees manipulated his net worth to suit his interests.
“It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes,” he said in testimony before the House Oversight Committee.
Mr. Trump’s supporters have noted that Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to lying to Congress and accused him of lying again to earn a reduced prison sentence.
The Trump Organization’s lawyers are also likely to argue to prosecutors that Mr. Trump could not have duped Deutsche Bank because the bank did its own analysis of Mr. Trump’s net worth.
Over the years, employees and executives inside the bank thought that Mr. Trump was overvaluing some of his assets by as much as 70 percent, according to current and former bank officials. Deutsche Bank still decided to lend Mr. Trump’s company hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade, concluding that he was a safe lending risk in part because he had more than enough money and other assets to personally guarantee the debt.
The prosecutors’ interviews with the employees were not the only recent activity in the investigation. Last month, The Times reported that Mr. Vance’s office had subpoenaed the Trump Organization for records related to tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees, some of which appear to have gone to the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump.
According to people with knowledge of the matter, the subpoena sought information about fees paid to TTT Consulting L.L.C., an apparent reference to Ms. Trump and other members of her family. Ms. Trump was an executive officer of the Trump companies that made the payments, meaning she appears to have been paid as a consultant while also working for the Trump Organization.
Mr. Garten, the Trump Organization’s general counsel, argued in a statement at the time that the subpoena was part of an “ongoing attempt to harass the company.” He added that “everything was done in strict compliance with applicable law and under the advice of counsel and tax experts.”
Mr. Vance’s investigation has spanned more than two years and shifted focus over time. When the investigation began, it examined the Trump Organization’s role in hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Mr. Trump. Prosecutors were examining how the company recorded a reimbursement to Mr. Cohen for one of the payments. Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance violations for his role in the scheme.
A state grand jury convened by Mr. Vance’s office heard testimony from at least one witness about that issue last year, according to a person with knowledge of that testimony, but the payments have receded as a central focus of the inquiry.
If some of this materializes in ways that seriously threaten to send Trump to prison, things could get really dicey.
Manhattan D.A. Intensifies Investigation of Trump
State prosecutors in Manhattan have interviewed several employees of President Trump’s bank and insurance broker in recent weeks, according to people with knowledge of the matter, significantly escalating an investigation into the president that he is powerless to stop.
The interviews with people who work for the lender, Deutsche Bank, and the insurance brokerage, Aon, are the latest indication that once Mr. Trump leaves office, he still faces the potential threat of criminal charges that would be beyond the reach of federal pardons.
It remains unclear whether the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., will ultimately bring charges. The prosecutors have been fighting in court for more than a year to obtain Mr. Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns, which they have called central to their investigation. The issue now rests with the Supreme Court.
But lately, Mr. Vance’s office has stepped up its efforts, issuing new subpoenas and questioning witnesses, including some before a grand jury, according to the people with knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.
The grand jury appears to be serving an investigative function, allowing prosecutors to authenticate documents and pursue other leads, rather than considering any charges.
When Mr. Trump returns to private life in January, he will lose the protection from criminal prosecution that his office has afforded him. While The New York Times has reported that he discussed granting pre-emptive pardons to his eldest children before leaving office — and has claimed that he has the power to pardon himself — that authority applies only to federal crimes, and not to state or local investigations like the one being conducted by Mr. Vance’s office.
Mr. Trump, who has maintained he did nothing improper, has railed against the inquiry, calling it a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
The investigation by Mr. Vance, a Democrat, has focused on Mr. Trump’s conduct as a private business owner and whether he or employees at his family business, the Trump Organization, committed financial crimes. It is the only known criminal inquiry into the president.
Employees of Deutsche Bank and Aon, two corporate giants, could be important witnesses. As two of Mr. Trump’s oldest allies — and some of the only mainstream companies willing to do regular business with him — they might offer investigators a rich vein of information about the Trump Organization.
There is no indication that either company is suspected of wrongdoing.
Because grand jury rules require secrecy, prosecutors have disclosed little about the focus of the inquiry and nothing about what investigative steps they have taken. But earlier this year, they suggested in court papers that they were examining possible insurance, tax and bank-related fraud in the president’s corporate dealings.
In recent weeks, Mr. Vance’s prosecutors questioned two Deutsche Bank employees about the bank’s procedures for making lending decisions, according to a person familiar with the interviews. The employees were experts in the bank’s underwriting process, not bankers who worked with the Trump Organization, the person said.
While the focus of those interviews was not on the relationship with Mr. Trump, bank officials expect Mr. Vance’s office to summon them for additional rounds of more specific questions in the near future, the person said.
Glimpses into the investigation have come in court records during the bitter and protracted legal battle over a subpoena for eight years of Mr. Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns and other financial records.
A month after Mr. Vance’s office demanded the documents from the president’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, in August 2019, Mr. Trump sued to block compliance with the subpoena. The case has twisted its way through the federal courts, with the president losing at every turn, and is now in front of the Supreme Court for the second time.
Danny Frost, a spokesman for Mr. Vance, declined to comment on recent moves in the investigation. Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s general counsel, declined to comment, but recently said that the company’s practices complied with the law and called the investigation a “fishing expedition.”
Aon confirmed that the company had received a subpoena for documents from the district attorney’s office but declined to comment on the interviews with prosecutors. “As is our policy, we intend to cooperate with all regulatory bodies, including providing copies of all documents requested by those bodies,” a company spokeswoman said in a statement.
Deutsche Bank, Mr. Trump’s primary lender since the late 1990s, received a subpoena last year from the district attorney and has said it is cooperating with the inquiry.
In court papers, the prosecutors have cited public reports of Mr. Trump’s business dealings as legal justification for their inquiry, including a Washington Post article that concluded the president may have inflated his net worth and the value of his properties to lenders and insurers.
Michael D. Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and fixer who turned on him after pleading guilty to federal charges, also told Congress in February 2019 that Mr. Trump and his employees manipulated his net worth to suit his interests.
“It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes,” he said in testimony before the House Oversight Committee.
Mr. Trump’s supporters have noted that Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to lying to Congress and accused him of lying again to earn a reduced prison sentence.
The Trump Organization’s lawyers are also likely to argue to prosecutors that Mr. Trump could not have duped Deutsche Bank because the bank did its own analysis of Mr. Trump’s net worth.
Over the years, employees and executives inside the bank thought that Mr. Trump was overvaluing some of his assets by as much as 70 percent, according to current and former bank officials. Deutsche Bank still decided to lend Mr. Trump’s company hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade, concluding that he was a safe lending risk in part because he had more than enough money and other assets to personally guarantee the debt.
The prosecutors’ interviews with the employees were not the only recent activity in the investigation. Last month, The Times reported that Mr. Vance’s office had subpoenaed the Trump Organization for records related to tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees, some of which appear to have gone to the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump.
According to people with knowledge of the matter, the subpoena sought information about fees paid to TTT Consulting L.L.C., an apparent reference to Ms. Trump and other members of her family. Ms. Trump was an executive officer of the Trump companies that made the payments, meaning she appears to have been paid as a consultant while also working for the Trump Organization.
Mr. Garten, the Trump Organization’s general counsel, argued in a statement at the time that the subpoena was part of an “ongoing attempt to harass the company.” He added that “everything was done in strict compliance with applicable law and under the advice of counsel and tax experts.”
Mr. Vance’s investigation has spanned more than two years and shifted focus over time. When the investigation began, it examined the Trump Organization’s role in hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Mr. Trump. Prosecutors were examining how the company recorded a reimbursement to Mr. Cohen for one of the payments. Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance violations for his role in the scheme.
A state grand jury convened by Mr. Vance’s office heard testimony from at least one witness about that issue last year, according to a person with knowledge of that testimony, but the payments have receded as a central focus of the inquiry.
Nov 25, 2020
Call It What It Is
Here's MSNBC indulging their fantasy of being a bulldog.
Trump's GSA tells Biden the transition can begin
Establishing a line here is a critical function of journalism. Which is why it's important for the media to call what Trump's campaign tried to set in motion an attempted coup.
Richard Grenell, the former acting director of national intelligence, former ambassador to Germany and current Trumpist agitator, offered some sage advice to reporters Thursday: "The journalism industry will improve when there is Truth in labeling its reporting."
I think that's true. Which is why, Ric, I also think it's important for the media to call what President Donald Trump's campaign has tried to set in motion these past few weeks an attempted coup. Trump tried to instigate an "autogolpe" (also known as a self-coup). This particular label is terrifying and hard to fathom, but it is also the more accurate way to describe what has happened. As of this writing, the Trump campaign's putative putsch failed, with almost comical ineptness. But it also marked a predictably dangerous turn for an autocratic president who can't admit to losing, fair and square.
Here's how Reuters described the situation on Thursday: "A senior Trump campaign official told Reuters the plan was to cast enough doubt on the results in crucial states to persuade Republican legislators to step in and appoint their own slates of electors."
This reporting is backed up by a series of events in states like Michigan, where Trump tried to cajole and pressure state officials into investigating and hopefully overturning the results. Monday, after Michigan did finally certify its result, the administrator of the General Services Administration informed President-elect Joe Biden's campaign in a defensive letter that the agency would order federal agencies to cooperate with a presidential transition.
Reporting is an involved process that aggregates dozens of voices and sorts through motives and intent. Giving the president the benefit of the doubt here would be more biased than just reporting the facts as we know them.
Even so, I know that "coup" is a big word that carries a lot of historical baggage. It shouldn't be used without deliberation. Can there be a coup that doesn't involve a news blackout or tanks in the streets or people cowering in their homes? Perhaps movie coups aren't the best archetypes. Instead, let's evaluate some of the clearer objections.
Provocatively, Indi Samarajiva argues that even when a coup is doomed to fail — and especially when everyone knows that the coup will fail in advance — it can still do damage. Samarajiva lived through what she calls a "student coup" in Sri Lanka, and she writes that America is strong enough to withstand Trump, this time.
But Samarajiva also notes that our democracy encourages bad-faith actors to maximize their power. She is right. We need to establish precedents and laws stronger and deeper than the polite norms we ask presidents to abide by today. We must also re-evaluate our language and narrative; the word here is "coup," and the narrative here is "a coup that did not succeed." Because if the election were closer — if, say, the election came down to only one state — we might have a totally different situation on our hands. And that's scary.
Elsewhere, Trump sympathizer Jay Whig argues that it's unfair to call this a coup because Trump may not even understand what he's doing — he may genuinely believe he won the election. But whether Trump is or isn't knowingly committing sedition doesn't matter. Motive matters far less than intention and consequence. The election was fair; to even try to subvert it while fomenting a demonstrably false conspiracy is a consequence that demands an explanation.
Others, like political scientist Erica de Bruin, argued early on that Trump hadn't actually violated any laws. I concede that this continues to be more or less true. It's true that Trump's lawyers have seemed unwilling to lie in court in the same way that they have in the media. But it is a felony to tamper with the results of a certified election. (Georgia's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, certainly seemed to feel he was being pressured by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to tamper with the certification.) It is also a felony to offer state legislators or presidential electors a thing of value to influence an official decision. Several election law experts wrote Monday that the conduct of Trump's attorneys is grounds for disbarment. Taken in aggregate, this is a political crime — the type that should trigger an impeachment — and an offense against the system itself.
The journalism professor within me, who came of age during a time when accusations of media bias carried more weight, thinks the press should be careful with the word "coup" because it could seem overly partisan. Won't the press lose credibility with Republicans if it gangs up on Trump's post-election machinations? But my wizened self disagrees with my former self.
The press already finds it hard to communicate with people who have personalized politics, who, in the words of Republican never-Trumper Tim Miller, "have been trained to believe that the left is evil incarnate." The conspiracy "sounds so preposterous to everyone else that Republican elected officials can avoid engaging on the merits while they accuse The Media of being mean to them for asking about it and mock liberals for panicking over this subversion of our democracy."
Biden understands that the press's new moral grammar — the president lies; the president cheats on his taxes; the president stokes racial animosity — is a healthy development for journalism in its role as an institutional guardrail against authoritarianism.
He also understands that the media's good instincts can amplify Trump's bad ones. With Trump, a hunch can turn into a tweet, which can turn into a strategy, which can turn into a fait accompli in the space of several minutes. To win, which for Trump means to be the center of attention, is to have an enemy that is suggesting something horrible about you.
Biden wants to draw Trump away from the center of attention. He wants Americans who voted for Trump to focus on his message, mien and mindful transition. The more amped up the rhetoric, the harder Biden's job will become. It will also complicate his informal efforts to reach out to Republican lawmakers.
And yet, the press must not apply a coat of sugar in service of a politician's agenda. Establishing a line here is a critical function of the media. This is how we build those guardrails we like to talk about; we point out what is, and what is not, acceptable in a democracy. In American elections, there is an implicit trust that people in power will cede their positions when they lose, but a lot of that trust is based on actors' proceeding in good faith and being responsive to political cues. Calling out bad-faith politicians who do bad things using executive power is an essential journalistic mission.
But let's not sugarcoat this failed coup
Establishing a line here is a critical function of journalism. Which is why it's important for the media to call what Trump's campaign tried to set in motion an attempted coup.
Richard Grenell, the former acting director of national intelligence, former ambassador to Germany and current Trumpist agitator, offered some sage advice to reporters Thursday: "The journalism industry will improve when there is Truth in labeling its reporting."
I think that's true. Which is why, Ric, I also think it's important for the media to call what President Donald Trump's campaign has tried to set in motion these past few weeks an attempted coup. Trump tried to instigate an "autogolpe" (also known as a self-coup). This particular label is terrifying and hard to fathom, but it is also the more accurate way to describe what has happened. As of this writing, the Trump campaign's putative putsch failed, with almost comical ineptness. But it also marked a predictably dangerous turn for an autocratic president who can't admit to losing, fair and square.
Here's how Reuters described the situation on Thursday: "A senior Trump campaign official told Reuters the plan was to cast enough doubt on the results in crucial states to persuade Republican legislators to step in and appoint their own slates of electors."
This reporting is backed up by a series of events in states like Michigan, where Trump tried to cajole and pressure state officials into investigating and hopefully overturning the results. Monday, after Michigan did finally certify its result, the administrator of the General Services Administration informed President-elect Joe Biden's campaign in a defensive letter that the agency would order federal agencies to cooperate with a presidential transition.
Reporting is an involved process that aggregates dozens of voices and sorts through motives and intent. Giving the president the benefit of the doubt here would be more biased than just reporting the facts as we know them.
Even so, I know that "coup" is a big word that carries a lot of historical baggage. It shouldn't be used without deliberation. Can there be a coup that doesn't involve a news blackout or tanks in the streets or people cowering in their homes? Perhaps movie coups aren't the best archetypes. Instead, let's evaluate some of the clearer objections.
Provocatively, Indi Samarajiva argues that even when a coup is doomed to fail — and especially when everyone knows that the coup will fail in advance — it can still do damage. Samarajiva lived through what she calls a "student coup" in Sri Lanka, and she writes that America is strong enough to withstand Trump, this time.
But Samarajiva also notes that our democracy encourages bad-faith actors to maximize their power. She is right. We need to establish precedents and laws stronger and deeper than the polite norms we ask presidents to abide by today. We must also re-evaluate our language and narrative; the word here is "coup," and the narrative here is "a coup that did not succeed." Because if the election were closer — if, say, the election came down to only one state — we might have a totally different situation on our hands. And that's scary.
Elsewhere, Trump sympathizer Jay Whig argues that it's unfair to call this a coup because Trump may not even understand what he's doing — he may genuinely believe he won the election. But whether Trump is or isn't knowingly committing sedition doesn't matter. Motive matters far less than intention and consequence. The election was fair; to even try to subvert it while fomenting a demonstrably false conspiracy is a consequence that demands an explanation.
Others, like political scientist Erica de Bruin, argued early on that Trump hadn't actually violated any laws. I concede that this continues to be more or less true. It's true that Trump's lawyers have seemed unwilling to lie in court in the same way that they have in the media. But it is a felony to tamper with the results of a certified election. (Georgia's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, certainly seemed to feel he was being pressured by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to tamper with the certification.) It is also a felony to offer state legislators or presidential electors a thing of value to influence an official decision. Several election law experts wrote Monday that the conduct of Trump's attorneys is grounds for disbarment. Taken in aggregate, this is a political crime — the type that should trigger an impeachment — and an offense against the system itself.
The journalism professor within me, who came of age during a time when accusations of media bias carried more weight, thinks the press should be careful with the word "coup" because it could seem overly partisan. Won't the press lose credibility with Republicans if it gangs up on Trump's post-election machinations? But my wizened self disagrees with my former self.
The press already finds it hard to communicate with people who have personalized politics, who, in the words of Republican never-Trumper Tim Miller, "have been trained to believe that the left is evil incarnate." The conspiracy "sounds so preposterous to everyone else that Republican elected officials can avoid engaging on the merits while they accuse The Media of being mean to them for asking about it and mock liberals for panicking over this subversion of our democracy."
Biden understands that the press's new moral grammar — the president lies; the president cheats on his taxes; the president stokes racial animosity — is a healthy development for journalism in its role as an institutional guardrail against authoritarianism.
He also understands that the media's good instincts can amplify Trump's bad ones. With Trump, a hunch can turn into a tweet, which can turn into a strategy, which can turn into a fait accompli in the space of several minutes. To win, which for Trump means to be the center of attention, is to have an enemy that is suggesting something horrible about you.
Biden wants to draw Trump away from the center of attention. He wants Americans who voted for Trump to focus on his message, mien and mindful transition. The more amped up the rhetoric, the harder Biden's job will become. It will also complicate his informal efforts to reach out to Republican lawmakers.
And yet, the press must not apply a coat of sugar in service of a politician's agenda. Establishing a line here is a critical function of the media. This is how we build those guardrails we like to talk about; we point out what is, and what is not, acceptable in a democracy. In American elections, there is an implicit trust that people in power will cede their positions when they lose, but a lot of that trust is based on actors' proceeding in good faith and being responsive to political cues. Calling out bad-faith politicians who do bad things using executive power is an essential journalistic mission.
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