For most of us, it’s important to our sanity and emotional health to take note of what’s going well, not just what isn’t going well or even what could go wrong. Courtesy of (fake) Jack Smith:
Diary of the Mad King #4:
The wretched harbingers of justice continue to darken my days.
Despite my attempts to dissuade them, threaten them, turn my subjects against them, they remain undeterred, gaining in speed and strength by the day.
It is the ultimate cruelty to be robbed of what I crave most. Power, prestige and legacy.
I watch helplessly at Letitia empties my coffers.
As Jack crushes my legal gambits.
As Fani turns my pawns against me.
I can sense the dire-wolves approach, the dragons breath on my neck.
I can feel the relentless march of those yearning to end my terrible reign.
The final battles loom like an ominous prophecy.
Let us savor.
Totally open thread!
Villago Delenda Est
To address the last thread in the new one, James Bennet is human sewage.
To address the current thread, yes, my Schadenfreude meter is pegged at the distress of the Mango Menace. May he suffer interminably.
Alison Rose
For those who didn’t check David’s thread earlier, here’s a Google doc where you can enter your Bluesky username so we can all find each there and keep the echo chamber…uh…echoing! :P
I will note: I had difficult finding a couple of folks via the Bluesky name search, even though I dectuple-checked the spellings. I think there might be a tiny lil’ bug for them to squish out there, but I was able to find them by going to another jackal’s following list.
H.E.Wolf
Our local County Councilmember (a Democrat, hooray!) just sent out a year-end newsletter with all of the accomplishments of 2023. It’s very impressive, on a wide variety of issues.
She also included a message to her constituents on the occasion of her retirement at the end of this year. She talked about her sense of vocation as a politician, and how it has meant so much to be able to make a positive difference.
It’s heartening to be reminded that many admirable, dedicated people go into this profession, and make a difference for the better.
brantl
DumbOld J Dump, the shit that keeps on shitting.
WaterGirl
@Alison Rose, are folks here more interested in talking on blue sky instead of balloon juice?
trollhattan
What’s at stake November 2024, part the infinity. Trump kills this agreement as soon as he hits the presidential barcalounger.
I can’t find a list of which dams, but four are a LOT and the Lower Snake is ginormous. Trump, meanwhile, has never eaten fish.
Raoul Paste
Make it so
Donatellonerd
@WaterGirl: no!! not that i talk much of anywhere.
Nettoyeur
I want to see Trump’s spawn turn on him.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: I guess we just need to make sure that he doesn’t win!
WaterGirl
@Nettoyeur: well, Junior did say that Trump would pick Nikki Haley over junior’s dead body!
So there’s that!
trollhattan
Lemieux @ LGM has an important post on SCOTUS inside shenanigans to make Dobbs happen. Alito is a fucking monster; some of his coworkers find that dreamy.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/12/inside-the-destruction-of-reproductive-freedom-in-america
Take deep breaths before entering.
West of the Rockies
@Nettoyeur:
I want him rendered irrelevant and powerless (along with Putin), whether by incarceration, disease, sudden advanced age, or mortal expiration.
trollhattan
@WaterGirl:
Trump picking an attention…hound like Haley seems unpossible. She loves the camera.
Spanish Moss
@WaterGirl: Not me! I love this place and I do not want to join any kind of social media site.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: I saw that earlier, and I couldn’t bring myself to read it. Quick summary for those of us who don’t have the stomach for it?
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: there with some speculation yesterday that Trump was thinking about choosing Haley but I don’t remember where I read it!
Marcopolo
Judgement in the Guiliani defamation case:
Kyle Cheney@kyledcheney
4m
THE DECISION:
Defamation
Moss awarded: $16,998,000
Freeman awarded: $16,171,000
Emotional distress
Moss awarded: $20 million
Freeman awarded: $20 million
Punitive damages
Total: $75 million
Okay to drink to Rudy’s pauperization!
Suzanne
@trollhattan: I read that earlier and seethed with rage.
They don’t even have the goddamn spine to be transparent about their loathing of women. They treat us with contempt.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: Oh, that’s not what I meant. Just that everyone, or most people, seem to be interested in migrating their social media presence there and we’ve all been offering up our handles here and there. I thought it would be handy to have one source. It wasn’t meant to be a dig at the blog.
WaterGirl
@Marcopolo: great news! I guess the question now is does Rudy actually have any money???
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@WaterGirl:
They will talk on the blog.
They will talk on BlueSky.
They will talk like TBogg
They will comment on pie.
They do not like X and Elon.
They will migrate until X is gone.
Suzanne
@Marcopolo: So I have a general question about these cases. Maybe you know. How does the court actually collect? Do they, like, auto-debit his bank account? Do they wait for Rudy to show up with a check? How do they enforce it? Like, Alex Jones is never going to pay all that money he’s supposed to. Can the court garnish wages?
Villago Delenda Est
@Marcopolo: Everything Oozy owns should be confiscated and liquidated to satisfy the judgement. If that’s not enough, he should be compelled to work for the plaintiffs compensated at minimum wage until the judgement is paid off.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Marcopolo: Holy moly. Excellent! What Rudy did to those two women was unconscionable.
WaterGirl
@Marcopolo: Kyle Chinese reporting 148 million to them. I wonder where the difference is coming from.
I’m sitting in the parking lot at the vet waiting for them to call me back in, so I can’t really check!
Harrison Wesley
@Marcopolo: That gave me a smile. If he doesn’t have the money on hand, I’m sure he can get a gig at Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Marcopolo: Rumor (that I don’t quite believe*) is that he’s broke, but where do judgments like this fall with a bankrupt, officially or unofficially? Alex Wagner (IIRC) said last night he’s been dropping the price on his UES apartment from $6M. I hope Ms Freeman and Ms Moss move to the head of the line and just get teh deed, but the law rarely seems to act so cleanly.
*I think he has a couple of kids, grandkids, how much could he shelter in some kind of trust
ETA: I’m sure he’ll at least try to appeal, if he can find lawyers. Could he do a fund-raiser? Could The Beast still ask his Palm Beach marks to cough up $100K a plate to help this broken, booze-addled old wreck to drag this out? Can Freeman-Moss still go after trump on similar grounds? Did Don Jr or Eric ever cross a line in the desperate quest to hear, “I love you”?
rikyrah
@trollhattan:
The arrogance of this muthaphucka, who seems to be upset that half the population isn’t taking the loss of body autonomy lying down.
How dare we!
Jeffro
@Marcopolo: I just saw that!
can there be ANY doubt that #ETTD?
Harrison Wesley
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I thought he owed buckets of $$ to his ex-wives.
rikyrah
@WaterGirl:
Nope.
I don’t think it’s a good comparison.
Some of us are just trying to find an alternative to Twitter, now that Apartheid Clyde has destroyed it.
rikyrah
@Marcopolo:
YESSSSSSS
YESSSSSS
YESSSSSS
Jeffro
The Rudy news is not up on Fox News dot com yet…I’m guessing they’re trying to figure out how to spin it.
BEST WISHES ON THAT, Fox!
Jinchi
I fully expect Ivanka to betray him once his senility debilitates him completely. She is her father’s daughter after all. But not before his political grift machine is over. Don Jr. will be blindsided and left with all the legal consequences. Eric won’t realize what’s going on until the dust has settled.
As for the two spares, they’ll fnd that all records of his paternity have been expunged and that they were written out of the will.
Ohio Mom
@WaterGirl: It would be just like Trump to tease this one and that one by hinting he’s thinking of offering them the number two spot. And in addition to driving his rivals nuts, it’s another set of news pieces about him.
I know he’s done with Pence but Pence was a perfect VP for Trump, a complete milk toast. I have trouble imaging him choosing Haley, a loud, energetic, assertive woman who lies as easily as he does. Too much competition. She’s easier on the eyes as well (I am slightly revolted at myself for using positive words to describe Haley. Absolute hate her).
Marcopolo
@Suzanne: lol, I will let any lawyers here w/ experience in issues like this answer that, but pretty sure there will be liens placed on all his properties. in a different defamation case in Idaho, the local hospital won their case against Ammon Bundy (remember him?) and the courts actually stepped in to rescind Bundy’s recent sale of his house to a friend (his attempt to get the house’s value outside of any forfeiture) and awarded the house to the hospital.
dmsilev
@Marcopolo: Good.
Doubt that Giuliani is worth anywhere near that much, so they’ll be pursuing him for the rest of his sorry life for whatever assets he has.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Harrison Wesley: I’d bet a kidney Judi Nathan is praying for a subpoena
listening to MSNBC and it sounds like Rudi’s lawyers want to physically drag him away from the microphones and he won’t budge
Ohio Mom
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I assume that Trump has at least some money stashed overseas, if only on the advice of his staff.
But I could also be convinced he is too dumb to have done that (I’m not saying I approve of off-shore accounts, just that they seem to be SOP for the ultra-wealthy).
dmsilev
@WaterGirl: Here’s a breakdown, from the Post:
The reputational damage numbers are oddly specific; wonder how they were determined.
Marcopolo
@WaterGirl: Add it all up. That figure checks out. Five different numbers.
Suzanne
@Marcopolo: I want them to just clear his bank accounts to $0. Automatically. Let him couchsurf and go to the food bank.
Jinchi
@Ohio Mom: Trump will not pick anyone until they publicly grovel before him and then he’ll continue to let them wait while he gets the rest to grovel as well.
Haley could easily end up as this year’s Chris Christie.
hilts
@Marcopolo:
Rudy Giuliani is the scum of the Earth and I’m thrilled by this verdict!
However, I’ve heard numerous reports that Rudy is virtually broke so I don’t know how Freeman and Moss have any way of actually collecting a fraction of the money to which they’re justly entitled.
Uncle Cosmo
(deleted, already covered)
OlFroth
Liquidate all his assets, and if he can’t satisfy the judgement, provide him with a job doing something useful, but demeaning to him. Janitorial services comes to mind. Then garnish his wages from that job, allowing him just enough money to pay for a room in a flop house and basic nutrition.
Marcopolo
@Suzanne: OR…this made me laugh
“I don’t think you understand the extent to which Giuliani is about to be penniless. It will be fine, though, because come next year he will likely have a roof over his head at government expense.”
from the dick Nixon parody acct on twitter
Jeffro
I don’t have the ability to get a hashtag going, start a viral campaign of any kind, or launch a movement…
…but in this case, if I could, I would and I’d call it “MAKE TRUMP PAY RUDY!”
After all, by dragging his best bud Rudy into the 2020 election lies and schemes, trump just cost Rudy $148M! Surely Mr. Billionaire Guy could cover that with his pocket change, to make up for what he did?
Gretchen
@dmsilev: I didn’t realize that Moss lost her job and her partner, as well as friends, and had to move. She couldn’t even get a job at Chick fil A because of the defamation, so I think she got more than her mom for a lifetime of lost wages.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Funny thing about viral phenomena, you never know which little gern will thrive.
Suzanne
@Marcopolo: Can they garnish his prison wages? I can hope.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Marcopolo:
trollhattan
@WaterGirl: Am not qualified, even a little, to accurately summarize but my takeaway is Alito performed numerous procedural shenanigans in orchestrating his opinion draft becoming the ruling with virtually no changes. The one that was leaked, by whom still not answered, but probably Alito because the effect was cutting Roberts and Breyer off at the knees, from softening the ruling.
The icing on the shit cake is Roberts disallowing the dissent–a rare unanimous one–to be read aloud in court.
wjca
Perhaps more, does he have any assets which he can be forced to sell? Also wonder of pensions, IRAs, future earnings, etc. can be attached. Here’s hoping.
kalakal
@WaterGirl: Hard no for me
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: despicable.
kalakal
@WaterGirl:
Not any more
mrmoshpotato
(fake) Jack Smith gives the Soviet shitpile mobster conmanbaby way too good of a grasp of the English language.
mrmoshpotato
@Marcopolo: Cheers!
Scout211
I hope not. There are quite a few jackals (like me) who comment here and are not on any social media.
Layer8Problem
@WaterGirl: Not Bluesky. Not now anyway. Maybe someday, when I’m convinced it really is “billionaire-proof” or “techbro-proof”.
Jay
Suburban Mom
@trollhattan: That is a New York Times article. The link up high on the LGM post goes to the full article on the Times site. And it is truly disturbing.
Ksmiami
@trollhattan: I can’t wait to get even with the shitheads on the not Supreme Court… Vengeance will happen.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jay: Hamburders
Barry
@trollhattan: “Trump picking an attention…hound like Haley seems unpossible. She loves the camera.”
IMHO, his one and only criteria will be loyalty. He doesn’t want another Pence, who had that one moment of honesty at the worst time (for Trump).