In this morning’s open thread, valued commenter Baud noted that Anne Laurie “has been fighting the gaslighting every morning for four years” in those threads, and I think that’s true and deserves additional acknowledgement. She highlights the Biden administration’s accomplishments as studiously as the overpaid media celebrities ignore them. I am thankful for her work.
My mind runs a different way, so I’m going to serve up some schadenfreude-infused amuse bouche this morning to highlight Deplorati consternation and failure. First up, an Arizona grand jury ensnared a passel of inept election cheaters yesterday. (WaPo)
PHOENIX — An Arizona grand jury on Wednesday indicted seven attorneys or aides affiliated with Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign as well as 11 Arizona Republicans on felony charges related to their alleged efforts to subvert Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, according to an announcement by the state attorney general.
Those indicted include former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Christina Bobb, top campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn and former campaign aide Mike Roman. They are accused of allegedly aiding an unsuccessful strategy to award the state’s electoral votes to Trump instead of Biden after the 2020 election. Also charged are the Republicans who signed paperwork on Dec. 14, 2020, that falsely purported Trump was the rightful winner, including former state party chair Kelli Ward, two state senators and Tyler Bowyer, a GOP national committeeman and chief operating officer of Turning Point Action, the campaign arm of the pro-Trump conservative group Turning Point USA.
Trump was not charged, but he is described in the indictment as an unindicted co-conspirator.
Well, indict that motherfucker too! Okay, I don’t want to appear greedy, so I’ll say it’s good to see rancid dumpling Boris Epshteyn in hot water. He’s an underrated Trump Hellmouth villain, IMO.
Also, it’s hilarious and ironic that Christina Bobb is among the indicted cheaters since, as TPM noted, the RNC put her in charge of “election integrity” last month. That’s like thinking it’s a good idea to put a greedy-ass Trump family member in charge of dispersing RNC donations. Oh wait…
In other news of Deplorati tribulations, Jim Hoft, the Dumbest Man on the Internet™️, announced that his blog, Gateway Pundit, which has functioned as a firehose of the dumbest lies for the far-right since time immemorial, will enter bankruptcy: (WaPo)
Since its launch in 2004, the site has become a prolific clearinghouse for conspiracy theories about the election, school shootings, and other topics, helping to funnel such flimsy stories from the fringes of the internet to the broader pro-Trump right thanks to its substantial audience.
But all those conspiracy theories have had a cost for Jim Hoft, the Missouri blogger who founded Gateway Pundit. In a message on the site, Hoft said its parent company would file for bankruptcy because it was under attack from “progressive liberal” lawsuits. Hoft said the bankruptcy filing would help “consolidate” the lawsuits…
While he didn’t name which lawsuits he was referencing, the site is being sued for claims of defamation and infliction of emotional distress by Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, two Georgia election workers who say they faced threats after the site leveled baseless accusations of ballot fraud against them.
Kudos to Ms. Freeman and Moss, who did the heroic work of wresting an enormous settlement out of Giuliani in another state. They may not ever see any money from that broke-ass creep, but he’s now compelled to beg the court not to let creditors seize his Florida condo. May those ladies similarly drain Hoft of money and influence until he’s a mumbling pile of desiccated cottage cheese curds.
Also, here’s hoping Trump has a terrible day in court that yields an abundance of additional schadenfreude snacks. My faith in our legal system has been badly tattered over the past several years, but by dog, sometimes it works as intended.
As a symbol of the system’s decidedly mixed health, we have two courtroom scenes to contemplate today. In one, the Defendant is compelled to sit his orange ass down and keep his big fat yap shut in a Manhattan courtroom, like the common fraudster he is.
In the second, the FedSoc-captured portion of the U.S. Supreme Court in D.C. is entertaining the ludicrous question of whether their benefactor is a monarch or a citizen. No matter what they decide, they’ve already tossed the embarrassing fascist thug the lifeline of delay, and history should hang that around their necks.
Open thread!
Supreme Court Oral Arguments on Presidential Immunity at 10 am
Old School
Three cheers for Anne Laurie!
And cheers for Betty Cracker too!
And WaterGirl!
And…etc.
cope
Let’s also take a moment to chuckle at the news that The Gateway Pundit is filing chapter 11 bankruptcy as a result of the Freeman/Moss legal actions against them.
ETA a link to more information:
theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/24/gateway-pundit-rightwing-website-bankruptcy
Elizabelle
Deplorati. Perfect word for gruesome people.
Villago Delenda Est
@cope: The Hoft twins need to be delegated to penury for their pernicious lying.
Yutsano
A Schadenfreude thread? Oh yay!
I have a contribution to the table. Looks like our esteemed Senator from Calgary is trouble with my agency. Gotta love shell payments that aren’t well hidden!
opiejeanne
Great post, Betty Cracker, and I love the term “deplorati”. It’s very fitting. You have such a way with words.
I read yesterday that it was Kelli Ward who was put in charge of election integrity. Was that wrong?
opiejeanne
@Villago Delenda Est: There are two of them? Mercy!
thruppence
@opiejeanne: In right-speak “election integrity” means “make sure Republicans win”
Gin & Tonic
And cheers to BCrack for getting the diacriticals right in the hed.
Yutsano
Okay the writers are getting VERY lazy right now.
NotMax
Barrett is not buying what Sauer is selling.
Betty Cracker
@opiejeanne: TPM (linked above) and NBC both say it’s Bobb, but maybe Ward has a related position? Both are indicted!
NotMax
#11 – wrong thread.
opiejeanne
@thruppence: I know, and I find it very entertaining that whichever one it is in charge of “election integrity” is charged with election fraud. So much schadenfreude I might faint.
opiejeanne
@Betty Cracker: Yes, thanks. It really doesn’t matter as long as they ALL go down for this, every last one of them. I’m feeling more than a little bloodthirsty these days when it comes to these people.
UncleEbeneezer
I assume the AZ AG seriously considered charging Trump but realized that a Grand Jury would be unlikely to indict, based on the facts/law.
Ruckus
Christina Bobb was hired to insure that there was NO doubt about election reengineering.
Betty Cracker
Bill came home early and is listening to the SCOTUS hearing on the radio (unlike Mr. Normie to behave this way). The Trump dude’s voice is working my frazzled nerves like a box grater on a ripe tomato.
kindness
Thank you for my French lesson today Betty. I took Spanish in high school but do appreciate French. Amuse bouche… so many possibilities.
Redshift
@opiejeanne:
It’s the principle Republicans have operated by for my entire adult life: “We know they’re cheating even though we have no evidence, so we have to cheat or they’d have an unfair advantage!”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Gin & Tonic:
Going forward, that’ll be how I refer to that superb front pager.
Hungry Joe
Oh, my: “rancid dumpling Boris Ephshteyn,” “mumbling pile of desiccated cottage cheese curds” (Hoft). I don’t know if Betty Cracker wordsmiths her wondrously perfect descriptions for hours on end or if they come to her in effortless flashes of brilliance, but either way, as a professional writer who has never once conjured up a respectable insult, I am in awe, and then in awe some more.
Raoul Paste
Somehow, “mumbling” and “cottage cheese“ go together. Well done
artem1s
Moral arc baby. I hope BIden put Obama’s rug back in the Oval Office. I hoped they burned whatever was left of the ketchup infused rag that the former occupant shat on daily.
Scout211
Did anyone cover this strange story?
The article at HuffPost posted the mocking Twitter responses. It’s a fun read.
WaterGirl
Great idea to have a schadenfreude post as a complement to the other two posts.
Something for everyone!
JMG
@Betty Cracker: Sounds like a sports talk radio host having a psychotic break after the home team’s pick in the NFL draft.
Sure Lurkalot
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
You can keep the bean juice. I am lost and worthless without my morning BCrack…
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Why the hell is the former Japanese Prime Minister visiting Trump????
Redshift
I think it was covered here yesterday, but one of my favorite bits of schadenfreude is Rep. Comer’s whining about looking for a way to end the impeachment investigation with his “reputation” intact. Apparently he has delusions about selling higher office.
I assume he means his reputation with the wingnuts, since he’s a clown to everyone else. But it’s hard to believe he can end up with any reputation other than the man who led a ludicrous witch hunt (to normal people) and the man who failed to impeach the Biden Crime Family™ to wingnuts.
Redshift
@Raoul Paste: And of course the brilliance of a “rancid dumpling” being in “hot water”.
Jay C
@Redshift:
I think that may be an autocorrect typo for “seeking”; but then, it DOES work this way, too….
Betty Cracker
@Hungry Joe: & @Raoul Paste: That’s very kind — thanks!
@Scout211: A tottering pile of orange-shellacked turds pretending he’s still president! Of all the infinite abominations of the Trump Experience, his frequent turns as embarrassment to the nation are somehow the most unbearable. For me anyway.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Redshift: Probably stealing from elsewhere, but if Comer wants to come out of the impeachment debacle with his reputation intact, he’s going to need a time machine.
Redshift
@Villago Delenda Est:
Wait, there are two of them? I think I’m just as happy I never learned that before.
Redshift
@Jay C: autocorrect in my nemesis…
Peke Daddy
@Hungry Joe: She’s serving up the right wing their just deserts of red herrings in whine sauce.
Scout211
LOL. I was googling to try to find the answer to your question, when I found this.
(It’s an online auction site).
It’s the exact same key that he is giving to the former Japanese Prime Minister. It was sold at auction for $3,670!
I wonder how many were produced and if Trump is selling them for extra cash now. You know he didn’t leave them at the White House 🤣🤣
Betty Cracker
Joe Biden was in Tampa on Tuesday, and next week, VP Harris will visit the state on the day the 6-week abortion ban takes effect. (TBT) I wasn’t sure the campaign was serious about making a play for Florida, but they’re putting in the work so far.
Mike in NC
Always assumed that Boris Epshteyn — born in Russia and a law school buddy of Kushner — reported directly to Putin’s office.
WaterGirl
@Redshift:
That horse is already out of the barn.
That ship has sailed.
Too late, motherfucker!
scav
@Scout211: Just struck me how similar bog-standard diplomacy is with the necessary caregiving trick of following along with a demented person’s delusions.
Sure Lurkalot
We’re way past where The Onion’s headlines are upstaged by real life but between a party of violent reactionaries and late-stage capitalism, here we are fucking inevitably and apparently stuck.
Scout211
But enough about Judge Cannon . . .
Brachiator
I love this, especially because too many Republicans are still pushing the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
Bankruptcy is too good for this scum. The idea that right wing lunatics can lie about people, and damage their lives and, what, claim that it’s just their free speech, sickens me.
japa21
@Betty Cracker: I have a feeling that it is as much to push down ballot races and the abortion initiative as anything else. If they can get people out for the initiative, and give it the Dem imprimatur, it will help up and down the ticket.
Kay
I think the state prosecutions for election interference are very important. There need to be consequences or we are going to be stuck with this lunacy every single election, forever.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Oh, I’m glad. Florida is toobig and diverse to give up on. Crack the code! :)
hueyplong
@Kay: Yes. Yes. Yes.
Just like the multitude of J6 prosecutions will chill MAGAt coup activity, whether because of fear of consequences or their paranoid conspiracy theories about being duped into action by Antifa/FBI agents.
3Sice
@scav:
He is sinking faster than anybody wants to admit.
Kay
I really loathe anti vaxxers. I have a friend who has lymphoma- late stage, she’s in a tough situation. The cancer care center where she goes for treatment set her up with a support group and the group has been taken over by anti vaxxers and health woo-woo nutcases. They were scaring the hell out of her telling her her medical team are only in it for the money and that her cancer treatment is harming her. It’s just disgusting behavior. I told her to tell the cancer center – tell them they have to monitor these groups they’re sending people to. It isn’t fair to stick her with RFK Jr and Joe Rogan grifters at such a vulnerable time in her life. Creeps.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
You just know at one or more of “his” properties Trump has an Oval Office replica so he can sit at the desk and pretend presidentin’–by himself and for guests.
Whether he held back on gold-leafing everything shall remain a mystery for now.
hueyplong
“Emptywheel” thinks Alito should be asked whether immunity applies if a female president gets an abortion.
japa21
@Kay: I think “loathe” is too mild a term for those people.
sab
@hueyplong: OMG!
trollhattan
@Kay:
Jesus Christ that’s like putting an army of Matt Gaetzes in charge of a home for at-risk teen girls. Is anybody paying attention?
Kay
@hueyplong:
Boards of Elections jobs and appointments are good jobs in Ohio, especially in rural areas. They come with health insurance and state retirement and one doesn’t need a college degree. The Republicans who hold the jobs need to know if they put their cult leader ahead of the voters in their county they will be fired. They’ll clean up their act – it’s the best job many of them are ever going to get. They can be replaced with people who take the duty and oath seriously in a heartbeat.
If the local Trumpists want to the throw an election to Dear Leader they should be scared of consequences, including losing a good job.
sdhays
I just can’t get over the story in Politico that Kay linked to in the earlier thread. The assholes at the FTFNYT have their heads shoved so far up their own asses that they think their farts smell like a flower garden. And A.G. Sulzberger is just so pathetic:
It sure sounds like whining to the VP that Biden’s not talking to your reporters backfired. I really hope Biden breaks this “tradition”:
Sulzberger – the first NYT publisher since FDR to fail to get a President’s sit-down interview.
Leto
@Kay: dumbshits in New Hampshire are trying to roll back mandatory anti-polio vaccinations for children. I don’t know if loathe is a strong enough word for what these people are trying to do. They’re doing everything they can to eliminate herd immunity so we can all head back to the 1400s wrt healthcare.
Kay
@trollhattan:
She’s SO vulnerable. One of the fucking morons is telling her to take high doses of aspirin every day. I talked her off that ledge (you like your doctor! ask him!) but she’s so scared that her usual bullshit detector has shut down. She’s like a sponge, just soaking up everything she’s told as equally valid.
Leto
@sdhays: you reap what you sew, dumbass.
hueyplong
@sdhays: And he’s failing for the same reason the FDR era NYT failed.
Nora
@Kay: If I believed in hell, I would like to think there’s a special place reserved for people who take advantage of vulnerable people like that.
I believe Jesus said something like that, as a matter of fact.
BC in Illinois
During the GWBush administration, it became apparent that, whenever a Republican was in office, the people styling themselves The Federalist Society were, in fact The Monarchist Society.
[If the Monarch says we torture, then — laws be damned — we torture.]
prostratedragon
@WaterGirl: Same reason as the fmr p.m. of the UK, or the current president of Hungary, or one other that I can’t recall at the moment. I think these all happened after the state dinner with the current p.m. of Japan (maybe not Cameron).
prostratedragon
Those AZ fraudsters recorded themselves.
Leto
@Kay: just to circle back around, I remember seeing the pictures of people, with their kids, lined up around the building for shots for polio, MMR, all sorts of stuff. This is equivalent to the EU. We haven’t had these life threatening illnesses for so long that they’ve forgotten how bad they are. Even if the shit doesn’t kill you, it’ll can leave you permanently scarred and/or altered.
Also agreed regarding that the support groups need to be monitored. Can’t imagine sending someone into an environment like that. No, just… no. Hope your friend finds something better.
3Sice
@Leto:
Send him down to Mar-a-Stinkhole for his interview with “Mr. President”.
Omnes Omnibus
@BC in Illinois:
Not necessarily monarchist per se. They would be very happy with a Franco or Pinochet. Alito would be all in on a right-wing, overtly Catholic authoritarian.
Leto
@prostratedragon: are you taking notes? (This is The Wire scene everyone references.)
Harrison Wesley
@Leto: Florida’s very own Harvard Medical School graduate surgeon general has boldly overridden Federal guidelines on measles. He has advised parents of unvaccinated children that it’s their choice whether or not to send the sprouts to school if there have been any cases reported there. None of that woke neo-fascist two-week waiting period, nosir!
lowtechcyclist
@sdhays:
I hope Biden gives the FTFNYT a one-on-one interview – six months after he leaves office in 2029.
prostratedragon
2024 Kelli Ward, meet 2022 Kelli Ward.
@Leto: Someone put a Stringer Bell gif as their comment.
lowtechcyclist
@prostratedragon:
I guess “taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy” just wasn’t stupid enough for them
ETA: Beaten to the note-taking by Leto!
Bill Arnold
@Kay:
They are mass-killers, or at the support-group level, aspiring mass-killers, of conscious human beings. They should be treated as such. The stochastic nature (strict causality difficult to prove) of their mass homicide is no excuse. (Legal excuse, sure, sigh.)
sdhays
@lowtechcyclist: And then calls at the last minute to tell them he can’t make it. His hair needs washing “or something”.
Kay
@Leto:
I wonder if she can identify the other normies and break off from the nuts – form a new group. That’s the beauty of an internet support group -no one even has to know.
mrmoshpotato
Go fuck yourselves, Turning Point KKK!
Also, kids, don’t try to steal elections. Lady Justice will bitchslap you with an indictment.
lowtechcyclist
@sdhays:
The icing on the cake!
lowtechcyclist
@mrmoshpotato:
Go fuck yourselves, Turning Point KKK!
Seconded!
I just think of them as “used TP, USA.”
mrmoshpotato
How SAD! BWHAHAHAHAHA! Fuck ’em!
mrmoshpotato
@lowtechcyclist: LOL! Nice! 💩
TBone
Did someone say schadenfreude? Master extraordinaire:
jefftiedrich.com/p/comer-fudd-is-dumb-as-fuck-and-hes
mrmoshpotato
Awwww. /S
mrmoshpotato
@Yutsano: BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Good on ya, Shithead Ted!
Jay, you can still take back your fellow Canadian. Just saying. :)
TBone
@TBone: it’s a highlights reel and I highly recommend the LOL belly laughs!
Soprano2
@Kay: I agree, if some people go to prison for this nonsense others will hesitate to try it. The January 6th prosecutions have put a big damper on TFG’s calls for people to come out for him. I still do think some lone person might try to injure or kill someone for him, like what happened to Paul Pelosi.
TBone
Another entry that shall live in infany as a thing of beauty and a pleasure to behold for decades to come:
showercapblog.com/farts-are-the-most-appropriate-soundtrack-for-this-moment-in-american-history-fran…
Soprano2
@sdhays: What they don’t seem to get is that they’ve brought it on themselves by how poorly they’ve treated Democrats in general in an attempt to prove to everyone that they aren’t liberal.
sdhays
@Soprano2: Right. The whole thing is very petty, but the pettiness is on one side. The New York Times wants an interview, which Biden has been reluctant to give, so they punish Biden by talking on and on about how old he is. If they had managed to, you know, not do that, I’d imagine an interview would be forthcoming. But now, they’ve incentivized Biden to reduce the relevance of the Times rather than helping to bolster it.
prostratedragon
Frauds all the way (way) down:
Twin manias of relentlessly doing dirty deeds and insisting on publicity are one helluva combo.
Villago Delenda Est
@mrmoshpotato: Not if criminal justices Alito and Thomas have anything to say about it.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@lowtechcyclist: Pedant alert: the literal “criminal fucking conspiracy” is the New York case. The others (well, most of them anyway) are just criminal conspiracies, no fornication implicated.
piratedan
one other note on the AZ fake electors.
After multiple lawsuits, recounts and audits of the votes in Arizona, not a single one of the false electors retracted their actions as being an honest mistake, with the vote count still being an uncertain outcome.
Not a one.
JoyceH
@Scout211: If anyone is wondering why they’d never heard of a Key to the White House, it’s because it didn’t exist pre-Trump. It’s a stupid thing he came up with, and then just carried on with post-presidency. So he didn’t take a long-standing presidential tradition with him, he created it in the first place. Not surprising, it sounds pretty tacky, doesn’t it?
Matt McIrvin
@JoyceH: I’ve just heard of Allan Lichtman’s “Keys to the White House” which is his kind of dodgy theory of predicting presidential elections (personally I think the “Keys” are subjective enough that he can and does always tweak them on the fly to say however the election seems to be shaping up from other indicators–their actual predictive power is pretty low).
Miss Bianca
@Hungry Joe: IKR? She is amazing that way, as is Anne Laurie.
sab
@Leto: Agree with you, but held off for a few hours to spare you early autocorrect ridicule. You reap what you sow (seed planting).
Nobody reaps what anyone sews (the wife mending and hemming clothes.) And I am a wife who sews.
emjayay
He’s halfway to RFKJr territory. Isn’t there some surgical procedure that could help?
emjayay
@Leto: Actually, what you sow.