Part of the impact of this moment will come from the fact it was not expected.
A 46-30 plurality of independents and a 61-21 majority of Republicans nationwide thought Trump would NOT be convicted of anything.
Nationwide, only 36% of voters expected a conviction. pic.twitter.com/csEeAzJ8kP
— Will Jordan (@williamjordann) May 30, 2024
From a campaign professional, just *before* the verdict was announced:
My take on this verdict:
Biden will win whatever the jury decides
A not guilty decision doesn’t get anyone Trump doesn’t already have
A guilty decision probably widens Biden’s margin, probably only a small margin, & more bc of Trump 2020=>not voting 2024 than Trump 2020=>Biden https://t.co/xt52bwrbxG
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 30, 2024
hillary clinton tonight: “anything going on today?”
*audience cheers* pic.twitter.com/y8F4Y7YCFo
— diane-jefferson (@dianejeffersonc) May 31, 2024
Gotta be plenty of polticial elites who would have been happy to make some kind of ‘shut up and go away and the legal troubles les go away too’ tacit bargain with him, too bad his word is worthless to any potential counterparty here!
— William B. Fuckley (@opinonhaver) May 30, 2024
What destroys democracies' legal systems and other institutions is not their ability to hold a powerful politician accountable.
It's the conviction that people should be able to get away with crimes because of who they are.
But you are, sadly, not smart enough to get this. https://t.co/AU4Tes0ix5— Slava Malamud 🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@SlavaMalamud) May 31, 2024
In this case mostly a guy who hates gay people. https://t.co/NzY5r1upKy
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) May 30, 2024
Vote for the Not A Crook, it’s important.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) May 30, 2024
Remember, social media peeps – Sharing is caring!
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg responded to Trump’s guilty verdict in the hush money trial Thursday, saying “the only voice that matters is the voice of the jury.” pic.twitter.com/DAzg34tGOe
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 30, 2024
On The Road – Captain C – Arizona – February 2024 : Jerome part 3
Suzanne
Yeah, I think I agree with this, at least at this point.
But…. I also don’t care about the election at this moment. The system worked, at least for a moment. An institution held. That’s something to celebrate.
Soprano2
I love that first cartoon, because it’s true. I heard that story on Morning Edition where Hugh Fucking Hewitt was opining that not only will the verdict that he’s guilty of 34 felonies help him with the presidential election, it will help their Senate races also! He makes the mistake of thinking that “normie” voters will be as outraged by his conviction as the MAGA cult members are. I’m not sure how much it will hurt him, but even 5% of people being turned off by the Republican candidate being a convicted felon could make a huge difference.
Suzanne
I will also note that Dreher has really dropped the mask. In 2020, he was all, “I’m going to vote, but more in sorrow, I’m not going to tell a single solitary soul who I’m voting for.” I never doubted that he was all-in for Trump, but I thought a lot of his crazy comment section might have been more conflicted.
Dreher just changes horses , though. No commitment.
matt
Elon Musk’s faith in the legal system is faith that he’ll never face legal repercussions for anything he does.
matt
@Soprano2: The spectacle of Republicans debasing themselves, falling over themselves to go hold hands with a convicted crook, will also have an effect on the election.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@matt: Yeah, I too thought his comment meant someone should take a good look at Elon’s business records
Baud
@Suzanne:
👍
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
WereBear
The more they deny… the more what they deny is true.
randy khan
@Suzanne:
This is where I am. You prosecute people who commit crimes. You don’t worry about whether it’s good or bad for someone’s chances of being elected.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
If presidents can be held accountable, can billionaires be far behind. #SlipperySlope
OzarkHillbilly
For some reason or other, I’m not feeling the usual morning Blech.
brendancalling
I turned on NPR for the first time in months this morning on my way into work. I caught the tail end of an interview with a man who was insistent the verdict would be overturned, that it was problematic, blah blah blah.
The man turned out to be Hugh Hewitt. I started laughing ruefully and turned the station back to WRDV-FM, Community Radio of the Delaware Valley, which plays big band music all day long.
There’s a damned good reason I stopped listening to that trash station.
Soprano2
I don’t think the idea of voting for the crook will be that compelling when his opponent is white bread Democrat Joe Biden rather than a fire-breathing member of the KKK.
prostratedragon
@OzarkHillbilly: 😁
RevRick
@matt: We need to tie the albatross of both Trump’s felony convictions and his fascist policies around the necks of every Republican running for office. Make them publicly choose where they stand. Make his stain stain them as well.
Soprano2
@brendancalling: Yeah, he seemed to think it was problematic that the judge didn’t instruct the jury that they could only use “crime x” to be the second crime that made what TCFG did a felony, which is where they get the argument that TCFG didn’t know what the charges against him were. To me that’s nonsensical, because one falsification could involve “crime x”, while another one could involve “crime b”. Why would it be necessary to limit that?
I also think it’s crazy to believe that tying yourself to a convicted felon will be helpful to the Republican Senate and House candidates. How do they think normal voters will see that? Not favorably, if they think about it at all.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@brendancalling:
Fucking NPR. Hugh Hewitt? Jeeeesufuckingkeeeristonabike, even by Totebagger Radio standards, that’s a bad one.
News reporting should inform, not enrage, something NPR forgot a generation ago.
frosty
You’ve got a lot of tweets to sift through this morning, AL!!!
RevRick
@Soprano2: MAGA cult members don’t realize how detached from the rest of the world they are. They believe that Trump made the U.S. respected around the world, when the only places that liked him were thugocracies. Fox News will reassure them with comforting lies, but anyone on the fence outside that ecosystem will be rattled by his convictions.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
At long last, it’s finally Fitzmas. ;)
bbleh
As noted elsewhere, it’s a clarifying event. There was nothing ambiguous about the verdict, and there’s likewise nothing ambiguous about the meaning of various reactions: you support either the rule of law or the rule of a single man.
Also, there’s gonna be almost no such thing as a “low-information voter” in this case: “Trump convicted” is something everybody can understand and everybody will hear about. Gonna be interesting to see how the polls (if they’re correctly worded) shake out, especially how many people SAY they have “no opinion.”
@OzarkHillbilly: and yeah this! Me too! Subtle, took me a while to figure out, but unmistakable.
trnc
2 things here say a lot about Elon. One, no surprise he thinks business violations are just part of doing business. Two, he apparently missed DT’s promise to eliminate electric vehicles.
JPL
@matt: Everyone of them should be asked if it’s okay to pay hush money to a porn star.
Suzanne
Elon Musk is just like all the other MAGAts: he wants to break laws, abuse people, and get away with it.
Betty Cracker
The verdict came down while I was on my way to a family gathering with the Trumpy Suwannee contingent. It was so hard to contain my glee! I was surprised — figured the orange fart cloud would skate as usual. Very happy to have been wrong! 😊
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Never contain glee. They wouldn’t do it for you, would they?
Geminid
@brendancalling: Hew Hewitt is a salesman and a cheerleader. His avowed confidence about the appeal is likely feigned but considering the circumstances, he’s modeling what could be a good posture for Republicans.
trnc
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Yes!
matt
@JPL: I think there are going to be normies turned off by Republicans lining up to throw fire and brimstone on the US court system. This was a normal trial, normal US citizen jurors, and the defendant committed crimes to cover up disgusting acts.
Baud
@Geminid: It’s their only posture. What possible other thing could they do that would be more helpful to them?
trnc
They’ll sidestep the question and launch into whining on DT’s behalf.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Indeed, so what makes Musk think he could be charged with a felony? There some unmarked grave behind the Fremont Tesla plant?
rk
I expected a hung jury because I’ve lost all faith in people to do the rational thing despite the evidence. I thought that there would be one, if not more jurors who would ignore the evidence. I was wrong and happy to be wrong.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I soooo love twitter. The opprobrious Megyn Kelly had this to say about the verdict:
Guilty on all counts. The country is disgraced. Alvin Bragg should be disbarred. They will rue the day they unleashed this lawfare to corrupt a presidential election.
One of the responses:
Isn’t it time to stop being an easily purchased bimbo?
Suzanne
@trnc: They all know he did it. They just don’t think it’s that bad. Just like Kavanaugh. Everyone knew he was scummy, they just don’t think sexual assault is that bad. It’s just low-key, a little funny, like youthful hijinks!
Makes you wonder what they think is genuinely that bad.
matt
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: She should go burn her law degree on the court steps in protest.
trnc
I’ve been reading a lot of opinions about DT trying to find a way to skip the debates. I think he’ll show up and spend 100% of his time calling Biden a criminal, corrupt, etc, etc. He’s not in a position of strength against Biden like he was against his primary opponents. Skipping those was a power move.
He also knows those clips will be carried by all news outlets, although they won’t have the staying power that the phrase “Convicted felon Donald Trump” does. In fact, I would urge Biden to consider saying that every time he addresses him during the debate.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: I wouldn’t have been surprised by a hung jury or, at least, a split verdict (guilty on some charges, not on others). But the unanimity of the verdict plus the speed with which it was reached startled me.
JPL
@trnc: At least it would remind the public what he did. They can side step all they want, but trump still paid hush money in order to save his election. We all know what happened next.
RobertS
@matt: Law and Order is when You go to jail. Rule of Law is when I get acquitted.
Baud
@RobertS: Perfect. Nominated.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Apparently a grown man crying in public is also awesome for Those people for all their chest beating and worshiping so called Alpha Males.
satby
@JPL: That wasn’t what he was convicted of, and we need to quit framing it like that. He falsified business records to hide the payments, he got illegal campaign contributions (the Enquirerer reporting as coordinated with his campaign), and he engaged in a conspiracy to hide facts the voting public should have had access to. John Edwards was indicted by a federal grand jury on six felony charges of campaign finance violations for essentially the same thing. He wasn’t convicted, but he was done in politics.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: They wouldn’t — you’re right! I walked around the restaurant/hotel at one point to exult privately, and there was a TV on the Newsmax channel. Jesus. I’d never watched that channel, and they’re even nuttier than I imagined.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@JPL:
Answers will be various manifestations of IOKIYAR or Cleek’s Law.
Logic or consistency of messaging in today’s GQP isn’t considered necessary. See IOKIYAR or Cleek’s Law.
RobertS
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The Trump cult is spinning up the propaganda machine to protect Trump – “This wasn’t really a crime”, “The Judge was corrupt”, and so on. It’s all BS, but it will help the cult stay in denial.
They’re putting all of their chips on “No big deal”, rather than arguing for his innocence.
trnc
@Suzanne:
“Nothing” is the answer here, if it is carried out by a republican. We often talk about how much the norms changed with DT, but Bush and Cheney lying all the way through a war that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraq civilians was what really made a lot of republicans start to hand wave away the worst actions.
Hoodie
@Baud: This is an important point. Yes, a lot of these guys want lower taxes but, frankly, that’s chicken feed for a billionaire. What they want is no accountability, or at least the feeling they won’t be held accountable. Being wealthy like that, while freeing you from the everyday survival concerns of most people, probably makes you a bit paranoid, thinking you’re a target for resentment and afraid that people will take your shit away. That may also entail a certain amount of guilt for being rich, as you can imagine some of these guys at least subconsciously know that they’re mostly lucky and not particularly worthy of their ridiculous levels of comfort. There may be an element that allowing guys like Trump get away with his bullshit – which is generally harmless for them- gives them a safe space.
Geminid
@Baud: Hewitt is putting the best face on the problem he can, trying to neutralize it for the time being.
Hewitt’s very disingenuous, a cool customer. That phrase, “Butter would not melt in his mouth” could have been written about Hew Hewitt.
And he really wants Trump to win. Other Republicans do too, but not all are as calculating as Hewitt. They’re crying “We have crossed the Rubicon!” and other such apocalyptic nonsense, and I don’t think that’s smart play.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: I’ve never watched NewsMax, and only know it by reputation, but I didn’t realize mainstream establishments had started carrying it. The propaganda is pervasive.
trnc
For once, I applaud the authors of our timeline. Going from “I’m letting the jury go home in 15 minutes” to “We have a verdict” was (chef’s kiss).
ETA: I’m also happy that it happened on Thursday so that it will be all over the morning news for anyone who tunes out in the afternoon.
Suzanne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Musk went on his shitty site and called Trump’s crime “a trivial matter”.
They’re always telling us that they want to do shit and get away with it. LOL.
bbleh
And another thing. All this public whining shows SO clearly what CHILDREN the MAGAts are. They just don’t like it that they can’t do what they want, when they want, all the time, and they are going to pitch such a fit about it that you’ll be really sorry!
I wonder if there’s some parallel to the hypothesis that domesticated dogs never really grow out of certain puppy behaviors because they don’t have to…
Baud
@Hoodie:
I agree with this 100%. The wealthy and powerful are really, really threat-averse, sometimes to the point of paranoia. It’s the main reason they’re pulling out all the stops to defeat Biden.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@RobertS:
Brilliant. This one’s going in the clip file.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: I was in town picking up a spark plug and some gear oil when I heard the news that a verdict had been reached. After 15 or 20 mins when they still hadn’t announced, I said “fuck it” and headed for the parts store. When I came out, they announced, “Guilty guilty guilty guilty Guilty guilty guilty guilty Guilty guilty guilty guilty Guilty guilty guilty guilty Guilty guilty guilty guilty Guilty guilty guilty guilty Guilty guilty guilty guilty Guilty guilty!
I bought popcorn (4 me) and ice cream drumsticks (4 my wife).
He’ll never see a day in prison but this is a small measure of justice.
Suzanne
@Hoodie: It’s not just wealthy people, though they are an important part of the MAGA coalition. It’s a lot of mediocre white men and the women who hitched their wagons to them, too.
The incels, the men who want tradwives but don’t make enough to afford them, the sunglasses-in-trucks guys on the dating apps…..
Spanky
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Has Durbin been at it again?
trnc
@JPL:
That behavior by a republican has obviously been normalized for waaaaaay too many voters since 2016, but I do believe this will have some impact. I doubt it peels away many of even his nominal fans, but I think it has a chance of becoming noticed by most low information voters.
BlueGuitarist
@Geminid:
Isn’t he the guy formerly known as an ambulatory cream cheese sculpture?
Trivia Man
Im really hoping tammy Baldwins opponent for WI senator gets vocal and loud and proud for trump. Its is a scary tight race but im confident THAT would not help him peel off Tammy supporters.
I suspect hes too smart for that and he has enough orher baggage that he doesn’t want spotlighted. Billionaire who lives in California even now, every story about him increases the chance that will become a more prominent fact about him for those who dont know.
”Eric Hovde, Orange County banker who lives here n California…” is a hell of a lede for a WI candidate.
trnc
Did I miss something, or is this hyperbole?
Lapassionara
@Suzanne: Something done by a black guy. Try to imagine if Obama had arranged with a publisher to “catch and kill” bad stories about him. What if he had met with a publisher before the primary and gotten negative stories published about Hillary? This is when you know Republicans aren’t serious about law and order.
Baud
@Suzanne:
For some reason YouTube’s ad algorithm thinks I want to join Bumble. I blame you.
JPL
RED now stands for GUILTY. Yesterday it was glorious seeing the color splashed across local channels.
OzarkHillbilly
A liberal with an expired library card. Even worse if they’re black.
matt
@satby: I think the phrase ‘money laundering’ might be the best way to talk about the case.
Baud
@Suzanne:
The failure to adhere to email best practices, of course.
Scout211
I don’t think pollsters have a way to adequately model voter enthusiasm anymore, either. MAGA voters are super enthusiastic and will scream their support for the felon candidate and Biden voters are not enthusiastic and grumble and complain over their pet issue but will gladly vote for Biden or at the very least vote against the dangerous felon. Remember when the MAGA voters couldn’t believe that Biden won because he didn’t have all those screaming fans at rallies like the felon did? Voter enthusiasm is not the predictor that it used to be in political polling.
Polling is a measure that may be of benefit to campaigns (at least their internal polling) but for non-stop political news stories? Nope.
But I know I’m preaching to the jackal choir here. LOL.
satby
On shitter, soonergrunt posted this: “They’re upset because they think *Donald Trump* shouldn’t be held accountable. They don’t think he’s innocent. They don’t think it’s unfair. They think he should be untouchable, and they’re mad because he isn’t. They’ll come up with some new rationale for the next one.”
I agreed with: “This, they loved his ability to just flout laws, norms, and basic decency without consequences. They’re angry that a jury in a big city held him accountable, because they don’t consider the jury “real” Americans.”
And it’s coming. The rightwingers will do what they can to determine who served on that jury, what ethnicities they are, and any other way they can reinforce the urban-rural divide in this country and justify more voter suppression.
sdhays
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: If I were on Xitter, I think I might troll her every day:
“You know the REAL Santa Clause is black, right?”
Such a silly, nasty person.
satby
@matt: good shorthand! I think it’s understandable that way.
trnc
I predict a suspended prison sentence. I’m also hoping for a bonus of a new EJC lawsuit in the next few weeks.
Suzanne
I saw a comment on Xhitter on a thread about tradwives. A man who identified himself as a pastor says he sees a scenario a lot: men who identify as “entrepreneurs”, or “self-employed”, or “small business owners”, but who don’t earn much. In fact, their wives often out-earn them. But their identities are wrapped up in the idea of not working for someone else. Evincing an issue with authority, maybe? You think?
It dawned on me, when I first drove around Pittsburgh a lot, and I saw all these companies like “Smith and Sons”, or whatever….. that’s part of the Trump aesthetic that I missed at first: a family business. Literal patriarchy. Incredibly aspirational for these types.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@satby:
Do you have a link to soonergrunt’s twitter account? I should follow him. One of the best FPers BJ ever had.
trnc
@matt:
Bingo!
satby
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I do, here you go.
Suzanne
@BlueGuitarist:
I call them “human piles of mashed potatoes”.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
I want that on a bumper sticker!
Also a good rotating tag. Haven’t read the thread yet, has it already been nominated?
trnc
@Scout211:
Part of that was also that he didn’t have nearly the amount of fans there that he claimed. The Biden campaign needs to send a drone over every DT rally so that everyone can see for themselves how much he’s exaggerating crowd size.
Chief Oshkosh
I think it’s useful to remind ourselves, and others, that Trump was impeached for election interference in his own election (for withholding approved funding to Ukraine and for attempting to get Ukraine to sign off on a lie about the Bidens) AND he’s now been convicted for election interference by committing crimes in furtherance of unlawfully influencing his own election.
I think people do need to be reminded that this wasn’t just a “hush money” case. Everything about his 2016 election stank, and he was the main source of the farts and shit.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Frank Coniff (“TV’s Frank” from MST3K) is somebody everybody should follow on twitter.
He was quoting somebody else but Frank’s full of great quotes and content.
https://twitter.com/FrankConniff/status/1796404503375499565
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Not sure why the dig on “every single Senator.” Sounds like when the media blames “Congress” for Republican actions.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Good morning, BJ! Today is our 44th wedding anniversary. All in all I like this gift better than the one I got for my 59th birthday on Nov 8, 2016.
trnc
The conviction apparently broke Google News. Nothing comes up there. Of course, they could just be in the bag for DT and trying to avoid the hundreds of banner headlines. Because “Don’t be evil,” yeah, right.
Honus
@Geminid: I completely agree with your description of Hewitt. My question is why an unalloyed MAGAT salesman/cheerleader is presented on NPR, without counterpoint, as neutral, well-informed analyst?
trnc
@Chief Oshkosh:
Good point.
Baud
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Happy anniversary!
Chris Johnson
@OzarkHillbilly: Like I said on bluesky: six months or so. They can let him out of jail for Biden’s inauguration :)
satby
@Suzanne: Farmers Markets and seasonal festivals are full of men like that (women too, tbf). And you’re correct, a lot of them are close to unemployable in a standard job setting working for someone else. A lot of them have multiple kids, get SNAP benifits, and the wife homeschools those many children, though NO evidence that any schooling is being done (other than basic math to make change at a stall) exists. It’s really appalling.
trnc
@Honus:
The answer can be found by going through a random selection of 10 years or so of NPR stories.
Another Scott
@JPL: It was more than that, of course.
He was paying hush money to Daniels and McDougal to prevent damage to his campaign. But also attempting to write them off as legitimate business expenses (legal expenses). Even if he weren’t running for office, it shows that he continues to think that the rules don’t apply to him, that he can write-off anything he wants as an expense.
This was never a trial about him paying “hush money”. It was about him falsifying business records in the furtherance of other crimes.
Gomer, you support a guy who thinks that payoffs are a business deduction, while the rest of us actually have to pay taxes we owe?? How stupid are you??!!
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
gene108
@JPL:
I can give you their answer: A person’s married life is a personal matter and shouldn’t be part of a media circus. Joe Biden weaponized the government to convict a man for a personal private matter between a husband and wife.
Sid
@Suzanne:
Dreher doesn’t entirely drop the mask until he exits the closet he’s barricaded himself in.
satby
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Happy Anniversary to you and your spouse!
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist: Hey, here’s one just for you. WUSA (DC’s CBS affiliate) has a “news” piece:
‘It’s a witch hunt!’ | Calvert County woman says she supported Trump when he was President and will support him now
Why a DC station would go on a yahoo safari to Calvert County just to find a Trump supporter on the day he’s convicted is an interesting question. Not a question as to why they’d come here. Morons are thick on the ground around here. But I’m curious why someone made an editorial decision to put a Trump supporter on the news.
Eyeroller
@gene108: Which is why, as others have emphasized, we need to stop using the media framing here. It’s legal to pay hush money. It is not legal to falsify business records to cover it up.
Dave
@Suzanne: Rod is the least influential one of these dudes that bugs me the most. I’m not by nature inclined to bully someone but you ever meet that one person that brings it out and have to be very conscientious to not fall into bullying them?
I’m fairly sure that person is Rod. Unfortunately the dude has lost every single battle with his demons that he’s ever fought. His full de-evolution is too predictable to be sad but it’s a little sad.
Frankensteinbeck
@satby:
They’re upset because they think they, personally and as a group, shouldn’t be held accountable. Donald Trump is the flag bearer for the White Establishment*. If he can be punished for crimes, you** can be punished for crimes, and that is not merely dangerous, it’s offensive.
*As Bill O’Reilly called it.
**IE, a white conservative man, the only kind of person they can imagine matters
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I missed the part where the Democrats voted to acquit.
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty Cracker:
I know, right?
Years ago, way back right after we’d invaded Iraq, I was in some sort of a car shop (tires maybe?) and they had Fox on. I asked the nice person at the counter if the channel could be changed. She handed me the remote, I surfed, and eventually settled on just turning it off. She thanked me and had a relieved smile. Pretty clearly she was tired of it all.
Ever since, I’ve always politely asked if I can change the channel if it’s set to some rightwing whack job dreck. I’ve never had anyone say no. Always ask. Who knows? You may be making the counter person’s day just a little better.
TBone
I am celebrating all weekend, rolling around in the glory of HE’S GUILTY like a dog on a stinky carcass. Nary a complaint about jack shit will pass over my lips. I’m taking this moment in time and wallowing in schadenfreude, savoring the salty tears of my enemies and their howls of pain to the fullest extent possible. TAKE THE WIN.
🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bohVV_KlSHw
Yes, the cheesiness is intentional.
zhena gogolia
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Not every single senator. Just the Republican ones.
matt
@gene108: Between a husband, a wife, and a famous pornstar!
trnc
@Chris Johnson:
While I would love to see him in prison, I don’t think that’s actually better for us right now. It’s better to hand him a suspended sentence, let him campaign in his usual stupid manner and make sure there’s drone footage of every rally. It’s one more data point about how full of shit he is, and it deflates the claim that Biden is trying to stop him from campaigning. After Biden wins the election, toss him in prison because he will absolutely have violated the terms of his release.
Scout211
This article showed up on Memeorandum this morning and is worth a read. I’ve never hear of the Queens Daily Eagle but this article is amusing.
A local news perspective:
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Baud:
@satby: Thank you
Suzanne
@satby:
So that’s an interesting point. There is some degree of evidence that the world of white-collar work requires more conscientiousness, more punctuality, reliability, etc. than it used to. I know that on psychological measures, women have historically scored higher than men on traits that are considered “conscientious”. If I had to guess, I would be willing to bet that that is mostly about acculturation…. Girls being encouraged more to accept directions, boys being encouraged more to lead.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Honus:
Time to get on my podium…
NPR is traditional media and thus, corporate media. Taking a stance against one party will cost them income and listeners, thus, they’re unwilling to do that. These directives come down from the top.
The prime (I said prime here folks, not “all”) NPR listener is a (N)ice, (P)olite (R)epublican, aka, somebody in their 60s, white, retired or near it, making $100K+ and has been brainwashed since 1980 that BOTH SIDES DO IT. In other words, NPR’s political reporting is geared toward upper middle class moderates (many of whom grew up casting themselves as “socially liberal/fiscally conservative” types, meaning Republicans) who are either retired or well off as they near retirement. Outside of the 1%, that’s one of the most comfortable groups in ‘Murka.
If traditional/corporate media like NPR were too responsive to the unwashed masses, they would alienate their base and their corporate sponsors.
Soooo, having assclowns like Hewitt on is simply another manifestation of “both sides do it” presentation of a seminal event.
Capri
Have I missed the rioting in the streets that was predicted if Trump was found guilty?
Suzanne
@Dave:
Oh fuck yes. He’s simultaneously really bad and completely pathetic and it indeed takes a lot of self-control not to just rip into people like that.
I have tried to content myself with letting fate/karma/time/consequences catch up to them and then just standing back and enjoying….. but it doesn’t go fast enough!
Bupalos
@OzarkHillbilly: I wouldn’t be too sure he doesn’t get some kind of <1 year jail term. He’s definitely pushing contempt and lack of remorse to unprecedented heights. Jail wouldn’t be unprecedented here even for a compliant defendant – Wesselberg got jail for a similar and related offense from the same judge.
I think we’re jumping to “definitely no jail” because we just have a hard time envisioning it.
p.a.
re: These republican PARTY turds supporting the Orange Shitstain. tRump was under multiple indictments BEFORE he decided to re-run for Preznit. HE put their precious grift-party in this position, and they for the most part just donned kneepads and serviced him. The un-democratic party could have fucked with their rules the same way they fuck with voting and representation in every state where they can get away with it, to keep him from the nomination. Their brownshirt voters would have eventually gone along: following directions is all they’re good at. The gutless fucks brought this on themselves. Good riddance.
Frankensteinbeck
@Suzanne:
Boys are encouraged to be assholes. In many schools, this is enforced by violence. I am reminded of trans men who have talked about how their biggest shock was finding out how emotionally starved the male social experience is, how any affection other than sexual was taboo.
TBone
@trnc: I’m not usually taking time to be rude to people here so forgive my momentary lapse, but good thing you’re not in charge of sentencing. Stochastic terrorism is some very serious shit. Pretty sure the Judge is fed up with the “gangster” bullshit.
HinTN
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: They are easing away from the “Polite” part, to which they clung.
AM in NC
@Suzanne: Yep, 100%.
I am also making the point to right-wingers that EVERY TIME Trump has faced a grand jury or a jury composed of American citizens hearing evidence (and not supposition from either FOX or MSNBC) they have found him guilty/liable for all charges.
multiple states, multiple jurisdictions-when shown the evidence, American citizens have returned guilty verdicts!!!
it’s not a deep state conspiracy, it’s regular Americans weighing the facts and finding guilt/liability. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
Baud
@Bupalos:
It’s because experts have told us NY usually doesn’t punish these crimes with jail time.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Frankensteinbeck:
Well, the quote did say “basically”, not “all”.
But let’s tidy the quote up a bit:
“It rules that a jury of rando New Yorkers is braver than several federal judges and basically every GOP member of Congress”.
TBone
@Scout211: thank you, when Rachel read that headline out loud last night, hubby I regaled each other with peals of laughter!
When I was a little girl with a New York accent (we lived on Long Island) I had a Black male doll with striped bell bottoms and I named him Jackson Heights. Musta been about 3 or 4 y.o.
JPL
Will trump be able to vote in Florida? hmmm I think he has to complete his sentence first.
Also Jen Psaki said he would not be able to receive classified information before the election.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Chief Oshkosh: Glad you’ve avoided pushback on that. I recall the right-wing lecture I got the one time I asked a cabbie taking me to JFK to turn the radio to something other than Hannity.
Chris Johnson
@trnc: No, all the other stuff is fine, but if he does things to justify it or if the judge is just fed up with his shit and the sentencing permits it, he absolutely should go to jail because that’s what the justice system is about.
Dude is unendingly contemptuous and unrepentant and exactly the sort of person you put in jail because they will not control themselves, learn, or listen.
If the judge so chooses, they should put him in jail and then guard the fuck out of the jail (which I think is a given). And so much for that. He doesn’t deserve special treatment for having been such a big fuck-up that he distorted the gravitational field of society. That doesn’t get you a pass.
Baud
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: No one wants to work for a tip anymore.
Sid
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Hope you left him a shitty tip.
Scout211
NBC showed a clip of an older MAGA man holding up a sign that read, FREE FATHER TERESA. All the other MAGA fans were just crying.
Maybe the riot was somewhere else. 😉
Kay
@Suzanne:
That harms women though. It’s great for bosses, not so good for women. The only way you make real money w/out some kind of professional credential is to own the business. Women consistently devalue their own work – it’s why they can’t build wealth and it creates a cycle where the woman who DOES demand to get paid for work is considered “a problem” – we’re quite literallly expected to work for free. That’s when the smart ones stop working for someone else and start their own thing, which is what they should have done from the start. I’ve repped small businesses so long I can tell you in the first half hour of the initial interview if the woman is going to make any money, net over expenses, or if it’s going to be “buying themselves a 15 dollar an hour job” – which is what a lot of women end up doing. If they don’t value themselves no one else will. They’ll never get paid what they’re worth.
Matt McIrvin
@JPL: It’s legal to pay hush money to a porn star, under most circumstances. Frame it that way and it’s basically the Bill Clinton follies, which backfired on the Republicans. The crime was elsewhere.
matt
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: I once zero-tipped a cabbie because they were listening to Ingraham. Fuck those people.
Sid
@OzarkHillbilly: He probably won’t- hopefully because he becomes apoplectic and drops dead- but in the meantime, it would be hilarious if the sentence was whatever Michael Cohen got plus one day.
Ivan X
The reason I think this verdict is significant is because any voter with a half working brain who isn’t in the cult now has validation that he’s very likely guilty of the other crimes for which he’s been indicted as well. If this were some lone occurrence of an otherwise normal leader it would be bad, but some might write it off as “eh, I can look the other way from a financial crime against the state.” But in this context I think the convictions serve as an indicator that he’s guilty of the rest of what he’s been indicted with.
O. Felix Culpa
@matt: “Money laundering and election interference” captures it more fully, while still being succinct.
gene108
@Eyeroller:
People more readily identify hush money porn star pay offs as bad than falsifying business.
It’s a lot easier to gaslight people on what even is a falsified business record, because most people don’t know what or how businesses record transactions.
O. Felix Culpa
@gene108: As others have already pointed out, it’s the wrong question, which then elicits wrong answers.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@matt:
If we had like/love buttons here, I’d hit it about a million times for this.
Kay
@Suzanne:
The men aren’t wrong. It’s really true that the only way they’ll make any real money is to own their own business. It’s just that not everyone can succeed at that. They either make a bad initial decision about what to go into, or they have too much overhead, or they don’t work hard enough the first 5 years. The biggest mistake (and one so many of them make) is hiring an employee or employees. A lot of these businesses only spin off enough for one person/family. They need to hold off on expanding for at least 5 years. But everyone wants an underling :)
karen gail
Made run to get dog food: all the Trump signs and flags are gone. The area I drove through was full blown Trump support until after the verdict.
JPL
@karen gail: Nice!
Almost Retired
I can’t wait until the color of his jumpsuit matches his complexion.
Omnes Omnibus
I don’t think people should get too wrapped up in the minutia of sentencing. Probation, suspended sentence, or a custodial sentence all still hang the mantle of convicted felon on him. I am seeing predictions of many different results from any number of reputable sources (some of whom I even trust). We won’t know until 7/11 what the actual result is, but we and the rest of the country already won a victory.
TBone
@Capri: 💙😆
OzarkHillbilly
That is not it at all. It’s because he is a former President who is a high risk individual with 24 hr SS protection. If he gets any kind of confinement, and it is a possibility, it will be house arrest.
Mike in NC
Trump is the sleaziest lowlife asshole criminal that ever lived. A stain on this country that can never be erased.
Sid
@karen gail: Maybe they took the flags down so they could carry them while they riot in the streets.
Matt McIrvin
@JPL: Apparently with state convictions in other jurisdictions, Florida defers to the other state about whether people should be disenfranchised, and New York only disenfranchises convicts in prison. So he’ll probably be able to vote.
artem1s
A 46-30 plurality of independents and a 61-21 majority of Republicans nationwide thought Trump would NOT be convicted of anything.
Nationwide, only 36% of voters expected a conviction.
Speculation on whether our justice system is broken does not equal voter support for TCFG or mean those polled thought he wasn’t guilty of the crimes he’s been indicted for. I had a healthy amount of skepticism about the outcome even though I thought the decision would likely be guilty on at least a few minor counts.
dumbass media. the horse race is over on this trial. time to move on to speculating about how the next one is going to be
good for John McCainbad for Biden.TBone
@Bupalos: who is this “we” you speak of 😎 I have so many prison memes that I’ve been sharing since Hot Indictment Summer last year that I almost broke the internet. I see orange jumpsuit Jessica in my sleep!
Weapon X
The Dow is up right now, so I hope someone on blue twitter starts a “Dow soars on news of Trump conviction” trend,
Baud
@karen gail: Fascinating.
NotMax
Pretty sure I read someplace that Blanche’s law office is in 40 Wall Street, a Trump Organization property.
How much higher will the rent on that office be jacked now? (“It’s not retribution for losing the case, it’s crooked Biden’s out of control inflation.”)
//
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108: People understand that “cooking the books” is wrong. This jury understood it.
Chief Oshkosh
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Hope the only tip you gave him was “get a life, ya moran!”
UncleEbeneezer
Trump could very well end up sentenced to some sort of probation or even home confinement but neither could really happen while he’s President, if he wins in November, and we’d need to wait until he is out of office for those sentences to be administered. Not to mention the Federal cases that he could literally make disappear if he becomes President again. This should be all the reason needed for all of us to do everything we can to re-elect Biden/Harris. Anyone who talked a big game about how much they want to see Trump finally held accountable should be working tirelessly to re-elect Biden/Harris. Period. Not griping about Biden’s imperfection on handling Gaza. Not making excuses for young/Muslim/Black voters who are threatening to not vote. Not whining about Merrick Garland. Whether or not Trump faces actual punishment for his crimes is up to every one of us. If Trump gets re-elected it is not The System that is to blame. I don’t know about you, but I damn sure am gonna remember who put their energy towards getting people to vote in 2024 and who put their into making never-ending excuses for not voting.
Now pass me some pie, lol.
citizen dave
@trnc: I left the house just as the verdict news came (which I didn’t hear), had bar food at a sports bar place with a thousand tvs–all sports–and a local dude playing acoustic guitar covers. A long walk on our rail trail, back home around 8, started checking out YouTube on my tv as I do, saw some videos about the case, verdict, and honestly thought it would be Not Guilty. Then in one video title saw the word “Guilty” and HOT DAMN!!! I didn’t think we had it in us.
After a few videos I came across one describing the timeline, events, and as you say, Chef’s Kiss! Trump was laughing with his attorney, waiting for the court to be adjourned, then, BOOM, Verdict, etc. Reporter said he was RED inside the courtroom; although when he spewed his normal bullshit outside the courtroom he was white as a sheet. Both colors varying from his usual orange…
TBone
@Scout211: that guy was from the Kimmel show (I posted video earlier). Hilarious 😂
TBone
@Ivan X: Reasonable inference! It’s legal!
Dorothy A. Winsor
Obviously, Trump will appeal the conviction. I’m guessing that goes to an appeals court in NY and then to the NY supreme court (whatever it’s called). Is that right? Do things stop there?
Kristine
Is Dreher even in the US anymore? I thought he moved to Hungary? He could become a citizen and vote for as many crooks as he wants to.
Honus
@Suzanne: Don Siegelman comes to mind. He actually did time. For pretty much the same thing as Trump, except the prosecutor was overtly political and corrupt.
TBone
@karen gail: YES YES YES you love to not see it! Not-see.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The highest court is the New York Court of Appeals. They call the trial court the Supreme Court. NY is weird.
Nora
I was thinking about the presentencing report that’s going to be presented to the judge, and I think the probation department would have no problem recommending jail. The defendant shows no remorse, doesn’t admit he committed the crime, and has demonstrated nothing but contempt for the entire criminal justice system. He has made it abundantly clear that he not only doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong, but that, in similar circumstances, he would commit the same acts again and brag about them. This is not the kind of defendant that would be recommended for leniency, in my opinion.
JPL
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks. I just looked it up. I guess as a convicted felon, he can’t go to Canada. That can be waived if trump is elected president.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Legally, on what basis can an appeal be launched/considered? Something the judge did wrong? I assume it has to be something more than “we didn’t like the verdict.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: A while back, I read that the secret service was trying to lay plans for what to do if Trump was jailed.
TBone
@Omnes Omnibus: for Bastille Day weekend this year, I’m celebrating all of US getting out of the prison of Dotard fanaticca.
Chief Oshkosh
@Weapon X:
Just so you can see it in a semi-headline
TBone
@Dorothy A. Winsor: delicious reminder
RedDirtGirl
@Betty Cracker: How did the family react? Or was it not discussed?
TBone
@Chief Oshkosh: 💙
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa: Yes, the appeal would claim the judge did something wrong, mostly likely in his evidentiary rulings or in the jury verdict form. The only other basis is to say the evidence wasn’t sufficient that a reasonable jury could convict. That would be a real stretch.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
If that’s Route 4 in the foreground, I’ve driven past her house many times without even noticing.
I’m good with that.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: Would SCOTUS ever be involved in Trump’s NY case?
jowriter
@Scout211: Splendid reporting.
Matt McIrvin
I thought conviction was fairly likely but that it also has a decent chance of being overturned on appeal, on the legal minutiae of the charges (and I still do). But that’s in the future.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Only if there is a constitutional issue. I don’t know if Trump’s attorneys raised one during the trial.
ETA: He might have raised a preemption issue. Can’t recall. But that could be raised with SCOTUS.
TBone
@citizen dave: he was so lackluster at that little speech that all I could think about was how hard they musta been sedating him yesterday.
satby
@Frankensteinbeck: You quoted soonergrunt’s tweet, not mine. Credit where it’s due. He’s correct, and so are you in that they feel they should be able to flout the laws and norms with impunity.
smith
@Sid: Yeah, we were promised bloodshed in the streets if he was convicted. Could he have LIED to us?
jonas
@JPL: Paying off a porn star to keep quiet about a one-night stand isn’t the crime here: it’s falsifying business records and committing election fraud. That’s what every Republican politician should be asked about and be forced to go on the record saying “it’s no big deal.”
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: LOL
I tells ya, the End Times — of tRump — is upon us.
lowtechcyclist
I thought Rod Dreher had moved to Hungary because he couldn’t stand living in the U.S.A. anymore.
Maybe he should STFU about American politics and start commenting on Hungarian politics. Let us know how that turns out, Rod.
TBone
🎶 anti-Eeyore today
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsBc5p-dPU
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
Thanks. IANAL (obvs, although I’m parent to one), but it strikes me that Merchan was very careful in his rulings. Doesn’t eliminate the possibility of error, of course, but reduces it considerably. Seems like real stretches are pretty much all TCFG’s lawyers have left
ETA: Corrupt judges are another possibility. See: Aileen Cannon. But I’m not sure the same applies to the NY Court of Appeals.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: So did I. The SS is supposed to consider all possible scenarios. Part of their job. I still don’t see it happening.
Which is not to say I won’t happily eat my hat if it did happen.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa: The real stretch would be a challenge to the evidence. That’s hard. I couldn’t tell you if Merchan made a legal error. If he did, then Trump will win his appeal unless the error is considered “harmless” (too insignificant to affect the outcome).
artem1s
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
If Elmo thinks spending campaign funds for personal gain is a trivial issue then it’s time for NASA and the DoD to disavow him and end all contracts and funding to SpaceX. SpaceX board of directors should be considering firing his ass too.
TS
@Geminid:
He may have been dropped by WaPo
1 article in April, none in May. Avoids me having to repeat myself in the comments every time I notice his name on a column.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I heard a lawyer yesterday saying the jury instructions were too confusing.
shrug
jonas
The rightwing talking heads on Fox and elsewhere are literally saying this out loud: “If they can arrest and convict Trump for this stuff, they can do it to *anyone* (pointing at the viewer Uncle Sam recruitment poster-style)!!”
Damn fucking straight they can, kemosabe. Which why it’s really important that average Americans try as best they can not to falsify business records and commit election and tax fraud while paying off *their* porn stars to keep quiet about a one-night stand. I’m sure most of us can relate…
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Thanks x 2. :-)
TBone
I guess all my percolating and cauldron stirring finally panned out 😂⚡🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9wT1s96JIb0
Classic
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YiNME8msrzg
Brachiator
Thoughtlessness for the Day
Musk is such an idiot. I will keep this in mind the next time I am paying hush money to a p*rn Star. Like never.
sdhays
It’s absurd that this was even a question, but if true, that is a great immediate benefit to the country.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: Dreher moved to Hungary because he takes being American about as seriously as he took being Catholic. Which is to say, an identity to be thrown off at will.
He deeply admires Orban and is now journalistically polishing that turd.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@jonas: The reverse is, or should be, true too. If they can prosecute the average citizen based on some evidence, then they can prosecute the former president based on the same evidence. Why not?
Kay
I think this might resonate with women partly because it ties into the whole idea of “tracking” which really concerns women. Tracking was one of the things they feared in Ohio. I think it’s a big story, but “Abortion Every Day” is a Substack where they’re basically volunteers so it has to get to a news outlet. I sent it to Propublica and The 19th.
TBone
@Brachiator: 😂🤣😆
🖕that guy
Jackie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
It restored my faith in America.
For the next 24 hours or so.
jonas
@Geminid: Hewitt is a hack’s hack. He really has raised it to an art form. There is no pretzel he cannot twist himself into, no shit sandwich he cannot eat, to defend whatever Trump and the Republicans do, even if it’s the complete opposite of what he had to say yesterday.
UncleEbeneezer
@Frankensteinbeck: Yup. Not to mention, so many women who are perfect to lead, decide not to, because they know how much misogyny the will have heaped upon them simply for being in a leadership position over boys/men. I can’t really blame them. But it’s sad and fucked up.
Frankensteinbeck
@gene108:
I don’t think it matters much what the crime was, in terms of effect it has on the public. To MAGA Trump LOST. Conservatives do not like loser stink. It demotivates them, makes them want to hide. To Republican waverers this is hard, factual, very public reinforcement of why they’re uncomfortable with Trump. To the normies, the mushy middle, the uninformed, Donald Trump is a convicted felon. They’re going to hear it a lot. Relentlessly, all over the place. It’s not an accusation, he was convicted of a felony, and that will stick in their brain. For liberals, the asshole isn’t invulnerable after all. Let’s finish him off.
SiubhanDuinne
@Capri:
Apparently he is scheduled to make a formal statement at 11:00. I expect it to be full of dog-whistly instructions (à la “Stand down and stand by!”) to his devoted minions.
danielx
I got something from a friend last evening to the effect that ‘he’ll probably win anyway’, ‘he’ of course being the rotten orange.
Whatever, Eeyore.
Just for one day, let us savor.
TBone
Mood music, weekend edition
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8VQuFXzQzDA
Unabashed is a good word.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: We also have people on our side who can’t take a win. They have to immediately throw a bucket of cold water on it, and call it reality.
TBone
@schrodingers_cat: 🙄 slight irritation, there’s ointment for that 😆
JPL
@sdhays: When I saw that, I let out a sigh of relief.
artem1s
@bbleh:
I was out with friends last night and in a crowd of people generally talking to one another when someone walked up and announced the jury verdict. 15 seconds into the discussion about the verdict, I heard what I knew the MAGAts and normies who are looking to stick with TCFG would all be saying today, ‘everybody does it’.
There were TV’s all over the place with sportball on. No breaking news, not one channel. I never got a pings on my phone or watch. I looked at my news feed and 2 hours after it happened there was nothing. It’s in there this morning but 5 or 6 items down. I beginning to think the MSM is going to try to ignore this. Just like their blown call on their prediction of a red wave. Assholes.
bluefoot
@TBone:
“Jackson Heights” as a doll’s name is awesome.
Way back in the 70s, I named a friend’s Black doll “Roosevelt Franklin” after the muppet on Sesame Street. Thinking about it now, the elementary school depicted on Sesame Street must have been in Queens.
mali muso
I’m still coasting in a happy mood this morning. Polished off a piece of the “conviction cake” that I whipped up last night, and I plan to enjoy every sweet bite. It’s morning in America!
TBone
@Mike in NC: we’re working on it though. Shout it out! My spray bottle is reusable.
H.E.Wolf
I prefer the sound of his actual name in that moniker: orange jumpsuit John. :-)
TBone
@Sid: 🤣😆
schrodingers_cat
@artem1s: Snooze hour covered it pretty well.
jonas
In the context of normal electoral politics, that may have once been true. But remember, we’ve been through the looking glass for quite a while now. Trump’s effectively a cult leader, not a politician. Persecution only makes him stronger in their eyes. This may not play well for some Republican-leaning independents who voted for Trump in the past, but his MAGA core is going to double and triple down, ad infinitum, no matter what happens to him. They’ll vote for him long after he’s dead (claiming of course, that he was resurrected and should appear on the GOP ballot with his running mate Jesus for all eternity).
Starfish
@trnc:
His electric car business is not doing so hot right now.
The ugly trucks all had to be recalled because of the way something could just floor the gas and get stuck that way.
China is flooding the market with cheap electric vehicles. We just don’t see them here because Joe Biden tariffs.
One of the rental companies is flooding the market with second-hand electric vehicles.
People don’t want to buy Musk’s electric vehicles because Musk is a jerk.
He fired the people building out the charging stations that will benefit Tesla and all the other companies who use Tesla’s charging plugs as a standard because some lady pushed back on him wanting to layoff people on her team, and how dare a woman tell him “no.”
He had to bring some members of the team back.
NotMax
Celebrating at 4 a.m. with a humongous (eff the calories) slice of banana cream pie and an extra double martini.
@TBone
Our long national witch hunt is over. :)
JPL
@jonas: Maybe that should be the question. We know that paying off a porn star is not a crime, but does it bother you.
I still think it’s important to remind folks what a slime bag he is.
O. Felix Culpa
@jonas: I agree that the cultists will double down. These 34 felony convictions make it unlikely that he gains votes, though.
TBone
@H.E.Wolf: 🤣 You have just inspired me to look for my Dotard meme where he’s wearing a long, blonde wig and extra long eyelashes for his mugshot. He’s the “john” in this situation in more ways than one!
Omnes Omnibus
Fuck ’em.
TBone
@NotMax: 💙⚡⛈️😎
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus:
In which OO channels efg.
Chief Oshkosh
@Frankensteinbeck:
I very much disagree. I think normies, and almost everyone else, would consider “hush money” not much of a crime (and indeed it’s not). It’s unsavory, but so what?
OTOH, money laundering as part of a larger scheme to interfere with his own election ARE crimes, and they are not hard to understand, IMO. The pornstar hush money aspect of it does add to the ickiness of it all, but it’s not what will peel away normies.
In support of this, why do you think that the MSM pushes the “pornstar hush money” meme instead of “money laundering and election fraud” meme?
Eyeroller
@gene108: They may think it’s sleazy but know it’s not illegal (“between him and his wife” i.e. like Bill Clinton as was pointed out above). How about “crooked accounting” rather than “falsifying business records.” I don’t think one needs any training in accounting to understand that businesses do it.
PJ
Josh Marshall at TPM had some thought-provoking words on what’s been done to this country over the last 24 years, what great things we thought we might be doing instead, and the shitty work we still have to do to fight the people who want to get rid of democracy and the rule of law:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/trump-conviction-american-cold-civil-war
Omnes Omnibus
@O. Felix Culpa: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
Jackie
@satby: This
In other words, TCFG was elected because he and his minions hid information that may well have changed who won the election. As always, with TCFG, when he says it’s RIGGED, it’s PROJECTION.
Gin & Tonic
@Suzanne: On the blessedly rare occasions when I think about Dreher (like when you mention him here) I wonder idly how he’s doing in learning Hungarian, a very difficult language.
Omnes Omnibus
He was convicted on Covfefe Day.
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus: Lol. ‘Tis clear into which category you fall.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: He’s a witch! He’s a witch!
Omnes Omnibus
@O. Felix Culpa:
Is it?
Miss Bianca
@Frankensteinbeck:
That is some truth, there. I remember a long time ago my ex-husband talking about that, passing along nuggets of wisdom gained from a counselor – that getting affection or emotional support from other men was SO taboo, and that a lot of male rage/violence against women stemmed from the fact that men were ONLY allowed to get that from women, and ONLY through sex, and that if women denied that to them, it was THAT BITCH’S FAULT, how *dare* they not give these men what they so desperately needed?
We see the truth of all that in the modern incel movement, among other things
Uneekness
The idea that this is going to somehow activate or motivate voters either to switch or vote for Trump for the first time is nonsense. “I am citizen who barely ever votes, but on this issue, I suddenly care deeply about this in a way that matches Fox News framing. You can trust that I am being honest about this.”
Rightwing voters are good at taking the “cues” that are given them and running with it to try and turn whatever version of “fetch” into a thing. (For example, the deep and sincerely held belief that info security was simply a non-partisan issue that was motivating their votes.) We will know how well it works if a week from now the MSM is full of stories about proper jury instruction procedure and cletus safaris to interview “independent” (who are in reality GOP precinct chairpersons) voters and taking their, “I have to vote for Trump now, when before I was backing Biden” at face value.
SFAW
@Suzanne:
Treating Blacks, gays, liberals et al. as if they’re actual humans with rights.
TBone
@PJ: I might read that on some other day, t.y. Today, I’ll not take a stumble because I’m looking over my shoulder. I’m focusing on TAKING THE WIN and all the good things to come, to celebrate our faith in Truth, Justice, and the American Way. I’m leaping tall buildings in a single bound!
TBone
@Omnes Omnibus: 💙🤣👍😎
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: A surprise is also a good thing :)
TBone
I got sunthin’ for his punk ass
🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AEYN5w4T_aM
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Which just happened to be the day after the 51st anniversary of this classic.
UncleEbeneezer
But hey, things couldn’t possibly be worse than Biden…BothSides™…etc. I mean it’s not like Trump already showed a willingness to weaponize DOJ against protestors in 2020.
rikyrah
Jennifer “Trump Convicted Felon” Rubin 🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@JRubinBlogger) posted at 8:27 AM on Fri, May 31, 2024:
Two takeaways flow from understanding what polls are truly measuring and how tuned out a high percentage of voters may be. For starters, Biden’s “message” right now largely isn’t heard by disengaged voters. He cannot persuade people who are not listening. Pronouncements about his “messaging” (usual critical) don’t have much value until the people he needs to reach start listening.
Second, the challenge for Democrats will be to reach the disengaged who would normally lean their way. That means social media, nontraditional media (e.g., “The View”), turn-out-the-vote operations and making the most of high-interest events. (The Biden campaign, for example, announced a massive outreach to African American voters for the summer.) Fortunately for the future of our democracy, the Biden side has a real campaign with hundreds, if not thousands, of people on the ground whose job this will be. The Trump team? It has virtually none.
Link
WereBear
@Suzanne: It has been my observation that the redder the state, the more a child MUST emulate their parents’ lives.
Fear of being shown up by their own child.
Sid
@Omnes Omnibus: It turns out the Diaper Don was prescient.
JML
@O. Felix Culpa: I think this is where it matters. It’s one more log on the fire and a reason for people to either not vote for him or stay home. yes, the loudest, most devoted cultists will double-down, but this isn’t a cult that has actual control of millions and millions of voters; the control is in the GOP political leaders that fear reprisal. It’s very easy for the squishy votes to quietly stay home without any reprisals.
We’ll see how it actually plays out. we certainly can’t sit back and rely on TCFG to just collapse and go away: he must be beaten at the ballot box, and soundly.
trnc
@Scout211:
I love that! I hope it gets more eyeballs.
Geminid
@TS: Hewitt’s morning radio show is his platform with the widest reach.
UncleEbeneezer
@PJ: 2016 was a once in a generation opportunity because of the stakes and SCOTUS. Republicans treated it as such. We were too busy griping about how Bernie was robbed by the DNC and Hillary wasn’t perfect and making excuses for those who didn’t want to vote for her. And many of the same people are doing the latter yet again, wrt, Biden/Gaza. Some people never learn.
SFAW
@Scout211:
Huh. I thought Rikers was part of Manhattan. I love learning new stuff like that.
Chris Johnson
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, that would make sense. I absolutely would not want him chucked away in some low-security prison among the other prisoners, because Trump is indeed a high risk felon: pressures are at work that make imprisoning him not a simple matter, and it’s not because he’s dangerous to the other prisoners or because his political enemies want to hurt him… his political OWNERS want to martyr him because he’s more use to them dead.
As such, his safety is actually a serious challenge, and I daresay everyone responsible for sentencing him knows it. They might view it as ‘some want him harmed because it can be blamed on Biden’ or they might view it as ‘some want him harmed because he’s been a goddamn puppet this whole time and it’s basically the mob wanting to use him as a rallying point, but it’s not the American or Italian mob’, but it’s more or less the same.
Starfish
@JPL: Has Canada considered building a wall to make sure that criminals on their southern border do not enter their country?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@OzarkHillbilly:
TBone
For Melanie 🎶🤣
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FRZzUh9hcTo
Another Scott
I’m looking forward to Liz Dye’s take. This is from 5/29:
(Much more at the link.)
They really aren’t sending their best, are they? Or are they??
FAFO…
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
via John SF over at OTB comes this NotMax challenge:
Scout211
“Breaking news” from CNN:
Yawn.
Frankensteinbeck
@jonas:
But losing his fight against it makes him weaker. They want him to win battles for them. They want a champion. Yes, the more he’s attacked, the more he’s guilty of, the more they will love him. The more he loses, the more he is convicted of, the less they will love him. They’ll never admit he’s wrong, of course. That would be admitting they themselves are wrong. But they’ll be demotivated.
@Chief Oshkosh:
Sure, but that opinion won’t make a difference. What will stick in their heads is ‘convicted felon’, because that description is not going to go away. Most of them won’t even remember what he was convicted of.
Because sex. In what world is the news not going to leap on ‘porn star hush money’ if they can possibly use that description?
@Miss Bianca:
It doesn’t excuse them, but yes. I was thinking about all that. Sex with women is the only way they’re allowed to fulfill a basic human need they’re not even allowed to admit they have.
Miss Bianca
@jonas:
I’ve been reading a novel a friend of mine wrote about Jonestown, and the parallels between the dynamics of People’s Temple devotees and MAGAts is pretty chilling.
Sid
@UncleEbeneezer: “we” weren’t- it was the fucking ‘purer than thou’ morons who don’t understand the dynamics of American presidential elections and their ramifications.
NotMax
Ennio Morricone’s The Verdict.
;)
Steeplejack
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Same. I wanted the jurors to take a long time, to show that they were considering each charge seriously. I think the fact that there were two attorneys on the jury bolsters its credibility.
Sid
@Chris Johnson: Not to worry- Trump’s as good as a ‘made man’ with Bratva. They’ll be watching his back.
Baud
@Scout211: He’s not even running again.
He, Sinema, Angus King, and Bernie can form the independent’s caucus. They can meet on Manchin’s houseboat.
TBone
@Another Scott: that’s fucking YUMMY. When she singled out our PA Secty. of Health, Dr. Rachel Levine (a trans woman) for ridicule, Jenna made a lifelong enemy of me. I told her so online “you’re just jealous cuz she’s prettier than you, you fucking diseased alley cat.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Levine
rikyrah
The evidence that led to Trump’s hush money conviction
The prosecution’s case against Trump relied on 34 documents: 11 invoices, 12 vouchers and 11 checks.
By Nick Mourtoupalas and Azi Paybarah
Updated May 30, 2024 at 6:01 p.m. EDT|Published May 30, 2024 at 3:56 p.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/30/evidence-trump-hush-money-trial/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzE3MDQxNjAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzE4NDIzOTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3MTcwNDE2MDAsImp0aSI6ImEzYTg4Y2Q1LTM0YWMtNDA2Yi05MDRkLWI5ZDg4NTBlZDVkZCIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9wb2xpdGljcy8yMDI0LzA1LzMwL2V2aWRlbmNlLXRydW1wLWh1c2gtbW9uZXktdHJpYWwvIn0.c6ou7op-UB2XZYK0PlkDQ-5CI2v3yc436pljCNly6LY
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Cute. We are legion.
:)
Jackie
@Bupalos:
Just like so many people had trouble envisioning a former president ever being found GUILTY 34 TIMES for election fraud!
Sid
@Baud: I get where you’re coming from, but it’s not entirely fair to put King and Sanders in league with Sinema and Manchin.
TBone
@NotMax: chef’s kiss
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Scott: I know a guy who won his unemployment appeal because even tho the boss man said he was incompetent (I had worked with both and yes, it was an absurd lie) he must have been incompetent when he was hired.
Labor law can be a little weird that way.
ArchTeryx
Never have I been so glad to be pessimistic and wrong. Also glad to see we’re celebrating an actual victory against the forces of evil before we go back to the fight.
As I’ve been saying, this election will be decided on the margins, just like 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 – all elections involving Trump. That is a double edged sword. It means a few tens of thousands of low-information normies will decide who the next President is, not us activists. But it also means that a few tens of thousands of fascist-curious but low-information voters deciding TCFG is a bridge too far WILL lose him the election. They don’t have to vote for Biden. They just have to leave the topline blank or stay home. As a bonus, that will probably swing some close races for the Senate and House in our favor, too.
Live by tiny margins, die by tiny margins. TCFG fucked around. Now he gets to find out.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@rikyrah:
GOTV. It’s always GOTV in all it’s forms.
My biggest hope is the cascade effect of a big Biden win on the House and Senate.
I have no faith in 99% of the Never-Trump crowd from voting straight (R) on their ticket except for the Orange Far Cloud. But get everybody else to the polls? We win. Bigly.
Chris Johnson
@Sid: No, that’s where he started. They’ll be watching his back looking for where to stab. Like the original they’ve got a shitty retirement plan, and there’s no place in it for a blowhard who can’t get the MAGAs to fling themselves into the gears anymore. If Trump was able to motivate another Jan 6 he would be worth keeping alive. It might be worth keeping him as a pet, in Russia, perhaps in a dog collar? as a method of gloating?
There is no loyalty to Donald Trump. He is a tool, a blunt instrument for hurting Americans with, and he represents the worst and weakest of Americans. I don’t think even ordinary Russians respect him, much less the mob.
Sandia Blanca
@Scout211: That guy works for Jimmy Kimmel Live! He’s a comic foil, not a MAGA.
Another Scott
“Stupid Democrat. Everyone knows a felony conviction will fire up his supporters!!1”
Meanwhile, in the real world where people actually vote with their dollars rather than just make mouth noises, DJT down 4.6% so far today.
[ womp, womp ]
Cheers,
Scott.
Eyeroller
@UncleEbeneezer: I’m convinced that misogyny was the main issue for Hillary. There is considerable evidence that people (not just men) are very reluctant to vote for women for offices with significant power. More women are being elected to governorships now, however, so we may be getting there. But it’s going to require generational change, I think.
TBone
@Sid: thank you.
Geminid
From Axios’s Barack Ravid:
TBone
@Chris Johnson: 👍
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Lapassionara: I often imagine a psychological experiment, where you present a MAGA cultist with two news stories. One is a true story about TCFG. The other is the same story with “Hillary” or “Obama” or “Biden” substituted for his name. Then you ask them to react.
Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog
@Honus: I haven’t heard the broadcast, but if that’s how it went down … that is so NPR.
Omnes Omnibus
@OzarkHillbilly:
Unemployment compensation law doesn’t deal with whether a person’s termination was justified, merely whether the person is due temporary compensation for the loss of employment. A person who tried hard but wasn’t a good fit for whatever reason is didn’t bring their termination on themself. Also, many states start from presumption that one is due compensation and it it can only be denied if they somehow disqualify themself.
TBone
@bluefoot: 💜💙💜💙😍✊
Born in Brooklyn Jewish Hospital, it took several years in PA before I lost the accent. But it was an easy switch to DelCo hoagie mouth!
Matt McIrvin
@bluefoot: If I recall correctly, Sesame Street is semi-canonically somewhere on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, though Joan Ganz Cooney imagined it as being in Alphabet City on the Lower East Side. Gentrification has changed the whole borough, of course.
(edit: in 2019, de Blasio christened a sign placing it nearer Hell’s Kitchen)
ArchTeryx
@Another Scott:
What, was she one of the Sad Puppies, too? These fascists have zero creativity even when they’re trying to be funny. That she got unemployment from the very labor system she was eager to dismantle was just the icing on the cake.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
I was wondering if they still had that nomenclature. I was aware of it back in the 1970s, but haven’t had reason to follow NYS law since. And yeah, it’s weird.
ArchTeryx
@Honus: Because NPR knows who pays their bills. That simple: Follow the money.
TBone
@Matt McIrvin: I still remember the very first episode. My mom plopped me in front of the TV for the first time voluntarily (she preferred books of course) and I can remember her contagious excitement about Sesame Street. I think the Electric Company “HEY YOU GUYS!” yell was a recording of her 🤣
Rita Moreno
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K48I6ay4tbM
TBone
🎶 STORMY
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zgCJmJRSsR0&pp=QAFIAQ%3D%3D
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes.
Matt McIrvin
@Eyeroller: Massachusetts just got its first elected female governor in the 2022 election (we’d had an Acting one previously). Healey is also our first out gay governor; it doesn’t seem intuitively like those would be the same person.
Senator Elizabeth Warren got reelected by a huge margin over a MAGA loon in 2018, but before that, I recall some speculation that she tended to underperform in elections and polls relative to what you’d expect from her national profile simply because she’s a woman.
NotMax
@TBone
Speaking of hoagie accents….
Matt McIrvin
@TBone: My mom tells me I watched both of those shows from the first episode (and she credits them with teaching me to read before I entered kindergarten), but I think I only remember seeing the premiere of The Electric Company. I was too little in 1969 to recall anything.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
We olds had the lackluster Ding Dong School.
;)
Joy in FL
@RobertS: I nominate your comment (at #42) for a rotating tag (if it isn’t already): “Law and Order is when You go to jail. Rule of Law is when I get acquitted.” It is perfect.
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, “fault” and so forth can be counter-intuitive.
I remember being shocked at the paltry unemployment benefits in VA when I looked a few years ago. In Virginia it’s $60-378 a week, for 12-26 weeks. That’s it. And, of course, it’s taxable income.
Employers fighting over such paltry amounts is infuriating.
And legislators thinking that people can actually live on that while searching for other employment, pursuing other benefits, etc., is infuriating.
Put me in the UBI, and meaningful unemployment benefits, camp.
Grr…,
Scott.
trnc
@TBone:
I agree, but even if he isn’t able to communicate directly from prison, and you can bet your ass his minions won’t hesitate to carry on. Someone writes a lot of his posts for him as it is now, so I expect there to be no less authoritarian messaging than we’re getting now.
NotMax
So what are the chances of Dolt 45 coming out today, giving a rousing off-key rendition of “I Fought the Law and the Law Won” and dropping the mic?
Magic 8-ball sez: Are you putting me on?
//
catclub
@Another Scott:
I was just looking at the RCP presidential preference betting. Right now Trump is leading. Most of 2020 Biden was leading. In 2016 Hillary was leading the entire year by huge amounts. A lot of people lost money there. I suspect that the same people are not betting this year. [It also looks like many bettors are still betting on someone besides Biden and Trump this year.]
cmorenc
How far MAGAs will go to rationalize how some egregiously criminal action by Trump is inconsequentially insignificant is a guy i referee soccer with the afternoon the Feds found the extremely sensitive nuclear weapons classified docs in boxes in the mar-a-lago bathroom just off the pool, which Trump had concealed and kept from the feds on their first visit. I mentioned to him what i had freshly learned listening to cnn on the drive the field. He replied seriously not sarcastically: “Hell, doesn’t matter the Russians already have our damn nuclear codes anyways.” And he was pissed off that the feds had executed a search warrant at Trump’s mar-a- lago home. We had never discussed politics before, just soccer.
gvg
@Matt McIrvin: That’s news to me and I would not trust it. Maybe for Trump with a lot of experts weighing in, but an ordinary out of stater would probably be arrested. Also I suspect there is no federal crime database that a state ca access, so it its not in Florida they wouldn’t know.
catclub
@Joy in FL: This. White people’s view of law.
Yes, I am one.
Kay
Ooof. That makes nine resignations. Gilbert’s allegation is probaby the most serious. She says a report to Congress was altered to obviate Israel’s blockage of US humantarian aid, because if Israel is blocking US aid, that’s a violation of US law.
I don’t recall seeing an issue like this before in my life, because “the political opposition” would be the people who would hold Biden’s feet to the fire on this but they’re insanely anti Palestinian, openly genocidal, so that leaves only the whistleblowers, 9 Democratic Senators and 89 D House members to act as oversight. It puts them in a very tough position but they gotta do it. It’s part of their constitutional duty.
bluefoot
@TBone: Nice. My sister lives in Queens now and she and her husband swear they are never going to leave.
@Matt McIrvin: I did not know that about Sesame Street. Certainly demographics of NYC neighborhoods have changed A LOT since Sesame Street started. A friend of mine lived in Hell’s Kitchen in the late 80’s-90’s. We were so excited when the first McDonalds opened up (even if they had bulletproof glass and the revolving door thing at the counter to get your order) – the neighborhood was improving!
Another Scott
I understand we won’t see it, but TCFFG’s interview with the court representative before sentencing should be interesting. Will he continue to brazen it out, refusing to accept the conviction and his responsibility? Will he try to lie his way out of it? While, as I understand it, the interview can’t be uses to lockhimup by itself, and everyone has the right to appeal, it must have some bearing on the process, right, (otherwise, why have it)?
I mean, I know he refuses to accept any constraints or consequences, but how will he try to spin it?
Looking at the NY County (Manhattan) stats for 2022 (link to page including XLS file):
16,016 total felony arrests
6,426 total convictions (felony and misdemeanor and “non-criminal”)
2,282 felony convictions
1,425 sentenced to prison (1425/2282 = 62.5%) (assuming misdemeanor and non-criminal don’t go to prison)
It would be nice if they broke out just the disposition of the felony cases, but they don’t seem to do that.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
JML
@TBone: lol, my mom didn’t like the Electric Company nearly as much as Sesame Street or Mister Rogers Neighborhood; she thought it got me and my sister too riled up. :P
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@bluefoot: I think West Side Story was intended to be in Hell’s Kitchen, though I’m not sure the original productions ever made the exact location clear. I thought it was interesting that the Spielberg remake was explicit that the neighborhood was the future site of Lincoln Center. Bernstein had a lot to do with the construction of Lincoln Center.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@TBone: You must be a bit younger than me. My baby sister was of the age to watch those shows in 1969. I thoroughly enjoyed both, and often watched over her shoulder. But I was a pre-teen, a bit older than their intended demographic.
NotMax
@bluefoot
Time was there were some interesting and/or funky shops on 9th Avenue running uptown through the 40s and 50s. All gone now, presumably kaput rather than moved elsewhere as the neighborhood gentrified.
Matt McIrvin
@JML: The Electric Company was patterned more after Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, I think.
I watched Sesame Street a lot with my own kid in the 2000s. They’d deliberately slowed down the pace of the show from the TV-commercial-inspired format it originally had, after concerns that the quick cuts were training children to have shorter attention spans. That was why those long segments like “Elmo’s World” started appearing.
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He has business records?
I thought that he believes he’s so smart that he doesn’t need records. Is it possible that he got those black platter things confused with all that stuff that accountants create?
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
How do they think normal voters will see that?
They aren’t worried about NORMAL voters, they are worried about their voters. Normal humans rarely vote for shitstains like djt – normal voters are the ones that wonder WHY would anyone vote for such a POS.
Chris
@satby:
This.
Everything about Trump is just an extension of how various Republican support bases have been acting all along. And Trump’s embodiment of them is the reason they love and identify with him so much.
Trump is the voice of every cop who believes they should be able to beat and murder whoever they want because being a cop is just so hard and without them you’d all be murdered in your beds (like you deserve, ungrateful peons).
Trump is the voice of every businessman who cheats his employees and customers out of their money and doesn’t pay his taxes because they’re just so important and they carry all the economy on their backs and if they weren’t allowed to break the law then society would collapse.
Trump is the voice of every church that believes it should be allowed to endorse and raise money for Republicans every Sunday but still keep their tax-exempt non-political status, because if they don’t then that’s religious persecution.
Trump is the voice of every farmer who believes it’s his God-given right to live on the federal dole while making illegal immigrants do his job for him because that’s how he gets rewarded for being the most honest hardworking salt-of-the-earth rugged individualist in the world.
And, way too often, already long before Trump came along, society indulged and humored and excused all these people for all these things. It still does. Trump becoming president was a vindication for all of them, telling them that this was their country, as God intended. Trump being found guilty of anything is an outrage, a personal attack on all of them, because it means that the possibility exists, however remote, however unlikely, that one day someone might actually find them guilty of all the crimes they’ve committed, too.
Ruckus
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Doesn’t NPR stand for National Pubic Radio? I mean they have Hewitt on there, how could it stand for anything else?
Fair Economist
@catclub:
That right there tells you most RCP bettors don’t understand what’s going on. The chance it’s not Biden or Trump is the chance that the winner dies before inauguration.
WereBear
@JPL:
And boom, there goes another source of income.
WereBear
@karen gail: Amazing. So quick they turn :)
Central Planning
@Suzanne: Blowjobs in the Oval Office are that bad.
Chris
@Kay:
It’s been a long time, but one of the things I remember from the late 2000s, as part of the general discontent with Dubya’s legacy, is that a good deal of foreign policy and national security professionals were getting increasingly fed up with being Israel’s house cleaner, bail bondsman, and PR specialist all in one, while getting absolutely nothing for it in return except an ever-worsening stain on our reputation for what it forced us to be involved with. I don’t know how that evolved in the fifteen years since, but let’s say I’m not surprised at how many people have resigned over this.
Reminds me of the several Army people assigned to Central America in the eighties, who at some point got so nauseated by the death squads they were being sent to support that they kept trying to draw attention to things like the El Mozote massacre. People like this are on the front lines of what our “allies” are doing, not cheerfully enjoying the sanitized version presented in the official narrative. It surprises me not at all that some of them end up so disgusted they just can’t do the work anymore.
Juju
@Suzanne: Tan suits.
Kay
@Chris:
It concerns me because one of the things I learned as a manager is the better people go first. Hit the exits. They have high standards. Now, maybe unrealistically high, but you still want to pay attention when you lose them because they are literally the “standard bearers”. The whole org drops down a tick when you lose them.
When Biden is reelected I hope he replaces Blinken. This is the second resignation where the employee said Blinken’s state department doesn’t allow debate and dissent. That’s bad. That’s part of how we got here, where they’re having to jerry rig reports about aid because no aid has gotten in in weeks. They need to start listening to dissenters. This thing is going sideways in a big way.
Matt McIrvin
@satby: To conservatives, being good or bad, innocent or criminal doesn’t really have a lot to do with what you do–it’s about who you are. There are good kinds of people and bad kinds of people and they can tell the difference just by looking. The good kind of people get infinite second chances when they screw up or hurt others, and the bad kind rightfully get none.
It’s connected to the existence of a natural social hierarchy determined at birth. If you’re low in the hierarchy you’re automatically suspect, but you’ll be provisionally tolerated if you’re satisfied with your position and don’t make waves.
trnc
Nice Polite Republicans.
I heard a panel discussion there today that was not the worst framing I’ve heard, but it did amplify some republican talking points – Eg, distrust in the court system – without pointing out the objective truth that DT got a fair trial.
Chris
@Kay:
TBF, part of this is simply that the best employees have the most options. If their resume reflects their quality at all, they’re the ones who will find it easiest to find employment elsewhere, so they’re the ones who have the least need to put up with your bullshit. Once the bullshit hits a critical mass, they’re gone.
(I may or may not be currently watching my roommate come to this exact decision with her dickwad of an employer).
On the broader topic, our federal workforce is a national treasure. Certainly in this kind of field, most of them are people who absolutely have the credentials and the talent to be earning a lot more in the private sector, but choose to be feds instead for what are essentially ideological reasons. We do not appreciate nearly enough how many of the nation’s “best employees” are in that sector, how much they have to do with its success… and how much better off we’d be if we listened to them more often.
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I’ve sat on juries. In my experience, if the case was well presented most of the jurors have a concept of how they will vote when they go into deliberations. On occasion they can be talked out of their position if they leave out or add some of their own prejudices, which we all have. On the other hand some jurors will know not much more than the direction they are leaning. Some may lean like a steel pole in a light breeze and some will lean like a willow in a hurricane, but they are waiting to make an actual decision after discussion. I’ve seen discussing their kids for a bit to waste time before a vote is taken if everyone seems to be leaning in the same direction. And one thing I’ve never seen is someone taking the entire thing like a joke.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Makes you wonder what they think is genuinely that bad.
Getting Caught.
That is the bad part. They are pissed because they found out that shitforbrains didn’t have the ability to get away with his stupidity.
He is too stupid. They are mad they were too stupid to see it.
S Cerevisiae
@Chris: That’s brilliant. Well put.
TBone
@Chris: fucking righteous rant. Glad I came back here to see it
✊
Gloria DryGarden
@karen gail: wow. How does it get any better than that?
Gloria DryGarden
@Chris: this sums up a lot of the weird thinking that I don’t understand, but that might be behind so much of it.
WG might you repost this in a lead to another thread? It’s a downer, but it’s apt.
SFBayAreaGal
@TBone: Two great songs. I’ve seen Santana in concert.
Quadrillipede
No. It can’t be waived. Even if he gets re-elected he still can’t visit Canada. Not unless he feels like dodging volleys of months-old poutine… 🇨🇦
Chris
@Gloria DryGarden:
Sure, if another relevant thread pops up while I’m at the computer I’ll repost it.
Sorry if it’s a downer, it really isn’t meant to be? The fact that Trump was convicted is a good thing. It’s a sign that this isn’t, in fact, simply a country for people like him. At least not everywhere and not all the time. They want it to be, but they’re not there yet. They may never get there, and if they don’t win in November it’ll at least partly be thanks to this.
But yeah, this is to quite an extent a problem we as a society created long before Trump, by allowing and encouraging the development of all these pockets of people who are, if not completely above the law, at least subject to a different law than us mere mortals. In a way it isn’t surprising that these people end up believing that they’re special, different, better than, above, the rest of us. If you’re treated that way all your life, you’re going to reach the obvious conclusions.
Uncle Cosmo
Disagree. My hunch is that GOP voters who stay home or vote for Democrats downticket will be outnumbered by those who show up and decline to vote for Trumplthinskin but vote straight Thuglican downticket in a kind of “penance effect.”**
** IIRC that term was coined for an election some decades which returned a Thug as President but Democratic representation in Congress also increased, but I’ve had no luck googling it.
Quadrillipede
I think there is a very common sentiment among people of all political persuasions, that doing something enjoyable, or even mere public displays of happiness, are problematic behaviours, if not downright subversive and insidious to more austere and “proper” emotional regulation. I personally disagree with this, and suspect I am not the only one…
Uncle Cosmo
Got two words for you: HORSE and SHIT. As reprehensible a character as Lone Skum is, he is entitled to think whatever he wants. Get back to us when there is evidence admissible in a court of law that he’s actually committed (or aided in the commission of) a crime, sufficient to charge and convict him.
Uncle Cosmo
Many years ago I read a book published IIRC in the 50s whose Austro-Hungarian author (already fluent in French and German) went to law school before WW1 in Budapest, and had to learn Hungarian from scratch in the bargain. His comment on the difficulty of magyarul went something like
Some friends were studying the language with a private tutor; I bought the book they were using and sat in for a few sessions. It struck me that for an agglutinative tongue like Hungarian, a few hundred roots and a few dozen postpositions might be sufficient for laborious translation of non-specialist documents. Speaking it, or following a conversation, would be something else entirely.**
(Speaking of Mars: Manhattan Project workers would occasionally catch John von Neumann, Eugen Wigner, Edward Teller and other Hungarian natives babbling with one another in an incomprehensible language. A rumor circulated that although the scientists claimed to be from Hungary, in fact they were extraterrestrials who’d come to Earth disguised as humans, and the language they spoke when together was their native Martian.)
I dunno, G&T, what do you think? Beszel ön magyarul? ( remember being up on Varhegy in Buda by the Mattyas-templom when I figured out my first Hungarian word. I was at Szentharomsag ter and worked out that it meant “Holy Trinity Square”…
Sally
@Kay: …..above women’s rights, privacy, health, and lives.
The Lodger
@Scout211: My former employer, a local daily in SE PA, used to pound the local angle relentlessly on every story we could. The Queens Daily Fishwrap is teaching us all how it’s done. BRAVO!