Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

"Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas, as well as Arkansas and Alabama, have laws that bar a candidate defeated in a major-party primary from running as an independent or on a third-party ticket in the general election. That would put Trump at the general-election starting gate with a deficit of 91 electoral votes of the 270 required to capture the White House."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (deep breath) MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Okay no seriously, I have three things:
1) If those laws are already in the books, why are we only now finding out about that? No disrespect to MSN but I kinda figured this big of an obstacle would have been mentioned sooner.
2) If that's true, I would expect the red legislatures of those red states to immediately start repealing those. Yes, changing the election laws just to make it possible for Trump to run.
3) If these laws are already in the books and the red legislatures fail to change them, I expect Trump to take them to court with the evidence of "I didn't lose". It's really easy for me to say that, because it seems highly unlikely that scenario will be tested.

[Gorsameth]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (deep breath) MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Okay no seriously, I have three things:
1) If those laws are already in the books, why are we only now finding out about that? No disrespect to MSN but I kinda figured this big of an obstacle would have been mentioned sooner.
2) If that's true, I would expect the red legislatures of those red states to immediately start repealing those. Yes, changing the election laws just to make it possible for Trump to run.
3) If these laws are already in the books and the red legislatures fail to change them, I expect Trump to take them to court with the evidence of "I didn't lose". It's really easy for me to say that, because it seems highly unlikely that scenario will be tested.

They are hardly new. The were mentioned aswell 4 years ago as something to stop Trump from running 3e party if he lost the primary he first time.

But I also consider Trump moronic enough to try a 3e party run without being on the ballot in those states and having absolutely 0 chance.

[Breccia]

They are hardly new. The were mentioned aswell 4 years ago as something to stop Trump from running 3e party if he lost the primary he first time.

Well then either shame on me for missing it, or shame on political reporters for not making a bigger deal about it. Probably the former, to be honest.

I've said for years -- so have most of us -- that Trump running 3rd party would give Biden a far easier path to the WH. Because the USA still goes First Past the Post, splitting the Republican ticket dooms it to 2nd and 3rd place. The Clinton victory in 1992 would echo again.

This leaves Trump with only a few choices, all bad.

1) Win the Republican Primary, with stronger opposition than he faced in 2016, and also while facing multiple trials -- possibly criminal ones. Atlanta, NYState, and the FBI of Mar-a-Lago all have options, in particular, they all seem to have conspiracy and obstruction options. Based on what happened when boxes were being carried out of Trump's basement, I'd find it pretty realistic that, if one of them charges Trump, the other two would immediately follow. And we've seen enough judges souring on Trump that "they're only charging me because I'm running for office" won't fly in the courtroom.

2) Bow out. I said in 2020 he would take this option, faking an illness when he knew he would lose -- and honestly, even Trump's harshest critics didn't seriously predict Trump would lead a literal lynch mob, rather than admit defeat. But with Trump increasingly in legal trouble, I don't see Trump bowing out, gracefully or otherwise. It's the smart play once he knows he can't win, but it's possible his sociopathic, psychotic mind is incapable of reaching that conclusion anymore.

3) Run third party, split the ticket, and be the first third party candidate in quite a long time to get any EC votes at all, which he can count while Biden gives his victory speech.

4) Die.

I'm serious about that last one. Leaving aside any conspiracy theories, Trump is old, fat, sick, fat, obese, can barely stand, can barely talk, and is putting himself into a stressful circumstance in even more stressful circumstances. COVID nearly killed him. Running in 2024 might literally finish him off.

This would, of course, be a massive tragedy. Trump needs to face justice for his many crimes, as well as what he did to the country he professes to love and treated like one of his businesses. I will mourn the loss of Trump dying before he realizes everything bad happening to him was his own fault, and the worst thing he could have done to himself, his family, and his legacy was running for office.

Also I want Melania to serve him divorce papers, cite his on-the-record infidelity, and try to take half before Deustche Bank and NYState carve up what's left of his crumbling, useless empire.

[Edge-]

https://apnews.com/article/trump-des...b8e6e89f0c8ccc

Someone is astroturfing Twitter for Trump pretty hard, and has been for nearly a year. They're still up to it, too.

ver the past 11 months, someone created thousands of fake, automated Twitter accounts — perhaps hundreds of thousands of them — to offer a stream of praise for Donald Trump.

Besides posting adoring words about the former president, the fake accounts ridiculed Trump’s critics from both parties and attacked Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador who is challenging her onetime boss for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

When it came to Ron DeSantis, the bots aggressively suggested that the Florida governor couldn’t beat Trump, but would be a great running mate.

As Republican voters size up their candidates for 2024, whoever created the bot network is seeking to put a thumb on the scale, using online manipulation techniques pioneered by the Kremlin to sway the digital platform conversation about candidates while exploiting Twitter’s algorithms to maximize their reach.

I will once again note that Republicans seem to consistently rely on, or be active participants in, this kind of astroturfing of misinformation and sock puppets.

[Huehuecoyotl]

Perhaps it is better to stop, since you've only offered a string of lies and ad hominem attacks to justify your point of view.

Something, something, projection, something, something.

[Breccia]

Someone is astroturfing Twitter for Trump pretty hard, and has been for nearly a year. They're still up to it, too.

So, Russia? I think we're all thinking Russia.

[Edge-]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-figh...ry?id=97661011

Former President Donald Trump is seeking to prevent the special counsel investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election from using testimony provided by former top White House lawyers to a federal grand jury, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

In recent weeks Trump's attorneys have asked a court to bar special counsel Jack Smith from using testimony from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his former deputy Patrick Philbin as evidence in Smith's ongoing investigation into the events surrounding Jan. 6, said the sources, who spoke about the confidential court battle on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss nonpublic litigation.

Trump's lawyers have also filed to prevent Smith from using former Trump lawyer Eric Herschmann's grand jury testimony, the sources said.

Well that's weird, what's their logic?

"The DOJ is continuously stepping far outside the standard norms in attempting to destroy the long-accepted, long-held, Constitutionally based standards of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege," a source close to Trump who is familiar with the issues told ABC News.

Yeah, they're complaining that the testimony already provided because it was not an issue of attorney-client or executive privilege, is still an issue of attorney-client and/or executive privilege.

This is why you don't seek your legal representation off of Ebay, folks.

[Breccia]

"The DOJ is continuously stepping far outside the standard norms in attempting to destroy the long-accepted, long-held, Constitutionally based standards of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege,"

I don't see anything new here. I don't think there's a realistic chance this happens.

We've discussed before, in long and hilarious detail, how fucked Trump is because he conspired with his lawyers to commit a crime. And we also all know Executive Privilege does not apply to campaigns, which Trump's murderous insurrection was.

Either Trump is running that classical definition of insanity by doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results; or you're right and his lawyers have literally nothing to offer. It's not like there's a Vaas difference between the two.

- - - Updated - - -

Speaking of Trump lawyers: Group Seeks Disbarment of a Trump-Aligned Lawyer for a Key Jan. 6 Witness

In appearing before the Jan. 6 committee last year, Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide who recounted President Donald J. Trump’s conduct in the lead-up to the attacks on the Capitol, shared how her original lawyer had tried to influence her testimony.

While represented by that lawyer, Stefan Passantino, Ms. Cassidy was less forthcoming to the committee. But after hiring a different lawyer, she provided more damaging details about Mr. Trump and said that Mr. Passantino had pressured her to remain loyal and protect the former president.

Now, several dozen prominent legal figures, including past presidents of the American Bar Association and the District of Columbia Bar, are seeking to revoke Mr. Passantino’s license to practice law. The move reflects intensifying scrutiny over whether Mr. Passantino, a former Trump White House ethics lawyer whose legal fees were covered by Mr. Trump’s political action committee, violated his own professional duty, along with a host of other ethical requirements, by putting the interests of a third party over that of his client.

In a 22-page complaint filed on Monday with D.C.’s Board on Professional Responsibility, prominent lawyers accused Mr. Passantino of the crimes of subornation of perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and bribery. The latter referred in part to Ms. Cassidy’s allegation that his advice to say little to the panel was accompanied by assurances that she would get a “really good job in ‘Trump world.’”

We've seen this before. A lawyer who does not represent their client is bad enough. This was multiple crimes.

Now, this Passantino has already filed a response along the lines of "what about all those times I didn't tell her to lie?" but...yeah, they've more or less already admitted guilt.

She said when Mr. Passantino announced he was her lawyer, he would not initially disclose who was paying him. He then sought to influence her testimony, she said, like by advising her to say she did not remember incidents even if she did remember some facts about them.

In December, as the Jan. 6 committee was making public its report, Mr. Passantino took a leave of absence from his firm, denying wrongdoing and insisting that he had represented Ms. Hutchinson “honorably, ethically and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me.”

- - - Updated - - -

We have more from CPAC:

In my decade of covering the event, I’d never seen it more dead.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Eddie Scarry, a conservative writer and longtime CPAC attendee, tweeted that the conference had devolved into a parade of “peripheral figures, grifters, and aging Fox News personalities who show up like they’re rock stars. Not to mention, 80% of it remains a tribute to Trump. Who is that still fun for?” Sponsors grumbled to Rolling Stone that turnout had dropped off from past years. My colleague John Hendrickson, who attended on Saturday, wrote that the conference had a “1 a.m. at the party” vibe, and wondered if 2023 would be remembered as “the last gasp of CPAC.”

The relative dearth of Republican star power this year could be attributed to the scandal surrounding CPAC’s chairman Matt Schlapp, who was recently accused of fondling a male campaign aide against his will. (Schlapp has denied the allegation.) But in an interview with NBC News, one anonymous GOP operative said that top Republicans had already come to view the conference as a chore in recent years. “Someone said to me, ‘We all wanted an excuse not to go, and Schlapp gave it to us,’” the operative said.

The apparent decline in interest isn’t just about CPAC. It speaks to a serious problem for Trump’s 2024 campaign: His shtick has gotten stale. Which makes it awkward that so many party leaders continue to treat him like he’s still the generational political phenomenon who galvanized the right in 2016—the natural center of attention.

The article then goes on about The Right Stuff dating app, Patriot Mobile again, and the CPAC vendors selling Trump merchandise. No surprise there, Trump selling out.

But the overall idea is...Trump is no longer the set-upon underdog (who somehow is the best at everything). He's the boring default. And he can only win in a one-whores race.

[SoulForge]

But I thank you for sharing your opinions regarding the scandal

What scandal?

[Cthulhu 2020]

I understand that you think declaring something is true amounts to proof.

Hilarious coming from someone willing to unconditionally believe a billionaire, yes.


Also absolutely hilarious coming from someone who has never offered a single link of evidence of any claim he's ever made on these forums ever.

I've provided countless links in the Twitter thread as evidence for my claims. https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post54036746

There is but one of posts out of many made over the course of 30+ pages to back up my claims. Meanwhile all you ever managed to do was spew words onto a page and never provided a single link ever. Hypocrite.

It was shown that Taibbi said that Twitter received communications from Trump in GREATER QUANTITIES than the Biden campaign. But they never showed any of those communications. Why not? You never even addressed this. This is literally something from the Twitter files that you and every other mind slave have ignored.

You feign outrage about Hunter's Dick pics being taken down but refuse to even quote or acknowledge that team Trump also demanded things of Twitter in regards to moderation and have nothing to say about it. The actual government under Trump demanded things of Twitter, but the Biden Campaign is where your sole outrage is.

Your bias is clear and naked. You cry "lies" but have never demonstrated what lies I'm telling, just refuse to address what is plainly said in the Twitter Files. You cry "ad hominem" but are just looking for some excuse to justify your blind faith.

No news source is black and white, not right nor wrong. There are shades of gray. Nothing is fully trustworthy in its entirety, especially with deepfakes becoming so easy and common. Twitter files do not pass the sniff test. It's insanely clear that which information is being presented to everyone is incredibly cherry picked out of a vast sea of information. You are receiving drops in the ocean of information, and you should be smart enough to know that cherry picked information can spin the reality 180 degrees. You absolutely and utterly refuse to even consider the possibility that you're being manipulated. So you're either a blind devout with no sense, or a troll. Perhaps it's time you look inward.

[Gorsameth]

https://apnews.com/article/trump-des...b8e6e89f0c8ccc

Someone is astroturfing Twitter for Trump pretty hard, and has been for nearly a year. They're still up to it, too.



I will once again note that Republicans seem to consistently rely on, or be active participants in, this kind of astroturfing of misinformation and sock puppets.

And Musk doing nothing about it is just going to increase the chance that a future Democratic government will force moderation upon Twitter and bury them in red tape.

[Cthulhu 2020]

https://apnews.com/article/trump-des...b8e6e89f0c8ccc

Someone is astroturfing Twitter for Trump pretty hard, and has been for nearly a year. They're still up to it, too.



I will once again note that Republicans seem to consistently rely on, or be active participants in, this kind of astroturfing of misinformation and sock puppets.

Elom is letting pro Trump bots run rampant on Twitter? Quelle shoque.

Also little wonder that the right thinks that there's some kind of 70% silent majority when Twitter is swarming with Russia Pro Trump bots.

[Breccia]

CPAC this year was a MAGA event. The Washington Examiner breaks down their findings:

The conference, once a mandatory stop for aspiring Republican presidential candidates, saw several notable Republicans such as former Vice President Mike Pence, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), and numerous other governors skip the high-profile convention. Meanwhile, longtime attendees noted a sea-change in the number of attendees and sponsors.

Vickie Froehlich, an attendee who said she had attended the conference multiple times, noted the lower attendance and said the absence of Fox News in the media hub and the exhibit hall likely contributed to the event's inability to draw presidential aspirants.

"It's been a huge difference that Fox is not here," Froehlich said. "Fox helped get the candidates out here to be interviewed, so it's noticeable to me that they're not here." Several other attendees the Washington Examiner spoke to similarly noted the smaller crowd.

Dennis Lennox, a Republican strategist from Michigan, told the Washington Examiner in an interview that he had attended every CPAC since 2007 and identified three factors as the primary driver of the event's struggle to draw attendees: overpriced tickets, an identity crisis about the conference's purpose, and an increase in competitor events.

"I'm old enough to remember when the CPAC registration fee was like $60," Lennox said. "Now it's a couple hundred dollars, and D.C. is not an inexpensive place for a lot of the people from across the country to come and visit, particularly the activist types. ... They've probably priced themselves out so that if they were half the price, they would probably have double the attendees."

Lennox said he estimated a crowd of roughly 2,200 attendees at the 2023 edition of the event, the first since 2020 to take place at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. The event moved to Florida for its 2021 and 2022 iterations.

"I can remember CPACs from five, six, 10 years ago when there were 10,000 paid registered attendees," he said. "I would be shocked if there are more than 2,200 attendees this year based on the way the ballroom is configured and the amount of people I've seen around CPAC in 2 1/2 days."

But while the cost of the ticket to attend the conference has skyrocketed — the face value for a four-day general admission ticket to the 2023 event is $295 — Lennox said the event is "not a conservative conference anymore."

"This is a MAGA, ultra-MAGA, and 'America First' confab, and I think those are three distinct things," he said. "There's a lot of conservatives that just don't come here anymore, not never-Trumpers necessarily but just a lot of conservatives from the wide range of conservative tribes. I can remember when you used to have Ron Paul and Rand Paul-like libertarians debating foreign policy with Donald Rumsfeld on the stage of CPAC."

"Those sort of debates would be unthinkable today because CPAC is pay-to-play. It's a grift," he added. "It's very clear that unless you pay a lot of money, you don't get to speak or you don't get any access at CPAC. And as a result, you get a bunch of random people, entities, companies, organizations that no one has ever heard of before sponsoring this event."

That bolded is for @Edge- who just started a thread on that very topic, while I'm continuing to post here because CPAC was Trump's show and therefore the failure is his problem, and possibly his fault.

But yeah, those numbers. Trump was the headline speaker and got 2,200 people into a space that usually holds 10,000 people. And he did nothing but sell his merchandise, lie for 90 minutes straight, and make even wilder promises than 2016 that all got broken.

Trump is a dismal failure. Sad. Pathetic. Deplorable.

- - - Updated - - -

The war between Trump and FOX News continues.

How does Rupert Murdoch say there was no election fraud when 2000 Mules shows, on government tape, that there were millions of ‘stuffed ballots,’ & Elon Musk released the FBI/Twitter Files, where pollsters say that the silencing of information made a 17% difference in the Vote?

Then there was, of course, FBI/Facebook, another big election integrity fraud costing millions of Votes-& this doesn’t even count all of the many other ways they cheated, or the fact that they avoided State Legislatures?

So, Trump -- the head of the Republican Party -- is saying there were millions of stuffed ballots.

Trump does have a good point when he admits Russia attacked the election, though, which seems odd of him to admit.

"Wait, what? Trump said nothing about that."

Yes he did.

Trump is claiming that the FBI shut down Facebook and Twitter from saying true things. This is, of course, false, but it's Trump, no surprise there. But Trump is calling this election fraud. If Trump is claiming that changing the stories on social media is election fraud, which again the FBI didn't do, but if he's making that claim, then he must also be saying that Russia flooding the 2016 election with false claims and inflating them with bots is also election fraud.

So while the FBI didn't really change Facebook or Twitter, any more than I do when I hit the "report post" button...also it was Trump's FBI...the claims that they both did and it was election fraud are now admission that Russia attacked the election, and did so in favor of Trump.

I therefore postulate that anyone who both follows Trump and also promotes the Twitter files -- not naming names, it could apply to anyone in that Venn Diagram -- has therefore admitted that Russia attacked the 2016 election.

Also, this looks like Trump accused Facebook and Twitter of conspiracy/election fraud in public, and posted it on his own social media company. That sounds like defamation. Twitter probably doesn't care, Musk is clearly trying to destroy it anyhow, but Meta might.

- - - Updated - - -

In another thread, I cited this WaPo OP ED that suggested that Trump's favorable CPAC poll was actually a source of concern...for Trump, because the winners of CPAC seem to always lose the primaries.

But it then goes on to talk about Trump's behavior at CPAC and the 3-minute flying cars video I already cited, and once again, I'll remind any coward trolls crying in their bunker that Trump, as the head of the Republican Party and keynote speaker of CPAC, is speaking for the Republican Party. His vision is yours unless you say otherwise.

His bizarre video started with an announcement that his next administration would promote building 10 “Freedom Cities.” Since roughly a third of the land mass of the United States is owned by the federal government, Trump said, it was time to start building “new cities in America again” — and apparently putting the federal government in charge of nationwide municipal planning and development. Do conservatives really want that? Not to mention that most of that federal land is in Alaska or the Western wilderness — not necessarily the top places Americans want to move to.

DeSantis in particular should have a field day ripping into Trump’s proposal. Florida was the fastest-growing state last year for the first time since 1957. Private developers have been building new cities there for decades without federal subsidies or planning. They have been doing this because people and businesses want to live there.

Trump also veered into fantasy when he said he would make America the leader in developing flying cars. Okay, he technically said they would be “vertical takeoff and landing vehicles for individuals and families,” but that was rightly lampooned as proposing the type of air cars used by the family in the 1960s cartoon “The Jetsons.”

Flights of fantasy like these have sunk GOP wannabes before. Newt Gingrich surprised many by beating presumed front-runner Romney in the 2012 South Carolina primary. The two then went to face off in Florida, with the winner expected to cement his top-dog status. Gingrich chose that period to tell Floridians on the Space Coast that he would establish a permanent colony on the moon during his presidency.

Gingrich’s grand vision became an immediate staple of comedy routines. Romney attacked the idea in the Florida presidential debate and Gingrich plummeted in subsequent polls. He lost the Florida primary by nearly 15 points and never recovered.

Trump is not Gingrich, and the past few years have shown the former president’s core supporters will tolerate a lot of loony ideas, maybe even flying cars. But holding on to the type of people who would travel hundreds of miles and pay hundreds of dollars to hear him at CPAC is not his challenge. Trump’s challenge is holding on to the less devoted, the people who still like him but aren’t 100-percent sold. DeSantis has the opportunity to convince people that he’s a calmer, more electable version of Trump. Ideas like cities in the wilderness and flying cars are a gift to the Florida governor’s undeclared campaign.

Trump's 2016 claims of 25 million new jobs, balancing the budget, 4% GDP growth, and of course the Wall all were broken, of course, and most people knew that before they didn't vote for him either time. Some people had to figure it out along the way. But at least someone who isn't comfortable with statistics or history might believe those numbers. 4% GDP growth might not sound as far-fetched to someone who keeps seeing 2% or 3% if they don't know what's involved to raise it (hint: not importing tariffs). 25 million new jobs would...actually no, that one was stupid, nobody should have believed that. And people who know nothing about civil projects might think a 600-mile 40-foot concrete and steel wall could be planned and built in four years...while a more realistic person might at least hope it was started in four years.

Flying cars?

Trump is past doubling down on the crazy promises. For example, if he could do the mass deportations like he claimed he would in 2024+, why didn't he do so in 2016-2020? Chasing crazy with crazy doesn't seem like a good way to woo classic conservatives or independents back. Yes, his cult has goldfish meme memory, but he already has those votes.

And Trump, who only got 62% of the votes on a CPAC poll he allegedly paid for himself, and DeSantis wasn't there, should know he needs something more realistic than cars that go bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb like the Jestons.

[Edge-]

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaig...dents-parents/

Former President Trump called for school principals to be elected by students’ parents in a new campaign video released on Thursday.

“More than anyone else, parents know what their children need,” Trump said. “If any principal is not getting the job done, the parents should be able to vote to fire them and select someone who will. This will be the ultimate form of local control.”

The former president listed off his priorities for education in the latest of a series of video messages released by his 2024 campaign as he ramps up his third presidential bid after an unusually slow start.

Trump vowed to reward states and school districts that implement principal elections, as well as those that abolish tenure for K-12 teachers, reduce the number of school administrators and adopt a parental bill of rights.

“When I’m president, we will put parents back in charge and give them the final say,” he said, adding, “We will give our kids the high-quality, pro-American education they deserve.”

Truly, Republicans and Donald are focused on the most pressing issues facing this nation and not culture war red meat.

[Breccia]

And now, some reporting from the NYTimes.

1) Trump rages at the idea that the Club for Growth snubbed him when--

"Whoa whoa whoa...you said NYTimes. That's Newsweek."

Yeah, Trump was raging about this NYTimes article from 3 days ago titled "Eyeing DeSantis, Trump Readies for a Long Primary Battle". It says a lot, but near the end:

On Thursday evening, Mr. DeSantis addressed a donor retreat hosted by the Club for Growth, a major spender in G.O.P. politics, just miles from Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

The Club snubbed Mr. Trump by not inviting him, part of an ongoing public feud with the group’s president, David McIntosh. The group’s board of directors on Thursday took a closed-door vote on whether it stood by Mr. McIntosh. He received unanimous support.

In his speech, Mr. DeSantis boasted about his political successes in Florida and his use of power to crush his ideological adversaries, according to an audio recording obtained by The New York Times. He swiped at other Republicans who “just sit back like potted plants and they let the media define the terms of the debate.”

Well someone's Pence are in a bunch.

"Okay, but didn't you post about the Club for Growth a while ago? Like February 7th?"

How nice of you to remind everyone! Yes, I did. NYTimes simply referred back to that, as it's a relevant part of the meeting itself. Trump read this new article and raged again.

The Club for No Growth didn't 'snub' me at all, as was reported in the Fake News NYT. It is I that won't deal with them because, like Ron DeSanctus, they are GLOBALISTS who want to cut Social Security and Medicare, and also raise the minimum age for Social Security to at least 70.

I am 'America First,' and also want to protect Social Security and Medicare. In other words, don't waste your money on Club for No Growth or DeSanctus, it's just not going to happen!

Club for No Growth is a 'dud.' Nobody interested. Big coverage and crowd at my CPAC Speech. People are tired of RINOS & GLOBALISTS. THEY WANT AMERICA FIRST!

"Did DeSantis say that?"

I don't care. Either Trump is lying, or DeSantis is shooting himself in the political foot. Let them figuratively tear each other apart.

Trump is, of course, lying about the crowd size. Recently, I showed a CPACture of Nikki Haley's speech at what I'll generously call "not filled to capacity" and less generously call "as empty as Trump Tower offices". Chris Christie pointed out that it's not just her.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Sunday appeared to poke fun at the size of the crowd that attended Trump’s keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) over the weekend, saying that the room was “half-full.”

“You saw the scenes at CPAC, that room was half-full,” Christie said on ABC’s “This Week.” “The reason I don’t think the rallies are going on … I don’t think the rallies would be nearly as big as they were before.”

Camera shots from Trump’s speech at the conference showed that the room was not nearly at full capacity. Christie, who ran against Trump in the 2016 Republican primary and then worked on Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns, used the speech’s attendance to point to what he thinks is Trump’s waning support.

“There are lots of indicators here, that he’s not what he used to be, in most respects, you’re talking about and so we’re going to see how that plays out,” Christie said.

As per usual, Trump insisted that all cameras be on him so nobody could see the empty seats. He did better, but it was two-thirds capacity.

Also I found a video. So, again, Trump was lying.

2) In the same NYTimes story above, Trump's struggles to remain viable, basically begging for help.

But there are signs of his diminished influence in the party. The former president’s grass-roots fund-raising has dropped off considerably: In 2021, when Mr. Trump spoke at CPAC in his first major speech after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, he raised $3.2 million online in the 48 hours around the speech.

He raised roughly half as much online — $1.6 million — the day of and the day after his 2024 announcement late last year, according to federal records.

What’s more, there is a lack of public support so far from some of his longest-serving aides. On a call weeks ago, Mr. Trump asked Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, his former White House press secretary, to endorse him, and she replied that she would not yet do so, according to two people briefed on the discussion, who asked not to be named discussing the private call. Mr. Trump was disappointed but not angry in response on the call, the people said.

An aide to the governor did not respond to a request for comment, and Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, did not address the matter directly, saying that Mr. Trump had support from “everyday Americans” and was “leading by wide margins in poll after poll.”

First of all, that "Trump bought the CPAC straw poll" is looking more and more likely. But no, he does not lead by wide margins poll after poll. He's actually losing a lot of them. Trump is lying by proxy.

Well, Trump apparently read that bit, too.

As per a rather unimportant Fake News report in the NYT, I have never asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders for an endorsement. I give endorsements, I don't generally ask for them. With that being said, nobody has done more for her than I have, with the possible exception of her great father, Mike!

"Did he--"

Yes, he suggested he did more for SHS than her own father. In public. Well, on CyberTrump 2077, but to him that's in public. On purpose.

"Did that sound a little like begging for an endorsement to you?"

It sounded a lot like begging for an endorsement to me. I...can't help but notice he didn't call her pretty, tho. For a normal person that means nothing -- her physical attractiveness is irrelevant for her ability to do her job. For Trump, that's suspicious in its lacking. Hmm.

Incidentally, the response from Maggie Haberman to that denial was

Yes he did

I'll remind everyone watching that this is now a trust/truth-off between the NYTimes and Donald Trump. Donald Trump in a truth-off might as well be a Shetland pony in the Kentucky Derby.

3) Bolton calls Trump "poison" for the GOP. Wanna see the video? He also says things like Trump was very erratic on security, did not know the weight of the decisions he was making, his campaign is going downhill fast, etc etc.

For those of you keeping track, that's one Christie, one Bolton, and one Sanders citations -- and it's a non-endorsement, a mockery, and a dire warning. Trump's long history of discarding allies who disagree with him isn't paying long dividends. See also: empty-ass CPAC.

4) NYTimes also fact-checked Trump's CPAC speech. I already gave a list of 23 lies, so I'll just pick out a few choice ones I haven't already covered.

“Killings are taking place at a number like nobody’s ever seen, right in Manhattan.”

They're down to pre-pandemic levels, they're far lower than when Giuliani was in charge, and NYC isn't anywhere close to the worst city.

“We lost $85 billion worth of the greatest military equipment in the world.”

The US gave $88.6 billion in total aid to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021. $75 billion or so went to things like gasoline, training, communications, infrastructure, and of course paying our troops. At best, Trump could have handed $7 billion in equipment directly to the Taliban when he gave them the country.

“They want windmills all over the place that ruin our fields, kill our birds and are very unreliable and are the most expensive energy ever developed”

I can't help but notice Trump uses "they" a lot when he doesn't remember who he's talking about, but has created such a "you're on Team Trump or you're the enemy!" in his rabid fanbase that it's technically accurate.

In any event, no. The NYTimes cites a report that wind farms kill 330,000 birds a year or so. To put that in perspective, fossil fuel pollution kills 14 million. Flying into buildings kills a billion. Cats kill four billion.

Oh, and wind energy generation is admittedly more costly/MW-hr than natural gas and solar, but less than biomass, which in turn is less than hydroelectic, which in turn is less than coal, which in turn is less than nuclear.

So he's a liar and a hypocrite, as someone who's backed both coal and tall buildings.

Bla bla bla Jyna, bla bla bla Wall, bla bla bla NATO, etc. Lie after lie after lie.

5) The Trump trial is ongoing--

"You have to be a lot more specific."

Fair enough. Hope Hicks just testified with regards to the illegal campaign contribution, i.e. Trump paying a whore $130,000.

As the spokeswoman for Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, Ms. Hicks was responsible for damage control on a number of issues, a role that has attracted the interest of various investigators over the years. In court records from Mr. Cohen’s federal case, the F.B.I. noted that she participated in a phone call with Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen on the same day they learned that Ms. Daniels wanted money for her story. Ms. Hicks also spoke with Mr. Cohen the day after he wired the $130,000 to Ms. Daniels’s lawyer.

Prosecutors are likely to want to know whether she was privy to any conversations or other information about Mr. Cohen’s dealings with Ms. Daniels’s representatives or how the hush money payment was arranged.

Ms. Hicks, however, has testified before Congress that she was not present for any conversation in which Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump discussed the hush money. She has also said that she was unaware of the deal with Ms. Daniels at the time it was arranged.

The thing is, prosecutors now have other testimony. Hicks is being called back. That's not a good sign for her.

If you violate NYState election laws it's a crime, because that's what "law" means. If you falsify paperwork while committing one crime, that's a second crime. Trump ordering those false records drawn and geting other people to do it would bring back our good friend RICO. That means Hicks is probably going to hide behind "I don't remember" even in the face of other witnesses saying "she knew everything".

And I'll end with this:

In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice.’ Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.

-- Trump, at CPAC, sexually identifying as Social Justice Warrior

So...anyone know what wrongs and betrayals he's talking about? I mean, besides his own? "We lost the election" doesn't count, people lose elections all the time, it's not an injustice.

Trump is running for a second term out of spite.

And flying cars, I guess?

[Edge-]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-ne...rts-of-ukraine

Donald Trump has long insisted that the Ukraine war would have never happened if he were still president, going so far as to blame the “rigged election” on Russia’s unprovoked invasion while claiming he had the magic words to stop the fighting “immediately.”

During a radio interview with Fox News host (and longtime confidant) Sean Hannity on Monday, the twice-impeached ex-president finally revealed how he personally would have prevented the war. According to Trump, all he needed to do was let Russia “take over” parts of Ukraine.

Saying that Russia was going for the “whole enchilada” with Joe Biden as president, Trump added that Russia “took over nothing” while he was in the White House because Russian President Vladimir Putin “understood” that “he would have never done it.”

The former president then added: “That’s without even negotiating a deal. I could have negotiated. At worst, I could’ve made a deal to take over something, there are certain areas that are Russian-speaking areas, frankly, but you could’ve worked a deal.”

Later that evening, Hannity played excerpts of his “exclusive” interview with Trump on his primetime Fox News program, along with highlights of Trump’s bombastic speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Though Hannity aired the segment featuring the ex-president boasting that he could have stopped the war, he curiously omitted the portion where Trump revealed his plan.

Instead, shortly after Trump says, “I could have negotiated,” the audio quickly skips about 30 seconds of speaking time before picking back up where the former president pivots to his complaint that “China no longer respects the United States.”

Shocking news that Hannity and Fox News are still protecting Trump from his own stupid bullshit, and are doing so with full knowledge of their behavior.

[Breccia]

Shocking news that Hannity and Fox News are still protecting Trump

I can speak in hypotheticals too.

*ahem*

The Ukraine war would not have happened if Trump didn't lead a lynch mob against his own government. Because Putin saw the chaos his puppet was causing and said "Yep, the USA is distracted, time to do something they would normally try to stop".

My statement is just as indisputable as Trump's.

[Shadowferal]

Ivanka Trump throws brothers and father under bus in New York fraud suit

Ivanka Trump, the eldest daughter of former president Donald Trump, has asked for a delay in bringing the $250m fraud lawsuit filed against her, her brothers, her father and their family’s eponymous real estate company to trial because a defence arguing that she wasn’t responsible for fraudulent financial statements issued by the company will take more time to prepare.

In court documents, Ms Trump’s attorneys argue that the fraud complaint filed last year against her and her co-defendants by New York Attorney General Letitia James “does not contain a single allegation that Ms. Trump directly or indirectly created, prepared, reviewed, or certified any of her father's financial statements."

"Other individuals were responsible for those tasks,” her lawyers wrote.

The judge overseeing the fraud lawsuit, New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, has said the 2 October trial will commence on time “come hell or high water,” but Ms Trump’s request for delay cites the “unique” circumstances of her role in the case and notes that she has not been accused of lying about her father’s finances despite her former role as a top executive at the Trump Organization.

Ivanka Trump’s Latest Legal Move May Signal That She’s Done Protecting Donald Trump

----

I find myself chuckling over this...

[Breccia]

I find myself chuckling over this...

I understand (correctly?) that, when multiple people are the targets of the same investigation, they tend to accuse each other and hope reasonable doubt handles it.

One, this is a lawsuit, won't work.

Two, locking them all in the same courtroom tends to diffuse this. Three criminals are more likely to walk in three trials than one.

Ivanka might be trying to push the blame onto the employees that served her company and tried to shield her family from the consequences of their deplorable actions. I hope they also saw that headline.

[Shadowferal]

Donald is such a sensitive sob to optics, and I'm thinking Ivanka and hubby never said a word to daddy because well, the whole lawsuit thing and confidentiality...