Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Paranoid Android]

The AG of Missouri suing New York for Trump is some Class A, ass licking of all time. Plus this person tweeted about it as if some victory or fighting for freedumb; FML. Keep licking that doo doo brown AG Andrew Bailey.

[Edge-]

The AG of Missouri suing New York for Trump is some Class A, ass licking of all time. Plus this person tweets about it. Keep licking that doo doo brown AG Andrew Bailey.

doo doo butta the best butta.

Also - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/u...pac-funds.html

The political account that former President Donald J. Trump has been using to pay his sizable legal bills has dwindled to less than $4 million in the bank, after accounting for its debt, according to new federal election filings.

So far in 2024, Mr. Trump is averaging nearly $5 million per month in spending through his PAC, which is called Save America, with an overwhelming share going to legal bills. That means that as of the end of May, Mr. Trump had barely enough cash left to cover a single month of legal bills.

Mr. Trump has avoided tapping his own personal fortune to fund his hefty legal bills. Instead, he has relied on donor funds through his PAC. He has not used his campaign committee for legal bills.

He is balancing an extraordinary series of serious and costly legal threats alongside his 2024 presidential campaign. He was just on trial in New York and found guilty of 34 felony counts related to falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal. And Mr. Trump has also been indicted in three other criminal cases — all of which require expensive legal work — that have yet to come to trial. His PAC has also covered legal expenses in his civil cases

In May alone, when most of the Manhattan criminal trial against Mr. Trump took place, Mr. Trump paid $1.8 million to the firm of Todd Blanche. Mr. Blanche was the former president’s principal lawyer for the trial in New York and is working on two federal cases in which Mr. Trump has been indicted, one in Florida and one in Washington D.C.

Overall, Mr. Trump has spent more than $100 million on legal and investigation-related bills since leaving the White House in early 2021. And at least 17 firms and companies have been paid $1 million or more since the beginning of last year.

Save America had $4,474,030 at the end of May, and it had accumulated $861,630 in unpaid bills, according to the filings.

While the legal cases have been costly for Mr. Trump, they have also helped motivate his base to donate. In the 24 hours after his criminal conviction in May, the Trump campaign said that it had raised $53 million online, a windfall that is reshaping the financial landscape of 2024. Mr. Trump’s operation with the Republican National Committee entered June with more cash, $235 million, than President Biden had with the Democratic National Committee.

“President Trump’s lawyers will continue to fight all of these Biden trials and they will continue to be appropriately compensated for their time and efforts,” Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said in a statement.

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And more money will be on the way from the fund-raising agreement Mr. Trump struck with the Republican National Committee after he became the presumptive nominee.

Mr. Trump’s advisers have publicly said that the party would not be funding Mr. Trump’s legal bills. And while that is technically true, the agreement instead sends $5,000 of major contributions directly to Mr. Trump’s PAC, even before the party gets its cut.

The account where those larger donations are accumulating, the Trump 47 Committee, has so far made only one $183,054 transfer to Save America, records showed. There were no transfers in May.

Mr. Trump’s advisers also set up a legal defense fund several months ago, which has continued to raise money but does not have an updated public accounting. (Legal defense funds are subject to different, less frequent disclosure requirements.) The fund was described as intended for advisers to Mr. Trump, although officials could always decide to expand it.

While Mr. Trump’s lawyers were not the only lawyers paid during the filing period — some represent other clients — those representing him received the largest amounts.

Besides the payments to Mr. Blanche, Save America’s largest payments of legal fees last month were $450,000 to John F. Lauro, $253,849 to Continental PLLC and $236,148 to Chris Kise & Associates, the filings showed.

The largest nonlegal expense from his PAC in May was an $80,533.74 payment to Mr. Trump’s own property in Bedminster, New Jersey, for lodging and catering. The committee has also continued to make monthly “strategy consulting” payments to Hervé Pierre Braillard, a stylist who worked with the former first lady, Melania Trump, the records showed.

Being a career criminal and liar is expensive, yo.

[Paranoid Android]

doo doo butta the best butta.

Also - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/u...pac-funds.html



Being a career criminal and liar is expensive, yo.

Hmm I read this also about PAC and legal bills.

So I guess good for the lawyers? They are actually getting paid. I mean we have read many article of Trump's legal bills at $50 million plus being paid by his Super PACs. Umm, I'm guessing it is coming in and going out as billable hours to the lawyers. DAMN! They are getting paid then. As a cynic I still believe Trump is skimming more money than what the article stated about his Bedminster property.

Oh and Timothy Mellon secretly gave Trump $50 million to Pro Trump Group.

Who is he? Some brilliant tech person who is on cutting edge of AI? Perhaps the American Dream of a person who started with 1 lemonade stand and is now a billionaire through hard work. Nope! He is the grandson of banker Andrew Mellon from the great Gilded Age of the 1920's. So that $50 million means he at least wants an ROI on his inheritance of a reported $14 billion.

[Teriz]

Trump Loses It At Fox News, Says No One Can Trust It

Anyone who thinks this man-baby exudes masculinity or confidence needs their head examined. He's a whiny little b-.

[Shadowferal]

Conservatives Makin' A List Of Civil Servants, Checkin' It Twice, Gonna Fire Your Ass If You're On It

Imagine it is 1950. Sen. Joe McCarthy has just given a speech to the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he waved around a piece of paper and hollered that it contained a list of 205 communists working in the State Department.

Now imagine that the internet existed in 1950. Imagine that the moment McCarthy gave this speech, the lackeys in his office published the list of names on a website for the entire public to read and freak out over. Links to the site got blasted out over email and on social media. Right-wing outlets ran with it. William F. Buckley started posting installments of McCarthy and His Enemies as a Substack instead of the tedious slog of taking years to write and publish the entire book. Richard Nixon made imprisoning all those communists a central part of his Senate campaign. Every person on that list suddenly needed a round-the-clock security detail.
We also have in our hand a list, but it is our subscribers whom we love.
Now imagine it is 2024, and this scenario really is happening. At least it will if a group of Republican nutters backed by the Heritage Foundation get their way:

Professional dickhead Tom Jones and his American Accountability Foundation are digging into the backgrounds, social media posts and commentary of key high-ranking government employees, starting with the Department of Homeland Security.

The goal is to post 100 names of government workers to a website this summer to show a potential new administration who might be standing in the way of a second-term Trump agenda — and ripe for scrutiny, reclassifications, reassignments or firings.

Jones is a political operative who worked on Capitol Hill for Jim DeMint and Ted Cruz. He also served as the legislative director for Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a job whose duties probably mostly consisted of explaining to the senator that congressional bills are not sentient creatures capable of song, no matter what he might have seen on ”Schoolhouse Rock.”

"We need to understand who these people are and what they do,” said Jones.

Of course one could accomplish this without putting these people’s names on the Internet, where Trump’s legions of syphilitic howler monkeys can find it and inundate them with death threats, but we’re betting Jones thinks of that possibility as a feature and not a bug.

He acknowledges some of the work is often a “gut check” or “instinct” about which federal employees would be suspected of trying to block a conservative agenda.

Ah, well. Our gut tells us Tom Jones is actually a giant cockroach in a human skin-suit. And now that’s out on the Internet. Uh-oh.

How is this group of knuckle-dragging mongoloids finding these names of random bureaucrats they want to toss to the wolves? They are relying on tips from a network of “conservative contacts, including workers.” So: mad at your officemate Jim for warming his Filet-O-Fish in the office microwave? Mad at your ex-wife, who thinks undocumented immigrants should be treated humanely and also happens to be a level GS-13 employee with the Border Patrol? Tell Tom Jones and ruin their summers, and possibly their lives!

This project, which has a $100,000 grant from the Heritage Foundation, is part of the wider push by Trump lackeys to weaken civil service protections and reclassify thousands of non-political employees across the government who can then be fired if they do not swear fealty to the orange ape and his agenda.

Or as Heritage president and human thumb Kevin Roberts put it:

"Weaponization of the federal government” has been possible only because of the “deep state of entrenched Leftist bureaucrats.” He said he was proud to support the work of American Accountability Foundation workers “in their fight to hold our government accountable and drain it of bad actors.”

By “bad actors,” he means government employees who have sworn an oath to the Constitution, not to the president. Unfortunately, Trump and his cultists don’t see a difference.

We're old enough to remember when a Republican administration reclassified political appointments as civil servants so those employees could stay on in their jobs during a Democratic administration and hamstring its policy goals. Now the wingnuts want to do the exact opposite.

Trump already tried this reclassification scheme once with Schedule F, a rule he put in place towards the end of his administration in 2020. The Biden administration reversed it practically the moment it took office. Reviving Schedule F is one of the goals of Project 2025, the Heritage-supported blueprint for fucking over American democracy that a new Trump administration will put in place if Tangerine Tito gets restored to office next year.

Somewhere Joe McCarthy is smiling, and only partly because he’s drunk.

[Lanrefni]

Conservatives Makin' A List Of Civil Servants, Checkin' It Twice, Gonna Fire Your Ass If You're On It

Imagine it is 1950. Sen. Joe McCarthy has just given a speech to the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he waved around a piece of paper and hollered that it contained a list of 205 communists working in the State Department.

Now imagine that the internet existed in 1950. Imagine that the moment McCarthy gave this speech, the lackeys in his office published the list of names on a website for the entire public to read and freak out over. Links to the site got blasted out over email and on social media. Right-wing outlets ran with it. William F. Buckley started posting installments of McCarthy and His Enemies as a Substack instead of the tedious slog of taking years to write and publish the entire book. Richard Nixon made imprisoning all those communists a central part of his Senate campaign. Every person on that list suddenly needed a round-the-clock security detail.
We also have in our hand a list, but it is our subscribers whom we love.
Now imagine it is 2024, and this scenario really is happening. At least it will if a group of Republican nutters backed by the Heritage Foundation get their way: Jones is a political operative who worked on Capitol Hill for Jim DeMint and Ted Cruz. He also served as the legislative director for Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a job whose duties probably mostly consisted of explaining to the senator that congressional bills are not sentient creatures capable of song, no matter what he might have seen on ”Schoolhouse Rock.” Of course one could accomplish this without putting these people’s names on the Internet, where Trump’s legions of syphilitic howler monkeys can find it and inundate them with death threats, but we’re betting Jones thinks of that possibility as a feature and not a bug. Ah, well. Our gut tells us Tom Jones is actually a giant cockroach in a human skin-suit. And now that’s out on the Internet. Uh-oh.

How is this group of knuckle-dragging mongoloids finding these names of random bureaucrats they want to toss to the wolves? They are relying on tips from a network of “conservative contacts, including workers.” So: mad at your officemate Jim for warming his Filet-O-Fish in the office microwave? Mad at your ex-wife, who thinks undocumented immigrants should be treated humanely and also happens to be a level GS-13 employee with the Border Patrol? Tell Tom Jones and ruin their summers, and possibly their lives!

This project, which has a $100,000 grant from the Heritage Foundation, is part of the wider push by Trump lackeys to weaken civil service protections and reclassify thousands of non-political employees across the government who can then be fired if they do not swear fealty to the orange ape and his agenda.

Or as Heritage president and human thumb Kevin Roberts put it: By “bad actors,” he means government employees who have sworn an oath to the Constitution, not to the president. Unfortunately, Trump and his cultists don’t see a difference.

We're old enough to remember when a Republican administration reclassified political appointments as civil servants so those employees could stay on in their jobs during a Democratic administration and hamstring its policy goals. Now the wingnuts want to do the exact opposite.

Trump already tried this reclassification scheme once with Schedule F, a rule he put in place towards the end of his administration in 2020. The Biden administration reversed it practically the moment it took office. Reviving Schedule F is one of the goals of Project 2025, the Heritage-supported blueprint for fucking over American democracy that a new Trump administration will put in place if Tangerine Tito gets restored to office next year.

Somewhere Joe McCarthy is smiling, and only partly because he’s drunk.

McCarthy was more a heroin addict than a drunk.

[Edge-]

https://www.reuters.com/legal/prosec...ms-2024-06-24/

Donald Trump's lawyer told a federal judge on Monday that the criminal prosecution against the former president on charges he mishandled classified documents is unlawfully funded, as they made another attempt to get the charges thrown out of court.

Prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the funding mechanism for their office has been upheld in past cases, as they sought to work through a thicket of legal challenges that have delayed trial indefinitely.

Donald and team are still fucking desperate because they know they have literally zero chance of winning literally any of these cases on their merits.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.salon.com/2024/06/24/too...witnesses-say/

Special counsel Jack Smith's team may have uncovered another attempt by Donald Trump to obstruct the government's investigation into his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Sources close to the matter told ABC News that witnesses who spoke to prosecutors said that the former president made a previously undisclosed trip to Mar-a-Lago in July 2022, his aides instructed to "keep quiet" about the jaunt to Florida just weeks before FBI agents searched the property.

At least one witness close to Trump reportedly told prosecutors that he was told, at the time of Trump's trip, that the former president was there "checking on boxes."

According to ABC News, several witnesses said the trip was highly unusual, since Trump usually spends his summer months at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, and also because Trump's private residence at Mar-a-Lago was under renovation at time time. Other witnesses said they were given the impression that Trump was there to check on the renovations.

"They were keeping this one quiet ... nobody knew about this trip," one witness with direct knowledge of the trip told investigators. Trump's decision to go was apparently made on short notice. Sources described airport manifestos as showing Trump's original route from a rally in Alaska back to New Jersey, before updating to reroute the former president towards Florida.

One of Trump's alleged co-conspirators, longtime aide Walt Nauta, reportedly sent a number of text messages to trusted aides instructing them to not talk about the changes.

"I'm pretty sure [Trump] wants minimal people around on Monday," Nauta wrote one day before Trump's arrival at Mar-a-Lago, according to a message provided to ABC News. The sources said that Nauta wanted the trip to remain "discreet" and used emojis with zipped mouths to indicate its secretive nature.

Oh boy, and a secret pre-FBI raid trip to Maralago reportedly to check on his stolen classified and top secret documents?

Just how much criminality was Donald and his crew engaged in?

[Zaydin]

https://www.reuters.com/legal/prosec...ms-2024-06-24/



Donald and team are still fucking desperate because they know they have literally zero chance of winning literally any of these cases on their merits.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.salon.com/2024/06/24/too...witnesses-say/



Oh boy, and a secret pre-FBI raid trip to Maralago reportedly to check on his stolen classified and top secret documents?

Just how much criminality was Donald and his crew engaged in?

Yeah but they know Cannon is part of Trumps defense team and she will entertain all the bullshit they shovel to help buy Trump time to show her loyalty to him.

[Edge-]

Yeah but they know Cannon is part of Trumps defense team and she will entertain all the bullshit they shovel to help buy Trump time to show her loyalty to him.

Oh of course. I'd kill for a lifetime appointment to a position where you can just not do your job and still get a paycheck. It's a good thing that the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society are training and grooming young conservative activists who have no shame, otherwise they might feel embarrassed at how obviously they're in the pocket of the Republican party.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Impressive how Trumpsters fall in line for their over all cause. So far looks like loyalty over all else and unity is paying off.



https://www.thetrafalgargroup.org/news/nat-pres-0401/

[Milchshake]

Impressive how Trumpsters fall in line for their over all cause. So far looks like loyalty over all else and unity is paying off.

Not as stupidly impressive as you putsching a poll from March.


'Member when Tralfagar spent all of 2020 saying that Trump was going to win Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Not as stupidly impressive as you putsching a poll from March.


'Member when Tralfagar spent all of 2020 saying that Trump was going to win Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

Up until recently Trump was ahead on five thirty eight. Which still has Bidens disapproval rating below 40%.

Considering all that has happened in a year Trafalgar or any other. All polls have been wrong. But in general not much has changed since March.


Some polls have Biden ahead which is why 538 recently showed last time I checked Biden half a point ahead.

It will be interesting to see what happens again after Tuesday. But so far as I said Trumpsters falling in line seems to have helped his campaign.

[Lanrefni]

https://www.reuters.com/legal/prosec...ms-2024-06-24/



Donald and team are still fucking desperate because they know they have literally zero chance of winning literally any of these cases on their merits.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.salon.com/2024/06/24/too...witnesses-say/



Oh boy, and a secret pre-FBI raid trip to Maralago reportedly to check on his stolen classified and top secret documents?

Just how much criminality was Donald and his crew engaged in?

That really sounds like the FBI has a leak and Donald got tipped off and tried to hide evidence in his usually inept way.

[Edge-]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/u...hare&sgrp=c-cb

At a conference this month put on by Turning Point Action, a rising conservative activist group, 8,000 people packed into a Detroit convention hall to hear directly from Republicans’ presumptive nominee for president, Donald J. Trump.

But first, there was a word from a sponsor: Alexander Spellane.

Mr. Spellane, who federal regulators say is also known as Alexander Fisher and Alexander Overlie, sells investments in precious metals. Cash, stocks and 401(k)s could plummet in value, he warned from the stage, but he told the throng of Trump supporters that they could protect their money by buying gold and silver from his company, Fisher Capital.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has been trying to shut down Fisher Capital’s sales for the past 14 months, alleging in a lawsuit that it sold gold and silver coins at such exorbitant, deceptive prices that virtually every customer had suffered “immediate and dramatic losses on their investment.” Fisher Capital has denied the allegations.

That lawsuit did not keep Turning Point Action from embracing Fisher Capital as a top-level sponsor of the Detroit event, which has required a donation of at least $250,000 and allowed Mr. Spellane to be photographed backstage with Mr. Trump. Mr. Spellane also claims to be the largest corporate sponsor of a sister group, Turning Point USA.

Mr. Spellane’s place on the Detroit stage offers a window into how Charlie Kirk, a young conservative activist and media personality who is close to both Mr. Trump and his son Donald Jr., has blended commerce and politics to transform a fringe initiative into a juggernaut with sweeping influence in right-wing circles. Turning Point Action, an advocacy group, and Turning Point USA, a charitable organization, were each created by Mr. Kirk and have each helped rally conservatives behind Mr. Trump.

This year, Turning Point Action says it plans to spend over $100 million to turn out voters in three battleground states.

The groups’ highly polished, multimillion-dollar events, which have drawn thousands to convention halls in Phoenix, West Palm Beach and elsewhere, are underwritten by corporate sponsors, who gain access to potential customers.

While some political groups try to steer clear of corporate sponsors that might prompt blowback from politicians or other donors, the Fisher Capital example shows that Turning Point leaders are willing to look the other way to reel in cash, said Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee. He described Turning Point’s attitude as “as long as the check clears, I’m good.”

“It is an incestuous relationship between the folks with the money and the folks who want the money,” said Mr. Steele, a frequent Trump critic.

Andrew Kolvet, a Turning Point spokesman, said the opposite was true. “There is no lack of scrutiny to ensure we’re always abiding by relevant regulations and laws,” he said. Turning Point leaders learned of the fraud claims against Fisher Capital more than a year ago, he said, and “felt satisfied with their explanation at the time.”

“We live in a country where you are presumed innocent, and we extend that presumption to sponsors and their teams as well,” he said.

Another group that has sponsored Turning Point events is New Federal State of China, a organization that says it is dedicated to overthrowing the Chinese Communist Party. The organization has helped finance two recent annual conferences, including one in December, 10 months after prosecutors charged the group’s founder, Guo Wengui, with defrauding thousands of investors of more than $1 billion with bogus cryptocurrency deals and other schemes.

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Mr. Guo has said he is innocent. Mr. Kolvet said Turning Point had no agreement with the New Federal State of China to sponsor future events.

Mr. Trump himself has been found to engage in deceptive business practices. He was convicted late last month on felony charges of falsifying business records. Last year, in a civil case in New York, he was found liable for conspiring to manipulate his net worth.

Mr. Spellane and Fisher Capital have asked a judge to dismiss the federal complaint, arguing that the regulatory agency has no jurisdiction to sue and no evidence of fraud. The firm disclosed its fees to customers and operated “in a similar vein as any retailer in this country,” according to its motion to dismiss. Mr. Spellane did not respond to questions for this article.

Turning Point has only strengthened its relationship with Mr. Spellane since the federal complaint was filed in April 2023. The Detroit conference was the third event the firm has helped finance since then, including an annual conference in December in Phoenix, which drew an estimated 13,000 people.

Mr. Spellane pledged $1 million to Turning Point USA at a February gathering at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Florida resort, and later announced that the group had appointed him to its advisory board.

In Detroit, Mr. Spellane played up his Turning Point ties, saying, “That’s why we are here for the third year in a row.” He ended with: “Give it up for Donald Trump, everybody!”

Listening with interest was Jeff Strasser, 57, a former carpenter and truck driver who had traveled more than two hours from Northern Michigan to hear Mr. Trump. Mr. Strasser said he was intrigued by Mr. Spellane’s statement that anyone who stopped by the Fisher Capital booth in the adjoining hall would be eligible for up to $10,000 in free silver.

He came away from the booth thinking a precious metal investment was a slam dunk. “You kind of have to be a fool not to want to do it,” he said, adding “I’m talking about maybe switching my whole 401(k) over to it.”

Ian Sangster, a Fisher account executive, said about 50 people stopped by over the weekend, some of whom signed up for a follow-up sales pitch.

Asked if Mr. Spellane’s backstage photos with Mr. Trump would be a selling point for Fisher Capital, Mr. Sangster said: “Yeah. It’s pretty cool, right?”

Both Fisher Capital and New Federal State of China have ties to high-profile Trump allies. Fisher Capital’s spokesman is Roger Stone, a Trump associate who was convicted in 2019 of lying to Congress and witness tampering. He was later pardoned by Mr. Trump.

Mr. Guo founded the New Federal State of China with Stephen K. Bannon, a former Trump strategist and keynote speaker at many Turning Point events. Neither the group nor Mr. Bannon was charged in Mr. Guo’s fraud case. Mr. Bannon was named as a co-conspirator.

Mr. Bannon was charged in a separate criminal case with swindling donors in a supposed effort to finance a wall on the Mexico border. He pleaded not guilty and was pardoned by Mr. Trump before his trial. He now faces state charges in New York stemming from the same effort. He was convicted of contempt of Congress after refusing to testify about efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and is scheduled to begin serving a four-month prison sentence next week.

Mr. Spellane is a relative newcomer to the Trump political world. Just 31, he never registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to trade precious metals, as required, the agency says. Its complaint, filed less than three years after Fisher Capital opened in 2020, said the operation was meant to trick older, unsophisticated investors into swapping their retirement savings for gold and silver coins priced as high as 200 percent over their market value. The company is not connected to Fisher Investments, a Texas-based firm.

Targeting Christian conservatives was central to the scheme, according to the complaint. Salespeople falsely claimed that Fisher had teamed up with conservative media personalities — who were not named — to protect customers from a looming retirement crisis, it said.

James A. Simpson Jr., an evangelical pastor from western Ohio who visited Fisher Capital’s booth at the conference, said that the Turning Point imprimatur “absolutely” bestowed credibility on the company.

After learning of the fraud claims, Mr. Simpson, 61, said he would have hoped that Mr. Kirk, Turning Point’s founder, “would have diligently done some research as far as whether he felt the allegations were valid or not” before giving Mr. Spellane an opportunity to drum up customers. He said he would be very cautious about pursuing any investment.

Regulators are seeking to permanently bar Mr. Spellane and Fisher Capital from trading commodities like precious metals and to recoup money investors lost. Steven Adamske, a spokesman for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said the agency’s lawsuit was moving slowly, like most such cases.

Typically, by the time government lawyers are able to shut down an operation, “the money is already gone,” he said.

Donald and these grifters are gonna bleed these people dry.

Weird how many criminals or people under criminal investigation are in the orbit of Donald and many major conservative groups like tiny faceman Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...ing-rcna158725

“I don’t appreciate your tone,” U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said when attorney David Harbach appeared to get exasperated as she questioned the need to modify Trump’s conditions of release. Smith’s office has challenged those conditions over Trump’s false claims that FBI agents were prepared to kill him while they were executing a 2022 search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

The tense exchange at a federal courthouse in Fort Pierce came as attorney Harbach was arguing that Cannon should bar Trump from making more inflammatory statements about FBI agents who worked on the investigation.

Cannon had noted that the agents’ names were redacted in court filings, while Harbach was pointing out the agents were doxxed shortly after the search. Cannon told Harbach that his behavior was unprofessional and warned she would require someone else to make his arguments if he did not correct his behavior.

Judge Cannon is again back to resorting to tone policing because she's taking the defense's argument that the FBI was going to assassinate Donald Trump seriously and is ignoring objective reality like the doxxing of the redacted FBI agents as a thing that happened.

She's so transparently in the tank for the defense I'm unsure why she bothers to sit in front of the court and doesn't just join the defense table.

[ManjiSanji]

So, what the fuck does it take to actually get Cannon removed?

[Breccia]

1) Trump could not fill a 10,000 seat venue at Temple University. Multiple videos of the rally showed large empty sections.

Naturally, he was immediately trolled by Liz Cheney.

Thank you taylorswift13 for giving us a million reasons to smile. PS realDonaldTrump this is what a sold out crowd actually looks like

Nonetheless, Trump wowed the crowd...well, "crowd", I guess...with such lines as

Retail theft in Philly — I spend so much time here — is up 135 percent since I left office. The convenience stores are closing down left and right. The pharmacies have to lock up the soap. You can't buy toothpaste. You can't buy a toothbrush. You want a toothbrush, it takes you 45 minutes.

"How much of that is true?"

I'm going to say "none". If a Trump supporter wants to challenge that by posting evidence, they're free to do so, but in so doing will have to admit Trump offered no evidence himself. Remember, the target is +135% and/or 45 minutes to buy a toothbrush. Good luck.

2) Trump sent out a fundraising email claiming he was tortured in jail.

"Surely he didn't use the exact word 'torture' in the email."

I want you to remember what they did to me. They tortured me in the Fulton County Jail, and TOOK MY MUGSHOT. So guess what? I put it on a mug for the WHOLE WORLD TO SEE!

So, @tehdang you know the drill. We all know you view things Trump says favorably and this is a fast-moving thread. Surely you would care to comment on Trump being tortured in jail? Remember, exact word, "torture" and he did not phrase it like an expression or joke. He said he was tortured.

Remember, failure to respond means I get to answer for you. Your silence will be viewed as agreement, based purely on your post history. Don't like it? All you have to say is "No, Trump was not tortured in jail" and that should be very easy for you to say.

3) New analysis shows Trump ran up national debt twice as much as Biden.

"Well duh, COVID."

One, Trump invited COVID into the country with open arms.

Two, the study excluded COVID.

If you exclude COVID relief spending from the tally, the numbers are $4.8 trillion for Trump and $2.2 trillion for Biden.

4) A key demographic has turned its back on Trump.

The Fortune 100. Not a single one has donated to Trump this year.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale professor who leads the university's Chief Executive Leadership Institute and who works with about 1,000 chief executives a year and speaks to business leaders daily, wrote in a New York Times column that Trump suffers from the lowest levels of corporate support in the history of the Republican Party.

"The reality is that the top corporate leaders working today, like many Americans, aren’t entirely comfortable with either Mr. Trump or President Biden," Sonnenfeld wrote. "But they largely like — or at least can tolerate — one of them. They truly fear the other."

"Their legitimate misgivings about Mr. Biden are overwhelmed by worries about Mr. Trump, version 2024," Sonnenfeld wrote. "Mr. Trump’s primary conduits to the business community in his first term — more-reasonable voices like those of Jared Kushner, Dina Powell and Steven Mnuchin — are gone, replaced by MAGA extremists and junior varsity opportunists."

Trump is doubling down on tariffs, unorthodox fiscal policies and devaluing the dollar, which Sonnenfeld noted would drive inflation even higher and erase some of their economic gains.

"Chief executives are not protectionist, isolationist or xenophobic, and they believe in investing where there is the rule of law, not the law of rulers," Sonnenfeld wrote.

"That there are more Fortune 100 chief executives based in the smallest state in the nation, Rhode Island — and there’s exactly one Fortune 100 chief executive who is based there — than currently support Mr. Trump tells you how truly isolated the Republican presidential candidate is from the halls of big business."

5) But the big story, of course, is Trump has admitted he's going to lose the debate.

"Wait, he did? How and when?"

So, first, bear in mind I'm allowed to cite CNN unlimited times now and nobody can complain. Trump said FOX News was fake, after all, so CNN is inherently the winner.

Okay, with that re-said:

a) Trump put a spokesperson on a CNN interview who did nothing but antagonize the network until the host cut her off and ended the interview.

I'll sum up that Forbes article: CNN gave the spokesperson a shot, all they did was say CNN was biased and attacked the moderators, the interviewer tried to steer her back on task, she didn't, so the interview ended. Incidentally, that same spokesperson responded on Twitter, because of course she did, with the times the CNN debate moderators pointed out Trump's language that mirrored Nazis. None of the quotes were false, by the way, that was a stupid move.

b) Steve Bannon, on his way to jail I guess, used that as an excuse to say

Kasie Hunt owes you an apology, CNN owes you an apology today, and if we don’t get that apology to Karoline Leavitt and to the Trump campaign, to MAGA today, President Trump should cancel this

c) Trump continues to claim that Biden will be on drugs during the debate.

So a little before debate time, he gets a shot in the ass.

He’ll come out all jacked up.

Whatever happened to all that cocaine that was missing a month ago?

Yep, that's Trump flat-out saying Biden will be on drugs, and insinuating it'll be cocaine.

The fields are being sewn with the seeds of Trump losing, maybe even bailing.

"You said he would never do that."

I stand by that. The idea is to give Trump an excuse when he loses, like "the election is rigged" kind of excuse. He's trying to pretend he's going into the debate unfairly treated, despite, you know, agreeing to CNN's terms.

He's going to lose and he knows it.

Donald Trump is--

"Is the author of that article really Steve Benen?"

...yes?

"Ouch."

--is defined in large part by a belief in pre-emptive delegitimization. Fearing possible election defeats, the Republican has consistently taken steps to delegitimize the process to explain away potential losses. Fearing possible legal setbacks, he’s also repeatedly tried to delegitimize the justice system to validate potential adverse outcomes.

For whatever reason, Trump approaches practically every challenge with the same thought: “If I fail, it can’t be my fault.”

With this in mind, it’s not too surprising to see Trump apply this same model to Thursday night’s debate against President Joe Biden — which the presumptive GOP nominee is preparing for by making pre-emptive excuses for the possibility that the event might not go his way.

We already see the GOP trying to claim 2024 is rigged and the election is months away. Why not do the same with the debate? He's lost every debate he's been in. He lost once so badly he nearly died.

Trump has no platform, save for racism and revenge. His policies failed while Biden's are succeeding. He was convicted of multiple felonies and is going to court for yet more. He was only able to stop the free-fall of his social media stock by saying "we'll let people give us more money". His own wife and competent children have backed away from his campaign. The only people left in his corner are paid to be there. And he intentionally, willingly decided to go on a news platform that will not allow him to blatantly lie and will cut his mic when he does.

What choice does he have but to wuss out?

[Surfd]

So, what the fuck does it take to actually get Cannon removed?

I mean, fucking seriously. Forget removed, she should have been impeached, hauled in front of a disciplinary panel and stripped of her robe and gavel for blatant partisan hackery and complete disregard for the rule of law ages ago.....

[Gigantique]

I mean, fucking seriously. Forget removed, she should have been impeached, hauled in front of a disciplinary panel and stripped of her robe and gavel for blatant partisan hackery and complete disregard for the rule of law ages ago.....

Which requires the legislative to be objective and not play politically which is probably the best joke I have ever put to the written word.

I pre-emptively apologise for the bursts of drink sprayed across every computer screen from imagining them doing that.

[Edge-]

https://www.salon.com/2024/06/25/its...ents-subpoena/

Former President Donald Trump tried to obstruct the criminal investigation into the classified documents stashed at his Mar-a-Lago estate by getting his lawyers to lie about the documents that were subpoenaed in May 2022, asking them repeatedly if it would be "better if we just told them we don't have anything here," according to audio notes reviewed by ABC News.

The recording, from then-Trump attorney Evan Corcoran, could be used as evidence of the former president's criminal intent. But that is up to Judge Aileen Cannon, who could rule that the notes are subject to attorney-client privilege. Another federal judge last year ruled that prosecutors could obtain the recording as part of their effort to show Trump misled his own attorneys in an effort to effectively make them accomplices.

Corcoran’s notes detail Trump blaming his legal difficulties on his “political enemies." They may support prosecutors' claims that Trump attempted to defy the subpoena that allowed federal agents to eventually seize 102 classified documents — including 17 top secret documents — in the August 2022 on his Mar-a-Lago estate.

"Well look, isn't it better if there are no documents?" Trump asked at one point, per Corcoran's notes. The former president, who faces more than 40 felony counts, has pleaded not guilty.

Before agents stormed his Florida estate, Trump met with Corcoran and attorney Jennifer Little for an hour and a half meeting, where he brought a box filled with newspaper clippings, Post-it notes, photos and other materials.

"I don't want anybody looking, I don't want anybody looking through my boxes, I really don't, I don't want you looking through my boxes," Trump said, according to Corcoran’s notes. "Look, I just don't want anybody going through these things."

The notes show that Little and Corcoran repeatedly warned the presumptive Republican nominee about the consequences of not complying, saying “it's going to be a crime.”

Oh no, Donald was warned he was going to be engaged in doing the crime by his lawyer and chose to do the crime anyways.

Also, they weren't his boxes and things. They were government property which he stole and refused to return.

[masterhorus8]

Looks like the gag order on Trump was partially lifted, allowing him to harass the jurors more. My favorite part is that he and his attorneys are still complaining that it prevents him from talking about the judge... Which it never and still doesn't prevent.