Wankery

GOP Oversight Chair Excuses Trump’s Corruption Unless Bank Records Prove It – Well, Guess What?

Posted by on December 18, 2024 at 2:05 pm. 2 Comments :

As Donald Trump prepares to reoccupy the White House, every American that hasn’t been indoctrinated into the MAGA cult is aware that he is setting new precedents as the first president to be a convicted felon and an adjudicated rapist, who has advocated terminating the Constitution, and incarcerating his political foes.

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Trump Penthouse Phone

That’s not exactly a record that would instill pride in either the officeholder or the people he purports to represent. To the contrary, it’s a resume of shame that would, and does, produce nausea in patriotic citizens. It would also spur responsible public officials to keep a tight rein on a leader who is as disposed to criminality as Trump has been.

SEE THIS: Trump’s Refusal to Sign the Required Ethics Agreement is His Virtual Promise to Violate It

On Wednesday morning the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, was interviewed by Pamela Brown on CNN. Comer is the prime antagonist in the long-running persecution of President Biden and his family. After years of sensationalized probes that failed to produce a shred of evidence of any wrongdoing, Comer is now dismissing any inquiry into Dear Leader Trump’s blatantly unlawful enterprises, as he affirms in the following exchange..

Brown: Do you have any concern if [Trump] doesn’t divest about present future President Trump using public office to enrich himself and his family? I mean, if he doesn’t divest, would that concern you?
Comer: I think the most important thing is transparency. And with respect to tax records, I come from a banking background. Tax records don’t mean anything. If you want to know whether someone’s doing something corrupt or not, get their bank records because bank records don’t lie. People cheat on their taxes all the time. Most important thing is the bank records. And I think as long as President Trump is transparent, I think the American people will give him a pass on honest business activity. But if it ever comes out that they’ve got secret deals or whatever, then that that could potentially be a problem, obviously.”

It’s interesting that Comer warns against using Trump’s tax records because “People cheat on their taxes all the time.” Is he implying that Trump cheats and, therefore, his tax records should be ignored?

More to the point, Comer asserts that nothing Trump does should be investigated because he’s such a pure paragon of transparency, and that his bank records would confirm that. However, in 2020 the New York Times reported that Trump had a secret bank account in China that he failed to reveal in his official financial disclosure forms. The Times discovered the account in his tax returns that they got from an undisclosed source because Trump repeatedly refused to make them public like every other president in modern times…

“President Donald Trump’s tax records show he has pursued expansive business projects in China for years and even maintains a Chinese bank account, The New York Times reported […] An analysis of Trump’s tax records by the Times shows that the President holds a previously unreported bank account in China that was not included on his public financial disclosures.”

So according to the criteria specified by Comer, there should be immediate hearings into Trump’s finances by Comer’s Oversight Committee. Trump has obviously not been as transparent as Comer implied. And that’s been the case for many years. Here are a couple other examples of Trump’s deceit with regard to his finances…

NOPE! Eric Trump Lies that Daddy Gave All Foreign Money Made at His Hotels to the Treasury
As reported by NPR last year… “Documents released by the House Oversight and Reform Committee show extravagant spending from foreign leaders at former President Donald Trump’s luxury hotel in Washington, D.C., which the committee says could have violated his oath of office by distorting U.S. foreign policy for personal financial gain.

“Government officials from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and the People’s Republic of China collectively spent over $750,000 at the Trump International Hotel during his presidency.”

[And…]

Trump earned as much as $160 million dollars from foreign sources while president. A more expansive investigation by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) found that… “Throughout his time in office, President Trump, his family and his Republican allies repeatedly assured the public that his refusal to divest from his businesses wouldn’t lead to any conflicts of interest […] When it came to foreign conflicts of interest, Trump and his company pledged to pause foreign business. They did not.”

Not surprisingly, the most frequent contributors to Trump’s coffers were from the Middle East and China.

Lest anyone think that Trump’s fiscal malfeasance is all in the past, take a look at his latest vehicle for enriching himself via shady self-dealing…

The Grifter-In-Chief: Will Donald Trump Divest From His Bribery Platform, Truth Social?
“Surely he is not planning to divest from any of the businesses that he didn’t divest from last time. […] Trump’s Truth Social, via its parent corporation, Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. It is therefore available for any crooked scheme-ster to shovel shiploads of cash into, enriching the other shareholders, of which Trump is the biggest.

No one should expect Trump to change his nefarious ways now. And Comer’s hypocrisy amounts to the willful wearing of blinders in the hopes of avoiding observing Trump’s illegal activities. But he knows. And so does everyone else whose eyes – and minds – are not glued shut. The only question that remains is whether others in Congress or the press will seek to bring him to justice.

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Trump FREAKS OUT Over Judicial Ruling Against Immunity For His Felony Hush Money Convictions

Posted by on December 17, 2024 at 1:11 pm. NO Comments :

For the better part of Donald Trump’s public life, the one skill that he has shown any aptitude for is squirming out of legal troubles via delays, distractions, and deceit. It’s a skill that has served him well considering the frequency of his civil and criminal misconduct.

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Donald Trump

This year, Trump’s luck appeared to run out when one of his criminal cases actually went to trial and he was convicted on all 34 counts brought against him for falsifying financial records. The case centered on his payment of $130,000 to adult film star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence regarding a sexual encounter that he was worried would harm his electoral prospects during the 2016 presidential race. In other words, election interference.

SEE THIS: What’s Roasting Trump’s Nuts? Jurors Believed Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, But Not Him

However, the story doesn’t end there. Trump’s conviction and sentencing were paused after the Supreme Court issued a preposterous ruling that presidents have immunity for crimes committed as part of their official duties. That ruling led to Trump’s attorneys filing a motion to have the convictions rescinded and the case dismissed.

On Tuesday morning Judge Juan Merchan issued his ruling that “the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision does not apply” because “the evidence in Trump’s hush money case related ‘entirely to unofficial conduct’ [and] ‘poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.'” Furthermore, the criminal acts all took place prior to Trump’s presidency, and any evidence presented at trial that came from White House personnel was immaterial and didn’t impact the “overwhelming evidence of guilt.”

Not surprisingly, this ruling triggered a massive meltdown by Trump. He posted an extended rant on his failing Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, that did little more than provide further confirmation of his psychological infirmity. He raged in part that…

“In a completely illegal, psychotic order, the deeply conflicted, corrupt, biased, and incompetent Acting Justice Juan Merchan has completely disrespected the United States Supreme Court, and its Historic Decision on Immunity. But even without Immunity, this illegitimate case is nothing but a Rigged Hoax.”

Trump went on to make wild and utterly false assertions that the ruling “goes against our Constitution [and] would be the end of the Presidency as we know it.” He also took a gratuitous swipe at the special prosecutor in his federal cases, who he calls “Deranged Jack Smith,” and reprised his “Witch Hunt” whine.

Trump closed his harangue by implying that Judge Merchan is conflicted by family relations, and issued an impotent demand that “This has to stop!” Missing from this outburst was any rational legal argument to support his claims that the ruling was unlawful or in any way improper. It was just another pathetic excretion of angst-ridden inanity that served no purpose other flushing his mental colon.

If anyone thought that the next four years were going to be any different than the toxic chaos that ensued during Trump’s previous occupation of the White House, this sad episode should put that naïve notion to rest. He is who he is, and he isn’t going to change. Which makes it all the more imperative that the rest of us be prepared to defend democracy and American principles once again. LFG!

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Trump Hurls Hate and Fear at All of the Media He’s Suing Following the ABC News Capitulation

Posted by on December 16, 2024 at 2:42 pm. NO Comments :

The forecasts of doom that have proliferated since Donald Trump managed to squeak by to win a second term occupying the White House are coming true even before he’s been inaugurated. And the reality is proving to be even worse than the predictions. He is promising to rule in the model of his totalitarian heroes, and his proposed Cabinet is a House of Horrors.

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Donald Trump

Last week ABC News agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump against the network for $15 million. The suit alleged that “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos had defamed Trump by asserting that he had been found liable for rape by the jury in the defamation case filed by writer E. Jean Carroll. However, it was the judge who, after the fact, said that Trump’s assault amounted to rape, as the term is generally understood. The jury only found that Trump was liable for sexual abuse. And Trump seems to regard being a confirmed sexual abuser as a victory.

SEE THIS: TRUMP WINS? ABC News Settles His Lawsuit Confirming that He Was Found Liable for Sexual Abuse

Following the ABC News settlement, Trump is already talking excitedly about his efforts to punish other media with vengeance-fueled lawsuits. It is his way of terrorizing the free press that he refers to in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” So in an impromptu press conference Monday morning, Trump lashed out at the media in his typically hostile manner.

Trump began his rant about suing the media (at 30:33 in the video below) with an inane threat to sue the Des Moines Register over a poll that showed him losing the election, which he called “fraud” and “election interference.” Then he went to discuss his lawsuit against CBS News saying that…

“We’re filing one on 60 Minutes, where they took Kamala’s answer, which was a crazy answer, a horrible answer. And they took the whole answer out and they replaced it with something else she said later on in the interview. […] And that was fraud. and election interference by their news magazine, a big part of CBS News.

Of course, none of what he said is remotely true. 60 Minutes did nothing more than to make routine edits for time and clarity. Nothing they did impacted the content or context of the interview. But that didn’t stop Trump from demanding that the license for CBS – and ALL broadcast networks – be revoked. [Note: The federal government does not license networks, only individual stations]. And he was just getting started. He continued…

“We’re involved in one, which has been going on for a while very successfully, against Bob Woodward, where he didn’t quote me properly from the tapes. And then on top of everything else, he sold the tapes. Which he wasn’t allowed to do.”

Once again, Trump is lying. Woodward taped his conversations with Trump for the book, RAGE!, and used them for that purpose. Furthermore, he quoted Trump verbatim, and has the tapes to back that up. In the book Woodward documented how Trump lied and downplayed COVID when he knew just how deadly it was. But he still wasn’t finished. He went on…

“And we have one very interestingly on Pulitzer, because reporters at the New York Times, Washington Post got Pulitzer prizes for their wonderful, accurate, and highly professional reporting on the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. Well, it turned out to be a hoax, and they were exactly wrong.”

This may be the most absurd lawsuit of them all. Trump isn’t suing the New York Times or the Washington Post. He’s suing the Pulitzer committee at Columbia University, who are entirely within their rights to award prizes as they see fit. What’s more, Trump claims that the articles documenting his unsavory associations with Russia “turned out to be a hoax,” that “now everybody admits.” Which could not be farther from the truth. Even the Republican led Senate Intelligence Committee report affirmed the Trump/Russia connections.

SEE ALSO: GEEZ! Trump is STILL Obsessed With the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax’ that is NOT a Hoax

Trump also spent some time flattering his Ministry of Propaganda, Fox News. He babbled that…

“Sean Hannity got it right. Many people got it right. Tucker [Carlson] got it right. Jesse [Watters] got it right. Laura [Ingraham] got it right. Jeanine [Pirro] got it right. A lot of people got it right. They didn’t get anything. They gave it to reporters that got it absolutely wrong. And now everybody admits it was a hoax. And I want them to take back the Pulitzer prizes and pay damages. […]

I feel I have to do this. I shouldn’t really be the one to do it. It should have been the Justice Department, or somebody else. But I have to do it. It costs a lot of money to do it. But we have to straighten out the press. Our press is very corrupt, almost as corrupt as our elections.”

The only things that any of them got right, at least from Trump’s perverse perspective, was their unwavering adoration of Trump and conformity to his worldview. And any deviation from that will result in punitive measures that will be carried out by his administration, overseen by his nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel, who has sworn to “come after the people in the media.”

Will the media allow this unconstitutional persecution of the free press to proceed? Hopefully the surrender by ABC News isn’t the consensus answer to that question.

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Brave Sir Hegseth, Trump’s Pick to Run the Pentagon, Runs Away From His Own Hateful Opinions

Posted by on December 13, 2024 at 2:33 pm. 1 Comments :

The reasons to oppose Donald Trump’s nomination of Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense are impossible to refute by any rational standard. Which may be why neither Trump, nor any of those purporting to support him, have offered any coherent argument for confirming him. All they can muster is their blindly obedient opinion that it is what Dear Leader Trump wants.

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Fox News, Pete Hegseth, Cleared

First and foremost, Hegseth has absolutely zero experience relevant to running the biggest bureaucracy in the United States federal government. His past work record contains nothing that would demonstrate the management, financial, legal, personnel, or international diplomacy skills required of a defense secretary. In addition to Hegseth’s lack of work experience, he is also lacking the moral and ethical character to perform at the high standards necessary for a top national security post.

SEE THIS: Pete Hegseth’s Mommy Steps Up to Shield Him From His Life of Alcoholic and Sexual Debauchery

As Hegseth strolls the halls of Congress to meet with the Senators who must confirm him, he has been questioned by the press about his fitness for the job. In one such incident he engaged in the following exchange with a reporter seeking his response to recent revelations about his objection to gay soldiers…

Reporter: Do you believe that gay people should be allowed to serve in the military?
Hegseth: Yes.
Reporter: Can you just respond to the CNN report this morning highlighting some of you previous comments?
Hegseth: I don’t feel the need to respond to CNN.

That brief exchange revealed two glaring examples of Hegseth’s cowardice. First of all, his response that he believes that gays should be allowed to serve contradicts his previous comments on that subject. He is clearly afraid to be honest about his opinions. And it isn’t the first time that he’s reversed himself due to his fear of public backlash. He has also tried to walk back his statement that “we should not have women in combat roles.”

Secondly, his dismissal of the follow up question that sought his clarification of his past remarks exhibits his fear of CNN, or any other media that he disapproves of.

To be clear, contrary to Hegseth’s flippant dismissal, the question wasn’t asking him to respond to CNN. It was asking him to respond to himself, and what he said in the past. CNN’s reporting was not their opinion. It was about what Hegseth wrote concerning gays in the military. According to the CNN report…

“In his 2024 book ‘The War on Warriors’ and in subsequent media promotions this year, Hegseth described both the original ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ (DADT) policy and its repeal in 2011 as a ‘gateway’ and a ‘camouflage’ for broader cultural changes that he claims have undermined military cohesion and effectiveness.”

What’s more, the prospect of a Cabinet member refusing to address a serious matter by asserting that he doesn’t “feel the need to respond” to a particular news network is a flashing red light alarm. He’s saying that he doesn’t feel that he has any obligation to be accountable to the citizens he is supposed to be serving. That is not acceptable behavior in a democratic society. Which, of course, is something that Trump hopes to dispense with.

Hegseth’s nomination has been in trouble from the start. And comments like these aren’t going to help him gain favor with the senators whose votes he needs. And it surely doesn’t help that he is also unpopular with the public…

“A new survey from the Associated Press and National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago suggests that Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense, has almost no popular support. According to the poll, only 17% of those surveyed said that they approved of Hegseth’s nomination.” […]

“In general, just 27% of the public is confident in Trump’s “ability to appoint well-qualified individuals to his cabinet and other high-level positions,” while 55% say they are not confident.”

As a side issue, the video above was posted by Will Cain, a co-host of the Fox News morning program, “Fox and Friends Weekend.” Which is the same program that Hegseth co-hosted prior to his nomination. Cain’s comment with the video is especially ironic. He apparently doesn’t see that it is his own network that has gone “from biased…to agenda…to propaganda…to embarrassment.”

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Trump’s Press Secretary Lies on Fox News that Reporters are ‘Excited that Trump Will Be Back’

Posted by on December 12, 2024 at 3:43 pm. 1 Comments :

As Donald Trump assembles his team for the reprise of his occupation of the White House, he is making it crystal clear that there is only one unnegotiable prerequisite for service in his administration: Unflinching fealty to Trump. Above and beyond everything else, the malignant Narcissist-in-Chief demands absolute adoration at all times.

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Donald Trump TV Set

Other job criteria, such as a total lack of relevant experience, and a commitment to dismantling whatever department you’re assigned to manage, are important, but have room for a small measure of flexibility. The result is that Trump’s Cabinet is going to be populated by incompetent know-nothings, who worship Dear Leader, and advance the interests of right-wing extremists and elitists.

SEE THIS: Trump’s Nominees Are Largely Fox News Alum, Mar-a-Lago Patrons, and Billionaires

An outstanding demonstration of this perverse tilt of the political landscape occurred Thursday on Fox News. Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, visited the MAGA Ministry of Propaganda where she offered a uniquely demented opinion about the state of the media…

“If you talk to reporters off the record they will tell you they are excited that Trump will be back in the Oval Office because they know how much access they had to him and his press secretaries in his first term.”

WHUT? First of all, the likelihood that Leavitt got off the record expressions of “excitement” from reporters gushing over the prospect of Trump’s return is about as realistic as Trump’s hysterical claims that “big, strong. men with tears in their eyes” are constantly flocking to him to express their undying gratitude and devotion.

Furthermore, Leavitt’s assertion that reporters recalled Trump’s previous playacting as president as a time when they had extraordinary access to him and his press office is laughable. In fact, Trump had virtually discontinued the routine daily press briefings that were held by the press secretaries of all other modern day presidents. There times when Trump’s White House didn’t have a press briefing for months on end. And when he addressed reporters it was often impromptu gaggles next to a waiting helicopter, where he hurled lies and insults without actually answering any questions.

MORE HERE: Trump’s Press Secretary Has Replaced ‘Daily’ Press Briefings with Softball Interviews on Fox News

What’s more, there are some disturbing reasons why reporters are actually worried about the next Trump term. Throughout his campaign this year he has made overt threats aimed at the media that he regularly refers to in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” He has proposed replacing credible journalists in the White House Press Room with screwballs, conspiracy crackpots, and fawning sycophants and MAGA trolls, like Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson.

Even worse, Trump’s nominee to be Director of the FBI, Kash Patel, recently threatened the press, saying that “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you.”

You really have to wonder who the reporters are that Leavitt says “are excited that Trump will be back in the Oval Office”? The only plausible people who would say that are folks like Steve Bannon, or Megyn Kelly, or maybe the alleged drug-addled sex trafficker, Matt Gaetz, who was recently dumped as Trump’s nominee to be Attorney General, but who is now scheduled to host a primetime show on the piddling, Trump-fluffing, One America News.

So it doesn’t seem like the press corps is really all that excited by Trump’s return. More likely, they are nervous and preparing for a hostile relationship with the White House for the next four years. However, if nothing else, Leavitt is doing precisely the sort of job that Trump wants her to do. And she is proving her bona fides as Trump-worthy disseminator of dishonesty and lies.

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Antifa Mitch McConnell Warns that Trump 2.0 and ‘America First’ are Like the Third Reich

Posted by on December 11, 2024 at 3:46 pm. NO Comments :

The authoritarian aspirations of Donald Trump have been unmistakably apparent for years. Anyone who has a functioning cerebral cortex will have noticed the maniacally tyrannical rhetoric that he openly excretes whenever he has an opportunity to express his rancid thoughts.

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Donald Trump

In the recent past Trump has advocated for “terminating” parts of the Constitution, herding migrants into concentration camps, accepting monetary contributions to enact legislation favorable to the contributor, suppressing the free press, and incarcerating his political opponents.

SEE THIS: Trump Madness on Meet the Press: Jail the January 6th Committee and Pardon January 6th Rioters

Trump’s admiration for brutal dictators such as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un, is well known. He can’t stop lavishing them with praise, while simultaneously castigating America’s leaders, institutions, and citizens, as “vermin” who “poison the blood” of the country. Much of his bombast is closely aligned with the fascism of another one of his heroes, Adolf Hitler, whose book of speeches he kept at his bedside, according to his ex-wife Ivana.

Consequently, it is surprising to hear the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, deliver some harsh criticisms of Trump, whose hide he saved during two attempts to impeachment him. But now that McConnell is on his way out, he might be leaning a bit more toward some candid assessments of Trump. The Financial Times is reporting that…

“With [Trump] preparing to return to the White House next month, [McConnell] issues a warning from America’s past. ‘We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before world war two,’ he says. ‘Even the slogan is the same. ‘America First.’ That was what they said in the ’30s.'”

McConnell is right. Trump’s words and deeds are frighteningly similar to those of the Nazi regime prior to World War II. And the “America First” slogan was originally used by Nazi sympathizers in the U.S. and the American Nazi Party in the the 1930’s.

None of this information is new. What’s new is that a staunchly conservative Republican icon like McConnell is the saying it this time. And that’s not all, He also told his biographer, Michael Tackett, that McConnell has called Trump “stupid” and a “despicable human being.” And, once again, that isn’t new information either to rational, thinking Americans.

McConnell’s opinion of Trump, while accurate, is coming out too late to have any positive impact on the state of current political affairs. But it is not too late for the nation to prepare for a massive campaign of resistance to Trump’s totalitarian intentions.

Trump is endeavoring to populate his administration with overtly anti-American sycophants whose loyalty is only to Trump. And he is using his gift for lying to claim a mandate that his margin of victory (1.5%) doesn’t support. He is also trying to convince the nation (and perhaps himself) that he is popular. Part of the argument will rest on his being named Time’s “Person of the Year.” However, like almost everything else, Trump doesn’t understand what that means…

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WTHolyF? Trump Says Democrats Want to Ditch the Popular Vote in Favor of the Electoral College

Posted by on December 9, 2024 at 12:54 pm. 3 Comments :

Just when you thought that Donald Trump had reached the outer limits of logic and reason, he manages to astound everyone by sinking even lower on the sanity spectrum. Which proves that, with respect to Trump’s tenuous grasp of reality, or at least his perception of what nonsense his cult followers will tolerate, there really is no bottom.

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Donald Trump

In another laughably loony late night post to his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, Trump sought to make what he surely considered to be an insightful criticism of the state of politics in America. He absurdly asserted that…

“The Democrats are fighting hard to get rid of the Popular Vote in future Elections. They want all future Presidential Elections to be based exclusively on the Electoral College!”

REALLY? This would be a brilliant observation, if it weren’t for the pesky little fact that it is diametrically opposed to what Democrats actually want. Progressives have long criticized the Electoral College for its inherent bias toward small, red states that lean Republican. And it was Trump’s mangling of the Constitution’s references to it that were the basis of his ludicrous claim that he had won the election in 2020, and his inciting of the January 6th insurrection.

SEE THIS: Trump’s Big News? Blatant Lies About Pence’s Authority to Reject Electoral Votes on January 6th

It’s hard to imagine what might have triggered this outburst. Generally when Trump makes a comment like this it is provoked by something he saw someone say on television. But this is so far removed from anything that makes sense, the source of his angst is a mystery.

Even worse, Trump is displaying his infamous ignorance of American laws and principles. He is complaining, incorrectly, that Democrats “want all future Presidential Elections to be based exclusively on the Electoral College!” However, all presidential elections are already based exclusively on the Electoral College, and they always have been. And he should know. It’s how came to occupy the White House in 2016. And it’s how he tried to overturn the election in 2020 by deploying an army of fake electors.

If Trump needs any further evidence that Democrats oppose the Electoral College and favor the popular vote, he need look no further than the progressive movement to effectively nullify the Electoral College by a group called “The National Popular Vote” whose website states that…

“The National Popular Vote law will take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes (270 of 538). Then, the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC will get all the electoral votes from all of the enacting states. That is, the candidate receiving the most popular votes nationwide will be guaranteed enough electoral votes to become President.” […]

“The National Popular Vote Compact has been enacted into law by 17 states and the District of Columbia…These jurisdictions have 209 of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the law.”

This movement is not some fringe faction of extremists. According to a recent survey by PEW Research, abolishing the Electoral College and electing presidents by popular vote is quite…well, popular…

“More than six-in-ten Americans (63%) would instead prefer to see the winner of the presidential election be the person who wins the most votes nationally. Roughly a third (35%) favor retaining the Electoral College system, according to a Pew Research Center survey”

What’s more, Trump is not only flagrantly wrong (as usual) about what Democrats want. That broad majority of 63% of Americans who prefer relying on the popular vote includes nearly half (46%) of Republicans. And according to the National Popular Vote group, they are tantalizingly close to achieving their goal. They report that in addition to the 17 states that have already passed their bill, “The bill has also passed one legislative chamber in 7 states with 74 electoral votes (AR, AZ, MI, NC, NV, OK, VA).”

That would be enough to align the Electoral College with the popular vote, and to end the bizarre and outdated dependence on the undemocratic Electoral College. With some some hard work and good luck, that could happen before the next presidential election. Then Trump would have to manufacture something entirely new to whine about. Which, unfortunately, is one of his few demonstrated skills.

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Trump Madness on Meet the Press: Jail the January 6th Committee and Pardon January 6th Rioters

Posted by on December 8, 2024 at 3:00 pm. 3 Comments :

In his first interview since the election last month, Donald Trump has cemented his reputation as a pathological liar and a thoroughly delusional distorter of reality. He is proving that he is consistent, at least with regard to his determination to mislead the nation in order to pursue his dangerously dystopic agenda and advance his aspirations of authoritarian rule.

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Donald Trump Insurrection

Trump sat down with NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” for a typically awkward discussion wherein he filibustered, interrupted, and disgorged many of the same flagrant falsehoods that he has been disseminating for years at his cult rallies and in friendly venues such as Fox News, where at least 14 of his new White House nominees have come from.

SEE THIS: Trump’s Nominees Are Largely Fox News Alum, Mar-a-Lago Patrons, and Billionaires

Among the topics that Trump mangled were his refusal to concede that he lost the 2020 election, his denial that tariffs would raise prices for consumers, and his maligning migrants as murderers, and his ludicrous new claim that the 2024 election was also rigged.

Trump was also asked about the January 6th insurrection that he incited. His answers were the same as he has given previously, but still troubling with regard to two associated aspects of it…

These opinions could not be more distant from the sort of rational thinking that Americans expect from their leaders. He is declaring that he wants elected members of Congress to be imprisoned for fulfilling their duties to investigate the violent insurrection. And he is simultaneously advocating that the criminal insurrectionists who assaulted police offices as they stormed the Capitol be freed and forgiven for their crimes, which he promises to do on his first day in office…

Welker: You promised to pardon those who attacked the Capitol on January 6th. Are you still vowing to follow through with that promise?
Trump: We’re looking at it right now. Most likely, yeah. […]
Welker: But you’re going to consider pardoning even those who pleaded guilty to crimes, including assaulting police officers?
Trump: Well, sometimes they say, “Here’s your choice.”

In the interview, Trump was also asked directly if he thought that Liz Cheney should go to jail. He replied…

“Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with [Rep. Bennie] Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps. So the unselect committee went through a year and a half of testimony. Wait. They deleted and destroyed all evidence of — that they found. You know why? Because Nancy Pelosi was guilty. […] Everybody on that committee, for what they did, honestly, they should go to jail.”

Every word of that rant is demonstrably false. What Cheney did that was “inexcusable” was to acknowledge the evidence of Trump’s misconduct. And Trump’s claim that “They deleted and destroyed all evidence” has been repeatedly debunked. In fact, only “temporary” records that were not part of the Committee’s probe were not preserved. Everything else was saved and is available online.

Furthermore, Trump’s accusation that Pelosi is “guilty” of some jailable offense is wholly without merit or reason. He is obliquely referring to an offer he claims to have made to provide 10,000 National Guard troops on January 6th, an offer that was never made according to multiple sources, including his own Defense Department appointees. In any case, it was the president, Trump, not Pelosi, who was in charge of security in D.C.

MORE ON BOTH OF THOSE HERE: Dementia J. Trump Confuses Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley In a Lie-Riddled Rant About January 6th

Trump also said that he would not direct his Attorney General or FBI Director to go after the Committee, but that “I think that they’ll have to look at that.” So he is, in effect, telling them to go after the Committee members, and probably others as well, including President Biden, his son Hunter, and prosecutors such as Jack Smith and Fani Willis. Much like a mob boss, he doesn’t have to give explicit orders to his subordinates, because they know what he means. They were hired to carry out his crusade of vengeance, and they know it.

We are barreling headlong at breakneck speed into a backwards world where lawmakers are locked up and lawbreakers are set free. And it’s going to take a mighty effort to resist this reversible perversion of politics. However, there are more of us than there are of them, and we have the law on our side. Even though it may not look like it sometimes.

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Pete Hegseth’s Fox News Co-Host Admits He Had a Drinking Problem, But It’s Now ‘Under Control’

Posted by on December 7, 2024 at 2:26 pm. NO Comments :

The ongoing formation of the Cabinet of Donald Trump continues to limp along with fits and wheezes. The historically unprecedented roster of billionaires, unqualified hacks, and shamelessly sycophantic Trump loyalists, portends a dire future for the nation.

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Pete Hegseth with Drunk Emoji

Not only would Trump’s administration lack anyone who would stand up to him when he’s wrong, they don’t have the experience or intelligence to implement his agenda, which is actually one of the rare positive aspects of his cadre of crackpots. What they have is unflinching fealty to Dear Leader and a direct hook up to his Ministry of Propaganda, Fox News.

SEE THIS: Trump’s Nominees Are Largely Fox News Alum, Mar-a-Lago Patrons, and Billionaires

On Friday Kristen Welker of NBC News released a few teaser clips from her interview of Trump that will air Sunday on Meet the Press. In these clips Trump displayed his famously dishonest and/or delusionary perspective when discussing the state of Pete Hegseth’s nomination for Secretary of Defense.

Trump told Welker that “Pete is doing well now,” despite the fact that he still doesn’t have the votes from Republicans to be confirmed. Trump also offered his praise for Hegseth saying that “I’ve known him through Fox. But I’ve known him for a long time. And he’s basically a military guy,” because he talks about the military a lot. If that were the criteria required to run the Pentagon, Gomer Pyle would be qualified.

Hegseth has never managed anything like the Department of Defense, with 3.4 million people and an $850 billion budget. But he was fired from two veterans charities for alcohol-fueled misconduct and financial mismanagement. So he may have the skills Trump wants in order to dismantle the institution. With regard to Hegeth’s alcohol issues, Trump said that…

“I’ve spoken to people that know him very well and they say he does not have a drinking problem.”

Well, then that settles it. Because Trump would never lie, would he? Were those people big strong men who came up to him and hugged him with tears in their eyes? And why is okay for Trump to cite anonymous sources, but it’s not okay for anyone else?

These comments by Trump were played on Saturday’s episode of Fox and Friends, the program that Hegseth quit in order to become Vladimir Putin’s fave choice for U.S. defense secretary. And immediately following the clips, the current hosts discussed them and their relationship with Hegseth…

Cain: Just to be clear, people who work with him, there’s three – two here who have been with him on an hourly basis for five years – not a drinking problem. And that’s on the record with our names. So anonymous sources at NBC who work with him, you can value that for what it’s worth.
Campos-Duffy: I’ve actually seen Pete’s transformation over the time that I’ve worked here in terms of his own personal life. The man that he’s become. The way he comports himself as a father, as a husband over the last seven years. […] Pete does cling to his bible because he’s humble enough to know he needs it. And, no, he does not have a drinking problem. He has that completely under control.”

So Hegseth’s fellow “Curvy Couch” potatoes are with him all the way. What a surprise, and not at all a biased testimonial. Although Campos-Duffy may have done him more harm than good. Her assertion that his drinking problem is now “under control” is an affirmation that he did have a drinking problem. She now claims that he has overcome it, but provides no evidence for how he did so. It is extraordinarily difficult to overcome any substance abuse problem without professional help. Did Hegseth undergo therapy? Did he join Alcoholics Anonymous? Or did he just ask Jesus to free him from his addiction?

What’s more, why do they think that their testimony is more credible because they are on the record? They are also still employed by Fox News, and their jobs depend on regurgitating the company line. Which also happens to be the Trump line. Furthermore, we know that Fox News hosts lie because they were caught and had to pay a $787 billion dollar settlement due to their flagrant dishonesty.

The testimony of the inside sources in the independent reporting by the New Yorker and elsewhere is far more credible because they are speaking without the pressure or intimidation from their employers, Trump, or his MAGA thugs. And they are not anonymous. They are confidential. There’s a difference. The identity of anonymous sources is unknown. The identity of confidential sources is known to the journalists and editors. It just not disclosed in order to avoid retribution.

The bottom line is that the stories of Hegseth’s debauchery have now been essentially affirmed in part by his own former Fox News co-hosts. There is little reason to have confidence that he won’t backslide if he is entrusted with the stress and responsibility of being Secretary of Defense. And this doesn’t even address his inexperience, or the allegations of sexual assault, or the criticisms by his own mother that he’s a liar and a cheater who abuses women. However, it’s clear to see what Trump likes so much about him. They are two of a kind.

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Fox News Embarks on a Campaign of Shameless Exaltation of Donald and Melania Trump

Posted by on December 6, 2024 at 2:08 pm. 3 Comments :

From its inception 28 years ago, Fox News has relentlessly pursued its mission to advance the interests of ultra right-wing politicians and policies. That mission has been unencumbered by the principles of ethical journalism or honesty. The network’s objective of promoting arch-conservativism on behalf of the wealthy and corporations has been paramount in their “reporting” at all times.

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Donald Trump baby with Fox News logo

With the emergence of Donald Trump and the cult that has arisen around him, Fox News has managed to do what many may have thought impossible. They got even worse. Their devotional embrace of Trump has exceeded the adulation of history’s most notorious cult leaders. Fox News has helped Trump to prove that he was right when he said that he could “shoot someone on 5th Avenue” without losing any support. And as a result of Fox’s reverential propaganda, Trump’s clan regards him as their only source of truth.

SEE THIS: IT’S A CULT! Poll Shows Republicans Trust Only Criminal Messiah Trump to Tell Them the Truth

This week Fox News has outdone itself. On Thursday their Fox Nation streaming network aired an awards ceremony wherein Trump was declared the “Patriot of the Year.” To be clear, that’s a choice that is honoring a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, draft dodger, who incited a coup, and said he would terminate the Constitution, as the most patriotic person in America. You have to wonder who the runner-ups were. Steve Bannon? Vladimir Putin? Hannibal Lector?

This award could be in appreciation of Trump’s nominees to his still forming administration. At least 14 of them (so far) are Fox News hosts, contributors, or frequent guests. Among these unqualified, morally bankrupt appointments is his embattled nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

MORE HERE: CNN Report: Trump’s Nominees Are Largely Fox News Alum, Mar-a-Lago Patrons, and Billionaires

As if that weren’t enough, Fox News also invited Melania Trump on to chat with the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends (Hegseth’s old haunt). That segment actually turned out to be their version of a right-wing Home Shopping Network where viewers could purchase grossly overpriced trinkets designed by Melania herself. Who wouldn’t want a $90.00 Christmas tree ornament by the woman who once said “Who gives a f**k about Christmas stuff?”

This combination of Trump getting a made up award by his Fox News disciples, and giving valuable airtime to Melania to cash in on the rubes who watch Fox, is just the beginning of the media supplication to Dear Leader Trump and his attempt to transform the United States into an authoritarian dystopia. And if you think it’s bad now, just wait. Or better yet, don’t wait – RESIST! If there is one thing that Trump has shown us throughout his public life, it’s that he is incompetent and defeatable. LFG!

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