Blue, Blue Monday Reads
Posted: April 17, 2023 Filed under: Festivities, Political Affective Disorder | Tags: Donnie Dotard, Gym Jordan, The Donnie Dotard Club House, The Dotardteers, Trump Trial Wars 38 Comments
John (repeat1968) Buss
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
John Buss nailed his cartoon today. Poor, poor pitiful Orange Caligula has taken the Airing of The Grievances to new heights. So, I borrowed it bigly. Thanks, John, for the daily smile! Poor me will write about it, I needed that smile! It also gave me a reason to think of my late ninth-ward neighbor, Fats Domino. I loved every moment of watching him play at every place possible here! Plus, he made great hog’s head cheese!
Take a breath. It’s the airing of the Grievances at the Donnie Dotard Club!
I’ve read a lot of American History in my day, and I’ve now lived a portion of it enough to say I don’t recall any Presidential Campaign being a Revenge Tour. But then, we’ve never had a President–and hopefully, never again–like Trump. That appears to be what today’s Republicans want, according to Sarah Longwell, writing today at The Bulwark. “You Have to Think of Trump’s Election as Year Zero. Because Republican voters say they don’t want any part of a Republican party that looks anything like it did before 2016.”
THERE ARE EVENTS SO EPOCHAL that they create clear periods of before and after: Hiroshima; the fall of the Berlin Wall; 9/11. Eight years after he declared his intention to run for president, it’s now clear that we should consider Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign not as part of America’s political continuum but as one of these temporal dividing lines.
In American politics, there were conventions and candidates that existed in 2015 Republican politics as the before times. 2015 BT. Before Trump.
Before the escalator and “grab ’em by the p***y.” Before Muslim bans and a wall Mexico would never pay for. Before we’d heard of Marjorie Taylor Greene, or Lauren Boebert, or the QAnon shaman. Before an American president sided with Vladimir Putin over his own government’s intelligence network. Before Donald Trump became the first president to turn his back on the peaceful transfer of power.
This period has existed outside of nearly all established norms, yet many Americans seem to believe that it is an interregnum. An aberration. An accident of history that will undo itself—soon—as norms and the old equilibrium return.
I think this view misunderstands the true nature of what has happened to the Republican party because it does not see what has happened to Republican voters.
I’ve sat through hundreds of focus groups with GOP voters over the last four years and one thing is perfectly clear: The Republican party has been irretrievably altered and, as one GOP voter put it succinctly, “We’re never going back.”
IT’S EASY TO IDENTIFY people who don’t realize the transformation undergone by GOP voters. Many of them, in fact, have been talking about running for president. Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, Mike Pompeo—these are Before Trump (BT) politicians who don’t quite realize they’re living in an After Trump (AT) world.
Rock ‘n’ roll legend Fats Domino’s two-home compound at Caffin Avenue and Marais Street has been a landmark of the Lower 9th Ward since 1960.
Polls show that the Republican base is still solidly in Trump, but that doesn’t transfer to a recapture of the White House in 2024. This McClatchy report of a GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies’ poll indicates DeSantis might win against Trump. Either result would be pretty depressing in my book.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis narrowly leads President Joe Biden in the battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania, according to a poll of a hypothetical matchup between the two men in the 2024 presidential race. The same survey, however, finds Biden leading former President Donald Trump in the two swing states, albeit by tight margins. The poll, conducted from April 11 through April 13 by GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies and obtained by McClatchyDC, should bolster the argument from many DeSantis supporters that the Florida Republican is more electable than the former president. Trump lost reelection in 2020 and has continued alienating some moderate voters with his ongoing false claims that the race was stolen from him
Given the legislative actions down here, I wonder why I stay in the South. I think I may have to retire to a nice mountain retreat in Nepal if Average Joe doesn’t win again. Here’s the latest from Lousyana as proof life is certainly getting more terrible post-Trump. This is from Business Insider. “Republican state officials in Louisiana ask lawmakers to ban the study of racism at universities, citing divisive ‘inglorious aspects’ of US history.” We’re not quite Floridoh or Texass but give these nitwits a chance, and we’ll be a theocratical fascist state too.
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The Louisiana GOP wants to prohibit the study of racism at state colleges and universities.
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A GOP resolution, seen by NOLA.com, claimed the “inglorious aspects” of American history were too divisive.
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It comes amid a nationwide GOP effort to scrub race issues from public schools and public life.
Republican officials in Louisiana are proposing a ban on teaching about racism at the state’s higher education institutions — the latest move amid a wave of legislation across the country aimed at legislating curriculum in the nation’s classrooms.
GOP Party officials in the state want Louisiana lawmakers to prohibit the study of racism at colleges and universities, claiming the “inglorious aspects” of American history are too divisive, according to NOLA.com, which cites a GOP resolution on the matter.
The state GOP leadership also wants to nix diversity, equity, and inclusion departments at colleges and universities, claiming without evidence that such agencies stir political tensions on campuses and have overgenerous budgets, NOLA.com reported. A third of Louisiana residents are Black, according to the US Census Bureau.
Remind me who the snowflakes are again? Here’s another indicator from MediaITE that grievances and hurt feelings rule the policy agenda in the party. It’s why Donnie Dotard is so well-suited for them. “Former president Donald Trump offered some unconventional legal advice to Fox Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch on the eve of the Fox News-Dominion Voting Systems trial.”
In an all-caps post on Truth Social, Trump urged Murdoch to “EXPOSE THE TRUTH ON CHEATING IN THE 2020 ELECTION.” Fox is the defendant in a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion, which says that Fox knowingly amplified false claims about the company in order to promote Trump’s disproven theories about how the election was stolen from him and handed to Joe Biden. According to Trump, Fox’s acknowledgement that the election was not stolen from him represents a legal liability.
“FOX NEWS IS IN BIG TROUBLE IF THEY DO NOT EXPOSE THE TRUTH ON CHEATING IN THE 2020 ELECTION. THEY SHOULD DO WHAT’S RIGHT FOR AMERICA. WHEN RUPERT MURDOCH SAYS THAT THERE WAS NO CHEATING IN LIGHT OF THE MASSIVE PROOF THAT WAS THERE, IT IS RIDICULOUS AND VERY HARMFUL TO THE FOX CASE,” argued Trump, before addressing Murdoch directly. “RUPERT, JUST TELL THE TRUTH AND GOOD THINGS WILL HAPPEN. THE ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLLEN…YOU KNOW IT, & SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE!”
Trump’s mid-morning missive on Monday followed a 2:39 AM post in which he submitted that “IF FOX WOULD FINALLY ADMIT THAT THERE WAS LARGE SCALE CHEATING & IRREGULARITIES IN THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, WHICH WOULD BE A GOOD THING FOR THEM, & FOR AMERICA, THE CASE AGAINST THEM, WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE EXISTED AT ALL, WOULD BE GREATLY WEAKENED.”
“BACK UP THOSE PATRIOTS AT FOX INSTEAD OF THROWING THEM UNDER THE BUS,” continued the former president. While various reporters and anchors — including Bret Baier and Jacqui Heinrich — have taken care to debunk Trump’s claims of widespread fraud, others, including star opinion host Tucker Carlson, have doubled down on them.
Why does the Saint of Grievances always use ALL CAPS? Certainly, the Faux New Network All-Stars know better.
Well, this makes for interesting reading.
In a statement, the company said that “the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution” and protected by legal precedent. It added, “Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context, and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law.”
But if a jury looks at the messages from Fox hosts, guests and executives and concludes that people inside the network knew what they were putting on the air was false, it could find Fox liable and reward Dominion with substantial financial damages.
On Nov. 7, 2020, Mr. Carlson told Mr. Pfeiffer that claims about manipulated software were “absurd.” Mr. Pfeiffer replied later that there was not enough evidence of fraud to swing the election.
A graphic of a text exchange between Pfeiffer and Carlson.Said privately on Nov. 7, 2020Nov. 8, 2020
Donny Dotard does have some reason to sing the blues. Things are going badly for him on all the court trials front. This is from NBC News. “Judge denies Trump’s bid to delay civil rape trial. A lawyer for Trump had argued that the former president should be allowed a “cooling off” period following his recent historic indictment by a Manhattan grand jury. ” There’s ketchup on the walls at the Donnie Dotard Clubhouse today! It’s Monday! Monday is Ketchup on the Wall Day there!
A federal judge on Monday denied former President Donald Trump’s bid for a four-week delay in the civil rape and defamation trial against him.
Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in a letter last week to postpone the trial in the lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, scheduled to start April 25, until the end of May. Carroll’s lawsuit alleges that Trump raped her at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, which Trump has repeatedly denied.
Tacopina argued that his client should be allowed a “cooling off” period following his recent historic indictment by a Manhattan grand jury in a case involving hush money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign, which drew a surge of media coverage.
In a 10-page opinion denying Trump’s request on Monday, Kaplan wrote that “there is no justification for an adjournment.”
“This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution,” Kaplan wrote. “The suggestion that the recent media coverage of the New York indictment — coverage significantly (though certainly not entirely) invited or provoked by Mr. Trump’s own actions — would preclude selection of a fair and impartial jury on April 25 is pure speculation. So too is his suggestion that a month’s delay of the start of this trial would ‘cool off’ anything, even if any ‘cooling off’ were necessary.”
Kaplan also rejected the notion that delaying the trial would decrease the possibility of “negative publicity” before the trial. In the request to delay the trial, Tacopina argued that the influx of media coverage of Trump’s indictment and arraignment could taint the jury pool.
Kaplan wrote, “It is quite important to remember [also] that postponements in circumstances such as this are not necessarily unmixed blessings from the standpoint of a defendant who is hoping for the dissipation of what he regards, or says he regards, as negative publicity. Events happen during postponements. Sometimes they can make matters worse.”
Kaplan also noted that “at least some portion” of recent media coverage of Trump’s indictment “was of his own doing” and that the alleged sexual conduct at the heart of the Manhattan district attorney’s case, which involves adult film star Stormy Daniels’ allegations that she had an affair with Trump — accusations that Trump denies — and was paid to keep quiet, is “dramatically different” from Carroll’s allegations of rape by the former president.
Nowhere is the front line for Trump revival duty failing more than at this debacle’s New York City location. It’s the Dotardteers on tour! “House GOP escalates defense of Trump with New York field hearing seeking to discredit Manhattan DA” via CNN. Place all your liquids in cups on the table before reading this. Spew Warning!
House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are exemplifying the lengths they are willing to go to discredit Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal case against former President Donald Trump with a Monday New York field hearing on Bragg’s home turf.
House Republicans are seeking to make the case that Bragg is more focused on going after Trump for political reasons than addressing crime in New York City, a claim Bragg vehemently denies.
Democrats are pushing back, arguing that Republicans are acting as an extension of Trump’s defense team and saying they should focus instead on public safety issues like gun violence. A spokesperson for the Manhattan DA’s office said in a statement ahead of the hearing that the event is a “political stunt.”
The hearing, billed as focusing on crime in New York, comes as the legal drama between Bragg and House Republicans has intensified in recent days. Bragg sued House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and sought to block him from taking certain investigative steps, arguing that Congress doesn’t have oversight authority over state-level criminal prosecutions.
t serves as the latest example of how Trump continues to wield enormous power on Capitol Hill as House Republicans seek to curry favor with the former president, coming to his defense through their investigations and routinely updating him and his closest advisers on their progress. In the wake of his indictment, Trump called up members of House GOP leadership and key committee members to shore up support on Capitol Hill, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan opened Monday’s hearing by going after Bragg for being “soft on crime.”
“Here in Manhattan, the scales of justice are weighed down by politics. For the District Attorney, justice isn’t blind. It’s about looking for opportunities to advance a political agenda, a radical political agenda rather than enforcing the law,” Jordan said in his opening remarks.
Maybe Jordan suffers damage from multiple piledrivers?
So, this has been a bit of a weird post, but then, we live in weird times. Thankfully, my therapeutic shoe therapy shopping results arrived at the door today!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Mitchie McConnell: The asshole that just keeps giving …
Feinstein should step down. She is holding up Biden’s judicial nominees.
Seriously, she’s really messing up the narrative of all her accomplishments.
It’s screamingly frustrating. Repub thugs can keep their entire party in line with screaming meemie primaries and a few Gaetzes and Gosars and Greenes.
Meanwhile the Dems get ground down by all of three people. Count ’em. Three. A Harlan Crow-funded Sinema, coal baron Manchin, and now Feinstein the Fuddled.
There’s even a saying about it, isn’t there. Something like all that’s necessary is for good people to do … what was it? … nothing? Nothing in there about ‘oh gee whiz we tried.’
“Gaetzes Gosars and Greenes” sound like Dr Suess.
(If only they were really that harmless.)
Thank you for explaining The Festivus cartoon…my brain is in funk mood right now and nothing is making sense.
All them damn CAPS, that the orange fuckwad post…it must be a special “feature” on truth social. Where you can click a button and all your post are written in ALL CAPS!
Honestly. The only good thing is I can see the all caps coming and it makes it easier to skip.
Actually, 44 people were charged.
Well, that sounds ugly!
The same pattern has become evident in Australia, New Zealand, and UK. Maybe other European countries? Not sure.
And it’s like some throwback to the Cold War. All these secret agents, when they’re noticed, are purely cultural attachés or children’s sports organizers or pastry chefs or some damn thing.
Ralph Yarl,sent to an address to pick up 2 younger brothers to take home,was shot twice in the head. He survived. He has been in hospital,since Thursday night. The home owner who shot him,shot him through a door,then while Yarl was down ,he was shot a second time. The shooter is not in police custody or charged at this time….Bcz Yarl survived ,it is hoped police will get his statement. Then, action will be taken ….
How this murderer is still walking around loose …. You’d think mere shame would make the cops arrest the guy when he’s splashed all over the news. They don’t even try to keep the racism down low.
It’s sickening.
The shooter is not in police custody or charged?
Those cops need to be charged.
Another horrible aspect is having suffered 2 shots to the head he may not remember or be able to communicate. It’s appalling.
We (speaking as a lib) treat Fox News and other propaganda outlets as if what they do is just a game tactic. Scaremongering to lock in the fearful aggrieved base. But this is what that pernicious fascist brainwashing actually generates. Fear and loathing of the “out” group.
We (speaking as blacky now) bear the brunt of white nationalist radicalization across the board, but this is an extreme example, “Standing your ground from behind a locked door.”
I will not be surprised if some governor tries to pardon this guy too.
Yep. It used to be that Fox News and similar were seen as ridiculous, hilarious examples of ring-wing nuttery. They and Trump have emboldened the RW to to a level not seen before.
“inglorious aspects” of American history
Oh really. History is full of inglorious aspects. They don’t un-happen if not talked about in the country they happened in. There are other countries which try to hush up their inglorious aspects — Russia and China being the most obvious.
Finally.
Glad to hear that. No justice. No peace.
‘County prosecutor says “there was a racial component to the case.”‘
O rly? Hoodathunkit? /*endless screaming*/
Good to know this; thanks.
Andrew Lester, an 85-year-old White man, will face charges of assault in the first degree and armed criminal action. And there was a “racial element”exhibited…
So, it is said he may use “stand your ground” as a defense?
Really, was this prompted by aggressive doorbell ringing?
Why are white men so fragile these days? Fragile and angry.
The Thomas Crow Affair.
I know that there is no way to actually remove Uncle Thomas, but we should try to make it SO hot, that he can’t remain. Even if that means making peaceful nuisances of ourselves everywhere possible. There should be hundreds of protestors calling for he resignation everyday. We should be making so much noise they can’t hold court.
Someone on progressive radio made the point that if this were Sonya Sotomayor and George Soros we were talking about the entire right wing world would be in an uproar.
How come the left has forgotten how to do outrage?
Encouraging that outfits like the rugby federation and recently athletics, I think?, are starting to notice that men and women have different bodies. Women’s strengths are not in throwing javelins or tackling human refrigerators.
Apparently one of the triggers for the athletics (?) decision recently was that coaches were going around scouting for youngsters with DSDs with female appearance but a Y chromosome. A Y in those cases doesn’t provide full male sports advantage, but enough so they tend to make the extra few seconds that confer first place. Basically doping to put your contender in a class of her own (cryptic Y kids are generally brought up as girls) but pretending you know nothing — nothing! — about it.
Hoping all sports soon get back to sane, level playing fields, with people competing in their own class, same as men have had all along.
IIRC most of the males w/DSDs that present at birth with underdeveloped male genitalia will at puberty go thru full male puberty wherein their genitals then develop further and they have the usual advantages of male puberty with accompanying height, reach, leg length, bone density, muscle strength, larger hearts and lungs, etc. Title 9 also affects scholarships.
Some of these male DSDs occur more often in certain populations rather than others — more so in parts of Africa. Combine that with the reduced availability of neonatal specialists and genetic analysis in less developed countries, most of these kids won’t be officially recognized as male until after puberty. So cue the cries of ‘racism!’ when it’s pointed out that these exceptional athletes are male.
Depends on the DSD. In some of them (I’d have to go look it up
androgen insensitivity?) the symptom at puberty is amenorrhea and, eventually, infertility since they don’t have female reproductive systems.
The default human, biologically, looks female which is why, I’m guessing, it doesn’t occur to people to think a bit further.
You’re right about the coaches’ targets being disadvantaged kids without all the genetic testing. Honest people would provide the testing _before_ dangling an iffy career in front of them.
Right, that’s why I said “most.” There’s CAIS, complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, where they don’t go thru male puberty and so no male advantage. They develop as females except lacking a functioning female reproductive system. That’s the only male DSD which it makes sense to consider as female.
It’s a while since I read about this, so I’m not sure I have it right. But what I think I remember is that even in CAIS they’ve recently found there are or can be small effects that confer sports advantages. Given that winning margins are generally measure in millimeters and milliseconds, _any_ advantage is significant. To the extent they’ve done genetic testing on elite athletes, I vaguely remember that the proportion with DSDs where the athlete looked female and only a test disclosed the genetic situation was somewhere between 2%-6%. In the general population it’s more like 0.05% (just guessing, I remember at least one zero after the decimal point in the percentage 😆 Talking orders of magnitude here). Gives some indication of the advantage conferred.