Still another crazy week in Trumpland

Donald Trump posted a $175 million bond to prevent New York authorities from seizing his assets, including properties such as Trump Tower, pending appeal of a civil fraud judgment against him of nearly a half-billion dollars. Trump posting of the bond was necessary to keep New York Attorney General Letitia James from initiating legal steps to take over his properties. The bond arrangement was made with Knight Specialty Insurance Company, according to a court document. About 30 surety companies he consulted with would not accept his real estate as collateral, only liquid assets.

[The CEO of Knight Specialty Insurance Company is also a large investor in Internet bank named Axos. Axos’ CEO and top investors have strong financial ties to the GOP. Axos loan Trump $100 million previously. Not surprising with the 30 companies. Between going bankrupt 4 times and inflating the worth of those properties he owned, it’s no surprise he wasn’t popular with them.]

If he does not win his appeal, Trump will still owe more than $450 million from a civil court judgment after James won the fraud case against him, alleging he deceived lenders and insurance companies by inflating his net worth by up to $2.2 billion annually from 2011 to 2021. Trump’s tab is growing by about $100,000 per day because interest will continue to accrue until the appeal ends.

Trump attacked Judge Juan Merchan for issuing the gag order – and he went after the judge’s daughter for her liberal political work, exploiting the ambiguous language in the order that didn’t explicitly forbid discussion of Merchan’s family. It didn’t take long for Merchan pushed back, expanding the gag order to cover his family – though the judge remains fair game for Trump – and attempting to limit Trump’s vitriol two weeks before the trial is set to begin.

[It should be standard practice that when you have Trump as a defendant, a gag order should be issued to cover the judge, court personnel and their families. The Republicans and their propaganda backers are saying that since the judge’s daughter works as a Democrat “activists”, she will influence her father’s decision. She did post something a while back saying Trump should be in prison. But that could be the same thoughts of most left leaning voters. Does Trump want a right leaning judge with a right leaning family who want no prison time for Trump?]

Then Merchan denied his motion to delay its start until after the US Supreme Court rules on Trump’s presidential immunity claim, calling it untimely and noting Trump’s lawyers had months to file a motion over the issue.

The prosecutor, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, in Trump’s upcoming hush money trial has asked Judge Merchan to clarify whether a gag order issued for Trump recently bars him from publicly attacking the judge’s adult daughter — and to expand the order if it doesn’t.

Trump’s lawyers said Merchan’s gag order does not apply to comments about the judge’s family members and Trump’s recent posts had not violated the order and repeatedly argued that any limitation on his speech is a clear violation of his First Amendment rights and his rights as a presidential candidate.

[It would basically be open season any judge and his/her family if someone like Trump can constantly lie, harass and abuse the judge and his family. What judge would want to be a judge knowing him/her as well as the family could be threatened?]

A criminal case that was once viewed as the most open-and-shut prosecution against Trump has been mired in delay, unresolved logistical questions and fringe legal arguments that appear to have hijacked US District Judge Aileen Cannon’s attention. Special counsel Jack Smith said Cannon had asked for briefs that were premised on a “fundamentally flawed” understanding of the case that had “no basis in law or fact.”

In a 2022 lawsuit Trump brought attacking the FBI’s documents investigation, Cannon granted an extraordinary Trump request for a third-party review of the FBI’s 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago resort for the classified documents. A conservative appeals court repeatedly reversed her rulings in the lawsuit, scolding her for giving Trump special treatment no other private citizen would receive, and shut down the review. Cannon’s rulings in the 2022 lawsuit were so outside the bounds that people rightly became suspicious of her motives.

[Cannon was appointed by Trump in 2020 and it shows that she is inexperienced. The probability of having the trial begin before the election is fading. On top of that, if Trump does win the election, he will shut down this and any other open cases against him.]

Observers were shocked when Cannon summoned the parties to Florida to present their theories on the validity of the charges.

[A judge generally doesn’t do that. She is judging 32 of the 91 charges against Trump.]

Judge Cannon will not dismiss the classified documents charges against Trump, who argued that he had the authority to take classified or sensitive documents with him after he left the White House. The short order from Judge Cannon leaves open the possibility that Trump could still use the argument to defend himself at trial.

[Well, at least she did something that is mostly right.]

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee upheld the criminal indictment against Trump in Georgia, rejecting the argument that Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election were protected under the First Amendment. “The defense has not presented, nor is the Court able to find, any authority that the speech and conduct alleged is protected political speech,” Judge McAfee wrote in his order.

[Unsure how Trump could ask for a dismissal when he clearly asked for an exact number of votes to be found that would declare him barely the winner.]

Lawyers for several defendants in the Georgia criminal case against Trump and others have been weighing whether to press for a gag order against Atlanta-area prosecutor Fani Willis, especially if efforts to disqualify her fail. Willis has continued to speak publicly about the case. A gag order against one of Trump’s biggest foes could score political points and help him and his co-defendants in the short term. But it could also backfire by undercutting their efforts to have Willis disqualified from the case, or by inspiring efforts to seek a gag order against Trump and other defendants who have publicly criticized Willis.

In one of Trump’s ever growing number of lies, after a 25 year old woman was killed by a migrant, Trump said “She lit up that room, and I’ve heard that from so many people…. I spoke to some of her family.” Except the family said he never spoke to them.

[Shocked? I’m not.]

“What the hell was Biden thinking when he declared Easter Sunday to be Trans Visibility Day?” Trump said, suggesting that the declaration showed “total disrespect to Christians.”

[Trans Visibility Day has always been May 31st. It just so happens that Easter was early this year. He said nothing about National Crayon Day.]

In the federal election interference case, Judge Tanya Chutkan previously also heard – and rejected – the argument that Trump’s actions should be considered protected political speech.

“Sending eight emails and texts a day that promise an artificial match, threaten to take away your GOP membership, or call you a traitor if you don’t donate doesn’t build a long-term relationship with donors,” said a Republican fundraiser.

[Spam, abuse, and threats all rolled into one.]

Trump said recently if he does not win November’s presidential election it will mean the likely end of American democracy.

[More like if he wins….]

Just a couple weeks after saying there will be a “bloodbath” if he doesn’t win the election in November, Trump repeated his call as well as repeatedly calling illegal immigrants “animals” and claiming they bring in disease and violence. After the first time he mentioned bloodbath, his campaign after claimed the word was intended for the auto industry.

[If you believe that I have a nice piece of land to sell you on Pluto.]

Some Trump cronies are thinking of pushing Nebraska to change their electoral vote. Nebraska and Maine are the only two states where their House representatives are not an all or nothing but by district. MAGA people think that they have a better change of getting the Nebraska state House of Representatives [note that they don’t have a senate] to switch to all or nothing before the elections and before the state House session ends.

The reason for the push to change? If the states won by Biden stays the same except Nevada and New Mexico, Biden would be ahead by 2 House representatives. If Nebraska went all to Trump [instead of one district that would go to Biden], it would be an even 269 representatives for each. In a tie, each state would then have one vote to cast and there are more Trump states than Biden states.

[Another dumb way to break a “tie breaker”. Just as bad as the NHL tiebreaker by having a shoot-out.]

At least six Republicans want to change the name of Washington Dulles International Airport to Donald J. Trump International Airport.

“Donald Trump is facing 91 felony charges,” Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly, whose district includes part of Dulles, said in a statement. “If Republicans want to name something after him, I’d suggest they find a federal prison.”

[Or maybe Rikers Island? Dulles is considered as one of the worst airports in the world. It is old and antiquated.]

Trump’s DJT stock on NASDAQ lost over $4 billion in worth at one point in its first week of trading. In about ten days the stock was half the price of the highest price [almost $80 on March 26].

Trump has filed a lawsuit against two of the company’s co-founders, both former contestants on “The Apprentice.” Trump Media’s lawsuit accuses them of “mismanagement,” saying they “failed spectacularly at every turn” and “made a series of reckless and wasteful decisions.”

[And why wait so long to release this lawsuit? Unlike the morons who he hires in his cabinet who later on say things he doesn’t like, he can’t sue them. But he can sue the two co-founders.]

A Florida venture capitalist and his brother moved toward potential guilty pleas in an insider trading case connected to the merger that took Donald Trump’s social media company public. A third man was also involved in the insider trading. They pleaded innocent from the 2021 case but could change their pleas. Prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of a bank account, the yacht and three Yamaha Jet Skis that were tendered to the vessel by one of the three men.

Trump has previously called immigrants “animals” and blamed migrants for “coming into our country with contagious diseases.” He warned of “illegal alien criminals crawling through your windows and ransacking your drawers,” where they “loot the jewellery.” When migrants aren’t busy doing that, they’re fixing to “obliterate Medicare and Social Security” and fill schools with “new migrant students who don’t speak a word of English.”

Regarding Trump [and the various conspiracy nuts] regarding that immigrants are causing higher crime, homicide and violent crime, after rising during the pandemic, have dropped for two straight years and are lower than during Trump’s final year in office. There is scant evidence that immigrants — legal or undocumented — commit more than their share of crime, and a lot of evidence that migrants are more law-abiding.

Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro asked the Supreme Court to take another look at his request to avoid prison, filing a long-shot request on Tuesday that the high court rarely grants. This after serving so far 15 days of his four month vacation. He’s in prison for his contempt of Congress conviction.

[He wants out early maybe because he was a bad boy and his TV privileges were reduced. ]

Trump still takes claim for killing Roe vs Wade but all he did was load the supreme court with right wing justices unless he ordered them to kill Roe vs Wade.

Trump also takes at least partial credit from the various states who have reduced or banned abortions.

Former Republican leaning contributor, George Conway, donated over $900,000 to Biden’s campaign and will headline a fundraiser for Biden.

Trump says he wants to testify – should be fun

Donald Trump says that he wants to testify at the trial in Fulton County. [You think he will? He is a narcissist with this huge ego. So that part says he will. However, his lawyers will tell him not to do as he has a very good chance of perjuring himself or get out of line.]

The Fulton County district attorney’s office said it’s planned a four months-long trial with more than 150 witnesses, while defense attorneys for two of the defendants, pro-Trump lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, argued their cases should be severed from the other defendants.

The state judge presiding over Trump’s election subversion case, Scott McAfee, denied the motion for Chesebro and Powell – who have both filed to hold a speedy trial – to sever their cases from each other, but he was skeptical of the district attorney’s desire to hold a trial for all 19 defendants beginning next month.

[To make sure they have enough room, maybe hold the trial at the Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium.]

An Atlanta-area special grand jury that spent months investigating alleged 2020 election interference in Georgia by Trump and his allies agreed Trump should be indicted in the case and also recommended charging one of Trump’s closest associates, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and 37 other people — a far larger group than a prosecutor ultimately charged. The recommendations were contained in a 26-page final report presented in January to Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis and made public by a judge.

Special counsel Jack Smith [“Saint Jack” to some] is still pursuing his investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election a month after indicting Trump for orchestrating a broad conspiracy to remain in power. Smith is focusing on how money raised off baseless claims of voter fraud was used to fund attempts to breach voting equipment in several states won by President Biden.

Prosecutors have focused their questions on the role of former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell. Powell’s non-profit, Defending the Republic, hired forensics firms that ultimately accessed voting equipment in four swing states won by Biden: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona.

Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro has been convicted of contempt of Congress for two charges for not complying to a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Each charges carries a range of 30 days to a year [very unlikely] plus a fine. Navarro will already said [not surprisingly] that he will appeal.

Just before his press conference after the announcement, Navarro had a slight run-in with an anti-Trump demonstrator where he tried twice to pull down her sign. [She may have been hoping that he’d grab her which could lead to an assault charge – all this on camera.]

Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has filed his notice of appeal to the US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in his bid to move his Georgia criminal case to federal court. “When questioned about the scope of his authority, Meadows was unable to explain the limits of his authority, other than his inability to stump for the President or work on behalf of the campaign,” the judge wrote, saying he would give Meadows’ testimony on that topic “less weight” than the other evidence. Jones also cited Meadows’ acknowledgement that the lawyers he included in an infamous 2021 phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state were working for Trump or his campaign — not the government.

A liberal group filed a lawsuit to bar Trump from the primary ballot in Colorado, arguing he is ineligible to run for the White House again under a rarely used clause in the US Constitution aimed at candidates who have supported an “insurrection.” The lawsuit, citing the 14th Amendment, is likely the initial step in a legal challenge that seems destined for the US Supreme Court. The complaint was filed on behalf of six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters by the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem endorsed Trump at a campaign rally in her home state. There are rumors going around that she is hoping that Trump pick her as his vice presidential running mate when he wins the nomination. This of course goes against the norm as the running mate tends to be from a state where it could flip to either party and where possible from the other side of the country where the presidential candidate is from. Picking Noem would be twice against the norm as Pence was from Indiana and more conservative than Trump [or Noem].

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and onetime attorney to Trump, owes an estimated $5 million in legal fees, a debt that Giuliani hopes to eat into at a fundraiser at Trump’s Bedminster golf club. Giuliani is expected to take in more than $1 million for his legal defense fund at a $100,000-a-plate fundraiser hosted by Trump. It is the first of two fundraisers Trump is expected to sponsor for Giuliani. There are estimates that Giuliani has lost between $10-$20 million in business because of his work for Trump.

Mar-a-Lago IT worker Yuscil Taveras has struck a cooperation agreement with the special counsel’s office in the federal case over Trump’s handling of classified documents, Taveras’ former defense attorney said in a new court filing.

Taveras struck the deal with prosecutors after he was threatened with prosecution, defense attorney Stanley Woodward wrote in the filing. Taveras is referred to in the filing and in the superseding indictment as “Trump Employee 4.”

Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that the jury hearing E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit will only need to decide how much money Trump will have to pay her, after the judge found him was liable for making defamatory statements. Kaplan said that a federal jury’s verdict earlier this year against Trump will carry over to the defamation case set to go to trial in January involving statements Trump made in 2019 about Carroll’s sexual assault allegations.

Carroll, a former magazine columnist, alleged Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim. In May 2023, after a two-week trial, a jury found Trump sexually abused Carroll and defamed her when he said in 2022 that he didn’t rape her, didn’t know her, and that she wasn’t his “type.” In that case, the jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

So President Biden visited Maui and Florida and didn’t throw paper towels at anyone.

Trump’s media start-up, Truth Social, back in announced in October 2021 that it planned to merge with a Miami-based company called Digital World Acquisition and would close within 12 to 18 months. With the $300 million Digital World had already raised from investors, Trump Media & Technology Group, creator of the pro-Trump social network Truth Social, pledged then that the merger would create a tech titan worth $875 million at the start and, depending on the stock’s performance, up to $1.7 billion later.

With the merger stalled for months, Digital World is fast approaching a Sept. 8 deadline for the merger to close and has scheduled a shareholder meeting in hopes of getting enough votes to extend the deadline another year. If the vote fails, Digital World will be required by law to liquidate and return $300 million to its shareholders, leaving Trump’s company with nothing from the transaction. Digital World’s share price, which peaked in its first hours at $175, has since fallen to about $14.

Digital World’s efforts to merge with Trump Media have been troubled almost from the start:

• allegations that it began its conversations with Trump’s company before they were permitted under SPAC rules
• the company agreed to pay an $18 million settlement to resolve charges that it had misled investors and given false information to the Securities and Exchange Commission
• its chief executive was terminated by the board
• a former board member was arrested on charges of insider trading

Trump gets into deeper trouble

The US Department of Justice is accusing Donald Trump of obstructing its investigation to retrieve sensitive documents, taking the extraordinary step of releasing a photo of files marked “highly classified” and “top secret” that it says were seized from his Florida home. The DOJ says it has evidence that “government records were likely concealed and removed,” and that “efforts were taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”

Fourteen of the 15 boxes recovered from Mar-a-Lago early this year contained classified documents, many of them top secret, mixed in with miscellaneous newspapers, magazines and personal correspondence, according to an FBI affidavit. Of 184 documents with classification markings, 25 were at the top secret level, the affidavit says. Some had special markings suggesting they included information from highly sensitive human sources or the collection of electronic “signals” authorized by a special intelligence court.

Now over 40 folders that have a classification have nothing inside. What happened to them? The folder is supposed to be kept with the documents inside. Are any of the documents taken in January belong in [some of] these folders? Are there documents elsewhere? Were they shredded? Were they ripped up and tossed in the toilet and flushed?

Trump’s lawyers argue that special care must be taken by the courts in this matter because it involves a “legally unsupported raid” on someone who is “possibly a candidate against the current chief executive in 2024.” Legally unsupported raid?

For the August 8th search, agents found material so sensitive that “even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents,” a filing says.

A May 25 letter from one of Trump’s lawyers, attached as an exhibit to the search affidavit, advances a broad view of presidential power, asserting that the commander-in-chief has absolute authority to declassify whatever he wants — and also that the “primary” law governing the handling of US classified information simply doesn’t apply to Trump himself.

It’s perhaps not surprising that Trump’s legal team might look for ways to distinguish Trump from other citizens given the penalties imposed over the years for mishandling handling government secrets, including a nine-year prison sentence issued to a former National Security Agency contractor who stored two decades’ worth of classified documents at his Maryland home. Multiple convictions [in theory] could add up to over 25 years in prison.

The FBI officials are investigating who removed the records from the White House to the Florida estate and who is responsible for retaining them in an unauthorized location.

US intelligence officials are conducting a national security assessment of classified information and other materials contained in the documents taken from Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago. In a letter to House Democrats, Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, said intelligence analysts and Justice Department officials are also undertaking a classification review of the material, which included 11 sets of classified documents, several of them categorized as top secret.

Trump’s new defence: These were “perfect documents.” No one has ever had the kind of classified documents.

Trump is thinking of pardoning those convicted in the Trump Insurrection if president again even though he said he would do it after the Trump Insurrection but never did it. Trump also went on to claim that he’s “financially supporting” some Capitol rioters.

The judge presiding over the Georgia grand jury investigation into possible election interference in 2020 delayed the testimony of Gov. Brian Kemp until after the upcoming election as prosecutors continued to press for interviews with people close to Trump.

Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, Chrystia Freeland, Trump used “bully” tactics during negotiations on a new North American free-trade agreement more than two years ago. In his book, Trump advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, accused Freeland of purposely stalling negotiations and speaking publicly about the talks against the wishes of the White House. He said Canada, with Freeland at the helm, engaged in “an increasingly frustrating series of negotiations” and “refusing to commit to any substantive changes.”

A federal judge denied Steve Bannon’s request for a new trial, after the former Trump adviser was convicted of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack.

Trump’s Truth Social website is facing financial challenges as its traffic remains puny and the company that is scheduled to acquire it expresses fear that his legal troubles could lead to a decline in his popularity. Digital World Acquisition warned that its business could be damaged if Trump “becomes less popular or there are further controversies that damage his credibility.” The company has seen its stock price plunge nearly 75 percent since its March peak and reported in a filing last week that it had lost $6.5 million in the first half of the year.

There are signs that the company’s financial base has begun to erode. The Trump company stopped paying RightForge, a conservative web-hosting service, in March and now owes it more than $1 million. The US Patent and Trademark Office this month denied its application to trademark “Truth Social,” citing the “likelihood of confusion” to other similarly named companies, including an app, “VERO — True Social,” first released in 2015.

Trump, the site’s most popular user, has fewer than 4 million followers, and the site’s most active trending topics, including #DefundTheFBI, have shown only a few thousand people posting to them in recent days, data from the site shows. For comparison, Twitter says it has about 37 million people in the US actively using the site every day.

Some of the biggest stars on Fox News are being compelled to answer questions about their coverage of the 2020 presidential election as a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit from an election technology company that claims its reputation was ruined by the network’s airing of baseless fraud allegations picks up steam. Lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems last week questioned hosts Jeanine Pirro and Tucker Carlson, while former Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs and Fox News’s Sean Hannity are scheduled for depositions.

Taking figures from a CNN article, the Trump administration spent an average of $15 per dose of the Moderna vaccine and $19 per dose on the Pfizer vaccine. Say what?

Donald Trump Jr is as bad as his father

The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot [a.k.a. Trump Insurrection] is looking to hold Trump White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and Donald Trump’s onetime trade adviser Peter Navarro in contempt of Congress for their refusal to cooperate with the panel’s investigation or appear for their respective scheduled depositions.

Two days after the 2020 presidential election, as votes were still being tallied, Donald Trump Jr texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that “we have operational control” to ensure his father would get a second term, with Republican majorities in the US Senate and swing state legislatures. Trump Jr lays out ideas for keeping his father in power by subverting the Electoral College process.

“It’s very simple,” Trump Jr texted to Meadows on November 5, adding later in the same missive: “We have multiple paths We control them all… We have operational control Total leverage… Moral High Ground POTUS must start 2nd term now…. Republicans control Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina etc we get Trump electors…. Republicans control 28 states Democrats 22 states… Once again Trump wins.” He is delusional.

Trump Jr.’s lawyer Alan S. Futerfas said, “After the election, Don received numerous messages from supporters and others. Given the date, this message likely originated from someone else and was forwarded.”

With all the troubles at Trump’s Truth Social platform, problems continue to mount. The app has fallen off the top app download ranking. The app, which was downloaded roughly 200,000 times on its launch day, plummeted to an average of 10,000 installs a day last month.

Devin Nunes, the former member of Congress from California, has worked to install his own people atop the troubled company, leading to the resignations of its chiefs of technology, product development and legal affairs.

Trump continued to pay attention to Twitter, which he has repeatedly criticized as irrelevant since the site banned him last year. He still reviews tweets from politicians and members of the media from time to time. Some right-wing influencers and others such as Roger Stone have soured not only on Truth Social saying its online censorship policies are just as problematic as those of the Big Tech sites they’ve criticized.

In other issues, there are supposedly over a million people waiting to get invited. One user who had signed up shortly after the app’s launch said that, when he finally got an invite, the welcome email directed him to a broken link. Those who do join are greeted by Trump’s official account, which has 846,000 followers – less than 1 percent of his lost Twitter following – and a single post from nearly two months ago saying, “Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!”

Only recently did Trump Jr and Eric Trump get accounts. Melania Trump hasn’t posted in weeks. There are no accounts for Ivanka Trump or Mike Pence.

Republican campaign groups, however, have routinely used the Truth Social name in fundraising emails, saying that the platform is “already #1” and that people should sign up for the social network “RIGHT NOW to prove that you are a Patriot.” Number one in their tiny minds…

Trump and a bunch of his top allies, donors and paying club members recently gathered at his palatial beachfront club for a reunion of sorts: to sip Trump-branded wine [eeeewwww], snack on fried shrimp and pastry-wrapped hot dogs [expensive!] on the Mar-a-Lago patio. Of course he talked about his 2020 election win that was stolen. It would be interesting if some came down with food poisoning.

Even wackier. That group saw a 42 minute film called “Rigged: The Zuckerberg Funded Plot to Defeat Donald Trump”. Damn. That will be on the small list of best documentaries at all film festivals. Not. Trump said he was looking forward to its screening more than Citizen Kane, Titanic and Gone with the Wind. I’m surprised he didn’t include Heaven’s Gate, Willy Wonka and Pinocchio.

In an interview, Trump praised organizers of the Trump Insurrection, some of whom have now received subpoenas from federal authorities, and repeatedly bragged about the size of the crowd on the Ellipse saying “I believe it was the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken to.” Wonder if he though 500,000 people showed up. He even wanted to participate in the Insurrection. The “Secret Service said I couldn’t go. I would have gone there in a minute,” he said. So he did something right for once.

He defended his long silence during the attack by claiming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi [Is she a police chief? She has limited control of Congress security.] DC mayor and others were responsible for ending the deadly violence.

He is refusing to say whether he would testify before a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault. Trump said he didn’t remember “getting very many” phone calls that day, and he denied removing call logs or using burner phones. He was persuaded by lawmakers, family members and others to release a video asking his supporters to go home — 187 minutes after he urged them to march to the Capitol during a rally near the White House.

“At $150 a barrel and going up to more, you look at it, it’s going up to numbers that nobody has ever seen, it’s already the highest it’s ever been in history.” It never went that high. Highest was $115 US.

He claims that Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis [a.k.a. Ron DeSATANis] and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, would not want to run against him in a 2024 Republican presidential primary season. They said nothing about that.

Again, Trump knows how to pick them [one in a long series]: Michigan Rep. Lisa McClain, a freshman Republican member of Congress, made a series of false claims in a short speech at Trump’s rally outside Detroit on Saturday — notably including an assertion that Trump, who has endorsed her for re-election, was the president who caught terrorist Osama bin Laden. A couple of days later, McClain tweeted “Joe Biden misspeaks every single day and the media pays no attention to it. Isn’t it ironic how I’m under attack for an honest mistake.” Maybe she should fire her incompetent speech writer and the media has poked at Biden’s claims.

And in another one, Trump has endorsed former Vice-President running mate of the late John McCain, Sarah Palin, for her run in the House. The big question will be whether, if she gets elected, she will push to build that bridge from Alaska to Russia because it is so close. She can see Russia from Alaska. So the bridge won’t be too long. Maybe the equivalent of the length of the Brooklyn Bridge.

McClain claimed: “Under President Trump, if my memory serves me correctly, I don’t believe we had any wars. We got a war in Ukraine right now.” McClain’s memory didn’t serve her correctly. There were, obviously, wars during the Trump presidency. Technically, the US isn’t at war as there are no personnel in Ukraine. But in his 4 years, US ground troops fought under Trump in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq as well as incursions in Libya, Yemen and Somalia.

The [lack of] truth about Truth Social

A Washington Post reporter finally got access to Trump’s [failed?] social media platform, Truth Social, and here are some discussions you need [ummm] to know about:

• Hunter Biden is involved in building and running biolabs in the country.
• The CIA and National Institutes of Health are both “deeply involved” in the Ukrainian biolabs.
• Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was set in motion by a CIA false-flag operation that was funded by George Soros.
• The COVID-19 pathogen originated not in China but in Shpyl’chyna, a village in Ukraine.
• The bioweapons developed in Ukraine specifically target the “Abrahamic Bloodline.”
• Neo-Nazis from Ukraine joined with the FBI to infiltrate the Capitol on Jan. 6 and participated in the insurrection.
• Ukraine was planning to use drones to attack Russia with pathogens from the U.S.-funded bioweapons labs.
• President Biden has been using Ukraine to launder money.
• Ukrainian neo-Nazis controlled the Ukrainian city of Mariupol before Russians invaded.
• Russia’s alleged war crimes were staged.
• Many posts calling President Biden a pedophile (or a “groomer” in the new parlance of QAnon).
• Badly photoshopped images of Vice President Harris in sexualized situations.
• There was a doctored image of Trump holding a sign saying “Zelensky is the Avenatti of leaders.”
• There was a doctored video of Putin saying “Let’s go, Brandon.”

The Wrap, an entertainment news website, reported this week that the app has seen a 93 percent drop in sign-ups (weekly installs on the Apple App Store have fallen from 872,000 at launch to just 60,000, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower) and a “similarly steep decline in traffic.”

Truth Social had almost 1 million daily visits at launch, but that has fallen to fewer than 300,000 — well below Gab, a social media site that attracts white supremacists, according to SimilarWeb, another analytics firm.

I pity anyone who has a normal brain and is on this platform.

Meanwhile a few months after it started up, there are still loads of technical issues.

So. Another Trump failure?

Trump favors Putin, GOP moves away from him

“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ [Vladimir] Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine, of Ukraine, Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful,” Donald Trump said. “So Putin is now saying, ‘It’s independent,’ a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force,” Trump said. “We could use that on our southern border.

Trump said “tough cookie” who loves his country and he insisted that he had stopped Putin from invading Ukraine on his watch. When was that? Trump suggested during his 2016 campaign that Russia could keep Crimea, another Ukrainian territory which Putin had annexed in 2014. “The people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were,” Trump said, parroting a Kremlin talking point.

While most congressional Republicans back Biden’s tough line against Moscow — or argue it should be even tougher — a faction made up of conservative Republicans, supporters of former president Donald Trump and conservative media figures says Putin should be left alone, or even congratulated, by Americans.

Those cronies who agree with Trump’s comments include [not surprisingly Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Mike Pompeo and Paul A. Gosar. But at least most of them have a brain and are against Putin even though a few also are also against what President Joe Biden has done so far.

The Supreme Court said that it will not take up Trump’s case challenging the disclosure of his White House documents to the House January 6 investigation, a formal conclusion to his unsuccessful bid to keep those records secret. The court had previously rejected Trump’s emergency request to block the National Archives from turning over the materials while the court considered whether to take up the case. The documents Trump was trying to block in court are already in the hands of the House Select Committee investigating the Trump Insurrection.

US District Judge Amit P. Mehta rejected Trump’s claim of “absolute immunity” from lawsuits accusing him of inciting the violent Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, finding that there was evidence to plausibly suggest that he engaged in a conspiracy with organized groups to intimidate Congress into overturning the results of the 2020 election. The judge refused to dismiss three lawsuits against Trump by Democratic House members and police officers seeking damages for physical and emotional injuries they incurred in the assault.

Ivanka Trump, who also served as a senior White House adviser, is in discussions with the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection to voluntarily appear for an interview. We’ll see what she says. We’ll see what he does after.

An alternative social media platform, Truth Social, backed by Trump went live, becoming available for download on Apple’s App Store — but access to the service appears limited for now. It is owned by Trump Media and Technology Group, the media company Trump started after leaving the White House. Users who downloaded the app were greeted by a message inviting them to register for the service — but the sign-up process ended in a wait list to access the platform that had already grown supposedly to more than 150,000 [if you believe that number as there has been little to no communication that the app or services was available unless Trump sent out communication privately.]

Even with the app being available and the web site, there have already been plenty of glitches such as “404” web page errors [page not found], confirmation of account, etc. And already there is a German developer trying to take advantage by creating their own “Truth Social” app that requires in-app payment!

So Trump has accumulated by the end of January $108 million to his Save America PAC. In comparison, the Republican National Committee finished last month with about $51.7 million. While he has endorsed over 100 candidates in the mid-term election cycle, how much did he give those who he endorsed? Almost zilch. Nada. Goose eggs. You get the picture. His PAC has donated just $350,500 to candidates since July. That’s less than the $838,000 the PAC spent on event staging and related expenses in January.

For any potential candidate who may run against him for the GOP nomination, he will have a huge advantage. However, that is a huge amount of money. He could use it sparingly as long as he’s winning to keep it available for the actual Presidential battle or pour it on if he isn’t winning [expect him to complain that the RNC is out to get him] or maybe keep what he can to pay some of his bills.

Trump Organization is angling to host events at his golf courses for the controversial Saudi golf league. The Saudis who are making a fierce bid to recruit PGA Tour players and launch a series of golf tournaments. But the majority of golfers are declining. Such a deal would also provide a measure of revenge for Trump against the PGA Tour, an organization that he courted for years but that later enraged him when politics came between them. His golf properties lost at least 2 major events from the PGA, one right after the Trump Insurrection. Saudi Arabia’s record on human rights could also prompt some members of Trump’s club to cancel their memberships.

Eric Trump said COVID-19 vaccines represent the “stripping of freedoms” in the US and that he’s “p?ssed off”. Oh poor him. Stripping freedoms or protecting others. Would you want to get COVID-19 from someone who refuses to take vaccines or wear a mask? What about your freedom. You didn’t ask to be infected. [I’m wondering if there has been any lawsuits related this. Maybe Queen Elizabeth could soon Prince Charles and that woman Camilia for infecting her.]

Trump goes after Trump Insurrection committee

Donald Trump is suing the congressional committee investigating the Trump Insurrection at the US Capitol in an attempt to keep the committee from getting its hands on roughly 40 documents. Trump and his business have been involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits over the past three decades [that’s a new lawsuit in under every 3 days for the past 30 years]. “Does anyone know more about litigation than Trump?” Trump said of himself on the campaign trail in 2016. “I’m like a Ph.D. in litigation.”

Remember the 2016 campaign when more than a dozen women came forward alleging that Trump had sexually harassed them? “Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign… All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.” He has filed a total of zero lawsuits against the women. So he uses lawsuits to intimidate people but in the case of the committee, he has to file a suit. Can’t intimidate them.

Republican Rep. Liz Cheney blasted Trump’s ally Steve Bannon for refusing to cooperate with the House committee investigating the Trump Insurrection, saying that his claim of executive privilege is not only invalid, but suggests Trump was “personally involved” in the planning and execution of the events that day. While the committee has yet to provide evidence directly linking Trump to those efforts, Cheney’s comments reflect a suspicion among members of the panel that Trump is attempting to conceal certain communications that may be incriminating.

Nine months after being expelled from social media for his role in inciting the Trump Insurrection, Trump said he’s launching a new media company with its own social media platform. Trump says his goal in launching the Trump Media & Technology Group and its “Truth Social” app is to create a rival to the Big Tech companies that have shut him out and denied him the megaphone that was paramount to his national rise.

“We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced,” he said in a statement. “This is unacceptable.” Obama is still on Twitter! Conservative voices actually do well on traditional social media. Half of Facebook’s 10 top performing link posts were from conservative media, commentators or politicians. Waiting for the first of many security breaches with this platform.

The media company has agreed to combine with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a blank check company that exists solely to merge with private firms to take them public. The Nasdaq-listed shell company is led by Patrick Orlando, who is also the CEO of Yunhong International, a SPAC based in Wuhan, China, according to fillings. Hmmmm.

Trump plans to compete against every major company out there: Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Google, etc.Sounds like he believes he can succeed. Do Kosher pigs fly?

Meanwhile, within hours, pranksters found what appeared to be an unreleased test version and posted a picture of a defecating pig to the “donaldjtrump” account. The site’s early hours revealed lax security, rehashed features and a flurry of bizarre design decisions. An open sign-up page allowed anyone to use the site shortly after it was revealed. A user can post Truths, which are like tweets, or Re-Truths, which are retweets. There’s also a news feed, called the Truth Feed.

Truth Social’s listing on Apple’s App Store said the site will be a place for families with “varied opinions” to come “together to have an amazing time and share their viewpoints of the world.” [OK. you can stop laughing. Seriously. Stop.] Why would the app be available when the site won’t be up until sometime in 2022 – if ever.

Trump answered questions under oath for about 4 1/2 hours as part of a lawsuit brought by men alleging they were assaulted by his security during a demonstration outside Trump Tower in 2015, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said. “We examined Mr. Trump on a variety of issues including statements he has made at various campaign events and rallies that counsel believes encouraged violence at those events or encouraged security guards to engage in violence or the confiscation of property,” said Benjamin Dictor, attorney for the men who filed the 2015 lawsuit.

The Justice Department is ending the use of case quotas for immigration judges that became a point of contention during the Trump administration for undercutting judges’ authority and discretion.

“I do think we need to be thinking about the future and not the past. I think the American people are focusing on this administration, what it’s doing to the country, and it’s my hope the ’22 election will be a referendum on the performance of the current administration, not a rehash of suggestions about what may have happened in 2020,” said “Moscow” Mitch McConnell. You think he was jabbing Trump at this.

Trump’s company is under criminal investigation by a district attorney in a New York City suburb into whether it misled officials to cut taxes for a golf course there. The district attorney’s office subpoenaed records from both the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester and the town of Ossining that handles the club’s taxes.

The Trump Organization has been fighting the town of Ossining for lower tax assessments for its Westchester golf course for years. The company once valued the golf club for tax purposes at about $1.4 million, later increasing its estimate to $6.5 million, while the town for years valued it at more than $15 million. In June, a New York judge ruled on a compromise that would cut the assessment to $9.5 million for 2021.