Tag: Donald Trump

Trump Acquitted in Impeachment Trial*

So, Donald Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment trial, by a vote of 57-43, which means that 7 Republicans voted to impeach.

It’s clear that he was guilty as hell, but the Senate Democrats decide not to call witnesses, after the House managers wanted to call witness because, Chris Coons (D-DE) was planning a hot date with his wife for Valentines day, (also here). seriously? 

Former president Donald Trump was acquitted Saturday of inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, becoming the first president in U.S. history to face a second impeachment trial — and surviving it in part because of his continuing hold on the Republican Party despite his electoral defeat in November.

That grip appeared to loosen slightly during the vote Saturday afternoon, when seven Republicans crossed party lines to vote for conviction — a sign of the rift the Capitol siege has caused within GOP ranks and the desire by some in the party to move on from Trump. Still, the 57-to-43 vote, in which all Democrats and two independents voted against the president, fell far short of the two-thirds required to convict.

The tally came after senators briefly upended the proceeding by voting to allow witnesses — only to reverse themselves amid Republican opposition and following hours of negotiations with House Democrats and Trump’s defense team.

I am not exaggerating about the Valentines day thing:

During the Senate break after the witness vote Saturday, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) twice came into the managers’ room off the Senate floor, according to multiple Democratic sources. Coons pressed House Democrats to relent, saying their quest for witnesses would cost them Republican votes to convict and maybe even some Democrats.

“The jury is ready to vote,” Coons told the managers, according to a senior House Democratic aide. “People want to get home for Valentine‘s Day.”

Coons is up for reelection in 2026, and it would do well for Democratic voters to remember his bit of rat-f%$#ery during the impeachment.  

If wants to spend every valentines day with his wife, he can get himself a job that he is better suited to.

*I sure picked the wrong month to stop swearing.

“Nebraska, you’re going to hear, is a quite a judicial-thinking place.”

“Nebraska, you’re going to hear, is a quite a judicial-thinking place.”

— Bruce Castor, Trump impeachment defense attorney pic.twitter.com/aADiTCivq2

— The Recount (@therecount) February 9, 2021

This Could be a Baseline for a Song

OK, the impeachment has started, and it appears that the inanity, and the inSanity, of the Trump legal team continues unabated.

These guys are a complete mind-f%$#.  (I miss profanity)

It’s like mainlining Tang and bat guano through a refrigerated metal straw up your nose.

I can’t even.

Candy-Ass Punk

Donald Trump will not testify at his impeachment trial, because he a frightened little wimp.

Unsurprisingly, when push comes to shove, he is a coward:

Donald Trump will not testify in the Senate’s upcoming impeachment trial, a spokesman for the former president said Thursday, explicitly rejecting a request from House Democrats.

Jason Miller, a spokesperson for the former president, said Trump “will not testify in an unconstitutional proceeding,” echoing the central theme of Trump’s defense in the trial.

In a letter to Trump earlier Thursday, the House’s lead impeachment manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), said Trump’s testimony was necessary because his lawyers’ first official response to the impeachment charge “denied many factual allegations set forth in the article of impeachment.”

“You have thus attempted to put critical facts at issue notwithstanding the clear and overwhelming evidence of your constitutional offense,” Raskin wrote. “In light of your disputing these factual allegations, I write to invite you to provide testimony under oath, either before or during the Senate impeachment trial, concerning your conduct on January 6, 2021.”

The request from House Democrats comes just five days before Trump is set to be put on trial on a charge of inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, which left five people dead.

Raskin specifically asked that Trump testify sometime next week, between Monday and Thursday. The trial is slated to begin on Tuesday and is expected to last around one week.

“If you decline this invitation, we reserve any and all rights, including the right to establish at trial that your refusal to testify supports a strong adverse inference regarding your actions (and inaction) on January 6, 2021,” Raskin wrote.

This is about showing up Donald Trump as a weakling.

Well played.

I am Amused

Given his increasingly erratic behavior, and his reputation for stiffing his lawyers, it comes as no surprise that a majority Trump’s impeachment defense team just quit on him.

I’m wondering if they got fed up over his wish to re-litigate the election, or if he was pushing to testify before the Senate. 

It does not matter, I am amused:

Former President Donald Trump’s five impeachment defense attorneys have left a little more than a week before his trial is set to begin, according to people familiar with the case, amid a disagreement over his legal strategy.

It was a dramatic development in the second impeachment trial for Trump, who has struggled to find lawyers willing to take his case. And now, with legal briefs due next week and a trial set to begin only days later, Trump is clinging to his election fraud charade and suddenly finds himself without legal representation.

Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, who were expected to be two of the lead attorneys, are no longer on the team. A source familiar with the changes said it was a mutual decision for both to leave the legal team. As the lead attorney, Bowers assembled the team.

I am amused.

For the Love of God, I Want to See Him Testify in Full Costume

The Republicans will make sure that the Senate impeachment trial as lengthy and involved as possible, so you know that they will insist on a complete slate of witnesses and exhibits.

Well now, the Q-Anon Shaman guy is offering to testify against Trump.

If we were to put his testimony up on pay-per-view, we would pay off the federal debt:

Al Watkins, a lawyer for accused Capitol rioter Jacob Chansley, is offering his client as a witness in the upcoming Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. Chansley is better known in popular culture as the “QAnon Shaman” or, as Watkins called him, the “guy with the horns and the fur” who was photographed raiding the U.S. Capitol Complex on Jan. 6.

The Associated Press reported on Thursday that Watkins “said it’s important for senators to hear the voice of someone who was incited by Trump.”

………

When asked whether he was offering Chansley’s testimony against Trump in the Senate with hopes of leniency, Watkins told Law&Crime via email that the answer “is a loud ‘no.’”

………

In that appearance, Watkins said Trump’s “hyperbole” and “innuendo” resulted in the attack on the Capitol which left five dead, including a Capitol Police officer. Two other officers who were at the Capitol that day have since died by suicide.

………

Chansley stands indicted by a federal grand jury of six counts, namely: civil disorder; obstruction of an official proceeding; entering and remaining in a restricted building; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building; violent entry and disorderly conduct in a capitol building; and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a capitol building. The FBI caught him after he was photographed in the Capitol and identified by the press.

Trump’s impeachment trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 8.

We know that there are not 13 Republicans who will vote to convict, so you want to be sure that as many people as possible watch them put their tongues up Trump’s ass.

Having this clown testify will be must see TV.

Make the Republicans defend the indefensible in front of millions of people.

Impeach ……… Again

Let’s be clear, inciting sedition, even if it might be protected by the 1st amendment, and I am not sure, I am an engineer, not a lawyer dammit,* but it can still be a legitimate charge for an impeachment.

So I do approve of the new impeachment charges that the House just delivered to the Senate.

If he is convicted, he loses his pension, and his secret service protection, and it would likely result in his being forbidden from holding office ever again.

I will note that impeachment is, and has always been intended to be, a political process in addition to being a quasi-judicial process, and the Democrats must jam up the Republicans as much as is humanly possible.

Make them pay for their obsequious prevarication with regard to Trump:

Nine House managers walked across the Capitol to inform the Senate that they were ready to prosecute the former president for “incitement of insurrection.” And the Justice Department opens inquiry into an “improper attempt” by officials to overturn the presidential election.

At this point, even many members of the “Q Collective” have realized that Trump screwed them, and in the still quite spaces the Republican establishment wants him gone too.

Making this establishment go to the mat for an inverted traffic cone is just desserts.

 *I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!
Yes, I know, it’s kind of a stretch, but I cannot resist going all Dr. McCoy.

As He Was Leaving

On his way out the door, Donald Trump issued about 70 pardons and a similar number of commutations.

Along with the usual suspects, people who might testify against him and Jared’s dad, we do have some mild surprises:

  • Randall “Duke” Cunningham, whose corruption was legendary. (He literally had a menu of bribes)
  • Steve Bannon. probably because he knows where the bodies are buried.
  • Kwame Kilpatrick,(D) who got 28 years for rampant corruption as Mayor of Detroit. 
  • A bunch of entertainers.
  • Aviem Sella, Jonathan Pollard’s handler for Israel.

None of these are much of a surprise, except perhaps Kilpatrick.

Trump has now slithered out of the White House, so that should be the end of it.

Pass the Popcorn

Given that Trump has less than 48 hours left in office, I find that NY prosecutors are talking with Michael Cohen about possible tax evasion and fraud, and Atlanta prosecutors appear to be moving toward an investigation toward a Trump prosecution on election meddling, to be amusing and satisfying.

I really hope that Trump goes to jail and is reduced to penury:

New York prosecutors conducted an hours-long interview on Thursday with Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former attorney, asking a range of questions about the president’s business dealings, according to three people familiar with the meeting.

The interview focused in part on Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, his biggest and longest-standing creditor, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The interview, at least the second with Cohen by the Manhattan district attorney, comes amid a long-running grand jury investigation into Trump’s business dealings.

………

The Republican president also faces a civil investigation, led by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, a Democrat, into whether his company lied about the value of its assets to get loans or tax benefits.

Cohen is cooperating with that inquiry too. He previously told Congress Trump often inflated the value of his assets when dealing with lenders or potential partners, but deflated them when it benefited him for tax purposes.

………

Cohen, serving the remainder of a federal prison sentence on home confinement, has been asked by investigators to examine Trump Organization documents and provide other details about its corporate structure, the people familiar with the matter said.

Cohen pleaded guilty to evading taxes, lying to Congress and facilitating campaign finance crimes.

Deutsche Bank continued to do business with Trump even after he defaulted in 2008 on a loan for his Chicago hotel and condo development and sued the bank and others he blamed for his inability to repay.

But Deutsche Bank’s private banking division continued to lend to Trump, including $125m to finance the purchase and renovation of his Doral golf resort in 2012, according to previous disclosures.

And as to Atlanta prosecutors: 

Prosecutors in Georgia appear increasingly likely to open a criminal investigation of President Trump over his attempts to overturn the results of the state’s 2020 election, an inquiry into offenses that would be beyond his federal pardon power.

The new Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, is already weighing whether to proceed, and among the options she is considering is the hiring of a special assistant from outside to oversee the investigation, according to people familiar with her office’s deliberations.

At the same time, David Worley, the lone Democrat on Georgia’s five-member election board, said this week that he would ask the board to make a referral to the Fulton County district attorney by next month. Among the matters he will ask prosecutors to investigate is a phone call Mr. Trump made in which he pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to overturn the state’s election results.

Jeff DiSantis, a district attorney spokesman, said the office had not taken any action to hire outside counsel and declined to comment further on the case.

Some veteran Georgia prosecutors said they believed Mr. Trump had clearly violated state law.

I am really hoping that we see some prosecutions and convictions, but I fear that this will be yet another case of getting off using the “affluenza” defense.

Only 10 Republicans

Better than the last time, but when Liz Cheney is on the side of the angels, everything is fucked up and shit. I am talking, of course, about the fact that Donald John Trump has been impeached again, only this time it’s egregious enough that some very bad people, like Cheney, have felt compelled to support the effort to remove him:

The House impeached President Trump for inciting an insurrection against the government, and 10 Republicans joined Democrats to do so. Senator Mitch McConnell said he would not agree to use emergency powers to bring the Senate back into session for a trial before Jan. 19.

The House on Wednesday impeached President Trump for inciting a violent insurrection against the United States government, as 10 members of the president’s party joined Democrats to charge him with high crimes and misdemeanors for an unprecedented second time.

Reconvening under the threat of continued violence and the protection of thousands of National Guard troops, the House was determined to hold Mr. Trump to account just one week before he was to leave office. At issue was his role in encouraging a mob that attacked the Capitol one week ago while Congress met to affirm President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, forcing lawmakers to flee for their lives in a deadly rampage.

The House adopted a single article of impeachment, voting 232 to 197 to charge Mr. Trump with “inciting violence against the government of the United States” and requesting his immediate removal from office and disqualification from ever holding one again.

Ten Republicans joined Democrats in voting to impeach: Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the party’s No. 3 leader in the House; Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington; John Katko of New York; Adam Kinzinger of Illinois; Fred Upton of Michigan; Dan Newhouse of Washington; Peter Meijer of Michigan; Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio; David Valadao of California; and Tom Rice of South Carolina.

The defections were a remarkable break from the head of the party by Republicans, who voted unanimously against impeaching Mr. Trump just over a year ago.

………

This time, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, was said to support the effort as a means of purging his party of Mr. Trump, setting up a political and constitutional showdown that could shape the course of American politics when the nation remains dangerously divided.

We live in interesting, and not in a good way, but in a Chinese curse way.

No Longer Afraid of the Trumpster Fire

Lmaooooo this the wildest ban in history. His phone just a brick pic.twitter.com/vnpb79Npb5

— KB24 Forever 17x CHAMPS 7x DODGERS CHAMPS (@KarateSkool) January 9, 2021

Yes, he has been banned from shopify

Social media sites have begun falling all over themselves to ban Donald Trump. 

Twitter has now permanently banned Donald Trump, Facebook and Instagram have banned him as well, Reddit has shut down it’s largest Trump Group, Shopify has taken done Trump merchandise vendors, and (rather ironically) TikTok has banned Trump.

While I do find this rather heartening on one level, I find it worrying on another.

Specifically, we are privatizing the arbiters of acceptable speech.

The limits to speech have gone from, “Shouting fire in a crowded theater,” to, “Whatever worries Mark Zuckerberg.”

Threat of the Day

Hire any of Trump’s fellow fabulists above, and Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie. We’re going to scrutinize, double-check, investigate with the same skepticism we’d approach a Trump tweet. Want to ensure the world’s biggest business media brand approaches you as a potential funnel of disinformation? Then hire away.

Randall LaneForbes, Chief Content Officer and Editor at Forbes Magazine

He is talking about Trump’s PR flacks, Sean Spicer, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham, and Kayleigh McEnany.

I would add other personnel who served as as part of the axis of lying, Elaine Chao, Steve Mnuchin, Betsy Devos, Mike Pompeo, etc. to people who should not be allowed to return to polite to society, much less cash in.

Why the Resignations?

Call me a cynic, but I think that the reason that so many Trump administration cabinet member have chosen to resign is that they don’t want to be on the record making a decision about removing Donald Trump under the provisions of the 25th Amendment of the Constitution.

They think that participating in that would be disastrous for their future careers.

I know that you are probably thinking, “Future careers, surely you jest,” but let me show you Richard M. Nixon’s “last” press conference, which he gave in 1962:


Much like a bad penny, these folks will be back.

12 Hours: What You Get for Suggesting that Megan McCain Have Carnal Knowledge of a Cactus, or for Calling On Your Supporters to Storm the Capitol

As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C., we have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy. https://t.co/k6OkjNG3bM

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 7, 2021

Future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 7, 2021

We’ll continue to evaluate the situation in real time, including examining activity on the ground and statements made off Twitter. We will keep the public informed, including if further escalation in our enforcement approach is necessary.

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 7, 2021

Following a particularly moronic statement in which Meghan McCain insisted that mockery of her by a Jewish cartoonist was antisemitic, my son replied to her on Twitter that she should, “Go F%$# yourself with a cactus.”

Twitter gave him a 12 hour time out.

It now appears that for calling for a violent insurrection to overthrow the government of the United States, Twitter will also give you a 12 hour time out.

Needless to say, Charlie is considering how best to use that rather perverse juxtaposition of Twitter’s enforcement of its, “Civil Integrity Policy,” as a bit for his standup.

On the bright side, with the pandemic, he’ll have plenty of time to polish the bit.

On the dark side, Covid-19 is why he’ll have plenty of time to polish the bit.

I’m actually a bit jealous about his getting the suspension, it’s been a goal of mine.

I have not managed to do this yet, I have a self-imposed rule that I can’t post something just to get banned.  I must post something that I would normally posts.

I even changed my Twitter handle to, “Jack Dorsey Is Objectively Pro-Nazi (M.G. Saroff),” in an attempt to get the elusive ban.

Much to my surprise, and to the surprise of those who know and love me, it appears that my normal behavior is not sufficient to get me banned from Twitter.

(Update)

Facebook gave the Trumpster Fire a time out as well.

Yeah, This Is a Big F%$#Ing Deal

It appears that over the past few days, Donald Trump called the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, and threatened him in an attempt to get him to manufacture 11,780 votes so that he could claim to have won the state.

It’s a bit late to impeach the bastard, but if this is not criminal, it should be:

The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.”

Throughout the call, Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel rejected Trump’s assertions, explaining that the president is relying on debunked conspiracy theories and that President-elect Joe Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate.

Trump dismissed their arguments.

“The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry,” he said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated.”

This guy can’t be allowed to just walk away from this.

We’ve already over one hundred Congressmen and a dozen Senators signing onto this.

It’s a cancer on the Republic.

Tweet of the Day

I may be wrong but I think there’s room at the Four Seasons.
Landscaping.

— The Palaeoanthropologist (@HamishAlexande6) December 29, 2020

The favorite hotel of the Proud Boys is shutting down for 3 days rather than deal with them, and their violent protests, and virus spreading behavior at the inauguration.

This is glorious, as is the Four Seasons Landscaping snark.

And the Payments Stay at $600

And now, Trump has signed the stimulus package, so there will be no additional stimulus money going out to ordinary people.

I’m not going to try and guess whether this is just that Trump wanted the attention, or wanted to torture Mitch McConnell (So say we all), or some sort of political jujitsu against Democrats, but with a government shutdown off of the table, it’s pretty clear that there will be no increase in stimulus payments:

President Trump unexpectedly capitulated Sunday night and signed the stimulus bill into law, releasing $900 billion in emergency relief funds into the economy and averting a Tuesday government shutdown.

White House officials didn’t explain why the president decided to suddenly back down and sign into law a bill he had held up for nearly a week and had referred to as a “disgrace” just days earlier.

Trump signed the bill while vacationing in Florida and on a weekend when he had allowed unemployment benefits for 14 million Americans to expire.

He had demanded changes to the stimulus and spending package for a week, suggesting he would refuse to sign it until these demands were met. This continued defiance caused lawmakers from both parties to panic over the weekend, worried about the implications of a government shutdown during a pandemic. It was unclear what prompted him to change his mind late Sunday, but he was under tremendous pressure from Republicans to acquiesce.

………

In the same statement, he said “much more money is coming, and I will never give up my fight for the American people!”

After Trump signed the bill into law, Democrats attacked him and said his decision to drag the process out for days was harmful to many Americans.

………

The government would have shut down on Tuesday if Trump hadn’t acted. In addition to containing money to fund government operations, the spending package also includes emergency relief money that finances a new round of stimulus checks, unemployment aid, and small-business assistance, among other things.

I am not sure how the politics of this plays out, but I’m pretty sure that Pelosi and Schumer have lost here, because losing is what they do.