I generally agree with you but then what’s the point of special council unless he holes Smith recommends not charging which seems like that’s getting less likely. If smith recommends charging and garland doesn’t that makes him look super weak and sets a precedent that a former president is above the law. It also give trump basically free rein to do what he wants should he be re-elected.

Garland already looks weak. It's the whole reason there was no pushback from Republicans. Remember he let others off the hook for OKC too.

They've had more than enough to charge him with a multitude of crimes since Garland took office. I just don't see how anything changes.

But then why appoint special counsel? If he was never going to charge him why not just come out and say that 18 months ago? Not charging at this point only enhances Trumps martyrdom which I doubt is Garlands goal.

Yahoo.com is reporting all 34 accounts in NY are going to be felonies.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

Is a guy with his own plane a flight risk?

The lowest level felony class E. I would assume this eventually would go to the SC and have no confidence that court wouldn’t side with their Sith Lord.

? Aren't they state charges and not federal charges?

This is why you need coordination.

Kind of a fascinating development. The reason you can’t hear Marjorie Taylor Greene, and why this whole thing is off the rails, is because a man has been handing out free whistles.

I talked to him. Turns out he’s a Trump supporter and he had no idea MTG was even here. pic.twitter.com/0RJqdyw7H5

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) April 4, 2023

Let the free market (of ideas..?) sort it out /s

SI

and Trump is officially under arrest

I guess no handcuffs or mugshot like us commoners would have to endure.

I gut the no handcuffs and no holding cell, although Trump being placed in a holding cell with a bunch of common criminals would be so juicy, I don't get the no mugshot unless the DAs office doesn't want him to monetize it, which he certainly would.

No mugshot because Trump is a widely known figure with plenty of pictures available and they're trying to limit his movements today because of the amount of coordination this takes.

I get it to an extent. But we know that we would not be afforded this same luxury. Just think the justice system should treat everyone the same and not carve out special exceptions for famous and powerful people.

That;s okay a MAGA group just put out a fundraiser with a fake Trump mug shot so we get to see it anyway

Interesting. Trump just walked int to courthouse. He was only on camera for about 10 seconds but he didn’t do his usual wave, raised fist, anything. He looked more somber than I’ve ever seen him. Makes me hope there is something in those counts that has him seriously freaked out. At the very least someone got to him and told him no fucking around under any circumstances

Dola- cnn speculating what I just did. I wonder if his lawyers will win out and get him to cancel his address tonight. I can’t imagine they want him speaking unchecked.

Normal people don't have the same security concerns. A crowd of people is not likely to show up and put people in danger if you are I are getting processed. I get what you are saying, but there is a point to recognizing a reality that not everyone can or even should be treated exactly the same. It is not like a mugshot is punishment. It is record-keeping.

If this is true holy shit......

Donald Trump Jr. has posted a picture of the judge's daughter on truth social.

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) April 4, 2023

He posted a breitbart story that contains her picture. She apparently worked on the Biden-Harris campaign so they're trying to frame that as a conflict of interest, which it's not. Unless they also want to get into Clarence Thomas and his wife.

Not really a surprise. Their strategy in legal cases has always been to attack and make vague threats against people.

lol that reminds me of the story jerry seinfeld told about the real Cosmo Kramer. He and Larry david made the kramer character based off their friend who was named Cosmo Kramer but they didn't want to name him kramer because they KNEW...they KNEW he would try to monetize it..."which he did". lol. They even named the character Kessler for the pilot. But it just didn't have the same zing to it that Kramer did so they officially made him Kramer. The real Kramer still gives tours in new york. Or at least did for awhile about places in the show.

Does it make trips to the dump?

So if Trump goes to jail, how does the Secret Service protect him? Do they have to place agents in prison with him?

lolol

Santos and Greene Flee

I think it would be more like a Goodfellas situation where they are sitting around making dinner.

The next hearing is not until December? This whole thing is such a joke. There is zero chance this goes to trial before the election. I would guess that would be the same for Georgia. Only the Federal charges might actually move with any speed.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

I’m almost wondering if they scheduled the hearing so far out in hopes the documents case would come first.

Is Greene dangerous or just an opportunistic idiot? Like, I get that anyone can be dangerous, but like legit dangerous and some are easy to separate out. For instance, DeSantis is dangerous. Boebert is a moron. Cruz is intelligently dangerous but uncharismatic. Cawthorn was charismatic but mostly an imbecile. I think Greene falls under charismatic-ish but dumb-ish. However, I'm not 100% certain.

SI

I think dumb-ish is giving her credit.

So, George Santos?

is that yet another tv spinoff?

i can't figure out this guy's angle. Needs an origin story

The origin story is that Santos *is* the child of Trump. Commits crimes and lies constantly.

If Santos is Trump's illegitimate kid then we really are living in the Matrix and our AI overlords have decided to use reality to make a bad movie.

Trump kids is so last season. Need something new. Put Favreau on it.

Does New York have strong whistleblower protection laws?

So the media got its hit of Trump, Trump, Trump over the last few days.

It will be interesting to see how much they keep trying to chase that rush over what will be months of non-newsworthy events in his case.

(I mock the media, but I realize that the problem is what we all keep clicking on. Years ago I remember a sportswriter saying something along the lines of "Y'all keep blaming us for writing so many stories about Favre. And we're sick of him too. But Favre stories get more hits than any other stories, so that's why we do it.")

Heh

It’s actually not a win to get all the attention when you’re getting arrested and arraigned on multiple felony indictments. I don’t pretend this is a great insight. But a lot of people don’t seem to understand it. pic.twitter.com/8VCw5yirUB

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 5, 2023

#PowerPost🙌🏻🙌🏼🙌🏽🙌🏾🙌🏿™️

Over 30 years ago, Donald Trump took out full page ads calling for my execution.

On the day he was arrested and arraigned, here is my ad in response. pic.twitter.com/nOYKkw1LD2

— Yusef Abdus Salaam (@dr_yusefsalaam) April 5, 2023

I would call that, a big time Mic drop

Snarf snarf!

Well surprise, surprise (not)Pence will no longer fight to not appear before the Jan 6 Grand Jury and will likely testify within a month if Trump's appeal fails. He didn't suddenly grow balls again, he wants Trump out of the way for his run at 2024.

This sounds encouraging-Jack Smith the special consul in charge of Jan 6 Grand Jury hires two more corruption experts:


Special counsel Jack Smith bolsters Trump investigation with two corruption experts as 'new phase' ramps up - Raw Story - Celebrating 19 Years of Independent Journalism


Edit: this happened in Jan, but its the first I had heard of it.

Hopefully the headgear was ok. pic.twitter.com/Lk7OoF9LBU

— Ron Filipkowski ���� (@RonFilipkowski) April 5, 2023

lolololl.ol

Always wear a chin strap with your dead animal hats, that way you have bonus head protection for falls.

Lindsey Graham morphs into Trump, debuts new bleached blond comb-over and dark spray tan. pic.twitter.com/LfcY5XRU3c

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) April 5, 2023

Internal polling shows orange men raise more money.

I did see Trump insinuating that Jack Smith changed his name. Seemed to be a dogwhistle that he's secretly a jew or something.

Happy Easter from former President Trump pic.twitter.com/3GN5MfAohP

— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) April 9, 2023

Heh. I can hardly wait to see the conflicting Easter messages from Biden and Trump today

The Easter messages of Biden & Trump. pic.twitter.com/vuleLlY4Wg

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) April 9, 2023

Yep about what I expected. I hope they are interviewing some Christian nationalists on the Sunday news programs and show them both messages and get their response.

I have to find that. I am sure the mental gymnastics they are going through to defend Trump is next level

I thought the Trump one was fake but I loaded Truth social in an anonymous browser and, yup, totally there

SI

It looks like conservatives are slowly realizing most companies have come out in support of LGTBQ at one point or another. Jack Daniels seems to be joining Bud Light on the woke boycott bandwagon because they made an ad in 2021 that featured drag queens.

Bragg is actually suing Jim Jordan.



Glad he is doing this cause clearly Jim Jordan and the Republicans are clearly not going to stop trying to interfere-including coming to NY next week for a investigation as to why NY crime rates have been rising since Bragg took over. Ignoring the fact that they have actually gone down and the crime rate in Jordan's district is higher.



Let's hope that this stops the nonsense and if not all power to Bragg to sue every one of them that are interfering.

I've said this before but the culture wars boil down to older people being very upset that products and services are no longer being marketed to their generation. Bud Light cares much more about appealing to a 22-year-old than they do a 70-year-old.

These companies don't care about ideology, they care about making money.

Which makes DeSantis's campaign against "woke" companies and his prohibitions against the state using ESG considerations in investments so ridiculous. Dems have done a terrible job (from what I've seen) in re-framing this as anti-capitalism.

They've clearly gone after the authoritarian angle, but call it out for what it is - GOP is framing it as protecting capitalism and it's 100% the opposite. Companies wouldn't be doing this if they didn't think consumers valued it.

This one should be fun

Trump sues Michael Cohen, a key witness in N.Y. criminal case, seeking $500 million

Also I wonder how Trump's current lawyer feels about bringing a suit against Trump's former lawyer. He has got to be thinking that one day that could be him as the defendant.

Yeah this has nothing to do with Cohen being the star witness for the Stormy Daniels Grand Jury

on the other hand I don't see many trans people drinking bud light...nor do I think they will because of this. Same goes for young people in general. They drink imports and drafts. Really I would say wine and appletinis more.

Yeah politics aside this is was probably a terrible decision by the Bud Lights to run this campaign.

On the other can it probably couldn't have gone any better for Dylan Mulvaney. I've never heard of this person but now her name is everywhere. She's basically the face of the transgender movement right now.

ETA:

Searches for Dylan Mulvaney has skyrocketed as one might expect.

https://trends.google.com/trends/exp...Mulvaney&hl=en

Which is what frustrates MAGA. If a company really was being “woke,” it wouldn’t be such a big deal. But these are amoral international conglomerates. They care only about money. And when companies like that make the cold rational decision that they will make more money by being pro LGBTQ+, that tells MAGA that it is falling into the minority—a very scary proposition.

This Trump ad on DeSantis eating pudding with his fingers is brutal. Ron has already been Little Marcoed.

https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/P1VsdQdx

Trump also released a message today that essential says if he's elected president it will be illegal to be a Democrat.

The old man still has his fastball.

I feel like Lindsay Graham rips the foil off a pudding container and shotguns that shit like Popeye does with spinach.

Or maybe he just sits in a lonely chair in the corner and watches Trump eating pudding.

i THINK he re-enacts the scene from American Pie with pudding.

Biden should cut a deal with conservatives that if they agree to impeach an obviously unethical Thomas that he will replace him with another conservative judge. Then when it comes time to nominate pick a liberal.

I'm not exactly sure where this should go, but this is an interesting article about all of the unknowns behind the new owners of the company that owns Pornhub, and how we ought to be paying more attention to it since, you know, there's no better leverage to have against some people than their porn viewing habits.

We Don’t Know Enough About the Pornhub Acquisition - Napkin Math - Every

Manchin and Sinema will object so need a couple more Dem Senators first

SI

I know it isn't realistic, would just be funny to see conservatives tie themselves in knots over it after what McConnell pulled.

I forget where we were having the convo about campus free speech.

TN bill that allows students to report professors who teach 'divisive concepts' passes House and Senate | wbir.com

We haven't had free speech on a lot of campuses for sometime, this is just more of the rights version of what the left does on some campuses like Berkeley, when Shapiro spoke there.

Obviously, having it as an actual law is much more dangerous than simply showing up disrupt/shut someone down, I get that. But end result is the same, we continue to go down a dark path of censorship/neutralization of those that don't share the values/ideals of progressive/far right spectrums of our politics.

Meanwhile, our government and media are free to inject as much divisiveness as they please into society, this bill a prime example.

Only one of these things is a violation of the First Amendment though. When students protest a speaker and they are forced to leave, that is two parties exercising their First Amendment right. When the government decides to shut down speakers, that is a direct violation of the First Amendment. Or at least ir was when we had a Constitution.

Agree and not arguing that at all, as the GOP is definitely treading on rights at a MUCH higher degree. Just pointing out the fact that we are in a really bad place when each side has moved away from constructive dialog into just plain muting dissenting opinions by any means necessary. There needs to be a point where the escalations stop and we come back to the table as Americans.

And now conservatives like Don Jr. are trying to get people to stop the Bud Light cancel because they realized Anheuser-Busch is a major conservative donor.

THE CIIIIIRCLE OF LIIIIIIIIFE!

Yeah, but what "constructive dialogue" is some conservative whoever who comes to speak at a campus looking for? He's not, he's either there to rally the troops or to belittle his adversaries. Constructive dialogue is not going to move the needle on abortion/women's rights, labor rights, gay rights, trans rights, minority rights. The right is going to limit those to the extent that they can get away with it whether it faces a reasoned dissenting opinion or not.

Ladies and Gentleman, the presumptive nominee of the republican party

Donald Trump a few years ago: “I went to an Ivy League school, I'm very highly educated. I know words. I have the best words."

Trump today: “Cereal liar.” ���� pic.twitter.com/hl5L69p0VP

— Republicans against Trumpism (@RpsAgainstTrump) April 16, 2023

We won't be allowed to teach spelling in trumpland. Whatever you say it is, will be what it is. Same thing with definitions. Whatever you meant to say is what it is. The rest is just haters and fake news.

It looks like a possible settlement is about to come down on the Dominion-Fox News case. Dominion has long said they would never settle, and it makes sense to try to get as many of the major players on the stand to testify to what they have already said on the record. I'm sure Fox has already offered to settle many times, as they have already settled multiple other lawsuits dealing with spreading lies about election tampering. This is what at least one former anchor said:

Here's my take on Fox-Dominion case-(as I'm sending telepathic messages to Dominion to not settle!) I can talk about the current case-but I can't then answer next logical question (b/c of my NDA)-"Did Fox ever ask you to make up shit when you were there?" Therein lies the problem

— Gretchen Carlson (@GretchenCarlson) April 17, 2023

I'm okay with Dominion settling but sure hope they get more than just $1.6B and a corporate apology.

I want to see all those hosts have to plainly state they willfully lied/misled etc. and also say they do not believe the election was rigged. I want this over multiple days, one by one. Something to the effect

I get you are messing with fire when you mess with Trump, and we are a nation of stupids, but this is why I think I want him to be the nominee. He just can not let it go. He will not listen to any advisors who I am sure are telling him to focus on the first three years of his term. He is always going to go off script and come back to 2020. Combine that with what we saw in the mid terms, abortion, and guns and it seems like a winning recipe for the dems. If only they had a better candidate.

Trump says the best way for Fox to win their trial where they are being sued for lying about the election is to lie about the election even more. What could go wrong following the sage advice of this stable genius? pic.twitter.com/fFsRe0xZYN

— Ron Filipkowski ���� (@RonFilipkowski) April 17, 2023

If there isn't some major accountability, FCC labels, on air apologies, content reviews, removal of all the "talent" that spouted these lies, etc...I don't see dominion settling.

IMO the FCC should revoke their broadcast license. What they did is so clearly treasonous they need to get the death penalty.

What would be great is if FOX was forced to air the trial.

The problem with them saying they lied/misled is that they will do exactly what you are wishing for while they are under oath, but as we have seen with a lot of the January 6ers, Alex Jones, Giuiliani, and Trump's attorneys and MAGA talking heads is that they will turn right back around and say that they only said it because they were forced to do so. If Tucker or Hannity or Murdoch say it in court, even if Fox viewers see it, they will be back on television or in the news saying that the corrupt court system threatened them, so they had to do it.

Probably true.

Then include in the settlement that the Fox hosts (and their representatives), after the appropriate mea culpas, are not allowed to deny/walk-back their mea cuplas.

Otherwise, heck with it, go to trial.

... in fact, forget about settling, I want to see all those Fox hosts under oath.

Agreed. For almost all of these folks, it was never about reporting the news or doing journalistic work, it is always about the grift. How can they put more money in their pockets and acquire the most fame? I think the talking heads are all happy to play the role of martyr in order to sell more books and give more paid speeches and endorsements.

I'm not even sure what the best outcome is - I think Fox losing its credibility as a legitimate source of news would probably be best, but it is already sort of a joke to most folks, but still has an enormous amount of viewership and clout and I don't see its audience moving away from it. I guess the best outcome is for Dominion to be indemnified financially and credibility-wise.

Exactly. Fox viewers and the GOP will just scream deep state, blah blah blah...They have so deeply poisoned the well I honestly think we have lost a generation. Until Trump is dead or heavily incapacitated and the boomers have died off I don't see how we get passed this. Politicians like Cruz, etc cet will go along fell well knowing the BS because they need the Trump block.

I had a dream last night that I was fired by a guy that was both my boss and Sean Hannity.

As is almost always the case, at some point the money becomes too great to pass up and some of the other stuff goes away. First priority for Dominion is protecting itself, so you can expect some admissions that Dominion did nothing wrong. I think money buys Fox out of anyore general/widespread statements/admissions regarding the election itself or its on-air talent. And as mentioned above, they'll all walk it back and Fox will have a couple of banner weeks of ratings doing so.

Yeah without the hosts admitted they lied and why, its means nothing but money was involved. You know the whole reason Fox lied in the first place