Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Criminal Defendant Trump.

 


The MAGA crowd will try to spin the criminal prosecution of their leader to be something positive, but it won't work. How can it? Just think about what this means for a minute: A former president is being criminally prosecuted for alleged crimes against the state. And a Grand Jury of his peers gave the District Attorney the green light to go ahead and charge him. 

The following article in The Atlantic from McKay Coppins sums it up perfectly. 

 "He shuffled quietly into the courtroom and took his seat at the defense table. He looked strangely small sitting there flanked by lawyers—his shoulders slumped, his hands in his lap, his 6-foot-3-inch frame seeming to retreat into itself. When he spoke—“Not guilty”—it came out hoarse, almost a whisper. Pundits and reporters had spent weeks trying to imagine what this moment would look like. How would a former president—especially one who prided himself on showmanship—behave while under arrest? Would he act smug? Defiant? Righteously indignant?

No one predicted that he would look quite so humiliated.

Of course, becoming the first ex-president in American history to be charged with a crime is not exactly a coveted résumé line. But Donald Trump’s indictment yesterday marked a low point in another way too: For a man who’s long harbored a distinctive form of class anxiety rooted in his native New York, Trump’s arraignment in Manhattan represented the ultimate comeuppance.

The island of Manhattan plays an important role in the Donald Trump creation myth. In speeches and interviews over the years, Trump has repeatedly recalled peering across the East River as a young man, yearning to expand the family real-estate business and compete with the city’s biggest developers. For a kid born in Queens—even one who grew up in a rich family—Manhattan seemed like the center of the universe.

“I started off in a small office with my father in Brooklyn and Queens,” Trump said in the 2015 speech launching his campaign. “And my father said … ‘Donald, don’t go into Manhattan. That’s the big leagues. We don’t know anything about that. Don’t do it.’ I said, ‘I gotta go into Manhattan. I gotta build those big buildings. I gotta do it, Dad. I’ve gotta do it.’”

In the version of the story Trump likes to tell, he went on to cross the river, conquer the island, and cement his victory by erecting an eponymous skyscraper in the middle of town. His childhood dream came true.

But Trump was never really accepted by Manhattan’s old-money aristocracy. To the city’s elites, he was just another nouveau riche wannabe with bad manners and a distasteful penchant for self-promotion. They recognized the type—the outer-borough kid who’d made good—and they made sure he knew he wasn’t one of them. With each guest list that omitted his name, with each VIP invitation that didn’t come, Trump’s resentment burned hotter—and his desire for revenge deepened.

Today, the old hierarchies that defined the New York of Trump’s youth are largely gone, replaced by new ones. (Brooklyn, the middle-class backwater where Trump’s father kept his office, is now home to enough pretentious white people that even the snootiest Manhattanites have to acknowledge the borough.) Trump, meanwhile, isn’t even a New Yorker anymore, having changed his voter registration to Florida in 2019 and retreated to the more hospitable confines of Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House.

But Trump never forgot the island that rejected him. And this week, he was forced to return to it—not in triumph, but in disgrace. Hundreds of journalists descended on Lower Manhattan to chronicle each indignity: the courthouse door gently shutting on him because nobody bothered to hold it open, the judge sternly instructing him to rein in his social-media rhetoric about the case. At one point, shortly after Trump entered the courtroom, someone in the overflow room, where reporters and others were watching a closed-circuit feed, began to whistle “Hail to the Chief,” drawing stifled laughter.

In the past, Trump has succeeded in using his humiliations to his benefit. It’s a big part of why he excels at playing a populist on the campaign trail. When Trump railed against the corrupt ruling class in 2016, he wasn’t just channeling the anger of his supporters; he was expressing something he felt viscerally. Yes, his personal grievances with the “elites”—the ego-wounding snubs—might have been petty, but the anger was real. And for many of his followers, that was enough.

Now he’s trying to pull off that trick again. In the weeks leading up to his indictment, Trump has sought to cast Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation as an act of political persecution—aimed not just at him, but at the entire MAGA movement. “WE MUST SAVE AMERICA!” he shout-posted on Truth Social last month. “PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!”

A modest contingent of pro-Trump demonstrators gathered in a park across the street from the courthouse yesterday, separated by a police barricade from a larger group of counterprotesters. But the relatively muted MAGA presence, compared with the crowds of onlookers relishing the moment, only underscored how alienated the former president has become from the city with which he was once synonymous. The scene was heavier on performance artists and grifters than outraged true believers. A woman in a QAnon T-shirt strutted and gyrated for reporters as she rambled about Satan and the financial system, periodically punctuating her comments with “Bada bing!” A Trump supporter burned sage to ward off evil spirits, prompting one bystander to ask, “Is someone cooking soup?” The Naked Cowboy made an appearance.

A handful of Trump’s New York–based supporters tried to convince me that this was still his town. Dion Cini—a MAGA-merch salesman who drew attention for his giant TRUMP OR DEATH flag and his liberal deployment of flagpole-based innuendos—told me he lived in Brooklyn. “Trump country!” he declared.

I asked Cini if he really believed that New York could still be considered Trump country. Cini responded by launching into an enthusiastic (and exaggerated) recitation of how much of the city had been built by the Trumps. “Sheepshead Bay was built by Trump. All 50,000 homes,” Cini said, claiming that he lives in a Trump-built house there himself. “How many towers were built by Trump? The Javits Center! I mean, you name it—the Wollman Rink, the carousel in Central Park. And they call him a Nazi. I mean, did Hitler ever build a carousel?”

After Cini wandered away, another Trump supporter named Scott Schultz approached me. Schultz said he also lives in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay neighborhood, but he disagreed that it was “Trump country.” He can’t even put a Trump sign outside his house, because he knows it will be immediately defaced, Schultz said. He fantasized about a day when New Yorkers could celebrate Trump simply as a product of their city.

“Most other [places], when someone becomes president, they have pride in that,” Schultz told me. “There was no pride at all … They want to wipe him clean. They rejected him.”

Trump didn’t linger in the city after his arraignment. There was no impromptu press conference on the courthouse steps or chest-thumping speech to his supporters outside. Instead, his motorcade whisked him away to LaGuardia Airport for a flight back to Florida. He’d been in New York barely 24 hours. For now, at least, he seems intent on waging his battle with the Manhattan haters from a distance. Writing on Truth Social yesterday, Trump proposed moving his trial to Staten Island."

He could move it to Mars. It won't matter. Even if he is acquitted or somehow gets the more serious charges tossed on appeal, he will forever be an indicted defendant, and the humiliation that comes with that will be a nasty stain on whatever legacy he has left.   


 

61 comments:

Ian said...

"the courthouse door gently shutting on him because nobody bothered to hold it open"

So small and unimportant, yet so fulfilling to read.

Anonymous said...

He claimed that the police and courthouse staff were crying at the terrible injustice to the poor martyred Trump when they fingerprinted him and filled out his paperwork before trial.

LOL! Tears of laughter, maybe.

Anonymous said...

Pundits keep insisting these charges will massively help Trump run for president in 2024.

This seems like an overstated claim, at best. If his most ardent supporters feel he’s been wronged it might increase their turnout to the polls a little. But it’s not going to convert any of those who don’t already support him. A sizable majority of voters now hate him and want him gone. I don’t think he has a realistic chance of re-election at this point.

And this assumes that this first indictment doesn’t open the floodgates to other indictments. What is happening in Manhattan may cause some of the other prosecutors, in Georgia and DC, to grow spines and charge Trump with much more serious offenses, ones that will actually send him to prison.

Not many people will want to vote for someone who won’t be able to serve in the White House, because he’s destined for the Big House. It’ll be just like Trump’s “lock her up” smears against Hillary Clinton — except this time, they’ll be true.

Bloviating Ignoramus said...

Insane Clown is going to ... how you say ... go thru some things.

dinthebeast said...

I'm so sick of that creep. At this point I'd mostly just like him to go the fuck away. Which would reveal another humiliating (for him) truth: He was never the problem. No, the real problem is the legions of propaganda addicted Republican base voters who took to him because he didn't cut the ignorance and racism he was selling like the other Republican candidates all did.
No, he gave it to them full strength, and now they are as slavishly loyal to him as any hard core junkie is to their main source.
So like any run of the mill dope dealer, he's caught a case (or five) and now has to jump through some hoops over it. I predict that whatever those hoops turn out to be, they won't feel very satisfying, which is OK, because this isn't about satisfaction, it's about justice.
I still feel that it is important to the country that he be prosecuted for his crimes, whatever they really are, to break the streak of goddamn Republican presidents getting away with crimes, as that streak has made goddamn Republicans believe that once in power, they can do whatever they want and nothing bad will ever happen to them. That's not an incentive structure that the country can live with much longer.

-Doug in Sugar Pine

Anonymous said...

The Heritage Foundation organised an election-cheater conference to plot ways to undermine democracy. Nine secretaries of state from red states, plus Virginia’s election commissioner, attended. These are the guys who are supposed to run elections and make sure they are fair. Good luck with that.

Dark money groups push election denialism on US state officials

mike from iowa said...

drumpf has tried to poison all jury pools so he can claim he can't get a fair and impartial trial. He also appointed the least fair and impartial judges known to man.

A Salem witch trial ought settle his hash, once and for all.

Anonymous said...

“drumpf has tried to poison all jury pools so he can claim he can't get a fair and impartial trial. He also appointed the least fair and impartial judges known to man.”

He’s also now suing the chief witness against him, Michael Cohen, trying to scare him out of testifying.

mike from iowa said...

Some good news coming out of South Duhkota today. Magat congressman who had been molesting his adopted Native American daughter for several years, even after she went to college, plead guilty to 2 felony counts and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, after he had originally made a plea agreement to spare him jail time and allowed him not to regiater as a sex offender. He and his wife bombarded the daughter with pleas not to testify and tear the family apart because that is how the party of family values exhibit their family values.

The lass evidently stood proud and tall and did what she had to do. I hope her adopted bitch of a mother loses custody of the rest of their children because she knew about and facilitated the abuse.

dinthebeast said...

Politics Girl has an idea about the supreme court:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtkYqrYU-7Q&t=246s

-Doug in Sugar Pine

mike from iowa said...

Interesting ideas, Doug. Thanks for the link.

mike from iowa said...

MSNBC aired audio recordings of Screwdy Rudy and others admitting they had no evidence the election was stolen and failed to turn them over to judge in Dominion's suit against Fake Noize.



https://www.salon.com/2023/04/13/i-cant-tell-you-msnbc-airs-secret-rudy-giuliani-tape-that-could-be-devastating-for-fox-news/

drumpf will likely be infected with this, as well.

Anonymous said...

“MSNBC aired audio recordings of Screwdy Rudy and others admitting they had no evidence the election was stolen and failed to turn them over to judge in Dominion's suit against Fake Noize.”

This might be the ultimate slam-dunk defamation case in all of American history. There’s an apparently boundless quantity of tapes and messages on which Fox hacks explicitly agree to collectively lie their asses off.

mike from iowa said...

Clarence dumbass sold some property to his Crow-magat billionaire buddy in 2014 and didn't declare that sale, either.

https://www.rawstory.com/clarence-thomas-bribe-accusations/

mike from iowa said...

Nashville florist reFuses to provide floral arragements for RNC and asks other businesses to follow along until magats make gun law changes most Americans want.

https://www.rawstory.com/rnc-denied-service/

Anonymous said...

“Clarence dumbass sold some property to his Crow-magat billionaire buddy in 2014 and didn't declare that sale, either.”

Apparently, Clarence sold Harlan Crow the house Clarence’s mom was living in, and which she still continues to live in.

What are the odds that she now lives there rent-free? I’d say they’re pretty good, based everything else we’ve been learning about Clarence and his sugar daddy, Harlan Crow.

Gambler2 said...

I think ˇTrump's legacy will be one of scorn for a man who was rotten to the core, tried to destroy the United States Constitution, crapped on the law, and whined like a toddler when he was finely held to account for some of his many crimes.

mike from iowa said...

drumpf wanted the Central Park 5 executed based on a whole lot less material evidence than NY AG has against drumpf. Lynch drumpf's silly white ass. It is long past time.

mike from iowa said...

Thomas has violated numerous ethics rules for judiciary. Problem being there is no means to enforce them.

mike from iowa said...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/15/matthew-kacsmaryk-law-review/

Kacsmaryk wrote an article criticizing obama administration which the senate asked for before his judgeship hearings, he removed his moniker and substituted 2 colleagues names.

It is worse than I can explain and I did not find a paywall in this link.

dinthebeast said...

Biden walked onstage in Ireland to a Dropkick Murphys song...

https://twitter.com/i/status/1647041635455311872

-Doug in Sugar Pine

mike from iowa said...

Is this what anti-CRT brings us?

https://www.rawstory.com/confederate-history-month/

New film shown by Floriduh teacher rebrands Civil War as war to prevent southern independence.

mike from iowa said...

Next court date for drumpf is Dec 4th and so begins the process of running out the clock and waiting for witnesses to die so drumpf can escape justice again.

Anonymous said...

“ New film shown by Floriduh teacher rebrands Civil War as war to prevent southern independence.”

Not a new tendency. For decades, many Southern grade schools taught that the Civil War was actually the “War of Northern Aggression.” The theory was that the Union Army had cruelly invaded the South because Northerners were just big meanies, and omitted mention of the whole “South seceding to preserve slavery” thing.

Today’s Republican Party is rooted in the nasty historical habits of the Jim Crow South. They think they can create their own alternate reality if they only tell enough lies.

mike from iowa said...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/15/south-dakota-governor-kristi-noem-grandchild-guns-nra

Noem Nothing's bragging about the guns her 2 year old grandgirlie has, a rifle and a shotgun, a pony named Sparkles and a younger sibling for target practice. This bitch wants to be potus. She's a fucking magat moron who did nothing to protect South Duhkotans from covid.

PX said...

“This bitch wants to be potus“

Women can’t be in power in their world. Jeezus says women should know their place. Last time they tried to step into the man’s world a negro got elected. Proof god hates it when little ladies do more than spit out babies.🤷🏾‍♂️

mike from iowa said...

Good one, PX.

mike from iowa said...

Chokelahoma county sheriff and McCurtain County commissioners caught on tape talking about hiring local hit men to kill reporters. Then they sqwawked about not being able to lynch Blacks. Guess you know this means they are all magats.

https://www.rawstory.com/mccurtain-county-ok/

mike from iowa said...

Kids as young as 6 seen fondling guns at NRA sick fuck love fest.

https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-show-young-kids-handling-guns-nra-annual-conference-2023-4

mike from iowa said...

Another grand jury fails to indict Akron officers for mass shooting of black motorist allegedly stopped for minor traffic violation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ohio-attorney-general-give-update-jayland-walker-case-rcna80007

Anonymous said...

Conceal-carry permit requests at all-time high

https://www.audacy.com/kdkaradio/news/local/conceal-carry-permit-requests-at-all-time-high

Anonymous said...

TRUMP 2024!!

Anonymous said...

2 shot as hundreds of black teens crowded downtown Chicago prompting police response:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bXi_i1HM_E

Anonymous said...

CHICAGO April 2023 1st-17th
Shot & Killed: 33
Shot & Wounded: 115
Total Shot: 148
Total Homicides: 35

Anonymous said...

Well, here is our nation's next news-making racial incident.

A black teenager went to pick up his younger brothers at their friend's house. Unfortunately, he drove to the wrong address. The white homeowner ... reacted badly.

Outrage grows over the shooting of a Black teenager who rang the wrong doorbell

mike from iowa said...

Yarl was shot in the head on April 13. His family says he went to pick up his twin siblings when he knocked on the wrong door. The man on the other side of the door, Andrew Lester, allegedly opened fire through the glass, sending the 16-year-old falling to the ground and bleeding. The man then walked out of the broken door and allegedly shot the teen again.

According to the report from KMBZ radio, Lester wasn't charged with attempted murder but first-degree assault and "armed criminal action."

Cops had the shooter behind bars on a 24 hour hold and released him within a couple of hours.

Anonymous said...

"Yarl was shot in the head on April 13. His family says he went to pick up his twin siblings when he knocked on the wrong door. The man on the other side of the door, Andrew Lester, allegedly opened fire through the glass, sending the 16-year-old falling to the ground and bleeding. The man then walked out of the broken door and allegedly shot the teen again."

I really don't understand this level of black-people-phobia and/or trigger-happiness.

I mean, in this situation, if you think the person at your door is that dangerous, you could just ... not answer the door. Not answering the door is an option.

Anonymous said...

trump 20-25

mike from iowa said...

trump 20-25 minimum, no parole, no contact with outside world, no conjugal visits with Ivanka.

mike from iowa said...

https://nordot.app/1021054855829602304?c=592622757532812385

Missouri's stand yer ground law is a license to kill.

Anonymous said...

“Missouri's stand yer ground law is a license to kill”

Is it really, though? Most of these Stand Your Ground laws haven’t had the practical effect of expanding self-defense rights all that much.

It seems like liberals have been obsessed with fighting Stand Your Ground laws ever since the Trayvon Martin case, but this was largely based on a misunderstanding. Martin’s killer was initially not arrested because of a Stand Your Ground law, but this was because of a police misinterpretation of the law, not its actual wording. Then, after Martin’s killer was acquitted, liberals blamed the local Stand Your Ground law again, but this was not a factor in the acquittal. It was never invoked during the trial; rather, George Zimmerman walked because the jury contained racist idiots who bought Zimmerman’s tall tale that a scary Negro brute had attacked him without provocation.

I am much more concerned about the open carry laws that are destined to produce more Kyle Rittenhouse-style incidents.

Anonymous said...

I don’t really see how Ralph Yarl’s shooter manages to successfully invoke self-defense, anyway. If the details that have been reported so far are correct, he shot Yarl through a locked door. No way that qualifies as self-defense unless you’re in a Jason Bourne movie.

Maybe the shooter’s lawyers can go with a diminished mental capacity defense. The dude is an 84-year-old, so he might well have dementia. Or at least you could sell it to a jury.

mike from iowa said...

Sorry, Anon, but Zipperfuckerman should never have been allowed the self defense claim since he precipitated the attack that allowed him to kill Martin.

mike from iowa said...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/18/us/woman-shot-wrong-driveway-upstate-new-york/index.html

20 y/o wasicu woman, a passenger in a car with three others, was shot after the car turned in to the wrong driveway and started backing out. The shooter was white and was charged with 2nd degree murder.

Anonymous said...

“Sorry, Anon, but Zipperfuckerman should never have been allowed the self defense claim since he precipitated the attack that allowed him to kill Martin.”

A defendant is always “allowed” to argue self-defense. This argument shouldn’t have succeeded, but as I said, the jury likely had some racists sitting on it who were willing to believe Martin was the aggressor, even though the circumstances made that very unlikely.

Anonymous said...

“20 y/o wasicu woman, a passenger in a car with three others, was shot after the car turned in to the wrong driveway and started backing out. The shooter was white and was charged with 2nd degree murder.”

Evidently, there’s a lot of trigger-happy lunatics out there who have no business owning a gun. As with the Yarl shooting, what is so threatening about a stranger momentarily setting foot on your property that you need to respond with bullets? In neither of these cases was anyone breaking into their homes.

I don’t get it.

Anonymous said...

Fox threw in the towel and settled the Dominion defamation lawsuit for $787.5 MILLION.

Ka-Ching!

They knew they couldn’t win, because they’re guilty as hell. Fox is a bullshit factory.

dinthebeast said...

"I don’t get it."

Republicans believe they should have the right to hunt those they might disagree with for sport. It's partly a consequence of using a firearm as an excuse to fail to learn needed social skills.

-Doug in Sugar Pine

mike from iowa said...

2 cheerleaders get shot after having gotten into the wrong car. Hispanic shooter charged with a class 3 felony. I can see where this guy might have thought he was stopping a car jacking.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-cheerleaders-shot-wrong-car-practice-rcna80366


As for Fake Noize settlement their statement sans apology, is full of shit. Showing Fake Noize's commitment to highest journalistic standards? When and where?

Anonymous said...

“2 cheerleaders get shot after having gotten into the wrong car. Hispanic shooter charged with a class 3 felony. I can see where this guy might have thought he was stopping a car jacking.”

Nah. The details of the shooting don’t support that.

One girl opened his car door, discovered it wasn’t her car, and exited and rejoined her friends in the other car. The man then got out of his car, walked over to the other car, and began firing into it.

I don’t see how he could think it was an attempted carjacking when the girl had already entered and exited his car without ever threatening him. He might have believed she had been attempting to steal something from his car (or the car itself) and gave up when she discovered the vehicle was occupied.

But in that case, he was not in any danger when he opened fire. It would just constitute revenge for an attempted theft, and NOT self-defense.

He’s another trigger-happy lunatic.

“None” is kind of close to $686,000? said...

From Brian Tyler Cohen on Twitter:

“Thomas checked the box labeled ‘none’ for his wife’s income. During that period, Ginni Thomas earned more than $686,000 from the Heritage Foundation. When called on the lie, Thomas said the error was ‘due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.’”

mike from iowa said...

Ammonsexual Bundy tells the world he has reached his breaking point. Local sheriff declines to serve legal papers on him.



mike from iowa said...

Chip in some bucks and you, lucky people, can spend time at the gun range whanging assault weapon rounds at targets with Krybaby Kenosha Killer Kyle and win a chance to take home an AR style weapon autographed by the new Baby Face Nelson gangster.

https://www.rawstory.com/kyle-rittenhouse-2659879981/

PX said...

Man, only is rightwing nutworld can a fat, virginal loser autograph ANYTHING. A lack if real heroes will do that.

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