Trump’s real photo

This photo of Trump is quite different from the usual close-up — it shows him at the Atlanta airport after being arrested, booked, and released on bail.  Note that he is ALONE — no family, no entourage.  Just an old, fat, crime boss whose luck has run out.

Head of “Black Voices for Trump” who harassed Ruby Freeman cannot make bail, so, he’s in jail!

I don’t know if Ruby Freeman will feel any better today, but the man who harassed Freeman to make false statements about election operations on election night in 2020 is now DETAINED in the Fulton County Jail!  Yes, Harrison Floyd, the head of Black Voices for Trump, has no bond agreement, so he is now a guest of the filthy, lice, scabies, and bed bug ridden Fulton County Jail.  And before anyone feels the least bit of sympathy for Floyd, he has already been arrested in Maryland for assaulting an FBI agent!

The assault of the FBI agent occurred during the serving of a subpeona from Jack Smith’s grand jury.

According to an affidavit, Floyd screamed profanities and assaulted an FBI agent when he and another agent showed up to Floyd’s apartment in Rockville, Md., located in the suburbs of the nation’s capital.

After the agents shoved the subpoena into Floyd’s apartment door and attempted to leave, Floyd allegedly ran down the stairs after them.

“You haven’t shown me a badge or nothing. I have a f—ing daughter. Who the f— do you think you are,” Floyd screamed, according to court documents.

He allegedly struck one of the agents “chest to chest” twice, according to the affidavit.

They were the FBI.  No thinking about it.  But like any good Trump lunatic, Floyd obviously thinks he is above the law.  And Floyd is a very arrogant man.

Harrison Floyd, a leader of Black Voices for Trump who was indicted in the Georgia election case, was arrested earlier this year for allegedly assaulting an FBI agent, court filings show.

Floyd surrendered at the Fulton County jail Thursday, joining a number of former President Trump’s co-defendants, but he is the only one to do so without negotiating bail in advance.

The Fulton County Sheriff’s office confirmed Floyd is being detained since he has no bond agreement…

Interrupting Newsmax’s live broadcast outside the jail on his way in, Floyd said, “My name is Harrison Floyd and the district attorney wants me to talk to her, but she doesn’t want to call me.” He later surrendered after being ushered away from the media by law enforcement.

You are a CRIMINAL DEFENDENT dumbass.  Fani Willis will get to you in her own sweet time, and you need a lawyer who will talk to her.  She doesn’t call you.  Your lawyer does that.

The Republican Party: “. . . meaner, dumber, and wholly divorced from the issues Americans actually care about . . . “

There have been many moments when Trump’s destruction of the Republican party has been readily apparent, and this debate is one of those moments. The party, and the candidates representing it, has become meaner, dumber, and wholly divorced from the issues Americans actually care about.

What did the Republican candidates identify as the problems plaguing America? Hunter Biden. Teachers’ unions. George-Soros-funded district attorneys. Critical race theory in schools and trans kids in locker rooms.

What did they shrug off? Climate change and the deadly disasters it has caused. Endemic gun violence that is now the leading killer of American children. The man who will likely beat them all for the Republican nomination being indicted for a slew of crimes.  Parents’ concerns over teacher shortages, old school buildings, and the Republican assault on history and school libraries.

This country is worse thanks to today’s Republican party, and today’s Republican party is among the worst aspects of this country. Over and over again, Republican politicians and conservative commentators talk about all of the ways in which life in America has deteriorated, how we are no longer as great as we once were. They often pin the blame on immigrants, feminists, racial justice activists, Democrats, and changing social mores. But if Americans really want to see a striking example of our national nosedive, they needn’t look further than at the ridiculous men (and one woman) on the Fox News “debate” stage.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/24/who-won-the-republican-debate-our-panel-reacts?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The “House Freedom Caucus” releases a memo filled with bullshit

The House Freedom Caucus issued a series of ultimatums Monday, outlining the demands it wants met before the right-wing group’s members will support a measure to raise the U.S. debt ceiling and continue to fund the federal government. Among them: an end to the myriad criminal cases pending against former President Donald Trump (and the so-called “weaponization” of the Justice Department against conservatives), as well as ensured passage of a draconian immigration law and an amorphous demand to end “woke” policies in the U.S. military. “Furthermore, we will oppose any attempt by Washington to revert to its old playbook of using a series of short-term funding extensions designed to push Congress up against a December deadline to force the passage of yet another monstrous, budget busting, pork filled, lobbyist handout omnibus spending bill at year’s end.”

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/house-freedom-caucus-let-trump-walk-or-well-shut-down-the-government

Bail in Trump’s Georgia case $200,000 FOR EACH DEFENDANT and most of them don’t have the money.

On the surface, this sounds like a sad story.  It’s not.  It’s an example of what happens to anyone who follows Trump.

Here is a link to the list of criminal defendants and each charge.

www.nbcnews.com/…

If you look at the first two pages of the jury report, you can see that all face a RICO charge.  And if I read this correctly, RICO charges carry the largest bail among these types of charges.  The bail for violation of state RICO is $20,000.  Now, the rest of the bail is calculated based upon the addition of all the charges and the various bail amounts.  (NOTE:  Since this was written, bail has been set at $200,000 for each defendant.)

For someone like Jenna Ellis, she faces two charges.  Therefore, her bail is more than $20,000.  Not sure what the bail is for violation of Charge 2 in the indictment.

For dear old, sweet, retired public-school teacher Cathy Latham, she has a total of 11 CHARGES.  Therefore, her bail is going to be well north of $20,000. 

For Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, he faces a total of 13 CHARGES.

By now you have read that Fulton County, GA is not messing around with really special legal status for Trump.  He is going to have to post bail, which he did NOT HAVE TO DO IN ALL THE OTHER INDICTMENTS!  The $200,000 ain’t nothin’ to Trump, but the other 18 criminal defendants have to come up with bail as well.  It’s not the same amount of bail, BUT it is not chicken feed for all the rest.

I don’t have the link from the NYT, but I had to laugh when I heard what has happened to three of the defendants in this case:  Rudy Giuliani,  Jenna Ellis and Cathy Latham.

I will go with Latham first (no link):

The costs clearly worry some of the defendants in the Trump case; one of them, Cathy Latham, a Republican Party official in Georgia who acted as a fake elector for Mr. Trump has set up a legal-defense fund, describing herself asa “retired public-school teacher living on a teacher’s pension.”  The $3,645 she has initially raised is well short of a $500,000 goal.

I shouldn’t have, but I laughed out loud at reading this.  As a former teacher, I think Latham’s actions are more than despicable.  She is also the woman who led the break into the Coffee County voting machines.  Fani Willis has Latham and others on security camera footage hacking into the machines and copying voter data.

A former public-school teacher doing her bit to end our democracy.  

A teacher should fucking know better!  Instead, we have her breaking the law because her cult leader told her to find evidence of voter fraud.  By the way, Coffee County voted overwhelming for Trump (above 70% of the vote for Trump).  So why do something this stupid?  Because Trump and other GA Republicans thought that Coffee County Trump votes should have been HIGHER to make up for the deficits in other places.

If she cannot make bail and ends up in Fulton County Jail, I’m more than happy with.

As for Rudy, there are no real details in the NYT article, except that they expect Rudy to have a very difficult time making bail.  All indications are that Rudy is BROKE.  Trump refused to pay him, and Rudy’s legal bills have piled up.  It would be glorious if Rudy had to spend time in the Fulton County Jail, but I bet he will scrap up enough cash for bail.  

And Jenna Ellis was complaining that her legal bills have piled up too.  Not sure she is facing bankruptcy like Rudy.  But it is very funny that a lawyer is complaining about legal bills.

No word on the rest, but some of those other criminal defendants are probably not sitting a pile of money.  And Fulton County wants these defendants to come up with at least 10% of the bail as CASH.  Lower level criminal defendants in the Trump case probably won’t face $100,000 bail, but coming up with possibly a thousand dollars or more is costly for the little fascists.

And Republicans are more than happy for the rest of to go bankrupt.  Whether its because of credit cards or huge medical bills, Republicans are always, “You should take care of that yourself!  You fuckin’ bums!”  And I would normally feel empathy for those facing bankruptcy (damn near happened with me on more than one occasion, and I live with my elderly Mom to not be homeless).

But my empathy stops with fascist criminals.

Virginia Governor Youngkin goes on far-right radio show, spews lies and bullshit

Yesterday, Glenn Youngkin was back to doing what he most likes to do – namely, posing as a possible 2024 Republican presidential candidate, pandering to the Trumpist “base” of the party, kissing the a** of far-right media figures, etc. – while AVOIDING doing what he LEAST likes to do – namely, doing the job he was “hired” to do, namely be the governor of Virginia.

So for 30 minutes yesterday, Youngkin spoke at an event in Atlanta called “The Gathering,” hosted by right-wing radio host Erick Erickson– who among other things has said that “males dominate females in the ‘natural world’ and it was only ‘science’ for men to be the breadwinners for their families”; “it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness”; Michelle Obama is a “Marxist harpy”; “President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize because of an ‘affirmative action quota’”; etc.

During his half hour with “Erick, Son of Erick,” as Jon Stewart likes to call him, Youngkin had a lot to say, almost all of which was either false or heavily distorted from reality.  See below for a blow-by-blow account of this freak show.

  • Erickson started by telling a whopper, that Youngkin’s appearance on his panel was NOT about his presidential ambitions. Alrighty…sure! LOL
  • Youngkin started by praising right-wingnut Erickson as supposedly doing “great work” and carrying a “message of commonsense.” Again, see here for what Erickson’s actually all about.
  • Youngkin falsely claimed that there’s such a thing as “conservative commonsense policies” and that they “work.” Apparently, he thinks that denying climate science, attacking LGBTQ kids, waging war on public education, pushing for tax breaks for the wealthy, etc, etc. are “commonsense policies.” Youngkin further claimed that Virginia went from being “totally blue to being red” (in fact, Dems had a trifecta for two years, but that didn’t mean Virginia was “totally blue” and it’s certainly not totally “red” now) and that Virginia went from being “bottom third in job growth to top four in job growth” (source on that? also, how much of Virginia’s economic growth is due to Youngkin’s policies? presumably zero, since he just got into office in January 2022 and claims that Senate Dems have blocked his policies), that we supposedly went “from having schools that were driving people to move away” (that’s just wildly false), blah blah blah.
  • Youngkin then went into his (false) spiel about how Republican governors are amazing in every way (ABSURD LIE), that “Democrat [sic] governors” are a failure (LIE), that Joe Biden’s been a “failure” (HUGE LIE; Biden’s been one of the most successful presidents in terms of transformative legislation EVER, while the economy is booming and inflation’s down to around 3%) that the Democratic Party is “extreme” (COMPLETE LIE; the Democratic Party is in the majority or plurality on the vast majority of issues and also has won the popular vote for president in all but one election since 1988, including by millions of votes in 2016 and 2020) and “throws out everybody who’s reasonable” in their primaries (WTF? where does he get his crap from?), etc.
  • Youngkin then recited a litany of lies and distortions of what VA Senate Democrats did in the last session, including on fentanyl (“they chose dealers over victims” – completely false), “we’re gonna side with social media companies over families” (that’s not at all what VA Senate Dems did), that supposedly VA Senate Dems “outsourced our government to California and now requires Virginia to follow the mandates on what car you buy…so in 2024, Virginians will have to start buying electric vehicles based on California’s decisions…the last place Virginians want to be is California” (WTF is he even ranting about? does he really not understand how any of this works?), wild distortions on what Senate Dems have said about “tax relief” (Senate Dems have offered multiple compromise proposals, including significant “tax relief,” but Youngkin’s holding out for permanent tax cuts slanted towards the wealthy and corporations), and a whopper about how Virginians are “way overtaxed” (in fact, Virginia ranks 13th-LOWEST in state “tax burdens”), etc. He then claimed, falsely, that he has to “battle every day with folks who really are extreme” (“the far left”) – huh? Crazy, delusional shit.
  • Youngkin claimed that he won Hampton Roads and Greater Richmond in 2021, yet still only just won the governor’s race with 52% of the vote. In fact, he got crushed in Richmond and Henrico and Norfolk and Newport News and only won the election with 50.6% of the vote.
  • Youngkin also claimed that Republicans need to NOT just talk to their base…while talking to hard-right Erick Erickson, and while he goes on Fox “News” and other right-wing media ALL THE TIME.
  • Youngkin argued disingenuously, as he often does, that “kids belong to families…not the state.” Of course, kids don’t “belong” to the state and nobody on the Democratic side is arguing that. And parents obviously *do and should have a big say in their kids’ upbringing*! But that does NOT mean that a small minority of loud, right-wing individuals gets to tell the *majority* of parents what should happen to THEIR kids, and that’s exactly what Youngkin’s doing – putting the power of the state behind his preferred (right-wing) policy choices, the books that he and his followers think should (and shouldn’t) be read, the history that he and his follower thinks should (and shouldn’t) be taught, the kids that should (and shouldn’t) be treated with dignity, etc.
  • Youngkin’s been called on this a million times, but he just keeps lying and claiming he *won* the Hispanic and Asian votes in 2021 and got a higher % of the Black vote than usual. In fact…he got trounced among all three groups, per CNN exit polls.
  • Youngkin falsely claimed that the “spirit of Virginia” supposedly “[went] to sleep” under “really oppressive left policies.” That’s all just completely false. In fact, Gov. Ralph Northam was one of the best governors in Virginia history, dealing with massive challenges, including the COVID pandemic and Trump’s assault on our democracy. So the challenges to the “spirit of Virginia” were really from the MAGA *right*, Donald Trump, etc, not from some mythical “oppressive left policies” that Glenn Youngkin invented in a fever dream or something…
  • Youngkin also lied about Virginia schools being “locked tight” a year longer than in Georgia; in fact, by the fall of 2020, Virginia schools could choose what mix of learning (in-person, remote, hybrid) they would conduct, with appropriate safeguards against the deadly COVID pandemic. And no, Democrats weren’t claiming that remote learning was as good or better than in-person learning, but that there was a deadly pandemic and that until there was a vaccine, there was a significant health risk that needed to be considered in how best to educate kids (while keeping them, their teachers, their families, etc. safe).  And no, this had nothing to do with “progressive left” (whatever that means) policies, as Youngkin keeps repeating; it had to do with legitimate health concerns, while Donald Trump was president by the way, and in both “blue” and “red” states…
  • Finally, Youngkin did what he loves to do – bashed teachers, as supposedly not caring about educating kids (WTF???) but about being all about advancing Democratic and progressive politics. This guy’s a real piece of work…

Here’s a reminder for all of you Democrats who voted for a third-party candidate instead of voting for Hillary

To those of you that couldn’t bring yourself to vote for Hillary although she was one of the most qualified people to ever run for President; all of you who kept calling her “the lesser of two evils;”  who blamed her for the indiscretions of her husband; who raved about “her emails”.

This is what you caused:

This Supreme Court is your fault.

You killed Roe v. Wade.

You caused the Jan 6 coup attempt.

All the evil for which you blame Trump is your fault.

Now you have a chance to do the right thing.

Third-party candidates can not and will not win.  Any “Democrat” who runs against Biden will not and cannot win.

If you vote for anyone other then Biden-Harris, you are re-electing Trump

If you want to play games go to an arcade.  If you want to “send a message,” use your phone.

The rest of us want to save democracy. We want to save ourselves and our children from mass shootings. We want to give women control of their bodies.  We want to recognize and embrace the LGBTQ+ community.  We want to celebrate African Americans and our history.  We want every citizen to be able to vote.  We want to keep America great, strong, and the most effective member of the world community.